Dr. Ava Roubin takes us inside the power of Chinese medicine and acupuncture, the value of integrating Eastern and Western healing practices, and how she combined different modalities to build her unique treatment approach.   

We retrace the path that’s made Ava a renowned practitioner. The journey forked when she walked away from the final exam to complete her medical degree. Feeling “too young” to be a doctor, she set off on a self-directed apprenticeship, traveling around the country as a massage therapist. With more life lessons under her belt, she completed her degree plus an additional five years of Chinese herbal medicine. An internship in Shanghai expanded her practice, and she felt ready to open her clinic and dispensary in Australia. 

Giving us an overview of the 5 elements of Chinese medicine, Ava covers how your constitutional type serves as a guide to nourish your body, reset physical and emotional imbalances, and restore vitality. We dive into how acupuncture balances energy and supports recovery, enabling an embodied connection and understanding of self.  

Ava explains her unconventional choice to incorporate massage into sessions as a way of opening deeper healing and communication. Acknowledging the significance of ancestral trauma and inherited narratives, she highlights the importance of working with our internal rhythms, seasons in nature, and the cycle of the day. 

Whether you’re familiar with Chinese medicine or curious about it, Dr. Ava will rock your world.  

TESS’S TAKEAWAYS: 

• An integration of Eastern and Western medicine can enhance patient care. 
• The five elements of Chinese medicine shed light on emotional and physical health. 
• Healing is a collaboration between practitioner and client. 
• Acupuncture creates a bridge between the body and the external world. 
• Physical touch and massage facilitate deep communication and healing. 
• Cycles of nature and of the day influence our own rhythms and healing processes. 
• Chinese medicine acknowledges inherited cycles and ancestral trauma. 
• You don’t have to feel “ready” to begin. Wisdom often comes through practice.  

ABOUT DR. AVA ROUBIN, MA, CMD  

A practitioner of Chinese Medicine, Dr. Ava Roubin has decades of experience in the healing arts. She set out on her path as a massage therapist, and evolved to a clinical and spiritual practice rooted in acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, and psychosomatic holistic care.   

With a Bachelor of Health Science in Chinese Medicine from Victoria University, with a double major in acupuncture and herbal medicine, Ava completed her clinical internship at Shuguan Hospital in Shanghai. It was there that she gained experience combining traditional Chinese and Western medicine in gynecology, oncology, internal medicine, and acupuncture. 

Ava’s work with Five Element Acupuncture draws from ancient Taoist wisdom to support profound emotional, physical, and spiritual transformation.  

As co-founder of Elk & Me Therapies and Dispensary, Ava works with a team of multi-modality practitioners helping clients connect with their innate healing capacity.   

CONNECT WITH DR. AVA ROUBIN 

Website: https://elkandme.com.au/practitioners/ava-roubin/  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elkandme/  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElkMeTherapiesDispensary/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ava-roubin-98930456/ 

MEET TESS MASTERS:   

Tess Masters is an actor, presenter, health coach, cook, and author of The Blender Girl, The Blender Girl Smoothies, and The Perfect Blend, published by Penguin Random House. She is also the creator of the Skinny60® health programs.       

Health tips and recipes by Tess have been featured in the LA Times, Washington Post, InStyle, Prevention, Shape, Glamour, Real Simple, Yoga Journal, Yahoo Health, Hallmark Channel, The Today Show, and many others.    

Tess’s magnetic personality, infectious enthusiasm, and down-to-earth approach have made her a go-to personality for people of all dietary stripes who share her conviction that healthy living can be easy and fun. Get delicious recipes at TheBlenderGirl.com.    

CONNECT WITH TESS:  

Website:  https://tessmasters.com/     

Podcast:  https://ithastobeme.com/      

Health Programs: https://www.skinny60.com/  

Delicious Recipes: https://www.theblendergirl.com/  

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/theblendergirl/     

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/theblendergirl/     

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/user/theblendergirl    

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessmasters/ 

Thanks for listening!  

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Oh, Ava, I couldn't sleep last night because I was so excited about sharing this conversation with you, dear listener. You get to meet Ava and experience her zone of genius. So Ava, tell me about the it has to be me moment that that led or series of moments that led you into the healing space and being a practitioner in many modalities.

Dr. Ava Roubin: Yeah, I think, look, I think you're right in saying it was definitely a series. I think there was times where I ran completely from it. You know, there's a long story, but I think that the biggest it had to be me moment was coming in. I had studied Chinese medicine for about five years at V, U, T, and I was coming up to the final exam, the exit exam, where you have a real life client, and you're presented with a case and and you've got, you know, people from the board of Chinese medicine sitting there, and I walked into this exam, and somebody said to me, Oh, you're here. And there was a moment there where I went, No, no, I'm not. And I walked out and I left, and I had this sort of sense of this, can't be me. I'm too young. You know, I went in to study Chinese medicine when I was 18, so as in, you know, 1998 and there'd been a lot of events in my life leading up to this beautiful moment of finding this, this thread of information and healing arts that resonated so well with me. And then standing at that final exam, I thought, I'm too young. I haven't had enough life experience. Who am I to be holding space for people to be taking them through these big healing journeys? And I bought a troopy with my then partner, and we traveled around Australia, and found ourselves in Mullumbimby, as quite a lot of us do, and started practicing. So I had been, I had had my own massage business for a while leading up to this point, whilst I was studying to get me through uni. You know, a lot of people work in bars and pubs and restaurants, and I'd been doing meditation and massaging and and I thought it's time for me to be a rat bag. It's time for me to get so in in that time, I've been, you know, Byron and that area, I came across a beautiful mentor, Joe judge, and you know, she really helped me tap deeper into that intuitive medicine and the courage into speaking about what else is in the room, what's really going on inside somebody's body Whilst we're treating and outside of their body. And eventually, you know, left a left by an area continued around Australia. Had been about a year and a bit, and I thought, I have to face this. I have to go back, you know, have to step up into this. So I came back to Melbourne, and the course had changed. So, five, six years of doing Chinese medicine, acupuncture, I was then confronted with, you've got to study hurts now in order to be completely qualified. So in I went another five years, and I think that was my first big this is me. You know, it doesn't matter how long this takes. This is what I'm doing. This is what I'm here to be doing. And it was great because I got to learn a whole lot of other craft that I wouldn't have usually have picked up, you know. And so now we're working with plants as well as as well as needles as well as Moxa and copying and massage. So that was a really big turning point of dedication into it. But look, you know, to be honest, there was so much throughout the career of doing this where I'm confronted with going, am I like, how am I qualified? You know, I'm, I'm a white woman walking on Wurundjeri land practicing an indigenous medicine that comes from China. What am I doing? Who am I to be doing this? So, you know, we're still, I still grapple with this, but at the end of the day, this is what I do. This is who I am.

