Interview: Momoko Uno ~ Magic In The Time Of Covid

Momoko tells a poignant story this week of needing to be at the bedside of her Mother during Covid and how, at the very last instant, she was able to get where she just had to be! The story is simple, profound and should remind us all that everything conspires to get us where we are needed, we just need to NEVER GIVE UP!

Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the podcast this week I'm interviewing Momoko Uno who in this interview does confess that she has been studying or learning in love with education since the age of three among many other things she is a doctor of integrative medicine a certified functional medicine practitioner an acupuncturist and a board-certified Chinese herbalist she received her first medical degree from Shanghai University of Chinese Medicine and then also received a master's of acupuncture from Samra University as well as a master's in psychology from the University of Santa Monica we have such a fun conversation this week and to be honest I was kind of fangirling all over her I was finally able to answer a lot of questions that I have around health and acupuncture and the body and just how mysterious oriental medicine is I thought that we had a rip-roaring good time talking to each other and I suspect you'll be able to tell that just by listening to this podcast. Momoko's miracle has to do with her mother and something that happened during COVID and while I was listening to her story I kind of understood that what did happen was in fact very miraculous considering the state of the world at that time but I'll let Momoko tell it in her own words a little bit later on in this episode thanks to all of you who listen but especially thanks to Momoko for agreeing to be on the podcast so now without further ado here's the very next episode of Bite-sized Blessings okay so this doesn't happen all the time but it's magical when it happens and so but if somebody comes to see me and I'll often say that's gonna take some time you know I'll take some sessions I don't know how long but I'll take some sessions and they come back the next time they're it's gone I'm like oh well I didn't realize that I'm not that good I don't know what happened but that occasionally that happens and it's an that's incredible when that happens for them and well then for me too I guess but I you know placebo there's a lot of things that play into that right I don't but but anyway but it's it's amazing I think the first thing that I would say is I'm a mother I have six cats two dogs two guinea pigs and a hamster that's the first thing that I would say and then if they wanted to know more I would then go into my work I would say that I'm a doctor of integrative medicine I'm also a board certified Chinese herbalist and a licensed acupuncturist certified functional medicine practitioner and I have a master's in psychology with an emphasis in consciousness health and healing that's yeah well and where are you located I'm so curious my office is in New York City but I live in West Chester New York and I'm from Australia okay okay yeah cuz I absolutely need to see someone who does everything that you do but I'm based in Santa Fe New Mexico and so a little far it's a little far yes yes yes yes but holy cannoli talk about you know first of all for those of my listeners who don't know just getting a functional medicine degree is totally crazy pants but then on top of that you have integrative medicine you have oriental medicine oh my goodness so I mean how long were you in school for my entire life and I started when I was three years old and it continued it's still continuing now so it sounds like you're like me and you love to learn I do I really do I love to learn and I'm really fascinated by the human body the mind the emotions our spirits and I want to know more about how it works what makes us tick what makes us happy why we here yeah oh yeah absolutely I actually just finished reading this book by David Eisenberg do you know the one that I'm talking about oh why don't I have it right here hold on okay it's an old old book came out in 95 95 I think or 85 I don't know it's called encounters with Chi ah and he was uh have you heard of it I'm so sorry I feel like I should have no no he was he was like a Harvard in medical school and for the first time they were allowing China and the US to send physicians from China to the US from the US to China to study and so he was able to go over I think for three months six months and study with Chinese acupuncturist oriental medicine doctors and in the 90s you said I think it was I think it was 85 yeah I forgot the first people that went into China I think might have been in the 80s okay well there was somebody who witnessed open heart surgery yes while was that that was that in the book yes yes okay so I know the book because I've read that part sorry I forgot who it was written no but it is utterly astonishing I mean I just I started the book and finished it in one day because I could not put it down and I didn't even know there was such a thing as first of all I'm completely just besotted if you can use that word with Chi and the idea that it exists in the world but it totally makes sense and that you know that we probably should be paying more attention to it or we're not even that just maybe having a relationship with it in our own bodies so that we can have a conversation with it because the Chi I mean I don't know can you describe for my audience what Chi is well you know that's a million dollar question yeah I'm doing this for almost 30 years and I don't really have a great explanation for it the more I study I feel like the less that I know but anyway it is loosely translated as energy right but it's not just physical energy it also morphs into emotional energy mental energy your spirit and it's just the finer parts of all of those energies it's kind of like if you think of ice water and steam it's the steam yeah and it's it is it is one of those things first of all I read reviews of this book on Amazon and and it is it's an older book people were like some of this stuff is so outdated and I was like of course it is I mean the book is outdated but it is actually really interesting and Chi is seems to be or is this that