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Tom McCarthy is a husband, father, author, speaker, entrepreneur, and investor who has owned businesses in the training, software, financial services, and restaurant industries. Tom’s clients in his training business include some of the worlds leading companies such as Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Salesforce, Wells Fargo, and MetLife. His latest book,... Read More
Doctor LeTa, a Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and a national wellness expert, helps individuals achieve and maintain their healthcare goals efficiently. When given the proper support, our bodies can often return to healthy function at almost any age. Having treated patients over the past 17 years, Doctor LeTa... Read More
- What is Qi
- What are the Types of Qi
- What are the functions of Qi
- How Emotions Affect Your Qi
- The 6 healing sounds you can do to change your emotional state
Related Topics
Acupuncture, Aging, Blood Circulation, Body Temperature, Chi, Clean Air, Clean Food, Clean Water, Digestion, Emotional Health, Energy, Energy Channels, Environment, Five Elements, Herbal Medicine, Illness, Immune System, Mental Health, Meridians, Mind-body-spirit Connection, Movement, Music Therapy, Nutrition, Physical Health, Qi Gong, Regulating Emotions, Six Healing Sounds, Spiritual Health, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Transformation, Vital Energy, YouthfulnessTom McCarthy
I get to introduce you to one of my favorite people for our next interview. Her name is Dr. LeTa Jussila and she is amazing. She’s somebody that I got to know. I think a couple of years ago and every time I’m around her, her energy just lifts me up. So the global energy healing some, it just hurt the energy that she gives off. You can see even in her smile right now is just this beautiful, fun, playful healing energy. And so you’re gonna learn a ton from her today and she’s got something that she’s gonna share with you that you can actually put into action right away. And I don’t want to give away the surprise too soon, but, but it’s, it’s gonna be really cool. So stay tuned throughout the interview for that. She is a doctor of oriental medicine. So she is an acupuncturist. She’s also an herbalist and she treats people from all over the world. She’s based up in northern California, but she has an online practice too. And whenever I see her at conferences or different things, I’m always asking her advice and getting some input from her So I’m really excited to have her here for all of you to see. LeTa. Welcome. Great to have you here.
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
Thank you, Tom. I’m so glad to be here with everybody.
Tom McCarthy
Yeah. So I want to start by asking a question because I know that traditional or Western medicine looks at illnesses, it looks at symptoms and it goes in there and that it attacks and tries to fix and things like that. How do you look at illness with your background when somebody has an illness? How is it that you start to look at it and, and dive in to help them?
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
That’s a great question. Well, one of the most important things is to understand that in traditional Chinese medicine, we group together hundreds of things and I can go into detail on that into one specific system within the body. So for instance, we really have a map of the five elements and so using each elem. So for instance, if we took the wood element, there’s associations over 100 associations with the wood element that we would look to in the body to see where the imbalances. So if someone’s having some you know, lifestyle issues where they’re over drinking or there’s extra toxicity or they’re having a lot of anger, they have really tight stiff tendons and ligaments and all of these things that we think might be separate or all tied to one system. And so the beauty of Chinese medicine is that we find these connections, direct correlations that Western doesn’t find. And so it literally gives us a lens and insight into where we need to support in the body.
Tom McCarthy
Yeah. So that’s interesting. So you’re not looking at, you know, like cancer, you know, heart disease. I mean, this is what I love about traditional medicine because you know, we’re so fixated on okay. You know, I’ve got this, I’ve got that you’re looking beyond that, you’re looking at the cause and you talk about the five elements and, and then you know, also the energy associated to that, which I know you call key, right? Q I and that it really is empowering, I think, you know, because when we think of these fixed type things we see in our body and we at least we think that they’re fixed, it seems tougher to heal from it. But then you look at it from a perspective of everything is just energy, right? It’s key, there’s blockages, there’s over doing some things under doing other things. And then you can really start to work, not just to take care of that one issue, you will do that, but really create health throughout the body. And I think that is that, that, that took me a long time to really understand that, you know, I was talking to two people like you and I’m like, no, no, it’s this and you go well. No, that’s, that’s the symptom, but the cause is something different. So when someone comes to you and I know we’re gonna talk about dying a little bit, but when someone comes to you with illnesses, how do you start working with them to help them heal? What’s the process that you go through?
