Immune Boosting Chicken Soup

·         6 cups organic chicken broth

·         2 cups water

·         1 organic chicken breast

·         2 – 3 organic chicken thighs

·         1 large onion chopped

·         5 cloves of garlic chopped fine and left to sit for 10 minutes

·         1 inch of minced ginger

·         1 tsp turmeric powder

·         ½ tsp black pepper

·         1/4 cup lemon juice

·         2 heads of baby bok choy chopped

·         or a small napa cabbage chopped

·         4 cups of organic baby spinach or chopped bunch of kale

·         2 teaspoons coconut oil or 1 tablespoon olive oil

·         ¼ cup of chopped flat leaf parsley

·         Salt to taste

Finely chop the garlic and let it sit for 10 min.

After 10 min heat 2 teaspoons of coconut oil or a tablespoon of olive oil in a stock pot and let it get hot (not smoking). Add turmeric powder and black pepper.  Let it sizzle for 10 – 20 sec and then add onions, garlic and ginger.  Add a splash of chicken broth and sweat the onions till they are softened.  Then add the remainder of the chicken broth and the chicken pieces.  Add salt to taste.  Let the soup simmer on medium low heat till the chicken is tender (about 30 min).  Put the chicken on a cutting board and shred it chicken with two forks, pulling apart the fibers into bite size pieces.  Put the chicken back in the pot and then add the bok choy or napa cabbage.  Once it is tender, add the lemon juice, ¼ teaspoon of cayenne pepper and simmer till flavors are incorporated.  Add prewashed organic baby spinach or and turn the heat off.  Cover the pot to keep the soup hot.  Add parsley before serving. Serve with organic toasted bread with olive oil.

I have added cubed potatoes and carrot to this soup as well.  If you choose to do this, add them after the broth is added so they can soften by the time the soup is ready.

For a VEGETARIAN VERSION, use vegetable broth and add cubed and broiled tofu instead of chicken.

Serves 8

fun MEDICINE facts:

1. Garlic needs to sit for ten minutes after being crushed or chopped for the enzyme alliinase to be activated and stimulate its anti-cancer and bactericidal properties.  If garlic is not allowed to sit for 10 minutes and is fried soon after it is chopped, its health benefits are lost.
2. The anti-inflammatory properties of ginger are well known.  It relaxes the walls of the intestines relieving intestinal spasms, has anti-colon and ovarian cancer properties and boosts the immune system.
3. Frying black pepper with turmeric with black pepper in oil increases its absorption by 2000 fold. Turmeric has powerful anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties and also regulates blood sugar levels..
4. Bok choy as a super food is high in fiber, Vitamin C and folic acid.
5. Parsley is high in Vitamins K, C, A and contains a small percentage of iron and folate.  It also cleanses the liver.
6. Kale is one of the most nutrient dense greens available.  Some are worried about the high concentration of oxalic acid (forms kidney stones) in kale.  When heated or cooked, the oxalic acid concentration diminishes decreasing its likelihood for kidney stone formation.

I made up this recipe for chicken soup when I came down with a bad sinus infection this year.  I did not want to take antibiotics so I proceeded to my chemistry lab (my kitchen) to concoct a soup that would give my immune system a boost and clear my sinuses.  After three bowls of this and a good night’s sleep, I awoke with a significant reduction in my symptoms and a return of my vitality and resilience.

So far, many of my patients used this recipe when they had colds and it miraculously healed them!

Enjoy this soup when you are sick or just to comfort you after a hard day’s work.  It will nourish your body and soul.

Food is Medicine!

The Personal Toll of Corporate Medicine

I am a board certified internist.  I am Stanford trained and have been practice for nearly 25 years.  I have a very busy practice.  I love my patients.  To help, heal and to love them every day is a daily gift. I want to help them make sense of their suffering, to help awaken and empower them and help them gain health.  I have also been a lifelong seeker.  I seek to gain consciousness every day, with every life experience.  I also seek to stay current with medical and scientific progress.  I love science.  I love Medicine.  This is what I was born to do.

I have been in private practice for nearly 17 years.  I worked in corporate health care straight out of residency, nearly 25 years ago.  It didn’t fare well for me.  I struggled inside, conflicted by the dissonance between the true mission of medicine and that of corporate medicine.  The corporate mission saw patients as commodities for money and physicians as work horses.  The boards of these systems used profit alone as the measure of the physician’s success.  I saw my colleagues losing contact with what was real.  When the hospital told me I did not admit enough patients to meet their projections, I left corporate medicine and never looked back.  My vision of medicine conflicted with theirs.

As a physician in private practice, I need to interface with the corporate system.  My medical practice accepts insurance, I am a part of an Independent Physician Network which is affiliated with a local hospital.  They base their measure of credibility on what the ABIM (American Board of Internal Medicine) dictates.  Their standards have been shown to have little correlation with physician competence and performance. Their requirements of physicians are inhumane.  Physicians are weighted down to serve two patriarchs.  The corporation that pays their wage and the larger corporation that credentials them.  They can’t possibly serve three masters – their vocation and two patriarchs with all their demands.

I write this as a physician who can see through the façade and racket of what corporate medicine has created.  This system is like an abusive parent.  It is abusive towards physicians who are made vulnerable and dependent. They pay with their cell tissue at the cost of their creative fire. Physicians are hurting.  Drug abuse, alcohol and suicide rates among them is at an all-time high.  Physician morale is at an all-time low.  They are afraid to admit they are hurting.  They are forbidden to complain or show vulnerability.  What does this say about the health of the healers within the system itself? How do we begin to bring healing to them?

The most recent experience I had with ABIM is when I took the Maintenance of Certification exam. Preparing for this exam entailed studying for nearly 40 hours a week, in addition to my working hours, for months. My brain does not work like a standardized test.  When I am with my patients, I utilize both my intuition and medical knowledge to access what I need to construct a differential diagnosis and provide solutions.  I cannot function under time pressure like the exam expects. There were many questions that upon further thought I wanted to correct.  However, finding them again was impossible in the maze of unnumbered questions.  I fail this exam, I will have to start over, preparing again to retake it. This maintenance of certification is tied to my insurance reimbursements.

Does this happen to me in the exam room with my patients? Never.
Can I access the information that I need and synthesize the information to diagnose, treat and heal? Yes.
Does a standardized test measure this? No.
Can a standardized test have so much power over one's life? Passing, failing?

Does failing a test like this negate everything we know in favor of being evaluated by a system that has lost its soul? The board? Who is this board? What gives them the power to do this to physicians who have been in the trenches for decades, helping, healing and loving their patients and their work?

When we entered medical school we placed our spontaneous, creative nature to the side. The critical parent became the voice in the background.  It demanded perfection. It still does.  Our performance has become the neurosis we perfect for survival.  This kind of perfectionism is normalized.

When we complete our training, exhausted and worn, we are vulnerable to the demands of the outer patriarch–corporate medicine.  He is satiated by the money we make.  If we adapt to his demands, we are rewarded.  If we don’t we are abandoned.

My experience of the exam was nothing short of torturous.  The Board has become the external critical parent colluding with the critical parent within.  He runs roughshod over our sensitivity, creativity, heart and intuition.  Without these, our health is at stake.  We must reclaim these parts to be whole again.

