This blog platform has been valuable to me in the past as a place to collect ideas about being a doctor, and I think I would like to use it more frequently again, with a slightly new aim. I continue to work part time “within the system” as a family medicine doctor in an FQHC clinic. I continue to have a dream of practicing medicine in a “new” way, that at times seems substantial enough to make walking away from the old structure seem like an obvious choice. There can be so many challenges to navigate working within the system, and others that arise with career transitions. I know there are many people who would like to be in my corner, but often neither they nor I know how they can help. A good step is to write this blog for them (you) and to invite them (you) to read it.

I am planning for my next round of MBSGs. I have sent out about 20 invitations, and have 4 confirmed participants. I think the ideal size is 8-10, but for this particular round, I am committing to do it with whatever size group I end up with. My intention was to invite participants who feel like a “Mastermind Group” to me who are particularly interested in my personal transformation story as a doctor, or who are in wellness entrepreneurship themselves to build a happy little cohort. But I wonder how much flexibility to roll with the way things flow should be balanced with my original intention? I spoke about the groups with a friend at a child’s birthday party, and after a dance workship with folks who made sense to include. It is often much more difficult to communicate the value of these groups than it is for me to see and feel why a person might benefit from participating. I have been asked recently by a business coach to more clearly name the benefit for the participants or clients. This has been a step that I have resisted in the past for feeling too much like sales. Maybe it is a kind of stubbornness that has been impeding me from more easily attracting clients/participants to the groups I am offering?

So a question I am still working on, is who is this next MBSG for? While I set out to build a mastermind group for myself, when I am asked about the benefit for the clients, it seems odd for them to come to support me. They have to come for their own benefit. And these benefits can overlap, but it seems cleaner and true if the group I am offering is designed for the benefit of that participants rather than for myself. Aha! And I still CAN build a mastermind group, but it is just going to be a different process than leading a MBSG group. And by writing about it here on the blog, maybe I can identify my masterminds and build that group in a different way, on a different time scale.

As recently as a few weeks ago, I was feeling increased clarity that I would want to move more fully into doing “new medicine” work, and allowing the old pattern of seeing patients using my medical license to fall away. But in the last two weeks, I have had surprisingly satisfying and meaningful experiences in the clinic that tilt me back into my holding pattern of continuing part-time clinic work while setting up the group visits on the side. (While I also have to name that the days are still exhausting, overfull and HARD. Sometimes I like doing hard things, and “how much of a challenge am I supposed to metabolize?”)

It seems that an important step will be how do I more easily recruit more people to these groups in the future? If I can imagine a broader pool of potential clients (I’m going to stick with that term for now, instead of “participants” in the MBSGs), but I need to create tools like a website that help share the message of who I am and what I am offering. If I had 30 clients ready to go this week, I think leading the groups for them would be no problem (except that I’d be overstretched on time with my current commitments at the clinic.) I don’t think I have to reduce my hours in order to make progress. But I am going to have to decide if I want to keep a foot in that doorway or not. If you consider a full-time doctor to be working 4 full days a week, then my 3 half days could count for 37.5% time. That feels wise and good and fortunate to be able to do that. But I want to cut it to 25%. It would really make such a big difference for me. It would make it easy to add a second group to my week. 1 group a week feels possible with 3 work days. 2 groups feel like they fit with 2 work days without me getting overstretched.

This blog might get long-winded at times. It’s helpful for me to share about this process. I do hope it has value for you, the reader. I guess if you’d like to be supportive, you can let me know by leaving comments.

That’s all for now, more ahead! Thanks for reading.

You are invited!

Hello, I am preparing to lead a weekly Mind-Body Skills Group (MBSG) on Monday mornings from 9:30-11:30am (CT) on Zoom. This will be the 5th cycle of groups I have led. The first meeting will be 1/2/23 and we will plan to end on 2/27/23, though we could decide to add extra sessions if desired by the group. Please contact me if you would like to be one of the 8-10 participants. I completed training to facilitate these groups from the Center for Mind-Body Medicine, and more information describing these groups is available on their website:

https://cmbm.org/onlinegroup/

Why now?

