I am a healthcare professional in western medicine by day and a spiritual student/healer from Latin American plus eastern philosophies by night.
At least that is how I like to describe myself. However, at the beginning of my career, I knew very little about spirituality and was not remotely interested in the woo-woo babble hippies or yogis would go on about. Not me, no way! I believed science and evolution to be the only truth.
Let me describe the beginning of my career in western health care. I started working as a medical assistant while in high school for an Internal medicine physician for two years. After that, I worked for a company harvesting bone and skin from bodies recently deceased. I was going to school to become a surgical technologist during this time. I worked as a surgical tech for many years before finally receiving my RN, BSN five years ago. I have been working in hospitals and clinics since 2000. I have worked alongside multiple doctors, nurses, techs, administrators, teachers, and many more professionals from different specialties inside a hospital and out for over two decades! I trusted every doctor to give the best care for every patient and have a high moral ethic. My social circle mainly consisted of individuals who worked in healthcare. My vacations involved traveling to medical conferences around the country and connecting with more health care professionals from around the world. I believed every medical research article to be fact and believed hospital administrators cared about their employees.
Am I getting the point across how involved I was working in the American healthcare system?
I worked long hours and looked forward to weekends (if I was not on call) to relax and unwind by participating in unhealthy activities like eating unhealthy foods while sitting on my couch for hours on end. I would go back to work Monday morning feeling unrested. I repeated this cycle for many years. I became depressed and blamed everything outside of me for my bad mental and physical condition. I was sold on the idea that medication would help me. For a headache, I took a pill, for the indolent state I was in I took a pill, for poor digestion I took a pill, to sleep I took a pill. Pretty soon I would need a pill to counteract the effects of a different pill.
I would see this trend in patients in the hospital.
A long list of medications that were only masking the problems of patients, only to be discharged with a new addition to their medication repertoire. When I would ask if the medications were helping, patients’ responses would be a mixture of “yes, but I still feel terrible”, or “I don’t know but my doctor wants me to take them”. We have become too dependent on medication and leave it to the doctor to know what is best for our health. A simple google search on the Vioxx situation reminded me of how flawed our healthcare system can be. Something wasn’t right and I felt things needed to change.
Before I go any further, I would like to make a few disclaimers.
I don’t think people should distrust care given in hospitals, doctor’s veracity, or the medical industry. I have great gratitude for all jobs I had in the past and for all the wonderful people I met along the way. I think there are unbiased, reliable research papers being published that are very helpful. I don’t want to change anyone’s mind about anything. I want to give the reader something to think about. I don’t have all the answers, but I am learning every day of my life. In today’s society, there are no cookie-cutter answers for ever-evolving problems. We should all learn to do our own research and stop depending on news outlets to give us our information.
2018 was the year a shift happened for me. I watched the movie called The Secret. Some of you may know it and maybe read the hit-selling book by the same name. The movie didn’t blow my mind but it did create a curiosity. I wanted to learn more about myself. Why did I feel crummy all the time? Why was I here? What is the meaning of it all! I wanted to know why it was not easy to be happy even though I had all the materialistic things I thought would make me happy. I wanted to know why I couldn’t be happy like when I was a kid. And what is the purpose of that voice in my head that is constantly filling my mind with noise!?!
One night a started thinking about how big the universe is...
I imagined it so far out it terrified the hell out of me! The inconceivable image of just how big the universe is, gave me anxiety. The thought frightened me so immensely I had difficulty sleeping for the next few nights. The realization of how small we are compared to the universe made my monkey brain go into a tizzy. This understanding or lack of understanding led me down a rabbit hole of occult teachings, old religion, Akashic records, Taoism, and shamanism, just to name a few. My hunger for information made me turn into Johnny 5, “ More input, more input!”. The more I nose-dived into the unknown, the more I felt confused. Everything I learned before my shift in consciousness was far from what was being presented to me now. I needed the guidance of a professional. Someone who had gone through a dark soul of the night. Where would I find this person? I ended up in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is a beautiful land that had a feeling of coming home. Much like the feeling I get visiting Sedona, the clean air and beautiful landscape of these two places feeds my body and soul.
I unexpectedly had the pleasure of meeting a shaman that I was looking for. This shaman could to teach me without saying much at all. She taught me to look inward for answers instead of looking at something superficial. I needed to look inward because I am the universe. I am connected to everything that is and ever will be. I was able to develop an awareness inside me. This awareness spoke to me in an ethereal language that can only be heard with the heart. I was in a state of ecstasy and wonderment. My life was never the same.
I realized the voice in my head that is continuously chitchatting away is not me. It is something that I developed throughout my life as a coping mechanism. I call it our imaginary friend, IF for short. The way we treat people and the way they treat us back are projections. A defensive way of rationalizing what is happening to us is by having an internal dialogue with our IF. So by having an understanding when people say or do something unpleasant toward us, it is their IF that is speaking through that person. Since our IF’s are non-physical, throwing sticks and stones cannot hurt them but words definitely can and will hurt, if we allow them to.
Our thoughts create how we perceive our reality.
I thought I wanted something in the past because I saw it made someone else “happy”. I am choosing to create a different reality for myself. I am grateful to be alive and treat my body like a sacred temple. I still have my moments of self-criticism, but I definitely am more kind to myself. I still work in hospitals and witness situations of patients putting all their faith in medicine to heal their illness. I would be lying if I said it does not bother me to see patients feel helpless about their own health. We have the capability to heal our own body. We should try to change our lifestyle before seeking medical treatment. I want to help as many people realize this. Every day I try to be the best nurse I can be, only now I do my job with even more compassion and less judgment. I am trying to create change one small step at a time. Life is about being a work in progress and enjoying the ride. I am happy I found that awareness. I hope the same for you.
