Meet Carol King

We were lucky to catch up with Carol King recently and have shared our conversation below.

Carol, thank you so much for joining us today. Let’s jump right into something we’re really interested in hearing about from you – being the only one in the room. So many of us find ourselves as the only woman in the room, the only immigrant or the only artist in the room, etc. Can you talk to us about how you have learned to be effective and successful in situations where you are the only one in the room like you?

In 2008, I found that my chosen career path was not aligning with my values. I was in my 3rd year of medical school, doing hospital rotations and had the realization that I was not in the business of healthcare, but rather in disease perpetuation and management. There was no health in the hospital. I made the very difficult decision to follow my gut and forego my ego, and left medical school with only a year and a half left of it, and was in a lot of student loan debt.

The recession hit and the job market was suffering. I was trained only to be a doctor and had no other credentials or licenses. People told me I should just go be a nurse, not realizing that would cost a lot more money and time in school.

At the time, I figured I might as well get a job at a place where I spent all my money so that I could get a work discount, so I got a job at Whole Foods Market in the Whole Body section, where I helped people with supplements, diet and lifestyle. While it had some positive moments, there were times where I was dusting shelves and directing people to the spice aisle. It was a real blow to the ego for someone who was previously pumping chests in the ER during code blue, saving lives.

For some time, I really played into the victim role and felt sorry for myself until one day, I realized how lucky Whole Foods was to have someone like me there. I realized that every customer that got to ask me for health advice was hitting the jackpot and that no matter where I am, no matter what I’m doing, because I have the knowledge and experience that I have, I bring richness and uniqueness with me to bless whatever situation I am in. From that moment on, I decided that if it was me who was to dust the shelves, those shelves were going to sparkle and shine like no other and that the displays would pop because I was the one doing it. Very shortly after I had that attitude shift, I was transferred to a new Whole Foods location, which rapidly tipped over stones on my path like dominoes that led me right to where I am now practicing Traditional Chinese Medicine and functional medicine. I utilize the didactic training from my Western Medical training and combine it with Eastern philosophy and medical practice to help people find health in their lives and learn how to thrive in their bodies.

I have been able to help people reverse chronic diseases, lose weight, make babies, get off what could have been life-long meds and so much more. I feel so blessed to be where I am and I realize that every step along the way helped me to be the truly integrated healer that I am.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

As I mentioned before, I am a Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner, aka acupuncturist, with a Western Medical background. As such, I am a bridge in medicine between standard medical treatment and common sense ways of using and treating the body and bringing health back to organisms.

I am a gut expert and am most excited about nutrition and have hosted many cleanses for patients, which have helped them detox from ultra-processed diets of convenience foods. Many of my patients have lost weight, reversed metabolic diseases, infertility and depression and so much more.

I combine Eastern and Western practices and use functional medicine testing to verify diagnoses and find root causes for issues that have seemed not to have answers. I have helped a lot of people cure gut issues that have been life-long problems.

Unfortunately, our FDA and CDC are corrupted by mega-corporations who lobby and funnel large-scale funds to tip scales and halt regulations. As such, the health outcomes of Americans are abysmal and the top 4 leading causes of death are largely preventable with proper diet. The 3rd leading cause of death (prior to COVID) was iatrogenenic in nature. This means that it was due to hospital or doctor or medical mistakes. It is my mission to empower my patients and the general public to take charge of their health and scrutinize products on shelves and companies that put out products and make choices that will benefit the health and wellbeing of ourselves and our population at large.

I do this by educating my patients in each session, by putting out information in detailed newsletters and informational sessions during cleanses and at speaking engagements where I have been invited to share information.

I will be hosting the next 3 week group cleanse during Spring 2025, which has several options to meet people where they are at – financially and in terms of their health needs. One tier is to gain the information about the body and detoxing while doing a more self-guided diet reform. The second tier is a full body purification program that offers a liver and colon detox and diet reform, where all inflammatory foods are eliminated and the body is given a rest from processed foods and chemicals. The third tier includes a parasite cleanse on top of the purification program, where patients are expected to see results of what has been living in their bodies go down the toilet.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

1. Medical School – no doubt, the didactic training of biochemistry, anatomy, neuroscience, physiology, pharmacology, pathology, etc. were invaluable. I would say my experience in cadaver lab was most impactful within that, where I was really able to see the insides of the cadavers and how organs, fascia, nerves, arteries, etc. were organized within each organism. My medical school was osteopathic, (meaning I was studying to be a D.O., which differs from an M.D. in that we had the additional training of Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine, which is similar to chiropractic work of manual manipulation to heal the body). Because I was in D.O. school, our anatomy lab was 1 full academic year (as opposed to the normal 6 months in allopathic/M.D. school and we also got to see what we were studying in Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (OMM) lab while working on one another in cadaver lab to get a deeper understanding of what was happening beneath the skin.