Yeah, I'm really fascinated by this, this this journey that we're all on between running away and stepping into things. So when you say you were running away from it, and then you decided to step into it, and then you ran away, and then you decided to step in this kind of ebb and flow of of grappling with identity. He and what we should or should not be doing, or what we want to be doing or not want to be doing. When you talked earlier about running away from it, you're too young, you're too this, you're too that was it the conversation with Joe judge that kind of, you know, come on, are you going to do this or not do this? That that helped you step into it, a mentor, kind of helping you see that you really should be doing this, or could be doing this, or was it going and studying more, or was it, was it a confluence of all of all of those things?

Dr. Ava Roubin: Yeah, I think you're right. Like, I think it's all those things coming in together. I believe what's meant for you won't pass you by. So if it's not a mentor giving you a good kick or, you know, push forward into it. Then it's going to be the universe. It's going to be something else, you know, I think back to, you know, some of the beginnings of these roots and I, and I get the imagery of of my father's bookshelf, you know, there's, there were books there about the Kabbalah, there was books there about mysticism, archetypes, Jung, you know, symbology, you know, there's sort of this sense of, I may not have been born into the traditional Chinese medicine lineage, but there was magic around me a lot, you know. And I grew up in a quite a liberal, loose Jewish family, and we did my Bar Mitzvah when I was younger, and the rabbi just looked at me, and, you know, we had to keep postponing it, which you don't, you're not really meant to do, but because for me, some of it was just not clicking. And in the end, he handed me, what was it called, Buddhism for Dummies, right? And he said, I think this path is more you you know. So there's been these little nudges throughout my lungs, you know, just steering me into this of beautiful, wise mentors. Guy Bennett with five element acupuncture, and Mickey osenki with the esoteric acupuncture. You know, all these people really did shape and change the way I treated and the way I saw the world.

Yeah, talk me through what it was like when you took up the invitation to go to China. You spoke before about being a white woman practicing these indigenous, ancient modalities, and not feeling like you could claim that within yourself, what shifted for you when you were immersing yourself in practice and study in China and seeing how they were integrating, you know, Eastern and Western modalities.

Dr. Ava Roubin: Look, China was a whirlwind. I'd been learning Mandarin for a couple of years. I thought that I would turn up, you know, wipe my feet, wash my hands, bow my head at the doors of the temple. But instead, it was like walking into a Grey's Anatomy scene. You know. It was wild and crazy and busy. And the hospitals are full, you know, and the doctors over there, you know, in order to practice Western, you have Eastern medicine. And also practice with Eastern medicine, you have to be trained in Western. So it was a really big push of going, Oh, this has nothing to do with you. Get out of the way and practice your medicine. You know, it was, I remember on the first day, I'm sitting there, and we're given our white coats, and we're in the Internal Medicine Department, and I'm sitting at the table, and there is five, six other people around me, and everyone's talking, and I very quickly realized that my Mandarin was not going to cut it, And so it was a very rude awakening of anyway, so I've got these incredible professors, you know, people that I've been studying their texts and and trying to learn from, and they're standing next to me and and I'm wondering, who are the other six people sitting around this table? And he's like, Well, they're your next clients. And everybody is having an opinion of what's happening with this one client in front of me. And the momentum was so fast, you know, it was like you've got six minutes to go through, make up your herbal formula, check their medication and move on. And so, you know, I think my most fondest memory is having to feel hundreds of pulses every day in that clinic and learning this infinite wisdom in this wild hospital setting. It was, it was not like I thought of going up the mountain and sitting in the temples and meditating for three days. It was all on. You're in, you're out. Get out of the way if you're not keeping up. And so it was inspiring for me. I was like, these two worlds can coexist beautifully. In fact, you know, we've got, like, people in the cardiac ward, all of them were getting these four gates acupuncture, just to lower the blood pressure before the doctor was coming in to give them their. Ads for the day. You know, it was magic.

Oh, God, I'm just, I'm so fascinated by how they integrate, you know, Western medicine and Chinese medicine. And it would be wonderful to see more of that, you know, in Australia and America and all these other countries. I love how you say that Chinese medicine holds that depth of wisdom and that entering into healing through this modality is like opening up and seeing the world through nature's eyes. And you talked before about realizing that it wasn't about you to just listen and let the medicine do its work. So and before you talked about struggling between in taking up invitations and running away from them so and still struggling with that now, so how do you consciously practice getting out of the way, reminding you that it's not about you and to just listen and let the medicine do the work.

