We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Noemi Martinez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Noemi below.

Hi Noemi, thanks for joining us today. Have you ever experienced a times when your entire field felt like it was taking a U-Turn?

I’ve been a Chinese Medicine Practitioner for 17 years. I love my work so much because it’s never the same; client to client, case to case, moment to moment. The Medicine also has such a deep and rich history of seeing the person with such totality – body, mind, psyche, heart and spirit. There is nothing that is happenstance. The channels flow in a particular direction for a reason, they open up to certain areas in the body and the needles we insert in the body communicate very specific messages to the brain to help navigate the natural healing response of the body.

In school we were taught a very scientific way of arriving at a diagnosis and it definitely is important but it’s not the foundation of our medicine. Protocols exist but shouldn’t be relied upon solely for the treatment of this medicine. Intuition is rarely talked about in school and or learned except through pulse taking which could be very subjective.

When I got my Reiki Certifications I had to learn how to be in an allow state with myself and client. I wasn’t there to fix anything but intend that the Universal Wisdom bring balance to the person’s emotional body, nervous system and chakra systems by just simply being the vessel. The process of learning how to be with what was showing up and trusting it completely changed my approach to working with clients in Chinese Medicine. I believe one of the reasons our medicine can’t be scientifically studied is because each person is so unique – in their biological make up, history and it’s impossible to do group data research when each individual is its own blueprint. There is also something that magically happens within the body – sure you can say there are synapses of nerves talking to each other and chemical messengers firing to communicate, but it’s all happening much like a symphony that we just can’t explain.

I’ve had to unlearn this idea of fixing someone. And really understand what clients are coming in for. Some just want you to hold space as they share, to be seen or heard, some just want a break from the emotional charge of whatever they are experiencing and some truly want to unravel and understand why it started in the first place. The latter can take time and consistency that not many people are willing to give to the process. This is because we are so layered in all those areas – the psyche, the mind, the heart, the spirit and the body. A lot of what we deal with isn’t even ours to begin with! It’s about uncovering those layers with someone that understands it to get to the core and the essence of who we truly are.
Being a practitioner of this medicine I have always strived to be in integrity with myself by doing my own work alongside my clients. Oftentimes my clients would be mirrors to my own stuff whether past, present or future.

In the late summer of 2024, I had a major injury to my left knee from not warming up for my Polynesian dance class. I was trying to join my teacher live during my lunch break at work between clients because she was on the Pacific coast. My body was screaming at me that I should warm up but I kept ignoring it. Then as we were wrapping up the class I heard the pop. I still saw my client afterwards but I remember feeling lots of pain that evening. I found out nearly three months later I tore my medial mensicus and my medial collateral ligament significantly.

All of a sudden I couldn’t do the things I loved to do – which were to dance, run, kickboxing, yoga – and I was angry with myself, frustrated and sad that the strongest area of my body was no longer that. Soon after this injury, there was a rat infestation in the home I was renting and I had a landlord that told me I had to move out to deal with the issue, so I suddenly lost my home, displaced my animals and thankfully a good friend of mine took me in during a time of crisis. I was really good at helping others, but struggled with receiving. I was so grateful to receive this help and I know I needed it.

Four months later, I was ready to move out and their home had an electrical fire. My room and my most loved things were suddenly gone! Not to mention most of their home. Thankfully we were untouched and a neighbor saved their pup. Suddenly, I was displaced again. Another friend took me in while my friend and her family settled into her parents home.

A month after this a friend’s dog bit my right dominant hand (the hand that earns me a living wage). I gave myself acupuncture immediately and did a PTSD protocol on myself, and I was able to recover the feeling in my hand pretty quickly.

In June of that year I decided to close my practice, take a sabbatical and heal myself. My spirit led me to a retreat in Portland based on the teachings of the Shan Ren Dao. These teachings come from a rural part of China that didn’t have access to much healthcare. Wang Feng Yi learned from a teacher about this emotional and physical practice of earnestly looking at our relationships to our families (as they are the backbone to our lives), all our relationships and relationship to ourselves. It provided a road mad of being human, of how we fall out of our original nature with ourselves and how to get back to it. It was life changing and exactly where I needed to be! I learned that anger and frustration can bring on calamities. It’s the vibration that attracts the same vibratory state. I released so much emotional baggage that I lost ten pounds over the course of two weeks unintentionally.