This is what is upon physicians today.  That which makes us human, is not even seen. We are herded together like hostages, serving this angry patriarch. I am questioning what we have created here. What kind of system is this where is no room for process? Fast paced, material centric, product oriented, side stepping the heart - where is it all going? The stress this creates is the highest risk factor for all diseases.

I write about this because I must.  I too was a hostage of this system.  In some ways I still am.  I have not slept well in weeks. Anxiety, worry, fatigue, weariness, nausea....all symptoms triggered by the boards. I have heard and held the pain and anguish of my patients, many whom are physicians. I know this part of the shadow of medicine is real.

We must talk about these issues if we want change.

In the words of Paul Teristein M.D., …”many physicians are waking up to the fact that our profession is increasingly controlled by people not directly involved in patient care who have lost contact with the realities of day-to-day clinical practice. Perhaps it's time for practicing physicians to take back the leadership of medicine.”

I think it is time we do.

What do you think?

A Pill for Libido. Really?

As an internist who sees hundreds of women in the second half of life, I am all too familiar with women’s waning libidos.  Having gone through menopause myself, I have personally experienced the power that changing hormones have on many psychological and bodily functions that the younger me took for granted.  As an integrative physician, I am always searching for causes of symptoms and for natural and integrative ways to treat and heal them.  Our society sees a waning libido as a pathological symptom.  Viewing our aging bodies as pathological is where our problem truly lies.

Our collective maturity level in America can truly be seen as ‘adolescent’.  We are a society with many compulsions.  We seek fast ways to manipulate the body, to manage symptoms, and to regain youth. We want pills as substitutes for inner work, diets for rapid weight loss, and shots to stop menstruation considered inconvenient by many.  We are addicted to an ideology that has proven not to work over the past three decades.  Somehow, we are unable to make the shift to a more mature way of thinking.  Industries that support these compulsions make a lot of money.  The money itself becomes an incentive to keep the compulsions in place.

We have promoted the ‘anti-aging’ ideology for nearly 3 decades. We have yet to find a way to turn back the clock.  We are fearful of aging because we lack respect for process, and have not created a way to mark and consecrate our life stages from a place of reverence. Our society normalizes this. Mother Nature, in all of Her wisdom, marches on in time.  It is about time we find a way to gracefully honor the rhythms of the natural order of life and learn how not to resist aging due to our adolescent fear.

A woman’s libido has many facets that influence it – hormonal, psychological, emotional, and spiritual. Hormones have powerful effects on the biological nature of sexual desire.  When we are young and fertile, our hormone surges are aligned with the zeal to procreate.  In other words, the desire for sex is aligned with Nature. This is a powerful force that underlies our libidos when we are young.  As we age our hormones change, and we are less able to procreate - and Nature is less supportive of our libidos.  Women in their mid-40s complain about their waning libido, their changing body, and mostly their newly discovered need for balance.  They feel depleted after half a life of caring for others.  Energetic depletion, alongside changing biology creates less desire for sex. There is a greater desire for more intimacy, spiritual and emotional fulfillment, and the restoration of balance in both a woman’s body and life.

By our 50’s, most of us have experienced enough pain and difficulties to last us a lifetime.  These experiences are meant to serve as catalysts for inner growth and self-discovery. In midlife we must move out of the compulsion to ‘please the world’ and into an inner place of authentic connection.  We must learn how to be true to ourselves.  For us to find meaning and not feel victimized by our past requires hard work and a desire to seek.  The process of seeking itself deepens our ability to be intimate and fulfilled. In my medical practice, I find that women, who are committed to ‘seeking’ as they age, feel more fulfilled with intimacy, rather than the sex act alone. They are able to more readily accept their changing bodies. Sexual pleasure to them feels different, in some ways more fulfilling, even though their libidos may not be as heightened as in youth. The irony is that they are the ones who feel more sexual fulfillment than those who continue on the treadmill defined by the collective, with expectations of eternal youth.

Because our society has glorified youth and the sex act in favor of aging and intimacy, as we age, society expects us to perform both physically and sexually similar to when we were young, but with limited success.  Our aging bodies have different needs: the need for a pure diet, exercise, work/life balance, attention to inner process, and - one that we have not yet normalized in our society - a search for meaning. The spiritual aspects of ourselves call to us more powerfully and with greater zeal as we age.  Our physical bodies also require more attention.  Continuing the unhealthy diet of our younger years, does not nourish our changing bodies, and many of the lifestyle choices that have gained traction do not support our emotional or physical bodies.  This level of self-awareness needs to be paramount as we age if we desire to achieve a state of true health, which should no longer be defined by a ‘hard body’ or a ‘boundless sex life’.

For men, Viagra and Cialis do not fulfill these needs.  The ability to hold an erection for a longer time is not an adequate substitute for health, meaning, or intimacy.

Our society is struggling with the choices it has collectively made.  Frankly, our collective ideology is in contrast to the laws of Nature.  In other words, it goes against the laws of Nature.  Due to the decades of traction behind our unnatural ways of life, we continue to pump out pills as substitutes for what is missing at deeper levels of our being. The woman’s libido pill Addyi will not be able to offer what women consider as sexual fulfillment – namely:  intimacy, meaning, and a renewed relationship with themselves and their partners. The risk of life-threatening side effects alone is not worth taking a libido pill.

As we age and seek deeper levels of meaning, biology (not surprisingly) follows suit.  Not necessarily with the same intensity as it did during youth, but our aging physical bodies respond to emotional and spiritual depth differently than when we were young.  The zeal to live from depth is what Nature supports as we age, in favor of the zeal to procreate as in youth.

At this time we do not need yet another pill with more side effect casualties left at the altar of our flawed ideology.  We need to reframe our collective consciousness and normalize the necessity for healthy aging as defined by physical, emotional, and spiritual health.  This is a much more powerful way for us to live and will go much further in our level of fulfillment, both sexually and spiritually, than any pill can ever offer.

"Sensitives" Belong to Their Tribe

The more I read about Robin Williams, listen to his voice expressing his deepest feelings, the more I feel his 'sensitive' nature.

I am a sensitive also.

So are 90% of my patients.

I have felt a deep loneliness all of my life, a disconnect from Earth systems. I don't adapt well to people and systems that lack integrity or are fear, greed and power driven (like many of our systems today including the health care system).

I didn't 'fit in' with the broken health care system, I didn't fit in with the 'club' mentality in Medicine. I had no desire to adapt to a lifestyle that was promoted by the physician collective - the mcmansion, the fast car, the fat paycheck, the power trip or even the white coat. I felt suffocated in it. It disconnected me with my beloved patients so I left it hanging on a hanger in my office. I don't even know what happened to it. One day it just disappeared!

When I left the 'system' to create my own, my beloved Ommani Center, I didn't think twice. I mortgaged my house and took a big plunge. The lien on my house still stands. My business loan would have been long paid off by now, but a very expensive divorce got in the way. It was worth every penny to revive my sovereignty, restore the integrity of Ommani's vision and support the sacred 'system' I created to unfold health care in the direction I am taking it along with my patients - the direction of it being an educational and empowerment healing model, one based on integrity and sustainability.

As sensitives, we have difficult journeys because we feel so deeply. The majority of us do not subscribe to or connect with worldly attitudes or ways of living. They feel empty. We feel happier with simplicity and meaning and are fulfilled by being around people like us - our tribe.

