Dr. Jenelle Kim: Turning Life into Meditation

Welcome everybody to today’s episode of the Lindsey Elmore show, today something very rare is happening.

I came into this interview with Dr. Jenelle Kim completely blind to the concepts of Myung Sung, the Korean art of living meditation. Janelle and I had an instant connection and understanding that it is so important to foster mindfulness as a key part of every wellness routine. In this episode, we talk about what is Myung Sung and how does it apply to your everyday life. What are the three pillars of health and why is it important to be like bamboo?

We understand that we have an opportunity to learn from our ancestors and apply that wisdom to our modern crazy lives and Dr. Janelle Kim is going to teach us all about it. Let’s get to the show.

Welcome to the Lindsey Elmore show, a podcast for people who deserve to be healthy with honest open, and enlightening conversations, with doctors, thought leaders, creatives, and spiritual gurus. You’ll walk away with simple and tangible tips and tricks that allow you to live your healthiest life so you can pursue your dreams, overcome obstacles and leave your mark.

Dr. Jenelle Kim is the founder and leading formulator of JBK Wellness Labs. Dr. Kim is devoted to integrating the philosophy medical wisdom and expertise of her East Asian lineage with the advancements of modern life and modern medicine here in the west. Dr. Kim is a doctor of acupuncture and Chinese medicine and is nationally board certified in herbology, oriental medicine, and acupuncture. She furthered her studies abroad training with some of the most respected doctors and herbalists in east Asia. She completed extensive training under some of the most respected doctors in oriental medicine and is the custodian of her lineage’s proprietary Bi-Bong formulas. With almost 20 years in the beauty and wellness industry, Dr. Kim has formulated some of the world’s first all-natural luxury products carried in high-end spas across the world including the Ritz-Carlton, the Four Seasons, and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel chains as well as high-end retailers such as Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman. She has been working with CBD since 2012 and has been known as a pioneer by creating the world’s first luxury CBD skincare line in the world. It’s called cannabis beauty defined.

Lindsey: Dr. Jenelle Kim, welcome to the Lindsey Elmore show.

Dr. Kim: Thank you so much I’m so happy to be here, so honored.

Lindsey: I am so stoked about today’s interview because is it you’re going to teach me about a topic that I know nothing about and in the health and wellness space that doesn’t happen to me very often so thank you for what we are going to learn about Myung Sung the Korean art of living meditation.

So, we were talking before we flipped the camera on about how the wood season, the spring season that we are in is all about the liver and I mentioned to you that liver Qi stagnation was really where I started my whole journey and what had happened was, I tore my ACL and I ended up in the chiropractor’s office. I tell the chiropractor, hey doc I have not slept in a month and I feel like I’m gonna die and so she’s like oh you should go see the acupuncturist and the first thing that she had me work on was liver Qi stagnation and it opened up this whole world to me in Asian medicines, traditional Chinese medicines and today I’m so excited to learn more about this Korean philosophy, on how we can be healthy. So, give us a crash course in Myung Sung.

Dr. Kim: I appreciate the intro, and it’s a wonderful way to enter. You know I have not entered into this conversation yet starting with liver Qi stagnation but I actually would love to do so because it is a really important and almost humorous way to understand sometimes the way that we feel you know. Basically, long story short liver Qi stagnation is exactly that. I realize you know I’m a doctor of traditional anti-medicine, I studied Chinese medicine but I come from a long lineage of Korean doctors to neurobiologists that’s a bit of my background why I am so enamored with this and have always been and will continue to be. But when it comes to liver Qi stagnation it can be really helpful to understand because when we talk about being uptight when we talk about, you know we just have these days where we can’t seem to function that’s kind of how we started even our conversation right it happens. Naturally, we’re human and sometimes we try to fight against that sometimes we have to right this, it’s reality and all the things I’m saying are part and Myung Sung ultimately.

But understanding even the simple concept that has to do with both our minds and body of liver Qi stagnation that exists in the Asian east. Asian medicine is something that we can almost visualize. One of my favorite parts of the East Asian philosophy medicine movement is that a lot of times in my experience and what I see it does for others is it just makes sense and that’s my favorite thing. I always say in a world where there’s so much it can be so overwhelming so much information, so many products formulations I mean I have that hold their side as well with my lab and I recognize and one of my purposes of what I wish to do is to make it that much more simple for people so that we find calm, so we find the security we are not always so uncertain we don’t know who to trust, who to listen to certainly there’s amazing experts and we want to understand but ultimately it comes down to ourselves and that’s what Myung Sung is about that’s what liver Qi stagnation is about.

So quite ending on that comment liver Qi stagnation is you have to open up the flow you know I always say when I’m speaking you know in front of beauty and wellness summits or conventions or whatnot I always say if you were to ask me oftentimes, I guess, Dr. Kim what’s the fountain of youth? I say that the principle of everything is if we can make sure that everything functions and flows within our bodies we have complete health we have beauty and then if you start to apply that to life if we’re able to flow with the universe to flow with the things around us our circumstances that is truly the key to everything and it sounds incredibly simple and on some levels it is but it can also be really complicated especially when it sounds foreign and so that’s why I think it’s a beautiful way to enter because something as simple as just saying that phrase sometimes we just have to be aware and acknowledge. Oh, you know what today I feel really uptight and you know what I think it’s just liver Qi stagnation. How do you go and fixing that you can go to an acupuncture treatment, you can take certain supplements, you can go for a simple walk movement is a great way to do so, you can sit down moments of meditation it’s just to start making everything flow and open up okay so yeah.

Lindsay: It sounds, I mean when whenever you say like flow and open up it makes me think of the principles of Feng Shui as well where you’re allowing the energy to flow through an environment as it needs to flow through us but so is Myung Sung about awareness? Is it about internal you know kind of landing in your body type principles? Talk to us about some of the basics about if you’re living a life according to Myung Sung principles what does that kind of look like?

Dr. Kim: Yes, again thank you for that great setup because you said it perfectly let’s start here if you notice I talk about Myung Sung the Korean art of living meditation and that really is important to me in my life and I’ve seen that be a very important part whether people knew it or not of so many people’s lives. You know I first want to say that these principles that I’m about to speak on and that Myung Sung is basically built from are principles that have existed for centuries for beyond time. I can’t even think of this you know and so these have been handed down in my lineage but certainly, as my teacher would say his teacher would say so on and so forth, these are not mine this didn’t come from me my own ideas these are ways that we have to embody if we so choose to how we’re going to share them with the world but they’re things that are universal truths and that’s what I mean by a principle. So, when we talk about the principles of Myung Sung lived in meditation, I think it’s an important place to start on that foundation, so when we speak of living meditation you said it beautifully what does it bring us? where do we begin? And you’re right it’s a sense of awareness calmness being present because oftentimes especially right now meditation is a huge part of everything that we look around. I don’t think there’s a person who doesn’t understand at this point what meditation is. 20 years ago, which is not so long ago for example 40 years ago it was still I don’t think a lot of people were so in touch with it in this part of the world right it’s quite an interesting thing so what is meditation, right? Why do we like it? If I may ask you Lindsay when you think of meditation what does that mean to you?

Lindsay: When I think of meditation, I think of an intentional practice that helps you to engage your parasympathetic nervous system so that you can calm down and relax because if you don’t calm down and relax you get sick period you get sick when you have high levels of cortisol in your body so it is an intentional practice to make yourself well on every single level of your body.