I NT E L L I GE NC E O N TH E M OV E
From Medicine To Ministry COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET
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Wri t t en by Dr. S eema K ha nej a
o you ever feel like you lead a double life? There is one life which is your public personality that you share with your colleagues, in your office practice, or in the hospitals. And another, that stays hidden, because you don’t feel comfortable expressing your authentic self for fear of ridicule, shame, or being excluded from the main group. I believe that deep down, we all have a real desire to belong to something bigger than ourselves. I also believe that to truly belong means that we feel validated by this bigger community. But what if we feel that we have to hide and pretend to be something we are not to fit into the accepted mold? How can we truly thrive and express our innate potential if we don’t feel safe to be ourselves? 4 0 | A P RI L / M AY 2 0 2 0
For me, these themes of public and private persona, belonging and not belonging, played out while I was training in medical school and even during my residency. Ever since entering an accelerated medical school program at the age of 17, I felt this conflict between being a doctor of this world and being a doctor for God. A physician of medicine versus a physician for inner peace. My journey in medicine As a young medical student, and even later as a resident, I didn’t even have the vocabulary to express this inner conflict. All I knew is that I often felt sad, confused, and lonely. I had a deep calling to be of service as a doctor, but I also felt a burning desire to give up medicine completely and give myself over to a life devoted to meditation,
prayer, and spiritual exploration. To resolve this inner conflict, I studied many different complementary and alternative health modalities. I discovered that most of these healing systems addressed inner psychosocial and spiritual aspects of healing. I even traveled to India and Nepal, so I could explore yoga and meditation as well as Ayurveda. All of these experiences helped to nurture my vision of a more expansive healing system that honored the power of the mind and intention along with faith-based approaches to healing. My path eventually led me to practice integrative medicine for over a decade, where I worked with children and adults facing complex medical and mental health issues. I shared homeopathy, yoga, meditation, Ayurveda and Reiki with them. I found that in cases where the traditional
