You can be your own doctor, love.
Yes, you heard me right.
You can be your own doctor.
I'm not suggesting that you climb into the stirrups and do your own Pap smear, knock yourself out and take out your own gallbladder, or bail on your chemo. As an MD, I have a great appreciation for medical science and all we have to offer, and we certainly need doctors and other health care practitioners to do their part.
What I am suggesting is that you have way more power to optimize your vitality than you might think - more than any doctor, naturopath, therapist, chiropractor, or acupuncturist.
While others might help cure something that ails you, we all must do our part. Handing your body, mind, and spirit over to someone else and hoping they'll juice you up, fix what's broken, and send you on your merry way just ain't gonna cut it, my dear.
Sure, there are gifted healers out there who can help facilitate the process. But when it comes right down to it, you alone hold the greatest power. If you don't do your part, those of us who are trying to help you are essentially impotent. Sure, we can throw drugs or supplements at you, cut things out, and recommend lifestyle modifications, but ultimately, you're the boss. We can't do it without you.
When we get sick - or even when we're just trying to be more well, many of us seek out the help of healing professionals who can guide us through the process. I am one of those healers. As an atypical integrative medicine physician who was trained as an OB/GYN, I've operated on bodies, delivered babies, helped hearts heal, and midwifed women as they rebirth themselves.
But too often we hand over all of our power and fail to recognize the innate self-healing power that lies within us all. Instead, as patients, many of us show up at the doctor's office with what we docs call "the chief complaint," and as patients, we hand over our problems with this request: FIX IT.
No biggie, right?
But I'm afraid it just doesn't work that way. Maybe the broken, outdated, patriarchal model of the helpless patient and the all-knowing, paternalistic doctor supported this paradigm. But we can do better than this.
By approaching health care this way, we are giving our power away and failing to acknowledge our inner healer. As healers, we are complicit in promoting this mentality. Believing we can "fix" someone feeds our egos and allows us to feel falsely God-like. But that's just not how it works, my love.
As Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen says, "Fixing implies that someone is broken. And nobody isever broken." Amen, Rachel.
Way too often, those of us who are trying to help others go about it all wrong. Instead of empowering you to help heal yourself, we throw drugs at you, suggest treatments that don't resonate with your intuition, and fail to listen to what you know about your own body. As a result, you walk away feeling disempowered, unheard, and generally icky, and we healers scratch our heads, wondering why you're not thriving.
But we're all missing the one big secret nobody is talking about.
You hold the key to your own healing. Nobody else can do it for you.
Every time you hand over your power to another person - no matter how many diplomas they boast or how many research articles they've published - you diminish the healing power you hold within you.
I am committed to empowering you to reclaim this capacity for self-healing and expanding the concept of what it means to be "healthy," so you can better collaborate with the health care providers who can help you ROCK this life.
If you're a patient who feels frustrated by a system that isn't meeting your needs, this post is meant to empower you. It's also meant for discouraged healers, like myself, who dream of mending the broken heart of medicine, whether you're a doctor, nurse, alternative health care practitioner, coach, or any other service provider helping others live more vitally.
If you're one of those patients or healers and you want to dig deeper into this, make sure you're on my newsletter list, because I'm going to be sharing all kinds of juicy stuff with those who are on my list. Sign up here. In addition, become a Pink Medicine Revolutionary.
Do You Believe You Have the Power To Heal Yourself?
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Empowering your inner healer
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Lissa Rankin, MD: Founder of OwningPink.com, Pink Medicine Revolutionary, motivational speaker, and author of What's Up Down There? Questions You'd Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend and Encaustic Art: The Complete Guide To Creating Fine Art With Wax.
Learn more about Lissa Rankin here.
