Going Local
"What's that hanging from the top? It looks like some kind of bone." She got up and went to the window where the sunlight poured into her eyes. She touched the hollow dragon body and it stirred the obsidian spears that hung from it. "It's some kind of seed pod. It's something I picked up from an Oregon couple who harvest the obsidian and hang it from cool nature ground scores they find." I had purchased this small chime as a beautiful piece for my treatment room. Occasionally patients would comment on it, but in this case, my companion was a photographer. She was here to talk with me about how we could best convey the work I do in a series of images.
We made our way next door to the coffee shop and began a conversation about the heath services I provide. I have begun to look forward to these conversations, each time I delve deeper into myself and feel the blessing of touching in with the maturation of my work. I get to be present with the inherent beauty of our humanness and I am so very grateful to be here, on the planet, in this capacity, in this Now.
"You know, I'm always listening for a certain type of language that happens in treatment spaces," I told her. "There is a language that we have gotten so used to using over the course of our lives. It stems from our cultural worldview in which we give our power to an elite class of doctors so that they can 'fix' us. I'm very conscious of this because I want to make sure that if this language is used, it doesn't go unnoticed. I want to observe it, I want to shine a light on it for the patient so that we can both be aware that it's entered the space. That kind of idea is detrimental to our healing process. We need our personal power to heal. When we give it to others, who we believe have some kind of superiority over us, we give them the responsibility of helping us to find our own center, our own path. Only we can do that for ourselves."
I remember that as teenager, I submitted to a procedure that felt wrong to me because a doctor shamed me into it. Though that was the first time, I've had many similar experiences since, not only at the offices of medical doctors but at my dentist, my naturopath and even with other Chinese medicine providers. These things happened because I gave my power away in an agreement that these providers knew more than I did about my own self.
In the twenty years since I told my doctor that a procedure "felt wrong," science has shown that her recommendation was utterly incorrect. The results of that procedure caused an extended 40-hour long labor with my first son: a labor that I am very proud of and that I was very supported in once I had learned how to be more discerning with the health care providers who walk with me on my path.
Now that I am a health care provider myself, I add people to my own health care team when I've decided that they truly do practice patient-centered care. I need people who support me in listening to my internal physician and who let my care and treatment be guided by this.
As a teenager, I began a journey of self-curiosity and saw the richness of my internal landscape. This internal world offers an infinite potential for exploration into the self, and as I have continued on this journey, I find more gratitude each day for what life is, who I am and the world that we are all creating together. I know that for every person that finds their way to my treatment room, there is a potential to re-initiate the relationship to the power that they hold within themselves. It's there that we find the answers from the heart and it is the heart who guides us on the path of the hero that we are all walking.