What if pain relief isn’t only about fixing tissue, but also about restoring flow, energy, attention, and trust in your body?

Acupuncture, Qigong, and physical therapy experts explore how Chinese medicine approaches chronic pain. Learn how qi is described in Chinese medicine, why “stuck” energy is often framed as a source of pain, and how practices like acupuncture and qigong aim to support healing by improving circulation, regulation, and resilience.

The conversation also covers practical takeaways: how qigong can be adapted for different abilities, why consistency matters more than a quick fix, and how community and the patient–practitioner relationship can influence outcomes.

Whether you’re new to Chinese medicine or looking for complementary tools alongside Western care, this interview offers a clear, grounded look at how people use these methods to manage chronic pain over the long term.

Guest: Kirstin Lindquist, Business Owner, Acupuncturist & Intuitive Trainer

Kirsten is a licensed acupuncturist (California Acupuncture License #4661) and practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine with more than 30 years of experience helping people remove old patterns and reconnect with their true nature. Through acupuncture, qigong, and the teaching of intuition and personal energy management, she guides patients toward lasting health and personal transformation. Kirstin practices relational medicine, bringing deep presence and compassion to every patient interaction. She holds a Master's degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine from the Academy of Chinese Culture & Health Sciences and a bachelor's degree in Political Science from Stanford University. Today, she specializes in helping patients address metabolic health challenges - including high blood pressure, blood sugar, triglycerides, and other cardiometabolic risk factors - using evidence-informed, natural approaches.

Energy Matters, Website

Energy Matters, YouTube

Guest: Gail Whang, Teacher of Dayan "Wild Goose"​ Qigong

Gail is a certified Dayan Qigong instructor and former educator who spent 30 years teaching in the Oakland Unified School District. After retiring, she discovered qigong—a practice that transformed her from a lifelong multitasker into a more mindful, balanced, and present person. Inspired by its profound impact on her health and well-being, Gail completed a year-long teacher training program at the Wen Wu School to become a certified instructor. Today, she is passionate about helping others experience the physical, emotional, and energetic benefits of qigong, empowering them to cultivate resilience, self-healing, and a more positive approach to everyday life.

Gail Whang, YouTube

9-week Beginner Qigong Online Class

Links to interesting things from this episode:

• “The Intriguing Health Benefits of Qigong” The Wall Street Journal
• “Qigong and Tai-Chi for Mood Regulation”
• “The Treatment of Depressed Chinese Americans Using Qigong in a Health Care Setting: A Pilot Study”

We believe that in your body, just like you have blood flow and lymph and nerves, you also have energy. We call it qi, but you can call it energy or qi or life force, but that circulates through your body. Now we can't see it.

We don't know how to X ray it yet or monitor it. I think at some point we will be able to.

But we are working on the assumption that qi is circulating through pathways that are called channels or meridians. And in very basic terms, if you have enough energy flowing through your body and it's not stuck or blocked, you feel well.

And the main ways that energy gets out of balance is either not enough. We kind of all know that, right? I'm out of energy. I kind of ran myself dry. But the other way is it can get stuck.

And if you think about a garden hose that has gotten kinked, you can water your plants. There's a problem. And so in Chinese medicine, that kink is really considered the source of the pain.

Welcome to Unpacking Pain, a podcast dedicated to understanding the complexities of chronic pain, what causes it, how it affects our lives, and what we can do about it.

Join doctor of Physical Therapy and pain science researcher, Dr. Megan Steele, and me, Holly Osborne, a chronic pain sufferer, as together we explore the biological, psychological and social aspects of chronic pain and create community and understanding in the process.

We are going to be diving into a couple branches of Chinese medicine today.

Now, this is super near and dear to my heart because I've been helped a ton in my chronic pain when by both acupuncture and qigong. That's what we're going to be focusing on today. And Dr. Megan and I are thrilled that we've got two experts in the field joining us today.

We've got Kirsten Lindquist, who is a licensed acupuncturist who's been practicing for over three decades.

She's the owner and founder of Energy Matters Acupuncture and Qigong, which is a wellness clinic right here in my neighborhood of Oakland, California. It's where acupuncture and qigong teachers and bodyworkers come together to practice Chinese medicine.

And she's also joined by the fabulous Gail Whang, who is personally my qigong teacher and has been practicing for well over a decade. She really teaches with wisdom, guides with patience, brings so much compassion to the table.

And these two experts together have made a huge impact on their community, not only locally here in Oakland, but internationally. They've got people joining them from Zoom, from all kinds of countries.

So no matter where you're based and whether you're able to, you know, you're high functioning in your chronic pain or not, you're going to learn some things today that you can even practice right in the comfort of your own home that should make a difference. So without further ado, I'm delighted to get this conversation started and really excited to welcome our guests today.

Kristen and Gail, thank you so much for joining us. So I understand, Kristen, there are five branches of Chinese medicine and we're going to be talking about two of them today.

Can you help us define those and maybe tell us about the approach to chronic pain in the acupuncture world? Sure.

So I'll start with what are those five branches of Chinese medicine? So acupuncture and qigong, the two things we'll be focusing on today.

The other three branches are herbal medicine, nutrition and body work, all of which we offer at Energy Matters because we like to offer a complete menu of opportunities for getting, for healing.

In terms of how Chinese medicine thinks about pain or how we approach pain, the way I like to describe it is first to give the framework that we believe that in your body, just like you have blood flow and, and lymph and nerves, you also have energy. We call it qi, but you can call it energy or qi or life force, but that circulates through your body. Now we can't see it.

We don't know how to X ray it yet or monitor it. I think at some point we will be able to.

But we are working on the assumption that chi is circulating through pathways that are called channels or meridians. And in very basic terms, if you have a enough energy flowing through your body and it's not stuck or blocked, you feel well.

And the main ways that energy gets out of balance is either not enough. We kind of all know that, right. I'm out of energy. I kind of ran myself dry. But the other way is it can get stuck.

