Meet Dr. Amanda Cohen: Doctor of Chinese Medicine, Functional Medicine and Sacred Medicine

We had the good fortune of connecting with Dr. Amanda Cohen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Dr. Amanda, how do you think about risk?

“The willingness to show up changes us. It makes us a little braver each time.”
– Brene Brown

Have you ever been willing to change who you are so you can become the person you know you’re meant to? Whether it is my clients or my friends and family, these are the three words I hear most to describe what I do: doctor-healer-magician. Let me explain. I love, love, love what I do and what I have created. It’s taken me many years to arrive at a place where I can finally exhale and enjoy all that I’ve created in becoming a doctor, building a wellness center and health clinic of my dreams, and birthing a new modality where I can provide healing to anyone in the world. I am a Doctor of Chinese medicine and practice functional medicine. In my medical practice, I interweave science and magic by combining eastern, western and sacred medicine, getting to the root of health imbalances and providing lasting results to those I serve.

HOW BEING THE FOOL HAS BEEN THE SMARTEST MOVE I COULD MAKE Though I’m deeply rooted in science and research, I love magic and all things mystical. The past 2 years, I’ve been learning the Tarot from my dear friend Madame Pamita and her book Madame Pamita’s Magical Tarot. I’ve learned to embrace even the “scary” cards (you know…like “Death,” “the Tower” and “the Devil”) by seeing that all of the darkness is just there to be acknowledged and released before the dawning of a new beginning emerges. One of my favorite cards in the Tarot is “The Fool,” which shows a happy jester-like creature with his satchel happily walking off a cliff without a care in the world. He knows if he jumps, he will be caught. He trusts. He’s willing to take the risk, to go on an adventure. In his courage and trust, he is anything but a fool. Experience has taught him that the Universe will support and catch him if he takes the leap. Wow. I wish I’d known about that “Fool” within me when I was in my 20s. I would have had less anxiety or concern about taking risks or making a change. Looking back at my life and my career as I near 40, however, I think I’ve always embodied the Fool to some degree—just not consciously. It was like a little voice inside of me was always encouraging, “You got this, now JUMP!” I’ve learned to trust in myself and my capacity to succeed or know how to respond if I fail. And like “The Fool,” this inner trust was earned through many mistakes and tears while releasing old patterns of self doubt and self-sabotage.

I learned to trust and truly listen to my own voice, my own heart, instead of following all the “shoulds” that were sometimes louder than my own inner guidance. I learned to trust myself and my instincts, which have led me to find at the perfect time the mentors, support team, education and guidance to live my dream of being a Holistic Doctor and owning my own wellness center, called Source Point Wellness.

In my mind, I’ve always been a Type A planner and perfectionist. My drive has been fueled by insecurity by this feeling of not knowing enough or not being good enough to be the best doctor and person I wanted to be. Recently, I was listening to Chris Harder, one of my favorite business mentors, on his podcast “For the Love of Money.” He said that one common trait of the most successful entrepreneurs is that they “always build their parachute on the way down.” They take the leap, trust themselves and their choices, and know if they keep moving forward, they will be caught. I felt so assured at that moment, hearing those words that I was doing something right. Even though I feel the fear, uncertainty and ungroundedness, I keep jumping, over and over and over again…and I always land on my feet. You would think graduating with Honors from Cornell University with a dual Bachelors in Cultural Anthropology and Clinical Psychology, a Masters in Health Psychology and Social Ecology from UC Irvine, another Masters in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and a Doctoral in Traditional Chinese Medicine from Emperor’s College would be enough to make me feel slightly competent. However, when I opened my practice in 2014, I felt terrified. Although I’d received an excellent education that would serve me and others for a lifetime, I had hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. I felt the fear and kept moving towards my dream of working for myself and creating my own wellness center. If I was going to build my own practice, I had to start right away, dive in, and…trust.

In 2014, with my passion to have a successful practice, I opened my doors, my first patients being my very proud grandmas and my dad. My practice began to flourish immediately as I built my clientele on deep connection and compassion. I strove to provide a safe place and nurturing TLC for my patients who came each week. I wanted them to have a sense of coming home to their bodies, freeing themselves of their physical and emotional pain. “THE FOOL” SETS OUT ON ANOTHER ADVENTURE My practice continued to grow each year. By 2018, I felt the call to build a team and knew I had to expand. I saw the vision for opening a wellness center, but I didn’t know where to start. I took a leap and began to work with my spiritual mentor, Reiki Master Teacher Jenn Kosh. Through those sessions with Jenn and within my own process, I took a deep look inside and beyond myself to visualize the wellness center I always wanted.

In early 2019, I took a deep breath, pooled all my money and opened the doors of Source Point Wellness. Money went into rebuilding walls, painting floors and building an outdoor oasis. A part of me felt guilty about not using the funds to pay off my student loan debt. But the vision was strong to create a wellness center that felt like home—not just for me and the Source Point Wellness team but for everyone who walks through the door. After we opened our doors and saw the reaction of people who came for treatment, I felt a great sense of satisfaction that I took yet another risk to expand and create a place of healing. Whenever my patients tell me they feel like they’re escaping the troubles of the world when they walk through the doors of Source Point, I’m thrilled. Source Point Wellness has grown to a level I never thought possible, having multiple people working for me and having a waitlist of people waiting to see me both in person and virtually. With the Wellness Center running smoothly, I took another leap and launched telehealth services, so I could create customized healing plans for people outside of California who were in need of a doctor to get to the root of chronic health conditions. Expanding my practice to the entire world with functional and herbal medicine has allowed me to meet incredible people all over the world and help get them relief from suffering as well as freedom from mental, physical, emotional and spiritual pain.