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
Well, one of the first things I have to assess as a practitioner in the diagnostics is does this person really need to be supported on the mental, emotional, spiritual, physical realm? Because you know, there used to be that phrase, mind, body, spirit connection. I reframed that to a mind, body, spirit continuum, it’s one unit. But in Chinese medicine, Tom, we don’t recognize the brain, in fact, the heart is the mind. And so what we, what I realized is that overpass Over the last 17 years in my clinic here is that if I can really help people understand their emotional landscape, the place they live their life from, because we’re always subconsciously trying to get our needs met. I mean, our personality was developed as a strategy and that’s amazing. But what happens is that at some point, our personality creates a pathology, right? You have the person that day gives too much, you know, because they want to feel needed and wanted that has boundary issues. And then we see that in digestion, you have the visionary leader, CEO who is out of balance, who you know, starts yelling at people instead of being this benevolent leader. So there’s, there’s many different ways to look at where a person is living their life from where they’re spending way too much energy trying to be a certain way when you, when, when you’re so connected to yourself and you really know yourself. It’s, it’s, you know, I call it effortless power, this relaxed energy. So from that place, you know, I can, I can then kind of tease out where this person in front of me really need to be supported and what’s the best way to get them there? And there’s a little bit of education that goes along with that because we create this, these defenses as a, as a mechanism, as a strategy. And sometimes it’s hard to let go of those.
Tom McCarthy
And so what, what are the tools that you use acupuncture as a tool? You use herbs? I know that you can avoids also? Like what are some of the tools that you use to help people?
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
Great question. So first is, it absolutely like if they’re in my clinic, acupuncture is a great tool because it operates on the nervous system. It actually allows people to get out of their own way. It puts your brain in a certain state healing state. So you’re not thinking there’s nothing to do. But herbal medicine is, it’s huge for me. I love supporting people through herbal medicine. I love teaching someone Qi Gong prescription because qigong is every branch of Chinese medicine. And the beautiful thing about qigong is that it is a moving meditation. So it gives your brain something to do your use breath work. You’re using intention, sometimes you’re visualizing sound, you’re doing our sorry color, you’re doing sounds. So Qi Gong is a really amazing tool. But then also there are foods, you know, you can literally eat certain foods or drinks, certain things to change your energy and change your emotional state. And I, and I, you know, it’s not really in the Chinese medical realm, Tom, but you know, changing your posture, changing your environment, changing what you wear, you know, the music you’re listening to, I mean, there’s so many other things that can help someone move into a state of being able to really change, you know, their emotional state based on what their needs are.
Tom McCarthy
Yeah, and use all those things like even changing the music you listen to, that’s, that’s really cool or, or the TV, that you know what you watch on TV, right? I mean, everything that we consume or or is in our environment, we have to take in and process. Some things are stressors, some things are more calming or energizing and that’s really cool to think about. I love how you’ve incorporated all these different things into what you do. So let’s dive into energy or as you call it chi talk, talk to us about like how is it made in the body? How is chi generated in the body?
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
That’s great. So, first and foremost, as you’ve learned from the stomach, we know that energy and is interchangeable as a word, but it’s about life force. It’s your vital energy. It’s also considered electromagnetic forces and this energy that we’re talking about runs through what we call these channels or meridians in the body. And you know, if we step back a second, I’d love to just share with you that there are five main functions of your energy in relationship to your body. And, and we don’t want to go into a deep lecture. But the most important thing to understand is that the energy within your body helps you with movement, right? So we’re sitting still now I need energy in my body to propel physical movement. It’s gonna move my blood and body fluids. It’s also warming, right? So energy in your body is meant to maintain your body temperature, right? You have energy to protect you, right? That’s like your immune system. You have energy that’s going to hold your organs in place your blood in your vessels, energy to move the nutrients to where it needs in your body. And then the last function of energy in Chinese medicine is transformation. So this helps you transform the foods into digestion and making the fluids that you take in usable and then of course transformation of your body itself. So you need energy to mature, to age, to develop. So there’s many different kinds of energy in the body. And I would say that when you take in air, you make this body full of life. And so one of the things in order to make usable energy in your body, you need clean air, you need clean water and you need a good food source. And those three combined will then be able to make energy and make blood in the body. And from that place, you can then do a lot with it. But understand that a lot of us don’t get clean air. A lot of us don’t get clean water and a lot of us are not getting clean food. And so the energy that we have in the body isn’t pure isn’t clean, there can be a dense you, you know, it’s kind of like toxins. It can, it can be a darker energy, cloudy energy.
Tom McCarthy
What is your, this is popped in my head? But what are your thoughts around aging? Because you, you brought, you brought up, you know, we need energy to age. Can we is, you know, as my, my age is advancing, this is something I’ve been, I’ve thought about a lot like can we slow down the aging process? Can we retain youthfulness longer? Using these things that, that you help people with. What are your thoughts on that? I’m just curious.