And if you think about a garden hose that has gotten kinked, you can't water your plants, there's a problem. And so in Chinese medicine, that kink is really considered the source of the pain.

Now, obviously there's other things going on on the physical level, but from an energetic level, that's where we consider the pain to be coming from. And any modality that we're using, including the acupuncture or qigong, is to help unblock those energy flows and release the pain.

Wow, thank you. That's really interesting. And you mentioned something about acupuncture is being done to you, whereas qigong is something that you do.

Can you help us understand those distinctions?

Sure. So acupuncture, yes. We generally don't recommend trying it at home for obvious reasons.

So you go, you go to a clinic and, you know, where we've spent, you know, years and years figuring out how to do this safely and effectively. But yes, you come in just like you might go for a body work session or a PT session or anything like that.

You go to your practitioner and you get a treatment. Qigong is something that you learn to do and you get to take. You go to a class, you learn how to do it and you take it home with you.

But I like to say it's almost like you're giving yourself a treatment at home, no needles involved. So all the principles are the same that are functioning in the acupuncture clinic as are happening in the qigong class.

And that's why they're also very synergistic. So you can go get treatment, but then you can follow up that treatment on a daily basis with your qigong practice.

And it's a very powerful combination. So, yeah, you could consider qigong sort of a diy Acupuncture, sort of.

Oh, wow, that's really interesting. In my PT brain, it sounds like acupuncture is like the in person, in person session, and then qigong is the home exercise program. Would you agree?

A hundred percent. That's a good analogy. It's great.

And so then, Gail, do you take a prescription from Kirsten, the acupuncturist and do the exercises that she prescribes?

Well, I do that. But as well, we encourage people to actually take a class to learn. We teach. Well, let me. Can I just step back and define, what do we say?

What does qigong mean? A lot of people.

Yeah, great.

A lot of people. Nowadays, I think more and more people are learning about qigong. But when I say I teach qigong or I might recommend qigong, they go, what's that?

So I have to go back and say, well, have you heard of Tai chi? It's similar, it's based in traditional Chinese medicine. But Tai chi is a martial art, whereas qigong is a health care practice.

So I really stress the fact that this is all about your health.

And so the way that we define it is we say it's gentle yet powerful exercises and movements to treat pain, illness, and to enhance your overall health, well being and longevity. And qi, as Kirsten said, means energy, and gong means to practice with skill. So we're learning to move chi with practice skill.

So the form that we teach is called Dai Yang qigong, which means wild goose qigong. There are hundreds of thousands of different types of qigong, mainly by observing nature, observing animals, wildlife.

So this particular form that we teach is basically the imitating movements of wild geese. So we learn to fly, so we're moving our hands, we learn to drink water, we learn to eat, searching for food, we learn to make a nest.

So these are all part of the component and it's 60 more movements. So we really recommend a class.

And in the class, over a nine week period, you learn half the form and then you take it again and you learn the other half of form. So in total, once you learn the form and you do the 64 moves, it takes about 12 to 15 minutes to do the whole thing.

But in the movements, we're actually, we emphasize we move, we fly. The Qi is flowing throughout our bodies. And each move, you're focusing on particular acupuncture points. So that's where the overlap is.

So I might massage a certain point and that might be a point that I get when I go see Kirsten as my acupuncturist, she might needle that point. So I talk about that in the class. So students are learning to work with points within their own body.

So how, how do we move our own Qi? I mean, that's pretty wild because I think I get it when I'm seeing Kirsten or another acupuncturist.

They have this ability with their years of training to move the Qi through their practice. When I'm in class with you, Gail, doing qigong, I'm moving my own chi. How am I able to do that for myself? That's pretty wild.

This is a mindfulness practice. So we ask students to come into the class and be present with their own bodies, be present within the environment, try to let go of so much of our.

We're all up in our heads, you know, and we don't, we don't spend enough time really thinking about our bodies. So it's really getting in touch with your bodies. When I first started qigong, I was not in touch with my own body.

So one of the things that students learn is to really pay attention to what your body, your body is talking to you all the time. So the other thing is that it's mindfulness.

So you can move Qi, even though you might not be able to say, touch your toes or we do some, lots of stretching, we might not be able to reach that far, but you can make a connection with your mind to your toes. And in that way, you are moving chi. And some students actually feel the Qi moving. You might have a hot sensation.

It might feel like little tingling or some heat. Others might not feel anything. But it's all around us. It's in our environment. It's within our own bodies.

Part of why Wild Goose Chew Gum is so beautiful is that, well, it is literally beautiful to watch, but also as a practice is that simply by mindfully making the shapes or the movements that Gail teaches, and there are other teachers teach in the classes, that is allowing for the chi to move. You don't have to think it to move it.

You can use your mind to make connections, but it's not, it's actually the, the form is designed to move the chi for you. So, Holly, when you're saying, like, how does that happen? You don't have to go, okay, now, now, now I'm doing it. Oh, my God, I, I, I forgot.

How to do it.

You know, like, we, we don't need our mind involved unless it's simply just resting on the, you know, this is the point, this is the area. But that's so it's why it's different than simply exercising is great. Moving your body is great in all form and fashion.

But this was designed over, you know, almost 2,000 years ago, specifically to move the Qi through your various meridians. And so even if we don't understand exactly, well, how does that work?

Just by continually repeating the movements, your Qi is moving through your meridians.

So I think of it, obviously, from a physical therapy perspective, and we talk about.

I often use the kink in the hose analogy for when I'm thinking about a nerve compression or a nerve that's not being allowed to slide and glide, that has poor nerve mobility.

And up until a few decades ago, you would say nerve mobility, and people would say, oh, that's quackery, that nerves don't move until we were able to actually visualize it under an ultrasound machine. And, you know, patients oftentimes will say to me, like, you know, if I give them a nerve glide exercise, they're like, am I even doing anything?

Like, what is this? What's the, even the point of this?

And I think kind of to your point, that it really is quite subtle and it doesn't have to be a major movement, it doesn't have to be something that you really have a deep understanding of, but, but that it can be still helping your physical body. That's so Interesting.

