We were lucky to catch up with Aiko Seffinger recently and have shared our conversation below.

Aiko, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?

My parents always acted as a team and really loved spending time together. There was never a sense of secret-keeping or grudges being witnessed in their relationship, which set a really nice example to learn from in my own relationships. To learn from each others differences and work together to make things work more smoothly while respecting the “why” to how some behaviors would happen. For instance, my mom’s house flooded away when she was little, so she would always take a million pictures of us and make copies of them all over the place xD He wouldn’t get mad about the clutter of it, because there was an understanding of where that behavior stemmed from – she cherished certain items and memories now because there was a time where she wasn’t able to. It showed me compassion and balance. It also taught me how to appeal to very different people about the same topic – which later helped in sales strategy – because I would have to ask them both for permission when I wanted to go somewhere or do something out of the norm as a kid (like no asking mom and hiding it from dad lol, both would come to agreements on whether it felt safe or appropriate for me).

And even after 30 years of marriage, my mom would say she was “waiting for my husband to get home” when her southern Japanese, farm-raised internal clock would want to turn in early, and he was on his way home from a long day at work teaching at a medical school 1-2 hours away. By the time I was born, my dad was the breadwinner and my mom was in charge of the books as a stay at home mom, but my sisters were older and didn’t get the same privilege since my family was on food stamps before. I knew these stories well, so I never felt entitled to things. I was instilled with gratitude early, and was lucky enough to learn both the value of higher education and the importance of living in balance with our environments and communities through lived in moments with them both. I felt safe to learn, be creative, and grow. I had an incredible support system (still do!) and learned how to work hard but also enjoy the fruits of my sow.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I grew up interested in arts and sciences, speaking Japanese and English while learning little bits of Spanish, Hawaiian & pidgin along the way, and playing with cash whenever I could get the chance. At first, I felt pressure to pick one thing to focus on – which works for a lot of people – but for me, I’ve always wanted to do it all. I feel like my mindset and wellness coaching, eye doctor-ing, yoga teaching, and retreat services with my LLC, Aileia healing arts collective, now finally ties everything together. But it was one windy journey~

I received my bachelor’s degree from San Diego State in Biology and Psychology, and was president of my pre-med club, VP of Scholars without Borders and our Women’s Club Soccer team. On paper I was successful; my resume was stacked with accomplishments, awards, grade A’s, and leadership positions. But when I finally went to apply to the D.O. program (osteopathic medical school), I felt imbalanced, sad I couldn’t hang out with my friends more, overly stressed for a 20 something year old, and like there had to be a better way. I absolutely love the concept of osteopathic medicine (my dad is a D.O. too), but it just wasn’t the right fit for me and I’m grateful he never pushed me into it. I did well on my MCAT but still knew it was time to drop my application – proof that you can be excelling on a path with it still feeling ‘off’ inside. Little did I know at the time that it was just the start of my intuitive inner path.

I began following one of my favorite Rumi quotes, “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” And mannn, was I pulled. With my love for water, sand and sunshine, I took my resume all over the bars and restaurants in Pacific Beach – with no experience in the service industry – and one of the bartenders, Joe, introduced me to his manager. To this day I still don’t know why he helped a stranger so easily (aside from him being a kind human), but it wasn’t the last time things have fallen into place with ease since then. I started as a hostess and worked my way up to serving faster than anybody had in the first 6 years of the restaurant being open. I worked in the San Diego service industry for 3 years with OMG hospitality group (love you guys!) at P.B. Alehouse, helped with the grand opening of Backyard Kitchen & Tap, and some catering events at the Union while also interning at Graffiti Beach to learn more about small – but big minded – business (thank you Melanie and Eric :). I was also driving weekends back to Los Angeles for songwriting and recording music (s/o EEL SOS and our single that played on the radio in Seattle), while interning at NightCap Clothing’s showroom and doing random little modeling shoots. At one point I had around 6 different jobs at the same damn time. I was running around all over the place until I took a full-time job at a biopharmaceutical lab (that my friend invited me to work for) and saw first-hand how cancer research was done, conversed with incredible scientists, and decided I wanted to help people out in the world again.

