Isabelle Rizo C.Ht. Consulting Hypnotist

Thank you for inviting me to be on the diaspora/immigrant panel and speak at the beautiful third space !

From the Default Mode Network that is overworked, to engaging in cross-brain translation of cultural contexts, to navigating expectations of being socialized as gendered women… we explored it all in beautiful ways.

Speaking to being a first gen political refugee, to the super power of emotional and contextual attunement we explored it all together.

Grateful for a Saturday brunch with and ube matcha from .bakery

Tonight at with I am presenting on:

The Mysterious Menstrual Cycle

i’ll share:
— how the menstrual cycle mirrors the moon + seasons
— how your brain shifts across the cycle (focus, language, patterning)
— why this was once considered knowledge—not taboo

a quick reframe of the body as a mirror to nature.

Cupping exists across cultures—but not in the same way.

In Romania, it was part of medicină populară (folk medicine), practiced primarily by elder women (“babe”) in village contexts across Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia.

It treated more than symptoms.

One of the key concepts is “tras curentul”—often translated as “being struck by a draft,” but more accurately understood as a disruption in the body caused by cold air, environmental exposure, or imbalance.

Physically, this might show up as:
– muscle tension
– pain
– fatigue
– respiratory symptoms

But culturally, it also maps onto something deeper:
– irritability or mood shifts
– vulnerability after stress or illness
– a sense of the body being “opened” or dysregulated

Cupping, in this context, wasn’t just extraction—it was regulation.
A way of restoring boundary, warmth, and containment to the body.

When we flatten this into a “global wellness trend,” we lose:
– the women who carried it
– the specificity of place
– the logic of the system itself

As a medical art therapist working with diasporic and multicultural populations, I’m interested in how these practices function as embodied knowledge systems—especially in how they organize distress, healing, and meaning.

This is where anthropology and therapy meet

diasporapsychology