stop worrying about aging.
become timeless.
A program to help you find, and identify with, your “Original Face”
what is “original face”?
This is a concept in Chinese Medicine and Daoism that refers to all of our individual strengths and weaknesses, combined with our hereditary gifts, giving clues to our truly unique potential in this lifetime.
It's about our actual face, yes, but this concept of original face means coming back to, and having the ability to show to the world, who we truly are.
A simplified way to think of this is as your post-vacation face. For example, the photos on this page are from my favorite vacation spot. Returning there year after year has created a depth of experience that I treasure. There is a truth that comes through after spending a small bit of time there, things feel simpler, and that shows as an ease on my face.
In simplest terms, when I’m there, I feel truly “myself” and I have my “original face”.
Depending on how stressful life is when I return, the face gets chipped away at until I'm masked again. But knowing that it exists, and how to return to it, is important and helpful.
With this program I hope to be able to help create an individual road map for you to be able to find your way back to your original face, over and over again.
A few of the concepts we’ll work with during the program:
Wrinkles as overuse injuries
The patterns on our faces can show us where we are spending our most emotional time. From there you can decide if you want to work to change that pattern.
With a more-balanced outlook, you can stop focusing on how you look, and instead gain insight into how you are facing the world.
Societal Masking
We can lose our original face when we try to appear different to others as an appeasement to societal norms. Sometimes this masking is very beneficial! But we should also know when we are doing it so that we can make choices. Shifting focus can lead to a more-satisfying, healthier aging process.
Anti-Aging Stigma
In Chinese medicine not all facial progression is “bad”. Our faces change as we gain experience. What if that wrinkle you hate, actually expresses that you’ve had obstacles and overcame them? Or that you’ve had joy and love in your life? Filling in some informational gaps can bring more reverence for your life experience (past & future!).
How will it actually work?
The entire program is based on YOUR face. These are one-on-one sessions that are a lot of Chinese medicine education, a lot of gua sha, a tiny dip into facial diagnosis and a few shades of coaching.
We’ll meet once a week (or every other week), by video for six weeks. I’ll teach you techniques to address your facial concerns through the lens of Chinese medicine. The homework I give you will be based on your specific facial concerns and your preferred method of learning.
As a practitioner it is very satisfying to customize sessions.
If you are in NYC, the ideal way to do this program would be to also come for in-person sessions during this time: by adding a combination of body acupuncture, facial acupuncture, microneedling and gua sha we can truly change your outlook – and change how you look! Anyone doing this program with me can purchase acupuncture and cosmetic packages at 20% off (excludes membership).
While I was not fortunate to study with her in person before she died, many of these lessons are from the lineage of Lillian Pearl Bridges, that I have learned from recorded sessions and from some of her students. I offer reverence to her lineage - I think that there is so much beauty to share in these concepts that can help us to view our changing faces differently than our culture sometimes allows.