The last group I led was in Spring ‘22, and the group I was planning for the Summer didn’t come together. My own energy dissipated and got lost between struggling with work and navigating the transitions at a new house. I know that leading these groups is part of the way forward for me as I transition from conventional medicine work into what’s next. Sometimes I call that “Subtle Medicine”, mind-body medicine, or wellness entrepreneurship. I feel energy around a “mastermind group” that includes individuals especially interested in my process or who are working on wellness entrepreneurship themselves.

What To Expect During Group Visits

We will meet on Zoom in a virtual sacred circle. Please be in a private location where you can bring your full attention for our two-hour sessions. We will start with a simple relaxing breathing technique, and go over guidelines for our time together. There will be time for introductions, and “check-ins” for every group. Anything shared will be confidential.

Each week, we will practice one technique of self-exploration, and then share about our experience with the group. These techniques can provide powerful insights in a group setting even for individuals with vast experience with similar techniques. They are also accessible to beginners and my facilitation will adapt them to the group.

The group will end on time, and we will close with a gentle relaxation technique. My role is to manage time, lead activities, and support all participants for the best group experience. I am not serving as a therapist or doctor for anyone in the group. Instead we are trusting and allowing for insights and healing to occur spontaneously. Borrowing from Stella Eisenstein’s Resonant Attention technique, we are leaning in for miracles. As a facilitator, I will also participate in the exercises and share my experiences.    

Price, Commitment

It is important to commit to attending all (most) sessions because spaces are limited. I plan to adapt these Mind-Body Skills groups for other audiences and to perhaps someday set a fee as part of a business model that frees me from other employment. At this time, I am happy to receive financial gifts as an energy exchange, but it is not required. I feel fully supported by your presence in the group alone. 

Please be in touch to confirm your spot in the group. I would like to have a conversation on the phone with each participant before Dec 26th if possible, and before the Jan 2nd start if needed.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you can join me.

Okay. There have been some updates to my journey. In some ways, it doesn’t seem to amount to a lot, but each little step is part of it, and I decided it was worth sharing. The latest development is that I am deciding to continue working at the clinic. Over the last few weeks, I had been having thoughts that I would be ready to exit and make room for something new. I was feeling that the job was taking so much from me despite the modest commitment of only 15 hours a week. I thought of it in spiritual terms, and how perhaps my soul was ready for a leap of faith into a new path that would have better alignment.

And honestly, because I was considering this route, all sorts of old baggage that had previously been shelved and forgotten came roaring back in a way that zapped my energy and sent my emotional body and thinking into the gutter. How overwhelming it feels to walk away from the livelihood where I had invested so many years and educational dollars? The unsolved question of how I would make my mortgage payments once the clinic paychecks stopped? The shedding of a professional identity that may not be my primary form, but it is a significant one, and it would be missed.

So I’m not doing it. Not yet. I don’t think the path is for me to intentionally overwhelm myself. I checked it out, and I need to unpack several issues and heal towards a more stable foundation for when I take on that life-shifting transition. And that feels clear and good and easy.

And while work has been challenging, and exhausting and overwhelming, I can re-frame how there is still a lot for me to learn and experience there rather than just feeling pummeled and abused. I don’t know how long that will continue to be true, but it is for right now.

The last few weeks have taxed me. My sense of this human journey is ever shifting. I’m not sure that I can tell the story. There is an audience in mind that might be blocking the narrator from telling the real story. How is the body and the mind and the spirit connected? What is my relationship to healing and to health? What am I trying to do for clients? Who is reading this and what purpose does it serve for them?

Well, what feels unique about my experience is that I chose to go to medical school and I even completed residency to work in a system that I have always been disillusioned by. And yet, my criticism grows stronger still as time goes by to now reach this critical threshold where I see that I am not supposed to stay in this system.

