Living Your Healing Blog

If it’s to be, it’s up to me!

If it’s to be, it’s up to me!

Have you ever been frustrated by a situation and had the thought “I wish someone would do something about that”? And then realized that maybe that someone might be you? Dr. David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA had that experience on his deathbed and responded in an extraordinary way that not only saved his life but is helping thousands around the world. Stricken in the middle of medical school with idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease (iMCD), he has almost died 5 times. Nothing his doctors tried was working, and no one was doing any research for a cure, so he decided he...

It’s OK to Not Be OK!

It’s OK to Not Be OK!

Tennis champion Naomi Osaka is featured on the cover of the July 19th Time magazine issue not for wining another tournament, but for being willing to do something unusual in the field of elite sports. In her essay entitled ‘Gaining perspective’ she shares lessons she'd recently learned by stepping back from a press conference at the French Open to take care of her mental health. After receiving both support and criticism, she expressed hope that people understand that “it’s Ok to not be OK and it’s OK to talk about it”. That may have paved the way for phenomenal...

Be Inspired to rise above!

Be Inspired to rise above!

I have always been inspired by people who have overcome great challenges and who go beyond just surviving to actually thriving. It’s impressive when people chose to test themselves by taking on activities that the majority of people don’t, such as an extreme sport. But the people who really impress me are those who don’t choose the challenge (or trauma) they experience or are witness to and yet, they manage to emerge like a phoenix from the ashes to be or do something extraordinary despite their history or circumstances. When I received a life-threatening diagnosis,...

Bounce Beyond: let’s not go back to normal

Bounce Beyond: let’s not go back to normal

The desire to 'get back to normal’ has been stirring around the world for over a year. When the pandemic first started and people chose to shelter-in-place or were required to be in lockdown (depending on your perspective and location), many of us thought it would be a few weeks or months at most and then we would go back to the way things were before this all started. One dictionary definition of ‘normal’ is ‘conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected’. These past 15 months have been unusual, atypical and unexpected, and illuminated the fact that some...

No Mud, No Lotus

No Mud, No Lotus

One of my recent daily Calm meditations offered the theme of ‘no mud, no lotus’. I knew the beautiful lotus was a water plant, but on further exploration, learned that they must start their life underwater rooted in the mud. The root system consists of rhizomes that fan out horizontally through the mud allowing the plant to survive to regerminate for hundreds, and possibly thousands, of years. When the lotus flower emerges from the water there is no trace of mud on it. And yet, the lotus cannot grow without that mud. Using this lesson from Nature as a spiritual...