quantum hoopla

 

So, this happened. The American College of Emergency Room Physicians invited Deepak Chopra to give the keynote address at their annual scientific meeting in October. He was planning to speak about a holistic approach to wellness. This week, without warning, the invitation was withdrawn.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/937068

It seems that ACEP members objected to his presentation in front of a "legitimate" medical organization...as if to imply that his contributions to the fields of health and wellness are illegitimate, an arrogant affront to modern, evidence-based scientific research. There were derogatory comments about his views on genetics, nonlocality, and the origin and nature of consciousness...

                 

...subjects that fascinate me. If this assembly of scientific minds were able to cite evidence-based, peer-reviewed, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies (the kind they insist upon) that demonstrate where thought originates, how memories are stored and how they arise unbidden years later, and how thought affects the physiology and wellbeing of the average human being, I would bow down in homage. But they can't. No one can. Because, no one knows. Not on a molecular, or biochemical, or electromagnetic basis. But what a field it is to contemplate! 

Chopra politely acknowledged the objections to his appearance, and respectfully stepped aside. However, he did suggest that these scientists look into studies of epigenetics, the microbiome, and the field of quantum healing, not to mention Ayurveda and meditation, before dismissing them as so much hoopla.

To quote Larry Dossey, from his book "Reinventing Medicine":

"It is the responsibility of scientists

never to suppress knowledge, 

no matter how awkward that knowledge is,

no matter how it may bother those in power."

~Larry Dossey~

To which I would add Einstein's take on it:

"Imagination is more important

than knowledge."

~Albert Einstein~

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narrative healing for everyone

 

Five years ago I attended the first annual conference on narrative medicine at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. It was based on the ground-breaking work of Rita Charon, MD, PhD of Columbia University. The emphasis of the conference was to introduce health care providers to narrative skills that help them explore their patients' entire story, not just the timeline of their symptoms. I was attracted to it because I'm a physician and a writer. 

Unfortunately, the conference didn't last for long. I attended every year, and then, for some reason, it was renamed "Narrative Healing." This year, if it hadn't been for the Covid-19 pandemic, it would have been held at a different site. Instead, it was cancelled.

The good news is that narrative technique is no longer solely targeted at health care providers. As the expression "narrative healing" suggests, the invitation has been extended to include the patient. The implication is that writing about the experience of illness is a healing process in and of itself, whether you're in your doctor's office or not.

"Tell your story

because your story will heal you

and it will heal someone else."

~Iyanla Vanzant~

Chances are pretty good that you have an illness narrative to share. Most of us do. Have you ever been sick? Hospitalized? Are you still suffering? How and why? Have you ever cared for someone who has been sick or injured? Have you ever saved someone's life, or lost one? Has your child ever scraped his knee? Have you had a baby...or not? Then you have a story to tell.

"Share your story with someone.

You never know how one sentence

of your life story could inspire someone

to rewrite their own."

~Demi Lovato~

If you're not sure you're ready to talk about it yet, or you're having trouble finding the right words to express it, or if you don't think your experience is worth writing about, think again. People need to hear from you, and they are willing to help. Read up a little on writing memoir. Sign up for a class on-line. Silence your inner critic. Release your muse. Let the healing begin. 

"Every secret of a writer's soul,

every experience of his life,

every quality of his mind

is written large in his works."

~Virginia Woolf~

Remember: The harder it is for you to tell your story, the more important it is you do!

jan

a lost art

 

Even a physician sometimes needs to see a physician. Last week I made an appointment for myself following an injury that occurred over a month ago. I already knew what the diagnosis was, and I'd been treating it appropriately, but things weren't getting better so I gave in and went.

"I told the doctor

I broke my leg in two places.

He told me to stop going to those places."

~Henny Youngman~

Most of the time, when I see a doctor around here, he is a colleague I've known for a long time. I trained with him or practiced in the same community with him for years. We've watched medicine change over time, and it always comes up in conversation. How sad it is that the physician/patient relationship is no longer what it used to be. How little time we have with our patients. How continuity of care has been sacrificed to efficiency. How the drive for corporate profit outweighs the compassionate care of our patients.

"The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade;

a calling, not a business;

a calling in which your heart will be exercised

equally with your mind."

~Sir William Osler~

So...after the doctor confirmed my self-diagnosis and concurred with my treatment plan, he started the familiar lament. How he missed the good old days. How things will never be the same again. What a shame it is that we no longer know who our patients are aside from their illness or injury. That we no longer have time to listen to their stories. That we have lost our enduring connection with them. 

This is a problem. Healing, or failure to heal, occurs in the context of a person's relationships with family and friends, his surroundings, expectations and perceptions, as well as his emotional, mental, and spiritual life. If the patient is denied the opportuniy to tell his story the way he sees it...the way he experiences it...part of him will never heal. 

"Healthcare is for truthful,

authentic, discovering

accounts of self."

