Inner Pilot Light

Are We Blind To Our Privilege In The Wellness World?

Since I left my job in conventional medicine in 2007, I've contributed and participated in the wellness industry as a thought leader and also a consumer of wellness services and products. After hanging up my shingle outside the system, I had a cash-based integrative medicine practice- because I wanted a whole hour with my patients and insurance wouldn't even cover my overhead, much less give me a salary if I accepted managed care reimbursement. I was always uncomfortable with the idea that my services were a luxury good but felt helpless to practice good medicine any other way. You might say I sold out some of my social justice ethics- but I didn't see another way to make a living without the moral injury that was making me suicidal in the hospital systems.

May 7, 2021 | 0

How To Begin Healing & Milk The Past Year For All It’s Worth

The pandemic is not over yet, and we have so much loss to grieve- lost lives, lost jobs, lost financial security, lost belief systems, lost school days, lost friends, lost feelings of safety, and lost social contact, in addition to things we needed to lose- like losing some of our racial, gender, socioeconomic, or sexual preference privileges or losing political leaders who do not wish our countries well or losing online influencers who do not respect science or truth or losing some of the mobility that is causing the climate crisis.

Apr 29, 2021 | 0

Who Is The “You” That Will Come Out Of Quarantine?

While making the final edits to my Sacred Medicine book, I asked one healer if she had a point of view in response to the question, "Why do horrific things happen to seemingly innocent people?" I explained to her that the question is relevant to the book because those who chronically suffer from physical or mental illness often seek answers to the question, "Why me" or "Why not her?" I told her that every answer I had heard thus far in my research fell flat from a post-2020 lens, and because I had a lot of respect for her, I was curious about her point of view at this point in our understanding (and lack thereof) of human suffering.

Apr 14, 2021 | 0

What Is The Muse – And How Can You Meet Yours?

If you’ve been following what I write, you know I’ve done A LOT of writing about Covid, public health recommendations (including vaccination), and social justice and human rights lately. This is not my typical gig, but given the intersecting disasters we face, it’s felt more important than what I usually write about. That said, what I usually write about (Whole Health) is more relevant now than ever!

Feb 5, 2021 | 0

Why Lockdown Could Be Turning Your Memory To Mush (& How To Reverse It By Adding Novelty To Your Routine)

If you saw the rom-com Groundhog Day, you know that this movie explores the question, "What would it be like if you woke up every day to the exact same routine?"

Feb 2, 2021 | 0

The Health Benefits Of Creativity (& Why We Don’t Need To Choose Between Conventional & Alternative Medicine)

If you’ve been following what I write, you know I’ve done A LOT of writing about Covid, public health recommendations (including vaccination), and social justice and human rights lately. This is not my typical gig, but given the intersecting disasters we face, it’s felt more important than what I usually write about. That said, what I usually write about (Whole Health) is more relevant now than ever!

Jan 20, 2021 | 0

The Way We Make Health Decisions Need Not Be All Or Nothing

I want to respond briefly to all the people who have responded to me lately with criticism, contempt, and sometimes abuse because "I trusted you to promote health sovereignty and now you've sold out." Or "You teach about the dangers of fear, yet you're going to kill me by scaring me every day when you talk about how many people are dying of Covid." Or “I thought you were critical of corruption and capitalism in health care and Big Pharma, yet you’re promoting Big Pharma’s vaccine, so you’ve let me down.”

Jan 18, 2021 | 0

Fierce Compassion Takes A Stand To Protect What You Hold Sacred

After reading all of your comments all week, just so I can try to make sense of what's happening here in this community, I feel like I need to make a few distinctions about my understanding about some core spiritual teachings around compassion. First, I'm...

Sep 19, 2020 | 6

We All Deserve To Breathe Freely

I can't stop pondering why so many of the challenges we're facing as a culture right now revolve around the breath. COVID is a disease that threatens our breathing. West Coast wildfires right now and recent horrific fires in Australia and the Amazon are making it...

Sep 15, 2020 | 4

How to Make Wise Decisions During Uncertain Times

This is a time of hard choices in uncertain times. Should you go to the hospital if you get short of breath, or should you ride it out at home? Should you let your kid endure the potential damage of remote learning, or should you let your child go to in-person...

Aug 3, 2020 | 0

How To Self-Administer Placebo Effects

Someone asked me today about my thoughts about the mystery of the placebo effect, which I wrote about at length in Mind Over Medicine and which scientists do not understand but have theories about. I thought some of you might be interested in what I wrote. In the...

Jul 3, 2020 | 0

The BRAND NEW REVISED Mind Over Medicine Is Born Today

When I decided to rewrite 2/3 of my classic bestseller Mind Over Medicine a year ago so I could update much of the science, add new tools for healing and transformation, and entirely modify the Six Steps To Healing Yourself based on my deeper understanding of how...

Jun 9, 2020 | 1

Earth Sent Us To Time Out: A Sacred Opportunity

A meme floating around said, "Kinda feeling like the Earth just sent us all to our rooms to think about what we've done." Sounds just about right. We know that pandemics are part of Earth's immune system. If we are not behaving as healthy, cooperate cells in the...

Mar 23, 2020 | 4

Spontaneous Remission: Heal Trauma & Believe Cure Is Possible

For those of you following along in this blog series, we've been exploring, one "CURED Tip" at a time, the interventions employed by people who experienced "spontaneous healing" as reported by Harvard doctor, researcher, and new Whole Health Medicine Institute...

Feb 17, 2020 | 0

To Inner Children Everywhere On This First Day of 2020

First and foremost, you are loved and you are valuable. You are never broken or worthless, even when you make the inevitable blunders children are supposed to make while they're learning to be human. Your feelings are valid and you deserve to feel all of them—the...

Jan 1, 2020 | 0

5 Miracles To Open Your Mind & Heart To What’s Possible

We get so encrusted with our mental concepts of what’s possible and what’s not that when the “impossible” happens, we can have all kinds of emotions that range from fear to awe to confusion to bewilderment to gratitude to anger. Most of us don’t like having our...

Nov 11, 2019 | 0