Welcome to PERFECT HUNGER: Feeding your hunger for a more beautiful, more nourishing life

As a Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine, I’ve spent years guiding people towards holistic wellness. But for many of us, working one-on-one with a practitioner or investing in programs, medications, or supplements isn’t always the right (or accessible) option.

That’s why I created PERFECT HUNGER: to offer a window into the simple, accessible wellness practices that have helped me and so many of my patients, blended with compassion and guidance to help you feel better.

This isn’t about restriction, deprivation, or making health complicated. It’s about returning to what we already know but maybe lost track of. It’s about feeding our hunger for a more nourishing, more beautiful life: body, mind, spirit.

The more we notice, name, and celebrate what truly and deeply nourishes us, the more we’ll move towards that place and act to protect it.

And the more we remember that our body is our ally, our home, and our refuge, the better resourced we’ll be to care not just for ourselves, but for others and the causes we cherish.

A container where craving what’s good for you happens

PERFECT HUNGER is a space to receive inspirational, nuanced, open-minded, non-judgmental teachings for a more aligned, joyful life.

It’s a place to:

• Cultivate hunger for what’s deeply nourishing for your body, mind, and spirit.

• Access heart-sourced, holistic guidance focused on things you can do on your own, at home, while leaning on this newsletter for compassion, accountability, and encouragement.

• Explore, heal, and shift unhelpful patterns around…

  • food and body

  • alcohol and other drugs

  • social media and technology

  • money and spending

  • work and external validation

  • ways of perceiving and relating to both ourselves and our loved ones and community.

• Celebrate what we’re choosing rather than focusing on what we’re avoiding. This is about noticing, savoring, and protecting what leaves us feeling better, not worse.

• Get a peek into my personal practices related to physical and mental well-being, spirituality, sobriety, relationships, and ethics.

What you’ll receive:

• The Practice: an actionable, “guided self-help” series delivering bite-sized nourishment and practical guidance related to food, body, and holistic wellness (paid)

• Exploration Essays: heart-sourced, no-bullsh*t insights on body-mind-spirit wellness and the intersection of self, others, and culture (free)

• Link-Ups: what’s consuming me lately, featuring provocative listens, obsessive reads, and the occasional beautiful rabbit hole (paid)

• My Soulful Life: personal letters about soulful living in Thailand, what’s nourishing me, and what I’m hungry for (These personal letters are free on occasion, but those that feel especially vulnerable or scary to share will remain exclusive to paid subscribers.)

• SoberStack™: a regularly updated newsletter directory featuring alcohol-free writers on Substack (free)

You can expect at least one free post a month. For full access to everything above, including The Practice and My Soulful Life, upgrade your subscription here:

• $7/month or

• $40/year (52% cheaper than subscribing monthly)

Qualifications, advice disclaimer, community guidelines

In addition to completing a five-year Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine program and passing licensing board exams in both the United States and Canada, I pursued additional training in ancestral health and nutrition to become a Certified Primal Health Coach. I also developed the curriculum for and taught in the inaugural Holistic Nutrition Program at Kootenay Columbia College of Integrative Health Sciences. Additionally, I served as an instructor and Dean of Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine at Pacific Rim College, home to one of the largest Chinese Medicine programs in North America. As well, I have a master’s degree in Arab Studies - Middle East politics from Georgetown University.

As a licensed healthcare professional, I cannot give individual-specific medical or dietary advice without conducting a full intake and having the client sign consent and privacy waivers. While this newsletter may feel like good medicine, it’s not prescriptive or medical advice.

I treasure your presence here and invite you to take an active part in the PERFECT HUNGER community.

Please note that, similar to recovery groups, I request that commenters refrain from offering unsolicited advice, spreading hate and division, or engaging in political debate and commentary. There are plenty of other places to do that online—I lovingly challenge all of us to try something different.

Thank you, from my heart to yours.
Dana

Endnote on the name PERFECT HUNGER

The idea of cultivating the perfect thirst is found in Sufi poetry and teachings about longing for spiritual wisdom and connection with the divine. Similar teachings are found in many other religious and spiritual traditions.

Senior Buddhist teacher Gil Fronsdal, for instance, encourages cultivating desire for that which is wholesome—whether for our physical body, our mind and inner well-being, or our interactions with others and way of being in the world. And, as A. Helwa writes in Secrets of Divine Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Heart of Islam:

“It is our hunger, our thirst, and our emptiness that creates the longing for soul food. If we were full, we would never seek for anything.”

Throughout our journey together, a heart-sourced question guides the way: How can we live more beautifully?