For as long as i can remember, I had always wanted to be in the health care field. As a child, I was adamant that I would be a doctor. Whenever anybody asked me why, I would say it’s because I want to be able to help people. In high school, I began to carefully lay out a plan of achieving this. I chose my courses, I studied to get the great marks, and I picked my school all with the end goal of becoming a doctor.

Life is What Happens When You’re Busy Making Plans

So John Lennon says. And at 20 years old, this was a big lesson I learned.

In 1990, within a two week span, my carefully planned out life took a turn. My boyfriend at the time suddenly broke up with me and two days later, my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Up to that point, I had a 1 year plan, a 3 year plan and a 5 year plan. And these events were not in the plan! My carefully laid out plan of becoming a doctor quickly unravelled.

My mother was diagnosed with her first bout of cancer in 1990 when I was just thinking about applying for medical school. Being with her throughout treatments, I knew that becoming a doctor was not what I wanted to do. Instead, I chose to go into physiotherapy as I had a lot of experience working with adults with physical disabilities. Soon after graduating, I knew this was not the profession for me. My first job involved working with many who suffered from chronic pain. Although very inexperienced, I knew that just focusing on the physical body was not going to help these people.

I become disillusioned with my job. I found it frustrating and unfulfilling. And as it always happens when you trust and let go of trying to figure it out, I was introduced to the profession of Osteopathy. I knew immediately that this was more in line with what I believed. The main premise of Osteopathy is that the body inherently heals itself. As the osteopathic practitioner, all I had to do was figure out all the blocks to the person’s ability to heal themselves.

My Introduction To Mind Healing

When everything changed back in 1990, it was my first awareness of depression.  I cried for days, I developed anxiety, and I couldn’t sleep nor eat. I went to the university counsellor. I don’t remember what she said but I do remember the book she gave me. That book changed the trajectory of my life, although I didn’t know it at the time.

The book she gave me was called Creative Visualization, by Shakti Gawain. What that book did for me was made me realize that I could make changes within myself  to change my reality. And it introduced me to a life long love of self help, metaphysics, and seeking for something greater than us. This book led me to more readings on intuition, on wisdom, and on personal development.

What these books and teachings gave me was hope. This came from the fact that I had the ability to think what I wanted to think, feel what I wanted to feel, and thus act accordingly to get the results I wanted. With my limited references, I began to practice the techniques outlined in the book. And amazingly, my life changed within a short period of time. After about 3 months of being in a very dark place, my life blossomed and experiences unfolded to provide me with EXACTLY what I had put out there!

Yoga Gave Me More Mind Training Structure

I started yoga as everybody else does, I needed to get more flexibility. But within the first session of classes, I fell in love with what yoga was about. I couldn’t get enough of it. I read everything I could get my hands on, I did workshops, conferences, and even flew to San Francisco to work one on one with many renowned yoga teachers. My yoga studies progressed from having a very serious Ashtanga practice in my 20’s to where I craved knowing the yoga sutras or studying the Bhagavad Gita. I also dabbled in Buddhist practices and read many other spiritual teachings.

I searched for years for a yoga guru. Eventually, I found one and have been working with him for about 5 years now. Life changing!

Science Meets Wisdom

I began my osteopathic studies in 2002. I loved everything I was learning. Osteopathy involves really understanding anatomy, physiology and how everything is connected. The primary role of the therapist is to figure out what’s blocked and help the patient remove the blocks. Once the blocks are removed, then the body can optimally heal itself. This was in perfect alignment with what I had been studying in the yoga teachings and other spirituality teachings I had been following.

From what I can see, wisdom teachings states that we have two parts to each of us:  our true nature (Self) and our ego (self).  When we become identified the ego, we have sufferings. The key to living a life of peace, contentment, and no suffering is to learn to become identified with our true nature instead. Suffering can be mental, emotional and/or physical. This included physical pain which many of my patients were suffering from.

A huge premise of Osteopathy is that Health is within all of us, even if we seemingly are suffering from some physical affliction. The role of treatment is to remove any blockages to the expression of Health. And in fact, Health is Inner Peace. When we have Inner Peace, we are expressing Health.

