Ep 29 Dr. Edith Ubuntu Chan – SuperWellness: Become Your Own Best Healer

Meet Dr. Edith 

Dr. Edith Ubuntu Chan is a Holistic Chinese Medicine Doctor, author, speaker, and coach who has devoted her life to unlocking the secrets of our human potential. She shares a refreshingly new approach to Wellness that integrates Science, Medicine, and Spirituality. Her story began in 2003 with a series of meditation-induced mystical experiences, which gave Dr. Edith extraordinary insights into our human possibilities. She believes that Health is our birthright. It’s our natural state.

Dr. Edith has been featured on CNN, Yoga Journal, Lilou Macé’s Juicy Living Tour, “The Goddess Project” documentary and more. Her academic background includes a Doctoral Degree from Five Branches University in Endocrinology & Neuromuscular Medicine, a graduate degree from American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and a Bachelor’s with Magna Cum Laude in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University.

Through her seminars and programs, Dr. Edith helps Visionary Pioneers become masters of their Energy, Alignment, and Joy, so that they can lead and serve at the highest levels. Weaving together ancient wisdom and modern science, SuperWellness is a practical and powerful distillation of Dr. Edith’s entire life’s work. You can find out more about the doctor and her work at her website www.dredithubuntu.com

Show Notes:

ABOUT DR. EDITH

• I believe that a holistic medicine doctor, if you are just what you are as a profession, I think that would be at the service to all the community that you serve
• I love the fact that my work as a holistic Chinese doctor allows me to pull together all my streams of life experiences as someone who grew up in Hong Kong
• And someone that has training in both Eastern and Western medicine’s philosophy and understanding in our health
• I am also someone who has a math degree before I became a Chinese medicine doctor and now a mom
• I also spent a dozen years being highly competitive as a triathlete
• And in my holistic medicine practice, I serve a lot of elite endurance athlete and support them
• Beside my Chinese medicine credentials, I am also a certified high-performance coach
• I wrote a book called SuperWellness, which is the distillation of my last 16 years of professional clinical experience working with thousands of patients
• I was inspired to write this book to put all of the special gems together into one single place
• I was 11 years old when I came here to the States
• Back in 1980, I was 4 years old and my dad had this horrible back pain and my sister had this ankle sprain that was swollen
• They tried everything to heal. We had family members that are in medicine
• My uncle is an MD and my aunt is a head nurse in this big hospital, so they were very well connected and able to get us excellent medical care always
• And my dad’s back pain, nothing was helping
• My sister’s ankle was constantly swollen
• So, we asked around and a family friend told us to see a Qi Gong healer – this Chinese energy healer
• My parents were very skeptical, but they decided to give it a try
• I remember so vividly and tagged along to see what is this Qi Gong healer was all about
• In one session, he emitted this healing Qi with his hands and my dad’s back pain was gone
• He emitted his healing Qi with my sister’s ankle, and the swelling was gone
• I was 4 years old at that time and I said, “I don’t care what anyone says. That’s what I am going to do when I grow up”
• I told all my aunts and uncles and they all told me that I can’t make a living doing Qi Gong because it is not practical and I should make a steady income
• And so, I thought if I can’t be a Chinese Qi Gong healer, my second choice is to be an astronaut and they told me to be an astronaut
• I did end up getting really great at Math and Science growing up
• I went to Harvard and got a Math degree
• After I finished my degree, I forgot about the astronaut thing
• I saw that all of my friends with Math, Engineering Science, Computer Science type of backgrounds were getting very high paying jobs in tech companies and I got one of these jobs
• I was getting promotions, employee of the year and rising through the ranks, but I was miserable
• I was having headaches, menstrual cramps, gut pain, colds and flu, acne breakouts
• Everybody I asked about my hitches and glitches in ailments, everybody just told me that it was stress and stress is just a part of life
• And I thought they were right
• Now, I realize that when you are living a life that is out of alignment with what your soul really wants, it can make you sick on a physical level
• Many of my patients tell me that hearing my story of me struggling to transform my life and change my career was as powerful and potent of medicine as any treatment session I gave them
• On a day to day basis, we may or may not be living what we came to the planet to do and sometimes it is really scary to make that leap of faith
• I have studied from different teachers and I practice really simple practices now
• The big turning point moment that I did not realize was going to be a turning point moment was, I was at this job working 80-90 hours a week, really doing a great job and I had this health condition going on
• One day, I got invited to a senior meeting at this company I was working at, I got to rub shoulders with the highest at this place and I thought that I want to be like those people when I grow up
• The moment I stepped into this meeting, it was like the record player stopped
• I looked around and I realized that all these people that I was thinking I wanted to be like as I succeeded more in tech, I realized they were just like me – stressed out, overwhelmed, aging probably prematurely
• And I thought, “Is this really what I want to be when I grow up?” I was still in my 20’s at that point
• In that moment, it was so clear that this is not the life I was supposed to be living
• I saw everything flashed in front of me and I thought, “that was not the life I wanted to live”
• Right after that meeting, I started researching how I could change my career and the universe was so amazing and kind
• I took a 6 month sabbatical from my job and my manager was such a superstar because he told me to take however much time I needed to figure things out
• After my 6 months sabbatical, I applied and got into Chinese medicine school
• I got accepted as an apprentice by this Qi Gong healer who became almost a 2^nd dad to me
• And the magic and synchronicity just started happening
• Around that same time, I met my boyfriend and now my husband
• He was a minimalist and he just quit his corporate job trying to figure out what he really wanted to do with his life that he was passionate about
• I totally downsized my super fancy San Francisco apartment to 1 suit case, 1 bicycle and 1 cat and moved into my husband’s 8 ft x 8 ft room that he was living in and we started over
• Both of us changed our careers at the same time and it was the most beautiful and magical time with so many memories
• Money was tight and I only ate beans and rice. It was not healthy, but all of my health ailments just faded away
• Everything just happened naturally because I was such in a state of joy, fulfillment and going into Chinese medicine school with these very smart people who are loving life and really in tuned with nature and loving Qi Gong, yoga practices and studying plant medicine, holistic healing, nutrition, acupuncture theory and holistic approach into healing everything
• I was in this environment of a completely different type of people and I finally felt like I found my people
• All my ailments just vanished
• The first degree I had was a 4-year degree and the second one took 2 and half years
• After 6 and half years or 7 years of schooling, I felt like I was just barely starting
• I have been in holistic medicine now for 16-17 years and I feel like every day, I am learning and it never stops
• Dan Tian Wellness is the name of clinical practice in San Francisco where I see patients
• Dan Tian is a big important word in Qi Gong
• In Chinese it is called chakras and we call them Dan Tian
• Chakras have to do with these wheels of energies swirling within your body, so chakra literally means wheels
• Dan Tian means, the field of medicine or the field of elixir
• Meaning, if you knew how to cultivate yourself the right way, you did the right Qi Gong practice, the right lifestyle practice and the right state of mind, you can get your energy centers to manufacture the perfect medicine you need