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
No, it’s a great question. I absolutely believe that there’s so many things that we could be doing to slow down. Absolute. The aging process. I mean, you know, even in not in my realm, I mean, the telomere extensions and, I mean, all the things that, that we know in modern medicine, they’re saying in 10 years we will not age, you know, the what’s happening in the conferences right now? What happened in San Diego a couple weeks ago? The longevity anti Aging conference is that they are the pioneers in that realm are saying we’re almost there in Chinese medicine. We have Chinese people that have lived very long time, you know, I mean, you know, I can’t remember the oldest man. Is it like two or 350 years old? Yes. Yes. Yes. So, but I do believe that there’s so many factors, right? So, you know, we aren’t impeccable. We were in relationship with everybody else on the planet. You know, we know that from the pandemic, we do affect everybody else. And so what that means is the quality of my air, the quality of my food, right? It takes a person that’s very interested in making sure that their environment, which that’s one of the fundamental principles of Chinese medicine and Daoism is balancing and becoming harmonious in your environment. And the more that you know, we utilize plastics and you know, all the other things that are more modern with the industrial revolution to make our life easier. It really has a different energetic on our system. I mean, we know this with cell phones and we’re so grateful we have cell phones, but we do know the impact of E M F S. Remember energy is electromagnetic. So when you are in relationship with E M F electromagnetic fields, it’s going to of course affect your energy field.
Tom McCarthy
What do you recommend around that? Like as my cell phone’s sitting right in front of me here.
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
There are so many companies dedicated to help supporting that it doesn’t affect you. So you know, E M F blockers and cases and glasses and whatnot. So you know, this is what this is what I always give the example, Tom about gluten intolerance. So there are people that have, when they eat gluten, they feel it, they get digestive issues. I mean horrible. But there’s also people that are gluten intolerant that have elevated liver enzymes that don’t feel any digestive symptoms, but they’re still having an effect on the body. So it’s not a belief, you know, people always say to me, I don’t believe in acupuncture or I don’t believe in E M F S. My my blanket statement is that yes, everything is affecting us. It’s were individual people. So someone’s energy is going to affect you differently than someone else is just like a fool food or drink or an experience. And so it’s up to us to understand our own energy system. And I think that’s why we’re all here on the summit, what we can do and take responsibility to understand what influences it and how I can transform it in a way that elevates me.
Tom McCarthy
Yeah, as I mentioned at the beginning, I think you’re one of the most enlightened doctors and, and I hope everybody will not only listen to this but seek out your wisdom to. So I talked about in the beginning that you were going to give us some healing techniques. And so maybe we can spend the next, you know, 5, 10 minutes or so talking about what we need to know before you even introduce these healing techniques and then we can go into them. So people can really have some things they can start using right away.
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
Absolutely. Well, one of the first things I want to just let everybody know is that in energy in your body, very specifically, it goes in a certain direction. So just like a river goes in a certain direction, your energy follows a natural course of direction. And so what happens is if you’re looking at your energy, some of you might have excess energy, some of you might not have enough and some of you might have rebellious energy. And, before I go into like the practicalities of how you can self assess if you don’t have enough energy in your brain, you could be sluggish. If you have too much energy, it could be like anxiety, right? So rebellious energy is when the energy is going in the wrong direction. So the most simple example I can give you is your stomach key. So normally it’s supposed to go down, but if it goes in the opposite direction, you will hiccup, you’ll have nausea and the extreme is vomiting because it’s going in the wrong direction. So those are the main ways that when your, when your energy is in your Body, you don’t want too much energy in one area of the body and not enough energy and another place. And so it’s part of understanding, you know, it’s really simple and we do not have to complicate things. If you don’t, if you’re tired, you don’t have a lot of energy in your body, right? And then there’s some people that have so much energy, you know, you think about that type a person that, you know, they’ve done 20 errands before noon, right? So everybody has a different so to to introduce the healing sounds and something practical for our listeners. I want you to understand that in Chinese medicine, it’s built on the premise of this philosophy of Yin and Yang and the five elements and the five elements. Each element has like I mentioned in the beginning of this discussion, you know, 100 or more different characteristics. And one of the most prominent things I could talk about today is your emotions. So there are some seven main emotions in Chinese medicine. And each of these emotions causes your chi to wreak havoc on the system. And what I mean by that is if you’re feeling anger, we know it’s going to negatively impact your liver function, okay. And the liver is to get rid of the toxins and whatnot. So, one of the things I share with patients is that when you’re feeling a certain emotion and you don’t want to feel it because it’s absorbing and taking up too much of your resources, too much of your mental space. And you’re like, I do not want to feel frustrated anymore or I don’t want to feel this fear anymore or rejection or whatever the emotion is. You can, yeah, you can, you can actually do what we call a healing sound and I’d love to go through them with you because yeah, because if, if you and again, you know, you can obviously look it up on the internet. I have a really amazing mini class. I’m, you know, I’m gifting everybody if they’re interested in that. But when you can empower yourself to, again, emotionally regulate where you’re at throughout your day, it is not only empowering, but you’re being efficient with your energy and you start to know how to not only harness it but be able to direct it and use it in the ways you want. And that’s when you become a master of your energy instead of trying to be a master of your time. So should we get into it? Okay. So first and foremost, let’s start with the heart because the heart, you know, we know that the heart is all about love, receiving love, giving love, being joyful, compassionate. But when the heart is out of balance, we feel resentment, we even feel hatred. We feel like we were sometimes people are cruel. So, one of the ways you can balance your heart out is by doing the healing sound for the heart. So it’s called, you know, the spelling is H U H like huh? But you do it so do it with me
Tom McCarthy
Ha quicker than a quicker than a ha. It’s ha is am I doing it right?
