Kristen Miracle L.Ac

Exciting Announcement!
It is with great love that I announce that I will be opening a private practice in a new location starting September 2nd, at the Heal House in Portland, Oregon. It has been a beautiful journey to invest myself so fully in creating a space for the continued growth and evolution of my work. Welcoming current and new patients + still accepting most major insurances.

Scheduling link here:

Book Online at Heart Bridge Medicinal Arts Acupuncture is the insertion of very fine, filiform needles through the skin at specific points on the body with the intention of manipulating Qi. The filiform needles are solid, as opposed to the hollow hypodermic needles most people are familiar with, and are usually made of stainless steel. My pa...

New year, same us. We just get to be here, even if we're not new and improved versions of ourselves. We just get to be here. Happy 2024 to you all. I love you!

This week in clinic I’m reminded again and again the truth of Ocean Vuong’s words, “The body is the ultimate witness to love.”

Gorgeous Artwork

What’s going on in there? What can you begin to notice?

“Interoception is the capacity to feel one’s present body through emotions, sensations, and different body states.”
- Manuela Mischke Reeds, Somatic Psychotherapy Toolbox

I love to sit with my acupuncture patients and TRE clients and ask them to notice what’s happening inside. It’s a whole universe in there full of resources.
By tracking our internal experience, we begin to anchor our attention into the layers of our body and return to a place of truth, of authenticity, and deeper knowing of who we really are. The body doesn’t lie. Sometimes who or what we *think* we are keeps us limited, small, and reduced to what we can be certain of, whereas using interoception, we get to discover who we are and what we are by *feeling* the truth of our experience directly.

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Art: artist unknown

📣 Big announcement 📣

It is with great joy and gratitude that in a month’s time I will be expanding my offerings to include TRE Tension and Trauma Release Exercises © as a Certified Provider of this extraordinary modality of healing. I have been working steadily over the last year to earn this certification and many of you have already joined me in my one-on-ones and in group classes. I truly love this potent work and have witnessed amazing transformations in myself and in my patients. At the heart of this work is the reclamation of personal authenticity through the retraining of the nervous system. It is a direct line to the source of many modern ailments which through lack of safety, overstimulation, burnout, and accumulation of a lifetime of stress of all kinds, we get stuck in a state of survival and lose touch with the vital energy that is the wellspring of safety, connection, joy, healing, and resilience. This practice invites you into the deepest part of your neurophysiology where we can dismantle, reconnect, reclaim and remember who we really are apart from all the ways in which we have merely been surviving.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with TRE, it was created by Dr. David Bercelli who worked with many people in war-torn countries and places where major catastrophes had taken place. He understood first hand the physical toll when people undergo sustained stress and the huge toll that a dysregulated system can have on many levels of the human organism. It entails learning a sequence of seven movements by which an involuntary tremor is evoked, originating from the brainstorm, and is carried throughout the body via the nervous system into places where tissues have become tight, contracted, and disconnected from the whole. It is true that our bodies are like history books- bodies will store traumatic and stressful memory as chronically held tension in the body. The good news is the body can release it anddddd there’s a part of you that already knows how to!

… continued in comments
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Enticing myself to sit down at my desk with a cozy ritual for today - a beautiful oolong tea ceremony as I get into my workflow. Peace and pleasure are powerful invitations.

And a little inspiration to get my creative juices going….

blessing the boats
by Lucille Clifton

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will love your back    
may you open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that

You know how sometimes you have these a-ha moments and you get to see yourself really clearly? This week talking with my husband, I re-realized that I love to share about what I’m learning, not what I “know.” I’ve been in and out of my little window here on IG (and I still think it’s important to take retreat away from social media and screens in general as a matter of health). However, I am feeling really inspired to share what I get to do, to notice, to hold, to consider, to nurture, to feel here in office with you all.

At the very center of what I do is curiosity - a commitment to not knowing- but always discovering and deepening my presence.
That’s why I’m starting a series of posts where I intend to share what I’m learning from you all- how what I get to observe drives my inspiration and the continual refining of all my skill sets. I hope by sharing these tidbits and artifacts from my daily work that it will open the way to the stream through which all healing and “knowing” flows.

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Happy Lunar New Year! And beginning of Spring starting this Friday! Lots to celebrate here and now.

This is me finishing up a day of work and reflecting on my gratitude for what I get to do and the incredible humans I get to do it with- you are my teachers and the collaboration had through the medium of healing are broad paint strokes that color my world with curiosity, tenderness, and connection. Not a day goes by where I don’t feel inspired by this work. You keep me reaching into my heart, into my books, into the support found in every present moment. A deep bow of gratitude for every person who has invited me into their lives and allowed me to care for their body, mind, and spirits. I’m happy you’re here.

Here’s to another year of joyful work together!

❤️🙏🏻

The Portal of Winter’s First Full Moon 🌕

“The Full Moon grants us the opportunity to witness our inner parts and vulnerabilities in a new light. Self compassion is the lighthouse that allows us to see through the judgements, criticisms, self doubt, and shame that often erode our vision in order to come back to our true, whole, innately enough selves, over and over again. In the midst of our depths, it’s becomes easy to lose sight of the power of our wisdom, the richness of our own knowing, the depth of our intuition, and the sweetness of our own magic. Self compassion is like a portal into who we truly are underneath all the stories, messages, and conditioning that gets piled on top. It realigns us with the way we want to be with ourselves, especially during times of potent energy and transformative possibility.”
- Lisa Olivera

How do you return to yourself?

How are you holding all parts with tenderness and reverence?

After sharing with a patient that one of my goals this year was to focus on getting more rest, she shared this super valuable article detailing the seven kinds of rest each person needs. Seven kinds of rest, here we go!

The 7 types of rest that every person needs Are you getting your seven or eight hours of sleep a night — yet you still feel exhausted? Here’s why that could be happening, according to physician Saundra Dalton-Smith.

Blossom by Mary Oliver

In April
the ponds open
like black blossoms,
the moon
swims in every one;
there’s fire
everywhere: frogs shouting
their desire,
their satisfaction. What
we know: that time
chops at us all like an iron
hoe, that death
is a state of paralysis. What
we long for: joy
before death, nights
in the swale - everything else
can wait but not
this thrust
from the root
of the body. What
we know: we are more
than blood - we are more
than our hunger and yet
we belong
to the moon and when the ponds
open, when the burning
begins the most
thoughtful among us dreams
of hurrying down
into the black petals
into the fire,
into the night where time lies shattered
into the body of another.

Artwork by Gordon Cheung

Ever wondered why an acupuncturist observes your tongue? Tongue diagnosis is a tool for us to get insight into what’s going on with the organs of your body, as well as the state of the fluids in your body, the quality of the movement of your blood, and many other important indicators for health. It guides our treatment as well as clues us into herbs and lifestyle changes that may be supportive for you. What is your tongue communicating to you today?

Graphic credit to: