About Diana
Diana Fried, L. Ac., MAc, MA, NCCAOM Dipl.Ac, Acudetox Specialist
Diana launched Acupuncturists Without Borders (AWB) in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina, along with a team of people from the acupuncture community. She has worked with disaster victims and volunteers, and underserved communities doing community acupuncture healing all over the U.S., Haiti, Nepal, Mongolia, Ecuador, Mexico among other locations. Diana developed AWB’s Healing Community Trauma training program which has now provided training for over 6000 acupuncturists in the United States, and thousands in other countries, on how to do mobile community service field work with acupuncture. Diana envisioned and fostered AWB’s Military Stress Recovery Project (MSRP) to help heal the wounds of war and heal intergenerational trauma, establishing free community clinics around the U.S. to serve active duty military, veterans and their families. Diana initiated AWB’s World Healing Exchange program with the first trip to Nepal in 2009.
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Diana Fried has many years of experience and training in emotional/trauma healing work, along with years of work in international grassroots community development (Oxfam America, Grassroots International), including travel and work in Mexico, Central America, Asia, and Africa. She graduated from the Academy for Five Element Acupuncture with an M.Ac. (1999), is a certified Acupuncture Detoxification Specialist trained by the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA), and a certified Qigong Instructor.
Diana is trained in the Council practice through the Upaya Zen Center and the Center for Council. Diana is a graduate of the Upaya Zen Center Buddhist Chaplaincy program, and has studied Vipassana and other forms of Buddhist practice since the 1980’s. She is a certified Trainer in Happy For No Reason. Diana studied Plant Spirit Medicine with Eliot Cowan, and has deeply studied traditional medicines of cultures around the world. She was on the staff of Spring Hill, which led Opening the Heart Workshops, in Ashby, Mass.
Diana graduated from Bowdoin College, and has an MA from the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and an MA from the Academy for Five Element Acupuncture. She worked for years at Oxfam America, as Press Director and Video Director. She has produced many videos including about the Huichol Indians of Mexico, Guatemalan indigenous communities, the indigenous communities of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua (including a radio program that was aired on NPR), refugees in Greece and Mexico, Nepal Himalayan communities, Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, Hawaii after the Pahoa volcano eruption, and much more. At Oxfam she placed articles in hundreds of national media outlets, including the New York Times, The Boston Globe, ABC News, Time Magazine, and more.
Diana's Message
I have struggled in my life, sometimes hitting a pretty deep hole, and I still do struggle but I don't hit those holes anymore, and it is different now.
In the past each time I hit a low, somehow I was able to find sources of help. Even when I was in a low, somehow I was able to find functional parts of me,, not at my best, and study, or create organizations or create work for myself.
This is to say that there is no perfect landing place to get started, or to continue on your journey no matter how you feel. There are ways to move forward in an imperfect world and a self that may feel imperfect. These amazing and powerful practices I have learned over many decades are here to help, and so am I.
For 40 years I have been studying the core practices that help heal trauma, create opening to help people find their life path, support healthy relationships, build deep practices, support the journey that best allows people to flourish in this life. For me, the personal work then extends out to how are you going to make your mark on the world? I love to help take the inner world and the personal evolution and find its match on the global scene.
The deep ancient wisdom of Chinese medicine, through the five elements, is one of the major areas of practice that I love to share and teach because it is an entire worldview of how to live in balance and harmony, and the teachings that start with your body and incorporate working with all the emotions are phenomenal. The teachings also point you towards the path made for you in this world. For businesses these teachings are an incredible way to support teams to be able to work together so much more productively and happily.
I also love the amazing and powerful teachings of the council practice as a way to create relationship among groups, deal with conflicts, learn how to listen and speak as you never have before, and learn so much more about your heart’s callings. Council can even help you learn how to have the most amazing conversations with people in your life! Council can be used by individuals, couples, families, businesses, and organizations.
The teachings on happiness may be life saving. Understanding that we have control over our own levels of happiness, and learning specific tools and skills to get to a higher level of happiness, will have lifelong benefit.
One of my core philosophies for the organization I created was that when we were going into communities to help, we were to find ways to stay. Many disaster relief groups would come, parachute in while media coverage and donations were strong, and then leave. That was not my style. People say I am like a dog with a bone, and that is how I treat my work with others.
Together, we find amazing ways to transform our lives, that lasts.
Welcome to Transformation that Lasts!