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
Or you want to lengthen it like it’s long it’s like drawn out. Yeah. When you’re doing, when you’re doing the sound, it’s a feedback loop because you’re listening to it, your nervous system, you know that sound we know is a, is a frequency vibration and that particular vibration and you could tie it to an actual note like on the piano on a scale and its associated to a number. But that frequency that hurts is going to recalibrate the organ of the heart and the heart system in Chinese medicine to regulate that emotion.
Tom McCarthy
How long do you, how long do you do it? How long typically do you need to, to continue doing that sound, to get the impact that you need?
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
Great question, I would say do it 30 seconds a minute. I mean, it depends on, you know, you stay there long enough until you have a shift. So you should feel a shift, you should feel a shift. And again, as you know, if it’s been built up for a long time, if it’s chronic, it’s going to take longer. So it’s going to be a practice, you know, and, and we do these things as a practice until they become a way of being. And this, this is about adding tools to your toolbox, right? So you’re driving and you’re frustrated, right? Because the traffic and then you can do the liver sound. So we’ll go into that next. So this is real practical. So let’s go into the liver. So the liver when, when it’s balanced, when it’s healthy in your body, you have clarity, you have confidence, you have vision, but when it’s out of balance, it’s that anger, that irritability, that frustration. And so what you wanna do is you wanna do, it’s like telling someone to be quiet. So I always tell myself it’s like telling my liver to be quiet.
Tom McCarthy
You don’t need to put the finger out there, but you just just say this. Yeah. Okay. Good. Yeah. Good. Good. Telling the liver to quiet down I like that.
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. So the kidneys is associated. So the next one is the kidneys. And so when it’s, when it’s in balance and healthy, you are in touch with your own internal wisdom, you have this capacity, this stillness, this presence within you. It’s really beautiful. But when someone’s out of balance, they have deep fear. Okay. And that happens a lot. So, and, you know, fear contracts, you know, there’s a lot of problems with that. So when you’re feeling afraid you can do the sound, I’ll spell it out. It’s C H W O and it’s
Tom McCarthy
Okay. Good.
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
Yeah. And, and lengthen it a little bit.
Tom McCarthy
Okay. Good. Yeah, these are great. So simple too. I mean, I love it. Yeah. Powerful and simple yet very powerful. Very cool. Alright. So we’ve got the heart, we got the liver, we’ve got the kidney. Yeah.
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
And then we’re gonna move into the lungs. So the lungs when healthy you are, you know, you’re in touch with the best thing. It’s about spirituality. So you’re, you’re connected to something bigger than you. You have this confidence, this righteousness, you feel your own power, you’re you’re willing to be seen, you know, it’s like this amazing feeling but you have this self self worth. But when it’s out of balance, you have low self worth, low self esteem, you have grief, depression, sadness, like you’re cut off from that connection, right? So it can be really hard. So the letter is just the letter S so it’s c
Tom McCarthy
Okay. Cool. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. No, I’ve heard, I’ve heard these, not these sounds but, you know, I knew that the kidney was fear the liver was anger. The lungs were grief, sadness. This is so cool. So you can, you can notice how you’re feeling and now you have a remedy to help me feel better but, but help that, that the functionality of that part of your body to Yeah. Really cool. Awesome.
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
Yes. And the last one is clean. Thank you. Okay, good.