it's almost like there are no words for it it's like if you try to pin it down and define it you're grasping at the air or at smoke trying to define it but you know in my little Star Wars loving heart is like oh it's the force and it's in everything it's you know is yes everything's Chi right you could even the air is Chi interesting enough we're mostly just air as well you know we of course we're physical matter but between the physical matter we're mostly just quite airy too yeah so yeah that's the energy that that can transmit between one person and another yeah you want to get a little bit more esoteric but you can you know even if you don't know much about it if you're around somebody that has not great energy you kind of feel it right you know what I mean you can you can totally feel that yeah yeah and and I think you know first of all I'm a huge huge proponent I've had acupuncture forever I I remember going to a physician when I was in college just for something else I need to get some blood work done and he said hey you know I'm I'm kind of experienced this is a long time ago because I'm really old so be aware of this so he said I just want to I've been kind of dabbling in acupuncture and I want to stimulate one of your four gates and I thought I don't even know what this man is saying to me but okay and he he put a needle in right here on my hand right there and I felt the energy move between wherever my fingers and I thought okay what just happened and that's was my first inkling that there's something pretty profound going on I think a lot of people in this book encounters with Chi you know some of the masters the most important thing I thought that they really tried to convey was you know when we are kind of trying to figure out what we need to work on on a human being or someone who comes to see us for help it's often it's not it's that it's too late we should be working on them before the symptoms arise yes and so I think that's actually fat it's almost like we should all be getting acupuncture anyway even before we get sick correct that is true that is traditionally how Chinese medicine was actually practiced you had a provider a doctor that you went to saw and they only got paid if you were healthy and then if you were sick your doctor was not paid until you were better and if somebody died in your care they would they would put I think the what they did is they put these lanterns outside your your shop basically to show that somebody had died under your care well wow that's not good advertising no it isn't and I think that's kind of unfair because you know if you have like a 99 year old patient or somebody and who dies I don't know how they really would have handled that but that was I don't know if that's the myth that I was told off that was reality but I could see that Chinese medicine was basically it's a preventative medicine it's not unfortunately Chinese medicine is not really practiced that way in in America we it's like any medicine you go see your acupuncturist or your doctor when you're not feeling well yeah absolutely the train has left the station well one of the things that was just remarkable and you and I talked about it a little earlier not only the open-heart surgery without anesthetic but the he got to witness a brain surgery without anesthetic and you know I mean even in the book okay it's 85 I don't know if they know now but they he said in the book we have no idea why the placement of certain needles in certain points of the body keep people from feeling pain during these pretty massive surgeries have we figured that out yet well some of its nervous system stuff right like it's just a nerve block that you have and then other others is completely meridian the energy of the pathways the energetic pathways that the chi takes and if you block an energetic pathway then you're not going to feel it in a distal portion like further away from the body so that's the theory behind that but you can explain anything that way really is that I like to still hold on to it that it's somewhat mysterious but I do want to say though in terms of so I actually met somebody who witnessed open-heart surgery one of my mentors actually I think was the acupuncturist who was doing the surgery on somebody's having an open-heart surgery and he said that it's not that the patient doesn't feel anything they actually do have sensation and you have to pick the right patients to that are able to stay calm so there is you can kind of feel it but it's not painful that's the best way that they described it I wasn't there I haven't seen it in person but I know people who have thank you for that and I I do also think it's it's really important what you brought up earlier that acupuncture oriental medicine also tends to the emotional being of of the person the mental being of the person the intellect because you know I because I've been doing it for so long I learn I love to learn and so I'm always my long-term relationships with acupuncturist I'm was asking them questions it's great and I'm like why are you doing this why are you doing this so you know my last one in Santa Fe said oh I'm gonna I'm gonna release some grief I see some in the the palm of your hand here where the thumb kind of meets the the hand and she said can I bleed you and I said I I don't know what that means and she said well I'm gonna poke you with a needle and about three places and it's just gonna sting you have to know I'm a beekeeper as well so I've been stung by bees so acupuncture is kind of negligible and she said also to let you know at some point maybe in the next 24 to 48 hours you might start crying unexpectedly and not even know what's happening but it's okay it's it's what was really being released from these points and and I was like okay whatever I don't believe you and then later that night after she bled me I just started sobbing and sobbing for no reason and so you know every once in a while I go see her I just find the whole process so fascinating and evoke evocative and so I'll say oh you know you can bleed me if you want today if you feel like it needs to happen I'm down because I just find that connection so it's just so fascinating to me so what's going on there so she needled an area which is part of your lung channel and in