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When I was in my mid-twenties, struggling to form intimate relationships, I felt overwhelmed, consumed by all these painful emotions, and I was flailing as I tried to make sense of what was happening. I didn’t yet understand attachment wounds or how the body holds trauma and other lived experiences, along with the emotions tied to them. I only knew something inside me was hurting and that I was caught in a destructive cycle of reenactment.

During those years, I was open to almost anything that might help. Having trained with a traditional Native American doctor from the Kiowa Tribe gave me certain advantages. Even though I was quite wounded at the time, it wasn’t always apparent. I took advantage of opportunities to do many exchanges with chiropractors, osteopaths, acupuncturists, and other practitioners.

While I’ve explored many therapeutic interventions over the years, the work I’ve done with gifted healers, and the vision quests have done far more than anything else to help me heal my own emotional wounds. Yet I still get deep tissue bodywork whenever I can, and I remain open to other modalities when the opportunity presents itself.

Trained by a traditional Native American doctor from the Kiowa Tribe and having gone on many vision quests, I work as a conduit, as Indigenous healers have for thousands of years. For many years, I’ve assisted people in the midst of breakups and other painful losses, as well as with a wide range of physical health-related issues.

People reach out to me from across the U.S. and from other parts of the world. I can do some work remotely, but there are limits to what can be done over the phone. Some aspects of healing need to be done in person. When I can’t be physically present to help, I often encourage those who reach out to me to make use of therapeutic modalities available where they live, that I feel will best serve their needs, such as deep tissue bodywork or acupuncture.

Heartbreak Lives in the Body

As I continued to progress in my own healing, it became clear to me that heartbreak isn’t just emotional pain. It’s also physiological, affecting the organs and systems of the body, our sleep, digestion, appetite, energy levels, and our ability to cope with the realities of daily life.

When someone is in the acute stages of heartbreak, their whole system is thrown out of balance. They’re reactive, depleted, and overwhelmed. Their thoughts spiral and their sleep is disrupted. In that state, it becomes much harder to digest the lived experience of loss and the flood of emotion that comes with it.

During these times of crisis, the system needs help stabilizing. That’s where certain body-based therapeutic modalities, such as acupuncture, can be helpful.

When you're in the midst of a breakup or other painful loss, you tend to contract around the grief. Over time, that contraction can create a kind of stagnation in the body. Acupuncture helps relieve that stagnation and encourages the body’s natural flow to return. When things begin moving again internally, it can be easier to come out of a negative spiral and work through your emotions.

Acupuncture needles stimulate specific nerves that send signals to the brain, helping shift the body toward the parasympathetic, or “rest and digest,” state. In that state, your heart rate slows, your muscles soften, and your system begins to settle. This creates a physiological window of tolerance where it’s easier to face what you’re feeling without becoming overwhelmed.

By placing needles at specific points, acupuncture helps restore balance to neurochemicals like serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins that often drop when an attachment bond is broken. For some people, this creates a temporary “chemical cushion” that softens the sharp edges of heartache.

When you're grieving, your body is flooded with cortisol and adrenaline. If these remain elevated, they leave you exhausted and make sleep difficult. Acupuncture helps your system clear and settle after prolonged stress, supporting your body’s natural recovery processes and helping you regain the baseline physical strength needed to do the emotional work of healing.

Heartbreak often brings up grief, loss, and old wounds. Acupuncture is not going to resolve attachment wounds, and it is not a substitute for deep internal work. Healing requires metabolizing your lived experiences of loss and the emotions tied to them.

Acupuncture can, however, be a meaningful support. It can help your system stabilize so you’re better able to stay present with what you’re feeling and do the deeper work that real healing requires.

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