Love and Acupuncture

11/29/2025

As we sit in the depths of late Autumn, I want to invite some ponderings and reflections that may gently coax you back into the cyclical nature of the seasons. It can be uncomfortable navigating the ways of being in flux of it all, especially as it gets dark and cold. As humans, we tend to separate ourselves from everything else that exists around us. By having deeper understanding of the energetic nature of seasons, we can expand into the unfolding that each transition has to teach us, rather than resist and contract. 🍂🍂

In Daoist 5-Element theory, autumn is the end of the seasons. We tend to think of winter as the end, when in fact it is the beginning. It represents the Water element, the womb, the gestation time of preparing the soil for what we want to bring into fruition in the next cycle. Autumn is aptly called “the fall”, when the frivolity of summer is behind us, the trees are losing their leaves, the birds are migrating south, the sun is rising later and setting earlier. Yang turns to Yin. If Yang represents the sunny side of the hill, heat, the masculine, activity, productivity, upward movement, daytime, and function, you can see how in the system of capitalism and patriarchy we are currently at the tipping point of Yang. We celebrate busyness and hyper-productivity, toxic patriarchy is very much all around us, the world is literally on fire. And yes, the sunshine, days at the beach, fireworks and bbq’s are also aspects of Yang, however too much of this energy is unsustainable. We deserve our Yin. Yin is the shade, coolness, the feminine, stillness, introspection, reconciliation, rest and form. And this is what the fall is all about.

As Yang turns to Yin this is a pivotal time of reflection of the past seasonal cycle. Represented by the Metal element, Autumn asks us to cut away the ideas, beliefs, identities and roles that we carry that hold weight with no value. What masks do I wear that once helped me but are no longer necessary? Why do I feel guilty doing nothing? What is my relationship with time? It asks us to examine our boundaries. What does it feel like in my body when I say yes? Do I abandon myself for the sake of others? Do I base my worth around giving? Who am I without that belief? It asks for us to feel the grief and weight of loss, whether it’s the loss of summer, the loss of the light, or a relationship, or a person, or a pet, or a job…and to feel into the recognition that what we loved was never ours to own. They say our greatest joy is our greatest sorrow. The more we loved, the more we feel the weight of loss. But holding onto the belief that anything belongs to us, or is ours to keep, creates resistance in our process. It tints our lens of how we make meaning and we can find ourselves stuck in the belief that it’s not fair. If we can grieve while staying in the astonishment that we got to love that deeply and wouldn’t change that for anything, including the pain of losing that which was never ours to begin with, then we can truly embrace the paradox of the full human experience. Autumn exists to remind us that things must end to begin again. Move slowly. Be tender. Light a candle. Say a prayer. Rest. Compost those outdated beliefs so that you can create rich, fertile soil to plant the seeds of the next cycle and bring into fruition who and what you want to be this next time around. ❤️‍🔥

09/25/2025

Hello Friends.

A friendly reminder and heart felt invitation ♥️✨♥️✨♥️✨

Toni Dunne and I are hosting our seasonal Acupuncture & Yoga gathering this coming Sunday 6-9pm .body in Cumberland

RELEASE: a practice for letting go + returning home 🍁🍁🍁

The turning of season, even if we are craving autumn, can prove difficult and confronting.

Our culture, which largely focuses on and celebrates ascension—attempts to carry on as though we lived in an endless summer.

This paradigm is simply not sustainable and this thinking keeps us striving, pushing and ultimately burnt out.

It’s no surprise then, that autumn, with its turning in and natural descent can challenge us. This offering is an opportunity to shift, to notice what wants to be released.

What parts of you can you let go of, to more fully step into the version of yourself you are becoming?

Please join us for an evening of conversation, poetry, inquiry, gentle somatic exploration, restorative yoga, and deep long rest with acupuncture points.

Sliding scale: $65-$80
DM or email Toni
yogatoni@gmail.com
to reserve your space

Hello Friends.

A friendly reminder and heart felt invitation ♥️✨♥️✨♥️✨

Casey .and.acupuncture and I are hosting our seasonal Acupuncture & Yoga gathering this coming Sunday 6-9pm .body in Cumberland

RELEASE: a practice for letting go + returning home 🍁🍁🍁

The turning of season, even if we are craving autumn, can prove difficult and confronting.

