It was nourishing to be able to go back and forth between election news and this extended interview between On Being host Krista Tippett and the Buddhism teacher Sharon Salzberg. 

Why?

1. On On Being's website and podcast feed, one is able to access the extended, uncut interview in addition to the shorter produced show.  
2. I talk with clients every day about the magic of a mindfulness practice. It allows you to separate yourself from the hard emotional experiences of your life, AND it supercharges your body's innate ability to process and release those emotions. (Anyone need that right about now?!)
3. I love Sharon's description of the Buddhist practice of treating these emotional "hindrances" as visitors to your house. It's so refreshingly concrete and I may steal the analogy for my practice. 
4. This pearl of a poem landed at the end:

"I do the best I can,
I try to learn from my mistakes.
The world is the world...
     of constant change
    of pleasure and pain
    and being thanked and ...

On this morning, the morning of my second version of this plan, I am inspired by the inaugural poet Amanda Gorman-- her use of a personal mantra that each day connects her to forces greater than her own body, and her call to embody the best of those forces in each day's actions.

There is always light, if we are brave enough to see it.
If we are brave enough to be it.

In my life and in my "doing" to acknowledge and chip away at the inequities of power, I hope to honor Ms. Gorman's poem. Simply celebrating the inaugural moment, her extraordinary craft and what she, as a "skinny Black girl" represents to our embattled country, falls short. So, as described below, I am committing to some work. I am committing to seeing the light, and I aspire to be it.

Growing up in suburban Portland, Oregon, and now in Vermont, I have lived in white communities serving white people. I have always known this, of course, but I am belatedly recalibrating. My 'race' and my family's foundational privilege ha...

I'm a naturopath, but I never knew if I wanted to be a doctor. I stumbled on naturopathic medical school to learn more about the science of the human body. Along the way I found that I enjoyed teaching patients about how their bodies and minds worked. I found that I could help people.

What I never liked was the actual practice of medicine, even naturopathic, functional, or integrative medicine. See, "medicine" involves taking a unique human problem and generalizing it by putting it into a diagnostic box. 

If a person came into my office feeling tired and cold and depressed. I might test them for antibodies to the thyroid gland and diagnose them with Hashimoto's. 

"Aha!" I said ten years ago, "Now that I know what's wrong, I know how to treat it!" 

Alas, each case of Hashimoto's is unique and there is no one treatment that is generally successful.

I failed many times.

So, I dove deeper into study, training, and practice. I learned about all the underlying reasons someone could hav...

This is an easy question to receive and a bear to answer. Quantum revolutions in science can hint at some answers, as can newer understandings of biofields and biological systems. 

However, our perceptions of how the world works is still stuck in the linear science of hundreds of years ago. Medicine is stuck in the linear science of hundreds of years ago. Therefore, it's easy to discount the explanations of energy medicine and assessment as "woo-woo."

But worldwide, there are groups of researchers who are trying to deepen our understanding of biofield therapies--a category that my IBA could be put into. 

In a summary article of the research in this field, David Muesham states:

"Advances in a wide range of scientific disciplines (such as biophysics, biology, functional genomics, neu- roscience, psychology and psychoneuroimmunology), have begun to emphasize the importance of informa- tion in the natural processes of life. These results pro- vide a new viewpoint on the subtle system

...

Most of my clients recover from Lyme disease with a support plan that does not include antibiotics.  

This may be surprising, but there a good reasons why plants often work better than antibiotics for this complex disease. In this video blog, from October 2019, I discuss why this is so.

The “river” is my analogy for health and healing. It is through this lens that I approach care for every client. 

Please watch this short video and I'll explain why!