Hi, I’m Brianna,

I grew up in the forests of Central & Northern Vancouver Island in the Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw (Port Hardy) and K'ómoks (Comox Valley) territories. My ancestral roots are predominately Irish/Scottish, German/English and Native American from the Nlaka'pamux Nation (Lower Nicola Band) near Merrit BC. Although I didn’t grow up with knowledge or cultural understanding of my Celtic and Native roots, I always felt a strong connection to earth-based traditions, spirituality and seasonal rhythms.

My longing to understand the body and the human condition started very young. Growing up around addiction and dis-regulation combined with my own health challenges inspired a lot of curiosity and desire for deeper connection and healing. As a child I suffered from reoccurring herpes outbreaks and began having frequent urinary tract infections as an early teen. Both were extremely painful and debilitating. At around age 14 two significant events happened. My grandmother died of lung cancer, and I had an operation called a Cystoscopy, which involves sticking a catheter up your urethra with a camera to diagnose the cause of UTI’s. It was an extremely invasive and traumatic procedure. I was angry, hurt and traumatized and I wanted to know there were alternative options to surgery and radiation. I was very close to my grandmother and before she died she was exploring eastern therapies to cure her cancer. This was the first time I had any exposure to an alternative medicine approach that wasn’t drugs or surgery. When she died I became obsessed with researching natural cures for cancer which lead me to preventative medicine and Buddhist philosophy. Something deeper shifted in me when she died, you could say a kind of spiritual awakening happened in me. I was not only seeking to understand the physical body, but the psycho-emotional/spiritual body, and I knew they weren’t separate. This lead me down a rabbit hole of spiritual seeking through yoga, meditation, energy and body work training, and experimentation with different diets and plant medicine.

At 18, with no former knowledge of my native roots, I became very drawn to Indigenous culture and earth-based practices. I spent the next few years participating in different cultural gatherings and ceremonies like sweatlodge, peyote and plant medicine ceremonies. Plants and food were my entry point into studying Herbal Medicine which is what lead me to Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine. On my travels in South America I contracted Giardia and my gut was never the same afterwards. When I came home I did stool and blood tests which all came back negative but I could no longer eat certain foods without having wildly uncomfortable reactions. This began a long journey of chronic gut issues that later lead to what Western Medicine calls Interstitial Cystitis or inflammation of the bladder. My gut and bladder inflammation became so painful that I stopped sleeping and after many conversations with doctors and lab technicians I finally saw an Acupuncturist. I was going to community acupuncture during the pandemic which significantly helped my anxiety and stress levels, and then I went to private Acupuncture for my gut and bladder issues. At this point my understanding of Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture was quite limited. I had only received it a handful of times and had a base knowledge through my study of Chinese herbs. What really impacted me about my private session was learning how depleted, overworked and improperly nourished my body was, and how my lifestyle choices were contributing to my chronic condition that had progressed over time. What western medicine couldn’t tell me was my own unique pattern that was presenting through my symptoms and what treatment approach would be most effective based on my constitution. Having understanding of how my gut and bladder inflammation was connected to the foods I was eating and my overactive exercise routine that was depleting my whole system gave me hope that there were things I could do to resolve my chronic pain. It was through this discovery that catalyzed my studies to become a Registered Acupuncturist. Chinese medicine was able to tie all the threads of my former knowledge and understanding together with this ancient, poetic and scientific explanation of the nature of illness that encompasses the physical, emotional and psychological aspects of the human experience.

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