Sharpening your tools

In order for your tools to be ready in the heat of the hospital you must practice your tools each day. This is a gift not a discipline because they bring you peace and strength.

Cultivate acceptance. Begin each day with words of gratitude. Gratitude turns whatever you have into more and if we can be grateful for the bumps in the road that help us to grow it diminishes our huge judgement of them and their power over us.

As you walk across the parking lot, come to your focus on the sweetness of bird song, the warmth of the sun, on the feel of your breath. Then let only one problem come into awareness, and without thought of solving it, just notice it, “note with a smile” and return to the breath. This is practice for later in the day, when you are stressed or criticized you will be able to note with a smile and return to the breath and put the brakes on runaway negative thoughts and emotions.

Only in the quiet of meditation should we process our problems. Up in the monkey-chatter mind we can easily be dragged along into self-critical thinking.

Cultivate compassion which begins with loving self. Throughout the day gift yourself. The question we need to be asking is, “What do I want?” Make it happen. Good sleep. Nourishing food. Singing. Dancing. Take the time to dream. Know that your dreams are important. They were given to you by the Universe to take you to purpose.

Cultivate forgiveness. Allow yourself to make a mistake. Mistakes are opportunities. Go make some. Mistakes are how humans learn. Look into the mirror each morning, deep into the crystal of your eye, past any blemish. A smile will come to you face and you will hear, ”You are forgiven. You are not alone. You are loved. ”

Open yourself to the beauty of the Universe around you. Look for it in the blue sky and the eyes of your coworkers and you will see it and it will fill you with joy. In turn, your beauty will overflow to everyone you touch and everything you do in acts of creation and loving kindness.

Trust in yourself and in the power of the Universe. Soon you come to believe that you have everything you need to keep yourself safe and even content no matter what is going on around you. You come to feel a part of something much greater than yourself and trust your place in it. You come to understand that you are not responsible for controlling the lives of others. You are merely there to share their journey, share your special gifts, and share your love and support.

Before you sleep come back to your breath, “Breathing in all the loving kindness of the Universe, hold, savor, caress release and fell it soften, loosen and open. In the quiet you will know that, “All is well. Everything is as it should be.”

Tools for the Pandemic

Your toolbox should include the same tools you bring to every bump in the road, acceptance, love, receiving and transmitting beauty and trust.

When you are horrified by the smell of death, step back. Breathe into the parts of your body that hold that scent lovingkindness and healing calm and feel them soften and loosen and open.

When you are overwhelmed by too many patients, too much to do, step back and give yourself a loving gift of a hand massage with lavender lotion.

When you are abused by cutting words and cruel deeds, step back and bring a helpful hand or hopeful voice to another and you will easily see the beauty in their smile.

When you are panicked by fear of not being able to get the tube down or the line in, close your eyes and take the deep and cleansing breath, hold, savor, caress and release and suddenly you will know you are not alone. You are loved.

Prayer to the Universe

Spirit of the Universe,

Shine down upon me.

Fill me with Love and Light,

Loving kindness, healing calm, gentle grace,

Strength and wisdom.

Fill all of me,

To the north, to the south,

To the east and to the west of me,

All earth, fire, water and air of me,

My body, spirit, heart and mind of me,

That I may find the peace of acceptance,

The healing of love,

The enjoyment and creation of beauty,

And the message of trust.

"I used to want to die."

It is true that as you progress on your journey of self-love, the bumps actually become fewer and not as overwhelming. First, as we start loving ourselves more, we start to make healthier choices so there are actually fewer bumps. But also, as we cultivate non-judgment, we begin to understand bumps and can make friends with them.

That makes me think of something I heard in my twelve-step experience, “I used to want to die but was afraid to. Now I don’t want to die but I am not afraid to.”

Life is Full of Bumps

The world is full of beauty and abundance. But it is also true that the path through life is full of bumps. They are normal and natural. Each bump holds a lesson. They are how we grow. The bigger the bump, the greater the opportunity for transformation. Embrace them! They are our best teachers.

Finding Peace in the Corona Chaos

Since Coronavirus life has changed.  In isolation and idleness, without the sense of purpose and social validation of the workplace, I have been overwhelmed by a feeling of powerlessness and the accompanying self-contempt for my inability to control the situation. 

In my unease I fester on all the things I need to do or could do.  But, it is hard to focus and easy to give up when obstacles arise. 