It benefits me to go to work 3 days a week and support my life financially with the professional work that I have made a big commitment to attain. There are times where I feel confident that I am doing the best I can within a broken system to treat people seeking care with compassion.

But, there is a significant limitation which is that I am playing into the legitimacy of the system by being there. And the system has a faulty foundation. This can be felt on a gestalt level, but it is hard to succinctly explain what the problem is. And there is the complication of the reality that the medical system still does serve some purpose. So can it be enough to say that it does not suit my purposes, and so I am moving on?

What does it mean to be a human being on this planet? More and more I am coming to see that this is a spiritual journey and that God is the source and that within our world, that the fall is real and that many are living under the control of the enemy. The enemy to our souls, to our freedom. And I am self-conscious that this reasoning will appear absurd to many who may criticize me. But it is my view that human life is a gift and that we have to grow by listening to our soul. And in my case, I see that there is work to do in supporting human beings with all that I know, and not to be bound by the limits of the medical system, which increasingly is asking practitioners to violate their consciousnesses. 

The issue is the COVID-19 vaccine for kids. We have to see that the efforts to promote that shot came from the same coercive, powerful institutions that have been pulling strings for so long. An individual physician who would criticize the groupthink becomes ostracized culturally and professionally. Mattias Desmet has done a brilliant job analyzing the elements of mass delusional psychosis, the warnings of totalitarianism, and even offered concrete ways of pushing back.

For me, as a physician, to see that I cannot continue to work in the job that is currently supporting me, causes me to feel overwhelmed. I feel exhausted, mentally unfocused, sad, unmotivated and afraid. Those feelings cause my thinking to warp into negative territory where any lofty dreams or ambitions I might have had become an absurdity to me. It is a lousy place, and it feels awfully lonely or isolating.

But I know (KNOW) that there are so many other healthcare workers out there who share a similar fear, and that if I might move through it, that I can help others too. The skills I am most interested in relate to calming down the autonomic nervous system and building an inner capacity for metabolizing stressful situations. These skills are often free and they can be taught in a group format. A group that has the capacity to hold challenges has many benefits for all members.

So what I am going to do is host a weekly MBSG. I’m going to host it for members of NAAS, and anyone who is interested in learning more about how we can mindfully be with the body and more successfully navigate challenging situations.

It feels perhaps ironic that I have been facing what may be the biggest obstacles I have experienced in this current process. When I am feeling overwhelmed, I wonder how I can lead others in this process that is designed to lead us back into balance. For me, I think part of the answer is being honest. I am not inviting participants in because I have it all figured out and I’m in bliss. I have been in the lower realms and I am not afraid to share that too.

Hello again. It feels like this blog is being reborn (again), and it may be unclear at first where I am going with this. At this time, I have been feeling a lot of challenge with continuing to work at the community health center clinic. They approved my religious exemption to receiving the COVID-19 vaccines, which is a topic I may share more about on a future post.

I have been revisiting the idea of leaving the clinic anyways. Mostly, it feels like an energy drain for me, on account of how the work feels out of alignment with my values. I have maybe denied that, or justified that for too long, and maybe it is past time, and that is what I am feeling. I’m feeling that as exhaustion: an inability to focus, especially on reading or organizing the house or my room. But when I’m looking at my paystubs, and imagining how I would find clients and complete all the steps of starting the business that replaces the dollars of my income as an entrepreneur, the vision quickly dissolves into a seeming fantasy.

I do earn a comfortable living working 3 days a week in the system. It was enough to qualify for a mortgage on a new home that I now live in with 4 housemates. And it was enough to travel to Hawaii on two occasions for a dance festival, and to North Carolina for an important community gathering.

So for now, a real confession is that I have been exhausted, and that I need to clean up my self-care routines and boundaries first. When I have more room and energy, I plan to share more thoughts on the unfolding current events and about my own journey. There is more to come, to be sure!