Chinese medicine we say that grief is housed in the lungs so if you have any emotion that's repressed it tends to go outside the torso and then into the limbs and get stored there just so that we can function you know so that our brain can stay as clear as possible it siphons off any traumatic energy or anything that's unwanted so that we can focus and get on with our day and it goes into the into the hands into the feet but basically into the extremities into the arms and legs and you know that's great and all because we do need to function and but the problem is if we do that too much it gets stored in our limbs so that makes sense it backs up in the limbs and and so it's nice to have that taken out for us it's like taking out the trash yeah and so you want to take that out occasionally and if you're going through a really stressful period you might need to take out the emotional trash a little bit more often than when you've gone through a kind of a reasonably you know stable period in your life but it's good to get done and you can usually tell especially when we get a little bit older when there is actually you can see those little blood vessels that are forming capillaries yeah you can see those around your thumbs especially or around your wrist they tend to form and then mostly on the legs like spider veins by veins and stuff like that those are usually seen as what we call lower vessels in Chinese medicine where those extra emotions they get stored because we haven't been able to release them yeah yeah thank you I'm you know you were saying before we started the interview I'm gonna stay on topic and we're not gonna go off in these tangents but I'm forcing you to and I thank you so much for doing that with me I just you know I am such a huge proponent of oriental medicine that I any chance I get because right it's a you know we have Western medicine but I think Western medicine oftentimes does not engage with or or even want to approach our emotional wellness our mental health wellness and all of these are different energies right that are swirling in the body and contributing to various things and so I really do deeply feel that oriental medicine is is so essential because it does it works on every kind of level that a human being needs to work on it doesn't mean that it's all you do is you go in and you lay down that's not what it means at all I mean yes there is that you go in and you lay down and you know they'll mock Sebastian you or whatever they'll cup you which is also a favorite thing of mine I think it's fascinating there I also get I had tween I done so massage and then cranial sacral and it's just such powerful work and I always felt better but in it you can't it doesn't happen in one visit it usually takes multiple visits because these are things that need to be worked on and maybe those those things need to be cajoled out of hiding you know hey you need healing in this space and it's gonna take some time so every single person is different yes that's right every single practitioner will have a slightly different approach which is good and and sometimes you'll find that certain providers you'll have a better connection with for whatever reason and it's that's usually because you have like similar issues or that that person has already had a lot of experience treating your condition which is nice when you find somebody like that and there's also certain practitioners who have just more awareness who have more experience of understanding how the mind and the emotions affect the body yes so and just before we move on to the next question I also think this idea of chi and that everything's made of chi kind of takes away and completely removes the idea that we're separate from our environment that we're kind of just all walking around in this world and everything is communicating with us and our chi is in relationship with everything around us did I say that that okay yes no you're absolutely right and it is really like the extension of the air around us right I think that we are really connected and it's more like you know like the roots of the trees that connect with you know together so we're much more connected on that level and we feel most of that through you know our environment we actually through feel through multiple different levels of our nervous system and I think that our environment has a tremendous impact on how we feel how we think I think it's often gets disregarded and we often think that we're these little islands that float around and don't really interact with each other but I don't think that's true I think we influence each other quite a lot I'm I am ever so curious when you were a kid did you think you'd be doing what you're doing now no I thought when I was 10 years old that I was going to be a hairdresser my favorite thing to do when I was three or four years old was to cut my sister's hair bald my favorite thing how old was your sister oh no two two and I think I was like four years old and I would I would run into the kitchen and I would steal the scissors and I'd cut off my sister's hair did you ever get in trouble for that all the time oh my gosh I've never heard anything so does she ever bring that up and say fortunately she was too young she doesn't remember oh gosh that's amazing yeah um well I'm curious did you grow up in a religious household and if so or if not how is that evolved over time for you so I actually went to well my family originally from Japan and they were Shinto the it's like the national religion of Japan it's kind of like it's more to do with naturalism and but my parents weren't religious my dad actually was an atheist and but then when I was four years four years old I went to a Christian school that I went through until high school so I had a lot of Christian education Anglican in particular and then my mother found Zen Buddhism when I was probably around well somewhere around then so she was had a very interesting path to find Buddhism there was also a period of studying crystals and yoga and all that kind of stuff before she landed in Buddhism and and then when I went to college then I was very interested in religion in general and just by myself and also Chinese medicine Chinese medicine is very much influenced by Buddhism and Daoism Confucianism and