Born and raised in Taiwan, Ling earned her PhD in the United States from the Ohio State University in 1987, spending the first half of her adult life working as a research scientist at John Hopkins University School of Medicine and later, in application development for scientific instrumentation in the San Francisco Bay Area on the West Coast. But that all changed in 2003 when her mother became sick with an illness that doctors were unable to diagnose.
As unlikely as it seems, Ling abandoned her career as a scientist to pursue and wholeheartedly embrace energy work and alternative healing modalities.
“My parents,” she tells us, “are the reason why I changed from science to energy work.”
“We took her to Western medicine doctors first,” Ling explains, referring to her mom, “then to doctors of Chinese medicine. But there was no consensus as to why she was so sick. That’s when I decided to be proactive—I had to think and pursue answers outside the box to find help, to get some answers.”
Thankfully, despite her rigorous education and professional training, Ling’s upbringing and her cultural background made her quite open to other ways of seeing and thinking. Being Chinese gave her firsthand exposure—and access—to Chinese medicine.
One of the first areas she explored was qi gong. She signed up for a class with qi gong master Shen-Chu Wu for her mom and herself. It helped.
“I could feel movement of qi,” she says, “but being a scientist, I needed data, too. That’s very important to me: show me it works.” What she sought was proof in order to be convinced.
Qi gong had piqued her curiosity, and she began exploring other modalities. “Once you open your eyes,” says Ling, “other opportunities come up.”
She went on to study Eden Energy Medicine with Donna Eden (author of the book, Energy Medicine and Energy Medicine for Women) and Sandy Wand, but still thirsting, continued her journey exploring other body mind spirit practices.
Then, in 2008, one of her energy medicine coworkers, Alice Adeboi, went to a trade show seminar given by Laurie Herron and Katie Mink. Alice became extremely excited by what she learned and eventually convinced Ling to book a session with Laurie.
“I went in without major goals or expectations and with an open mind, thinking to myself, If I can add this to my toolbox, that’d be great,” recalls Ling. “That session gave me the answer I’d been looking for.”
And much more.
It gave Ling access to cosmic frequencies. It gave her another path. It integrated her left brain and her right brain, melding the scientific with something deeper, something more spiritual.
She started taking classes. And then more classes.
“Initially, it was difficult for me—for my scientific side,” admits Ling, “because Acutonics is also quite mystical.”
But the more she learned, the more her background in hard science helped her. Her need for data actually—in a way, counterintuitively—deepened her belief in Acutonics.
“Being discerning, having been trained to be discerning,” she says, “that really helped. And through Acutonics, I came to understand what science really should be: the curiosity to find answers and the need to explore more to find the highest truth.”
For a while she resisted the idea of becoming a teacher, but as she progressed through the classes, she wanted more. She wanted to share what she learned.
“And I decided to learn from the founders how all these things come together,” she says, “so I flew to New Mexico.”
It was after one of the seminars out at the Mothership in New Mexico, while sharing a glass of wine with Donna, that Ling came to the realization that Acutonics, specifically teaching Acutonics in Chinese, would be perfect for the Chinese and Chinese-American communities.
“Being Chinese, all of this, it’s in your blood,” she states matter-of-factly, “you have an understanding of wholeness.
“And Acutonics is a perfect match,” she continues. “A lot of times, people feel that Chinese medicine is only for the experts. But with Acutonics, it’s possible to do this after a one-day class.”
So, she pitched Donna on the idea of her teaching Acutonics in Chinese. Donna’s response: that’d be wonderful. But there’s the little matter of getting trained to become a teacher - something Ling wasn’t entirely keen on doing right away.
“It’s a huge responsibility sharing this information,” Ling admits, “but after two years, I decided I would do it.”
She even wrote her thesis for the certification program on making Level One into a Chinese class, which, she argued, wouldn’t merely involve translating it from English into Mandarin (‘to Chinese in Chinese,’ as Ling puts it); it would require integrating knowledge about Chinese culture and gearing the material toward Chinese and Chinese-Americans.
Once she taught her first class, though, she was all in.
“I knew then that this is something I wanted to be doing,” she says, “I knew I was ready.”
Her first class outside the U.S. was in her native Taiwan where she had only one student signed up by the time she arrived. She had, however, prepared and conducted an introductory seminar, and by the time she was through, when people had heard and experienced the power of the cosmic frequencies, the class filled up and she had to add others. She now goes there a couple of times a year to teach all levels of Acutonics classes. She also teaches here in the U.S. (in Mandarin and in English), as well as in Hong Kong and Malaysia.
“My goal is to bring this globally to Chinese communities.” says Ling.
On a deeper level, Ling believes that what Acutonics has done for her it can do for others.
“It has opened a gateway to knowing in ways I wouldn’t have imagined, to truly experience and connect to it,” she reflects, “for example, the concept of our connection to the cosmos—you actually have that experience in this journey of learning.
“Acutonics has also given me a deep connection to my roots, to Taoist and Chinese medicine and philosophy, because it’s no longer just learning from the intellect, but transforming the energy of the body and having that connection. They integrate now.
“It’s more like they’re dancing, actually,” she adds, “the logical understanding and the mystical experience.”
Plus, when she looks back at her experiences in analytical chemistry and her career problem-solving in instrumentation, she reflects on the parallels between what she did then to the processes and experiences in her current chosen field now.
“When I look at what I’m doing now - these tools and frequencies and how we apply them to solve a problem or transform the energy body—if we look at them first from a bigger perspective, it’s the same thing, just on a different level.
“All this,” she says, scanning her tools, “is about the alchemical process of transformation. It’s about turning lead into gold – transforming ourselves.”
As she sees it now, science and spirituality represent two sides of the same coin, and her work as a scientist complements her work with Acutonics perfectly.
“I look back at how science comes into play,” she says, “and all the research that I did and how I did it, all helps me validate a lot of things that could be mystical and explain it to people who need that logical explanation.
“Acutonics is a path I have chosen to make my contribution to the world, but at the end of the day,” Ling summarizes wistfully, looking back on all the convergent pathways that have led her to this current place in her life, “we are on a spiraling journey to integrate all our life experiences, as different as they may seem to be, and apply what we learn to improve the quality of life. The most wonderful part, though, is realizing that everything is indeed connected!”
And for any of us who might doubt the power of alternative modalities, thanks to Ling’s perseverance to find and practice alternative healing modalities, her mom is now 90 and her dad, who passed a few years ago, lived until he was 93.