Dr. Ava Roubin: That's, there's, that's, yeah, that's a good question. It's, um, I think it's more of a feeling. It's not an, I think, you know, it's one of those ones. It's when you're sitting in a room with a client, you know, with a person, with anyone. It's about finding that meeting point. You know, that gate, that invitation to be present with someone, when you attune yourself and when you're doing that each day, you know there is this sense of the ego is getting out of the way. You can't do that if you're in the room, right? It's it's very difficult to hold space if you're making it about you. It is very difficult to do the kind of treatments that we do in the room. If it's about me, I can't hear the what is occurring within the room and within a client's soul, if I'm coming from it, of, Can I do this right? Is this? Is this the right way? You know? So I'm trying to sort of come back into your question with that is, how do I keep turning up for the invitation? It's exactly that. It's a little bit like I remember hearing an interview with Tom Waits, or maybe it was Lennon Cohen, and he was saying, you know, I always, when I'm driving, I always have a pen and paper with me, because I might be on the highway and the wind will deliver this song, and if I can't pull over, it's going to take that song to the next artist, you Know. And I think we've stopped seeing artists that way. I think we've stopped identifying that something can come through us, and that can be the magic, and we just have to turn up in our rawest, barest moments and as our as our true, sort of raw self, in order to make room for it to come through. So look, maybe feeling a little bit less equipped for this kind of life has made it easier for me to step out of the way and to let the work do its purpose.

That's so interesting. What you're saying because we typically hold feeling less equipped as a deficit or a failure, and you're holding it as a gift. Is that the right way to interpret what you just said?

Dr. Ava Roubin: Yeah, I would, I would say, so. I mean, I when I turn up to work, you know, I know that I've done my meditation in the morning, you know, I've wiped my feet, you know, clean of as much of the gunk that I'm going to be bringing into that room. You know, I do continuous study, you know, because I never assume that I know enough. You know, some of that you want to see. You want to be turning up to a practitioner that is completely intrigued by every little symptom that you're having and your history and who you are and how you're turning up in a room, not about them, keeping on returning to what fascinates them in the medicine, you know. So the less attached to my knowledge or my center, the more able I am to actually hear what's going on for you and what we need to work with with you. So yeah, my deficit, you know, I do feel that. I mean, in Chinese medicine anyway, we have a constitutional type, and the constitutional type is one of the five elements within each element you have this organ, you know, dual organ system that's working for that, and that sort of denotes a little bit of your perception on life, a little bit of the personality, a little bit of the more likelihood to react in in certain ways. And mine is water element. So my, you know, when you think about water element, we tend to just keep moving, keep going with the flow. If there's something in our way, we'll move around it. You know, there's not as much time for water elements to sit and ponder and ruminate over ourselves, you know, as there is maybe for certain other element types.

Let's go through the other four elements, because I'd love to back into the way that you work with people, which, you know my personal experience, which I've had many sessions and will continue to have many sessions, the session is different every time, depending on what my body and energy is communicating to you and so forth. So you talked about the water element. Can we go through some of the others so that we can just get a sense we're all listener, with same lexicon as we continue with you. Let's get nerdy. Oh

Dr. Ava Roubin: yeah. So there's water, wood, fire, earth, metal, right? And, I mean, look, most people know a little bit about the elements, so, you know, I kind of cut more down to a lot of the way I work with the elements is through psycho emotional presentations. And the idea here is that we're all born with quite an equal distribution of chi through all the elements. You know, a really sort of uncarved stone, so to speak. And part of being in this world is about losing that connection to your natural self or your true self, and learning how to move back onto the path to be in harmony again. And it's not to have this, this perfect balance between the five all the time, but at that first point of shock, you know, that first point of disconnection from that original nature, we have one element that tends to step forward, okay? And they caught that. You know, that's the more denoted around what your sort of life purpose is, what you're here to experience, what your sort of mental, emotional, psychological development will be, as well as physical. So when we're looking at, say, earth element, right, you'll notice, with earth element people, we can identify them, because they'll have a sing song tone when they're talking, the room might swell. Smell quite sweet. You know, there's this sense sometimes, you know, when an earth element person is in balance. They're really nurturing. It's like nature. Mama Earth, you know, come in. Let me feed you, let me teach you. Let me wrap myself around you, you know. But out of balance, you know, when earth elements give too much, they can get a little bit brittle, you know, they can get dried out from it. You know, the earth element people are very creative. So often, you know, if there's an imbalance with an earth element, person will see the core and the root disharmony might come through the digestive system. Now they might be coming in with headaches or endo or MS or something completely different, but the journey is to work back to this core aspect of self and to balance that up. And so different elements have, you know, really different presentations in a room. Fire element, you know, you can't help but notice the fire element, Tess, you're a bit, you know, we're still working through which which ones here. But, you know, they light up a room. They ignite people. They start conversation. They require, you know, this depth of intimacy when you're talking to them. Let's share what is of the core value of you, you know, let's get to the heart of of the situation here. And you know, they're a lot of fun, but, you know, they can be talking about something absolutely heartbreakingly serious, but there'll be this kind of tone of like, but everything's okay. You know, this is life. This is how it goes, you know. But again, you know, fire elements can feel sadness, and they can, they can burn out in a way that they'll hit a depth of of sadness that's quite different from other elements. So, you know, when we're looking at all the elements, we're looking at, you know, the leaders around the world, sort of looking at what's going on there, like, you know, when you've got a wood element leader, they can be really precise and forward thinking and and quite future planning, but they can also be quite tyrannical and angry and and very sort of, sort of like the general of an army, you know, they they can be great growth, or there can be huge stagnation, you know, and huge damage done. And so, you know, when I'm working with clients, and especially in, you know, really troubled times like we're having at the moment, it's really quite important to know what's at the core of somebody so that when someone goes through shock, trauma, despair, you know, loss of hope, we can come in and nourish it at the core of that person's being and really actually assist of what's going on here. You know, are you gnawing and ruminating and really stuck? Through that stomach, spleen area, and not able to clear your thoughts to know what point of action needs to be taken. You know, are you doing too much action and actually burning yourself out, you know, at the heart of things, and losing compassion and understanding? You know. So you know, there's a lot there and the elements, besides the physicality of the seasons and the smells and the tastes and you know, it's really how someone presents himself in the world and how they receive the world can be seen through the eyes of their element. Yeah, tell me about metal. Love metal, right? Metal are it's the lung and the large intestine is the organ system that goes with metal. We're in metal at the moment in Melbourne, being in autumn metal is when we can see the furthest like autumn is, is we're seeing the furthest along the horizon. At the moment, we've got the curtains are pulled. We've got a clear view to the heavens. The lungs are the organs which are the closest to the heavens. So metal element people are often, you know, they're quite they need that, that beautiful connection to that which is of most pure, right? So you see a lot of architects and jewelers and yogis and, you know, people who are into the finer things in life, who really value clear communications that are of value. So when I'm with a metal element, it's like, yeah, with the room, the candles are lit, the linens crisp. Everything is set sit, you know, to the essence of almost like a godly conversation, right? And metal element have, people have a lot of insight to share, like the perception on life just cuts through the rubbish. And unless you know a metal element, person in balance, you walk into a space and it feels like clarity. You know, it lifts you, lifts your mind. It lifts your soul. It lifts your spirit up out of balance. You know, there can be a lot of clutter and things that aren't being let go of in the metal element personality. Yeah, right. So, you know, Guy Bennett's my mentor with five elements, would say, you know, you're with a metal person. You may not realize it at the time, but you might walk away and realize that a comment or a call, a call of theirs, has cut straight to the truth of you, and you've been sliced open. And I'm like, Oh yeah, you know. And he goes, the metal element clients, you'll always prepare for you'll make sure that you've drunk your water. If you've eaten your wheat bits, you're in your center. You know you want to, you want to sit there and meet that beautiful righteousness and integrity of metal.