Then I had an appointment with my eye doctor who, after finding out I decided against my earlier goals, asked me if I had ever considered optometry. After shadowing physical therapists, podiatrists, and tons of other health professionals, I thought I’d be done with medicine, but her question made me realize that the eyes had always interested me – I love staring at them, used to draw them all the time when I was younger and taking art classes, and lit up at the idea of learning more about them. The fashion, technology, and neurological ties to optometry also intrigued me, and the more I looked into it, the more I felt like I could study this stuff forever. I shadowed, then worked for Dr. Valenti in La Jolla, CA (incredible vision therapy doc btw). His office was close to where I lived at the time, and him and my father shared a mentor in Dr. Viola Frymann (incredible lady). I went back to playing soccer, skateboarding around the beach, and studying science at home with family dinners with my roommates from the Big Island. Things just started to flow and I felt good again.

I kept a couple jobs while taking classes at community college to check if I really did want to go back into school – and found a new fire for learning. Turns out my optometrist was taught by the dean of the school I was applying to, and my world kept getting smaller yet more limitless. I had been practicing yoga since our high school anatomy honors teacher brought us a class on the football field to help us embody our musculoskeletal system teachings, and in 2016, I was trained by Monica Matthews for my 200h yoga teacher certification. Our other lead teacher ended up moving away right as I was finishing training, and I was offered to take over her very full and advanced classes…as a brand new teacher. Even though it felt intimidating, thank god I said yes! Because teaching started to become one of the most fulfilling parts of my life (to the point that I was called to Bali in 2022 to get even further training with the School of Healing Arts, where Daniela Mandala and Sharada Devi took our Sanskrit, Vedanta, and flow teachings to a whole other out-of-this-world level, but that story’s for another time). I continued to give 2-3 weekly classes at the Yoga Unit while in optometry school (miss you guys!), got elected as our class Trustee for the American Optometric Student Association (AOSA), acted as national liaison for the world council of optometry and sports vision section, and still had time to win Vavi and indoor soccer championships while refereeing on the weekends. Again…thriving on the outside, but with terrible sleeping habits, not-so-great relationships, and a lot of partying to escape the stress of wanting to feel through things but not having the right space or time to.

I went to Fiji on a clinical mission trip at Natuvu Creek where a few classmates and I provided care for over 300 locals for free, and couldn’t help but feel a deep sadness leaving the islands, like my work wasn’t even close to finished yet, or had it even begun? Then, I felt deeply called to serve a clinical rotation at Tséhootsooí Medical Center with the Navajo Nation – and it broke me wide open. It was my first time living in the middle of the high desert, and the lessons were endless. When I first got there, they advised I didn’t go to the gas station after sunset because of the sex trafficking. I shouldn’t go to certain places by myself, but my work schedule made it so it was either on my own or not at all. It was both isolating and freeing, exciting and terrifying. There were wild horses and dogs and cows everywhere, but we bought bottled water at the store since uranium contaminated the tap from the federal government’s abandoned mines. The amount of dysregulation in the communities by years of colonization and lack of healthy foods was so evident that the caregiver in me had no idea what to do. I couldn’t fathom that I was there struggling with my little problems while people were dealing with dozens of medications, blood sugar through the roof, grocery stores 3 hours away, getting limbs amputated in their 30’s, minimal native language spoken, and some of the most severe health cases in the country. The largest native lands left, and they were soo beautiful, yet filled with such an unspoken sorrow at the same time. I could hear the lands weep. I could see it deep in people’s eyes how broken the systems had made them, yet how beautiful and powerful their souls still were. And as I examined their eyes, I realized there was no way for me to help them see as much as they could help me see. I used to be so logical and run by mental frames, but here I became activated in a new way. After living there for a short 3 months as the fall turned to winter, one of the sweetest nurses, Erlin, took me on house calls with her to help those with strokes get more wood for their fireplace, bring pillows and blankets for the upcoming storms, and talk story about their families and where they came from and were going to. Those few moments felt like universe hugs, and I think about those kindhearted people often.

After rotations, I was set to start work back in the South Bay, Los Angeles, where I grew up. I was so excited to start at a sports vision practice that I connected with at a conference I decided to go to, by myself, even though it meant flying back and forth from the east coast twice in one week while I was on rotations in New Jersey and New York with Omni Eye Services (an amazing referral center). Then cue March of 2020. The shutdowns made my to-be job close, I had to move into my parent’s house since there were no more student loans available, and hiring freezes were everywhere. I borrowed money from my sister to get groceries because I didn’t qualify for the government relief funds. I started teaching yoga online, and wasn’t sure what the next step would be, but I wasn’t going to let external circumstances stop me.

