Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Chen.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jessica. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Growing up in a Taiwanese family, I guess you could say Traditional Chinese Medicine was in my blood. When we were sick, my mother would often make soups using traditional Chinese herbs to help us feel better. So, I guess that’s how my journey into acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine actually started.
I’ve always had a curiosity with our bodies and their natural ability to heal themselves. I remember giving my mother neck massages when she had headaches, not really knowing what I was doing but just sort of feeling my way around, pressing where it was tight. She used to say she felt more relief from that than from headache pills. That fascinated me. I felt like there was more to this than meets the eye.
Then, in my late 20’s, after managing bars in high-end clubs, I realized that many people could use more powerful medicines than whiskey, and I decided to attend graduate school to get my Masters in Traditional Chinese Medicine at Yo San University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Los Angeles.
After graduating, I practiced at the highly respected Tao of Wellness and gradually found myself specializing in Women’s Reproductive Health. This path led me to eventually write my first book, “Sitting Moon. Natural Rejuvenation After Giving Birth” designed to be a guide for women pre, during, and especially post giving birth.
After 12 years at Tao of Wellness, I ventured out on my own and in 2017 started my own private practice, MyQi in Santa Monica where I live with my husband and two sons.
Has it been a smooth road?
No road worth traveling is smooth. The ups and downs give us perspective and strength.
In the beginning, there were a lot of late nights, a lot of studying, a lot of bags of herbs pinned to my living room wall with a list of attributes written next to them.
After that, there was the realization that I was going to be reentering the world with the claim that I would be able to help people. And that was a massive responsibility because my knowledge was untested. Can I help them? Is it all true? Does it all work? Am I a fraud? These existential questions were eventually answered in the positive, but there was a long period of self-doubt before there was enough data to indicate that, I was, in fact, making promises I could keep.
After finding my stride, life has its own way of challenging you. I lost my own mother in a horrible accident and became a mother myself. Suddenly I had to practice what I preached and put my skills to the test in my own life.
The work of balancing my career and my family weighed on me. It was then that I found myself at a crossroads having to decide what path was the one I truly wanted to walk.
That’s when I made the decision to rely on nobody but myself and strike out on my own in private practice. So far, it is a decision that has been extremely rewarding.
We’d love to hear more about your practice.
I am a Dr. of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine at MyQi, a private practice in Santa Monica where I specialize in Women’s Reproductive Health and Pediatric Wellness.
I wrote a book on Postpartum Care called, “Sitting Moon” which is essentially a guide on how to replenish a woman’s body the right way after it has hit empty, which is the best time to do it.
I designed a Postpartum renewal program, which is house-call based, where I visit new mothers once a week during their recovery to perform acupuncture and to replenish them with handmade herbal soups. I love watching the energy and vitality come back to them and seeing their spirits illuminate again.
However, specialization is not a limit. I love to treat all people with a variety of needs and truly feel uplifted by success stories my patients share.
I feel like there is nobody else doing exactly what I do, exactly the way I do it, and that’s really what I feel most proud of. That I have found my own path. My own style and expression, which is exactly what I set out to find in the very beginning.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I absolutely feel that Los Angeles is the perfect place to start out in a business like mine. I believe this for two reasons. Firstly, there are a lot of open-minded people here who are willing to look critically at Western medicine and acknowledge the pros as well as the cons. This is a hard conversation that takes courage to have. And secondly, there are a lot of very well-informed people here as well, which makes for a very savvy audience. They know a thing or two themselves, and that keeps you honest. There is a high standard for what I do set in Los Angeles, knowing that helps me keep my needles sharp, so to speak.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1137 2nd Street
Suite 119
Santa Monica, Ca 90403 - Website: www.myqi.co
- Phone: 310-490-6982
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: restore_myqi
- Facebook: @RestoreMyQi
- Yelp: MyQi
- Other: myqi.co/journal
Image Credit:
Naomi Yamada
Rita Nagami
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