Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Elaina Greenberg. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Elaina, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear the story behind how you got your first job in field that you currently practice in.
I want to share a story of a job I didn’t get. Of an interview I totally bombed, and how it was a great thing to happen to me.
After graduating at the top of my class in acupuncture school, I applied for in internship at my university’s community clinic. There I would see private practice patients, supervise student clinicians, have the opportunity to do clinical research, and receive an instant paycheck as an employed acupuncturist. Something not very common in 2002, or 2023 for that matter. I knew that my teachers loved me and that my grades were stellar. I thought I was a shoe in. I didn’t prepare at all for the interview; I figured it was a matter of formality. My ego disguised as confidence couldn’t have been bigger.
The interview was conducted by a five person panel of my professors, and they were 30 minutes late getting started. The first question that they asked me was, “What would you bring to the clinic?” My response was, “Well, for starters, I would begin on time.”
At that moment. As the words were spilling out of me, I had an out-of-body experience watching my inability to stop talking. I started to sweat bullets, completely pitting out my blouse. The interview continued as I was half in my body, all the while knowing that I was woefully unprepared and answering questions without much thought. I was blowing it. Majorly blowing it. We all knew it. My whole plan for my post-graduate career was was slipping away along with the beads of sweat down my back.
I left feeling massively humbled and nauseated.
It took me a bit of time to formulate a new plan. I would now have to pivot and start my own practice while working for a paycheck. My practice didn’t become self-sustaining overnight. I wasn’t going to be spoon-fed patients based on my school’s reputation, I was going to have to make my own name.
Throughout grad school I worked reception at various medical offices. So I found a new practice to work at while I was getting started. Because of my front-office experience and my newly minted masters degree, I was able to get a job managing a physical therapy clinic. They taught me all the aspects of running a business that I never learned in school – bookkeeping, insurance billing, cultivating provider relations, customer service, etc.
So five days per week I was at the PT clinic and on Saturdays I was practicing acupuncture. Over time I weened off my managing job and dove further into my own practice. It took about three years until I was able to solely practice acupuncture and botanical medicine to support myself.
The lessons that I gained from NOT getting the internship far outweighed what I would have gotten had I not blown the job interview.
1. Humility is really a verb not a noun.
2. Being in school is the easy part. Paying my dues came after (along with student loan repayments)
3. The gift of not getting what I thought I wanted gave me what I really wanted.
It took longer, but through my independent practice I found my own voice. I studied with mentors of my interest not ones pre-vetted by the agenda of a university board. I taught classes to the community on wellness. I created a work schedule that mirrors the needs of my family.
I’m grateful for the freedom that not getting what I thought I wanted gave me and for the dismantling of the unrealistic pedestal I put myself on.
Elaina, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m often asked how — or why — I became an acupuncturist. I can truly say that it has been a journey of the heart.
It started in high school.
In my teenager “downtime” I exclusively read books on herbals and healing. Any kind of natural healing — Pranic breathing, meditation, plant medicine, homeopathy…
After high-school, I did what was expected and went to university. I was in the science college within Michigan State, majoring in forest conservation. I did well, but it wasn’t a good fit. I would sit in chemistry class with headphones on, listening to music, and then go back to my dorm room and teach it to myself.
I spent that summer after my freshman year in Colorado. I came back to Michigan State with a wayward mind. I was taking a construction drafting class (I might want to be an architect), a math class (I’m good at it) and a forest conservation class (I like trees). I met with my forestry professor from the previous year and he sat me down for a frank conversation. “What are you doing? You are wasting your time and your money. Figure it out.” So, I left his office and dropped out of school.
I called my mom to tell her the rapid developments in my life. She told me to get a job. So, I did and then moved back out to Colorado six months later.
At 19, I began my formal herbal studies at the Rocky Mountain Center for Botanical Studies (RMCBS) in Boulder, Colorado. I focused on Western herbal medicine and developed a special interest in ethical wildcrafting and herb preparations.
In 1996, I did a shamanic apprenticeship with herbalist Susun Weed in Saugerties, New York. While working with her wildcrafting herbs, tending goats, and deepening my knowledge of holistic healing, I was introduced to the concept of recapitulation.
Recapitulation is an initial process in the shamanic journey to reclaim all the energy that has been lost throughout one’s life. You revisit each meeting, interaction, and event to retrieve any energy that may have been lost in that exchange. In this lineage, it was left to the apprentice to figure out how to reclaim that energy.
I think of it like a library. Over a lifetime we lend books, take books that might not be ours, and are left with an incomplete, inauthentic collection. Recapitulation is the process of re-establishing our soul’s library, so we can meet each new moment in fullness. This is critical for a healer.
