We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joshua Park a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Joshua thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?

I was diagnosed with an autoimmune inflammatory bowel disease in my mid-twenties, and my life began to unravel. Every day brought chronic diarrhea, nausea, abdominal pain, urgency, blood in my stool, and utter exhaustion. I was losing weight, losing stability, and losing hope.

What was even worse than my physical collapse was the failure of every system I turned to. Doctors offered immunosuppressants. The alternative world gave me restrictive diets and expensive supplements. But nothing worked.

Everyone had a theory. No one had a clear diagnosis, or a roadmap for healing. And nearly everyone told me the same thing: “You’ll just have to live with this.”

Then I found East Asian Medicine. Specifically, Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture.

At first, I didn’t expect much. I had already tried everything. But within just a few weeks, everything changed. The urgency stopped, the pain disappeared, my appetite returned and my bowel movements normalized. For the first time, I like I wasn’t just trying to manage symptoms: I was truly healing.

That experience changed the entire trajectory of my life.

I committed fully to mastering East Asian Medicine, earned my Doctorate, and went on to work as an acupuncturist within a hospital system. Eventually, I co-founded a clinic devoted entirely to chronic digestive conditions, especially those that don’t respond to conventional care.

That clinic is Empowered You Acupuncture, located in Orange County, California. We combine the diagnostic precision of classical East Asian Medicine with the latest research to offer integrative medical solutions for chronic digestive diseases.

We recently published a peer-reviewed case study on how a centuries-old herbal formula achieved full remission in a patient with Irritable Bowel Syndrome, by directly modulating the brain-gut axis. I’ve also co-authored a book, “Hidden River: The Lost Science of Gut Ecology” which reframes the digestive system as an ecosystem and offers a preview of the clear, systems-based path to healing we use every day to help patients restore their health.

This is the clinic I wish I had found when I was sick.

It’s my life’s greatest joy now help people with digestive diseases who feel like they’re out of options, many of whom have been told there’s nothing left to try. If that’s you, I want you to know: healing is possible. I’m living proof that lasting recovery is possible without immunosuppressants, restrictive diets, or pharmaceutical drugs. Over a decade later, I remain 100% symptom-free.

But healing your gut takes more than hacks and elimination diets. It requires a shift in how we understand the body. The model I use in my practice is rooted in thousands of years of wisdom, and increasingly validated by cutting-edge research on the microbiome, immune system, and gut–brain axis.

Often it’s our oldest ideas that end up being the most advanced.

Joshua, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a Doctor of East Asian Medicine, licensed acupuncturist, and co-founder of Empowered You Acupuncture, a gut-focused clinic based in Orange County, California. We specialize in treating chronic digestive disorders, especially the kinds that don’t respond to conventional care or to one-size-fits-all wellness protocols.

Our patients come to us with conditions like Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO), leaky gut, food sensitivities, and unexplained bloating or fatigue. Many have been through years of failed interventions like medications, lab work, restrictive diets, supplement protocols, but who are still suffering. We help them find clarity, direction, and in many cases, complete resolution.

What makes our clinic different is the framework we use. We integrate the diagnostic precision of Traditional East Asian Medicine with the latest research on the microbiome and brain–gut–immune axis. This allows us to go beyond managing symptoms and to effectively treat the underlying factors that cause chronic digestive disease.

We offer in-person acupuncture treatments, personalized herbal prescriptions, and health coaching for patients worldwide. In addition, we’re currently developing a digital gut health program to make this approach more accessible to a broader audience.

Earlier this year, we published a peer-reviewed case study in the journal Convergent Points, documenting the full remission of Irritable Bowel Syndrome in a patient who had failed both biomedical and alternative treatments. The formula used was over 700 years old and worked by modulating the brain–gut axis.

I’m also the co-author of “Hidden River: The Lost Science of Gut Ecology”, a book that introduces readers to our whole-systems approach to digestive health. It translates the East Asian diagnostic framework into the language of modern science and offers practical self-care strategies for those navigating chronic gut issues.