When I received Governor Cuomo’s request for assistance on the front lines, guilt added its’ voice to the ringing in my ears.  It did not matter that I have been away from hospital or ICU care for thirty-five years.  I did not feel qualified to go. I was afraid to go. I did not want to go.  And so the self-contempt smoldered.

Friends and family responded with strong arguments justifying my decision. They told me not to feel guilty, as if their love could crowd the self-loathing out of my heart.  This did not help.

Then I returned to my meditative practice.  In the light of the crescent moon dancing on the star-studded, dark blue velvet sea of sky, I suddenly knew I was not alone.  I was loved.

Sitting in the quiet of my music, in the lavender scent of my candle, I remembered that the journey of life is not how much money you make or even how many people you help.  The journey of life is inward to self-awareness and self-love.  Only when we love ourselves fully and completely, will it then overflow to everything you do, to everyone you touch not because you need to, but because you want to. It will be honest and easy, not defensive and controlling.  There will be no mistakes, only opportunities to learn.

The Universe is filled with beauty to inspire and satisfy us, but the path through it is filled with bumps.  The bumps are how we grow, how we strengthen and sustain. They are our best teachers.  They do not teach how to fight Corona.  They teach about our truth and beauty. 

The negative emotions are the light bulbs that go on when we have a bump, saying, “Lesson coming!”  Know they are normal and natural.  They always teach the opposite. The self-contempt teaches self-love.  It is time to fill your emptiness with compassion and after so many acts of love and care given to yourself, you will begin to trust that you can keep yourself safe and even content no matter what the situation.

So in the quiet I connected to my own infinite wisdom and compassion.  I let Corona come up. The sight of me, so small and slight, dressed in white, appeared in the dark, cold ICU of medical school. I could hear the swish of the respirators and the pings of the monitors. I remembered my ignorance and failure.  I let the self-contempt, the disappointment and frustration correct me.  The truth is that I was put on this earth for purpose, given huge gifts for a reason.  I was a dedicated medical student.  It was a time of learning.  I became a knowledgeable, compassionate doctor.

Corona brought up residency and with it came images of being on call in the stuffy hospital darkness, admitting six patients and being paged to the ER by the sound of a siren.  I let the throat clenching fear teach trust.  Trust myself.  Trust the Power of the Universe that flows through me.  Everything is as it should be. Fear is forgetting that.

Corona brought up the guilt, the stinging heat behind my eyes, the gripping lockdown I felt every time I lost a patient. Even unearned guilt teaches forgiveness, to take responsibility, to learn the lesson and to forgive yourself.

And so it came to me in the quiet that I am still a dedicated compassionate doctor.  I don’t need to prove myself in the ICU. I am not qualified and probably not trainable, and that’s okay.  But maybe I can help the younger physicians in another way.  And, that’s why I am writing this to you.

I want to tell you that I have the same feelings as you. Your emotions are valid.  Listen to them in the quiet.  Let them teach you about yourself.  You are Love and Light.  The Power of Creation flows through you. Whether they lead you to the front lines or to help from home, all is well.  You are right where you need to be. 

It is not what you do but how you do it.  Let us not be driven into harms way by guilt and the subsequent need to prove oneself yet once again.  And, let us not be frozen by fear destined to remain in isolation. 

Get quiet, breath in all the healing calm of the Universe. Hold, savor, caress, release and feel yourself soften, loosen and open. And then ask, “What do I want to do?” Listen to the answer.  Listen to your spirit.  Know that your dreams are given to you by the Universe to take you to purpose.  Everything is as it should be.

You were called to this path.  You are the healer. Let us process the feelings, be reminded of our truth and beauty and only by loving and caring for yourself decide how your wonderful gifts are given to others.

You are forgiven.  You are loved.  You are ready.

You are special!

With all your depression and dysfunction, you are normal!  Everyone walking was raised with their share of codependency, responding to negativity, reacting from emptiness.  But your journey inward to self awareness and self love is not normal.  Most people continue in their dysfunction.  You are special!

Remember, your life experience, as hard as it might have been, has made you into the person you are today, endowed with greater understanding and ready for this time of transformation.  Nothing has been wasted.  It has all been necessary.  You return to the innocent child as you were created, now grown with the power of patience and practice. 

You are an angel

When I began my journey, I could then see the angel within another person.  Now I can see and feel and hear the angel within me.

We are healers.