For a long time I thought that I could make a difference on Earth in the collective consciousness. I don't think I can any more. Most 'Earthers' don't want change. They fight to maintain status quo. They don't want true health. They just want quick fixes and band-aids. They are caught up in the collective definitions of 'success' and 'progress'. They subscribe to the collective.

Who I feel I serve are the 'sensitves' . They are my tribe and they struggle between the way they were conditioned to adapt and what their Soul frequency resonates with. I feel that my deepest and most sacred work is to empower them to dismantle their conditioned thinking and live in harmony with their Soul frequency - to Become Real.

I feel that if enough of us support each other in this way, we will create a vortex, a critical mass that will hold the energy for shifting the paradigm. When this happens, the people on Earth will have no choice but to shift. Entrainment is a powerful force, especially when it is centered in heart and feelings.

Remember, WE are the change.

Are you a sensitive? If so, know that there are enough of us here to make a difference.

You are seen and witnessed.

My heart is with you.

We BELONG to each other.

You are not alone.

So Robin Williams, wherever you are, be at peace knowing that we see you and feel you for who you REALLY were.

You made a BIG difference on Earth even in death.

We will carry the Light.

We belong to your tribe

                               

Bringing Peace on Earth

Yesterday a friend of mine told me that she was gracious to 3 people in her bank who in turn were gracious to her.
"How can something so small make a difference? Change the fighting in the Gaza strip?" "I feel so helpless" she said. "This is my little world, removed from the horrors of war and terror. I don't think my little act of kindness can help a warring world."

Years ago, I had read a book titled, "The Cultural Creatives. How 50 million people are changing the world". The message of this book is: the 'critical mass' required to shift a paradigm is 50 million people. If 50 million people make conscious choices, it will create an 'energy' large enough to bring harmony and shift the collective thinking on earth.

I told her to imagine 50 million people being gracious to 3 people and them being gracious back. That can create such a vortex that the paradigm will start shifting away from war.

Yes, IMAGINE!

Take the time to be gracious to at least 3 people today...
Focus on how your heart feels.
Receive their positive energy back.

WE are the cultural creatives.

We can shift this paradigm of war by being kind in our 'small' communities. Strung together, these communities make up the world.

We all breathe the same air.

Seeds of graciousness emitted in the air have greater power than seeds of war.

This is what we can do to bring peace on Earth.

Can we Change the Course of Cancer by treating our Patients with Love?

I recently had a heart expanding moment.  In that moment, I felt a deep and wide sensation of energy radiating from the center of my chest.  I would call this a “vertical moment” one that feels powerful in its quantum nature.  Its memory has lingered and inspired me to reflect on the power that love can have on the course of an illness. As a physician, it made me wonder, “what if we engaged our love when we delivered a diagnosis?  What if we offered hope rather than fear? What if we loved our patients more?  What if we engaged wonder and mystery rather than statistical predictions?”

We were at a small café in Madison, WI for Saturday breakfast.  The middle aged couple at the table next to us was leaving as we arrived.  The wife clearly had cancer.  She had a makeshift turban over her bald head and her skin looked pale and flat, like the skin of many patients undergoing chemotherapy.

I watched their interactions as she fumbled to stand up after her meal.  Her husband’s kindness was palpable.  He offered her support with his strong arms and loving words. He knew she was too weak to stand up by herself.  His voice was filled with love and resounded like a melody through my heart.   It was one of those numinous moments where my heart melted and I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.  I was reminded of the depth of loving kindness that people are capable of showing each other.  I surmised many theories about their life during this sacred moment – “he was in it with her for the long haul; he loved her unconditionally; she had learned to receive his love and support; she was weakened by her treatment; she was working extra hard to stay positive.”

Many people going through a cancer journey share similar challenges.  Traditional medicine fails them in its chosen ignorance of process.  Loved one’s who care for family members with cancer go unnoticed and unacknowledged by many in health care, especially physicians.  A cancer diagnosis also affects a patient’s larger community.  This is their lifeline that carries the task of empowering and caregiving over the long haul.  They are presented with the monumental task of transcending the fear that is mindlessly handed to the patient during the delivery of the cancer diagnosis.  This fear is the shadow companion that consumes vital energy during the cancer journey.

Fear is the often handed to the patient alongside a diagnosis of cancer. Is the “fear” part of the hand out really necessary? Or has our society just normalized it?  Why haven’t we normalized love, hope, reclamation, possibility or even opportunity?  I feel that it is finally time to reframe our perceptions of cancer or any illness, so those affected can be seen as the shamans that they are, bearers of deep and sacred wisdom.  They have faced the possibility of death and chosen to live.  They are powerful alchemists.  We must be open to learning from them as we also honor their process.

Of all diseases, cancer is one that can suddenly call us to transform.  It can be seen as a sudden wake up call, one that contains “awful grace”. It can force us to reevaluate our perceptions of the world, what we eat, how we behave, how we express feelings, and how we practice self-care.  I would call these reevaluations, a kind of “medicine” that cancer carries in its powerful and tight grip.  This medicine must be uncovered and released in order for one to truly achieve wholeness.  The causes of cancer are often hidden and only present at unconscious and unseen levels.  Wouldn’t it be meaningful to explore these levels, to make them conscious for clarity and healing, so we can be guided into becoming larger versions of ourselves than before the cancer occurred?

One would think this could and should be the normalized approach in cancer, from the moment of diagnosis through recovery.  If we only view cancer as the monster we need to attack, how can we learn what it is here to teach us?  How can we reclaim our life from what we feel may be its many causes?  These are the nuggets of learning that carry the capacity for us all to free ourselves from its threat and restore wholeness during our journey. How can we awaken the alchemist within us and transform every atom in our cells into luminosity and light?  As we seek its elusive and often hidden “medicine”, we may even learn to live in a way that makes us “bad hosts” for it, to prevent it from resurfacing.  This is the framework that must accompany the diagnosis of cancer to offer patients the best outcome.

When fear is handed to patients in the exam room, a cascade of events occurs.  First, they dissociate to enable them to actually “take in” the diagnosis.  A part of them becomes paralyzed as their limbic system engages for survival.  This is the part of the brain that is activated for fight-or-flight.  Trauma enters the emotional body, disrupting their electrical system, creating an unsettled, chaotic feeling of shock that remains present for months and sometimes years.  Many describe this as a feeling of “static in their field”.  Patients have a hard time feeling settled and empowered.  They find it difficult to engage their imagination where they can access solutions and become seekers.  This is where they can also gain access to their inner wisdom, instinct and insight and the healing power of Sophia, the Divine Feminine, whose power and capacity lays dormant, waiting for connection.  Cancer or any disease carries the potential for activating this.  The fear handed out subverts their connection with this intrinsic power which regulates their inner pharmacy, capable of more healing we can imagine, more than even the medical system can understand.  It subverts their access to the ‘stuff of soul’ where quantum healing awaits.

The physiology of the stress response and the impact of chronic stress on the body/mind is well known throughout the scientific literature.  Its impact on the endocrine system is erosive and thwarts the regenerative power of cells.  Cell to cell communication is impaired and growth hormone in the pituitary gland is suppressed.  Insulin receptors malfunction and the adrenals wear out.  The entire delicate web of hormonal and endocrine communication is harmed.  Under stress, the tapestry of these delicately woven systems unravels and its threads begin to fray and tear.  Under stress, the very molecules of the body degenerate denying access to the luminous.  We become uncreative and unimaginative.  We lose faith in possibility and our lens of perception turns negative.  We risk feeling like ‘victims, waiting to be rescued’.

Cancer has been normalized by society as a terminal disease, one that leaves little hope for recovery.  Recovery is termed ‘survivorship’ and the adopted identity of ‘cancer survivor’ becomes a badge that defines the end of the battle.  Meanwhile, the energy of cancer alongside fear hangs in the rafters, waiting.  Fear is intricately linked with ‘survivorship’.  It lies huddled in the background, surfacing with the slightest symptom.  Fear ultimately causes chronic stress.  The immune system feels its cold claws, as they scrape even lightly upon the psyche and imagination.

Creating a new framework to support patients with cancer has the potential to change its face and its course.  The negative thought forms where fear and death are kept at bay, can be transmuted into opportunities for seeking the growth and healing this diagnosis evokes.  Such an approach has the potential to change its course and significantly improve its outcomes. I believe this is truly possible but will take an effort on all our parts to reframe what we accept.  Our greatest effort will be to embody the awareness that is required to shift the traction from fear that has been normalized that ultimately predicts and defines the course of cancer or any illness.

Medicine is at a crossroads, a gateway, where it needs to transform into a system that offers more love, and hope, and where exploration and education are honored as core values.  As a practicing physician, I have carried this framework alongside my expertise and have learned to love deeply and widely along the way. I have felt my heart expand and my wisdom grow, but most of all, I have grown to honor the sacred contract with my patients and their loved ones, who have chosen me as their companion, and walk with them through sickness into health and often into a transformed life.  For this, I am profoundly humbled and deeply grateful.

And regarding the couple in the café, in that moment of witnessing their love, my heart leapt towards them with a loving and supportive embrace as they left to continue their courageous journey through the hills and valleys ahead.   Their very presence was a gift and an inspiration to me as a physician and a person who feels deeply. Even though they may never read this article or know how deeply they touched my heart, somewhere in the tapestry of the Universe that weaves us all together, I hope they do.  I want them to know that their love, kindness, and courage was witnessed, and deepened many around them in more ways than they could have imagined.

An EPIC Degree of Soul Loss

The practice of medicine has undergone yet another change. Over the past several years, it has gone electronic. Those of you who have experienced electronically recorded medicine have had to adapt to the profound change that this brought to the physician visit. Physicians, already stressed from adapting to the corporatization of medicine, now have to adapt to data entry during their time with their patients. I, for one, resisted this as long as I was able.  I intuitively knew what this would do to the sacred essence of the physician-patient encounter.  Last year, I was forced to succumb.  I was not really given a choice. Implementing the electronic medical record (EMR) in my practice was not only extremely expensive for a primary care physician in private practice, it was extremely stressful for one who practices “patient centered” medicine. For a physician who relishes spending time with my patients, listening for clues in their stories to help them problem solve and heal, this was deeply intrusive.

When I used paper charts to record patient encounters, I was able to look at my patients, be in their presence and receive their stories while using my technical and intuitive skills. Most importantly, I could hold sacred space for every patient who I promised to help and heal.

After the electronic medical record became a part of my practice, I grieved the presence of a machine in my exam room that interfered with this connection. Surprisingly, I found myself in constant heart ache struggling through the day to try and capture the sacred essence of my beloved patient encounter. I realized the “mill” medicine had now become was a data collecting one that no longer valued humanistic listening and caring.  I had to learn how to enter patient data quickly and efficiently in order to maintain connection with my patients, so vital for their healing.

Given the level of my grief, I was curious if other physicians felt like I did. I explored internet conversations and blogs about how others felt since this implementation. One physician accounted that the stress of implementing EMR caused him to suffer a heart attack.  Could this be symbolic of his heart break from not being able to engage with his patients like he used to, combined with the stress of learning this heartless system of data entry?  It is certainly a cause for wonder.

Our current corporate system of medicine has been in crisis for nearly two decades. Patients and physicians are disillusioned by what today’s health care system has become. It is obvious that it suffers from a great degree of “soul-loss.” Rather than finding ways to fix and heal it to improve patient care, I believe the implementation of the EMR has furthered its dis-ease.

We were told that this method of documentation would make health care seamless, more collaborative and save paper and time. It has done the opposite. Different health care systems are not able to access the records of shared patients; it has created more paper waste and has taken up more physician time. Physicians who are unable to balance the EMR with patient contact opt to complete their charting after work into the late hours of the night. This compromises their work-life balance, adding to their stress and rendering them vulnerable to mental and physical illness.  We have all heard of numerous

physicians who opted to retire before their intended time when EMR was implemented. They were unwilling to compromise the art of healing for data entry.

Many patients do not realize that physicians had no say in this decision to implement EMR. They were merely required to adapt to this mandate.

As a patient, when you visit your private practitioner who is now electronically linked, please have patience. And physicians, please know you are not alone in your frustration with yet another intrusion in the exam room, our sacred sanctum. We will have to adapt in a way that preserves the sanctity of our vocation, despite the stress this has created for us.

Our precious field of medicine cannot continue to lose its soul in the many ways it already has. At some point it will have to transform and reclaim its true purpose and restore the sacred contract between physician and patient.

Till then, as physicians, we must carry the flame of healing in our hearts for our patients with continued love for our craft, and patients must carry patience in their hearts for their beloved physicians who struggle to remain connected with their heart and feelings while trying to adjust to the presence of the EMR.

Chana Dal Curry Soup

For dinner tonight, I had an organic green salad with cucumbers and carrots, Chana dal (yellow lentils) and organic Jasmine rice.
Chana Dal is a lentil from India that has a low glycemic index and tastes incredible as a curry.


Chana Dal Curry Soup



1 cup of chana dal (available at any Indian grocery store - it probably won't be organic)
3 cups of water
1 whole finely chopped onion
2 cloves garlic minced
1/2 inch ginger root, minced
2 tsp of ghee or clarified butter
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp of tumeric powder
1 tsp of coriander powder
1/2 tsp of cumin powder
1/4 tsp cayenne powder
1 tablespoon curry leaves
1/4 tsp asafoetida powder
1 tablespoon powdered coconut or 1 tablespoon of coconut milk
juice of half a lemon
cilantro leaves to garnish if desired

Heat ghee in a saucepan and add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, asafoetida, curry leaves, garlic and ginger till mustard seeds begin to pop and turn gray. Then add onion and fry for 2 to 3 minutes. You may need a bit more ghee to coat this onion/spice mixture. Add washed chana lentils, the coriander, cumin and cayenne powder, salt and water and boil till soft (about 20 minutes). Add powdered coconut. Garnish with chopped cilantro leaves and a squeeze of lemon juice. Serve with rice and enjoy!

A prepared cup of this exotic and delicious lentil soup with half a cup of rice makes a filling and nourishing meal especially when accompanied with stir fried chopped kale or collards. It has great cancer fighting and antioxidant properties as well.

Asafoetida is an anti-flatulant, digestive aid and anti-inflammatory. It is used in Indian curries and settles the stomach especially if the curries are spicy. It has a smoky flavor and can overpower a dish so only a pinch fried in oil is needed to flavor a dish.

