Today we’d like to introduce you to Robin Harris.
Hi Robin, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I’m Robin Harris, a licensed acupuncturist who practices through a lens of body positivity in the Roland Park neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. I have had the honor of working with bodies since 1998. I was a massage therapist for 12 years and became a doula in the process in San Diego, California. I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—and southern California was a bounty of beautiful weather and a cornucopia of integrative medicine and wellness culture. It was a great place to spend my twenties. I discovered much about wellness and learned a lot about myself through that journey, and I had many positive experiences on that path. The dark side of wellness culture, though, is that it is inextricably tied to diet culture.
I grew up with well-meaning parents who were also a product of diet culture. I got the message early on to stay small from all our major social institutions: family, government, economy, education, and religion. I reacted to that message in a visceral way. This reaction led me to earn a bachelor’s degree in Women’s Studies, complete 10 months of service in Americorps, help people feel better in their own skin early on in my career, empower women to take charge of their birth experiences, and ultimately make choices in my life that felt scary. But none of that meant I had escaped negative stories about my own body.
For most of my life, I, like many of us, have been entrenched in diet culture. On the outside, this was a life of discipline and was seen as virtuous. On the inside, it was lonely, rigid, and full of restriction. I discovered Intuitive Eating in 2005 [hyperlink: https://www.intuitiveeating.org]. That road was long and lonely, and it often felt like I was the only one traveling it. At times it felt like I was standing still. Something in my gut told me that the dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch were going to steer me on the path to freedom.
For 17 years, I had over-exercised, journaled every bite of food I ate, and I weighed myself every chance I got. That scale determined whether I felt good or bad about myself that day. While I had read the Intuitive Eating book in 2005, I had no support on the journey. I had discovered the exit ramp existed, but it was difficult to take my life in that direction. I was a beginner at Intuitive Eating, and it was hard. My formative years and external motivation had led me to completely disconnect from my intuition when it came to eating and moving my body. I followed rules, and rules and intuition never go together.
In 2010 I completed a master’s degree program in Acupuncture at Maryland University of Integrative Health (MIUH), then called Tai Sophia Institute. My acupuncture training emphasized the fostering of intuition on every level, except when it came to food. As both the practitioner and the patient, there were more rules and guidelines around how we feed our bodies than anything else. I kept working at the Intuitive Eating program personally and kept finding a disconnect between what my patients were talking about in the treatment room, and how they had been taught to nourish their bodies. It became increasingly difficult to reconcile the two.
I sought professional help from an intuitive eating counselor for myself and cleaned up some loose ends from doing the work on my own. I was inspired to start the program to become an Intuitive Eating Counselor. I want to bring Intuitive Eating as an important component to Body Positivity to the acupuncture/wellness industry. In 2015 I started to find a community with podcasts and felt the support of strangers saying, “I’ve been there. I get it. It is a life that lacks joy.” If you see yourself reflected in my story, know that I am here to partner with you on that journey.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I was young when I started my first business in 1999. I was 21 years old. I had drive and a growing vision. I say “growing” because growth is not linear. I rented a two-bedroom apartment with 3 other people and slept on an air mattress. I did not have much, I did not want much. The stakes were low. I had a job at a flower shop that kept me afloat. My expenses were modest. I struggled with money and health expenses, like anyone else at that time in my life. One could call that growth a struggle, and it was all within the realm things I would have struggled with at that age anyway. I had a ton of energy in my early twenties, and that was what was required.
I was resourceful. I joined a formal bartering group. Anyone in the group could use their virtual “bartering dollars” for my services. In exchange, I could use those earned bartering dollars for any service or to purchase goods from other members. I used my bartering dollars to purchase furniture, meals at restaurants, and dentistry services. This resourcefulness raised my quality of life.
All said and done, any struggle I experienced was within the realm of the expected. I was too young to know that what I was doing was bold and brave, and that was a gift.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My professional work with acupuncture and diet culture have collided over the years. I am creating a blueprint to merge the worlds of acupuncture and intuitive eating to help foster a more positive relationship with our bodies. Body respect is at the top of my goals for myself and my patients, and I look forward to building this road together as we learn to cultivate a less negative relationship with our bodies. This sets me apart from others.
Body Positive Acupuncture begins with acupuncture treatment. Acupuncture is the oldest and most commonly practiced medical technique in the world. It is used by one-third of the world as a primary health care system. Acupuncture accesses the body via twelve primary and eight secondary meridians that lie like roadmaps throughout the body and help us find our way to harmony. Acupuncture addresses the whole person, not just parts of the body, making it an especially useful modality for cultivating body positivity.
I use a number of modalities to specialize treatment for each patient. These may include the use of needles, moxibustion, gua sha, and cupping. I make sure patients understand what I am doing before I do it.
Acupuncture addresses many concerns, including anxiety, depression, pain, disordered eating, compulsivity, fertility, menstrual issues, joint pain, digestive issues, insomnia, tendonitis, pregnancy issues, allergies, fibromyalgia, and many others.
I am proud of my brand because it has taken courage to stand in the truth that bodies come in all shapes and sizes and to challenge the assumption that size is a health determinant. I have yet to find other acupuncturists practicing from a body-positive lens in such a deliberate way. I have had this vision for a long time and I am excited to see it come to fruition.
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
I have written a mission statement for my business. I find this hugely important for clarity, branding, and communication. I would like to share it with your readers:
Body Positive Acupuncture empowers patients to foster a positive relationship with their bodies and food. This is achieved primarily through acupuncture treatment and enhanced by Intuitive Eating classes and one-on-one Intuitive Eating Counseling. A body-positive lens aims to heal the wounds that may have come from diet culture, weight discrimination/stigma, ageism, heterosexism, racism, classism, gender bias, a consumerist-driven society, personal and/or medical trauma, and various other factors. The intention is for patients of Body Positive Acupuncture to know that there is an exit ramp from diet culture, that it is possible to unlearn damaging misinformation about our bodies and to trust in the body’s ability to communicate its needs. The result is that patients will understand that their intuition is their primary care provider—they are born with it—and they can cultivate the ability to listen to and follow their intuition.
Pricing:
- $170 Initial Visit (90 Min): Includes Comprehensive Intake w/Acupuncture Treatment
- $95 Follow-up Visits (50 Min): Includes Acupuncture Treatment
Contact Info:
- Email: robin@bodypositiveacupuncture.com
- Website: www.bodypositiveacupuncture.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bodypositiveacupuncture
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bodypositiveacupuncture/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/body-positive-acupuncture-baltimore
- Other: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=body%20positive%20acupuncture#lrd=0x89c80531ef6ed307:0x90967c605258c782,1,,,
Image Credits
Side A Photography
Bill Geenen
