The Face is a Portal
I have always said that the face is a portal.
From a Traditional Chinese Medicine & Tissue Salt point of view, the face can reveal many things. Our habits, our past, our present and our future. The face is a 3D hologram that can change and of course continues to change based on our experiences throughout life.
As the late Lilian Bridges, the most famous Master Chinese face reader said “From birth until the age of 25 you have the face that your mother gave you. From 25 to 50 you create your own face”. Lilian was a well respected face reader who had been passed down her skills from a young age from her grandmother and the wisdoms of the generations before her. She sadly passed away in 2021 but her legacy and innate wisdom lives on.
As an Acupuncturist, we learned basic face reading during our course and could easily identify if organs were imbalanced but we did not learn the nuances, what all the lines and ‘mountains’ of the face meant. How trauma could literally be etched on the face. How some people did not wrinkle at all and the reasons why. I started off my journey working in the wellness world in beauty, so over the years, I have developed how I look at and examine the face. Both Chinese Medicine and Naturopathy have informed me.
Most people are scared of looking older and especially women these days do not want to have any wrinkles. Wrinkles are not always a sign of ageing though - they can be a sign that you have learned the lessons particular life experiences taught you. Some of us don’t get many wrinkles and there are several reasons for that.
There are 3 types of people who don’t get many wrinkles:
one is someone who does not really express their emotions. They may keep everything suppressed, hidden and stuck. However, these are the kinds of people who may experience a second or third really big shock in life and then seem to age drastically overnight. You may have heard of individuals who suddenly go grey overnight or look immediately drawn after a big shock or trauma - usually a sign that the kidney energy experienced and received this energy and was unable to transform it.
the second type of person who does not wrinkle that easily is someone who is able to live away from the stressors of life. For example a monk.
and the third type of person, is someone who just does not hold onto past traumas and stressors too much! They let things go!! This is the best kind of person to be but not always so easy!
We can also look at if you are burning through your resources too quickly, how you make decisions, what traits you may have inherited, whether you have ‘lost love lines’ and much more.
I’ll never forget the time I looked at someone’s face and saw that something terrible had happened to them at 27 years old. It was clearly etched into their face and they confirmed it. The face never lies!
Naturopathically, we have tissue salts which are the biochemical salts discovered by Dr Schuessler - we are composed of all 12, and deficiencies of one or more can show up on the face. Supporting the body from a cellular level, always enhances every system and then ultimately, our face.
We all go through different trials and tribulations in life and nowadays people like to erase these markings without much thought for the consequences. Botox in particular freezes liver qi - the liver controls the free flow of qi in the body and freezing its flow, ultimately impacts the health of the body. Additionally, the more people freeze their face, the less able they are to fully express themselves and also empathise with others. Muscles also have less ability to contract and eventually the bone atrophies - the muscle is no longer able to be held up by the scaffolding of the bone. Long term, it is never a good idea to erase your natural expressions as wrinkles and face markings can always change - they are merely a reflection of what is happening in your life at that moment.
When I treat people with cosmetic acupuncture, I like to take this into account. This is one of the most powerful treatments to help bring ‘shen’ or spirit back to the eyes and face. In addition, when treating the face, I take the whole person into account. Which meridians are blocked or stuck, where are the deficiencies of qi and blood, what areas are not being nourished and how to change that. Is there dryness or ‘yin deficiency’ - all of this can affect the skin. I look at all these things before needling the face - the aim is not to change you but make you feel like the best possible version of YOU.
Book in for Cosmetic Acupuncture now and experience something truly unique