It took me almost 10 years to simply figure out what my personal process of reclaiming lost energy was. The lineage of shamanism that I was taught to did not teach the “how” of this energetic reclamation. That part was left for me to discover.
To balance out my woo-woo esoteric and energetic affinity (really to please my mom), I continued my education and earned a Bachelor of Science in Organic Chemistry and Phytopharmacology (the chemistry of plant medicine) at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.
After graduation, I met an acupuncture student while I was visiting New Mexico. From a single conversation, I had a visceral response to what he was showing me. “I want to eat that, I need to get that information inside me.” There was no doubt, no question. It was a directive. That I simply must study the coolest thing I have ever heard of.
Fast forward to the next year where I had applied and was accepted to Bastyr University’s Master of Science program in Acupuncture and East Asian Medicine. I was also offered a job at Bastyr’s research institute based on my own undergraduate research and chemistry background.
While I studied at Bastyr, I was a research assistant studying ultra-high dilutions of Taxol from the Pacific Yew tree against various breast cancer cell lines. After that study wrapped, I continued to work as a teacher’s assistant for point location, Chinese herbal therapeutics, and biochemistry.
At Bastyr, I met my first Chinese medicine mentor – Dr. Anne Jeffres.
With Anne, I studied Classical Five Element Acupuncture not only in school, but also as an observer in her private practice. Even after graduation and getting my own license, I continued to study and observe Anne. She was profoundly influential on my practice and perspective of healing. Eventually, Anne moved to New York, and I inherited much of her practice in Washington.
After studying with Anne for so long, I wanted to study with one of her foundational teachers, Thea Elijah. What better than the teacher’s teacher?
Thea is a master Sufi healer, acupuncturist & herbalist, and international lecturer. I have now studied with Thea for more than 20 years, and I embody the depth of her teachings into each treatment and into my daily life. So, while Anne shaped my acupuncture practice, Thea has influenced the eyes and heart I see the world through.
My family and I left Washington in 2010 to re-establish ourselves near family in Los Angeles. Here, I get to weave together my vast background from shamanism to biochemistry and Taoist philosophy to autoimmune disease to create diverse, effective, custom treatments for each patient.
In 2015, I began studying the Classics of Chinese medicine with Z’ev Rosenberg. I realized that I needed to learn the code that this medicine was built on. To further this application of 2,000-year-old texts into modern diagnosis and treatment, in 2018 I began a Graduate Mentorship Program with Sharon Weizenbaum and the White Pines Institute. I have been studying with Sharon ever since, totaling over 300 continuing education hours. I have now embarked on a year long deep study of women’s health through the lens of Classical Chinese medicine.
I essentially specialize in working with people desperate for healing. People who have seen numerous providers without reprieve. Doctors often refer me patients who have exhausted the biomedicine toolbox and are looking for other options. I listen to each person with a whole heart and utilize their own body’s innate intelligence to support their individual transformation into a state of health and vitality.
Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?
I would absolutely choose the same profession. I can’t imagine myself doing anything else. Not only do I get to be of service, which is key for my heart’s purpose, but I get to learn forever. The field of healing, wellness, and East Asian medicine is a well that cannot run dry. There is always something more to learn and deeper connections to be made. This not only feeds my mind but feeds my heart. I’m grateful to have found this path and be able to make it into a career.
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
I think two of the most helpful qualities that brings success in my field are – listening and holding the space for discomfort.
Listening is critical because so many of us yearn to be truly heard. To listen without assumption or expectation is unfortunately unique. So many patients have been told that “nothing is wrong with them.” All the tests are clear. And while that is good, they are still experiencing suffering. They still have gut issues, or shoulder pain, or whatever brought them in for care in the first place. So while getting a Western diagnosis can be helpful, it doesn’t mean that it has an answer. By creating a space for people to unload, rest, receive care, and then re-enter the world is a gift to not just them, but to all of us. It starts with the experience of being heard.
Holding space for discomfort can be a complicated thing. I mean, people are coming to see me to alleviate pain, “get back to normal” and I’m just allowing them to feel crummy? Yes and no.
My job is to interpret their experience into an effective acupuncture and / or herbal treatment. To connect and resonate to the part of them that is free from of malaise. To utilize the body’s innate wisdom to find relief from suffering, and to reconnect with their true nature. It is not my job to fix problems. I have a major aversion to the word fix. We aren’t cars. Pain is a teacher, and sometimes the best one. I don’t want to take that evolution and lesson away. I do want to help my patients get that lesson AND find relief.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.elainagreenberg.com
- Instagram: @elainaglac
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElainaGreenbergAcupuncture
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elaina-greenberg-m-s-l-ac-19832b10/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/elaina-greenberg-ms-lac-los-angeles
Image Credits
Michelle Pullman