so that was all a part of my larger education yes I think I'm I think if I'm correct and correct me if I'm wrong Shintoism is very animistic is that true yes yeah yeah and in very much I mean there's a really deep belief in spirits that everything has a lot it is alive and has spirits absolutely I mean I don't know a whole lot about Shinto because even though my family was that was their family religion that they weren't really they didn't really talk about it that much it was really only when I was in middle school that my mother started talking about a religion and a lot and that was very much more from a Buddhist perspective but when I was older I went to a lot of shrines in Japan and read a little bit about it but a lot of it's so much to do with nature and just being more more at peace with nature and in the environment it's it's amazing it's I think quite similar to Daoism in that respect thank you for that and I was gonna ask when did your family emigrate they moved from Japan to Australia I think in the early 70s yeah just you know just before I was born I was born there yeah oh you were born in Australia yes okay got it and then was there a reason they moved to Australia you know this is one of those questions that I wanted to ask my parents before they passed away but I never really got a great answer to that might so all I know is that my grandfather was a politician and he passed away when I was I think in high school and he wanted his children to move out of Japan and go to an English-speaking country I think maybe to develop international relationships with different countries and I'm not sure why they chose Australia because my aunt moved to Canada but yeah so I don't know why they they landed in Australia I've always wanted to ask we can we can make up great theories of why my parents moved to Australia oh yeah yeah I mean yes absolutely that's actually really fascinating and and then when did you move to the States because you're in the States I think permanently now yes I've been in the States for more than 25 years now yes a long time more this is the longest I've lived anywhere and then I also was seeing on I'm just because I want to just satisfy my curiosity which is endless it says that you studied botanical medicine and what does that mean oh sorry that's just Chinese herbal medicine okay yeah oh and also just like just and also in general other botanicals as well so that's anything that's plant plant medicine okay yeah yeah so that's anything to do with you know much like broader in terms of anything that's plant-based and has a medicinal effect on the body okay yeah so I'm I'm guessing that well I don't want to assume so I'm ever so curious about and if you get sick of me if you get sick of hearing me say the word curious do you just blow a whistle it's okay how do you as a as a I don't know let's start with Doctor of Oriental Medicine how do you view the new kind of groundbreaking research and the world that's opening up around plant medicines as healers for PTSD and I'm speaking specifically of like you know ayahuasca yeah and theogens I guess I that's not a that's not an area that I am well-versed in at all but I have colleagues that not only dabble with it but are actually really in and practice that and they also do therapy assisted with different substances and I think it's great but I do think that we are still relatively new with it and I think that more as more people do it in very large volumes we'll have a lot more information as it as we move forward it's also not something that I have done really myself either I haven't really dabbled in it much and for example you know one thing that I've realized this is just to do with a CBD for example right I know that's not necessarily what you're talking about but that's something that I dabbled personally and with a lot and then I realized after trying it that there were actually significant issues for me and then also with my patients I actually used to recommend it quite a lot and now being a lot more cautious with using cannabis related substances so I think with more use we'll have a lot more information because this is all pretty new and also because there's so many different people that are trying it in these days I think that more of the likes more than minor issues that haven't been really well researched will will start coming forward and then we'll learn how to navigate through that better sorry that's not a very no no great answer but no I mean just I'm interested in all sorts of alternative healings because I am someone I've done a lot of them I mean certainly not all of them but a lot of them and I have come to understand that you know human beings are endlessly creating new ways of approaching the body you know and and working with it and healing it from you know somatic trauma to mental health to you know physical issues and I mean and as you and I have been saying like every single person has will have a different need they might go in with the same like say two people came to you with water retention you would of course feel their pulses and to ask tons of questions and have conversations with them and and at the end of the session with them you would probably recommend Chinese herbs but even though they have the same thing their herbs could be completely different because they are different people absolutely so Chinese medicine has differential diagnosis which so within any kind of syndrome or actual illness Western medicine like diagnosis it's going to be usually on average like five different categories that could fall under and if you don't treat it the right way you will you're not going to get results or you might only get temporary results so that's very important from a Chinese medical perspective to make sure that that your diagnosis is correct yeah and I think also something that I learned within the last few years I think looking at people's tongues is just the most fascinating thing ever but also taking people's pulses is fascinating and you can learn a lot from people's pulses I was seeing a woman in Santa Fe and she was feeling my pulse on my left arm I think and she said may I ask you a personal question I said sure yes absolutely and she said are you doing what you're supposed to be doing in this life like are