Soul Medicine

I was recently tested as a potential stem cell donor. Part of the protocol included a blood draw that was performed at a local doctor’s office, a physician I had seen once before when I’d fractured a finger while being an idiot.

After the blood draw, the doctor stopped in. She glanced at my patient file and stated that I need to schedule a mammogram. While I’m at it, she added, I also need a colonoscopy and a gynecological exam.

Moments after her declaration, and as soon as our eyes met, the doctor realized her mistake. My response to her edict was not a compliant nod. I looked at her and simply asked, “Why?”

The way her eyes glazed over told me that she’s dealt with my kind before. We are the breed that doctors hate. We avoid screenings, and we don’t take prescription drugs. We question the safety of vaccinations, carry minimal or no health care insurance, seek out statistics and information, and critique the American health care paradigm. We’re weird and argumentative, and usually educated. No one in the contemporary health care system wants us around.

On this day, while looking over my records, the doctor asked me if I take any medications. When I answered no, she asked the question again. “None at all?” she inquired, as if I might have forgotten about an active prescription bottle or two in my bathroom, or possibly that she’d heard me wrong. “No, nothing” I said again, and she raised her eyebrows. It was an interesting moment for both of us.

I’m not going to get into the witty exchange we had over the mammogram question. Enough said that I’m not scheduled for one, and unless I develop an obvious problem, have no plan to do so. The same applies to the colonoscopy and gynecological screenings she urged.

I’m not sure I made my case clear to her, and that’s OK. Once she realized where I was going with this, she lost interest in me and left the room. I was very relieved when she did.

The minute or so that the doctor and I locked horns has only deepened my conviction to start a conversation about what it means to be a whole human being. For a long time, I’ve dreamed of a healed world, and of a healed health care system that saves us instead of addicts, sickens, and kills us.

It’s not the system that’s in place now. Our health care system is utterly broken. I’m not writing now about the financial end of the matter: that alone is its own quagmire of corporate greed and trickery. I’m not talking about preventable medical errors either, which according to the Center for Disease Control, is the third largest cause of death in this country. I'm not talking about the statistical information that points to the inefficacy of preventative screenings, especially mammograms. I’m not even talking about a recent survey that revealed that physicians themselves have become so disenchanted with their profession that 9 out of 10 doctors would not recommend becoming a doctor.

I’m talking about the pill-popping, fear-driven, preventative test-obsessed medical culture that has resulted in 70 percent of Americans taking at least one powerful prescription drug a day, with more than 20 percent of Americans taking five or more prescription drugs a day. Those are staggering numbers that point to a big problem.

I’m talking about what becomes available to us when we choose to stop being abiding patients in a corporate-driven health care system that no longer serves us. I’m looking at the possibility of the average person not squandering even one more day of his or her life under the needless ‘care’ of doctors and hospitals, on a cocktail of prescription drugs, and of that person thriving instead of suffering.

Now, if I’ve broken a bone, I’m getting to a hospital. Ditto for a stroke, heart attack, respiratory arrest, gunshot, stabbing, snapped tendon, head injury, or arterial cut. Doctors absolutely shine in triage, and that’s where they have my respect. Stopping bleeding, starting hearts, unclogging arteries, suturing open wounds, setting broken bones – that’s when a doctor is a savior, hands down.

But routine care is virtually worthless, preventative screenings are largely useless and propelled by corporate greed, and pharmaceuticals are crippling and killing us in record numbers. These things are fostering fear, controlling our lives, laying bank accounts to waste, and filling us with toxic drugs and false hopes. The intentions of corporate medicine are far from pure. It’s our national disgrace.

It astonishes me that a doctor would raise her eyebrow upon hearing that I – a relatively young, healthy woman with no history of chronic disease – is not dependent upon any prescription drug. Why would that be a surprise? I would consider this the norm, wouldn’t you? Why is NOT medicating myself reason for wonder? Why is making the choice to thrive instead of suffering a motive for a doctor to just lose interest and leave the room?

I want to make a layman’s proposition. We’ve reached the far end of the spectrum as far as lethal and damaging ‘health care’ that is killing us and our children. It could hardly get any worse. So, let’s push the pendulum in the opposite direction and see what happens.

I’m not talking about anything revolutionary. I’m talking about returning to soul medicine – the medicine of old, before the health care system was swallowed up by corporate interests that prioritize profit over human welfare and became our worst enemy.