And Holly and I talked in the last episode about nature and how that provides so many benefits for people both mentally and physically. Is qigong practiced outside? Always.

We're in the classroom, but we also have an outdoor practice. It's beautiful to do it outdoors under the trees, because there's also so much chi in trees and in nature.

So to be outside within the community too, because we're pract, we're, we're geese and we might have 25 people practicing at the same time. So we're generating a lot of chi together and receiving Qi from nature. So ideally, it's wonderful to do it outside, but not at.

We don't always have the opportunity. So if in the classroom, we're inside a room, but there's still a lot of chi that is generated among the students.

Got it. Okay, thank you.

I'll also place that into a broader context. So that's speaking to the beauty and the benefits of practicing qigong outside.

Being outside, as we know, is just such a marvelous form of self care and healthcare. But another notable thing about Chinese medicine is that it 100% assumes that all of us as humans are a part of nature.

So it, and, and I say that because in modern times, you know, there's a lot of separation between humans and nature, especially in medicine that can, you know, feel very like clinical or sterile or whatnot. But it's like, it's so part and parcel to Chinese medicine. It's like, yes, all the principles that affect the natural world affect us.

And so we even use terms when we're doing diagnosis with patients. We could talk about dampness or dryness or heat or cold, which doesn't make sense in our sort of more logical Western brain.

But when you place it in the context of the framework of Chinese medicine, it totally makes sense. And you see it all the time clinically with your patients, that we really are reflections of the natural world and vice versa.

So that's, you know, both, both the benefits of being in nature, but also that the medicine is based on natural principles and assumes that we are part of that world as well.

Very interesting when you're talking about the nerve glide and how we've, you know, we're learning about different aspects of the body, which is what is so wonderful about being in medicine. Because there's still the body still. There's so many things we don't know and understand.

But there's a study that was done, it's maybe 20 years ago now, that I just love to share with patients because it helps Them really understand that while we can try to think about, oh, is there, you know, pain, nerve, pain gate there, you know, all the different ways we might try to explain how acupuncture works. What I generally say is it's magic.

And this is why so many years ago there was a study that was done where they, the, the researchers did a baseline brain scan. Boom. So this is the brain at rest. Then they needled a point on the leg, like above the ankle. That traditionally affects the eye system.

So there's no physiological connection. Zero. Right.

We can't, I mean that we understand and know they do a second scan and lo and behold, the eye system in the brain has lit up after being needled. After the needle was put in the leg.

Yeah.

So it kind of made the researchers brain go, ah, this is really confusing because we can't explain this. So that's just to say that it is, you know, that she is real. We can't yet, like I said, X ray it.

But there are studies that have even shown that literally it exists. We just don't know how to measure it.

Kirsten, do you think that that's one thing that may be holding Western medicine back from opening its arms more to Chinese medicine? I am aware that some medical schools, like ucsf, for example, that actually does require.

Require med students to go through a course and understanding. I believe it's Chinese medicine specifically. Maybe it's even more drilled down to acupuncture. But what, you know, what do you think is.

Makes it challenging to kind of hold hands together across this or maybe you would say it's getting better?

Well, yeah, I mean, like I said, I've been doing this for over three decades and it's definitely getting better. And part of it is as there are more and more studies that come out that speak Western medicine language, I get it.

You know, we all have our language in medicine and if there's nothing in the Western medicine language to explain to someone, like, of course they're going to be resistant or, you know, not know how to relate to this. So that's one piece. But.

And I think ultimately this is not my realm, but I feel like quantum physics somewhere in there, they're going to be able to explain this and we're going to get a really beautiful crossover between the physical body, the energetic body, and then the Western medicine world will also be able to go, ah, ah, we unders. Now we understand this. There was just recently an article that came out in the New York Times. It was like, you know, oh, gee, it Exists.

And all my patients sent me are, you know, they, hey, the New York Times discovered that she exists.

Yes, the New York Times. To make it real.

Yeah.

And I was like, that's great. And, yes, we've known this for thousands of years, so.

Yeah.

Have you ever treated a doctor, by the way, do you have any funny anecdotes about treating someone who was they. They themselves were a doctor?

I have.

We have actually quite a number of doctors in our practice at Energy Matters. I have several, you know, that come to me and that come into the practice. And what I.

What I observe and hear from doctors overall is that many of them benefit and believe in the medicine 100%, and they often recommend it to their patients. And yet they're still bound by the standards of care that they have to operate under. Right. And so it's.

So there.

It's not.

I don't really have any, like, you know, it's not funny anecdotes, more just like, I always appreciate it when they come because I know it's a stretch. It's kind of like, you know, like you're in a club over here and then you're gonna go, I'm gonna go visit that club.

You know, and while it is getting.

Less of that is still.

So I'll just say I had a patient the other day who came in and told me about an incident where she went to her cardiologist and shared some information that I had given her. And the cardio. Actually, the doctor actually yelled at her.

I mean, like, literally yelled at her about, you know, hearing that information from an acu, you know, taking in that information. So, yeah, it's still, you know, we still got a long ways to go.

Interesting.

Well, at least she went to you and not chatgpt. Can we just say that?

Hello.

Thank you very much.

That is a positive.

One thing that I wanted to bring up when Kirsten talked about standards of care. So a doctor. So I see a Western doctor, and I also see Kirsten as my acupuncturist.

So if there's something that I might be dealing with, they look at me and she's very understanding, and she knows that I seek out acupuncture, and I'm looking for alternative approaches, but she always feels compelled to tell me what drug to take to alleviate a pain or, say, a bladder infection. And that's where she's. I think she's bound by offering it to me.

Yes.

So it's. It's kind of a heavy. As a. As a patient, when your Doctor, you know, prescribes this. Right.

So then I go to Kirsten and I run it by her and we talk about it, we discuss it. And it's not like she's totally against any meds, but we talk about it and look at, well, let's weigh the pros and cons. Let's try this.

