Project Creative Vision

New Vision of Holistic Health

As regular readers of this blog know, my interest in holistic holistic health and wellness has grown over the past year.  As a student of energy medicine, aromatherapy, Reiki, and general principles of holistic health, I've come to realize that, if we want to change our lives for the better, we can't be looking at just one isolated slice of our life for the answers.  We are whole, complex human beings, and to create positive change in our lives, we need to treat ourselves as such and address the challenges we face on many different levels.

This growing interest led me last week to the Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public, put together by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.  I left the Summit inspired by the discussion and the possibilities for all of us together to build a society that fosters holistic health and honors each and every one of its members as a whole and complete human being.

To continue the discussion that started there, and extend it to those who were unable to join us, I have invited several friends who are leading the effort here in the Washington, DC area to offer their thoughts and perspectives on the Summit here on my blog.  

Below are the guest posts:

Lucrezia Mangione argues that we are part of a sea change in health care and there is room for all at the table in Creating the Culture of Wellness. 

Daphne White reports on groundbreaking Senate testimonies by Mehmet Oz, Dean Ornish, Andrew Weil, and Mark Hyman, and on Sen. Harkin's moving address to the IOM Summit.  Daphne calls upon all CAM practitioners to "put in sweat equity" to make sure that integrative health care is really part of the health care reform.

And Izabella Tabarovsky (yes, that's me) chimed in with some takeaways concerning what we, as CAM practitioners, can do to make the new, emerging paradigm a reality.

I have also just added a post on Dr. Mehmet Oz's remarks at the event and may be adding more as I go through my notes. 

In the meantime, the full webcast of the conference is now available online, so you can watch the entire event or the parts that interest you the most from the comfort of your own home.

What are your thoughts on the subject? Please share your comments under any of the posts that have caught your attention.  Let's all join in the revolution that's taking place in the way we as a society view and create health and wellness! 

IOM Summit: Opportunities Are Huge

But CAM Practitioners Must Seize the Initiative

 By Izabella Tabarovsky

Note: This post is part of the discussion on the Summit on Integrative Medicine

The 3-day Institute of Medicine Summit on Integrative Health was truly mind-broadening for me.  I came away excited about the possibilities and bursting with ideas.

The key was that we are living at a time of huge opportunities.  But no one is going to hand anything to us on a silver platter.  We must fight for what we believe in - and we must get creative about it. 

We can continue complaining how mainstream establishment doesn't recognize or accept us, that insurance companies don't reimburse us, and how the public doesn't understand what we do.  Or we can get beyond the current paradigm and think creatively about our competitive advantages vis-a-vis mainstream medicine and go there. 

Two key ideas were voiced at the Summit in this regard:  Community-based care networks and work-site CAM interventions.  Both require initiative on our part. And to become viable, both require that we overcome our tendency to get silo'ed and act alone.  Right now we will benefit from acting together, from helping each other out, from, together, creating the new paradigm in which the benefits of CAM modalities will be apparent to everyone. 

With that, here, briefly, are some of my take-aways from the Summit:

• The new paradigm is being birthed.  It seemed that everyone, from MDs to insurance reps, agreed that the old paradigm of health care is broken. We are present at the birth of the new paradigm.  No one knows yet what it will be.  The moment to contribute to the shaping of this new paradigm is now.  Each of us participating in the CAM field must now step up to the plate and do our part in making sure that integrative health care truly becomes a reality. 

• From evidence-based practice to practice-based evidence.  Pedigreed scientists such as Ken Brigham and Lawrence Green suggested that "to reject a treatment because we don't understand the mechanism is a mistake." The idea that randomized control trials don't work with CAM modalities and that practice-based evidence is "the only way to integrate practices that have hundreds of years behind them" was voiced repeatedly.  This means that if your practice shows results, that should be considered good enough evidence.  Music to the ears of a CAM practitioner.