Yeah. Did we go through the five No, did water? We did fire.

Dr. Ava Roubin: Water. Water. People love living on the edge as the kidney in the bladder system. They're very driven. You know, you want to annoy a water person just walk slowly in walk slowly, slow them down, right? But in the same sense, you know, water is very clear. It takes on many forms. So we're great shape shifters. They can be as still as a lake, you know, and you feel so calm around them, and the depth of this ancestral wisdom, you know, that comes through the kidneys, or you can feel a bit on edge, you know. So I used to do diving, you know, and platform diving and a bit of Cliff dive in, and it was normal for me to be in a constant state of needing to feel on the edge of life. And that's the real water element aspect. So, yeah, the water elements need a lot of reassurance. Okay, earth elements need to be understood. Metal elements need to be respected. You know, valued fire elements need that sort of depth of intimacy. Met share something personal, you know, like be warm, open your heart in the room to them. And wood elements, they need to know that you've got your shit together. Excuse my language. But you know, they need to know what the plan is. What direction are we heading? What to expect from the treatments and that you're going to be able to help them grow? Right? So, you know, we can spend hours talking through every element and the aspects that are likely to show up in the personality traits, but it's not even so much about that. I think at the end of the day, it's learning how to meet each person completely in the room when you're with them as a practitioner. And if I'm going gung ho, moving ahead in my full water element, and I'm sitting with a metal element person, they're just going to find it so crude. Slow down. On, be present. Take a breath, you know. So we have all of these elements in us, and it's learning how the room feels, smells, you know, what your senses are to identify what's needed in the room when you're with someone,

yeah, talk to me about what you love about acupuncture, and the power of that in terms of what's needed, because when I'm in session with you, the acupuncture is different every single time you know obviously, because what's needed is different, and it's so powerful. And so I just for listener, if you have not experienced acupuncture, it'd be just great to just talk about why it is so powerful in your experience that the Holy needles is what I want to call them,

in the hands of You specifically, I should say,

Dr. Ava Roubin: look, acupuncture is a bridge, you know? It's a bridge between the different sensations within a person's system and outside of a person's system, right? So this sense of of wanting to feel in our body, embodied, connected, right? That too can exist in and amongst us, feeling this sense of chi and vitality around us. So for me, the magic of acupuncture is I'm only ever using points that are precisely for a person in that exact moment of what they are really requiring. And in order to do that, we have to hone in and listen to the pulses, you know, feeling the pulses, listening to what's going on in the room. So I think the magic of acupuncture, it can be experienced in so many different ways, depending on the style of acupuncture that you're choosing. But essentially, what I've learned is that brings somebody home. It brings somebody home to their heart, to their body, to an embodiment, to a sense of what's going on around them. And it's a realignment, you know, of everything, and that's an oversimplification of it, but to be able to move chi, to be able to reassign, you know, where there has been a malalignment, where there's been shock, where there's been trauma, to sort of, you know, pull down the bricks of a dam and to finally let that nourishment come through a whole system. It's magic to watch, you know,

and magic to feel.

It's magic to feel it.

I mean, I always go away from our sessions feeling like I'm put back together. It's not very eloquent, but feeling like I'm completely in my body, and I feel really solid in that even, and at the same time open.

