You have everything you need already inside you, AND you were never meant to do it alone

Today, I celebrate OMPTS turning 5 on a solo surf trip to Pavones, Costa Rica. While I traveled solo on this trip, I have really been struck recently by the realization that we are never really alone, nor were we ever meant to walk our journeys alone. People, places and experiences come in and out of our lives.  From the time we are taught to swim, we are told we shouldn't do it alone.  It's true there are risks associated with solo swimming and it is a good idea to have a buddy for safety, but having come close to birthing a human alone and being very scared my perspective has really shifted in this regard and I have also come to evaluate risk and fear very differently. 

As I wrote about when OMPTS turned 4 one year ago, A LOT has changed since the birth of OMPTS.  And despite that change there is still something that keeps me going with this practice. In the last few weeks in particular I have been playing with the mantra “I have everything I need”.  A friend gifted me a great book, The Surfer and The Sage with a beautiful passage on letting go that ends with the line “nothing attracts everything like needing nothing”.  When we desire more than we have in this present moment it brings us nothing and it steals from this moment- our attention, our gratitude, our joy.  

I recently enrolled in a yoga workshop on fear, conflict and love which I am very much enjoying. On day one we were led by our amazing teacher on a Kosha safari meditation, noticing the various layers of our being and then asking ourselves the question “is this me?”  As we experienced, in the present moment, our physical body, our energy body, our mental body, and our wisdom body we had to sit with the question “is this me?” Do I identify with this singular layer of my complex being? It was a really beautiful practice and one that helped me a lot. 

As humans we hold many things in our physical bodies for many reasons.  I have had the privilege of advanced study and mentorship examining the physical body.  I was taught to diagnose before I treat and I was given the critical thinking skills and knowledge to do this. I’ve had the privilege of helping many humans with their pain or suboptimal function and I have watched many accomplish amazing feats of physical and mental endurance to achieve goals they worked towards, often with years of dedicated commitment to those goals. And I have also noticed how there is so much more to my complex patients than the symptoms in their physical body.  That is just one layer of a complex being. 

For the past few years I have been passionate about learning to go deeper than the physical body to explore the breath body and this has been a game changer for me and nearly all of my patients. I was recently flooded with emotion as a teacher said in meditation that “our breath is a beautiful representation of all we have been through in this lifetime” and there is nothing wrong with it, but with practice we can manipulate it for a desired change. This same teacher said that yoga is more about unlearning than learning and I do believe we all came into this world with everything we would ever need already inside of us.  The human body is truly a miracle.  If you think about it strictly from a medical science standpoint it is truly miraculous that each and every one of us is here, is this very moment. Over time, as we walk around in these human bodies we learn so much.  Some things are hard wired in for survival and others are passed down for any number of reasons.  But over time we grow, we change and we adapt. Sometimes it makes us stronger and other times we get in our own way.  

There is a lot of noise around us.  As an empath, I often find it very overstimulating.  But the practice of yoga has allowed me to practice getting quiet. From there we can learn what is most important to us and what we can let go of.  Life is short, and as they say, no amount of worry will change the future and no amount of regret will change the past.  So at this moment I am enjoying the present.  I’m currently writing from the jungle on a surf trip with 4 humans I had never met.  One Canadian happens to have trained with my dad at Boston Children’s Hospital 20 years ago.  My housemate is a Swiss woman who now lives with her daughter in Nicaragua and everyone brings a unique perspective on life to this experience.  Though I traveled here alone, I am surrounded by humans from all over the world that light me up and make this experience that much more beautiful. 

As I enter year 6 of my private practice I will make it my top priority to help each of the patients who walk into my office know that they already have everything they need inside of them to find true healing. And I can walk with them because we were never meant to navigate this lifetime without community.  We are never truly alone no matter how far we are from home.       

A Medicine Woman’s Prayer

I will not rescue you

for you are not powerless.

I will not fix you

for you are not broken

I will not heal you

for I see you in your wholeness.

I will walk with you

through your darkness

as you remember your light.