• Shortage of primary care physicians creates opportunities for CAM practitioners.  The PCP shortage is already affecting the health care industry.  By 2025 we could be short as many as 200,000 PCPs, and, according to Richard "Buzz" Cooper, the health care reform could increase the shortfall by another 400,000.  Doctors' functions are becoming increasingly narrow and high-tech.  The offloading of tasks by physicians will accelerate, leaving physicians with increasingly narrower responsibilities, more high-tech and less relevant to the real issues affecting the health of their patients.  Other disciplines will, by necessity, be called upon to fill the gap, and this is where CAM practitioners will have their entry.

• There is room for everyone at the table to provide an amalgam of services.  This means that there will be room for everyone, from chiropractors to acupuncturists to health coaches to energy healers in creating an amalgam of care.  Because of the above, we are moving into a place where physicians will share the platform of care with a broad range of non-physician clinicians. 

• We must educate MDs and the public about our modalities. For the above point to be true, PCPs have to become educated about what we as CAM practitioners do.  83 percent of PCP practices in this country are groups of 1 or 2.  They account for nearly 50 percent of primary care.  This means that there are great opportunities to develop community care groups that could include nutritionists, dietitians, social workers, all connected to small PCP practices. The problem is that many times MDs, along with general public, have no idea what it is that we do.  So it is up to each and every one of us to take the initiative and reach out to the PCPs and educate them.  Go introduce yourself to PCPs in your neighborhood, tell them about what you do, show your credentials, build a relationship.  Begin where you are. 

• Empathy is CAM practitioners' competitive advantage.  I was floored by a slide presented by one of the speakers that illustrated the dramatic decline of empathy in medical students as they progress through medical school. This shift particularly affects men, whose levels of empathy drop nearly to zero.  (I don't have that particular slide, but here's a link to another onethat demonstrates the same point.)  What this suggests to me that we as CAM practitioners are, first and foremost, in the business of empathy.  In fact, empathy is our competitive advantage vis-a-vis the MDs - all the more so because studies show that empathy is the top quality that patients long to see in their caregivers.  Emphasize this with your prospects, let this be your selling point.

The one thing I found myself wishing for was that the Summit had lived up to the word "integrative" in its name and included the discussion of mind and spirit, not just the body. Dealing with questions of meaning and purpose is integral to whole person health.  But hey, you can't get everything right right away.  Perhaps next time.   

Creating a Culture of Wellness

Note: This is a guest post that is part of the discussion on the Summit on Integrative Medicine

By Lucrezia Mangione, CHTP/I, CMT 

Have you ever thought about . . .

• What a healthy health care system looks like?

• What a patient or person-centered approach to health and healing is?
• A place for certified, credentialed and/or licensed health care practitioners co-existing within a system that engenders cross-disciplinary connection, discussion and collaboration? 
• What happens when all credentialed and/or licensed health practitioners collaborate together, in support of the suffering person/patient with an individualized well-care program? 
• What an honest, authentic discussion of the inherent problems with our health care industry and its' sick care model sounds like? 
• The behavioral challenges to better health?
• The class/social  issues that prevent access to health care?

Six hundred health professionals joined together for a lively discussion on these topics and more on Feb. 25-27, 2009.  It was a thought provoking and collaborative experience where I was sincerely surprised to be among peers.  We, the people who genuinely wish to alleviate suffering, engaged in dialog on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public at the Institute of Medicine and Bravewell Collaborative's Summit in Washington D.C.

It was powerful. I was positively impacted.  There were more questions than answers and there is so much to share.  In the spirit of brevity, however, I'll speak to a few points that stood out for me.

This Is What I Learned:

"Person-Centered Care" Is the New Model for Health

Because of the efforts of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) practitioners and their holistic work over the years, the new model emerging for health care is a shift to "patient centered cared" or "person-centered care".    The individual is returned to the center of the health care wheel and s/he is the hub around which all else happens.  This shift will take time but there are models that are working already like the eight integrative centers of Bravewell Clinical Network. 

