Over the past 20 years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with the physicians listed above. I’ve worked with some of them for several years at a time. I’ve worked with Dr. Dean Ornish to help fund and advance his research projects in prostate cancer and heart disease, with Dr. Mimi Guarneri to establish Integrative Medicine Centers on the East and West Coast, and with Dr. Len Wisneski to support his efforts to move the agenda of the Integrative Health Policy Consortium’s 600,000 integrative practitioners to the next level. Finally, I’ve worked with Dr. Deepak Chopra toward helping design his future in ways that can impact millions of additional people. These relationships and engagements have been both an honor and a pleasure.

As a professional in integrative medicine management, my knowledge and expertise are in the areas of conceptualization and creation of integrative medicine programs and centers. My skills are most valuable in identifying and recruiting potential professionals, tying the programs together with national networks, working with my partners to avoid pitfalls in finance and scheduling, and designing these centers to succeed.  But what these physicians have worked on throughout their careers and what these centers are about is helping us find balance in our personal lives, the balance between our egos and our consciousness.

The major challenge that we have faced in this work is that many of our potential participants are so deeply engrossed in their traditional healthcare models that the possible impact of Integrative Medicine does not always register with them.  If they cannot visualize themselves utilizing these practices, they typically cannot identify with the millions of participants who do so on an international level.

The other challenge that we face in integrative medicine is that, because we are living in an avaricious society where most days we collectively seem to have lost our balance on many levels, our primary focus has become very heavily skewed toward only material and ego rewards. We seem to have collectively moved away from our journey toward wisdom, compassion, forgiveness, patience, humility, and respect. These are the consciousness traits that are reinforced through the practice of Integrative Medicine.

Some like to use the quote that we are all spirits having a human experience which reinforces that healing depends on the mind, body, and spirit connection.   Even though we all know that Ego-based successes do not guarantee peace in anyone’s life, we continue to run on that treadmill that promises to provide us with more ego-related rewards such as money, power, and control while starving our souls of the very real consciousness nourishment that will provide us with inner peace.

We all know that the only germane question in life is if our personal journey is bringing us that peace. That is what Integrative Medicine is intended to help promote, a path to peace.  We can only find that path if we embrace the Greek words, “Gnothi Seauton,” know thyself.  This Unity Consciousness can only be found inside ourselves.

No matter if it’s God, Christ, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, or Native American consciousness, it’s a journey that we all must take for ourselves because we all know that our time here is both fleeting and temporary.  We are spiritual beings living in a human body. Integrative Medicine practices are all about finding that balance between ego and consciousness that will help us create inner peace from the outer chaos.

Many of us have heard the saying of the Buddha, “We become what we think.” We are all made of stardust, and we have vibrational connections that cannot be denied. Our universe is only one of millions and billions of stars and planets, and we also know that the path to finding happiness is deep within us.

Things and awards can’t buy us our inner love and peace!

BREATHE