I am a child of immigrants from Taiwan, raised with a sense of disconnection from land, culture, and family. Looking back, the through-line of my life has been a deep search for belonging. In my early years, that longing took the form of trying—impossibly—to erase my ancestral identity in order to be accepted into mainstream culture.

My conscious healing journey began in my early twenties, at a time when I was living with a chronic illness and taking daily antibiotics. That crisis opened my curiosity about the roots of illness and led me to study holistic nutrition and food as medicine. I discovered both healing and joy through cooking and spent years teaching and sharing food as a form of medicine, connection, care, and medium of alchemy.

As my journey continued, healing revealed itself in layers, and my commitment to it deepened with each layer. I began exploring therapy and other modalities to better understand my inner landscape and my place in life’s great tapestry. I felt a growing yearning to reclaim the cultural identity I once rejected. This drew me toward meditation groups, healing circles, podcasts, and beginning Mandarin classes.

After meeting Thuy initially as my acupuncturist, she invited me to join the Navajo Healing Project (NHP), where I supported biannual free clinics in Dinétah through food and cooking. I went on to study Traditional Chinese Medicine under Thuy’s tutelage and became part of NHP’s first cohort of interns. At the same time, I was in close community with Thuy and Daniel around intentional healing. My TCM studies revealed a desire to understand the cosmology behind the medicine, which, along with significant life changes, eventually led me to move to Taiwan, where I now live.

Living here has brought me back to the languages and the spiritual, religious, and cultural traditions of my people. I have re-knitted ties with my ancestors and extended family on both sides of the Pacific.

My ongoing studies of Chinese and Daoist cosmology—especially through the I Ching and Chen-style tai chi—sit at the heart of both my healing and my teaching. These practices have helped me make sense of my life in retrospect and to recognize how this wisdom has been with me all along, even when I was turned away from it. I arrive at Folks Healing grateful for the opportunity to share this knowledge in accessible ways, to help people recognize that this wisdom has been with them too, and to be part of a growing community devoted to healing and reconnection.