We are healers.  What does that mean.  To heal, to help, is a version of to love.  Love is a version of Yes to you that overflows to others. It is honest and open, pure and simple. It is positive energy given, welcoming, sharing, opening, loosening, softening any hardness, smoothing any roughness, soothing any hurt.  There is no needing to succeed, needing to be right.  There is no possession.  There is no jealousy.  It carries no judgement. To become a healer, we must become love. We were born as spirit, innocent love, but this was drained out of us by a lifetime of expectation and control, leaving us living in our mind, the problem-solver, driven by fear, trying to find our place in the universe.  We must raise ourselves up new in love and kindness and fill that emptiness, so much that it overflows to everything we do, to everyone we touch. We become our pure spirit, which works through our mind and body.  It is the infinite wisdom and compassionof the Universe that flows through us.

 Detach from the expectation and intimidation of the workplace, note it with a smile, and return to the breath.  In that quiet place, embrace the anger and fear and let it remind you who you are,  “The power of the Universe flows through you.  You are a hand of the God-force.  You are important.  Your dreams and desires have been given to you to take you to your purpose.” You become Spirit, the loving energy of the Universe which radiates acceptance, compassion, trust. It is hope.

There was very little loving energy taught in my training.  We, residents, learned from a culture of control, defined by lines of authority, orders and protocol based on huge judgement of right and wrong. We did not, could not, make mistakes. The white coat provided the protective barrier from the diseased patient, from any human connection. The patient was an intellectual problem to be fixed.  The sleep deprivation from the grueling call schedule numbed us to the emotions of suffering. The patient became just one more thing to do. The resulting resentment from so much self abuse could be heard in the names we called patients“the appendix,””the trainwreck,” Of course there was superficial courtesy.  That was part of the protocol.  And, today, with the practitioner’s eyes glued to the computer screen, the patient is reduced to a list of medicines or lab results.

You may not be able to change the system but you can change yourself.  Give yourself the gift of the morning meditation.  Allow yourself, in that quiet, to connect to your spirit, to access the infinite wisdom and compassion of the universe, to feel that you are not alone.  And, in your affirmations, write:  I am in Gods will for me.  I am a hand of your healing.  I do enormous good.  I am confident and loving at work.  I am what the Universe intended, happy, joyous and free.

In between each patient, as you wash your hands, take the deep and cleansing breath and say,”I am a hand of your healing.  I do enormous good.”Offer a hearty handshake and a welcoming smile,  Move very slowly and gently in your exam.  As you touch, intend“healing calm."  Most importantly, look deeply into the eyes, listen intently to the words, and speak warmly from the heart.

After training perhaps you can create your own practice.  I meet with my patients in the comfort of my living room with music.  There is no office staff. I don’t use insurance. We meet for as long as it takes, two to three hours.  There is no clock.  I have made choices to care for myself and that love flows to my patients.

When you practice from a fullness of love, from spirit, it doesn’t matter if you know the answer.  It will come.  What matters is that there is no place within yourself for resentment and guilt and patients heal.

I call to you.

 I call out to all intimidated med students, all humiliated residents, all disillusioned physicians,  "It's okay.  Everything is as it should be.  There is light in all darkness.  There is a lesson in every bump in the road.  And, the lesson here is, (and the lesson is always: your truth and your beauty) that you are a healer.  You have been given huge gifts for this purpose and have been given this dream and desire to set you on your course.  Do not let the mountains of knowledge you don't have, the loneliness and grinding fear of responsibility, the burden of physical and mental exhaustion, or the tedium and degradation of computerized, insurance controlled medicine deter you. That is merely the logical result of medicine as business in this competitive, unsupportive culture we live in.  Do not get sucked into it.  Do not let it define you. It is not a measure of your worth.  You can jump their hoops, play the game by their rules, but when the anxiety and anger come up, note them with a smile, return to the breathe, give yourself a hug! You say, "Isn't it interesting!  Isn't it funny."  The game is rigged! Let go of the huge judgement of yourself and the situation.  Cultivate some patience and forgiveness for yourself, and yes, congratulations and gratitude are in order.  In the morning meditation,  process the emotion and you will be reminded to love and trust yourself.  The question is, "What do I want?  What do I need right now? a run, a massage, a kind word, help?"  Ask for it!!  Let go of shaming yourself and blaming the system.  As a gift to yourself, create a support group, reach out to a friend, seek counseling.  But the most important gift is to note it with a smile, accept that it is what it is and redirect your energy to caring for yourself.  Pretty soon,  you begin to trust yourself that you can keep yourself safe and healthy in any situation.  And, that is self confidence.  And that is power.  And that is who you are.  You are a healer.