Many of these ingredients are available at your neighborhood organic grocery store or an Indian grocery store.

A DEEPER KIND OF HEALTH CARE REFORM

Many of us are disheartened by the state of health care today.  The solutions being proposed to repair and reform it are not sustainable for physicians or patients.  Every system functions from operating principles that govern and direct its mission.  In order for us to understand why health care is dysfunctional, we need to analyze and understand its business model as it relates to is mission.

Nearly two decades ago, physicians delegated the business of health care to administrators and accounting experts to manage and run it.  Unfortunately, their mission was in conflict with that of the health care system. Theirs was profit centric rather than patient centric.  They believed that patient care interfered with generation of profit.  They began to see time spent with patients as a compromise of their mission.  They began to value numbers over people. Health care’s mission became disjointed when two contrasting missions were being served. Profit became the dominating mission for health care as business managers established control over physicians and regulated and limited their time with patients for maximal revenue.

When I worked in this system, I was unable to find meaning in my work.  I was also unable to sacrifice my mission as a physician for the mission of health care administrators.  I was told that my work in their health care system was a conflict of interest to their mission.  My patients were staying well and not generating enough hospital dollars.  I left traditional health care to create my own business model.  As a physician who remains devoted to my patients I wanted to create a model that generated value for both my patients and my business creatively.   I have never sacrificed mission for profit. I run my business with good business savvy, all the while devoted to my purpose as a physician.  A health care business model risks losing its way when it becomes profit centric.  For healthcare to be successful and sustainable, mission must never be compromised for profit. Our health care system has lost its way.

We have many examples of profit driven health care in our country today and especially in southeastern Wisconsin.  These systems purport to care about health, but on closer examination, we see otherwise – they rely on sick care.  Health care is a conflict of financial interest. Currently, the highest expense in health care are administrative costs.  Many layers deep, administrators manipulate and control physicians, nurses and employees  serve their mission of profit over health or care.  This has demoralized physicians and nurses and driven away patients. Moreover,  it has increased the incidence of medical errors, placing patients and physicians at risk. 

Author and president of Business Ethics Magazine, Marjorie Kelly, defines a business model that functions with this type of focus as ‘extractive.’  Its’ purpose is merely financial – maximization of profits.  Worth is extracted from workers to generate profit by layers of administrative hierarchy.  The extractive business model is prevalent in most corporations today.  Outsourcing work to Third World countries for cheap labor to increase profit-margin is extractive.  Extractive economics are bad for our country’s economy.  It displaces domestic workers and extracts as much work as it can from the remaining workforce to serve profit margin.  Extractive economics deplete meaning from work.  Employees find themselves working merely to pay the bills for survival.  They lose pride and meaning in their work. As a result their physical and mental health suffers.  We all pay the price for extractive economics.  The state of our country’s middle class is a result of extractive economics. 

The majority of health care systems function from this extractive model.  Health care employees are currently working merely to meet quarterly projections.  For health care to operate in this manner is unethical.  Health care’s mission is to serve and heal.  When the vulnerability of patients is used to generate profit, they are deeply harmed. The ‘care’ they receive is motivated by the drive to maximize testing and treatment.  Physicians are unable to diagnose and treat cost-effectively when working for an administrative system based on extractive economics.  They must follow the rules of the game to keep their jobs.  Patients are left with super-sized bills for mere symptom management.  Administrative bonuses depend on this.

A ‘generative’ business model provides services that generate value.  Health care based on generative economics focuses on health and healing rather than maximization of profit.  The focus shifts from one of greed to one of service. Patient care is not provided at the cost of profit, and there is a balance between both without compromising either.  A health care model based on generative economics operates from the principles of sustainability.  There is a fair exchange between doctor and patient. 

What this would look like in the health care system is already visible at The Ommani Center for Integrative Medicine.  Patient care as well as sound business principles are utilized to serve patients cost effectively.  In addition, the most cost-effective diagnostics available in the community are recommended to patients.  Small businesses in the community, such as organic grocers, complementary practitioners and businesses dedicated to health and sustainability that operate from a high standard-of-care, receive support and collaboration by practitioners through patient referrals.  Education and empowerment are of foremost value and achieving optimal health at all levels is served.  All retail profits are used to subsidize business overhead to keep health care visits affordable for patients.

Practitioners work collaboratively with patients to uncover the causes of illness and empower patient responsibility.  The mission of health care is served and all profits are reinvested to support the staff and employees of the Center.  The business is also dedicated to the health of the environment and recycles to reduce its carbon footprint. 

The Ommani Center is a generative business. 

Those who administer the business of traditional health care state that a mission centric model cannot succeed financially, that a generative business model is not profitable.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Shifting the focus of a business from profit to mission, from extractive to generative can actually draw in more revenue in service of its patients.  In addition, in a model like this, patients are truly served by physicians practicing from heart without the demoralization they currently experience within an extractive model of health care.

This is health care reform at the level of its core mission.

I believe this is one of the key solution’s to healing our broken system of health care.  This can also restore the soul of our sacred vocation.  

LOVE is here on Earth

LOVE is here on Earth

I have often felt that LOVE is what we are here to feel and give to each other.

Many share how I feel so why don’t we have stories of LOVE everywhere?

Ever since I was little, I felt it often and deeply.  It was inspiring and a bit frightening but warming, a bit overwhelming yet comforting.  I was raised to hold my feelings in, medical training tried reinforcing this, but that didn't work very well for me. I didn't adapt well and do as I was told. I felt LOVE every time I witnessed a simple act of kindness – you know, that sensation that wells up your tears and feelings. That is LOVE

LOVE makes us FEEL.

I feel it every day with my patients and staff, my dogs, my cat, my family and friends and even with total strangers - it is ever present and sustains life.  It awakens joy and the will to live.  It brings depth and meaning to the simple moments that make life worth living.

Last week when the snow fell heavy and deep, I was on the freeway on my way to work.  A snow plough entered the on ramp, ploughing and salting, clearing the path.  I was overcome with gratitude for the driver, a total stranger to me whose act of kindness saved us from skidding, who was up early, making it safe for us to go wherever we needed to go.  Yes, this was his job, but I chose to see it as an act of kindness.  I chose to see it directed at me and the others on the road at that moment in time. My heart felt warm, my tears welled. I was so thankful.  I saw his work also as an act of LOVE.

 Then, I stopped at the coffee shop and the owner had been there early on that cold morning making sure the hot coffee was ready and waiting, to warm me on my drive to work.  She was grateful for my presence and I was grateful for her efforts – again, LOVE. 

When I arrived at work, the sidewalk was already salted by a stranger who made sure I didn't fall on my way to the front door.  Yet, another act of LOVE and

As I walked in the door, I was greeted by my beloved patient who came early to fill out paperwork so we had our time together without it being cut short by protocol – an act of LOVE.

This was all on one day before 9.a.m.!

Before my day even started, I felt loved.  I felt that all the LOVE was directed at me.  I took it in and it filled me up.

If we remember to be grateful for the many ways we LOVE each other every day, and hold this sacred, our world will change.  What matters will be valued more than not mattering.

Think about this.  It can make all the difference in our experience on Earth.

LOVE is present everywhere we choose to see it.

Make sure your day is filled with gratitude for the many acts of LOVE that come your way that you may otherwise miss.