I’m proud of our clinical outcomes, but even more so of the clarity and hope we’re able to offer people who have been living in confusion, fear, or burnout from chronic digestive problems. Our work empowers our patients to reclaim their health, their agency, and their lives.

If you’ve been told to “just live with it,” or that your labs are normal even though your body clearly isn’t, there’s another way to heal your gut. The system we use is ancient, and supported by the most advanced research in medicine today.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn the idea that a diagnosis defines who I am, or what I can expect from my future.

One of the biggest lessons I had to unlearn, both personally and professionally, was the idea that a diagnosis defines your identity, and that “chronic” means “forever.”

When I was diagnosed with an autoimmune inflammatory bowel disease, it felt like a life sentence. I internalized the language around it: lifelong, incurable, progressive. Even in the alternative health world, the conversation was often just as limiting: focused on “managing” symptoms through elimination diets, supplements, or lifestyle restrictions.

What I’ve come to understand, first through my own recovery, and later through my clinical training in East Asian Medicine, is that our bodies are not broken machines. They’re ecosystems. And ecosystems can regenerate. If Yellowstone can be restored by reintroducing wolves, your body can also recover from a chronic illness with the right interventions.

East Asian Medicine doesn’t treat fixed diseases. It sees patterns: dynamic, shifting states of imbalance that can be corrected. That model allowed me to stop identifying with my diagnosis and start identifying the terrain underneath it. It taught me that healing isn’t about controlling symptoms, but about changing the internal conditions that produce them.

This perspective is affirmed by research into neuroplasticity, microbiome remodeling, and the gut–brain–immune axis. What we now know through science is exactly what East Asian Medicine has described for thousands of years: when you intervene at the level of the system, not just the symptom, everything can change.

Today, I work with patients who are still carrying those same limiting beliefs I once held: “This is just how my body is.” “I’ll have to manage this forever.” “The labs are normal, so maybe it’s all in my head.” I’m able to meet them at that crossroads, not only as a clinician, but as someone who’s stood where they’re standing. It’s my greatest privilege to help them reclaim their health, their clarity, and their future.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

For me, resilience didn’t look like triumph. It looked like refusing to give up, even when nothing seemed to be working, and everyone around me thought I was wrong.

After I was diagnosed with an autoimmune inflammatory bowel disease, I followed the usual path: medications, specialists, lifestyle changes. Then came the alternatives: diets, supplements, detoxes. Nothing really helped, and many of these things came with unpleasant side effects.

I felt like I was spinning in circles. In addition to debilitating digestive symptoms, I had to deal with isolation and a growing sense that no one really understood what I was going through. I was losing trust in my body, and more dangerously, starting to lose trust in myself.

When I finally began exploring East Asian Medicine, the reactions from friends, family, and doctors were immediate:

“You’re grasping at straws.”
“There’s no science behind that.”
“It’s not real medicine.”
“You still look sick.”

I was told, directly and indirectly, that this path would lead nowhere. But something deeper in me said otherwise. I stayed the course. I kept seeing my East Asian Medicine provider. I kept taking the herbs they prescribed me. I kept getting acupuncture. I stayed in relationship with my body, even when the outside world said I was wrong to trust it.

And in a relatively short amount of time, my health returned, fully. Without pharmaceuticals. That was over ten years ago and I remain 100% symptom free to this day.

That experience changed everything, not just my gut health, but my worldview. It taught me the importance of choosing to listen to your own knowing, when every voice around you says not to.

That’s the kind of strength I see in my patients now: people who’ve been dismissed, misdiagnosed, and still haven’t given up. They’re still looking. Still trying. Still showing up.

And I get to meet them exactly where they are, and say: “You’re not crazy. You’re not broken. And you’re not alone.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://empoweredyouacupuncture.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eamdoc
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/empoweredyouacupuncture
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-park-464267252/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@empoweredyouacupuncture
• Other: Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@empoweredyouacu