How do I love me? Let me count the ways.

Once you have embraced your feelings and learned your lessons, you can forgive them and let them go.  Let the bump in the road go.  Let the need to control go!  You have begun your journey inward to self awareness and self love.  And, that is the intension of the Universe, that you be happy, joyous and free, that you fill yourself with so much love and kindness that it overflows to everything you do, to everyone you touch, that you become love.

How do I do that?  Loving words and loving deeds.  Become your best friend instead of your most critical judge.  Raise yourself up with love and support.  Since you probably have a forty year (taking an average of us) habit of self loathing (too severe, perhaps self contempt) and self abuse, you will probably need to set up a schedule of gifts to bring them into your day.

A morning ritual of self care, a mindful shower, teeth brushing and as you put facial cream on your face, you say, "I love you lips, I love you nose, I love you cheeks, I love you eyes, I love you eyebrows, I love you forehead, I love you chin, I love you throat, I love you ears.  You could continue with a shoulder and neck massage.  Then look deeply into your beautiful eyes, past any gray hair or wrinkles or blemishes and after a time, a smile will come to your face and you will see your spirit looking back at you and you will hear her voice in words of love and you will know that you are not alone.

 Morning meditation begins your day in spiritual connection, allowing the focus on the breathe to take you down to that quiet place of infinite wisdom and compassion that is your spirit, that is of the spirit of the Universe that flows through you.  Include a moment to sit with a bump, feel the feeling, be reminded of the lesson, your truth, your beauty.

Morning body movement and stretch is important to affirm, love and support every part of your beautiful body.  Take this time to envision your strengthening and healing.

Noontime meditation provides the opportunity to apply the brakes on runaway emotions which control us in provoking us into trying to control them.  Don't let the bumps turn you into a bitter angry woman.  Remember, you are love, incarnate!  Note with a smile whatever bump you're obsessing on, return to the breathe, open you eyes and give yourself a hug. Redirect inward with love for yourself.  No more energy for controlling bumps,  all your energy goes to gifting yourself.

An after dinner hour to gift yourself.  I ask my patients to create a list of activities that bring them joy or a sense of satisfaction: a walk in nature, brushing your dog, knitting,a french class, playing the guitar, cleaning a drawer.  Only you can make the list. Only you know what you love.  Put the list on the refrigerator or set up a schedule for the week  And, as you do this gift, you say, "This gift is for you because I love you."

How do I love me?  You need to ask every moment of the day, "What do I want to do?" not, "What do I need to do." "What would taste good? sound good?"  "What would be challenging, interesting, fun" Listen for the answer, hear the answer, respect the answer and make it happen, now or little by little, each day.  It's not what you do. It's how you do it.

Secondly, let us support ourselves in mistake.  No more blame and shame. In our humanness, mistakes are how we grow.  They are opportunities to learn.  So, go make some.  Amends, consequences, then, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, change direction (because we learned) and carry on!  Memorize this, "I believe in you.  I know you can do this.  I've got your back.  You're ma girl!"

Thirdly, if once you've asked the question, and you  know what you want and there is a conflict with someone else, it's okay.  No more pleasing, no more bullying, manipulating!  Listen to yourself.  Express your needs directly, honestly, with compassion.  It's the I sentences and open ended questions until you can come up with a solution you can both live with.  Remember it's a work in progress, repeatedly checking in, tweaking, making sure everyone is okay.  You are love.  The point is, you have already decided that you want relationship with this person.  Relationship implies you want to be with this person.  We do not enter dialogue to control them but to share with them.

You are love.

Process the feelings, learn the lessons

We don't feel comfortable with our negative emotions. They can easily overwhelm us. First of all, we are raised to think that successful people are always happy and surely we would not want to admit, even to ourselves, our failure.  But, secondly, we were actively discouraged from feeling them.  We were punished when we got angry, "Good girls don't get angry."  We were shamed when we were afraid, "Scaredy Cat!"  We were prevented from being sad, "Don't cry, it's okay."  It's important to know that those negative feelings don't go away.  If in our denial, we throw them back into our knapsack, the knapsack just gets heavier and heavier until it pulls us down.

