About
Tristin McLaren, LAc, CCE, CCWFN
I have learned to stop and smell the flowers, to a fault, it can take me 5x longer to go for a walk because I get so distracted by all the life growing around me.
I have a chicken who thinks she still small enough to sit on my head, she's not, but I let her think so anyway, because the truth can be hard sometimes.
I have two amazing kids and most days, the teach me more than I teach them.
The state of Washington actually issued me a license to stick people full of tiny pins, give them strange and smelly decoctions to drink and tell them what they can and can't eat, aka, I practice Chinese medicine, acupuncture, herbal medicine and nutrition
I am an unconventional childbirth educator who breaks all the rules of traditional childbirth education to make sure my students have the best births on the planet.
I have lived around the Snoqualmie Valley my entire life (in fact my first job was as a dishwasher at the Silver Spoon restaurant for those of you who are old enough to remember it). After over a decade of helping hundreds of people regain health for themselves and their families in Bellevue and Redmond, I am thrilled to finally settle into serving my local friends, family and community in downtown Duvall.
The most important thing to me is ensuring the continued health of my family so nothing holds us back from enjoying everything that life has to offer, so we can explore everything the world has to offer, from the best kept secrets of the valley itself to the glory of our National Parks, mountain peaks near and far, and the expansiveness of our ocean coasts.
The second most important thing to me is bringing the same level of access to health to my community so everyone has the opportunity to enjoy the same level of health my family enjoys.
Professional Background
After earning my Master's degree in Chinese medicine from Bastyr University in Seattle in 2006, I open my practice in Bellevue and Redmond. Though my education was of the highest standards for Chinese medicine, and it prepared me technically for the practice of Chinese medicine and acupuncture, I felt that something was missing from my knowledge base. After studying with several amazing teachers who provided more technical knowledge, in 2011 I finally found the mentor who would provide me the insights into Chinese medicine I was looking for that helped me become a more holistic practitioner. In the coming years, my mentor, Dr Yaron Seidman, and I would publish a book, Hunyuan Fertility: Conception, Babies & Miracles.
After many more years of study with Dr Seidman and a growing number of fellow scholars, we launched a non-profit organization called the Hunyuan Institute to help preserve and progress the study of Classical Chinese medicine. Since then I have helped to edit and publish several key texts that will preserve largely unknown history and knowledge that was on the verge of being lost in the context of current Chinese medicine education.
As an outgrowth of the education I received from Dr Seidman, I have developed a unique childbirth education approach that incorporates important aspects of health and birth into childbirth education that have previously been forgotten so that expectant parents can have all the confidence and tools they need to have an amazing birth. You can find it online on the Natural Birth Compass website.