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.