Return To Health (Pando Health Groups)

Our goal at Pando is to guide people to make an internal shift so that they may become more powerful, healthier and happier. This is the  key to overcoming or mastering chronic illness or stress-related challenges. The Pando Method® (communication, meditation and restorative exercise) is the path to this transformation but what does this internal shift look and feel like? I think this is beautifully captured in the following passage by Rick Hansen, Buddhist psychologist and author: What would make a difference inside you? The Practice   Grow inner strengths. Why? I've hiked a lot and have often had to depend on what was in my pack.  Inner strengths  are the supplies you've got in your pack as you make your way down the twisting and often hard road of life. They include a positive mood, common sense, integrity, inner peace, determination, and a warm heart. Researchers have identified other strengths as well, such as self-compassion, secu...

While we at Pando are creating and delivering our very best services, we are also enlisting the creations of our trusted friends. We have engaged some our favorite healers to deliver their own lifelong visions of group programs designed to transform and heal people from the inside-out. The following programs all begin in September and are powerful paths to healing: The Presence Process: Awakening to a More Authentic You  with Mimi Miller LAc and Chess Edwards Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction  with Steve Alper LCSW Redefining Self after Brain Injury  with Tracy Teregis MS and Don Chartrand Restorative  Movement for Graceful Aging with Laura Ann Wolfe (Certified Movement Therapist) This program combines dance and gentle movement together in a fun, innovative and gentle style which promotes ease and grace for people wishing to re-find their fluidity and flow. Laura Ann has provided this program for people with Parkinson's Disease and other neurologic d...

Pando Health Groups is progressing with enthusiasm and excitement. While our team (myself, Nurse Kim Chartrand, Movement Master Sebastian Slovin and Director Of Client Experience Terry Dadkah) are new to the world of private practice, we have developed a product that I am extremely proud to share with the San Diego community. We call ourselves Medicine(+) because we offer both really strong, efficient and quality medical care PLUS a wide variety of supplemental classes and programs that expand the limiting walls of traditional medicine to a much broader and holistic path to true health. We are now offering Medicare Yearly Physicals with our expanded view of prevention and guide to well-being. This is NOT at all a quick, superficial check-up; it is a comprehensive history and physical with the goal of clarifying each clients' goals and desires for their future health and plans for care as they age. It can include guidance on posture and movement along with a focus on emotional...

With acute illness, we know the goal: cure and resolution. With chronic illness, the goal is less clear. Sometimes we can get cure and complete healing, but much more often, the goal is feeling better or having less intense suffering or warding off future problems. The very critical question is: how do we get there? This is where the Pando Method is SO applicable. The Pando Method works independent of the diagnosis. Whether it is diabetes, high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, cancer, chronic pain or autoimmune disease does not matter. The Pando Method (Communication, Meditation and Restorative Exercise) creates a different internal state regardless of the age, diagnosis or physical condition. The Pando Method is an age-old recipe for healthier living. It works on the inside of the individual so it is a hard concept to measure, quantitate or even converse about. What happens when you can communicate your inner world more clearly, have a quieter or less reactive mind...

Why have we chosen the 3 components of the Pando Method? Is there magic or something special about these activities which we encourage as a way of life? Yes; there is a synergistic power that evolves out of transcending our natural states and investigating and boldly entering a new space that takes us out of our ingrained, habitual patterns. (1) SPEAKING YOUR TRUTH while LISTENING AND HEARING THE TRUTHS OF OTHERS with a non-judgmental heart (2) RESTORATIVE EXERCISE (3) CENTER POINT REST (Meditation) These 3 simple and basic activities create a core center of quiet, equanimity and strength that will serve their practicer in all aspects of their life and with all aspects of health (mental, physical and spiritual). These 3 "tank-filling" practices open a space for new and creative thinking, a rejuvenated body and allow for re-connection with the roots of being. Connecting with our fellow human-beings in a real and genuine way is the least talked about but, in m...

"What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: Our life is the creation of our mind. Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts. But once mastered, no one can help you as much." Buddha (568-488 B.C.)