The Intention Behind The Ommani Center

How does one adapt to being uprooted and unearthed?  The human spirit strives to survive, to continually move towards its destiny to carve out a course that reclaims ones sense of meaning.  My mother is a person who experienced this.  At the age of 10, her parents were killed in the India-Pakistan partition, leaving her orphaned and terrified.  As life presented her with gateways, she was able to walk through some, and not others, due to the fears resulting from the acts of violence she had experienced that had been imprinted upon her.  She engaged her courage as she grew large at the wounded places and carved a course for her life that offered her meaning and purpose.  Over the history of the human race, millions like her have been left with varying levels of paralysis in our world with little emotional context. The context with which the unknown was encountered for them was through the experience of terrifying loss.
We may think that our generation is protected from this level of loss, that it is from a more distant time, but this is far from the truth. Our world has been warring for decades, leaving casualties of violence and encounters with the terrifying unknown embedded in our collective psyches.  We are living in a virtual reality.  We have learned to cover up our feeling function and learned to deny our deep emotions with creature comforts, with superficial solutions, none of which endure.  Eventually we must stand naked before ourselves, confront our gateways and step into our largeness, reclaiming what was taken from us and redirect our course consciously into the unknown.  This is what midlife expects of us.  In the areas my mother was unable to choose, due to her circumstances, I must.  Where she could not reclaim, I must.  We, the children of the last generation, now in midlife, must find the courage to engage our consciousness in the areas where we become stuck, and live  from our superficial yet familiar cultural framework and believe in the potential of our souls.  To redefine health from this context is our sacred task.  This is how REAL Health Care can be accessed.
The Ommani Center for Integrative Medicine was born from my strong intention to create a context for health that is deeper than just the physical level.  Health is more than just symptom management through integrative methods.  As important and vital as this is, it does not access true health or healing.  Being conscious of how and where one lives and relates to life from may be the more important and deeper context that determines one’s state of true health.  This can and must be evoked.
If those that killed my grandparents and irrevocably changed the course of my mother’s life had this level of consciousness and asked the important and REAL questions, needless suffering could have been averted.  We cannot go back in time and change history.  We can, however grow strong at the places where we have been wounded.  We can use our wounds to acknowledge our humanness and engage our courage to grow in consciousness and health.  We must engage our wounds in order to offer ourselves a larger context for empowerment, reclamation and ultimately for healing.  This will uncover a deeper sense of meaning in our lives.
A Health Care System that can hold this level of space from a context such as this, inclusive of modern technological advances with high-standard –of –care, is what we all deserve.  It is a place where meaning is restored.  Cultivating and supporting a system like this is sacred work.  For me, it is a vocation.  Where my vocation aligned with my mother’s biography is where I found meaning and an opportunity to create a larger context in the form of The Ommani Center where true health and meaning could be accessed that was inclusive of my love of medicine and my devotion to high quality health care.
If we want a system that cares and offers us more than what our current system offers, this needs to be our collective work.  Together, we must  support and expect health care to be REAL for us so it can  address our REAL needs and ask the REAL questions of us, questions that we can live out in our destinies from a place of health and meaning.  I encourage all of you to expect this from our Health Care System.  Our expectations of what is REAL will truly change our world for the better.

Midlife as a Gateway to Authenticity

Are you a midlife woman who doesn't understand what is happening to your body and your mind?
Have you told your doctor how you’re feeling and were dismissed with medications or hormone replacement therapy?

Do you feel overwhelmed by the volume of information available about managing midlife and peri-menopause?

I am not only a practicing internist but a midlife woman.  I have been helping midlife women for over two decades with their menopausal symptoms and have gained significant personal insight about how little support is currently available for us.

During my forties I noticed my body and energy level change. I began to feel tired and heavy.  I also felt restless and had trouble sleeping through the night.  I looked for answers to these symptoms in my medical books and journal articles. I even went to my gynecologist to understand why I was feeling this way.  All she had for me were prescription drugs and hormone replacement therapy.  She told me that this is peri-menopause and that I have entered this category in midlife.  “It’s downhill from here” she said.  My visit was a huge disappointment.  As a scientist and a problem solver, I was determined to understand why I was having these symptoms and what I could do to restore my sense of health and well-being.

I found a lot written on this subject.  What I read though was theoretical but not practical and it did not address the deeper aspects of what I was looking for.  Why did my soul feel restless?  Why did I feel emotional ‘heaviness’?  Why was my body changing in this way and why were issues resurfacing that I thought were solved?  I was forty-two when I began to feel this way. I was an intelligent and a dynamic woman who had lived a very healthy lifestyle.  I had also created a successful medical practice and on the surface,  appeared to be at the top of my game.  Deep inside, I felt empty and disconnected.  My marriage felt deeply unsupportive and I found myself less able to tolerate the disrespectful ways I was being treated.  It was as if I was not able to compromise myself in order to adapt anymore.   My tolerance for the superficial was receding.  I found myself being more reactive and angry.

What I discovered was that hormonal shifts in my body that were normal during this stage of life brought with them emotional and soul shifts that were offering me an opportunity to take a look at my life from a deeper perspective.  Since I was conditioned to pathologize this, it engendered a deep fear of aging and degeneration. It was anything but.

This time in a woman’s life holds immense transformational power.  When a woman arrives at this gateway, her hormones shift, recalibrating her identity.  She is meant to question who she has pretended to be and move her deep into her soul and her authentic self.  Our society deems this a ‘midlife crisis’.  I like to think of this as the alchemical process of becoming real.   Women need to learn how to take care of themselves through this gateway and beyond.  They need to learn how to use the framework of transformation to connect with their intrinsic power and truth.  At this juncture, women are in need of balance at all levels of their body, mind, emotions and soul.  Many have lived unbalanced lives up to this point, neglecting to take care of ourselves.  As their bodies change they are called to heal their self-neglect.

I would like to offer some simple solutions to support your midlife transformation:

1. Work with a physician who can help you balance your hormones, not replace them.  Bio-identical hormones are much safer alternatives to synthetic ones.  They can quickly restore your feeling of well-being when used correctly in small doses.  Most women are in need only of natural progesterone to balance the estrogen to progesterone ratio.  Taking estrogen in even natural form can aggravate many symptoms of the menopausal transition.  This needs to be customized by your physician to suit your biology and your sense of well-being.  There is no "cookie cutter" way to balance hormones.

2. Acupuncture can make a significant difference in your well-being particularly if you are having a difficult time with menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes and night sweats.

3. Have your thyroid levels checked.  Make sure your physician orders a thyroid panel to give her/him a better understanding of the status of your thyroid as it can become sluggish during midlife.  Make sure you have free T3 levels checked.  These commonly decrease in midlife resulting in weight gain, fatigue and foggy thinking.  Replacing your free T3 and normalizing your TSH to a value between 1 and 2 will make a big difference in your sense of well-being.  Moreover, low free T3 levels have been correlated to an increase in all cause mortality.

4. Clean up your diet.  Change your diet to one that is mostly organic and plant based.  A plant based Mediterranean diet has been shown to significantly lower the risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer, three of the most common diseases in the U.S. that present in midlife and beyond.

5. Begin taking a therapeutic grade omega-3 supplement and vitamin D.  These will decrease inflammation and strengthen your immune system, reducing the risk of disease.