~Rita Charon, MD~

Narrative in medicine is a lost art. Back in the days when physicians were in charge of their profession, when they took time to express compassion, and build connection, they enjoyed a more holistic relationship with patients. They built a trusting kinship that helped patients heal, something we miss more than ever, today.

"A medicine practiced without a genuine

awareness of what patients go through

may fulfil its technical goals,

but it is an empty medicine..."

~Rita Charon, MD~

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one good thing

This year people everywhere have found their voices. They have spoken to reporters, mounted a podium, and put it out there on social media. We have heard from parents who are struggling to keep their jobs by working from home while schooling their children. We have heard from families who have lost their husbands and mothers, sons and daughters to senseless police brutality. We have listened to men and women decry the injustice, cruelty, and arrogance that threaten our health, our environment, our democracy, and our lives.

"It's not about finding your voice.

It's about giving yourself permission

to use your voice."

~Kris Carr~

But that's not all. There's the husband and father who has lost his business, wondering how he will shelter, feed, and support his family. What about the friends and families of Covid victims who couldn't be at their loved one's side when the ventilator went silent? Who can imagine what it must be like for the firefighters battling raging wildfires in the middle of a record breaking heat wave? When will we hear from them? What will they have to say?

"Boys, you must strive 

to find your own voice, 

because the longer you wait to begin,

the less likely you are to find it at all."

~Robin Williams~

The one good thing that has come out of the year 2020 is a profusion of stories...stories that explore the Covid-19 pandemic, that expose the problem of violence against people of color, that acknowledge the economic crisis among working class Americans and small business owners. Stories that report on the raging forest fires in California, the debate over reopening schools, and the presidential election. 

Unfortunately, we have also witnessed the silencing of some voices, through suppression of free speech and the right to peaceful protest. Through insults and derision meant to intimidate and censor. Because of grief and fear too deep to be put into words.

We have suffered the emergence of cruelty, of bigotry, of hatred. We have faced silence when we looked for leadership, anger when we needed compassion, and lies when we sought the truth.

If you don't tell your story, or express your thoughts, or reveal your feelings, who will? How will we come to know you? Who else will teach us?

"Our lives begin to end the day

we become silent about things that matter."

~Martin Luther King, Jr.~

jan

 

a whole new world of possibility

 

This week I was reminded of something Aristotle observed with such wisdom:

"The more you know,

the more you know you don't know."

~Aristotle

I have been reading about local vs. nonlocal reality, the microbiome, and the field of epigenetics, awash in science that didn't exist when I was in medical school. It unnerved me a bit to realize how many years I devoted to learning what has already become obsolete, or been proven wrong, or been questioned anew. It boggles my mind to contemplate the myths we embraced, the mystery that continues to unfold, and the masterpiece it reveals.

 Medicine's timeline went like this:

• ERA I Medicine: Beginning in the 1860s, it embraced a mechanical, physical approach to cause and effect, and relied on traditional therapies such as drugs, surgery, radiation, etc. The mind was not believed to exert either harmful or beneficial effects on the body.
• ERA II Medicine: Beginning after WWII, it acknowledged the effect of the psyche on the body, with the introduction of mind-body approaches to healing through biofeedback, stress management, and alternative methods like accupuncture, yoga, and meditation. It explored ways the mind can influence the condition of the body.
• ERA III Medicine: Beginning in the 1970s, the concept of the nonlocal mind emerged...the idea that healing can be achieved at a distance, for example through intention, intercessory prayer, and intuition, positing that consciousness is not limited to the self or the brain, but is shared, unlimited, and accessible across time and space.

"May your vibes

shift the whole damn frequency

of the room when you walk in."

~themindsjournal~

Each of these transitions represented a quantum leap in our ability to understand the origins, manifestations, and treatment of illness. It has been a challenge to accept these changes, much less to convince health care providers to integrate them into clinical practice. Many are still stuck in ERA I. Some have ventured into ERA II. But ERA III medicine overlaps with concepts that are associated with spirituality, telepathy, intuition, and even trickery, so they are off-putting to many in the scientific community.

Think about it, though. How does hypnosis work? Is there some fundamental basis for synchronicity, ESP, instinct, or telesomatic connection (experiences in which we share physical sensations with a distant individual)? What about our connection with animals? How do we account for spontaneous healing? What is at work around and between us if not a psychic connection? If not consciousness, itself?

A whole new world of possibility is opening up to us if only we are open to it.

"The reality I'm facing

is calling up a whole new person."

~Stephen Cope~

jan

the jaw-dropping truth you should understand

Burlington harbor

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: One of the privileges of being a physician is that you get to live in a state of perpetual awe. It starts with the first pass of the scalpel on your first day in the anatomy lab. It continues as you tease out every organ, blood vessel, and nerve in the body you've been assigned to dissect. A sense of wonder punches you in the gut the first time you hear a beating human heart, and realize your own heart has been pumping steadily and predictably without any effort on your part since before the day you were born.

