Return To Health (Pando Health Groups)

It is so amazing that nearly everyone in our country acknowledges, celebrates, and follows the national customs of Thanksgiving holiday (ie Turkey dinner). It is great that we take time to give thanks. It just seems to me we need to do it more often, more regularly, and as part of every day. Don't get me wrong, I have not always been a grateful person. I forget way more than I'd like to admit. However, I most definitely can tell when I am focusing on gratitude as opposed to when my mind is focused on negativity of some sort. When gratitude is my focus, I am much nicer to my wife and puppies and generally much more pleasant to be around. I see with a whole different perspective; the "rose-colored glasses" are on and my energy is much more "up". I have to remind myself to be grateful. I have to catch myself resuming the negative chatter and make a conscious effort to remember my gratitude. It creates a shift. I am grateful to have a quick-acting tool to turn ...

Yesterday, I watched the 3 day walk pass by my neighborhood. They were just starting their 3 day challenge so everybody was looking good. I had 2 friends walking in it, so I went to support them. As I observed and after having read their website the night before, I reflected on the amazing power of this event. Thousands of people participate (mostly women). There is a mix of young and old, healthy and not-so healthy, men and women. The line of walkers just kept coming. I watched for over 1 hour and did not see the first walkers nor the last. The participants were organized into teams as evidenced by their outfits. Overall, there was a strong sense of comraderie and support. Cars, vans, buses, and bicycles all passed by with blaring horns, uplifting music, and cheering fans. There were fans scattered on the street cheering and just watching. This was a "happening" not just a walk. The website suggested that we think about people we have known who have died of breast cancer, w...

One of the primary forces that blocks healing is when someone becomes obsessive in their thinking. This is extremely common when illness or disability occurs. Fear and indecision can "lock"us into a very repetitive, very unproductive pattern of thinking where we basically get "stuck" on the same "groove of the record". Our mind state is then no longer free and flowing but quite limited. This is not at all a healthy state. Learning is then quite limited and getting well hindered. Insomnia often manifests and a fearful, contracted state results. Returning to health is intimately associated with breaking free of this obsessional mind state. It is very difficult to break free of this mind state when one is isolated from others which quite often accompanies illness and disability(especially in the elderly). It is here that re-connection with the world is absolutely mandatory and absolutely healing. It is through active, open conversation that one is released fr...

I have been using the word "unstuck" to describe what I want to give people in my medical practice. It is not a very medical term and I think I am confusing people more than clarifying my vision. I became enthralled with the term from a recent surf movie by Taylor Steele called "Castles in the Sky". He used the line "There once was a man who became unstuck in the world..." repeatedly throughout the movie. The movie depicted surfers going to the 4 corners of the world and finding freedom both in the waves but also more spiritually(at least in my interpretation). Ever since I saw this movie that line has stayed in my head. In my opinion, this is a primary goal of life--to become free. To be able to go beyond our limited view of reality and this life and transcend to a place where we are our own masters and free to be who we are. We are so often held back by our "programming" that came from our parents or society. To become "unstuck" to me...

I have always enjoyed the Superman introduction... "more powerful than a locomotive; faster than a speeding bullet; able to leap tall buildings in a single bound !!" While this describes the powers of Superman, to me, it also describes the power and speed of the mind-body connection. In my practice, I continue to be amazed at the amazing degree of havoc that can be wreaked when the mind is out of control and unharnessed. Last week I worked with a very kind, smart lady who was having full bowel obstruction symptoms after periods of prolonged diarrhea. The expression "feel it in the gut" captures this capacity of the body to experience mind chaos. Her scenario quickly resolved when she became aware of the tie between her mind and gut and she was able to remedy the life situation that was sending her into a tailspin. She is not alone in this situation. As a primary care doctor, every day brought in many people with other manifestations of this powerful circuit. Body p...

A friend called last week worried about her dad. He is not a hysterical person at all and he was worried he was going to die. He blamed his"darn coumadin". He was having a whole slew of symptoms including dizziness, exhaustion, general malaise, poor balance, chest pains, nausea, headache, decreased mental sharpness and the night before I met him he felt like I could die". He had seen his doctors and had his medicines adjusted because of low blood pressure and pulse. This did not make him feel better. His pulse and blood pressures which were both low(they always have run low his whole life) did NOT correlate with his negative symptoms. His labs were ok. His echocardiogram turned out ok(he had had previous heart surgery). Although his symptoms seemed like they could be heart failure, this was not the case. We talked several times over the next few days between his tests. He was convinced it was his coumadin. His doctors here and previous doctors from the Mayo Clinic told ...

I run a senior health forum in the village of Del Mar. I have always loved groups as I believe that there is a power that comes when a group of individuals come together and share life and open their hearts to each other. This definitely happened last week when we welcomed Reverend Nancy Conklin to our group. Nancy is a Unity minister and works as a hospice chaplain for San Diego Hospice. She and I became friends several years ago when she would bring a lady from her parish to my senior group at Scripps. She was part of our group for 3 years. During this time she became a hospice chaplain and has now been working for San Diego Hospice for 3 years. She is no average person. She has light that comes out of her that is so bright and so loving that anyone around her feels joy, peace and positivity. She brought her usual energy to our group and literally lit us up. Mind you, we were talking about hospice and the end of life. While this can be a heavy topic, our session was anything but heav...

I now have my own medical practice. I am open for business and eager to help people heal and get healthy. I am going to try to write about my experiences helping people as my way to help myself understand what exactly healing is and how it can be facilitated. It seems the standard medical world is excited and recharged by the amazing possibilities that are arising out of all the new technological innovations that are now here and are definitely coming soon. Smart phones seem destined to revolutionize medical delivery with the incredible things that can be accomplished with our own personal computers that we carry in our pockets or purses. Our homes stand to become mini intensive care units if that is needed and medicine will continue to expand its power outside the hospital and clinic. I am truly grateful to this new progress(which gave me a healing that literally brought me back to life) and am excited to witness the revolutionary forces that are shaping our lives. The possibilities...