In the meantime, business is the force driving the shift.  Employee wellness centersare arising within large companies.  Why?  Because the return on investing in an employee's wellness is significant:  employees perform better. There are studies that prove meditation, fitness and health coaching are helping in "presenteeism: be here now" as Dr. Kenneth Pelletier puts it.  Businesses are bringing about the person/patient centered care and self-care empowerment.  See this article on Medtronic:

This Is What I Realized:

Integrative Practitioners Are on the Same Page

Breaking Through the Fear

I've been thinking a lot in recent months about the fears that hold us back in life and how I can help those I'm honored to work with to break through those fears.  Fear is a natural part of who we are, and our great task in life is to face that fear down in order to grow stronger - mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  This task, which isn't easy even in the best of times, has become even tougher since the beginning of the current economic crisis. 

So I wanted to share this email that a former client sent me a few weeks ago.  (I'm publishing it, of course, with his express permission.) It shows that sometimes all that's needed to break through the fear is the realization that, no matter the external circumstances, we all get just this one life to live.  In the end, that life will be judged not by how tightly we held on to what we had but by how bravely we faced our fears down and followed our guts into the lives we were meant to live. Thanks for the inspiration, my friend!

Hi Izabella!  I have some great news! Last week I was finally offered a great sales job with a [well-known company]. Work from home, great salary, and wonderful benefits.

So you may be shocked to hear that in the middle of the worst recession in 75 years, I turned down the job the day I was supposed to start, and have decided to move to [another state], enroll in a certificate program in theology at the Seminary there, take a few entrepreneurship classes, and in the next 6-months start my own business and probably one for my wife as well! 

A pastor of mine said a profound thing last year, “Nobody gets tomorrow.” Meaning - do it today because you might not be here tomorrow.  I decided that I cannot go another day pretending during interviews and not being honest with myself. I have never been more excited, and more filled with feelings of moving in the direction of my gifts, abilities and passions.

The Chemistry of Careers

Well, it's been a while since I've written here on the blog.  The class I was teaching and the planning and scheming for future workshops took over and now we're here, at the end of November... 

One career-related piece of wisdom that emerged from my recent (and ongoing) excursion into holistic health is that, apparently, a career you detest is as bad for your health, from the biochemical standpoint, as consuming that public enemy number one - refined sugar.  Apparently, negative emotions that result from a job we dislike produce similar chemical reactions in our bodies as acid-ash foods - foods that create an environment that is conducive to inflammation and disease.  In contrast, alkaline foods (and, it turns out, positive emotions) create an environment that is conducive to health and vitality. (For more on the subject, see Dr. Theodore Baroody's classic "Alkalize or Die.") 

I've always felt that when we suppress our natural creativity and true gifts for the sake of a career that leaves us unhappy, we harm our health.  I never realized though that there were actual chemical reactions taking place that were, in fact, ruining our health at the very basic, biochemical level.  Doesn't it kind of put the question of career change in much starker terms?  If you hate your job but keep staying because it provides you with "stability" and "security," you might as well ask yourself:  How much for my health? 

Anyway, have a happy Thanksgiving everyone and see you back here in a few days!

Natalie Coughlin: "Define Success for You"

Olympians have a lot to teach us in helping us reach for and achieve our dreams.  Their stories are a source not just of inspiration but also of invaluable strategies that are applicable to both our personal and professional lives, no matter what we do in life and what we are trying to achieve.

These strategies are as much about the mind as they are about the body.  The things you say to yourself, your mindset, your ability to focus on that which will give you energy and strength are all key components of your personal success - whatever "success" means to you.   

JoAnn Dahlkoetter, a sports psychologist, has a great book on the subject called "Your Performing Edge," which I expect to be reviewing in the coming weeks.  Meanwhile, as an introduction to the topic, I wanted to pass along a few inspirational quotes from women athletes that landed in my mailbox this morning courtesy Oprah's Spirit Newsletter.

Read them and be inspired - but don't stop there.  Set the intention to read the advice of these athletes and actually take it to heart.  In other words, don't just be inspired.  Be transformed.  This week, choose to pick one thing you could do to bring you closer to your dream.  Do the same next week and the week after, and let momentum develop.

And here's a tip for making this a success.  Imagine that you are on an Olympian's schedule.  Imagine that you only have four years to achieve your goal and that in your entire life, you'll only have 2-3 opportunities (your personal equivalents of the Olympic games) to make your dream come true.  Let that fill you with the sense of urgency needed to finally give your dream a priority. 