"There is more wisdom in your body

than in your deepest philosophy."

~Friedrich Nietzsche~

You'd have to believe in miracles if you understood the way a broken bone heals, what it takes for an open wound to close, how a lifeless heart can pick up the beat again.

Don't even ask what happens during sex.

I started medical school in 1970, and I studied traditional Western medicine for seven years. That meant memorizing the structure and function of all eleven organ systems, and the symptoms and signs of the diseases that affect them. I learned how to examine a patient with those symptoms, which diagnostic tests to run, how to interpret them, and finally, how to treat the patient.

It turns out, that was the easy part. Most of it made sense. Understanding how oxygen gets into the bloodstream. How the kidneys know what to excrete and what to conserve. How food is broken down and absorbed, and what we are left to deal with. In the healthy state, every process is carried out with precision, with perfect timing, and uncanny coordination. And, for the most part, it all takes place without any effort, attention, or awareness on our part...

...which is jaw-dropping enough, except that it leaves out the greatest mystery of all: the origin, nature, and function of consciousness, including thought, memory, and imagination. Science has fully explored the anatomy, molecular structure, electrophysiology and biochemistry of the brain, but we haven't quite figured out how it works. We don't know how a thought is generated in the first place, and how it is translated into something as easily experienced and observed as tears, or laughter, or fear. How a thought can raise the heart rate, or make us sweat, or leave us shaking. How a distant memory resurfaces, and where it has been hiding.

"Your body hears everything

your mind says."

~Naomi Judd~

The fact that the body knows what to do to keep itself healthy is incomprehensible. The fact that it knows how to heal itself is beyond imagination.

"Imagination is more important

than knowledge."

~Albert Einstein~

Physicists, biologists, physicians, philosophers, and quantum theorists are hard at work trying to figure out what exactly it is that makes us who we are...while our bodies are mysteriously, silently, and predictably doing what they do best: making us who we are.

I practiced medicine for over thirty years without giving either the body or the mind credit for its genius. I wonder what else I missed. What I should have known that I didn't, and how it might have helped my patients, and myself.

"Your body's ability to heal

is greater than anyone

has permitted you to believe."

~author unknown but often quoted~

jan

the two things you need to grow as a human being

Fifty years ago this month, I started medical school. The year was 1970. For the next seven years I studied traditional Western medicine. It started with gross anatomy...dissecting a human corpse organ by organ, muscle by muscle, and nerve by nerve. We learned about the structure and function of every system: cardiovascular, pulmonary, gastrointestinal, endocrine, sensory, integumentary, musculoskeletal, and neurological. Then, the diseases that affected them. Then, how to make the diagnosis, and eventually, how to treat the problem.

While we studied our lives away, something else was afoot. This was just about the time the concept of the "mind-body" connection emerged. Timothy Leary and Ram Dass were starting to experiment with hallucinogenic mushrooms in their quest for enlightenment. We were hearing about accupuncture, hypnosis, meditation, massage therapy and therapeutic touch, Reiki and yoga...all dismissed by the medical elite as invalid for lack of randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies that proved their worth. 

"Let your body take care of you."

~Deepak Chopra~

Nevertheless, these so-called "alternative therapies" intrigued me. The concept of the mind-body connection they depended upon was rejected by the scientific community, but I'd seen it work, so my curiosity drove me to investigate. I took vacations on retreat where I practiced various forms of meditation and yoga. I studied hypnosis. I networked with women who practiced various methods of energy medicine. But I never had the time or opportunity to use or promote these techniques in my own practice.

These are said to be the two conditions you need in order to to grow as a human being: time and opportunity. I never enjoyed either until my children were grown and out on their own, and until after I retired. Now I have nothing but time and opportunity, so I'm taking advantage of it...

...which is why, this week, it occurred to me that I should order another bookcase. In March, I closed my door to the outside world in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and since then, I have ordered and read so many books, I no longer have room for them. This week's delivery brought "Woman Awake" by Christine Feldman, "Reinventing Medicine" by Larry Dossey, MD, "Super Genes" by Deepak Chopra, MD and Rudolph Tanzi, Ph.D., an Ayurvedic cookbook, and "Quantum Healing" by Chopra. 

I'm learning to meditate. Struggling a bit with yoga. Changing my diet. Feeling fairly peaceful despite the chaos that has brought the world to its knees. Looking forward to the uncertain future. Living in awe of the universe and the beating of my own aging heart. 

This is my advice to you: if you are overwhelmed with fear or worry or uncertainty, don't wait until your nest is empty and you are retired to begin your search for peace. For healing. For courage. You are surrounded by teachers. Wisdom abounds. Start now.

"You must find the place inside yourself

where nothing is impossible."

~Deepak Chopra~

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