Dr. Ava Roubin: But yeah, it's not a very good way of just, yeah, it's like that, isn't it? You kind of get float out of there in the most embodied state. And yeah, it's taken me years, like, I mean, I've been practicing for, what, nearly 20 years, and it's taken me a long time to sort of move between that initial sort of immaturity of my, of my, of my last, you know, to with some of the bunch of to kind of want to blow myself out into the ether, you know, to traverse the realms and to enhance my vibration and psychic ability and and then you know, actually sort of learning that the one of the most important and most valuable things is actually just grounding, just to be in your body, you know, to to know what food to eat, to know your rhythms and your patterns and the cycles that are going on within you and outside of you, and to kind of come into that. So I think, obviously, you know, the treatments reflect a little bit of that. You know, yeah, we can have a little bit of fun with moving into these sort of larger realms that are bigger than us. But then at the end, you are reset. You're in harmony with yourself. And, I mean, look, you know, there is that, that sort of quote, which is to be well and healthy in and amongst a sick society is not a sign of health, right? So currently, you know, acknowledging everything that's going on, none of us are really quite fully embodied and completely well. How can we be? You know, when you have a treatment of acupuncture, you come into mending and healing the bits that have been, you know, rubbed a bit raw from what's going on in the world around us. You get soothed, you get put back together so that then you can come through and influence. Your communities and your life in the most positive and centered and heartfelt way, you know, when we keep pushing on and we're out of alignment, and you know, it might just be that our live achieve stagnant, you know. So we're finding that we're pushing up and we're fighting up against things, and we're getting nowhere, you know. And it just takes a few points to release that liver meridian, and then all of a sudden we can kind of see through the wisdom of that meridian, which is not just the friction that's required for growth, but how to harmonize that you know through your system, and how to harmonize that so that you've got the most beautiful growth and progression of your ideas and your vision in this world, and that can come forward and be planned out properly, and you can live it properly, as opposed to being held up, pushing through it, busting through, coming back to the same cycles of stagnation or incompletion of your tasks and your goals and your dreams. You know, these things, these habitual patterns that we are constantly stuck in as people, can actually be a sign of of our disharmonies within our bodies that just need a few little release points. You know, the liver might need a little bit of tonifying so we can better execute what it is that we're here to walk through in our life, right? So that's why I think when you hop off the table, you feel so good, you know, regardless of whether we've worked on the liver to action your dreams or to action your destiny into purpose, you know, or whether we're working on your you know, stomach and spleen in order to properly absorb the joy and the nourishment from all of your hard labor that you're putting out in the world. You know, you're you're you're getting balanced so that you can actually return to this sort of true path, right to live through what it is you've signed up to do in this world, and to be able to share that with joy, with laughter, with this abundance, so that, um, you can, you can walk through as a happy person, you know, or at least a more balanced person.

Yeah, I want to ask you about cycles. And you, you we've been talking about seasons too. When you talked about autumn, autumn, you know, we hear this, yeah, live with the seasons and all these terms being banted about, but to actually feel that and welcome it in and take up the invitation and feel that in an embodied sense is a very different thing than claiming it intellectually. So when you're helping people to feel that in an embodied way, I feel like breaking habits and cycles is something that we consciously do, and then we invite it in unconsciously. And then when we marry the two we we really claim it, or at least that's how I experience it with you, because it's a bit of talking when we're in session, sometimes not a lot of talking. It just depends on what's required.

So

how do you help people? Or can you give us some wisdom around honoring the cycles of the external world, whilst at the same time being in harmony with the cycle that is existing within you. I'm not even sure if that's the right way to ask you that maybe you can help me with that. Yeah.

Dr. Ava Roubin: No, I know. I understand. You know, I can hear what what you're saying, because when I mean, I think, especially with you and I, we've done work so the depths you can that some things are felt sensations, right? Other things can be intellectualized. But let's, let's go with this. See if I can, if we can find our way with this. Let's start with right. Now, right? We're in autumn. This is a cycle. It is really natural in autumn to be feeling a slight sense of grief, longing, sadness, letting go, you know, a sense that something is missing in your world, like, um, like, you're, you're, you've lost a twin, or something is not right. Like, this is a normal state to be. The layers are no longer providing shade. They're drying up. They're falling off the tree. The trees are letting them go. They're standing in their bareness, right? So what it is is first acknowledging that not only externally, are these cycles going on, but same two internally, right? We've got to embrace with the autumn too, the taking in the new taking in breath. So we move our exercise, maybe from being quite active in summer into this more contemplative, meditative breath work, you know, gentler sense of exercise. So this is how we're merging the external and the internal. You know, Chinese. Dietetics, you know, using pears, bit of cinnamon, white based vegetables, cauliflowers, you know, nourishing the lungs like there is so much we can do in that cycle that is not just about okay, we're going more inward. We're getting ready for winter. Now, I want to sort of marry this and not not lose you too deep, you know, or not, get too heady with this, but cycles are like archetypes as well. You know, young in psychology has spoken lots and lots and lots about archetypes. And, you know, even in you were interviewing, oh, I'm, forgive me, I've forgotten and beautiful woman who was talking about menopause, and, you know, she touched on cycles. It's like, yeah, look, we've got the archetypes of of the Maiden and the mother and the Crone, and, you know, there are cycles all around us. Then what I'm really fascinated about with Chinese medicine is some of what epigenetics and modern science is starting to catch on to this inherited cycles, inherited trauma. You know the fact that we carry our mothers and my mother's mothers with us, that we've been in the womb of you know you can go on and on. Indigenous medicine have been working through the ancestors and with within your system to clear ancestral trauma for a long, long, long time. So when I'm in the room with a client, you know, when we've worked on the table, it's not just you on the table, you know, yeah, there's, there's, there's quite a few different people you know, that we're working with, and that's showing up through you. So when we are talking about cycles. You've gotta be able to and it can kind of be a little bit nauseating sometimes. Is move internally. You know, there's a horary clock. There's cycles within the day. We're in, what are we? We're in midday. So we're in the fire element. We're with the heart right now. So it's no surprise, you know that this is the time sitting and talking. You know, a lot of European countries they siesta. You know, they're with the family, they're sharing joy. They're making love in the middle of the day. You know, like people are living to daily cycles so well throughout the world, and with acupuncture, we do the same. We take note, where are we today? Like someone's turning up between, you know, to say, I'm doing an 8am treatment. Okay, we're right at this pinnacle of the stomach, spleen, the kind of mind of the body, the intellect, the YI of the body, you know, let's, let's move into that. This is the best time to digest. What are you struggling digesting in your life at the moment? Let's talk about that, right? No point trying to do intellectual work when it's between five and seven at night, your kidney time you know you're going to be running. If you're adrenally fatigue, it's going to be when rage comes up, you're rushing to pump out the last emails. It's no surprise, road rage is occurring when we're on our way home or, you know, you think about like the family life and the the wild time of the night is between seven and nine when everyone is wired off their head on adrenaline, you know? So when we're choosing to be present in our life, when we're choosing how we live. We pay attention to cycles. You know, I pop on my clinic, my beautiful, soft clinic music between five and seven at night, so that my kids get this sense of this bell, drawing their attention back down into their body, slowing it down. It's not the time I'm going to be like, quick. Get your books out. Let's get the homework done. Have you cleaned your room? Come on, it's time to eat. You know it's like, no, no, just pause. Just soften the kidneys for a moment. You know, in a lot of business mentoring, they're like, get the hardest things done first in the morning. Well, that's because our system is most capable. Our brain is most alive, our digestive system is functioning at its highest at that time, and we see that gut brain connection. Chinese med has been talking about it for 1000s of years. The brain is a curious organ for Chinese Med, it's the stomach and the spleen that does a lot of the thinking and the intellect work, you know. And you'd know that like I was looking at all of your dietary stuff, you know, it's so based on that. It's so based on getting that bacteria right in the gut and the small intestine, you know, working at that highest form of intelligence through your food, through nature, through seasons. So does that answer where we were going.