you actually living the life that you're supposed to be and I started laughing and I said of course not of course I'm not I am just trying to make money to pay my rent and get by of course I'm not doing what I'm and I said you could tell that from my pulse and she said absolutely yes so that you have to be pretty skilled to be able to feel that but I'll tell you probably what she was feeling on the left side right left side first position is where your heart is so what she was feeling was the pulse the heart pulse should kind of kind of come out like this and it should be like a little bit of a fountain and if you and that's like somebody whose heart is full and is I believe me I don't feel this too too often anyway so anyway so in in maybe in your case it felt a little restricted it wasn't like fountaining out it was just going like a little like that and I I think in the work that I've done over this this last few years I I've really come to understand and this is for my listeners too that our hearts hold a lot of things that we don't want to talk about or that we don't want to acknowledge and things that we'd rather ignore a lot of truths that we'd rather ignore and I think sometimes it's just difficult to even begin to approach any of that but our heart I think will sooner or later let us know that it's tired of being ignored and it's it's such a powerful organ I mean there I mean so are the kidneys so is the liver but the heart I mean it's called the Emperor I think that's right it's considered top-notch it is it is more important than the brain in Chinese medicine pretty much yeah so you know the way that I like to think about it is are we doing what we want rather than what we should what we think we should be doing it's a difference between shouldn't want and the heart for us really wants us to be doing what we want to be rather than what people have told us that we should be doing and then the heart starts getting smaller and smaller when I should say the heart I'm not saying it atrophies I am saying that the function of the heart starts it just starts to feel like it gets tired and lethargic and doesn't want to pump as much because it's not really enthusiastic or engaged with what you're doing and I've kind of lately and I encourage everyone to do this I was telling someone that I have begun to think of my heart as this little alien that's living inside my chest and it has its own mind about what's going on and so maybe we could be best friends and I should really start having a conversation with it and inviting it for a cup of tea and saying hey what's going on in your world because I do believe that well any part of the body you know if it needs attention if it feels like it's being ignored or if it's being put upon or it's just like stress to its limit it will let us know and it behooves us to pay attention absolutely and unfortunately the Western medical model does it often tells us to ignore it it often especially women we're often told it's not real it's in your head go see a psychiatrist it's terrible it's maddening right but it's not it is in your body there is usually some some issue going on and it's a reflection of what's usually going on in your life if it's to do with your heart you know like it's often to do with your path in your life and if you're happy to be the journey that you're taking are you happy with that or not does it feel like it's really in alignment with your soul I don't think a lot of people know what a functional nutritionist does or what functional medicine is and it so could you describe that please functional medicine is really mostly specially lab testing right so it's all those labs that some people might have not even heard about but there are all these labs that are done outside of what you know you probably and most people already heard of like lab lab core and quest you know those are the big labs that most doctors and hospitals work with but there are all these tons of smaller specialty labs that do testing some better than others and and it gives you really I just have more comprehensive look at what's going on the body like for example like you know there's a lot of information about gut health now right and how important that is so there's a lot more testing that can be done because often like for example parasitic infections and imbalances in the gut are not going to be caught on regular lab tests they just are I think I would say that 90% of parasitic infections are not caught on on on these regular lab tests it's awful so I usually send off to different places and there's usually something that they catch some now the flip side is sometimes it's too sensitive and it catches stuff that doesn't need to be treated so that's I've learned that that from you know making my own mistakes that sometimes that that is can be a little bit of an issue with we're finding stuff that each you know we can just kind of let let be dormant or kind of ignore because the body's immune system can clear it up by itself so there's that unfortunate side to it but I think it's good to in general it nets out positive when you find out and it's also validating as a patient to like oh my god I had no I probably had this parasite for 20 years or no wonder I've been feeling so sick so thought you know tests a lot of these tests are great I think part of the challenge is just getting the insurance companies to actually pay for them which they probably wouldn't which is such a bummer just for my own edification you know they are talking so much and I'm such a firm believer in the health of the gut and the gut being you know the second brain of the body and I do think and I'm sure you're gonna agree with me can you believe I just said that but I'm that I think the heart and the gut are like really talking to each other that they have a really profound relationship but I think the the gut and the brain are also talking to each other and the vagus nerve connects all of it but like the health of your gut it cannot be overstated enough that our guts are probably in terrible shape and that we need to do better by them absolutely I think the last research that I that I read about gut health only a minority of people actually have healthy biome in the gut I was actually shocked it's less than half it's