As a healer, I am a 'high frequency' person who like a hummingbird works with joy and loves what I do. Like a hummingbird, I am always looking for a safe place 'to rest'. Hummingbirds don't perch for long, but when they do, they need a safe 'breather'.
My 'perch' is a place that offers Yoga, Kirtan, and Vegan food. For some reason, that 'works' for me, and I go. I don't go for the food, although it is delicious. I go for the energy in the food. And in the place. It is fantastic! I 'recharge' and I am on my way to healing others again.
Yesterday in Yoga class, I had a flashback that was not nice. It was an unpleasant 'mix' of my medicine training and practice with a movement in the class. It hit me like a ton of bricks.
It was the end of class. Our pose was with the legs up a wall and our backs on the floor. Teacher came to each of us and gave us a neck rub.
When he gently turned my head to the left, and exposed the neck, I was overcome with a wave of guilt and horror. As a cardiac anesthesiologist, this is the movement I do to position the patient for insertion of the big lines in the neck. They are done awake. I use a big needle, and a lot of lidocaine. Nobody likes it. But their hearts are so sick, I cannot 'put them to sleep' safely without knowing their CVP, Cardiac Output, Mixed Venous Oxygen, and Pulmonary Artery (PA) pressures. It's just not possible to 'guess' when there is so little room for error.
When teacher pressed in the front of my sternocleidomastoid, at the level of my larynx, I also wanted to tell him that the bone he felt deeper in the neck was Chassaignac's Tubercle, a landmark for an Interscalene Block.
Instead, I let out a contented sigh, and released my 'doctorness' and 'doctor memories' to Gaia.
I want you to know that what I do affects me on a very deep level. I think it does for most of us in the healing professions.
I hope you have room in your heart, like my yoga teacher, to know that one day, all of us in the hospital will need deep healing for our spirit too. Allopathic medicine causes harm in both directions, to healer and patient, in its own way. Save your judgement for when you have walked in our shoes.
Namaste,
Reiki Doc