YOUR BOOK

• It is called “SuperWellness”
• “Become your own best healer. The revolutionary new formula for creating true vibrant health”
• This is a book that is the distillation of some pretty shocking and surprising things that I have found over the course of more than a decade and a half working with thousands of clients
• My Qi Gong mentor taught me something really powerful. He said, “forget about all the philosophies that you were taught. Look for what actually works.”
• The chapter of the book is, “why eat right and exercise is not the key”
• One day, I said, “what if it is not all about their diet and exercise at all?”
• I realized that a lot of my patients are not breathing right, not hydrating right, have horrible sleep, have so much emotional stress and trauma that are not healed
• And so, I started to just opening to new possibilities that it is not that diet and exercise are not super important, it is just that maybe there are other things that are even more important things for our health
• This book is based on a 6-week super wellness class that I have taught since 2012
• In class number 1, we spent a bulk of discussion around what is health and what is wellness
• Health isn’t just the absence of illness or disease or even the absence symptoms
• When symptoms show up, you are going to shut them up with some symptom masking drugs instead of listening deeply to the root cause of what those symptoms are trying to tell you
• We also had a discussion that if a healthy person never gets sick and injured, then what is health
• An athlete is not stronger or fitter at the end of their workout because they are kind of torn up
• During the recovery period is where they will be stronger, fitter and better
• Your body will tell you if you get injured or sick often because you are probably not working that balance between stress recovery cycles in the most optimal way
• No stress, no gains, but also no recovery, no gains
• It has been found scientifically that Intermittent fasting is so helpful for your immune system to kill off the pathogens and the sick cells, so it can devote all those resources that we normally use for digestion towards healing from these pathogens
• We should consider this, when you get with something small, you might be training your immune system to be like a superhero and have superpowers against bigger diseases
• One of the first things that I encourage people to think about is that, eating healthy might be a side effect to something else
• If we don’t “feed ourselves” with these kinds of non food nourishments, we have a hunger that we feel
• When we nourish ourselves in those right ways, the need to decompress at the end of a stressful and crappy day with a pint of ice cream will completely vanish
• I encourage people into nourishing themselves with non- food nourishments, like what are you really hungry for?
• Maybe sunlight, a good sleep, a good hug, fresh air or nature
• Hydration is 10 times as important as your nutrition
• Hydration is not just about drinking 16oz of water, it is also the kind of water you are drinking
• Water is actually 99.9% of the molecules in your body
• Water is a huge aspect when it comes to health
• I like to start my morning by going outside during sunrise time and gaze at the sunrise
• Barefoot on the Earth so that I am absorbing the negative ions
• I get my circadian rhythm synchronized and I do a little Qi Gong joint limbering routine
• Then, I just do 10 huge power breaths
• I make it a priority to recharge my system throughout the day

COURSES

• On the SuperWellness.com website, there is some awesome free content
• We also have a 30-day SuperWellness challenge that you will find on the events tab
• The 30-day wellness challenge is guided daily with simple self-care practices for 5-10 minutes
• We have a 6-week class, which is more advanced, looking at the root causes of health and wellness versus the root causes of disease
• She also has an amazing retreat this July
  
• If you purchase the book, it will tell you how to access the book bonus

Check out the SuperWellness website HERE

TO GET THE SuperWellness book, CLICK HERE

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