Physician Healer

Issue 1 Just Start Somewhere

For the past week, I’ve been excited thinking about what to write as my first post. I wanted to share my personal experiences so that if my stories resonated with other people who may be struggling, these would in some way offer a light to inspire their paths. I had so many ideas, so much to say and now, as I am carefully crafting my words, I’m nervous and thinking, “Should I just dive in and share a little background about myself? Or, I could talk about my purpose and motivation to write a newsletter. What kind of topics should I write about?” I’ll begin by sharing what I do.

I am currently an integrative physician. I was classically trained in traditional internal medicine in Philadelphia, PA, and over the last 5 years, successfully merged Eastern healing techniques using acupressure points and meditative methods to facilitate improvement and in many cases, complete cures of chronic symptoms. The majority of my patients shared with me that their previous doctors prescribed one drug after another without listening to their story and that after several failed attempts at medications, testing and surgeries, they would dismiss them as untreatable or difficult and were told to live with it.

I became their friend, doctor, healer, spiritual leader, and life coach. At the same time, I feared losing the patients who had been with me for a long time and only knew me to be a physician in the traditional sense of the word.
Perhaps this fear stemmed from my lack of validation and approval from my parents since college. Eventually as it turned out, I ended up having to do a lot of soul searching deeply immersed in new learning in my quest for personal growth. I reached a point where having patients tell me that my mind-body-spirit holistic ways did not make me a real doctor anymore no longer bothered me.

Whatever I learned each day, each week about becoming and remaining resilient, I’d teach my patients and continue to do that now. Sometimes I learn from podcasts and reading articles and at other times my insight comes from meditation. And so, much of my added joys come from teaching meditation and relaxation techniques in my meditation clinics on the weekends, which were suspended temporarily due to COVID.

I discovered that teaching patients to evolve as people, to become the best versions of themselves returned them to the captain’s chair of their bodies and empowered them to completely heal themselves in ways beyond what I had only imagined. This not only changed their views about themselves, but also their relationship dynamics with their circle of family and friends.

Despite an initial strong underlying fear of public disapproval when I first started incorporating Eastern healing methods, I stood my ground. I had been authentic this whole time. For the first time in years I was actually helping people and seeing results. Even though telling the world I was a healer risked opening myself up to ridicule with mainstream healthcare providers, I still did it. Like words on paper, I have to just flow. There’s no wrong or right way. It’s just one way—my way. Just as putting my thoughts out for everyone to read makes me vulnerable to judgment, so does practicing medicine outside the box.

My ultimate goal is that maybe knowing a bit about me can give the reader courage and inspiration to move forward no matter the situation. They say that people can only see in you what they see in themselves. And by the same token, however you’ve changed you will also attract those who see the way you are now. The people around us act as our mirrors. This concept took me a long time to realize and understand. I had to become non-traditional, ergo, learn to be more consciously aware. Much of my traditional behavior and sense had to do with my parents—my dad was from China, my mom, Hong Kong.

Growing up as first-generation was a challenge. My brother and I learned early in life that our job was to make our parents proud and to avoid shaming them at all costs. I remember our get-togethers with uncles, aunts, and cousins were nothing more than opportunities to one up on each other, whether it be school grades or how well we played the piano. This went on well into my college years at U.C. Davis when I’d come home during the breaks. If you’ve ever watched “The Joy Luck Club,” that’s the kind of family in which I grew up.

College was scary and eye-opening at the same time. I was really homesick and struggled the first year. Then, during the second year, for the first time, I started to enjoy my freedom and independence, and that I had my own ideas of right and wrong. I could make decisions and be ok with the consequences. But, these sentiments were not shared by my parents. They simply felt all of my decisions were wrong. Then, summer came and I remember one night my dad awakened me in the night because he had something important to tell me. We went into the garage and sat inside the car so that we would not disturb my mom with our voices.

My dad began saying, “Your mom and I sent you to college to learn to be a better person. But, you didn’t change for the better; you changed for the worse. We are very disappointed. Where is that good girl you were before? You need to bring her back.” On one hand, I was angry that instead of praising, he was criticizing me; on the other hand, I felt a heavy wave of disappointment that he didn’t notice how much I had finally grown up. I thought they’d be proud of me. Maybe I just wasn’t good enough. I just have to try harder to be better. Well, telling them I was dating didn’t help matters either.