And so many times I do not order the prescription that's prescribed to me. And we'll go with Kirsten, which is, you know, using Chinese herbs, some nutrition, doing stuff around cholesterol. So it's. But you have to weigh it.

It's an individual, you know, question and decision that you have to make.

Yeah, there's actually been some research about.

Doctors do sometimes feel compelled to give a prescription or something to a patient every time they come in because that's sort of the transactional type of relationship that they have. And like you say, Gail, sometimes you say, you know, if, if we can avoid a medication here, I'm the same way.

I'm like, you know, you give me a prescription, there's a 50, 50 chance I'm going to even fill that, depending on what's going on.

And from my standpoint, as someone who's trained in Western physical therapy and in evidence based practice and all of these things that we talk about, I think the more education I've gotten, the more I've realized how much we don't know. And so my response to patients when they ask me, should I go to acupuncture, is this okay? I will always say we don't know.

We don't have 100% understanding why acupuncture works, but it's very unlikely that it's going to cause you harm. And we don't know how your whole body works anyways. So who am I to say we don't have all the answers? But that's not it. Right.

And so I often, that's kind of the advice that I give to patients. And, and I, I don't know, maybe either of you can talk about some of the, the contraindications to acupuncture and qigong.

I'm sure they're pretty limited. It's a pretty limited list. Is that right?

Yeah, that's the beautiful thing is like even in our qigong class, Kale, right?

Oh, yeah, we adapt. It's totally adaptable to your own body, to whatever, maybe a physical project that you have going on. People.

The thing is that people are attracted to qigong and acupuncture because they have some kind of a ailment or a pain, hip pain, knee pain. Their doctor said, you need a hip replacement. I have many students like that. And so.

And then some are older and they are not as flexible or their balance is, you know, a little bit wacky. So all of this on the one in the very first class. I say it can be adapted. Qigong can be adapted to your own particular body.

You're going to get to know your body in ways that you've never learned, ever knew it. And for instance, if you.

If your shoulder is stiff or you have a frozen shoulder, instead of doing a big full arm rotation, you can just move your shoulder. So everything is. I try to give adaptations to particular issues that students are having. And oftentimes students can find their own adaptations.

So, you know, I have this mantra saying, no pain, big gains. Just the opposite of when you go to the gym. And they say, no pain, no gain. Right. So I say we're just the opposite, no pain. So we're not into pushing.

If you feel a little pain, just ease up just a bit. We don't want you to feel pain. And all of this is adaptable.

That's exactly how I explain my movement to my patients. I say, if you're having a pain, take it down a notch. Try to make it smaller, less intense. If it continues, don't do it. Send me an email.

We'll figure something else out. There are always other options. And I always give the caveat that I say not because I think you're going to cause damage, but because we.

Just don't want you to keep irritating.

Tissues that might be irritated. Right. Yeah.

So many of us will seek out Chinese medicine when we feel like we're at the end of our rope.

You know, when we're like, we've hit a wall and we've been through all these surgeries, or we've just not been able to fix, you know, whatever that that body project is. What would your response be, Kirsten or Gail, to that idea is like, you know, hey, you'll. You can treat us at any phase.

But what do you think about the idea of a last resort? And what could we tell our listeners about that mindset?

Yeah, I can definitely speak to that because it is. Well, I would say over the years that I've been practicing, I have seen that change to some degree.

I think many years ago was primarily like, okay, I have this pain. I've tried everything else. Okay, fine, I'll try acupuncture, like, you know, treatment of last resort.

And honestly, often we'll do well, with it, you know, it's like, they will respond.

But more and more over the years, I've gotten patients who come in who are either not, you know, they're early in their process with whatever disease or injury, and they're like, hey, I want to try acupuncture or integrate that. I mean, even more beautiful is to integrate that into. So I call it, like, let's do a wraparound process here.

They're getting pt, they're going to get acupuncture, they're doing some massage and giving the body all the opportunity it can to get better. Occasionally, I have people come in, and I love this as a new patient, they're like, I'm fine. I just want to stay well. I want to be finer.

And that is where Chinese medicine really shines. Because, yes, we can fix things that aren't working well.

I mean, you know, the pains or the illnesses, but we have a whole understanding of how to help the. This person be more vibrant. Right. And that is something, you know, there's not a big understanding on the Western side.

It's just not part of the framework. You know, some with nutrition, exercise, things like that. But this is literally like, we're gonna. We're going to refill your reservoir.

We're going to help you actually have more resiliency on a chi level. And so I love it when people come in and just say, yeah, I want to be. I'm here for wellness and prevention. I'm like, okay, so we have made progress.

Yeah.

Some people heard that this is, you know, a great way. And more often people come, you know, it's how humans are. We, you know, we have a problem, we're going to seek out help.

But then they both experience and we educate them at energy matters. Like, this is great. Your knee pain is gone. Where can we go from here? You can, you know, we could say, that's it.

Come back, you know, next time you're in pain. Or we could look at how to support you in staying healthy and feeling even better.

Yeah, I remember early on when physical therapy was really trying to focus as well on preventative medicine.

And they talked about how patients went into a clinic and said, I'm not having any pain, but I just want to, you know, stay strong, maintain, make sure that I don't have any, you know, predispositions to injury, things like that. And they were met with, we don't know what to do with you. And that was a few years ago. Luckily, things have changed and progressed since then.

But, yeah, prevention is not something we tend to focus on in our education because there aren't great billing codes for it and for all of the reasons. Right. But I think that's probably pretty cultural. Right? That's like the United States, maybe Canada as well.

Other cultures do tend to focus a bit more on prevention. Is that accurate?

It's been my experience for sure. We're, we're kind of like in this country, it feels like, you know, run it till it breaks.

And then I have this one patient, I've been treating he and his wife literally for over 30 years. And early on she got on the prevention and wellness.

So she would come in like once, once a month or, you know, once every few weeks, every six weeks or whatever for tune ups more often if something was wrong. Her husband is prone to sinus infections and I kid you not, for three decades now, I see him only when he's sick and you know, now it's a joke.

