Thoughts on Health… why I’d take friendship over medical advice any day!

You CAN feel better!

Get the free Grounding Guide, and sign up your uplifting weekly health newsletter.

I was at the beach with two friends of mine, enjoying the late summer sun and playing in the waves with the kids. Unfortunately, I was also battling some horrible neck tenderness and muscle pain… I blog about that here. On this day in particular, the base of my skull hurt so badly I was having trouble just sitting up straight, talking, carrying on a normal conversation. Certainly wearing my hair back off my face in the sticky salty ocean breeze was unthinkable, the pain was too severe.

My two friends were so amazingly kind and generous… with their empathy and their advice. It was so nice to be able to talk openly about what this pain might represent for me (what burdens am I holding instead of releasing), and get some wonderful new suggestions for pain relief. Both friends openly shared what has worked for them in dealing with back and neck issues, both offered insight, and both offered things I had never thought of before… new stretches, massage techniques, and topical rubs that I hadn’t ever used.

All in all, I left the beach that day with hope.

And hope, my friends, is worth more then all the medical opinions in the world.


One of my friends, Joy (whose name is so perfect for her I can’t even tell you! She is a ray of crystal clear positive light) gave me at least three or four new ideas, not to mention some genuine comfort. It was very helpful to me.

Then she said something to the effect of, “Oh, I keep forgetting you are a doctor… I don’t mean to give you advice.” It was so sweet, and yet completely surprised me. She had just given me such great advice… it was exactly what I needed. I told her that me being a physician doesn’t mean I know everything about healing, and that I really appreciate the advice.

But that doesn’t totally convey what I meant. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then.

I think that being a physician means that you have studied and know a lot about the anatomy of the body, and the physiology of organ systems. But just because we might know a lot of facts, I don’t think that makes us anymore knowledgeable about *healing*. I think physicians are great to go to for more information about what is happening *anatomically* with a symptom. Physicians do know a lot of highly specialized information, and it absolutely is important. I think they are an amazing, even life-saving, resource. I think they can be so amazingly helpful if you want to know what, physically, is going on.

But, I don’t think physicians necessarily know more than anyone else about *healing*. In fact, sometimes their *interpretation* of healing is not particularly helpful. The minute they start trying to interject opinions, educated as they may be, it is not a fact *for you*. The only thing that is a fact for you is what you vibrate for yourself. So if a physician tells you a statistic or an outcome… it isn’t fact.

This is a pet peeve of mine, because I feel that physicians crush hope every day… well intentioned as they may be… when they give out survival percentages, or possible outcomes, or an antibiotic prescription, without talking about the emotional aspect of healing. I blog a little more about this here.

The other friend, that was there that day, is Aleka. I’ve already introduced her on my blog, when she wrote two amazing guest blog posts here and here. Since that time, she has started up her own blog, and I highly recommend taking a look at it. It is chock full of food for thought, and I learn something with every single blog post she releases.

We were talking about what is *fact*. How what is true for one person is not necessarily true for another. We were talking about how we can share our deepest truth, our soul advice, with others, while not mixing in our own errant truths. She said something that I will always carry with me… she said she asks herself, before advising clients, “Is what I am going to share helpful?” In other words, it might be *true*, but is it helpful? Will it be helpful in healing? I told you she was a genius!

I love this advice. Especially for physicians. Because damn, I can tell you we are stuffed to the brim all through medical school and residency with facts, figure, statistics, possible treatment plans, possible medications, surgeries, other physician referrals, etc… But… is it helpful? Is it helpful to tell a patient a survival rate? Is it even *true* for them? Even if only 1 person in 100 statistically survives a dis-ease… is it helpful to say there is only a 1% survival rate? For the 99 people who pass away from this dis-ease, was it helpful to them to say that there was a 99% chance that they’d die? No.

For the one person who survived the disease, was it helpful to tell them that 99 other people would have died in their shoes? No. Because for that one person, there was a 100% survival rate. They 100% survived.

But will they ever be able to believe that? Believe it in their heart and soul? Or will some small part of them always think that they might not be in that 1% survival bracket. Won’t some part of them always be expecting the dis-ease to return, to kill them? So was it true that they were one of the 99 people who were predicted to die? No. Did it support their health or healing at all to know that? NO.

When it comes to actual health and healing, we are all in this together. Even the physicians. Even the specialists. Even the surgeons. We are all in this figuring out what each organ system represents, why some cells and systems evolve dis-ease, and how we can encourage health instead. I’m in it with you all too. Because we can advise each other all we want, but at the end of the day, we each attract our own health. I feel that I have an intuitive understanding of disease… but that doesn’t instantly take away my severe neck pain, does it? No. I still have the same obstacles of life and the same energy fields to cleans and release as we all do.

So, knowing I was going to wake up in pain and head out the door that day… would I rather go to the beach and commune with friends, or going to a physician’s office for an X Ray and a prescription? I’d choose the beach any day of the week, and I’m so glad I did. Friendship, over medical advice… yep, that feels right to me. Thank you so much to my very sweet and very inspiring friends! xoxoxo

PS — I finally figured out that there is one way I can wear my hair off my face and not get an instant tension headache. I’m telling you this because maybe it will help someone else who has the same problem I do. Can’t wear a bun, can’t wear a pony tail, can’t wear barrettes, can’t wear a headband… what can I do? A braid. If I make one big french braid going down the back of my head, it holds all my hair off my face… but doesn’t pull at all, because the band that secures it is way at the very bottom of my hair, not anywhere near my scalp.
Why did that take me so many decades to figure out?!?!?

So if you see a woman with tangled brown hair pulled back in a french braid and with two gorgeous kids, stop and say hi to me 🙂 I’d love to have a chat. xoxo