With that, here's your Monday morning dose of inspiration.

Finding Antidotes to Perfectionism in Joy, Delight, Faith and Surrender

Every summer I go to Vermont for a yoga retreat with my wonderful teacher Peentz Dubble. It has become a time of renewal for me and a place to reconnect with old friends and fellow yoga practitioners.  It has also become something of a touchstone for me, as I carry the energy of the retreat and the intention I set for myself there throughout the rest of the year.

This year, though, as I was preparing for my pilgrimage to Vermont, I realized that, in a strange way, the retreats have also, in the past, been somewhat stressful for me.

I practice the Iyengar style of yoga, which is a style that's characterized by precision and extreme attention to alignment.  Because of that, I can become so focused on technicalities that I lose the playfulness and joy that is inherent in every pose and the practice generally. 

But I knew, of course, that the real reason for the stress was my particular attitude toward my practice.  I myself had made it stressful by allowing the practice to bring out the perfectionist in me.  For a perfectionist, an Iyengar retreat, with 7 hours of yoga a day, can be at once, well, perfect, because there is no end to perfecting each pose, and a challenge, because there really isn't such a thing as a perfectly-executed yoga pose.

But if you fail to challenge your perfectionist tendencies, you’re in for a boot camp, rather than relaxation and renewal.  In a concentrated form, done from the ego-mind, yoga can lead to sore muscles and mental tumult, rather than peace and equanimity.  You can end up having very little enjoyment and a whole lot of stress.

So this year, I set myself an intention to go only so far with my technical dedication and to focus instead on enjoying the beauty of each pose just as it was, with all of the imperfections I would bring to it. I decided to challenge and surrender my perfectionist tendencies (which tend to get exacerbated when I'm surrounded by other students) and find joy and delight in whatever form my pose assumed.

Life and Career Advice for a Teenager in My Life

I have a teenager in my life who is in the midst of making decisions about college, career, and the future direction of her life.  As I watch her go through her struggles, I find myself wishing that I could just take all the wisdom I’ve accumulated in my 38 years and transfer it to her.  It’s probably lucky that I can’t - she deserves her own chance at learning her own lessons, and, anyway, who am I to say that my wisdom applies to her life.  But I still couldn't help myself, and, I figured, blogging is less intrusive than a brain download... So my dear teenager, here is my unsolicited advice on your dilemmas.  Take whatever you find useful and ignore the rest. May you be happy!

And for the rest of my readers:  What other advice would you give a 16 or 17 year old who is just embarking on her or his adult life? Please chime in.

1. Decisions are revisable and, a lot of the times, reversible. Although you may feel as though the decisions you're facing right now are final and irreversible, you are actually not determining the direction of your life for the rest of your life.  Nobody goes through life executing on a plan hatched when they are sixteen.  People change directions all the time, and that’s the beauty of life. Nothing is ever final, and there are always options.  Right now, you are just making your first steps. The plan will change many times.  You will review your decisions and change your direction, and you’ll find yourself in wonderful places you never planned to go. 

So remove that pressure from your life.  Make the best possible decisions you can in each moment, follow your intuition to reach out for things, people, subjects, opportunities that seem fun, exciting, and interesting, and always keep your eyes open for new gifts from life.  And if you make a decision that doesn’t feel right, know that you can always change it.

2. Grow into your true self.  Follow examples of people you admire, but don’t forget that you need to grow into your own true self.  Your path is your own.  You have unique gifts to offer the world that nobody else has.  These gifts may not be apparent to you, and that’s normal:  we all tend to take our greatest gifts for granted.  But they are apparent to me and to anybody else who truly loves you.  And the world can't wait to receive those gifts.  Don’t withdraw them from the world by choosing a path that doesn’t feel like your own.