He's like, I know I should have been coming in for prevention, but I didn't because I don't want to say it anymore because I've been telling him, but human nature is human nature. So some of us change. And, you know, he at least knows he could do something, but he hasn't quite gotten there yet. He still just shows up.

Yeah, sinuses are out of whack.

He waits till that library book is overdue.

You got it?

Oh, yeah, I know that story.

Hey, I'm curious a little bit about how, how acupuncture and, and also Chinese medicine broadly views chronic pain versus acute pain or, you know, something that's coming up. Like, do you talk to patients about what you think is going on, why this pain has followed them for so long? How do you unpack that?

So the way I talk about that and that, that could be chronic pain. It could be any chronic ailment.

I mean, many people, you know, deal with things other than pain, but if you just take it with, you know, with, with ongoing symptoms that just don't resolve or perhaps we can take the edge off, right. And we can help, help people feel a little better.

But so the way I think about it is in Chinese medicine, there's this idea of prenatal and postnatal qi and it's, I call it like all of us come in kind of. We got handed a deck of cards. Not a deck of cards, a hand of cards. We got handed, you know, we got dealt a hand of cards.

That's the right terminology.

You got dealt gambler. Hawk Hurston.

Yes. So Here I have my, you know, my hand of cards, and mine has.

A lot of whatever's over here.

But I, you know, I'm missing some other things that could make me stronger, and so I'm going to be prone. Like, for me, it was my immune system. That's actually what got me into Chinese medicine as a young adult. I was sick all the time. All the time.

Anything that came around, I got sick. Other people didn't. And so there's, like, a constitutional tendency there. So same with chronic pain.

It could be literally, there's just some way we were put together that allows this body to be more susceptible to that pattern and it's harder to resolve. So I call them, like, constitutional patterns versus, like, oh, I just, you know, tripped and sprained my ankle. It's a minor thing.

I'm going to resolve that. It's not having to do with sort of how my body, and I mean both physically and energetically is put together. So that's one piece.

The other piece is that some patterns, it's like their lifespan is years or decades. But I always hold out, not in a Pollyannish way, but, like, this can change this.

Even if it's been here for 20 years, 30 years, you've lived with this chronic pain. Because once things get labeled, you know, there is a way that they can settle into our system. Like, well, this is just the way it is.

And it might be, but we always hold out. Like, we're going to do our best to help mitigate that pattern, and it's going to take time if it's been locked in for decades or.

Or, you know, for a long time. And maybe we can unwind it all the way till where it really recedes.

Or maybe we're just going to be able to unwind it 30%, and then we're holding it at bay at that place with the treatments. I don't know if that kind of makes sense, but that's how I view it on very energetic level.

Yeah, that's really great.

And that's, you know, something that we really strive to hopefully communicate with this podcast is that no longer, no matter how long your pain has gone on, it can change. Neuroplasticity is happening all the time with every movement that you're learning from Gail, with every needle that goes in from Kirsten.

And So, you know, 30 years, 20 years, however many years, there is a possibility for change. And I think that's one of the hardest things for me to hear is that patients have heard from other practitioners. Well, this has gone on for so long.

So the likelihood of this getting better, slim to none other thing.

And I. I think the hopefulness that Chinese medicine brings to the table is so important for the mental aspect that Megan and I have been talking about for so many episodes now. And just to know that there's. You can meet someone wherever they are and that there is. There's a whole protocol for them. I mean, I think that that's.

That's what's incredible.

When I started Gail's clothes class and she had us do these arm rotations, I couldn't complete four of them, never mind 10, and then go back in the other direction 10 times. And within a few classes, we were doing it together. And I don't think that's just because I was mechanically moving my arm.

It's because I was thinking about the Qi. I was in the environment where we were focused on that and allowing it to happen. And so I felt optimistic, I felt safe, I felt seen.

So there's something also kind of spiritual and emotional happening as well in this practice that you may not always get from a Western medicine doctor. I think you'd get it from Dr. Megan. No question about that. But we're always saying, you know, sometimes bedside manner isn't always there.

And, Dr. Megan, was there a study you referenced last season, about a big percentage of our outcomes when we approach a certain healing practice, whether that's surgery or anything else, a big percentage of the outcome is dependent on whether we believe, as the patient, that it is the right thing for us or that it could be effective. Can you remind us about that?

Yes. Yeah. So two things there that I think are really important. Number one is if you don't think you can get better, it's really hard to get better.

And same thing with going into any different type of practice is, oh, well, I'm going to do acupuncture, but I don't think it's going to work for me. You might as well not go to acupuncture. Right. Same with physical therapy. I don't have the percentages off the top of my head for how. What percentage?

That.

Oh, no, I do, actually.

So 15% of whether or not you get better are like beliefs and expectations, and 40% is the therapeutic alliance, or, sorry, 35% is therapeutic alliance.

So how much I trust you as a practitioner and the relationship that we build together, and I think Western medicine has come to this party a little bit later than Chinese medicine, where, correct me if I'm wrong, you all have known this for Some time that. That the relationship between patient and practitioner is part of the healing process.

100%, Yes. That's what we describe in Energy Matters as we practice relational medicine, and that we understand that, you know, the healing it's in.

It's between us as well as what's happening on the table with the needles. And I wasn't aware of those percentages, but that rings very true to me that it is a significant portion of the treatment.

And I think that's the other piece about Chinese medicine, that it's about being seen, right? We all want to be seen, especially when we're hurting and in pain or ill. We want to be seen for who we are, not as just like a number along the way.

And in Chinese medicine, the way we do, our diagnosis is very individual. So the example I can give is, like, maybe I have five patients who come in for sciatic pain.

So I'm going to find out all about their pain, but I'm going to ask them all these questions that they often feel like are. That's unrelated. Like, why are you asking me this when, you know, I got pain over a year and you're asking about my sleep or my digestion or whatnot?