Oh, yes. And then some, yeah. I mean, I just find that the whole small intestine thing so fascinating. It comes up a lot in our sessions about it being, you know that this really important place of discernment, and that keeps coming around for us in session, I want to ask you about the essay. Heric acupuncture, which feels like someone took my heart and showed me the universe, you know, or it allowed me to reach into my own heart and see all of the possibilities and be curious and loving about them, was the way I would explain that the first time I experienced it, there's so many different kinds of acupuncture, as you said, and I would love to speak to you for 27,000 hours about it, so dear listener, you could hear all the wonderful things that Ava has to share about this. What opened up for you when you were introduced to esoteric acupuncture and started practicing with that, yeah,

Dr. Ava Roubin: it was, it was the mouth of the universe like it was, yeah, you know, it's just so Powerful. How do I put it? I am, I am. I am quite discerning when and how we practice the acupuncture and on who, yes, with the esoteric acupuncture. Just First off, it is not something that you do on someone who has not experienced in meditation and embodiment and being able to come back, right? Because it is a journey. You know, there's a lot of use of plant medicine coming into the West. At the moment, there's an understanding that there are bridges and other aspects of energy that are coexisting in this space with us. Now, esoteric acupuncture was sort of brought forward by Mickey o senky. It's beautiful Japanese American man, and he has used this. I don't even know how it came to him, other than through meditation, but it's a combination of Ayurvedic Chinese medicine and sacred geometry, like Kabbalah, you know, and so when we're discerning what esoteric pattern to use on someone, again, we're having to quiet in the room and use a lot of the pulse diagnosis and intuitive skills to understand at what vibratory level do we need to realign here? And so these gorgeous patterns, these sacred geometry, patterns that are done throughout the body with the use of acupuncture needles, heighten the energy in somebody's body. Some of them are reconnecting the kidney, heart, access, you know, other patterns are called souls journey, you know, crack the Buddha's egg. It's not something that you can really put words to until you experience it. But the best way that I can describe how it's felt for me is I've felt an instant realignment of every chakra in my body, kind of a clearing of this karmic heaviness. Or, you know, inherited ancestral trauma and and it does sort of wake your Shen, your spirit up a little bit, right? But again, in saying that, you know, there's a lot of acupuncturists who won't use these sort of techniques because they are very potent, and they are very expanding. And unless you know really how to hold someone embodied in their body, it's not fun to be, you know, blasted through the universe. But yeah, look, I mean, I've had phenomenal, unexplainable things occur in a room with esoteric acupuncture. You know, I've had it many times on me when I've just felt like something is hanging around me that probably shouldn't, you know, and whether that's come from an old aspect of myself or my psyche or my personality, I'm not necessarily talking about entities, something that I've outgrown, that I can't quite shake. I'll use the esoteric acupuncture. You know, I'd done a lot of Transcendental Meditation from when I was young and and using having, you know, that familiarity with what that deep meditation is is sort of the closest way that I can explain to the esoteric acupuncture.

Yeah, it's incredibly powerful and magical, and certainly one of the most potent things I have ever experienced. So I'm incredibly grateful to to be able to do that with you. You have such a beautiful blend of all of the different healing practices that you have studied and worked with, and you use some and not others in the room in a session, depending on what is required, as we've been speaking about, I want to ask you about physical touch with your massage, because it's. Certainly the most powerful massage that I have ever experienced. Again, there aren't really words to describe it, and it's different every session, but it feels like a soul meeting, a soul therapy, a soul massage, like a cellular experience, a spiritual experience, and it's different every time, and depending on when you put where and where you put the needles and all the things we've been talking about, because it's flowing through you, the healing, you know, and you're getting out of the way, but you're physically connecting with somebody. What is that experience like for you? Like, how are you using physical touch in that way to open and realign and help balance somebody, whilst at the same time getting out of the way. Yeah,

