April Practitioner Spotlight: Catie Lowder

“I was looking for something with a larger perspective, that acknowledges the cycles of nature and the interconnectedness of our minds and bodies and everything else! Somehow I found my way to Chinese Medicine.”

I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. I came to Chinese medicine as a way of bringing many threads of interest and exploration together–medicine,psychology, spirit, cycles of nature, and the wisdom of the body. Before pursuing Chinese Medicine, I studied psychology at Harvard University and then worked with small children as an intervention specialist in autism classrooms in the bay area. While I loved playing and interacting with the kids, I left the work because after 5 years in the field, I was hungry for some higher education, but didn't feel called to pursue a teaching career. I started looking for other types of work that would nourish my interests.

Health has always been in the background for me since both my parents are doctors. My father was an oncologist and my mother is an eye doctor, but I wasn’t so interested in such a specialized view of medicine. I was looking for something with a larger perspective, that acknowledges the cycles of nature and the interconnectedness of our minds and bodies and everything else! Somehow I found my way to Chinese Medicine. And it isn’t such a fluke--my great grandmother was the president of the Hong Kong Acupuncture Society, so it's in my lineage.

To continue to deepen my practice of Chinese medicine I just started a doctorate program in Oakland. We are studying classic texts from something like 1800 years ago. They are so juicy and still totally relevant to treating people today--I love that kind of continuity and depth. I'm especially excited to study herbology through the lens of the classics...and hopefully over time see how it all collides with studying plants in person out in the woods!

I love being in nature.  On my recent trip to Anza-Borrego, it was amazing to be in the vastness and quiet of the landscape there. There’s a half hour window right before dawn when everything in the desert is even more beautiful than it already is. I got up early every morning to go hunting flowers in the magical dawn light and later in the day watched the pollen-covered bees reveling in the flower feast too! It was delicious!

Announcing: Sanctuary Sundays at BCA

At BCA, we say, “Heal Yourself, Heal Your Community”. In an effort to provide more opportunities for healing ourselves and our fellow humans, we’ve created our newest community event, Sanctuary Sundays.

Each Sanctuary Sunday event will feature a special wellness treatment. All proceeds will benefit local community organization.

Read on to learn more about our upcoming Sanctuary Sunday event.

What does sanctuary mean to you?
Do you have a community organization that you would like to suggest to us?

Here at BCA, community is at the heart of what we do. Join us in conversation here on the blog. We invite you to share your thoughts, inspiration, or feedback in the comments below.

What Makes You Come Alive?

We’re so excited to share this community art mural with you all! Come visit the clinic to participate.

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

— Dr. Howard Thurman

Getting a good night’s sleep makes me come alive. Eating something delicious makes me come alive. Intimacy makes me come alive. My 10 year old’s jokes, the impossible wisdom of my 13 year old and the kisses and cuddles of my 7 year old makes me come alive. Helping someone makes me come alive Humor makes me come alive. Letting myself cry when I am feeling frustrated, angry, sad makes me come alive. Nature makes me come alive. Creating and playing makes me come alive.

Coming alive is connecting and engaging in ways that wake us up to the beauty, fullness and joy of life. It only requires a willingness to make space, to be present and to connect. It centers around one’s most basic feelings and expressions of a human being. Still,many of us cannot make space for these simple life affirming things. We cannot give ourselves the permission to come alive.

Dr. Howard Thurman was an author, educator, mystic, and civil rights leader. He was an inspiration and mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King. His words are not feel good new age words. They are words meant to incite the greatest revolution of all times, the liberation of each of our hearts and minds.

We live in a society that has made coming alive subordinate to our daily ambition. And that ambition has crushed the life out of us without our noticing. It’s the anecdote of how to boil a frog: if you put a frog in hot water, it will jump out but if you put it in cold water and slowly turn up the heat, it will not notice that it is being cooked.This is what ambition is doing to us, slowly draining the life out of us without our noticing.

Daily ambitions are not simply grand plans and schemes. Daily ambitions are the belief that our present state must be sacrificed for something bigger and better in the future. This belief drives us to work long hours, neglect our loved ones, neglect our bodies and disconnect from the present moment. And yet it is commonly reported that at the end of our days, our ambitions remain an elusive mirage only to be replaced by regret. Regret that we did not spend our precious time doing the things that make us come alive.

Coming alive is an act of liberation and an act of courage. It can be as small as choosing to put bubbles in your bath, as serious as speaking a long held truth, as fulfilling as writing your novel, as silly as having a water balloon fight with your kids, as passionate as declaring your love to someone for the first time, as moving as pouring your heart out in prayer, or as defiant as using your body to protect and defend the water. Whatever it is, it is an act of self love and a connection with life.

Coming alive is jumping out of the pot before it’s too late. It’s risking scrutiny and judgement, challenging the voices that question our worth, our value, our right to come alive now, in the present moment. Too often, people’s response to my urging has been, but how can I come alive when all around me are endless struggles, suffering and injustices? And to that I say, it is precisely because of this that you must come alive.

Come alive to bring more light into the world. Come alive so there this more beauty, more joy, more connection in the world. Come alive in response to the gift of life your ancestors passed on to you. Come alive so that the children can know what aliveness is as they grow up. Come alive so that our Nation, our world knows that true liberty belongs to us all.

In community,

Thuy