Well, that's because in order to treat each patient, I need to understand how their whole body is functioning, where it's strong and where it's out of balance.

And so once patients understand that and they're like, well, and I can say, okay, you have sciatica and you also have, you know, these types of headaches. Well, these are all part of the same pattern of imbalance. Not from a Western point of view.

You know, of course, these are different areas of the body, but they feel so like, oh, yeah, that's what my experience. I'm all one person in here, in this body. And. And we don't differentiate between spirit or emotions. I mean, depression or anxiety all come into the.

Into play. They're not separate from whatever else is going on and the physical level.

So I think that's part of that relationship, is that patients feel very seen truly for who they are and that we're moving through that process together. And then certainly Gail can speak to the community that's created in qigong, which I think is incredibly important.

My next question is, we talk about it in my practice as biopsychosocial. So we ask about stress level and family and living situation and digestion and things like that.

But I think the hardest piece for practitioners that I know and speak to is the social component of it, which I'm sure Gail fosters in the group classes and you see a lot of changes based on that. It.

It's amazing. And Holly could speak to that. I mean, she comes in and was. Holly's very outgoing, so she talks to people.

I mean, even like, oh, shy, even before class. You should see, I mean, 10 minutes, people arrive early and there's all kinds of chatter going on.

And then afterwards, and people are exchanging addresses.

And so having the group, we as qigong teachers, we actually consciously build that community because we know, we understand that the social interaction is really key to regulating your energy and your mood. And so much of pain, chronic pain could be caused from anxiety and anxiety and weakening immune system. So all. That's all part of it.

So people think qigong is just, if you have an ache for pain, you take this qigong class. But it improves our balance, of course, and our mobility.

A lot of people are attracted to qigong because they're saying, my balance is out of, out of whack and I'm losing, I'm falling. So for sure, that's one thing that people see right away, that, that their balance has improved.

And then energy and regulating your energy and your mood. People walk in the. They're stressed out. They say, but I'm going to go to qigong.

And then after an hour, an hour, 15 hour and a half, they walk out and they just feel so much more relaxed and calm. Their mood improves. And then with that, your immune system is strengthened.

You're getting stronger and much more centered in your body, mind and spirit. So we can see all those benefits.

And then of course, at the end of class, at the last class we talk about, or actually throughout the class, people are sharing what are the benefits that they're receiving. So they learn from each other. They go, oh, same thing happened to me. Or I'm feeling the same way. So it really builds on each other.

And then people come back. You don't just take one class, you repeat it two and three times as we talk about it. Be in a lifetime practice.

So really increasing that kind of preventative medicine type of approach.

Yeah.

In fact, I want to say I saw recently and Gail, I promised you I would find this article and I still will. I'll put it in our show notes. But Harvard recently came out with a study that pushed qigong past walking as the number one longevity practice.

And it doesn't surprise me, in fact, because when you practice qigong as just a layperson, Gail and Kristen are experts at it. And that takes a lifetime, really to pursue that level of expertise, which is a great pursuit. Go for it. I mean, man, you'll thank yourself.

But I think the amazing thing that I've noticed in practice is that I'm using both sides of my brain. Both hemispheres of my brain are active, that I am doing physical things that the brain has to be involved with.

Now, I know that sounds kind of silly because of course your brain's gotta be involved, even just to open your eyes, but I'm talking about the kind of concentration and cross hemisphere requirements. I'm acting like I know what I'm talking about. I ain't the scientist here. Megan, you keep me honest.

But I, I, you know, every time that we learn a new move, I think, man, that's clever.

Because not only does it absolutely speak to what, you know, what Kirsten was talking about, the meridians and reaching those specific points, but it's doing something to your brain to keep that system sharp. And I'm in love. Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

It's a beautiful thing. I'd have to say, too, that it's a little bit like a support group. Okay. So living with chronic pain can be. We've talked about this in early episodes.

Megan, Remember when we were saying that it's kind of invisible sometimes, right. It's like people don't always see that pain. They look you up and down, they think you're good to go. And so it can get a little bit lonely.

And when you rock up to qigong class, you're surrounded by people of all ages and abilities. And I mean, all ages. Like, we've got, you know, people like, there's 20s.

We had 20 in their 20s, all the way up to their 80s and everything in between. Talk about being in the right place with the right people. You don't have to sit there and spill your guts, but you're all there for the same reason.

And that's a beautiful thing.

Yeah, the power of community. We can't underestimate it at all, because it's true what Holly said. You come in first. I mean, we're attracted to qigong.

We're all there for qigong to learn this form. But people are incredibly open about. Of course, we try to foster that. So it's not the way that we teach.

That's the other thing is that we consciously build communities.

So I'm not a teacher where I'm the holder of all knowledge and I'm talking down to the students, and you just have to be the receptacle and take it all in. But we're learning together. Of course, I hold certain knowledge, but we're learning together in a very conscious way.

I try to draw up the students to share their own experiences. There's humor in the classroom. We truly have this sense of community.

We're going to go out, Holly, to lunch after the class, so that's really important.

And.

And then, of course, people get together and talk about. Like you said, it's kind of like a support group.

And maybe somebody's had a knee replacement or somebody today in our class said, I'm going to be having a hip replacement. There are several people that have had this procedure, so it's something that they can share. They talk about, they get support. And it's so true.

That's another powerful thing about our classes.

Yeah.

It made me think, Gail, when you were saying that you're not sort of the preacher on the pulpit up there directing the class, and we talk about that a lot in chronic pain, about having the patient have the most amount of autonomy that they can have. And.

And I think when you talked about, you know, people choosing how they're going to move and making decisions about how they're going to adapt, maybe. I don't know, Holly, if you could talk about your experience with that, and Gail can talk about how you help people navigate through that. Absolutely.

I think that the most important part about qigong is that you get to focus on yourself in a way that we don't give ourselves permission to do for most of our lives. Right. And it's. And it's not only about you getting better, but it's about you using your own power inside your body. Right.

Using your own energy, your own chi. And that is really confidence building to know that even if you are struggling with an injury, you don't have the range of motion or the life.

