Having grown up with a physician father, antibiotics, not acupuncture, was more our family’s treatment of choice. But as people increasingly look to the East for health and lifestyle choices – from yoga to Buddhism to Ayurveda – I’ll admit to a growing curiosity about acupuncture, something friends and family swear by to alleviate all manner of problems.
So I paid a visit to Dr. John J. Kim, a licensed acupuncturist and former head of the California Acupuncture Board. His clinic, Re Nu Mi Wellness Center in Redondo Beach, Calif., is a spa-like office redolent of fragrant herbs and relaxing music. In addition to acupuncture, the Center offers cupping, Qigong and meditation classes, and herbal medicine specially created on-site.
A consultation with Kim involves analyses both scientific and holistic. A special weight analysis machine, brought over specially from Korea, reveals not just weight and BMI but fat percentages in various parts of the body, muscle mass, and intra- and extracellular water composition. A tongue and pulse analysis reveals the state of your Qi, the body’s fundamental energy, and which of the five key organs are in need of help. From there, Kim takes it one step further -he asks about your relationships. Because for Kim, he’s not just there to alleviate physical pain or to turn back the clock a dozen years, as he does in his cutting-edge Advanced Regeneration Therapy Facial Sculpting – he’s there to give you a “mind lift,” and thereby a “life lift.” Like the Center’s mission statement says, “The goal of our treatments is to enhance each person’s physical and emotional well-being in order to improve and maintain harmony with our inner and outer world.”
As much a therapist as an Eastern medicine practitioner, Kim believes that emotional healing is part and parcel to any physical treatment, whether you’re looking for weight loss, help with insomnia, a facelift or stress management. Yes, his holistic facelift works by stimulating lymphatic drainage and manipulating trapezoidal muscles to lift and create a more pleasing facial symmetry. (He’s even working on incorporating a platelet-rich plasma gel into the procedure to boost results.) But for Kim, the key is: “Have you ever asked yourself, ‘Am I beautiful?’ How can you present yourself as beautiful to others if you don’t even know it?” Indeed, we could all use a bit more of that type of healing.
For more information on Re Nu Mi Wellness Center, go to renumi.com.
This story was originally published in our Fall 2014 issue. Get your copy here.