Our culture, which largely focuses on and celebrates ascension—attempts to carry on as though we lived in an endless summer.

This paradigm is simply not sustainable and this thinking keeps us striving, pushing and ultimately burnt out.

It’s no surprise then, that autumn, with its turning in and natural descent can challenge us. This offering is an opportunity to shift, to notice what wants to be released.

What parts of you can you let go of, to more fully step into the version of yourself you are becoming?

Please join us for an evening of conversation, poetry, inquiry, gentle somatic exploration, restorative yoga, and deep long rest with acupuncture points.

Sliding scale: $65-$80
DM or email Toni
yogatoni@gmail.com
to reserve your space

09/10/2025

As we orient towards the turning of the season, it’s wise to ask yourself: what am I holding on to? What am I afraid of letting go of?

For many of us, autumn can be a challenging season to transition into. It is a time of natural descent, the Earth’s contracting back into itself, a call to be more reflective and discerning.

It’s also a time to acknowledge grief, which can feel quite painful or even scary. In contrast to summer’s expansive brightness, grief and inwardness can feel confronting. As the leaves let go, the weather cools and we watch things die – we often experience a feeling of something being taken from us too soon, too abruptly, unfairly and before we are ready. But it’s important to recognize the inherent opportunities and gifts of this time. The great lesson of Autumn is that the pain isn’t from the loss – it’s not the grief itself that causes us to suffer.

The heartbreak is actually born from refusing to let go of something that was never yours in the first place. The heartbreak, the suffering is a result of mistaking that anything belongs to you, or that ownership itself is real. Autumn is painful when we cling to summer, when we resist the invitation to change.

Please join Casey Parsons (Acupuncturist) and Toni Dunne (Relational Somatic Therapist and Yoga Teacher) in conversation, movement, writing, poetry, deep rest and acupuncture points.
This 3-hour container is intended to midwife you from one season to the next with more clarity, acceptance, and care. Join us as we collectively acknowledge the necessary cycles/initiations of loss that point us towards our own inner well.

Date: Sunday, Sept 28th 6-9pm
Investment: $65-$80 sliding scale
Location: Unfolding Body, Cumberland, BC

Please email yogatoni@gmail.com to reserve your space (e-transfer is required to save your space.)

01/08/2025

I am so excited to be collaborating with my dear friend after a far-too-long hiatus. Please consider joining us for a cozy evening of discussion, meditation, Yin yoga, and community acupuncture. Hope to see you!

https://facebook.com/events/s/returning-harvesting-hope-in-t/4025887494352623/

12/24/2024

The clinic is closed for the holidays and will re-open January 6. Blessings to you and yours ❤️

10/26/2024

This post is a perfect analogy to our own thinking minds and how over-thinking (Yang) consumes our resources (Yin). The intellect (Yi - governed by the Spleen/Stomach) is meant to process information in a way that is digestible; meaning we aren’t chewing on information without any real purpose. We take in stimuli through our sensory organs (notice how the first 7 points on the Stomach channel pass through all of the sensory organs) and then are processed by the brain (St-8), where the information is then digested and integrated (from St-8 the channel then descends toward the feet). A great reflection of this process is “how am I digesting my experiences? What am I constantly chewing on (rumination)?”

We take in so much information everyday (much of it purposeless), our brain’s capacity to process is flooded, and our capacity to think critically has been severely compromised. But we think that thinking is a passive process, when it isn’t. It consumes energy and resources to be in our heads all day everyday, and eventually it starts to consume our blood and fluids to keep up to the pace of the mind. If you think of the fluids in your body as your cooling system, keeping everything nourished, lubricated and juicy, and also as the rooting and cooling system for your Yang (mind and function), you’ll notice many symptoms arise as a result of this yin consumption (muscle cramps, tight fascia, joint pain, stiffness, dry skin/hair/nails, excess heat in the body (worse at night), inability to fall or stay asleep, anxiety, rage, constipation, the list goes on and on. These are symptoms that I see in the clinic everyday, often in a single person. A conversation I find myself having over and over is around not only supporting our Yin (through rest, sleep, eating hydrating meals like soups, congees, stews, etc.), but by creating space in our minds so that we aren’t “running the computer” all day everyday, which is a huge culprit in consuming our Yin. Taking breaks from screen time, going out into nature, meditation, having a bath, deep breathing, sitting on a park bench watching the world go by, listening to the birds…these are all beautiful examples of creating spaciousness in our thinking mind.