Today, I went to a funeral of a long time friend and my former secretary of 8 years in the 90's. She passed away of unknown causes and quite suddenly. Her family is all reeling more than a bit as she was such a pillar of strength, wisdom and love combined beautifully all into one. I loved Kay deeply. She had an amazing work capacity although she never seemed taxed or stressed. She put everyone at ease in the most loving of ways. She was kind to all of our patients, supportive to all the staff where we worked and incredibly tolerant of me and my moods. At the funeral today, I saw her two beautiful boys (Tommy and Shane) who I had not seen since they were boys finishing school and beginning their work lives. They are now grown up, married and with 2 beautiful children each. I also saw her loving, devoted husband Henry who, as usual was warm, kind and full of life despite the obvious painful wound he was carrying with Kay's mysterious exit from our world. There were many other...

On my reference list from last week, I included 3 books about dealing with pain. Nortin Hadler MD in Stabbed in the Back and John Sarno MD in  Healing Back Pain tread where the medical world has feared to go for the past century. They leave the standard medical approach to back pain (or any pain) behind and propose new perspectives. These books and their authors are bold and honest and real. Back pain is the most over x-rayed, over "surgerized" and over medicated entity in medicine and the path through rarely is found in the way we deal with it in standard medicine. Enter alternative/complementary medicine in the form of massage, chiropractic care, acupuncture, herbs for pain and inflammation; these approaches have been embraced for the last 2 decades and offer a whole new avenue to pursue. It has never been clear who gets better, why they get better if they do or the role of these modalities in prevention. While I favor these approaches to standard medicine, it is more t...

"One cannot live in this world without the support of others".    Okinawan proverb Last week, I published my reference list of articles and books that have had the greatest influence on me and the development of our Pando Method®. So what is it about these select works that sparked my fancy and interest and made such a profound impact on my life and thinking? I believe the common thread is that each reference outlines a path to individual empowerment as opposed to giving the power to someone else. Modern medicine's foundation is the doctor's power and expertise and patients being helped by the gifts of their healer -- medicines, surgeries, technology. This is great and we as a society are blessed to have at our disposal such a vast array of healing interventions. However, what distinguishes the references on my list from classic medical literature is the power is given back to the individual to heal themselves. Dean Ornish, the Okinawa Program and the Blue Z...

The yearly physical has been an integral part of outpatient medicine for the last three quarters of a century. Some argue it is a waste; some love it for the reassurance it gives. There really is not a consensus on this staple of American medicine. I would argue that its benefit is unclear because it is NOT really used the right way. The yearly physical is designed to detect "hidden" disease such as breast or colon cancer or laboratory abnormalities that are indicative of sickness. These are worthwhile goals, of course, and I am not attempting to debate the benefit of screening and prevention. The issue in my mind as we as a nation are trying to go forward and make health care better is: Can we make the yearly physical an opportunity to improve the quality  of life? I believe we can. I believe there are assessments we can do and improvements we can implement which can influence lives for the better. The monitoring of posture and movement and the evaluation and actua...

My favorite of our holistic health classes is "Ask the Doc". I get to be the "Doc" and this is the venue and format I like best of all my experiences in medicine. In addition, I am supported by my wise and intuitive nurse Kim and our master bodyworker Sebastian. Our approach is integrative and connecting. There is so much to know and even more to experience in any individual's road through illness and injury back to health and well-being. Regardless of the details of the condition, it is the interface of the health challenge with the life and experience of the person that brings the entire dynamic to life. And yes, it has a life! That life is loaded with thoughts, feelings, behaviors and reactions. Here is where the magic happens. In the standard medical visit, this dynamic is played down and the illness or injury is played up. For example, you have heart disease and here is what we do for heart disease. The experiencer and his or her experience are minimi...

                                              References Supporting the Pando Method Communication and Connection and Mixed Modality Programs for Healing Illness             Love & Survival by Dean Ornish, M.D.             Reversing Heart Disease by Dean Ornish MD             Recent Study on Tai Chi, Xi Gong, Meditation, and Social Connection Preventing and Reversing Dementia             Healing Back Pain by John Sarno MD             Stabbed in the Back: Confronting Back Pain in an Overtreated Society         ...