Tom McCarthy
And the last one is explained. So when the spleen is healthy and balanced, you are fair to people, you’re open, you trust people. There’s like you’re this, this giving and receiving of nourishment and you know, being in each other’s lives. But when it’s out of balance, we run rampant, we worry, we have mistrust, we have cyclical thinking. I mean, even anxiety but it’s you know, it’s energy that’s just going in a circle. It’s not going anywhere because your energy is always moving. And so the healing sound for the spleen is like W H O. It’s, it’s like you’re saying who? But it’s always longer. Yeah. Perfect and not too loud, right?
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
I noticed you’re, you’re doing it. It’s not like you’re just, it’s more softer.
Tom McCarthy
Softer.
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
Yes. Okay. Cool.
Tom McCarthy
Yeah. Like you’re blowing wind because remember we’re wanting, there’s, there’s excess emotion. So we’re wanting to calm that emotion. We’re wanting to smooth that key to smooth the emotion. And then the last one, there’s one more that we do, we, you get a bonus one and it’s not associated with any specific Oregon. It’s actually this extra Oregon and Chinese medicine that we call the San Jiao or the triple burner. And you don’t have to know that, but it’s going to regulate your center, your organs, then just overall, it’s just an overall wellness one and the pronunciation, the spelling is S H E like she, but you do.
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
So you don’t say it’s, it’s like right. Okay. Yeah. And you know, one of the most important things is, and we were just talking about this before I mentioned the healing sounds is that we know we have access to energy, right? We, we know it’s in us, we know it’s everywhere and, and, and I always like to step back for a moment and say to someone, you know, here you are now you’re in this mental state, this emotional state, this physical state, the spiritual state. If you’re wanting to feel differently, be differently, act do differently, then you’re going to want to shift and to really empower yourself to understand the ways in which you can change your energy or all the ways that people are teaching you on the summit. But something that’s really accessible where you don’t need to go to a doctor or even a Chinese doctor is start with practicing these healing sounds because you know, you can start shifting your emotional state so quickly when you start to really this as a daily practice. And I always tell patients if you have a hard time sleeping, you could do all of these as you’re laying in bed with the lights turned off. Do the healing sounds just run through them just like even saying each one just twice, it will bring you back into that balance state emotionally.
Tom McCarthy
These are amazing. Well, I hope everybody uses these and put them into practice. I know I’m going to and even though I’ve known you for a while, I just learned these. So these are really cool. Thank you for sharing these. That’s awesome. So how, how do people get in touch with you? And you mentioned you had a free course that you would offer or a gift to them? So how do people reach you? How do they uh if they want you to be, you know, they’re practitioner or they need your coaching or they want to do your course? Tell us how to get in touch with you.
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
Thank you, Tom. Yes. So what I’ve done is, you know, I take people through this five element practice. It’s a song using the healing sound. So you can emotionally regulate. Very simple, very basic but profound. And I’m all about teaching, empowering people to really start taking care of themselves and not just leave it up to the one doctor appointment a year and call that a wellness plan. But the best way is to just go to my website, it’s doctor spelled out and then my first name so LeTa, DoctorLeTa.com and,
Tom McCarthy
DoctorLeTa.com,
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
DoctorLeTa.com. And the best thing to do is get on their signed up for my email list and you will have access to this free mini course to really just take you through this. If you’re wanting to have me facilitate these healing sounds and and actually moving your body in the specific five element flow, balance your emotions and your organs. It’s a real simple routine about 20 minutes. And it’s really profound, so happy to share that with everybody who’s interested.
Tom McCarthy
That is awesome. I love it. Hey, everybody, DoctorLeTa.com. Make sure you go there, check her out. She is and you can see she’s the real deal. She really is just you know, like she’s sunshine in your life. As you can see. She’s got such a great attitude, a huge heart. Thank you so much for being with us. You really have helped a lot of people I know even with just these six healing sounds that you’re able to give us in the time that we had here and we have lots more that people can learn from you any final words of wisdom to everybody out there listening.
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
Well, thank you so much, Tom for having me. And the one thing I want to leave you with is that, you know, I’m so grateful that you’re here because this means that you’re interested in feeling better, taking care of yourself. And what is more profound in this life when you love people up is to take care yourself. Because in the end, you know, you don’t want to rely on anybody else to take care of you. And so I really believe that the biggest act of love that you can do for the people you love is to take care of yourself. And so I want to thank you, congratulate you for being a willing participant in your life to feeling good and then depositing that energy into the universe for all of us to experience. So thank you so much.
Tom McCarthy
Beautiful. Thanks. Look forward to seeing you again soon. Thanks.
LeTa Jussila, DAOM
Thanks Tom. Thank you.
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