Since I grew up coming to Japan and Hawai’i to visit family and friends, and shadowed doctors here before optometry school, I knew that I could tie in my knowledge of more remote care, multi-lingual skills, and clinical expertise back on the islands. I was already getting my license in both CA and HI, and my Hawai’I license came in sooner. I reached out to one of my professors that used to work on O’ahu, who linked me with one of her colleagues, who then helped me get added to the Hawai’i Optometric Association. Then one day, an email was sent out asking for 1-2 days of help – but I couldn’t move everything for that little amount of work. So, Dr. Litvin connected me with Dr. Kim (who had just gotten a new opening), and I’ve worked at both of their offices on the Big Island ever since 

I still teach group classes, surf, play soccer, coach private clients in healthier money mindsets, trauma release, ancestral connection, and wellness practices, sing, serve thousands of patients a year, and take fulfilling certification courses along the way. I have time to travel to temples and teachings around the world. I have time for my incredible, supportive, and hilarious boyfriend, family, friends, and myself – because I make it all a priority now. After allowing some time and space to explore, feel, and heal parts of my conditioned self, I’ve finally found my way back home, and I love holding that same space to meet between prayer and play with my clients. Merging my love for community, quantum sciences, ancient practices, language, and business has felt like the greatest challenge and biggest blessing, all at once. It is all a beautiful, crazy, unbelievably flowing balance. But if this story tells of anything, I hope it shows the power and possibility of combining our intuition and skills with help from our extended networks, and how grateful I am for it all to have worked out better than I could have ever possibly imagined.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

Other than learning from world-class trainings and mentors, getting to know THY SELF – energetically – is one of THEE most important aspects of success. Truly getting to know how much rest, play, support, delegation, and organization I not only need, but desire, to function as my most efficient, flowy, fun-loving self has been HUGE. And that looks different for everybody. Some people thrive in the hustle and grind, some people (aka me) are more like koalas and loveee a ton of rest.

I used to compare my energy output to others, expecting my day to be as packed as another entrepreneur, but found that I would always have points where I would crash; whether that was oversleeping my alarms too often, running late to appointments, getting easily frustrated with my relationships (because I was showing up exhausted and not my best, projecting internal problems onto others), or just feeling burnt out. If you’re finding yourself in these types of situations too often, it might be time to retreat, reflect, and re-evaluate where your energy is going and spend some time just playing and doing things you enjoy! Tuning back into fulfillment shows us where gaps might be in who we dream to show up as vs. who we are actually being, and reminds us what we work hard for – to enjoy our life on our terms. As part of play and self-discovery, I love diving into human design, gene keys, breathwork and astrological events to help tailor my natural moon cycle to my calendar schedule. I do best when I purposely schedule more spa days and rest surrounding travel days, and more strenuous activity or business meetings around my inner spring/summer. Knowing how my energy flows best allows me to enter this awesome metaphysical dance with my surroundings, and helps me thrive around the ebbs and flows of business and out-of-office life.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I broke my ankle playing soccer in college the spring before my senior year. I was in the middle of midterms for upper division pre-med courses of o.chem, biochem, biology, and physics, while I was put on narcotics and other medications for the swelling. I remember lying down with my leg elevated in a boot, all my notes spread all over the bed, studying with heavy eyelids during who-knows-what time of day. I would wake up in a daze, take another set of medications, and study again until the sleepy-dazed-studying cycle would continue. Somehow it worked, and I got some of the highest test scores of my class during that time. My professors and family were shocked. Once I made it through exam season, everyone figured that would be it for soccer; “it was a good run.” But I was convinced I could heal by the fall season. So with the help of really amazing SDSU athletic trainers, family, a DPT, and my orthopedic surgeon giving me a plate and some pins, I started running while visiting my family in Japan just two short months after. I developed plantar fasciitis from training right after surgery, and had to sit out of a lot of practices while I kept tending to my injuries. I would train at our athletic center before and after classes, roll out on a lacrosse ball everywhere (I still bring it with me on trips), and started to prioritize recovery more than over-training. My last season finally came, I got my starting position back, and we made it to Nationals – all within months of my first broken bone. When we truly desire something – and put aligned action into it – we can make a lot of seemingly impossible things come true.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aikoleia_/?igshid=MzMyNGUyNmU2YQ%3D%3D
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aiko.seffinger/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-aiko-seffinger/

Image Credits
Wari Om Amandalani Cassidy Berg Alan Alcid Christine Thiem Philip Rubio Tatiana Jensen