We are brought up to believe that we alone  control our destiny. That the measure of our worth is our ability to create our place and power in the universe.  We spend our whole life up in our obsessive mind, the problem solver, which sees all of life as a problem, driven by negativity trying to control ourself and everyone and everything around us.  This is what we call stress.  This is the source of our anger and anxiety.  If we don't feel comfortable holding that emotion we often transform it through our neuro/endocrine and immune systems into physical symptoms, chronic illness, which may be more acceptable to us.  Or, we may deny the emotion by developing compulsive behaviors, which might have begun innocently as a comfort tool but with overuse, soon we are not comfortable unless we are doing those behaviors (think workaholic)  And, if we can't control our situation, we become sad, depressed. This is part of the spectrum of mental illness we all experience: anxiety, somatic stress-related illness (all chronic illness), compulsive disorder, depression.  It's all about trying to control, driven by negative emotion.

So let's try something revolutionary: let's embrace our negative emotions.  They are after all our best teachers.  They were never intended to overwhelm us.  But, then, we were never taught how to process them and learn from them.  Here goes.  They are four versions of NO that can affect you. Fear is normal when you anticipate NO happening. Anger is normal when someone actually says NO to you and you resist.  Sadness is normal when you realize the loss that NO brought.  Shame and guilt are normal when we direct that NO inward toward ourselves.  I say they are normal because we as humans have a capacity for them.  

So here's what you do. When you get to that quiet place In your morning meditation, (and only in the quiet, not up in problem solver mind) allow the bump in the road to come into your awareness, the sight , sound, and feel of it.  Allow the combination of fear, anger, sad, guilt or shame to come up.  But this time, give it a hug.  Feel it.  Put it on your lap and perhaps visualize that little child you once were who felt that same emotion and share it with her.  You might say, "Hello fear.  I can be with you.  I'm ready.  Please teach me your lesson.  And, it will come to you from the infinite wisdom and compassion found in the quiet.  It is always the opposite.  Fear teaches trust.  Trust yourself.  Trust the power of the Universe that flows through you.  You are not alone.  Everything is as it should be.  Fear is forgetting that.

The lesson of anger is Yes to you!  You were put on this earth for purpose, given huge gifts for a reason.  The bump in the road is not important.  You are important.  You don't need to do anything or be anything.  You already are.  You are the flower. The question you need to ask every day is, "What do I want?" and make that happen! 

 The lesson of sadness is the beauty and abundance of the universe.  Do not allow any bump to obscure your view of the beauty and abundance.  Whatever you have lost will be returned to you, perhaps similar, perhaps different.  When a door closes, it is because there is another door that will open with something much better behind it.  Your dreams and desires have been given to you for a purpose.  Affirm them.  Put them out there in wondrous anticipation knowing they will be, then come down to this moment in contentment and gratitude for where you are today.

 The lesson of guilt (for what you've done) or shame (in who you are) is unconditional acceptance. "I accept myself, just as I am.  I love every cell in my body, and wait til you see me tomorrow!"  It is what it is.  There is good in all bad.  It takes the dark to see the light. There is a lesson in every bump in the road.

Judgement is a human invention.  It is the source of human suffering.  The universe is the flow of unconditional love.  And, what is love other than YES to you, to everyone.   Mistakes are opportunities to learn. Go make some.  You may need to make amends, pay consequence; but then, pick yourself up,  brush yourself off, change direction (because we learned a lesson) and carry on. "I believe in you!"  That's what you say.

What beautiful lessons.  They don't teach how to control bumps.  They teach about your truth and your beauty.  You need to learn these lessons.  What is very interesting is that as we practice processing our feelings and repeating the lessons, we actually start saying YES to ourselves, making healthy choices that leads to less bumps happening and when we do have a bump, it doesn't knock us over any more because we've learned to look for the lesson.

Lunch meditation, redirect

It's important to have a detach tool in your toolbox; not just for minor negative interactions but for the tornadoes that suck you up and grind you around for days of "Should of, would of, could of, what to do, what to do, oh no, I'm screwed."  You need to put the brakes on! You need to put detach into your schedule.  It would be good to have a lunch time meditation.  Prepare your food.  Sit down.  Feast your eyes on this beautiful sustenance, this gift to yourself.  Then close your eyes, take the deep and cleansing breathe, deep and slow, into the bottom of your belly, hold, savor, caress, release; and feel yourself open, loosen, soften.  Note with a smile whatever is up in your head;  become aware of it with compassion, without judgement or criticism, just acceptance, and return to the breathe.  Note where in your body you hold the negativity, and breathe into it lovingkindness, healing calm and soften, loosen.  And, opening your eyes, give yourself a gift, a hug, a loving word, a hand massage, perhaps a head and neck massage.  And as you're doing it, you say, "This is for you because I love you."  Repeat words of gratitude.  "Thank you for me, my strength and my weakness, my journey inward to self awareness and self love, and for the bumps in the road that help me to grow.  Thank you for You.  Please help me to see You in every moment, to hear You, to feel You, to see You, even when I can"t see You, to guide me, to strengthen me, and to comfort me."  Mindfully savor you lunch.