like a minority I think you know that I don't know if you remember there was this place where they were getting samples of poop from from a lot of people and they were doing that research you remember that anyway so they basically realized that it was not not a large percentage they actually ended up rejecting the majority of people's poop because it was not considered healthy there was bacterial overgrowth and abnormal bacterial overgrowth they had parasites and then because they were testing the DNA so they could see all of that stuff so unfortunately the most of us are walking around you know with loose stools constipation abnormal flora in the gut and and going to your point about the connection with the heart and the gut so in Chinese medicine that's part of the fire system the heart and the small intestine are actually grouped together so yes you are right and also because the small intestine the intestines have so much to do with serotonin release so if your guts funky your serotonin it's gonna go down and your anxiety is gonna go up right and so your heart's gonna become overly active not in a good way in a negative way I have discovered that you know I used to have more anxiety I've been doing a lot of work you have to know this the last few years yes if that's not clear and I have noticed and I try to tell people that when I have a large feeling of anxiety like I feel like I can't breathe and I have anxiety I think to myself oh my gosh I need to cry and I will go and I will just sob and sob and it's this catharsis and by the time I'm done my anxiety is gone my heart feels calm and I feel so much better and I can be like that for months but it is whenever it starts building and I feel it I think to myself okay it's it feels like something needs to be released I can tell absolutely so in your case that would be a real relationship between your lung and your heart yeah so that's when your lungs your lungs get filled up with grief right because that's what holds grief for us and so when the lungs start squeezing the heart because it's so gets kind of like full energetically and then the heart feels like it doesn't it's almost like it gets overwhelmed and it feels like it really can't it's almost like it gets a little claustrophobic you know and it can't get out and that's usually when you you know if you can cry and you can grieve and the end that that's definitely what how the anxiety can be also released to I think one of the things that I really had to work on was to become less ashamed or have less fear around catharsis and crying and letting go and understanding that process as a almost like a cleansing like a releasing and and you know the difference what tears are made up of it's absolutely fascinating you know the tears that you cry enjoy have a different chemical makeup than the tears you release when you're sad or if you're in a dust storm and your eyes start watering those tears are completely different and first of all I just have to say like that whole area the tears the tear ducts all the chemicals that are released that is like a miracle in itself I don't even understand how that's possible oh absolutely I think that you know extreme I shouldn't say extreme emotions but emotions they they get released it's usually in with with the tears right and the facial expression the muscles and everything around around the eyes I think that you know it's it's just through through the you know because the the the tears are actually can be you know from a Chinese medical perspective they're often to do with the heart too so it's a it's a way that it can be expressed with because the flip side is there's the anxiety side where it's considered I don't like to call it negative but you know the side that we probably don't want to be feeling but it also houses joy too so that's a spectrum yeah so it's considered what I would say one yeah it's just it's a spectrum of the heart energy that can come out through the eyes like that I could talk to you for like 10 years but I am mindful of our time and so I wanted to ask you know the main question of the podcast is I would love to hear a story or stories that could be more than one of something that has happened in your life or something that you've witnessed that you consider to be magical or miraculous or mysterious something that you would like to share that kind of changed your life I think that so I actually wrote about this in my first book in my memoir that so when my mother was passing away in Australia and so Australia was in lockdown it was not it was barely allowing many people back so the way that how I actually ended up being actually goes to Japan was there must have been some kind of divine intervention or something like I don't know how that even worked out that I was actually able to even get onto a plane and then was able to because I'm from Western Australia and so just to let you know that that so Australia was in lockdown in general so he had spent two weeks in hotel quarantine like solitary confinement and Western Australia was shutting and opening its borders the entire time and I was there and while I was actually on the plane they announced that Western Australia was closing its borders again and I and I was in Singapore changing flights and thinking oh my god like this is it I'm not going to be able to go and they somehow we were the last plane that was able to go into Australia but otherwise if I had been on the plane 12 hours later I would have ended up in a different state because they would have siphoned us off into a different state so then when I landed in Australia I was told that I was part of this group on Facebook and they said that look even if you make it back to Australia you probably won't be able to see your mother because nobody if there was I think 10, 000 people on this Facebook group and it was called I think Australian stranded overseas or something like that and all these people were talking about trying to get back to Australia I was one of the few people that actually got back to Australia I don't know how and and all these people said to get a hoot an exception to get out of the hotel quarantine to see somebody dying impossible they said don't even bother trying but they said don't I mean you can try if you want to but nobody