Feed the Positive Dog

Since this week has been about how our state of mind affects our lives, here's a little fable to round out the previous post:

A man goes to the village to visit the wise man, and he says to the wise man, "I feel like there are two dogs inside me.  One dog is this positive, loving, kind, and gentle dog, and then I have this angry, mean-spirited, and negative dog, and they fight all the time.  I don't know which is going to win."  The wise man thinks for a moment and he says, "I know which is going to win.  The one you feed the most, so feed the positive dog. (From The Energy Bus, by Jon Gordon)

The truth is, that to which we give most of our attention will grow.  We are so conditioned to focus on our mistakes and on those areas where we are lacking, it's no wonder so many of us are feeling angry, inadequate, and dissatisfied.  Focusing on what went right during the day seems counterintuitive, and when it comes to internal work, it's among the hardest switches to make.  But it's one that produces some of the most amazing results in terms of well-being and, yes, happiness. 

So what if for the next few days you focused on your strengths and forgot all about your so-called weaknesses?  What if you chose to talk - and, most important, think - only about those things that are going well?  Doesn't it make sense that those areas of your life are going to expand?  Give it a shot, and let me know what happens.

About That Venting Habit

Thanks to the recent Dig Your Job Blogger Award, I discovered Dr. Ellen Weber's Brain Based Business blog and have been browsing through its many fascinating entries.

One post that jumped out at me was about 5 Pseudo-Powers That Kill Brain Power.  Turns out that, from the point of view of brain science, some of the things that are considered to be good for business and have become the norm in the work place - such as competition, drive for achievement, and freely dispensed criticism - are actually counterproductive.  But I was especially intrigued by the point about venting:

When people vent we’re told … they release pressures. Not so. Sadly … the opposite is true … and venting literally shuts down opportunities as it stomps out brainpower. Dangerous cortisol chemicals increase and spread when people vent.

In other words, venting about that horrible boss or the backstabbing colleague of yours will only make things worse for you personally, while doing little to remedy the situation.

I always find it fascinating when science confirms something that spirituality has known for a while.  Spiritual traditions across the board have long advised against giving free reign to expressions of anger. And, at least with Eastern traditions, it's not at all about bottling unseemly emotions. 

The idea here is that our mind - as distinct from our real, capital-S Self - is conditioned to dwell on negative thoughts.  (Ever noticed how much time we spend complaining about things?  When is the last time you spent your time with friends or co-workers talking about all the great things happening in your lives?) By venting, we are encouraging it to do so, which leads us further down the path of negativity, clouds our judgment, and ultimately prevents us from taking constructive action.

So I decided to dig around to see what modern psychology has to say on the subject.  Turns out that numerous psychological studies show that, just as the wisdom traditions suggest, far from producing catharsis, venting actually aggravates the situation:

"If venting really does get anger 'out of your system,' then venting should result in a reduction of both anger and aggression. Unfortunately for catharsis theory, the results showed precisely the opposite effect," Jeffrey Lohr and colleagues wrote.

In study after study, subjects who vented anger against inanimate objects, who vented directly against the person who induced their anger, who vented hostility by playing football or who vented verbally about an employer - all showed more resentment than those who had not vented. In some experiments, venting led to aggression against innocent bystanders. Even those who firmly believed in the value of venting ended up more hostile and aggressive after thumping pillows or engaging in other expressions of anger.

"What people fail to realize is that the anger would have dissipated had they not vented. Moreover, it would have dissipated more quickly had they not vented and tried to control their anger instead," the researchers wrote. 

So what can you do that would be more productive than venting?

There are numerous practices developed over the centuries to counteract the mind's tendency toward dwelling on the negative.  These include mindfulness practices, breathing techniques, cultivating positive states of mind, or simply focusing your mind elsewhere.  Eknath Easwaran, whose meditation program I follow, for example, recommends taking a mantram walk as a way to distract your mind from its obsession du-jour.

True, these take work.  As the Buddha says in The Dhammapada:  "Hard it is to train the mind, which goes where it likes and does what it wants."  But, he continues, "a trained mind brings health and happiness."

So the next time you feel like venting about that job you hate, think again.  It seems that science and spirituality are in agreement here.  Rather than jumping to the conditioned response, step out of the situation, take a deep breath, focus on the present, say your mantram - or do whatever else it takes for you to take control of your state of mind.  Then see what you can do about the actual causes of the problem.  Your friends will be grateful and, who knows, you might just finally get off your bum and change something in your life for the better.