Peter McCullough seems to be one of the foremost experts who comes from the medical system who is speaking out against the vaccine program. This most recent presentation he gave to the AAPS conference is especially good.

https://t.co/1R4B5cZL3l?amp=1

Meryl Nass is one of my favorite physician analysts of the pandemic. She blogs regularly, and this one from yesterday was a good one.

https://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-employees-are-disappearing-and.html

In a normal world, I might post these links to my Facebook account. I have also continued to think about sharing with Facebook that I have not, and am not planning to receive the vaccine myself. So far, I keep pulling back. My profile is connected with many doctors I have met in medical school, residency, and at conferences since then. I feel pulled to represent my view, especially now as so many who are in the system and hesitant feel isolated or siloed and don’t know where to find like-minded community. Especially when it’s coming down to leaving jobs over the issue.

And then, I notice that my schedule is completely full. I was exhausted yesterday, and I don’t have the capacity right now to have conversations with the people my post might draw in. I also don’t have the spare energy to be attacked or defend myself from a possible mob. Maybe at some later point. I am speaking up more and more in the real world, and I see that trajectory continuing. We’ll see.

Facebook, Messenger and Instagram are down. Twitter, Voxer, Signal, Gmail and Telegram seem to still be working. It seems like a good time to think about communication networks and preparedness if this disruption isn’t easily resolved. My impression is that there is some “routing” malfunction in the coding that makes the website unusable. And also that Facebook employees are not able access company buildings with their badges. Is it a hacker attack, accidental, or something else? I don’t know, but I found this analysis on Twitter which seemed helpful to me. For now, I am glad I have this page and those other still-functioning apps to communicate. Breathe, and be well y’all.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/10/what-happened-to-facebook-instagram-whatsapp/

This blog has had more visitors in the last 2 weeks than ever before. I have been busy promoting my Mind-Body Skills Group and I was successful in finding 10 participants! I would at some point like to create an “above ground” website with my name and services listed on it, but this blog will continue to serve as a kind of middle ground point for now. I also would like to start offering one-on-one services soon, and I believe I will refer to these services as “Subtle Medicine”. I intend to come back and write more on this topic, but it could be weeks or months before I get to it.

I have been finding a lot of resonance when I speak up in the “real world” lately, and that feels good and promising. I often get asked about this or that study, or inquires for a specific piece of evidence. This article has come to my attention that seems to have collected many such resources in one spot. Maybe worth bookmarking for future reference.

Yesterday I considered fully stepping out into the social media world as an unvaccinated doctor, but am still pausing until the moment feels right. I came up with a few statements that I probably will share here before there.

Here’s the link I mentioned above. Have a great weekend!

https://off-guardian.org/2021/09/22/30-facts-you-need-to-know-your-covid-cribsheet/

If you would like to contribute any amount to The Good Life Clinic, you can use this link. Donations are used to help make group participation affordable for those with limited financial resources. At this time, donations are not tax-deductible.

https://checkout.square.site/merchant/MLJ9F5HS10K1Y/checkout/EYQO4K2DMKOZY4Q2DJDLSKM3

This is an invitation to a recurring weekly meeting. There is an event page on Facebook managed by my business page “The Good Life Clinic”, but I am also sharing the details here, especially for those who do not use social media to have access to the event description and Zoom link.

I am holding a space on Sunday nights from 7-9pm CT for human beings who care about other human beings to gather and share what is on our hearts and minds. The intention is for individuals to feel safe in sharing diverse views, and for listening and understanding each other better, especially where there is disagreement.

How can we discuss divisive issues in a way that is fundamentally respectful of human dignity, especially where there is a difference of opinion? This is an exploration, and you are welcome to join us.

As the host, I will give each participant the opportunity to introduce themselves in a 1st go-around, and then each person will have the chance to share their views uninterrupted in a 2nd round for a specified amount of time depending on the size of the group. Then, it will be open for back and forth discussion. Please arrive on time for the introductions. I will won’t admit anyone 10 minutes after the start time so that all participants will have heard the introductions before we move into the main topic. RSVP appreciated, but not required.

Each conversation has been unique, and much depends upon who shows up to participate. Hope you can join us!

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89061308058