The other place my spirit called me to was Mexico by the Pacific ocean in Oaxaca to really reset my nervous system and connect with my culture. Given the climate of what was happening to my people in the U.S., I wanted to see how it was affecting those in Mexico.

While in Mexico I was enrolled in a certification course called The Somatic Womb Path. We were learning about the Sensitivity cycle from the Hakomi Method of Somatic Psychotherapy. The belief system is that every natural process, every experience, follows a cycle. There’s a beginning, middle, end and pause before another new beginning. I was getting stuck in the insight, action and response phases of this cycle, often not nourishing the process or experience and not feeling satisfied with completion or relaxing to integrate it all. However, I finally had arrived to the end of this cycle and was reaping the benefits of it.

I just opened a practice in Charleston, South Carolina, (nearly 9 months later) but I had time to rest and figure out where I needed to shift things within myself and my practice to have a sustainable business and bring the wisdom I had inherited with me into this new chapter. I’m grateful to have had the foresight, the trust in my intuition and spirit and the support of my community, partner and family to be able to take my time, rest and to start over again. Talk about a major U turn, but Divinely aligned.

Noemi, 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 came into this medicine by way of getting Acupuncture to induce labor when I was pregnant with my daughter in 2004. I wanted to have a home birth and had exhausted all avenues before trying Acupuncture. It worked! 24 hours later, I went into labor naturally.

We are predominantly a Chinese Medicine Practice, offering Acupuncture, cupping, guasha, tuina (a manual therapy) and herbal prescriptions for clients. I also am a Reiki Master Teacher and teach and certify Level 1, 2 and will offer a Teacher Training Retreat in Mexico this year. I also have been a Cacao Facilitator and offer different work through that medicine with individuals, families, blessing ways for mothers to be and in Community circles. I want to host some sunrise and sunset ceremonies at the beach here in Charleston when the weather permits. I have certifications in Shadow Work, Somatic Womb Work, Facial Rejuvenation, AromaTouch Therapy (using essential oils to mitigate the stress response), Dimensional Dowsing (removing energy traffic jams in the body with a dowsing rod) and Astrology. We also look forward to getting a Maidens to Mens course teaching young girls ages 8-12 about their menstrual cycles and their cyclical nature, to help prevent menstrual diseases in the future while healing generational trauma around menstrual cycles in the process.

We offer some new packages such as Love my Body and Balance My Energy Package. The first includes Acupuncture twice a month and a cupping session and AromaTouch session to help mitigate the stress response and keep the body in balance. This also includes a complimentary herbal consultation for anything that may come up or suggestions for supplements. The Balance My Energy Package includes Acupuncture and Reiki sessions throughout the month or Dimensional dowsing with the Acupuncture and two complimentary Oracle Readings throughout the month.

Lastly, we will be offering a Pamper Yourself with Noemi day on the 3rd Saturday of every month. Enjoy a 4 hour day with Noemi starting off with cacao, a spiritual heart meditation or polynesian dance, body work (cupping or Tuina), Acupuncture and topping it off with Reiki. It’s like a spa day with lasting results!

We offer so many modalities within our practice to assist clients within different dimensions of themselves. We have a big tool kit and can figure out what is most needed once speaking with clients.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

1) To embody compassion for everyone, being able to meet people where they are. If someone doesn’t want to help themselves you can’t do it for them.

2) Instead of approaching the treatment as fixing we approach it as restoring the person back to a state of balance.

3) Understanding that educating clients will come with this line of work because the benefits are not as widely known.

4) It’s important to get creative and to trust your intuition. I added Reiki to an Acupuncture service and it became my top selling service.

5) Be sure to take time for self, rituals for releasing energy from the body and taking time off! Fill your cup first! You can show up with better presence if you do.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I met other Practitioners in my field and networked. This helped to meet other like minded individuals and create referrals both ways. I also am very thorough with my work and would often have clients spread the word after their first session. Word of mouth was my number one marketing tool!

I also had magazines like yours write articles about me and the public TV station do a special on our practice.

Lastly, I would say just getting good at my craft.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://anewhealingplace.co
• Instagram: https://Instagram.com/anew_healing_
• Facebook: https://Facebook.com/Anewacupuncture
• Other: https://TikTok.com/anewhealing

Image Credits

Ricardo Rivers Photography