6. Make aerobic exercise a priority.  At least 20 minutes of exercise, 6 days a week is needed to decrease the impact of physiological stress and restore cardiac health.

7. Incorporate massage therapy, yoga and meditation in your life as ways to heal stress and bring you closer in contact with your authentic self.

8. Work with a psychotherapist to gain a better understanding of your real needs and desires and to dismantle the parts of you that no longer serve your life.  Many feel that they can do this alone and with the help of friends, but it is much more effective and efficient to engage a professional who is objective and can clearly mirror what you need to work on to connect to your authenticity.

9. Make a commitment to be true to yourself and seek for a deeper sense of meaning every day.  Stop compromising your real needs to be liked or accepted.  This is one of the hardest patterns for women to break.  Garner the courage to be true to yourself.  You will earn the respect of many around you.

I invite you to reframe midlife from a time of crisis to one of transformation.  The best years of your life are yet to come.  Grace them as a seeker with deeper meaning and understanding  so you can experience the power and sacredness of your authentic self and most of all experience a deeper sense of meaning now and for the rest of your life.

The Ommani Center – A New Model for Healthcare

Rachel Remen M.D. is a physician and mentor who inspired me 23 years ago. An article about her current work, Medicine’s Search for Meaning was recently published in The New York Times. It made me reflect on where I started as a young physician, and where I have arrived today as a physician who holds a vision of a healed health care system in my heart. I was a fledgling 3rd year resident in Internal Medicine at Stanford when I attended the talk that Rachel gave on ‘patient-centered’ medicine. I sat on the steps in the auditorium, listened to her and wept. My heart has remained open wide since that day at Stanford and I have pursued a path of LOVE and DEVOTION for my patients and it has been my hope for health care ever since.

As stories of entrepreneurs go, mine has been lined with challenges as well as immense creativity. I weaved in and out of corporate medicine after residency and left it forever in 1998 when I was told that “wellness is a conflict of interest for health care” and “preventive medicine does not generate hospital dollars”.
I suddenly realized that the business model that corporate health care serves is exclusively a financial one. The dollar is what is served, not health, healing or patient care. Physicians are merely assembly line workers who generate money for the health care systems quarterly profits. My heart continually breaks for my colleagues who work in a corporate model that serves administrators and policies, not patients.

Let me tell you something about what a doctor’s heart is like. As I talk about mine, I can assure you that many doctors entered their profession with similar stories and experiences and were seeking the grace in their work that fulfilled their passion to heal.

When I was little, I remember the first inklings of how I knew I wanted to serve in this capacity. When I was around people, I felt a deep ache in my heart. I didn't understand what this was for a long time. I knew I was always searching for why people got sick and how they could get well. I think I came into the world this way in addition to being raised around the scientific inquiry of my parents who are brilliant scientists. Because I loved science so much, I voraciously read everything I could get my hands on to help guide my understanding. Nothing was as fulfilling for my soul as seeking answers to difficult questions. I knew I had to spend every day of my life in this numinous place. Going to medical school felt like a natural extension of my passion for learning within the healing model available in our society. To be immersed in it and to be able to feel the joy that accompanied complicated problem solving was nothing short of bliss. When I was on the wards during my clinical rotations, that old familiar ache in my heart from childhood resurfaced. I now recognized it as LOVE. This strong and deep feeling, this ache, this love that I discovered I had for my patients has never stopped flowing.

I feel privileged and honored every time I am with them, ever since the first patient I ever saw. She privileged me as a medical student, to study her condition and honored me with her patience during my very green inquiry. Since that very first day, my patients have made it possible for me to explore answers with them. The closest I came to this with colleagues was with nurses during night shifts on call. I watched their dedication and devotion – a Florence Nightingale energy that held their patients in their hearts embrace. I followed them on the wards to learn how to balance intellect with love and to this day, owe my deep learning to them. They
mentored me on how to hold space and how to stay real in times that were stressful, during life and death, illness and health.

When Rachel Remen spoke of patient-centered care in her talk at Stanford, I was just getting ready to graduate from residency and enter my medical destiny track. That day, was the beginning of the rest of my career. It was as if it all came together inside of me and I received an ‘initiation’ of sorts into practicing medicine to honor the soul of my sacred vocation.

After I completed my training, I worked in corporate health care. No such feeling was present in that system. The numinous was unreachable. In fact, if my patients needed time and attention, I was penalized. I soon realized that I was now a worker on the assembly line, towing the party line and making money for administration that served the dollar, not the soul of medicine. After 7 years of experiencing this heartless model, I left it forever. Without a degree in business or any experience in running a medical practice, I took a leap of faith and designed The Ommani Center for Integrative Medicine – a place where I could practice medicine from that same sacred place that unfolded my path through medical school and residency, initiating me in this sacred vocation of science and healing.

Today, my intention for creating this Center permeates its presence. Despite my lack of confidence in running a business, I discovered that in addition to loving it, I was also a fierce advocate for patients. The Ommani Center was born as an answer to what I felt is missing in health care- my love for my patients and for being able to practice with heart and meaning without compromising the scientific method or patient safety.
The Ommani Center is a unique health care model. I created it with a mindset for sustainability, both from a financial and environmental context. The architecture was designed to give the feeling of ‘flow’. The paint used on the walls, the water and teas served, cleaning products and even the soap we use to wash hands and cotton gowns are all environmentally friendly. We recycle everything we can and are fiscally responsible in how we manage overhead and even where we refer patients for lab and diagnostic tests. I believe that we all have a responsibility to keep health care costs down. It takes extra work, time and energy for all. On my end, I pay extra to have my medical assistants enter lab and diagnostic data (into electronic medical records) performed at labs that cost my patients significantly less compared to hospital based tests. I would rather pay the $6000 – 7000 per year for staff time to save hundreds of thousands in health care costs. We must all do our part to transform health care. We cannot underestimate the power of one.

As a physician, I knew I would be sacrificing financial security to do what felt ethically correct for me. My moral compass came at a financial price. As a response to this, I shifted from a profit mindset to a sustainability one. The Ommani Center's sustainable business model has proven to be solid for more than a decade. Since 2001, it has sat gently on the earth, served patients with heart and meaning and kept its carbon footprint light.

Meanwhile, my colleagues in corporate health care, struggle to adapt to endless policies that micromanage them and restrictions that make it nearly impossible for them to practice from heart. Corporate health care is an experiment gone awry. In my least optimistic moments, I gain solace in knowing that The Ommani Center, a sacred health care model that stands in the heart of Pewaukee,Wisconsin is poised to be replicated in communities across America where patients and physicians are hungry to access sustainable, cost and therapeutically effective health care. This is my contribution to restoring the soul of medicine and for bringing meaning back into physicians’ lives who have sacrificed so much to heal others and are less than able to in the corporate system today.

When I see them working under emotionally abusive conditions in the current system, I feel an unbearable pain in my heart. I want them to know that it is now possible to practice with heart and soul and to serve patients rather than policies and administrators. The Ommani Center is like a lighthouse for health care. As it grows and expands in the near future, it will become a haven for physicians looking to restore their souls and reclaim their hearts as they follow the golden thread of their purpose for choosing their sacred craft.
I have come a long way since that threshold day on the steps of the Stanford auditorium. The vision in my heart that was ignited there continues to burn bright and is brighter each day as my beloved patients add their light to it.