Dr. Ava Roubin: it's exactly that Tess like when I'm doing so we, you know, with a session, we'll sit, we talk, you know, we discuss a little bit about what's going on. I get you on the table, have another feel of the pulses, and then we go into the massage. Now, for me, that was my primary form of healing for many, many, many years, that's what I practiced. And when I put my hands on a body, it's like there is a quietening, you know, in the room. And then there is a felt sense, you know. And from that, I'm doing Qigong was a massage, so I'm sort of almost a conduit between heaven and earth, and that's then getting sort of directed as Qigong and Qi practices are through the palm of the hands into the body. So there's areas there where I know, okay, we really need to support and tonify these kidneys, you know. And so there is a direction of intent coming through the body to actually do the healing work. But I also use that time, in that space to cue into the intuition, to open up, you know, the small intestine, the listening to the heart, and that's when I feel that there's that soul meeting with the client and myself.

Yeah, the downloads come thick and fast during that mass art. And I mean, you know, you and I are often communicating telepathically, almost, you know, like I'll be thinking something that you'll finish the sentence in my head, and vice versa. I mean, it's just quite extraordinary. Yeah,

Dr. Ava Roubin: it's amazing. Nothing shuts us up better than touch, right? Like, you know, it is, it is permission to enter the other realms of true communication. And that's what happens. And I think without that, for me, like I need the movement, and I need the movement of the massage in the room to really get in the right zone, to get the downloads, to tune into the right radio frequency. And for you, sometimes you know you need the touch as well, to know that it's safe to then open the heart to then have your intuition pass on to me. Because, you know, again, it's not about me in that room. I'm not anything greater than you are in my intuitive capacity. It's what we create together in a space, and also how open you are. So, you know, some clients, it's like, no, there's, it's like radio silence, you know. And we're literally there to maybe do more of a a treatment on, you know, it might be anything from, you know, rheumatoid arthritis to, you know, some lingering pathogen, COVID, you know, residue stuff. So it's not always, but it's mostly that if you quieten, hush the heart and the mind, enough with quite mind, enough the heart speak, and it's fun, you know, like, that's, you know, that's, it's pretty wild. Like, your guides were pretty direct with, with what needed to be done in the room on some days, and we'd have quite a busy party going on in there.

Yeah. And I remember one session where you just, intuitively, just said to me, we're not going to talk today. We're just going to communicate through touch and through being silent. And it was very, very powerful in a different way, you know. So again, I so appreciate how you show up in the world. I want to ask you about this extraordinary partnership that you have with Pete and this beautiful clinic that you've created together and safe space of healing and listening and communion and Love. What has that been like for you, opening yourself up to to a union of this magnitude? Is that the right way to explain it? You know, power, love? Yeah. I don't even know if there are words, but it's quite. Quite extraordinary. But again, you ran away from it and then decided you were going to meet it, just to come full circle with what we talked about at the beginning that pushed you.

Dr. Ava Roubin: I like that.

Yeah, Tess, you know, look, I remember Mickey o Sanki, you know, saying, there are many soul mates in this world, right? There are many of them. And he did a graph, and he actually, you know, had, because he's just such a genius, a calculation of how many there are. And he said, and they're great lovers, right? They're great friends, they're great relationships. They'll teach you lots. But the twin flame is often someone who's going to come through your destined path like, what is what you're here to do? Like they will challenge that. They will help that. And sometimes they're not meant to be a partner. Sometimes they're not meant to be a lover. They might be a colleague. You know, they might be your hardest life lesson. And I remember, you know, I remember meeting Pete, you know, the moment that we met, I had sort of intuitively, just left a festival, you know, it was halfway through the night, just packed up my tent, went down to the ocean, swam in the ocean, and I could feel something pushing and moving at me. And I remembered that there was a benefit gig, a small benefit gig, in a friend's backyard. And I went, you know what, I'll just go to that. And so I rocked up a little bit late, and I was walking down the driveway to get to this gig, and I just stopped and I went, Oh God, my big love is here. And I and as you said, I ran away. I turned back to the car, and I hopped in the cars like, no, no, thank you. You know, I'd been celibate for nine months. I had been focusing on a lot of, you know, healing sexual powers, like doing the Mont chair. And I was just like, I am channeling all of my energy towards, you know, this business that I'm going to start and finishing this, this, you know, huge, epic journey of study. And anyway, I pulled my socks up and I went back in, and I could feel this presence, and I didn't want to turn around. I was just like, I don't want to see them. I don't know who this is. Eventually, I turned around, and being as clumsy as I am. The only thing I said is, so we're going to do this or what?

I don't know if that's clumsy or just magical and direct.

Dr. Ava Roubin: Oh, you know, I think back now and I'm like, he should have known to run.

Oh, gosh no. I bet he was like, Yes, we are. And, you

Dr. Ava Roubin: know, and that was the response I got, right? So we started talking, and it was quite interesting, because we didn't do any of the normal flirtations. We dove deep into, you know, talking about community. You know, what we're doing in the world, how we're turning up to serve community. And, you know, anytime we would try and sort of connect in we'd look around, and we just kept laughing, because there'd be a circle of people sitting around. What is going on anyway? I took that as a title. I was

like, the witness of the two flames, the twin flames. Yeah, it

Dr. Ava Roubin: was bizarre. And a friend took a photo at that moment, and I got up and left. I was just like, You know what? I didn't even know his name. I, you know, when I and I said, I think I've just had love at first sight. And she was just like, No. And I got a text, you know, a call from the person whose gig is it? And they were just like, hey, I think, I think Pete calls has just said he's just had love at first sight. Oh, I just, you know, there's that, right? And then it still took us a very long time to to meet and to get together, because, you know, as you know, like you can have all of that, but that does not mean that you are meant to actually be together, right? So, yeah, it took us, it took us a little while to get out of the way. And there was that sort of pathway of going, are we meant to just be co creating, you know, this incredible dream in this space together? Are we meant to be in partnership together, you know, and and doing the rest of life. And so I think we had a good cycle, you know, like a nice seven, seven to eight years cycle where we were together and we're CO, creating a lot of things, but there was still that friction. You know, you can't be with someone, you know, like Pete and not be consistently growing and moving and changing. And inherently, you know, he's quite a lot more of an earth element. He likes things to be harmony, to move a little bit slower. I'm erratic, and I am wanting to go down that, you know, crazy path at whatever speed I can, tumble and turn in. And he'll be like, Well, let's think about this. You know,