In a world that celebrates productivity and busy-ness, in a world that is in it’s extreme levels of Yang (capitalism, patriarchy, resource extraction and over-consumption, the world is literally on fire), it’s a radical act to support our Yin. Yin is nourishing, introspective, reparative, and reflective. We deserve our Yin. We need our Yin. ❤️

01/20/2023

A common conversation I find myself having at the clinic is the continued feeling of isolation we are all experiencing 3 years into this pandemic. Although we currently find ourselves in this semblance of what we may call "back to normal", or, as normal as things can feel with covid-19 still carrying a massive presence in our reality, there's still this overwhelming feeling of loneliness and isolation that exists that I think we can all agree, myself included, thought would just disappear once we were able to be with people again and explore the world and live our lives as we had before.

I'm lucky enough to have this conversation over and over with people every single day. It helps me to realize that I'm not alone. That my feelings are shared amongst the many that walk through my door. But what I realize is that these conversations around the trauma that has embedded itself into our beings from the pandemic, the disintegration and dissolution of relationships that have happened due to differences of opinions and how that's affected our lives and broken our hearts, the anxiety from living with very little human contact or touch for 2 years that has made it difficult to move through the world, the confusion that still continues to exist around the very nature of this pandemic, are not being had enough. I realize that many people are still feeling very alone in their experiences, which amplifies these feelings of isolation and non-belonging.

One amazing person, an artist, friend, community member, has created an installation that is designed to create conversations and community around isolation and loneliness. "Let's Be Island Together / the metrics of loneliness" is an ongoing data artwork that uses community voices to create a visual representation of the feelings that we all share through our experiences of loneliness. It's an act of reciprocity that we all need, to see that we truly, are not alone.

Do me a favour. No, do yourselves a favour. Take a small moment to visit Sarah's website, read the intention of this installation, and I promise you will be inspired to participate in the very quick yet provocative survey that will create, with your own answers to the thought-provoking questions around loneliness, a tile, created just for you. This tile will be added to a series of tiles created for every individual, based on their responses...thus creating a beautiful map of individual experiences telling a larger story. It's efforts such as these that the world so desperately needs - a world so deeply driven by separateness, compartmentalization and avoidance of expressing difficult feelings, and fear of having these kinds of conversations - for us to feel connected. We are relational beings, so let's find our way back to each other again.

Thanks so much for taking the time to explore this beautiful offering

Let’s be Islands Together / the metrics of loneliness Let’s be Islands Together is an interactive data art project where I engage community in examining how we shape our stories. Using a process I call Slow Data - gathering, analyzing and visualizing information at the speed of conversation - I ...

01/03/2023

Entering my 8th year of having this little business in Cumberland, I can’t help but reflect on the gratitude I feel day in and day out for the support of this village and this valley for keeping my business alive and thriving. It truly takes a village, and I’ve felt nothing but completely held since the moment I opened my doors back in 2016. Thank you to everyone who has come through my door. It takes courage to show up for yourself and to ask for help, and holding space for you is one of the greatest gifts I could ask for. I am humbled every single day by the work I get to do. I am excited to be continuously growing and evolving as a practitioner, and am deeply honoured to have your trust. It is this trust and these deep and meaningful relationships that have built over the years that allow me to grow and become better at what I do. So again, thank you, thank you, thank you. ✨💖✨