not one story of anybody getting out and I thought oh I guess I'm gonna try anyway right so I started emailing people the email address that I had nothing nothing nothing and I was about to give up and one of my friends randomly emailed me and said hmm oh you shouldn't give up because one of my he was I was just talking to one of my friends and you know he he actually went to see his mom you have to keep trying keep trying I said what email address and he goes I don't I don't know but you've got to keep trying and and and then I thought I'm just gonna find every single email address that's associated with hotel quarantine and I just email bombed a hundred people and finally somebody responded and I was actually able to meet my I was I think the only person that that was actually you know able to get out in the in the entire group of I don't know how thousands of people right and so I was actually able to see my mom for 30 minutes which is you know crazy that you only see somebody for 30 minutes that's the last time I saw her but the fact that I was actually even able to see her was absolutely miraculous and the guy the the nurse who orchestrated that whole experience said he was you know the head of the nursing department of hospice care so he sees a lot of dying people and he said I was one of the handful of people that who was able to actually get through and see that the the dying loved one still alive by the time that they you know process the whole thing most people had already passed away so extremely fortunate and it all kind of had to fall into place exactly at the right time and my mother ended up dying I think maybe a day or so after that after I saw her and the doctor also her palliative care doctor just because I got there she knew I was trying to get to see my mother she gave her blood transfusion they usually don't do this just to keep her alive so that was miraculous that she did that for me yeah so that I mean that there was so many different aspects of that that I think that you know that was support I felt like oh wow I feel like some some force is helping me to to see my mom I only actually really got to connect with her spirit for a few seconds at the very very end but I still got to do it and that's what I remember about her is connecting with that part and I think it's a really for me amazing experience that that's the last moment that I have with her I think you know only because I've read a lot of science magazines and they've had this subject in this topic that I think a lot of people don't understand that people who are unconscious in the hospital or in a coma or what have you many times they can hear you yes when you're there I mean they might seem like they're completely out of it in another place or unresponsive but they will know when you're there if you're talking to them or holding their hand if you're present or what whatever that looks like there is a part of them that can hear you and understand what's going on yes I think from what I understand and I don't know how they actually know this but the hearing is the last thing to go when we die and again I don't I don't know how they've found discovered this but anyway that's what I've read and so even though they might not be able to see you they can still they can they can still hear you even if they might not be conscious they can still hear that part is still awake and through their ears their heart can connect with yours yes absolutely and I think I think that you know it's it's a dual experience right it's for them just as much as it is for us I would like to just switch gears and ask you if you feel comfortable sharing one of the more I don't know interesting or magical maybe healings that you've seen through oriental medicine or your work just the power of acupuncture the power of oriental medicine okay so this doesn't happen all the time but it's magical when it happens and so there's somebody comes to see me and I'll often say it's gonna take some time you know I will take some sessions I don't know how long but I'll take some sessions and they come back the next time they're it's gone like oh wow I didn't realize that I'm not that good I don't know what happened but that occasionally that happens and it's an that's incredible when that happens for them and well then for me too I guess but I you know placebo there's a lot of things that play into that right I don't but but anyway but it's it's amazing and it can be something you've had chronic pain anything it can be so many different things and that can be good for a very long time sometimes I don't hear from them for years 10 sometimes and then I call you know something something else happened or something but it's it's it is kind of magical when that happens and I think one of the things you almost said it but one of the things that I find most intriguing and absolutely fabulous is it there is this thing called the placebo effect and I was in I was interviewing a philosopher for our for my show a few months ago and she said she said I cannot even tell you how crazy it makes me that we have this thing called the placebo effect where people get cured simply by you know I don't know someone could say oh take this sugar pill and this is actually this is Prozac but they give them a sugar pill instead and the person gets better or they have something else going on and they're they think they're getting the medication and their illness clears up she said all of Western medicine should be very scared that this effect exists because it means that potentially we can cure ourselves there's something in the body they're gonna help us cure ourselves absolutely and you know this is what I used to teach I said this to my students all the time placebo is a real thing and you want to use it to your advantage it's not going to it you can't rely on it but it's the icing and you want to learn how to speak to maximize placebo there's a there's this whole language that can go into that and I think that it's it's very important to work with your patients mind to give them that reassurance and to say okay I you know this is something that I treat all the time and you know that yeah most people get better and just hearing from other patients and this is really lovely when this happens because you know