About KA Acu Wellness
Meet your acupuncturist
Kathleen “Kat” Cabanayan, L.Ac., MPH, CYT
Kathleen, "Kat," Cabanayan (she/her) is a full-bred Filipino-American. She was born and raised in the now-extremely-expensive San Francisco Bay Area. Kat is a licensed acupuncturist, health educator, and a 500-hour certified yoga teacher. She studied Nutrition Science as an undergrad at UC Davis. She was particularly moved by her Community Nutrition course, as well as her internship at a federally-qualified health center (FQHC) CommuniCare Health Centers, which led to her seeking a graduate program that prioritized community health. She received her MPH at San Francisco State University, with a concentration on community health education, which made a radical impact on how she practices healing arts. After her MPH, she furthered her training in yoga, specifically with an understanding of how yoga could be used as a vehicle for healing the physical manifestations of various traumas. Kat recognizes that the acknowledgment of our individual and communal experiences inform our individual and communal health. Understanding and respecting the experiences of various communities is vital for pinpointing appropriate healing and health interventions.
Kat lives in the intersection of culture, social justice, public health, and natural medicine. She ultimately chose acupuncture as the vehicle with which she would be able to bring all of these passions together. She received her primary acupuncture education from Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine College in Berkeley. Shortly after, she became certified in facial acupuncture through Pacific College of Health and Sciences, with industry leader Dr. Shellie Goldstein as her main instructor.
When Kat is treating, she is prioritizing healing-centered, trauma-informed care, and cultural humility. She aims to embrace the rich diversity of ethnicities, sizes, races, abilities, sexual orientations, gender identifications, occupations, and more, that our community members and patients have been gifted with. She understands that wellness and identity are intersectional and that nurturing our existence is an act of political resistance.
In her downtime, Kat is an expert introvert (with some extroverted tendencies) who loves coffee so much that she can't wait to go to sleep so she can wake up and drink it. She’s a dog lover. She’s a scotch and gin collector. She excels in a condition called "tsundoku," Japanese for having-hella-books-without-actually-reading-them, but she'll get to it eventually. She currently resides in the Bay Area with her loving partner, Christopher, and their dogs.
Mission Statement
“Ka” ᜃ is the Ancient Baybayin symbol for "connection;" The connection between heaven and earth. The connection between humans and nature. The connection between humans themselves. The Ka ᜃ was chosen to represent this organization to remind us all that we are connected to each other and connected to the Divine. As such, we must be active participants in diminishing health disparities by providing culturally-humble, trauma-informed healing modalities. We must operate with a full understanding of the complex experiences and histories of the people we treat, the land we operate from, and our own complex experiences and histories, as well as, our privileges.
Our work is REVOLUTIONARY HEALING!
Origin Stories…
The “Ka” is a letter in ancient Baybayin meaning “to relate to.”
Every relational word in Tagalog contains a “Ka.”
Kapwa - fellow
Kapatid - sibling
Kalakbay - fellow traveler
Kaibigan - friend
Kababayan - fellow country-person
Kalayaan - liberty
Kain - to eat (because we relate to our food and we eat in community)
Even the “bad” relational words have a “Ka” in it
Kalaban - adversary, enemy
Kaalitin - distress
Kagalitan - indignation, anger
The Ka is in my name “KAthleen.”
The Ka is a symbol of connection. The symbol could mean the connection between God/Heaven and Earth, Human and Nature, and Human-to-Human.
When I created “Ka Herbal Wellness” in 2020, we were all deprived of connection. I took that time to connect to myself. To connect to my culture. I had time to nourish the seeds within me. So I created a lot of different things under the umbrella of “Ka” - herbal tinctures, bitters, salves, candles, and jewelry. I did this with the intent that I would eventually add my acupuncture services on top of it. But I so very easily got burnt out.
Ka was soon morphing into more of just a “brand” with STUFF, than a principle I wanted to live by and run my business by.
For a hot second, I re-named Ka Wellness to “BTCH Wellness.” I did this partly to remind myself that I am a bada$$ b!tch, but also because I thought that if people were going to see me as one, I might as well capitalize on it.
But in the deep reflection of the past few years of business ownership and offering my services to folks, I feel more than ever that connection to our deepest selves, with one another, with our cultures, traditions, our food, and with our surroundings is the key to wellness. So I’m once again, returning to my roots. I’m returning to Ka Wellness because above all, connection is what will keep us well in this hell.