Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy Kuretsky & Kim Christensen.
Hi Amy and Kim, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I started as a solo acupuncture practitioner in 2013, gradually growing my practice in downtown Mpls’s north loop district. A few years into business, Kim Christensen (my now #workwife and business partner) also started her solo practice, subletting my space on the days I had off. We quickly realized how much we loved working alongside each other and with a little nudge from a tarot reading, we made the decision to merge our solo practices together and hire a team of clinicians in 2017.
From there, we’ve continued to grow and expand our team, our location (we moved to NE Minneapolis in 2021), and our menu of services. We now have a team of 13 and offer a few forms of massage, craniosacral, breathwork, microneedling, and integrative trauma healing sessions alongside the Chinese medicine backbone of our clinical work.
Many of our practitioners are eternal learners, and have grown their skillsets to include a wide variety of hands-on therapies over the years. This has allowed us to work as an integrative clinic for many of our patients – where community members work with several of our practitioners for a variety of services.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Obviously the COVID-19 pandemic was a huge bump in the road. We had somewhat recently hired a few new staff members and felt a lot of responsibility to make sure they had jobs to come back to once we were able to return to the office. But we also didn’t want to minimize the real and awful reality of the pandemic at the time and rush patients back into the clinic just to keep ourselves afloat financially. We were grateful we had set ourselves up with a good emergency fund for the business to weather the worst of that storm and re-open the clinic in a way that aligned with our values, prioritized everyone’s safety, and also got patients the care they needed.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My business partner, Kim, and myself have never been ones to shy away from speaking our minds. We both grew up in counter-culture communities (queer, punk, the arts, bike messenger culture) and have brought those strong ideas, values, and voices to our brand. We’re proud to be a queer-owned health care business that has become a place where queer and trans patients come to be seen, heard, and validated in their lived experiences and health concerns. Right now, when so many business are getting quieter about these topics, we’re intentionally getting louder about them.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
Yes, you read that right earlier, Kim and I decided to go into business together based off a tarot reading we gave ourselves. We’ve continued to incorporate tarot cards in many of our business decisions, even going as far as naming it in our partnership agreement as our tie-breaking vote if we can’t agree on something!
Also, along with private healthcare appointments, we also offer annual wellness retreats and bi-weekly group breathwork sessions.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.constellationacu.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/constellationacu
- Other: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/constellation-acupuncture-healing-arts-95077112393
