Thank you Uncle Whitman and Robin Williams for the reminder.
They always say hindsight is 20:20, but looking back on my
motivation to return to graduate school in my 30s to study oriental medicine, I
didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't understand the heartless
for-profit nature of the healthcare industry, human nature, or what it meant to
care for the sick and the toll it takes on your own psyche over the years.
Being completely naïve about the nature of both patient care and
the health industry in general, it was a vision that was doomed to failure on a
number of levels. I didn't know that I
would be entering a field that was vastly under compensated and undervalued for
the role it plays in the our current healthcare system, or that I would spend
50% of my time wrangling with insurance companies, or writing reports to
justify a $25 payment, or dealing with patients who wanted my services but
frankly didn't want to pay for them. I hadn't known prior to becoming an
acupuncturist that a net income of $40K was considered wildly successful, but
that the $122,000 student loan burden would take about 1/4 of my take home pay.
And I didn't understand the role childhood wounding plays in the
doctor-patient relationship.
All I knew when I started the program was that I wanted to help
people naturally, and to help prevent the level of physical suffering that I
had experienced after 5 car accidents and some serious autoimmune issues of my
own.
Fast forward 13 years, and the learning continues. We cannot give from an empty place in any
capacity long term without it sucking the life out of us. While this may
not seem the same as a "soul-sucking" job in corporate America that
you hate, for most of us, Mother Theresa aside, there needs to be a way to
restore and replenish ourselves or at some point our lives will implode, either
physically or emotionally. The reasons you become a doctor (or caregiver
of any sort) are not the reasons you stay a doctor.
Personally, this came to head on a trip to Paris six years ago (finally Paris!), when I realized that while financially I had achieved an income level that was now meeting my needs adequately if not lavishly, I was more unhappy than I had ever been. The toll of working 70 hour weeks for the prior decade to finish school and begin my practice, to serve people 12 hours a day in physical, mental and emotional pain while barely earning enough to pursue my own dreams was huge. In short, I was bitter, angry and resentful of clients, and exhausted with the pressure of being "on" and positive, a health cheerleader of sorts, when inside I was living a life of quiet desperation. I was in the throes of what I now know, many years later, as care-giver burnout: something which seems to happen in every field of constant one-sided giving (clergy, teachers, social workers, parents, doctors, nurses.... the list is endless).
I had finally reached a level of professional competency in my business that I THOUGHT was the magic ingredient to happiness, and in fact had simply substituted a new set of problems for the old ones. What happens when you reach the seemingly impossible carrot, and you feel worse than before? Or worse yet, there is a new bigger carrot that I am supposed to want (home ownership for example).
Something had to change, and evidently that something was me.
This has been a long journey, and one I could not do alone. After wallowing a couple of years being pretty stuck, masking my pain, and suppressing with whatever tools were available (TV, netflix, shopping, outings, food, wine), thankfully I hit a limit. I was smart enough to enlist the aid of people smarter than myself to help get me unstuck. Change is difficult and it is infinitely easier to get support while making big changes - and since I seem to be on the short bus, it took a village (and still does): a new therapist, a couple of great acupuncturists who are soul sisters, a dog, a beloved mentor and sensei in Japan, and a small group of passionate and dedicated colleagues in the Japanese acupuncture community that have become a second family.
The last 5 years were a difficult and yet rewarding time of resetting boundaries (no easy task for a bleeding heart caregiver), raising prices, practicing forgiveness in all my affairs, travels to study with people smarter than myself, and allowing myself to be gently dismantled and reassembled. It wasn’t pretty, as my team will assure you, but I feel like we might be getting somewhere at last. We see the rewards with new patients, new skills learned in Japan, a more clear sense of " Ok this treatment is complete" (thank you, Sensei), new students who actually want what I have to teach them, and a group of medical doctors who find value in our work at the clinic and refer clients who might otherwise never seek help.
Alas, I still seem to be stuck at the crossroads of work - life balance. Perhaps my explorations of minimalism will be part of the equation.
Personally, this came to head on a trip to Paris six years ago (finally Paris!), when I realized that while financially I had achieved an income level that was now meeting my needs adequately if not lavishly, I was more unhappy than I had ever been. The toll of working 70 hour weeks for the prior decade to finish school and begin my practice, to serve people 12 hours a day in physical, mental and emotional pain while barely earning enough to pursue my own dreams was huge. In short, I was bitter, angry and resentful of clients, and exhausted with the pressure of being "on" and positive, a health cheerleader of sorts, when inside I was living a life of quiet desperation. I was in the throes of what I now know, many years later, as care-giver burnout: something which seems to happen in every field of constant one-sided giving (clergy, teachers, social workers, parents, doctors, nurses.... the list is endless).
I had finally reached a level of professional competency in my business that I THOUGHT was the magic ingredient to happiness, and in fact had simply substituted a new set of problems for the old ones. What happens when you reach the seemingly impossible carrot, and you feel worse than before? Or worse yet, there is a new bigger carrot that I am supposed to want (home ownership for example).
Something had to change, and evidently that something was me.
This has been a long journey, and one I could not do alone. After wallowing a couple of years being pretty stuck, masking my pain, and suppressing with whatever tools were available (TV, netflix, shopping, outings, food, wine), thankfully I hit a limit. I was smart enough to enlist the aid of people smarter than myself to help get me unstuck. Change is difficult and it is infinitely easier to get support while making big changes - and since I seem to be on the short bus, it took a village (and still does): a new therapist, a couple of great acupuncturists who are soul sisters, a dog, a beloved mentor and sensei in Japan, and a small group of passionate and dedicated colleagues in the Japanese acupuncture community that have become a second family.
The last 5 years were a difficult and yet rewarding time of resetting boundaries (no easy task for a bleeding heart caregiver), raising prices, practicing forgiveness in all my affairs, travels to study with people smarter than myself, and allowing myself to be gently dismantled and reassembled. It wasn’t pretty, as my team will assure you, but I feel like we might be getting somewhere at last. We see the rewards with new patients, new skills learned in Japan, a more clear sense of " Ok this treatment is complete" (thank you, Sensei), new students who actually want what I have to teach them, and a group of medical doctors who find value in our work at the clinic and refer clients who might otherwise never seek help.
Alas, I still seem to be stuck at the crossroads of work - life balance. Perhaps my explorations of minimalism will be part of the equation.
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