Sierra whitewater rafter. I. Totally,

Dr. Ava Roubin: totally. And, I mean, he's been one of my greatest teachers, you know, I can talk about mentors. And then there's Pete Coles, you know, and his his wisdom and knowledge, you know, like, there is never a moment where there's not a book in his hand, or he's exploring a concept, or all of a sudden, like, what are you doing? He's like, I've just written a novel, you know, but share it yet. Like, alrighty. And you treated how many clients today? You know? It's like, oh, 10, you know. So, I mean, he is, he is a very grounded and and is so intelligent, you know, this man has, has the emotional intelligence that weighs the past is mine in a different way, and I have full respect for him. And yet, throw kids in, throw communities, you know, like it's hilarious, you know, watching, watching what goes on. But I'm telling at the end of every night we've usually either got the fire going or we're sitting outside under all the gum trees here. And the conversations still inspire and fascinate me. You know, no matter what we go through, you know, I'm sure I drive him mad buzzing around the place with my frantic nature. And

I think he would, he would use the word inspire. He described it as you help him see in a different way. Is that? How is that? How you would describe it? Or you're a different person? Yeah, have your own words.

Dr. Ava Roubin: Look, I think, I think in the dance of any partnership, you've kind of got to have that if you're both seeing things in the same lens, then stagnation can happen, right? Or you can move each other into trickster energy of believing whatever it is that you're both agreeing to see. So it is my job to tap Pete when he's ruminating too deeply on certain topics. You know, he's very conscious, socially consciously aware. We talk a lot about what's going on within our community, within the greater community, within our client community, what the clinic is drawing in. And yeah, like it is my job sometimes if he gnaws too deeply on the bone to kind of tap him and go, Hey, let's get our head above the water here for a second. You know, look at that. Did you see that owl that just flew past? And, you know, coming back into a different flow. But, you know, I think people have those dynamics, you know, if we're lucky enough, we'll always have someone to just tap and go, come on. Tess, you know, yeah,

about running away, coming back, choosing to meet in certain places within yourself and and with Pete and other people in your life. You talked before about the wrench of throwing kids into the mix. What has motherhood taught you about getting out of the way, meeting practicing

Dr. Ava Roubin: motherhood has been the biggest lesson. Tess, you know, give me a client going through existential crisis any day, you know, embody embodied, felt experience of motherhood, right? So my first experience of motherhood was, yeah, birth in the clinic, you know, holding clients, choosing to turn up and hold people you know, as been mentioned, you don't have to have children to be mother energy, but for me, having to be so grounded and so embodied and witness to the witness to the ebbs and flows that a child goes through every day is one of the toughest things I've experienced. You know, I just want to get in there, and I want to harmonize everything for them and you can't. You know job as a mother is to sit back and let them scrape their knees and let them try and figure out friendship dynamics, and be doing all of this on sleep deprivation and not having time to meditate and watching your practices get torn apart, and not being in your center and at the same time having to turn up moment after moment after moment and then go to bed with the anguish and the ruminating guilt over places that you didn't turn up enough for, right like I've never had that with my practice, because the room was held and quiet and still, and the presence is there, and it's one on one, uninterrupted heart space with the client. And as a mother, you know, that was I, you know, I really leaned into Pete's earthing ground in energy. Yeah, for parenting, I really do. And yeah, I could have done all. Of the esoteric acupuncture and all of the the work on myself in the world, but nothing quite was like the work of continually turning up and coming through with with what these beans are needing. And it's not always what I want to be giving them, you know, yeah, but yeah,

it's yeah. I could talk to you all day and all night and into other realms, till, till, till the day is long for sure. I always close every episode with the same question, which is, when you have a dream in your heart and you feel like you don't have what it takes to make it happen, what do you say to yourself, or what do you say to a client? And I know you're gonna say, you say something different to every client, because the conversation

is different with everybody, but in a general sense,

what would you say about that. How do we find our way when we don't think we're enough?

Dr. Ava Roubin: Well, we're going back in full cycle. Let's get out of the way. Get your head out of the way and just move with it. Right when the heart is talking to you. Just listen, you know, discern the right moment to you know, there is a season for everything, and when that little bit of wave of energy comes up, or that little wave of Courage comes up, where the distance between you and what that heart desire is then move with that wave. You know, sometimes, knowing you know what your heart's desire is is also the wisdom in that knowing is waiting for the right time or the right season to move toward it so that you're not pushing, you're not struggling through it. Things can come with ease, you know, so too can that exist, right? Trust in that process that yes, things, some things take work, but so too can it just exist as something full of ease and grace?

Ah, thank you for this beautiful conversation, and thank you for how you show up in the world. What a gift.

Dr. Ava Roubin: Thank you test and thank you for having me, and thank you for igniting so many conversations. I've really been loving listening to all your podcasts, and I just find you bring out like you know, speaking of the heart of it, you bring out just such beautiful core truths in every speaker. So thanks for sharing.

Oh, I take that into my heart. Thank you. Bye.