WHEN THE FOOL MEETS THE PRIESTESS With the pandemic hitting in March 2020, it became very clear that people all over the world needed acupuncture to help reduce anxiety, boost the immune system and help with pain, but they couldn’t see their acupuncturist to help support them during the biggest health crisis in recent history. Many of my patients were afraid to come in to get their weekly health and wellness support with acupuncture. Friends in other states and countries were feeling so helpless over their health and access to acupuncture became extremely limited as many of us across the country were forced to close our doors. I had to think outside of the box as people desperately needed care and weren’t able to get it. Months before, I had begun to feel a synergy of all of my training emerge into a new way of providing healing—combining distance Reiki with the acupuncture points and meridians. I had been successfully offering the High Priestess Healing treatments (aka virtual acupuncture) on my friends in other places outside of LA, New York, Canada, Brazil. Within a few minutes of starting the process, I saw how this long-distance acupuncture was helping to reduce anxiety, stomach pain, neck and shoulder pain, migraines, headaches, congestion, difficulty breathing, back pain…basically everything I was currently treating people for in person, I could now successfully treat from a distance. I sometimes doubted what I was doing, but my inner knowing was stronger and something inside of me felt that I needed to share this with people outside of my friends and family.

Once COVID hit, I began offering virtual acupuncture to the public and offered sessions through social media. I would get responses like… Virtual acupuncture…do you do it 6 feet away from me? No. Do you use needles? No. Do you put needles into yourself or a doll? No. I would say, let’s just try it and you can experience it. Most people were amazed at the efficacy of how well the process worked for them. I felt inspired and decided to trademark my way of virtual acupuncture and call it Source Point High Priestess Healing . When the Black Lives Matter movement began, I decided to offer virtual acupuncture pro bono to the BIPOC community. I was astounded how many people signed up for virtual acupuncture—to help with anxiety, trauma, insomnia, physical, emotional, spiritual and ancestral lineage pain and trauma. The process has helped people anywhere in the world on the phone or virtually: people with migraines and back pain in Nigeria; a woman with stomach pain in Canada; a person with anxiety and insomnia in Copenhagen, neck pain in New York, pelvic pain in Eastern Europe. My next risk was to put this out there and transition from being the practitioner, healer and doctor to being the teacher, feeling compelled to help people better heal themselves and those they love through officially training others in this incredible process I reached out to my dear friend and spiritual mentor in Canada one again and asked Jenn Kosh if she would bring her Reiki Master teacher knowledge and magic in collaborating with me to build and teach Source Point High Priestess Healing. She said yes! Over the past year, we’ve teamed up to build a 16-week certification program in Source Point High Priestess Healing. The training merges Reiki, the acupuncture points and meridians that amplify the healing power of the others. We’re launching our online course February 2021 to non-acupuncturists. With no medical experience needed, this modality is open to anyone who feels the call to take it. It has been such a ride creating a new feminine way of healing focused on deep nurturing of the mind, body and spirit in the midst of such chaos and pain that’s occurring in the world.

Taking more risks, teaching rather than solely treating patients and speaking on podcasts and in interviews have continued to show me what I’m capable of when I have the courage to risk my ego and my limitations for love and expansion. I feel a duty as a healthcare provider who is passionate about patient empowerment to bring forth a way of effective, quick healing so that more people can feel empowered in their health and also empowered to help those that they love. This pandemic has shown all of us that there has to be a better way to care for ourselves. I can see how Source Point High Priestess Healing is a significant step in gaining powerful tools to stay emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually strong as the world crumbles around us. Building a greater network of healers who can quickly heal others seems like a good place to start to bring light into such a dark time in our history. I have been on many adventures in my role as doctor-healer-magician, often holding my breath as I wait to land, exhaling when I feel the ground beneath me, so grateful to have the trust and faith of my Inner Fool that knows she will always land on her feet no matter how far I leap. https://sourcepointwellness.com/high-priestess-healing/

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I’ve always been someone who thinks outside of the box and can see issues from multiple perspectives. This ability has made me an exceptional communicator in my personal life, and someone who gets great results with my patients because I can see what cannot always be easily seen and link things that are not overtly connected.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
My go to is Griffith Park. I go almost daily with my husband, Dave. I love the trails up from commonwealth. I often meet my fiends at Descanso Gardens for early morning walks and checking out the new blooms. As we live in Los Feliz, we walk to restaurants and out go cousine are Sushi Ai, Little Doms, Lucifers, The Alcove, and All Time. Mid city, I love Della Terra since their gluten free pasta is the best in town.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I dedicate this shout out to my sister, The Empress Advisor, Diana Zalucky and her podcast The Healer Dealer! She’s been an immense support inspiration to me and her work creating such a voice of community and love among healers, visionaries and leaders. https://empressadvisor.com

Website: https://sourcepointwellness.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doctoramandacohen/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sourcepointwellness
Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/source-point-wellness-atwater-village
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoU1biCTiJdV_oqhJWFC2VQ
Other: Source Point High Priestess Healing Certification https://sourcepointwellness.com/high-priestess-healing/

Image Credits
First photo by Rebekkah Drake