What is qi? Ki? And what do these concepts have to do with medicine, healing, and with living the best life possible? Can understanding qi, ki, help us to better flourish in relationships–and even as a society?

Today we are going to take a trip into the heart of Minnesota Integrative Health Studio: the Community Acupuncture room. I asked our excellent team of community acupuncturists to share their love for community acupuncture, what they want people to understand about this unique model, and what makes it a good fit for so many people–including hesitant newcomers. Then I dove into a bit of history to weave our team’s insights into the fascinating legacy of how community acupuncture came to be.

Let’s go!

Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine can help LGBTQIA+ folks in a multitude of ways, here are a few important ones: 

- gender-affirming care/ reproductive health (pre and post surgical care, scar healing)

- hormone balancing 

- mental/ emotional health (including PTSD)

- personalized treatments

In April I did my first 1:1 Pilates session with Larissa Vados, PhD, LAc, and certified STOTT PILATES® instructor, here at Minnesota Integrative Health Studio. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I just knew I was supposed to wear comfortable clothes, that we might work on that big machine (which, spoiler alert: I now know is called a “reformer”), and that Larissa is pretty amazing. I learned that I love Pilates! It was fun, fascinating, and felt great. Here’s what else I learned.

Minnesota Integrative Health Studio owner, Said Isayed, is proudly offering limited quantities of Palestinian Extra Virgin Olive Oil straight from his family's olive tree groves in Al-Khalil (Hebron), Palestine. The olives are hand-picked from trees that have been in his family for generations, with some of the olive trees as old as 600 years!

This week, Minnesota Integrative Health Studio celebrates its one year anniversary. Since Said and Larissa officially announced that MIHS was open for business on March 7, 2023, the earth has completed full rotation around the sun.

Breathing is unique among the functions of the human system in that it is both an unconscious process, and a conscious process. We breathe all the time, including in our sleep, without any awareness required. And our breath can be manipulated to achieve certain desired outcomes. In fact, bringing conscious attention to our breath is a way to shift our unconscious breathing patterns to be more supportive, restorative, and even transformative. Breath is a doorway to healing, and can be practiced intentionally.

This is breathwork.

In this jacked-up, adrenaline-fueled, time-is-money, obscenely unequal society, most of us are living lives that make rest and relaxation complicated at best. Elusive. Challenging. Sometimes seemingly impossible. Fraught, heavy, uncomfortable, raw, frustrating, enraging.

Can you relate?

As we sat on the fire escape and watched the early evening sun set over this little corner of northeast Minneapolis, Said Issued shared a bit about Traditional Chinese Medicine, his family’s deep history with herbalism, Minnesota Integrative Health Studio itself, community, and Palestine.

Reiki and Integrative Health & Wellbeing Coaching are two paths to the same destination: the still, quiet inner wisdom that resides within all of us. Combined, their synergy invites opportunities for depth, reflection, and insight.