Today we’d like to introduce you to Beth Bright.
Beth, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I had always imagined I would somehow be helping people. The question was what would I offer that could possibly be helpful? After receiving a M.S. in Sport Psychology and Exercise Physiology, medical school was on the horizon. But first, I got sick with mononucleosis and slept for a few weeks. I had several dreams of being in Asia, in various settings there, as a student and a teacher. When I recovered my health, I moved to Japan and began studying traditional medicine. That sounds like I had a plan. Truthfully, the way the entire thing happened was beyond my ability to plan. I met a teacher who spoke English (quite accidentally in a library), found a place to live (very difficult to do in Tokyo, but it miraculously happened to housesit for a friend of a friend) and a job (sticking out like a sore thumb as a tall, blond, American, I was offered an English language teaching job by someone following me down a street, interviewing me, and hiring me as we walked) all within the first few weeks. I studied Shiatsu and acupuncture, and apprenticed at a clinic outside Tokyo. After two years, I returned to USA, worked as the fitness director of an athletic club in San Fransisco, and then decided to go to formal Traditional Chinese Medical school. I graduated from Bastyr University in Seattle, got married and returned to Colorado to set up a clinic. I’ve been in practice ever since, 27 years now! Two things that have profoundly impacted the way I practice medicine are meditation and chi gong. When I first started studying Shiatsu with my teacher, Kimura Sensei, he made me meditate for one month before I was allowed to ask any questions or join the class. Ever since that experience, I pursued meditation and for over 25 years of practice and teach Heart-Centered Meditation. When I was an intern at a hospital in Shang Hai, China, the hospital staff and any patients (and lowly interns) met every morning for chi gong practice in the hospital courtyard. It was my first experience with medical chi gong, I loved it! The palpable sensation of energy in myself and in the group made a lasting impression and I pursued chi gong practice, as well. I practice and teach Wisdom Healing Chi Gong, ever since I found this form of chi gong 12 years ago.
Has it been a smooth road?
Smooth road? Ha ha! No road is smooth when we are growing and expanding our capacity! In the beginning, I could not get a bank loan to help me get started. My mother gave me $500.00 to pay rent and buy supplies in the first space I opened. Somehow, I succeeded! Every time I had a day when I filled up my appointment book schedule, I celebrated with literally sticking gold stars on that calendar day! I meditated and visualized happy, healthy people leaving my clinic. It wasn’t until my bother in law asked me how I felt having my own business that I ever thought of myself as a business owner! I focused on being of service. My prayer was, and has always been, “please send me the people who I can help, and let everyone else find who can help them!”.
Where would we be without our teachers? I have been very fortunate to have excellent teachers who I want to acknowledge. The late Dr. Richard Tan was my mentor in Chinese Medicine, I think of him every day in clinic and thank him for teaching me the Balance Method. Mary White has been my meditation guide for Heart Centered Meditation. Master Mingtong Gu has been my Wisdom Healing Chi Gong teacher.
In acupuncture and Chinese Medicine practice we are bringing an ancient and “foreign” medicine into contemporary American culture of medicine. This means continuously educating patients about a very different paradigm of knowing ourselves and what it is to heal in the context of living energy. Energy is either stuck, contracted, or open, flowing. Stuck chi creates problems – physically, emotionally, and mentally/spiritually. Open, moving chi is one measure of a state of health. Simple to understand and yet challenging to achieve. However, even knowing this may shift expectations into intentions, which are a more fluid state in themselves. I invite students to ask me anything about having a practice and business, because I’ve made so many mistakes, I usually have direct experience to answer from! I see mistakes and struggles as teachers -about myself, how I interact with whatever life dishes out, how I encounter my fellow human beings, where I need to expand my capacity in order to live a more happy, healthy life, regardless of external challenges. In other words, my acupuncture, meditation, and chi gong practices are my methods of service and the methods of my personal development.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Rocky Mountain Acupuncture story. Tell us more about the business.
Rocky Mountain Acupuncture is both a personal practice and a very open practice. On one hand, all human beings are welcome in my clinic. As the Dali Lama says, all people want the same things – to be happy and healthy, to feel loved. In this, healing has the same objective for all. On the other hand, every person is unique, and every health concern that comes to my attention in clinic has its own method and progression of treatment. Not everyone benefits from the same great doctor! People need the doctor who is the best match for their energy, constitution, and problem at that time. Thank goodness its set up this way. Otherwise only one doctor would be effective for all people in this world. There are many powerful, helpful, loving doctors in the world. Finding the one who fits you is the goal. The best healer for one person is not necessarily the best healer for another person. As a doctor, practice is always humbling! My patients are most precious to me. Not only do they give me my living, but they are my teachers in my art of medicine and personal development, they are also examples of how brave and resourceful the human spirit is. I know this because whenever someone shares their story with me, we are treading on sacred ground, and I respect that.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Acupuncture and East Asian Medicine has integrated into American medicine very quickly over the past 25 years. I think it will continue to become an accepted and important part of the culture of medicine in this country. I am concerned that in our American attempt to do things quickly, the deep essence of the medicine will be overlooked. I am concerned that the methodology of needling and getting results will overshadow the reason for good results – ENERGY exists and is experiential! This is a different paradigm from Western medicine, and takes more time to experience. I’m concerned that intellectually understanding this paradigm will be lost, let alone practicing and cultivating oneself to become adept at utilizing energy for healing will be lost. I see a growing gap between making a method fit into our cultural paradigm of material medicine, and really opening our minds to a different and effective understanding of life, reality, and an immaterial medicine. In other words, in general, I see the arrogance and ignorance of our narrow belief in only one method of knowing – American scientific medicine. I’m not saying that the medicine is ignorant. Quite the opposite, American scientific medicine is very complex. I’m saying that as a culture, American scientific medicine is ignorant of what other cultures of medicine, when understood within their own paradigm, have to offer.
I am close to publishing a Chinese Medicine Cookbook. My attempt is to gently educate cooks about the energetic properties of food and how to know what to cook for the health needs of the eaters. According to the over 2,500 year accumulated knowledge of Chinese Medicine herbs and foods, there is a deep well of understanding about how foods impart their inherent energy, based on how they grow, where they grow or live, the element they belong to, to part of our body they influence. Food has many meanings, from comfort, to ancestry, to world traditions, to health, and so much more! To really feel the value of foods we need to be fully embodied. This is the lasting practice of how to eat as well as what to eat. Hopefully this will be a fun book, easy to read, easy to shop for, and easy to cook.☺
Contact Info:
- Address: 4485 Wadsworth Blvd. suite 204, Wheat Ridge, CO 80401
- Website: www.bethbrightacupuncture.com
- Phone: 303-445-1114
- Email: [email protected]
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