You know, you're. You've lost tennis, you've lost swimming. Like, well, let me make it more personal. I've lost tennis, I've lost swimming. I lost swing dancing.

Where do I fit in this world now? Where can I be? And you learn to trust your body again in qigong because there's such a mindfulness about it. You're slowing down in a way.

You're kind of loving your body again. You can't help but do that. And I think we do spend a lot of time being kind of mean to ourselves. At least I do.

And mad at my shoulder, mad at my arm for not working, mad at my surgeon, mad at that slow driver in front of me on the 13. So this is like. And you walk in and you find that it is really kind of a loving process for yourself.

And Gail, one thing that would be cool for you to also mention is, so if we've got a really specific thing we're working on, let's say sciatica.

Now, I know the practice has all of those postures and moves, there's all those steps involved, but could we drill down to sciatica with qigong and kind of like, yes, we can do the full set of movements, but could we also get really more specific and kind of focus on movements first? For the sciatica?

I just had a student a couple weeks ago said, I'm here at class, but my sciatica is acting up and I'm in a lot of pain. And so I didn't say specifically what she could do. I said, but just pay attention. Do.

Some of the movements are so gentle, as, you know, so do what you can do. If you need to use a chair, you can sit down and do the movements sitting down. Do what you can do and don't bend. She said, it hurts to bend.

So I said, don't bend too far. You can stand up more upright. So she went through the whole class, and at the end, she emailed me later and said, wow, my sciatica is gone.

I'm not in any pain. And it was so good.

Just going through the hour and 15 minutes of class with the caveat that she had to pay attention and not be able to, you know, sometimes, you know, bend how she would normally bend. So, yeah. And for specific, you know, if it's.

If it's chronic or something, I might refer her to Kirsten, you know, to maybe treat that particular project that she has.

That's so interesting. Oftentimes I have patients tune into sensations because I think so much of our kind of tendency. It sounds kind of counterintuitive.

We think, well, I'll just distract myself. I'll think of something else. I'll busy myself in some other way.

And then sometimes just the act of tuning in, that power that that pain has over us starts to work its way down. Gosh. I'm struck so often during this conversation about how we're kind of saying the same things.

We're just sort of using different terminology to get to the same conclusion.

I wonder if either of you have thoughts about how we, as Western medicine practitioners and Eastern medicine practitioners can better communicate to serve our patients.

Something you said. Megan was one of my students, had a testimony about some pain that she was experiencing, and she Wrote it up and could I. I'd like to just read it.

It's a testimony from her. She was saying, I had a wonderful experience during the meditation today. Sitting with my eyes closed. My whole spine felt sore and burning.

I'm dealing with back pain and pinched nerves. Then you said that we might feel heat in our back. So I thought, this isn't pain. It's heat.

Then I thought about my spine and actually spoke to it silently. Dear spine, thank you for holding me up for 70 years. You must be very tired. You deserve a rest. How can I help you rest?

As I thought this, the pain weakened and weakened, beginning at the base of my spine, moving upward until I felt comfortable for the first time in a while. And then she says, no, I don't ever talk to myself this way. It was a very unusual and emotional experience. Thank you. Wow.

I feel emotional about that.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for sharing that.

That's beautiful. That's beautiful. And it's perfect segue into something I wanted to share because it's a very concrete example. And. And.

And then I'll speak also to the issue about how we can better collaborate across professions.

But so in the many, many years that I've been in practice, I have, of course, you know, I bear witness to a lot of pain and suffering, because that's what people are coming in with.

And a few months ago, this language came to me, that I had never talked about it exactly this way, which was that I looked at one of my patients and I said, you know, I think what I'm doing here is equivalent to couples counseling, you know, in a marriage. But your primary relationship. I mean, your primary relationship is this one, right? We can't. We. Until the end, we can't exit this.

You know, me and my body are in this together. And then. And just how we often. How you were saying that we can be so frustrated.

And I hear people will come in and literally say to me, I feel so betrayed by my body. I'm so angry.

I mean, they're just.

Just, you know, it's deep emotions, and I. I totally get it, but I was just. It's just a. A framework that I've been working with.

With people is like, okay, if you were in couples counseling with a partner or a spouse or, you know, the counselor would suggest you find different ways to communicate.

That's a great reshrame.

I love that.

Right.

And so I really been sharing that a lot, and people are like, wow, you're right. I really need to think about and be Aware of just my thoughts and my words towards my body.

And so this, you know, that example you just gave Gail was somebody who was like having this totally kind relationship with their body and being thankful and then something changed. So. So that, that is just really, really beautiful. Appreciate that.

But yeah, this idea that, you know, this is my couples counseling for me and my body, that. That is a really, really great way to think about this.

I. Kirsten.

Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, just the way that I think we can all support each other across different professions, Eastern, Western, wherever we sit is to me. So one of my dear friends is.

She's never tired, but she was a psychiatrist and I was asking her about sort of a alternative type of therapy and what she thought about it. She said, well, I will be honest. You know, when I first started, I was like, yeah, no, you know, because it's not, it's not in my wheelhouse. Right.

This is how we do it. She said, but, you know, over the years, and she said, you probably feel this way too. I said, exactly. It's like, whatever works.

We just want you to feel better.

And I'm not going to stand on my laurels and say, no, you shouldn't do this or you shouldn't get people, you know, like, so that we could all just support patients in finding their way and, you know, supporting them and making the decisions that they feel are best serving them versus this us them thing, which happens not just Eastern, Western, it can happen within, I don't know. You know, in the Western field you may have this between different modalities, but you know, there people, humans are humans.

And some practitioners can feel competitive or like, I, you know, I have the answers and you don't. And so I think overall that if we can just have a lot more compassion and open mindedness and heartedness to like being.

My other thing I say to my patients all the time is like, you know, being in a body is not for the faint of heart. This is a challenge on so many levels. And so having compassion and openness for like, however we navigate this, you know, that's what we want.