 We have redirected our energy from trying to control the outside adversity to loving and caring for yourself.  Remember, it's not what you do; it's how you do it. It's whether you see life as a picnic that you come to with a full basket to share or as a battlefield full of enemies that must be vanquished.  You don't need to struggle.  Let go of trying, of trying to control your self and your place in the universe.  Your dreams and desires have been given to you to take you to your purpose.  They are guaranteed. All you need to do is affirm them.  Put them out there to the universe in wondrous anticipation, knowing they will be yours, when the time is right, when you have learned your lessons.  Then come back to this moment in contentment and gratitude for where  you are now.  The question is, "What do I want?"  And, you need to ask that every moment of your life.  Listen for the answer, hear the answer, respect the answer and act on the answer.  Move towards it, a little more each day, look it up on the internet, discuss it with a friend.  It will happen.  You will be a doctor!

People talk about trying to find their purpose.  You need to know  you are already serving purpose every moment of your life.   You may never know what your purpose is.  And, that doesn't matter.  What is important is that you know you are purposeful. If you were not here the world would be a different place.

How we grow

Remember bumps in the road are normal and natural.  They are how we learn.  The life journey travels through the beauty and abundance of the universe, but the path is full of bumps.  Do not let  the bumps overwhelm you.  Do not let the bumps obscure your view of the universe, the taste of your morning coffee, the feel of the hot water on your face in the shower, the scent of your perfume,  looking deep into your eyes in the mirror, past any imperfection, hearing the voice of your spirit rejoice in you.  Life doesn't get any better than that.

When a bump happens, detach, look for the lesson.  And, it is your negative feelings that announce approaching bump.  They are the light bulb that goes on.  That twinge, that tightness of self doubt is your best teacher.  Embrace it.  Feel it.   "Note it with a smile."  That is, become aware of it with compassion and return to the breath.  Breathe in deep and slow, into the bottom of your belly all the loving kindness of the universe, hold, savor, caress and release.  Note where in your body you hold the self doubt, in the grip of your neck or shoulders, in the vice around your chest; and breathe in healing calm and soften, loosen, open. Then opening your eyes, give yourself a hug, redirecting your energy from fighting the quicksand of bump to loving and affirming you.  You are important; the bumps, your issues, are not important. There will always be another bump. Look for the lesson.  And, the lesson is not how to fix the bump.  It is about your truth and beauty.  "You are the flower in the field."  The lesson is knowing that; becoming your best friend instead of your most critical judge.  I believe in you.  I know you can do it.

Becoming the healer!

With the first day of medical school approaching, or perhaps the first day of the internal medicine rotation, comes a wave of emotion; excitement, but also if we are able to touch it, apprehension, and if we are honest, panic.  And, that's okay, because it's normal; and, this is actually an opportunity to learn about you, about your truth and beauty,  about the fact that you were put on this earth for purpose and given huge gifts for a reason. That you were set on this course is important. You are important!  And, it is important that you learn this lesson so that you might fill with so much loving kindness for and trust in yourself that it overflows to everything you do and everyone you touch easily, openly, honestly; not because you need to, but because you want to. It is this belief and compassion that transforms the technician into the healer, the true meaning of doctor.  The real journey of life is not how much money you make, or even how many people you help.  The journey of life is inward, to self awareness and self love, becoming love as it were.  And, this is a powerful thought.  What is the meaning of love other than YES.  Yes to you. yes to healing, and even, when the time comes, yes to dying.

Please join me on this blog. I am a sixty five year old woman doctor, trained in family medicine, still working at a college student health, familiar with how intimidating, challenging, yes scary this profession can be.  In the last twenty years, I have begun my own journey with the help of many wonderful teachers of mindfulness meditation, cognitive behavioral counseling, twelve step work, clinical hypnotherapy, shamanic healing, qigong, reiki, and yoga. I would love to accompany you and support you on your journey.  

Healing for the Healer

Hello! Thus starts my blog connecting to all those desiring inner healing and so radiating healing, to medical students, residents in training and practicing physicians. 

Stay tuned for more!