Change Is In The Air

An honest, open and vulnerable deep dive after six months of therapy and how it will impact this newsletter.

Welcome to The Feel Good Life! A newsletter about health, emotions and all aspects of what makes a good life. Join me, Dr. Mariana, as I explore the intersections of life and medicine, from East to West, from North to South, bringing together the best of our world and our humanness to help you discover your own feel good life.

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I’ve been sitting with this newsletter for a few days, scared to hit sent, waiting for the right time. Mostly because this one feels raw and vulnerable. Yet my heart craves for it to be shared.

So…here we go.

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately. It has made me realise a few things both about myself, my work and my writing. Some of these realisations have come as a harsh reality check, but all and all, it has felt liberating.

The thing is I’ve gone back to my home country after 14 years abroad, and as expected yet forgotten, I had a rash encounter with the past. They say nothing changes when you leave, but that can’t be entirely true. People change, you change, circumstances change. So it’s only natural that going back home and staying for longer than a month would’ve stricken some cords. Thank god for therapists!

It’s interesting how life works.

In this same period of time I started writing this newsletter, which has been an exciting writing venture in my list of projects and dreams. (Thank you all for being here! It’s now 505 of you, Wow!)

As I’ve unpacked my suitcases and also my emotional baggage, I’ve realised a few things that I want to share, mostly because they relate to who I am, what I do and how I connect both personally and professionally with the world.

In this unpacking of things and emotions, I’ve come to understand some deep and sneaky core wounds in my psyche that are extremely relevant at this point of my life. In no particular order, these are:

1. Most of my life, I’ve been scared to fully speak my brains. Speak of fear of judgment and lack of validation galore.

2. I’ve cared too much about what people think of me, which has made me feel small, weak and silent.

3. I have a deeply-rooted fear of loosing my parents, in a somehow paralysing way. I have felt for a long time like I owe them everything out of pure love, including my dreams. Even though they’ve always been incredibly loving and encouraging, a deep root has always told me I still owe them what (I think) would made them happy for me.

4. Every time I say goodbye to my loved ones after every short visit, it feels like either I’m dying or they are.

5. I don’t really know myself from a place of love, only from fear and scarcity.

6. I’ve always been scared and angry at money matters, and quite skeptical of financial flow and abundance.

7. I had always believed that nothing ever goes well, as in something bad always follows. Thankfully, this one has been quite healed so far.

8. I have recently learned concepts such as catastrophising mind, anxious attachment, affective responsibility, trauma-informed therapies and other childhood behavioural wounds - and how it all has been totally me as far as I can remember.

In short, I have learned about emotional (dys)regulation and how rewiring the brain, along with gut health and many other tools can allow me (and anyone) to start living life differently, with a renewed sense of self and life quality. Again, thank god for therapists and long may it continue.

It’s funny when I think about all these awarenesses, because I’ve been somehow on a conscious healing journey for around eight years now, and yet, I had never realised with such clarity all these important aspects of life and the mind. We are all a unique inner world impacted by everything happening inside and outside of us, whether that’s emotions, thoughts, people, experiences, health issues, you name it.

We truly are a massive sum of things since the moment we were created in our mother’s womb. A part of me never doubted this, but in reality we have never been taught emotions and interconnectedness in this way, not even in med school. It’s been my own curiosity (and need) for deep emotional understanding that has brought me to dig further, whether with my patients at work, or myself through life experiences.

My dad always says that I dig too deep (in Spanish “Hilar muy fino”), meaning I overthink and read too much into everything. The thing is I’ve never known any other way. To me, that has been the only way of understanding life and everything that matters in it. I always felt confused by it, until I understood this as more of a strength rather than a weakness.

Fast forward to today.

Here I am, journaling my way through as I integrate all this new knowledge about myself and life, rethinking how I want to do things moving forward, this newsletter included.

Since I started writing on Substack, I’ve enjoyed my way around here. However, after six months it just feels like something is still missing, like so many things are being left unsaid. Which is why, in the light of all this new info about my brain, I want to change things. Maybe as a way to dare myself, maybe as a way to give myself permission to step outside the box I’ve lived in for so long, but also as a way to improve what I do here and how I help others.

I left my day job a year ago in the midst of several life changes, being lucky enough to take a year off to focus on other things as a breather from the whole pandemic craze. Even though I do miss the patient interaction, I feel that every reader’s comment has been as rewarding and special.