You know, that's what I want to support my patients in doing.

We all need you. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

Yeah.

Gail, do you have thoughts about how, how to communicate differently or if, if there are ways?

Yeah. One thing I think sometimes we, because of Western medicine, we. There's this idea of a quick fix. We want that prescription to get rid of the pain.

Right. And they can numb it. Right. I mean, with. When I had a Knee project. Right. Well, we can give you a cortisone shot.

Right.

And sometimes people, because they have that mentality, they go into qigong and say, okay, I heard so much about qigong, I want to get rid of my. And they do. They come in with hip pain, whatever. It's, you know.

And I try to stress in the beginning this is a lifelong practice, you know, So I want to impart this idea that we want you to continue the classes. You're going to take one class, it's done, then you take the next class and then repeat it.

And people get so much more the second time around because that's a lot to learn. I mean, I have one person who's been taking it for four to five years, and he. I mean, he was in Vietnam. He suffers from horrendous nightmares. He was.

He had balance issues. His. He works in construction. His back was killing him. And he's after this long being. And he comes once a week.

We stress people should go home and practice, you know, even if it's just for five or ten minutes a day. But he comes once a week to class. He's just, he's there. And number one, his back pain went away. He has stopped. His anxiety has gone down.

He's down several notches. His. He doesn't have nightmares and he was having like, horrible earaches and migraines that has subsided.

I mean, it's just amazing if you stick with it also. So it's not a quick fix, but some, you know, some benefit right away. One thing, they people, their balance.

That's something that happens pretty quickly. That, that your imbalance will improve with a little bit of practice. So we embed.

There's several balance things that we do in the class so the balance will improve. People say, oh, I can now put on my underpants while I'm standing up. I don't have to sit down in a chair and put it on. But it is.

We try to impart the idea that this is a lifelong practice.

You know, it occurs to me too, that the idea of a quick fix in Western medicine is really smoke and mirrors anyway, right? I mean, that cortisone shot is masking. You know, I'm so thrilled that we have it. I'm glad. If you can get it, go for it.

I'm not here to judge, but we're covering up problems with a band aid. We're, you know, kind of patching you up and sending you back out on the football field of life, so to speak.

And, you know, I'VE had eight surgeries, including two shoulder replacements. There is no such thing as a quick fit fix when, when you find yourself in a chronic situation in particular.

Right.

And so that's where it's really time to turn yourself over to the possibilities of this integration.

And I just find it so fascinating that with all of the advancements that we're seeing in Western medicine, we are still drawn to and finding great impact from a practice that is thousands of years old.

And I think that's a beautiful thing too, in terms of really creating this hand, these two hands coming together, the past, the future, meeting us where we are today.

I have to say that it's made me a lot calmer and a better person because I think there's a mind, there's certainly a mind connection to what's happening there. And Megan and I have talked a lot about how the mind gets so involved and you know, even your emotions can change with chronic pain.

Your anxiety can shoot up and your, your joy and happiness get sapped. And I challenge you to fix that with a cortisone shot.

You know, so I don't think that cortisone, yes, I tease though, because if that cortisone shot takes away your pain, you might very well find more joy in your life.

So again, we're not here to say do this or do that or don't do that, but really just to amplify and spotlight something very powerful that can come into your life and make just a really big difference.

I have to. I was one of those people that I wanted that quick fix.

I actually started when I retired from my job at Oakland Unified School District and eased into retirement. That's when I found qigong and curse and flyered our my neighborhood. And I said, okay, I think I'm ready to take a class and have this commitment.

So I went and was immediate. I mean, I just was drawn to qigong because I hadn't really done any kind of meditative pra.

I did a little yoga, but I hadn't done a meditative practice like qigong. And so I was super motivated and I'm very goal oriented. So I took, I took the first class and I said, okay, what's next?

Do you have an intermediate class? I'm going to move up. And then I got sick. Then I got sick and I thought, what's going on here? It's not working. I got sick.

And so I have learned to see it as a long term, long term practice. And I feel like now, the way I look at it, is I have more tools in my toolbox, and I'm very. I'm learning to be patient with myself.

So if some kind of project comes up on my shoulder, I'm just. I'm so much calmer. Okay. I notice it. And then I've got lots of tools that I can draw upon, whether it's pt, acupuncture, my qigong, all the.

The way that I eat, what am I eating, my diet, all of that. I feel like I have tools now, and it's just changed my whole outlook.

That's really wonderful. Thank you. Yeah, I would agree. There are no quick fixes in chronic pain. Neuroplasticity takes time. Changing your nervous system takes time.

And ideally, we're all doing some form of movement as a preventative care, as a longevity practice. And, yeah, I'm so grateful to both of you for all of your valuable insights.

I learned two new words I will be stealing from you both about the projects rather than areas of pain. I like what you say there, Gail. It's a knee project. And I also love the couples counseling.

I'm really, truly just trying to help you connect your mind and your body, and maybe you both could be a little nicer to each other. Right? I'm so grateful, and really, it sounds like we have so much more in common than we have not. And I learned a lot today.

And thank you both so much for being here.

Yeah, we're so grateful to you and for the work that you're doing. Thank you. Keep it up. We need you, and we need it to spread.

And it's so cool that we have Meg, a physical therapist, talking to an acupuncturist and a qigong practitioner today. We need more of this, too, don't we? Come coming together.

Absolutely. Yes.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

We invite you to sign up for our qigong classes. I teach a class on Zoom, so no matter where you live in the world, you can join in. We have to look at the time zone, but...

Yeah, you've got to do it. Exactly.

Well, we'll make sure that on our webpage for unpacking pain podcast.com that you'll see how to get a hold of energy matters and to really pursue this. And as always, you can send email questions to Dr. Megan and myself after the fact, and we can also pass that question along to Kirsten and Gail.

But, yeah, thank you for what you're bringing to the world. Thank you for what you brought to us today. It's inspiring, educating, and very motivating. Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. We appreciate your tuning in and being part of the Unpacking Pain experience.

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