at this point in my private my practice is mostly referral based and they usually there of course they're only gonna get referred nobody's gonna come to me saying somebody referred me that didn't that was said that you were awful you know that's not gonna happen most people have come because like oh you know she cured me or whatever and then so they already have it in their mind I cured my friend I'm gonna get better too so I've already got that going for me which is great half the work done that's amazing and I hadn't even considered that before but that is absolutely fabulous and I just love it well for my listeners what do you think is the one thing that we can do you know maybe daily maybe every other day maybe once a week that would be good for our bodies and souls you know whether it's yoga or meditation or walking in nature what's what is a form of self-care that we can do that will will help our hearts and our bodies I think just to ask ourselves like we talked about in the beginning what what do I want what I want and it and and if that voice is oh you're being selfish you need to listen to it even more like and it's it's really about indulging yourself and whatever it is and it can be you might feel like it's oh my gosh it's so frivolous but it's I think it's really important if it's something that you really want I'm not saying that you know you should go buy a 20 carat diamond ring or anything like that I'm thinking about some something that you really want for yourself like an activity or have an experience or if you've you know if you've been working really hard to take that vacation that you've been putting off you know these things that are really going to fulfill you and because often we get so busy living our lives and then but other people and to stop and ask yourself what's gonna make me happy that's beautiful and guess what I feel like if you get quiet enough our hearts can tell us absolutely it is it is a skill and some people are better at doing it than others and also if you have that negative voice of you should you should be doing this or you're a bad person or you're a selfish person and all that kind you've got to work through all of that before you because your heart's quite shy unless you're narcissistic right when you know most of us are not but you know the small percentage of narcissistic people they don't need to they don't need to worry about this because they're at the center of the universe and that's all they care about so but all the rest of us who are not narcissistic then yes listen to the heart its desires listen to it every single day because then it will start to speak up a little bit more and a little bit it will come much clearer but at first it's so it's often we've ignored it for such a long time it's barely a whisper and it's so shy that it's in the corner and it's it's like hi me you forgot about me 25 years ago um yeah I experienced my heart now a little bit like a nag because that's where our relationship is at this point but it's like a good nag so it's it's getting me on the right path and to walk the straight and narrow you know if it's not speaking to me when I'm awake it comes to me my dreams and it just is like it's not that it won't leave me alone but it's like unequivocal and like what I need to change and it's it's sometimes not super complimentary either in my dreams and I'm like oh someone's got something to say so I think it's also good to know that your heart will communicate with you and get try to get through to you help whichever way it can absolutely and it is complicated because you know we're not just a heart right we have a we have an ego there's so many different complete conflicting motivations that we have and and it's not to say that the ego isn't important because I do think all of it's important what we want intellectually socially speaking from other people what our heart wants they can sometimes conflict and we have to sit with all these different parts almost like in a conference room and you've got your heart here and you've got your mind here and you've got all these other you know people that you have to consider and you have to be at a roundtable together and be like okay all right you get this today your brain you get that part tomorrow you have to wait a little bit and you know does that make sense like it's hard to listen to you it's it's I think I guess unrealistic to give your heart a hundred percent what it wants all the time even if it's a gallon of ice cream not a good idea exactly exactly so the you know these are things that you know you want to have all those different parts because sometimes it can it might not necessarily be good for you too so you want to be able to discern that what what your desires are and what necessarily is healthy for you might not necessarily be on the same page which is tricky and that's a higher level that's like a master's level of figuring out what your heart needs okay everyone I hope you loved this very next episode of the podcast and my super groovy interview with Momoko Uno I'm grateful to her for her patience with me around all of my questions and for entertaining even the idea of being on this podcast I'm grateful she accepted my invite because the conversation for me was priceless thanks to all of you who listen to this podcast and thanks to all of you who have written a review or left a rating those ratings and reviews help other people find us and so I do hope that if you find it within your heart to do so please consider writing a review or leaving a little rating you'll never know how much it makes my heart happy to see those ratings and reviews thank you for listening and here's my one request be like Momoko be enchanted with learning be curious about the world I know on this podcast I'm always saying I'm so curious I'm endlessly curious and I do think that curiosity is a superpower and I have no doubt that Momoko and all her education and all of her learning that she is an inborn sense of curiosity she's in love with the world and she wants to know more about it she wants to become a bigger player in it to heal people to help people so be like Momoko and nurture an endless well of curiosity inside yourself and so very soon I absolutely suspect you'll fall deeper in love with the world