Spiritual Teachings Became a MUST

It was 2011. I was 42 years old. I had just finished a 7 year journey, working full time as a physiotherapist, building a practice, raising children AND went back to school in Osteopathy. I graduated and thought that my life was perfect. Then my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Within 6 months, she was dead. My life began to unravel and I wasn’t even sure why.
The worse part was that I had all the tools. I had been studying and practicing yoga and Buddhism for 20 years. I was a healer, myself. But I couldn’t use any of it. I had a supportive family, friends, and colleagues. None of it helped.

Complete mid-life crisis.

I started with counselling. I was very blessed to have found a psychotherapist who studied contemporary psychology but was also was a practicing Buddhist and studied energy healing. She was also very grounded, very real, and very truthful with me. I needed that.

However, I resisted. I stuck to my story and over a course of the year, my life completely unraveled. My marriage broke up, my finances were a mess, my mental state was unstable. I even had a patient asked me very kindly if I had cancer. I definitely hit rock bottom.

The curious thing was I had all these healing tools at my disposal. I had years of training and I taught and used many of the techniques for my patients but I couldn’t get on the yoga mat, I couldn’t book myself in for any appointment other then with my therapist. And everything she suggested, I resisted. I either “forgot” what homework she had given me, or I just lied to her and told her I did it.

Regardless, the one thing I HEARD from her was this: Kathy, you have very carefully built a very nice life for yourself. You have a certain image you want to be known for and seen as and for the most part, you have done very well to achieve that. However, you are like a beautiful house…. But without a solid foundation. And that foundation comes in the form of a spiritual practice.

WHAT???

How Spiritual Teachings Help

At an extremely low point, 2014, when I was taking my daughter to University, I laid on the bathroom floor, begging, ‘help me’. And instantly, I was led to Marianne Williamson’s book, A Return to Love. I did not put that book down for a week. It was my lifeline. So of course, I had to know more. I bought A Course in Miracles, which is the original source of Marianne’s book. I thought to myself, ok, this will be my spiritual path and I will get better. I opened the book and started reading. AND absolutely did not understand a single word I was reading.

I persevered. I found teachers online. I found podcasts. And I committed to the work every single day.

Slowly, I began to build that foundation. I began to rise again. And most importantly, I am beginning to really know the true ME.

Now, I combine the teachings of A Course in Miracles with the yoga teachings. Basically, they are different paths leading to the same Truth… the truth of who I AM.

In figuring out who I am, I find Peace. I find Joy. I find Love. All the spiritual qualities that lead to Inner Peace and thus Health.

Incorporating Spiritual Teachings into My Health Care Practice

The tools of yoga, spiritual works, personal development, or osteopathic practices, are used to help the person become more connected to their true nature. In doing so, they become LESS identified with the ego. Once less identified with the ego, a person is more likely to be able to connect with their I AM. This is their Inner Peace and their Health.

Amazingly, I found that when I introduced these concepts to my patients, their ability to cope with their pain is much better, they experience less anxiety, they can do more functionally, and over time, they have hope, they have peace, and they even start to heal from their pain.

Although I may not be overt in my delivery, I truly believe that the power of healing comes from weaving spiritual and metaphysical principles into my treatment. I may not “talk” spiritual lingo with my patients, but I somehow use the tools to help them connect to their True Essence.

I don’t pretend to know how it works. What I do know, however, is that when I am connected to my True Self and see my patient’s True Self, unexplainable things happen and healing occurs.

What it comes down to is that in order for my patients to have physical healing, they must first find the Peace within themselves. And in order to do that, they need tools to help forgive, to help love, and to help connect with themselves and with those around them. When they shed their grievances, their hurts, their anger, and other ‘ego’ manifestation, they become lighter, they become Whole and they

This Blog

I truly believe that as we work on ourselves and heal, somehow, those around us also heal. I will be honest… I am not exactly sure what this blog is going to lead to. All I know is that since delving deep into my personal and spiritual development, I have a great need to share what I have learned. I also believe that working as a healer, if I can share this with those who are struggling, then I will be a messenger to those who need to connect with their own True Self to help with their healing.

This blog will be a combination of scientific knowledge, personal development, and spiritual tools to help YOU the healer help those you work with. Or it will help YOU, the person seeking, be guided to figure out what you need.

I look forward to writing more and sharing with you what works in my own health care practice, my own yoga and spiritual practice, and my own journey to connect with Peace and Health.

So thank you. Thank you for being with me.