07/09/2021

In a world that is moving faster than we care to acknowledge, I really like to seek out things that bring me into stillness. To reflect, to contemplate, to appreciate. I am so grateful to live in a place where I can be taken in by nature. The trees are my family, the water my church, the mountains my home. I also appreciate the privilege that comes with living in such a place. For those living in concrete jungles, for those needing refuge, for those longing to reconnect with the Earth from the comfort of your own home, this book is for you. A Walk in the Wilderness - Therapeutic Landscapes, by Sheryl Hanula will have you down on your knees in thanks for this place we call home. A blend of her own photos and words, she takes you through meditations, ponderings, and examinations of how we fit into this world. Each page helps bring us back to ourselves, to see how small we are, and how grand our Mother Earth truly is. Thank you for this gem of a book, Sheryl ❤️✨

02/10/2021

I’ve admittedly been quiet these past months. Every time I would put my fingers to the keys to type something, I’d find myself feeling deep discomfort around what I was choosing to share with the world. Our planet has been turned upside down this past year, our backs have been up against the wall, everything we thought we knew has been questioned, leaving many of us feeling confused, disempowered, and alone.

I’m struggling with wellness culture these days. I’ve found myself feeling a pit in my throat everytime I think about how wellness culture (often with good intentions) has left us feeling like anything that we are doing outside of “self-care” is wrong (not to mention how deeply privileged accessibility is to most wellness practices). We hand our power over to all the health modalities, fad diets, and supplements for answers and miraculous cures for our body disharmonies, often without reflecting on our own role in why we are blocked from accessing our own body wisdom and empowerment. Healing has become linear, with a beginning-to-end approach, and illness and pain are looked at as things we need to wage war against. Toxic positivity is at an all-time high, and frankly, people are left feeling like they’ve failed themselves.

Knowing and understanding our bodies IS activism.

The work is to bring us home into our precious and intelligent bodies, to recognize how our body dissatisfaction and dissociation is tied to abuses of power within our culture, and to cultivate a fierce supply of self-love to transform our relationship to our bodies.

This task is astronomically more difficult to achieve for those whose bodies have been othered, whose bodies don’t meet the expectations of the status quo, whose bodies have been traumatized, whose bodies continue to be incarcerated or killed because of the colour of their skin.

This is written today in solidarity with BIPOC folks, and much of our work is in finding ways to take action now to support change, in our own communities as well as in the larger world. In order for this to be done, we must first investigate our own hearts, and bring awareness to the shadows that exist there. Doing this allows us to understand the ways in which our own fear and greed allow us to “other” BIPOC folks instead of seeing and feeling their suffering. To wake up to the ways our vision becomes tunnelled in our own demands, defences and distractions instead of taking action to support others. Our work is to address the ways in which our internalized racism allows us to participate in systems that harm people of colour, and to take action to correct those harms.

If this past year has shown us anything, it’s that we are all in this together. ❤️

06/13/2020

When I first started my acupuncture training, I already had in my mind what I wanted the name for my clinic to be. At that time I was admittedly uneducated and ignorant to the depths and intricacies of the medicine, as well as what my deep underlying intentions were as a practitioner. I came up with the name “The Fix” because, well, I thought it was short, clever, catchy, and somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

Fast forward 12 years and many hours of evolution as a practitioner, and I can confidently say that I’ve grown out of the name “The Fix.” I feel it no longer represents who I am, or what I stand for. I am not here to “fix” you. I am here to be a vessel of receptivity, to facilitate and support your body’s deep wisdom, working WITH it, and to help you to become reacquainted with and more understanding of your body’s ways of speaking to you.

When I was thinking about what I wanted the clinic name to be, I had a couple big contenders on the forefront, and then decided to actually just keep it simple. My approach to this medicine has always come from a place of “love first, acupuncture second.” If we are to be successful (in the true meaning of the word), we must first establish connection, and connection can only come from a place of loving kindness. I understand that each person who walks through my door is different. They have a different curriculum, agenda, needs, ideas, perspectives, you name it. And to me, as a practitioner, it is my responsibility to be unbiased, open-hearted, non-judgemental and receptive. I have grown leaps and bounds as a human since starting my practice, and I KNOW that it is because I am constantly surrounded by and filled to the brim with LOVE (and acupuncture).

I am honoured and excited to present the new name of my clinic, Love and Acupuncture. ❤️❤️❤️ @ Cumberland, British Columbia