Let us create the new model for health care together. Let us all remain true to its sacred purpose and mission so we can finally gain access to health and healing.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/medicines-search-for-meaning/?smid=fb-share&_r=1

The Gift of Our Wounds

A few nights ago, I had a dream that, my children, my ex-husband and I were driving down the road in our car (when I was still married to him).  My daughter was 12, my son 9 and I felt IT. You know, that feeling when you are a family, when you feel like you belong, when you are connected organically through blood, heart and SOUL; a feeling like no other on earth.  We got out of the car and I said to my daughter, “Did you feel it?” She said, “Mom, it’s not going to last.” Then I woke up.

This dream was actually my reality.  I did feel this organic connection inside when we were a family. Every now and then, when I'd close my eyes I'd feel IT - that magical sense of belonging, of being woven together like a beautiful tapestry.  My soul radiated out to my family with a love so deep, it took my breath away.  And she was right, it didn't last.

Eight years ago in early September, on a beautiful fall day, I discovered that my family had been shattered by adultery.  When I discovered this, I fell into a deep hole that seemed like it had no bottom.  My heart imploded like a bomb went off inside and vaporized it. Its million fragments scattered into space. All that I held sacred was desecrated and in shambles.  Even Ommani was defiled. This was a dirty wound. I feared I would never heal.

Fall has always been one of my favorite seasons.  As we move inward after harvest, we tap into the depths of our inner self.  As the days get dark and our journey inward spirals into the all-knowing Yin, we gain wisdom and connection with our roots.  We prepare for hibernation, for moving closer to the heart of the Earth Mother, to gain connection and nourishment before renewal in Spring. Fall is a sacred time – a time of transition, when the veil between Heaven and Earth is thin and we can access the Spirit world more freely for guidance.

For me, that fateful day in September marked an initiation into a deeper level of Soul. I fell into an abyss where I crawled around for years, asking questions of myself whose answers I am now living out.

For me, as magical and sacred as Fall is, the transition into it is often difficult. Memories imprint the heart. In the Fall, I am reminded of the cold, sharp shards of betrayal.  They were jagged.  They pierced my heart and startled my Soul.  My heart heaved and then contracted.  I tried hard to keep it open for years for fear that it might close down forever due to this pulsing and throbbing wound.  It took courage and grief to keep it open, a grief that was sometimes hard to bear.  At times, I felt it would never heal.  To my amazement, it grew stronger. It grew ‘proud flesh’ over the portal where betrayal had entered. Sometimes I imagine it heaved deeply,  like an exhale, releasing pain and the weight of the wounder’s shadow it could no longer carry.

What I discovered is that staying open heals us even when we feel that it won’t.  The pain of staying open is more intense, but a kind of Medicine flows through an open wound like a salve for the Soul.  The heart and Soul engage more deeply through an open wound. The Soul reshapes the heart around it so it can flow through it more freely. The wound marks the Soul and changes it forever. I now feel that my wound is encircled by a ring of light. This was how my Soul chose to shine its brilliance into the world from that day forward.

Our wounds often define us in amazing ways.  For example, people with cancer or a significant illness remember the day they were diagnosed.  It changes them forever. The wounding itself initiates. The wounded enter the sacred tribe of Warrior and Mentor.  They earn their role on Earth through the pain and Medicine of  initiation and then transformation.

In a tribe in South America, when a person suffers a deep wound, people in the tribe want to be near them. They say they feel closer to God through the pain of the wounded one.  They honor and revere the gifts of wounding.  They know they are in the presence of Soul alchemy. They hold sacred space for the one in pain.

People in our culture are afraid to be around pain.  If we have an incurable wound, many people avoid us. They deflect any talk of it and remain in superficial dialogue. They want us to ‘get over it’ and to focus on ‘the positive,’ to say we are ‘fine’ or ‘better off,’ as if this tactic will somehow erase the memory of the sacred wound in our Soul.  All that our pain needs is to be witnessed, to be held and honored by another when it is unbearable. This is what helps it change shape and form, and morph into Medicine through sacred alchemy.

There is grave danger in avoiding (denying) pain.  There is also danger in medicating or suppressing it. This interrupts the alchemical union between heart and Soul.  The energy of pain is here to transform us.  When we deny or suppress it, we get sick. We must reframe it so we can learn and grow in wisdom.  We must understand its alchemical purpose.  Pain ultimately helps us love more deeply.  It makes us trustworthy.  It gives us strength.

These are the gifts of our wounds.

Fall is a time when I re-member.  When I remember the pain I also connect with its power that shaped my Soul and healed me in ways that no other wound could.  I now feel an even deeper kind of LOVE, a fierce love, from where I can offer myself out into the world.  The ring of light around my wound keeps me humble and makes me REAL.

Now I am much stronger. The ‘proud flesh’ that grew from the broken place within has power and resilience.  It has the capacity to love like never before.   It can hold the pain of others who ask me to bear witness to what feels unbearable.  Proud flesh is good Medicine for the heart and the world.

And yet, the soft, tender center of my wound remains open.  It will never heal. It is the mark of my initiation. This is now where my LOVE flows through. Like a river that changed course, empathy, truth and beauty flows through it like never before. Sometimes it still bleeds and hurts, but mostly, it feels gratitude and loves deeply enough to want to heal the pain and sorrows of the world.

And my 12 year old with infinite wisdom is now a beautiful woman who like me and my son carries ‘proud flesh, and yes, she was right, it didn't last. But my love for them is a love like no other, woven now with golden thread between the tender places in our hearts.  We know the Medicine we carry and have become the family we once lost.

For that I am forever grateful.

The Gift of My Near Death Experience

At 14, I had a near-death experience that left me re-calibrated and deeply sensitive.  It brought a dimension into my presence that was unknown to me before.  This dimension has never left me.

What I experienced is an otherworldly feeling of love and compassion that was multidimensional and utterly penetrating.  I could never have received the intensity of this in my 3-dimensional body.  Only my disembodied self was able to take this in.

The energy I was embraced in during those moments is always with me.  It has deepened my intuition and brought a depth of knowing that continues to move me to seek.  It is other-worldly.  It accompanies me where ever I go and with whoever I am. The compassion that I felt during this disembodiment was not understandable to my 14 year old psyche.  The depth of it can only be likened to the power and love of a mother giving birth.  This is the best description I can give of what I was immersed in.

For many people who have been near-death, the experience of the world is changed from that moment on. They are able see through the chaff and illusion and connect with a REAL sense of what being here is all about.  Their inner eye opens to a degree that brings clarity of purpose and a depth of soul vision that assists them in a knowing that only an initiation like this can offer.

In some ways, it is difficult to have this sight.  In other ways, it makes soul work more intense, ever pregnant with possibility and potential. It makes it easier in many ways to not get caught up in worldly illusions and develop a right relationship with oneself so the fleeting and superficial values of the world don't hook in.

The challenge sometimes is to be able to relate to this energy with the three dimensional body and one's humanness that can limit the felt experience.  It is also challenging to put it into words and describe it with an accuracy of feeling.

I was forever changed by this.  It initiated me into a sight with my patients that is deep and utterly sacred.

One of its greatest gifts for me is the depth to which I can feel what is REAL.

At this point in my life, I cannot settle for anything less.

For this, I am forever grateful.