Fast forward after college, I returned home and found a job working in a lab at a local hospital. I had applied to med school earlier that year and although I secured 3 interviews, I was turned down. In looking back, it was good I didn’t get accepted. In fact, I have come to realize that life’s seemingly abundance of disappointments is really just a series of lessons only realized in hindsight. As soon as I had saved up enough to afford the first and last month’s rent, I moved out of my parents’ house. As much as I’d like to say that they successfully broke up my 5-year relationship with my boyfriend, I realize now that I chose to allow it. However, it’s water under the bridge and I’m simply proud I am not that person anymore. I continued to work until I got into a pre-med graduate program and subsequently moved to Philadelphia where I completed my medical school education and training. My parents, by the way, pulled all their financial support one day because my then fiancé also decided to move to Philly with me. They disapproved of our relationship and felt that a woman going to med school should be single. They also thought that without their financial assistance, I would not be able to continue school, return home and terminate the relationship. I applied for and secured student loans for my tuition and my fiancé worked in research to cover the living expenses.

The year before I graduated med school, we decided to get married. And, in the same year, my parents announced that unless my diploma had the family’s last name or a hyphenated family name with my married name, they would boycott my graduation. Seriously? I couldn’t believe it. I tried reasoning with them that I was the same person regardless of what name was on the diploma. For the remainder of the year, I begged and cajoled to no avail. This was going to be our big day, a day most parents would be proud. They refused to budge. At one point I wrestled with the possibility that perhaps I could change the name to appease them even though that was not what I wanted.

Then, during my session with the school counselor, she asked me, “If you gave in this time, do you really think this would end or do you believe this will go on?” The fact is the choice I made was important to me, and they didn’t care. These people were not strangers; they were my parents who have said all my life how much they loved me and yet they were willing to miss my graduation because of a name. They didn’t speak to me for years.

So, graduation day came, and it seemed as though everyone’s family arrived for the ceremony, pictures and celebration. Many of my classmates asked why my parents and brother didn’t show. I merely told them all the truth about the case of the name on the diploma. No one really understood why. Hell, I didn’t even understand, not that day nor months after. It wasn’t until many years later, 5 years ago to be exact, that I awakened and received an inner calling to go on a journey to become more consciously aware; and, only in the last several months did I fully understand and forgave my parents. I forgave them for me. For years, I had carried the burden and guilt of believing that I was a “bad” and ungrateful daughter who disrespected her parents after they worked so hard to raise and sacrificed for us. I released all of it, my hurt, my anger, and my disappointment in them. I was finally free.

I was no longer a victim. There was no one to blame. I learned that we get to choose what we decide and however others, including your family and friends, react is all on them. This lesson was not realized overnight. Everyday is an ongoing journey of self-discovery. You rise, you fall, you rise again. You remember that there is no such thing as failure unless you don’t get up. In the years after my med school graduation, the struggles continued with different people, different places, different circumstances, but at the end it all comes down to one thing, knowing what you want, what you really want in life, to strive for it and to believe you deserve it. And, people will do what they do, try to blame you as the reason it didn’t turn out and none of that would have had anything to do with you.

If there is anything that I learned over the years is that things are how they are, and things become how they will become. Our job is to accept “what is” and to be ourselves. We don’t actually control much in our lives except to decide if we are grateful at every present moment in all that we are and all that we have. I’ve realized that things aren’t good or bad. Those are our own judgment calls, our attempts to label things to give us the illusion that we control anything.

And, it is that illusion of control that gets us in trouble. Whenever we have expectations, whenever we judge and think we can control other people, even the future, we run the risk of disappointment and regret. The biggest mistake many of us make is believing that what others say about us is true. Trust me when I remind you that no one knows you better than you. Reflect on that.

Ideas I have for upcoming newsletters: I plan to share with my readers actual case studies on my patients while keeping their identities confidential, of course. Also, I thought I’d write about how exactly I learned and introduced Eastern healing techniques (Meridian Access Therapy) and what I did to promote it. This idea was prompted by a question I was asked by a traditional pediatrician who has extensive knowledge of Ayurveda/holistic medicine, as well as yoga. In truth, my most successful patient sessions are those in which I share the various things I do for my personal growth, happiness, and wellbeing, such as journaling, installing new habits, and structuring a specific mindset to be a game changer and to always dance around the comfort zone.

Thanks for reading. Let me know if you have questions. Until next time, always remember to play your A game.

Celeste Amaya, MD