Welcome to The Nettle Witch, MD

The science and magic of returning to wholeness

Healing is uncomfortable. Let’s do it together.

Welcome! I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve spent the last 15 years rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I’m an ER doctor, and I find myself immersed in the dysfunction of our healthcare system and our culture at large on a daily basis. Because of these experiences, I have a lot to say about healing. Specifically, I’ll be diving into what healing is, what healing isn’t, how healing feels, how medical training and medical practice is wounding to both providers and patients, and what my own healing journey looks like.  

First, let me be 100 percent clear that the comment above is in no way a reflection on the people who work in ERs. They work their asses off, keep cool under pressure in nearly impossible situations, and pull off miracles nearly everyday. And most of them believe in their work much more than I have come to believe in Emergency Medicine. 

The system is set up for us to fail. First, we are typically intervening on a problem years or decades too late. Second, the problems we are venturing to solve are often beyond the scope of what healthcare has the capacity to address (poverty, family systems, generational trauma, environmental health, etc.). Third, the financial aspects of the American healthcare system are so disastrous that I don’t even have to explain what is wrong with it because nearly all of us have personally experienced it. Finally, Western biomedicine has taught us that healing is simple and painless; simply pop a pill and you’re good to go. This practice leaves us numb to our own pain. We often continue to engage in practices that harm ourselves, and move from short-term fix to short-term fix, without any lasting solution in sight. 

The Western biomedical model, which is the philosophy on which American allopathic healthcare (the type of healthcare provided by someone who has an MD) is based, functions based on a series of important (and not always accurate) assumptions:

• Illness and disease are due to a specific physiologic dysfunction

• The body is a machine, and malfunctioning parts can be repaired or removed

• The mind and the body are separate

• The sources of ill health are within the individual rather than the environment

• The practice of medicine is evidence-based and applied from a neutral point of view

Both intuition and science demonstrate that these premises do not withstand much scrutiny. For example, anyone with a body can attest that how you feel emotionally has a remarkable effect on how you feel physically. Similarly, chronic pain or illness dramatically impacts your emotional well-being. Like any model, the Western biomedical model is an oversimplification. This concept works well for reducing a shoulder dislocation or replacing a heart valve. However, the model performs less accurately as the patient, the condition, the society, and the environment become more complex. Stressful events in early life change the way that genes are expressed. There is evidence in animal studies that these changes, called epigenetic changes, can persist through up to 14 generations. In humans, we can see that parental PTSD causes changes in cortisol (stress hormone) levels in infants and results in a long term change in how their bodies respond to stress. These changes can increase the risk of autoimmune diseases, cardiac disease, cancer, chronic pain, diabetes, COPD, asthma, fibromyalgia, disability, kidney disease, hepatitis or jaundice, memory impairment, stroke, arthritis, obesity, and headaches. Some suspect this is due to chronic inflammation, but the data is conflicting and the mechanisms by which this occurs are understandably complex. Changes in gene expression can also affect decision-making, emotion and memory processing. They can also increase the likelihood of post-traumatic pain, depression, impulsive violence, addiction, autism or schizophrenia. Suppressed emotions have been linked to increased risk of mortality in general, and specifically due to cancer and heart disease. As it exists now, our medical system rarely, if ever, takes stressful events in early life or at other times into account. Likewise, our interactions with our environment and our human and non-human communities are vital to health, but this is rarely accounted for in the doctor’s office. Our diets, which we know impact conditions like type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, also impact our resilience to anxiety and depression, as do our social connections and any number of other factors. In fact, loneliness and the lack of a sense of meaning in life are some of the biggest threats not only to wellbeing, but also to life expectancy. Loneliness decreases life expectancy by 15 years, about as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. In adults over 50, a sense of purpose reduces the risk of death by 15% over an eight year period. 

As I mentioned, I think the Western biomedical model serves us well in situations where a mechanistic view is clearly visible: a torn ACL, a bowel obstruction, a collapsed lung. That being said, human health is far more complicated than simply physical health. In yogic philosophy, the koshas, or layers of existence that compose a human body, provide a useful framework for thinking of the many layers of health and healing we need to address to reach wholeness:

• The physical, material body.

• The energy body, which flows in and around the body. This is fueled by breath, food, and the universal life-force. Keeping this energy flowing freely also impacts the health of the physical body. 

• The emotional body, the thinking mind and emotions, which flow in and around the energy body and physical body. Our thoughts and emotions impact the energy flow around us and thus the health of our energy and material bodies. 

• The wisdom body, which is home to our inner knowing and wisdom. When we tune into this inner knowing, we can align our thoughts, energy, and bodies with actions and experiences that serve our deepest purpose. 

• The bliss body, a state of deep inner peace and joy, in which we can sense our connection to all of creation and the sweetness of all life. 

Neglecting these other areas of the human experience leaves us incomplete as healers. That means, as we attempt to heal our patients, their healing is often incomplete, too. This would be far less of a problem if we acknowledged the limited role that Western medicine can play in overall healing. If we were better able to acknowledge that there is a limited realm of human existence which we have the capacity to address and repair, we could potentially assist people in recognizing the need to heal these other layers of themselves to become whole, or perhaps even assist in finding those who can heal energetic or emotional wounds. 

The way forward is hard work for both healers and patients, because as indigenous ethnobotanist Linda Black Elk says, “healing is uncomfortable.” Healing is much more difficult than “pop a pill and be good as new!”  It will be raw. You will cry in front of your kids, or your parents, or your colleagues, or all of the above. This path will force changes in your relationships. You will have to look at that pure little being inside of you who has been cast aside, and let them know that you’re doing the work to make it safe for them to come out. This involves recognizing how and why your inner protectors have shoved them aside. The strategies that have gotten you this far on your path will no longer serve you going forward, and you will have to let go of control and embrace uncertainty. But the rewards are a whole heart, whole life, and whole self, where you can feel that you belong rather than just fit in. 

So while you’re here, you’ll find: 

• Essays about the realities of healthcare

• My vision for the future of health and well-being inside and outside the halls of medicine

• Storytelling about my experiences in healthcare and my imaginings of the future

• Details about how plants and encounters with the wild can shape my healing journey and yours

• Discussion of how ritual can be a powerful tool for healing

• Creative writing and poetry that represents where I am in my own healing journey

If this helps you have a new conversation with your own doctor, explore a new part of your emotional landscape, or let go of control in some area of your life, I will consider this endeavor a success. Let the conjuring begin.

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