Never heard of soul medicine? Here it is in a nutshell: stress is the number one factor in most if not all of the diseases we face, including the deadlies like cancer and heart disease. Stress is brought on by things like toxic relationships, soul-sucking jobs, self-neglect, health worries, loneliness, societal expectations, abuse, poor diets, malnutrition, drug dependence, divorce, competition, aging, financial pressures, stupid bosses, controlling parents, resentful children, social isolation, bereavement, anger and bitterness, broken families, other peoples' stress, and an all-encompassing dependence on social media.

We live with unprecedented stress. Clinical depression is an everyday diagnosis. Crippling anxiety disorders are ordinary. Fears about our health - fueled by a medical culture of panic and those direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical ads that have made their way to television and the internet - are keeping us neurotic. There’s nothing you or I can do in this precise moment to change the lethal world that we’ve all shared in creating. But we can step away from the madness and make new choices, right now. I want to suggest that there is a different way of doing this.

We can, for one, call upon our own natural self-repair mechanisms instead of turning to prescription drugs and strangers called ‘doctors’ for help. Our bodies’ natural self-repair mechanisms can reliably heal us in this damaged world. Doctors can do little to nothing for us when they have just 7 minutes – the standard time allotted to a doctor to be with any routine patient in an office setting, according to HMO-enforced protocol – to get to know what’s really bothering us.

Clean eating is a path to jump start our freedom from dependence on health care. There’s no faster or more powerful way to turn the tables than to avoid processed foods and animal products and instead choose fresh, whole, delicious, plant-based foods. Processed foods and meat and dairy are proven killers. There’s no disputing that anymore. The standard American diet is a slow stroll toward disease. Whole, plant-based foods are insanely delicious, incredibly healthful, and becoming increasingly popular. The whole food, planted-based diet revolution is already underway. People are finding out that food can free them.

We must forgive all and move on. Lingering in anger is pure self-damage. Like a vessel filled with poison, anger corrodes us from the inside out, while doing little to nothing to the objects of our anger, who live safely outside of it. Bitterness is paralyzing. As my brilliant mother once said, people in their bitterness show their lack of intelligence. She was right: the absolute dumbest people I’ve ever known or heard of are the ones who cling longest to anger. Be done with it. Be free.

Good hygiene plays a big role in great mental and physical health. Most of us are not as clean as we should be. As an Ayurvedic, I invest time in strident personal hygiene based on ancient, pure Indian principles. The payoffs are powerful. A balanced and clean body feeds the mind. And a nourished mind fosters a healthy body. Total symbiosis.

Now, I want to bear personal testimony to the fact that we can release ourselves from the epidemic of prescription drug dependence and the maze of the corporate medical mill.

Years ago, after my father’s death, I entered a dark place of grief. Unable to function anymore, I sought the help of a doctor who guided me out of that place with the help of a very common prescription drug. For a while, as I processed my sadness and began to heal, the medicine helped me stay afloat. It was a chemical form of triage, and it worked. I'm grateful for it.

But there came a time when I wanted to take my leave of it. Under the doctor’s direction, I weaned off the drug over the course of two months, and I left his care. But what began after that was five months of the anguish of prescription drug withdrawal. This was a withdrawal as powerful as any heroin addiction. My body had become dependent on a prescription drug. It was an absolute hell. There were days, particularly mornings, where I considered jumping back on the prescription drug, just to stop my suffering.

The symptoms of withdrawal slowly subsided, and at the five-month mark, I was finally free of the misery. It took five long months of patience, faith, and guts. It took the understanding that my body is a machine of natural self-healing, that it seeks balance, wants to be well, and will eventually bring me home. And it did.

Soul medicine is simple and can really be reduced to simple practices that are possible for all of us. Being true to ourselves. Loving others just as they are. Forgiving everything. Forgiving ourselves. Helping those in need. Loving animals unconditionally. Caring for the earth. Honoring the elderly. Releasing anger. Living simply. Communing with nature. Nourishing our bodies with real food. Becoming mindful. Practicing good self care. Setting boundaries. Building community. Exploring spirituality. Doing what makes us happy. Finding the divine spark within us. Speaking our truths. And having loving sex often.

Medicating ourselves and becoming professional patients in order to stay in the game of life is not necessary. Instead, let’s get out of the game. We don’t have to live this way. It’s time for all of us to hold our hands up and say “stop”. I believe in the deepest parts of myself and know from personal experience that we can reclaim our bodies. We can change the course of this failed system by simply checking out of it.

Barbie xo