And I want more of that. More emotions, more rawness, more humanity. In my life, in my work, in this newsletter.

My partner shared this image with me the other day which made me feel absolutely seen. It was the perfect reminder of everything that I am and that matters the most to me.

I want to feel more, and I want you to feel more too.

I want you to feel my words as you read them, to connect with them, to feel your own emotions touched. I want my words to make you think, wander, dream and pursue. I want you to see yourself through my writing. That’s how much words mean to me…and that’s what I feel has been left out all these months.

I have felt so many times the (self-imposed) pressure to write, write, write and create awesome educational content for everyone to learn from, followed by the freeze of not feeling good enough, prepared enough or professional enough. This has been a constant in my career and it hasn’t been fun, but I’ve now worked through those inner walls too.

At age 42, I’m learning so much about who I am, probably better than ever. And this is most likely the biggest key unlocking everything for me at this time. I’ve been in this place before but it feels somehow different. Like the thick of it is finally clicking in. I don’t want to feel the pressure to write as if my life depends on it. I just want to enjoy the process…and finally give my nervous system what it has been needing all along.

In this getting-to-know-myself-for-real journey, I’m also acknowledging all the things I ever felt too shy or restricted to talk about. Being a physician has felt like I should only be writing about health in the academic way I was taught. And this is where a huge part of my soul has felt like missing all the fun. May this come as a surprise to everyone outside my head? I don’t know. Has this restriction been in my mind alone? Totally. Now I know.

I want to start sharing these other parts of my being. The things that move me, that make me feel curious enough to go search, things that make me want to move around and learn more: languages, people’s emotions, ancient wisdom, travel, Ayurvedic medicine, other ancestral teachings of health, the intersection between science and spirituality, human psyche, behavioural patterns, neuropsychology, the brain, energy, childhood healing, science-based knowledge and also alternative ways to embrace ourselves.

There is so much beautiful knowledge in this world across endless cultures and latitudes that can’t be left ignored. And as much as I’ve explored, I’ve also held myself back from expressing my views and my learnings.

There is no absolute truth in what I want to share but simply an aim to open your mind and views as I have done with mine. Life is so much easier and far more beautiful when we open up and realise how similar we all are. Our emotions and their expression is what makes us uniquely human, and deep down we all have the same fears and desires at the end of every day.

I want to dedicate the next months to finding the Wow’s in my life as I navigate this newfound path of self expression, discovery and self-love. And I want to share those wow-moments here with you.

I want to talk health but also about life and emotions, because the body is just one part of this wonderfully complex equation that we are. And we need to start addressing the other parts too: the emotional, the spiritual, the mind, the humanness in us all.

I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t have a planned schedule for my writing right now. All I know is that I’ll continue to teach the meaningful health stuff as I’ve done so far, while bringing more of everything else I care about to complement what I’ve been doing so far. I have many ideas, I’ll start experimenting with audios, I’ll get adventurous with the paywall too. Because it all matters big time, and the more I can curate this work, the more I’ll be curating this community into a beautiful, hopeful and safe space to be in. A place for our nervous systems to thrive. Maybe the place that those parts of me needed, and now I want to welcome you all in it.

As I said before, this is the only way I’ve known how to do life: by being deep, real and open. I used to think these were negative qualities to have. Thankfully now I know it’s quite the opposite. And if this all can bring goodness to my readers, then I better start opening up my writer’s journey right now. ;)

This is what feel good really means to me. It’s a life philosophy. There are so many aspects to being human and in the end, we just want a calm, good life, whatever your terms. If something I have learned as a physician in Palliative Care and Chronic Pain units is this: life as we know it is just one journey; some things we can’t control, but everything else in our hands, let’s make it absolutely and totally worth.

Thank you dear readers for being such a vital part in this special shift happening within me. It’s important and I hope you feel inspired to do the same.

Let the feel good life begin!

See you all very soon - with lots of hot topics already in the oven. Exciting! Thanks again. :)

With love,
Newfound Dr. Mariana

PS. Thank you everyone who came forward and encouraged me to hit sent when I asked for support. You rock. Much love to all!

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Or if you prefer, you can buy me a coffee to keep me fueled as I write. Thank you!