everything is connected

One of the things that feels so limiting to me about western medicine is how often we treat the symptoms without connecting the symptoms to the context. Dr. Claudia Welch tells a story about a little fish who kept darting underneath a rock to hide. Its colors were beginning to fade, and the fish was clearly showing signs of stress. The doctors did some tests and discovered that the fish had elevated stress hormones. They gave the fish some medicine and the stress hormones came back into a normal range. The doctors celebrated because they fixed the fish, and the fish did feel a little more relaxed. Unfortunately, the doctors didn't ask the right question. Because they didn't ask why the stress hormones were elevated, or take the time to understand the root causes, the poor little fish was eaten by a shark. It turns out that the cortisol levels spiked to alert the fish to danger in its environment, and without them, the fish's inner wisdom was inhibited.

I've been sitting with this allegory for some time and thinking about how I can remove or contain the sharks in my own life. The most powerful medicine is often the simplest. Ayurveda looks at the context and asks, "What in the environment is creating the conditions for this imbalance to thrive?" For me, the answer is in the question. When I ask myself what sharks are in my waters, the answer is anything in my environment that disconnects me from my inner wisdom and from the wisdom of the natural world. When I think about solving every problem, it feels overwhelming. But when I think about connecting to the rhythm of my heart and the rhythm of nature, it seems quite simple. 

As a practitioner I am interested in the context. What are the sharks in my patients' lives? If the sharks can't be removed, how can we contain them so they are no longer a threat? What shifts are possible in the patients' environments and routines that may alleviate the root causes of the symptoms? This is deep inner work. It requires change. But even small changes affect the whole because everything is connected.

I invite you to consider what is the one most important thing you can do right now to keep the sharks at bay? You already know the answer, you just have to be brave enough to listen.