What was impactful about this for me was the depth of knowledge I was able to gain here. The peeling back of layers, the analysis of all angles of understanding of the human body that I was gaining to become what I felt to be a well-rounded physician is what gave me a foundation and confidence in how we can heal and how intrinsically intelligent our bodies are. I really understand that nature is the true doctor and that allowing for nature and the body’s innate healing abilities to shine through and not masking pain or bypassing the natural processes of health and healing are the greatest physician humans have. Another important element here is that my personal path was not to remain within the system, but rather to learn about the system to create a bridge from it to what I see as true innate health. I never would have been able to understand or foresee that when I was taking the MCAT or filling out my med school applications. I trusted the process and my passion and followed that, and it led me to a very unique path that is purely my own.

2. Vipassana meditation – growing up as the daughter of a psychiatrist, I was put in therapy at an early age and given psychiatric meds for depression and anxiety. I was on all kinds of things like Prozac, Wellbutrin, Zoloft, Xanax, Ativan, Klonpin, etc. I didn’t feel like myself and didn’t enjoy taking any of it. I had stopped all of these meds and went on supplements and dietary restrictions to manage my depression and anxiety. When I learned the Vipassana meditation technique for the first time on a 10 day silent retreat, I no longer needed supplements to manage my emotions. It was a very illuminating and life-changing experience that I did 4 more times (so far).

My advice for people is to be open to the possibility that there are other possibilities out there. Especially when you are given a diagnosis or told “you will be on this medication for the rest of your life”. There are definitely other options. If you are going on a journey, don’t take advice for someone who has never left the house.

3. My yoga practice – when I first learned yoga, it was a style called “Anusara”, and there were 15 minutes of Dharma discussion before the practice began. These discussions were often about various yoga philosophies that taught us about the art of living and about how to be observers of life and not let life take us for a ride that jerked us around. It was about breathing through the physical and mental discomforts and allowing the body and mind to connect to one another through the breath and observe the impulsive and fleeting emotions that would arise and pass away. My connection to my body and my capabilities to gain control over my body and watch it shape shift has been unlike any experience I have had in any other way.

My advice to people is to find a yoga practice that allows them to connect to their breath and body and teaches them to overcome the fluctuations of the mind. Downward facing dog is not a necessary part of yoga practice. There are 8 limbs of yoga, only one of them involves asana, or posture practice. Another limb is about breath practice. The other 6 are all about the mind. If you have a body, you can do yoga.

As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz was one of the most impactful in how I operate in the world. Whenever I am having a hard time or in a dark place or thinking someone else is against me, I defer to the four agreements and they always provide me a path through towards my own higher self:

1. Be impeccable with your word – it is important that you say what you mean and mean what you say. When your actions match your words, you can trust yourself. This is about having integrity and knowing that you can trust yourself, which in turn makes you a trustworthy and valuable person.

2. Don’t take anything personally – when people express anger or frustration towards you, it is often their own projection and their own issues that have nothing do to with you, so it is important to allow them to exist in their own process and when you come from a place of good intentions, know and trust that everything will ultimately work out and that their fleeting projections will eventually evaporate.

3. Don’t make any assumptions – it is best to gain clarity and know what you are dealing with. This one sort of hinges on the last one, where you might make an assumption about someone based on your own projection and in reality you are way off base. If you aren’t sure about something – ask. Don’t assume, it will only make more complications for you if you do.

4. Always do your best – if you have 100% to give, do so. If you overdid it and have 35% to give, then 35% is your 100% that day, and that’s ok. Give yourself grace and know that you are doing the best and giving the best with what you have to give. And know and trust that about everyone else as they do their best with you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.seaoflightwellness.com
• Instagram: @sea.of.light.wellness
• Facebook: @sea.of.light.wellness
• Yelp: sea of light wellness and acupuncture

Image Credits

Erin Brown
Christina Neferis