You are a vibrant wavelength. You are a melodic frequency. You resonate at a unique vibration.

Let’s align more of your life with that.

I help you open to your deepest capacity for healing, which lives in your heart. Subtly calming the heart lets the body allow healing. Let’s follow what your heart wants to see, feel, hear, taste, touch, smell, desire, yearn for, worship, and revel in. Let’s explore how your heart is protecting itself in what is showing up as pain, fear, grief, sadness, disconnectedness. I welcome all of you. I use acupuncture to send ripples of currents through your magical web of fascia. I use feng shui to send ripples of currents through your spacial surroundings. I use your birth chart as a compass to show how you relate to space and time. Why? To infuse meaning, purpose, hope, wholeness, and joy to this story called life. 

When I started studying this medicine in 2010, I felt it was a divine calling. In my previous career, I spent a dozen years in advertising and communications, where my body experienced the full range of stress-related symptoms. My decision to change careers came after being laid off in 2009 during that economic downturn, when, after in-depth soul searching, I decided to return to my heart’s great curiosity – how each person can unlock their own healing from within. I had experienced acupuncture-based holistic body work when I was a college student over twenty years ago that was profoundly healing to my body and soul, and decided to pursue a path in healing.

I use this medicine in my daily life and see the transformative effects every day. In 2016, I used acupuncture to heal from a severe back injury. In 2019, I used feng shui in my home and saw the ripple effects in all aspects of my life, relationships, and work. In 2020, I set up my private practice and named my LLC ‘JOYA’, not only because it’s simply a shortened version of my name, but because ‘joya’ means ‘jewel’ in Spanish, which is the name of one of my feng shui ‘cures’ or treatments to a home: “I honor the jewel at the center of the universe”. It connotes the idea that there is an inherent design and beauty to be honored in the universe – the universe as a whole, and the universe of you.

During my study of acupuncture, everything came full circle when I realized it had also been practiced in ancient Mayan culture – images of which I had seen but not yet understood being born and raised in Guatemala. It’s important to recognize that aspects of acupuncture have been practiced around the globe for centuries – from South America to Africa to Northern Europe. This is not just Chinese or Asian medicine. This is global medicine and I’m grateful to be a student of it for life. I’m indebted to those who came before me who have passed down their wisdom through the centuries.

My training has included:

• Master of Acupuncture degree from Maryland University of Integrative Health
• Professional Training in Mind-Body Medicine from The Center for Mind-Body Medicine
• Food As Medicine Professional Training from The Center for Mind-Body Medicine
• Integrative Health Practitioner Training for Hospital Settings at the Penny George Institute for Health and Healing
• Apprenticeship in Feng Shui Design; this included the study of Chinese Astrology
• NADA AcuDetox Specialist Certification
• Functional Sports Medicine
• Trigger Point Dry Needling
• Healing Community Trauma
• Fertility Support
• Cultural Competency
• Medical QiGong
• Medical Intuition
• Energy Clearing
• Infection Prevention and Control
• Personal study in the intersection of Western astrology, Chinese astrology, physics and quantum field theory

Pursuing this path and being able to offer it to you is the great adventure and work of my life.