​One of my education teachers was also a gifted empath. One day she said to me, "Your heart has been broken so many times that it cannot survive another." I accepted that as truth without seeing it as the medical problem it was slowly becoming. 

Twenty years later a pandemic came our way forcing me to slow down, go within, and rethink my life. I began to pay attention to the myriad ways my body talked to me. I know our bodies talk, because I've become a professional at reading the bodies of my clients. Reading my own? Not so easy. But, we can learn anything we really want to learn. ...

Paula knows what it means to be blindly or covertly enslaved, which is why she's always been bit of a rebel with a cause. As a manual therapist, her main cause is to free her clients from bodily restrictions - and from dependence on therapists. Every client body that has been under Paula's hands has helped teach her how to get better at freeing the body. The biggest lesson learned from helping clients is that indoctrination, blame, complexity, diagnoses, and pressure are often smokescreens keeping us enslaved.
Examples of health-related enslavement:

• Therapists who pressure clients into ongoing weekly appointments;
• Believing that a diagnosis, like arthritis, means we'll suffer for life;
• Confusing complexity with truth;
• Blaming our own body as it if is working against us;
• Refusing to learn and grow beyond what we were taught or told.

To begin to break free:

• Test what was learned or heard, always seeking to improve upon it;
• Instead of blaming our body, let us accept that it is here to serve us and wants to be healthy;
• Remember that complexity is always founded on simple, universal laws like cause-and-effect;
• See diagnosis as a means of communication, not a reason to stop seeking to better the situation;
• Relentless pressure may someday manifest a diamond, but not all pressure is healthy or sustainable.

To be free take right action:

• Seek out those who care about setting people free not creating dependency;
• Be an attentive listener;
• Believe yet still seek evidence;
• Respond appropriate to the situation and your core values;
• Do your best, admit your mistakes (even laugh if you can), and never give up on yourself.

To be free be brave.
Health problems can be scary, but they don't have to be if you see your own body as the truthful servant it is, asking for your help. Over time, these efforts build trust in self and the ability to help one's self, while reducing dependence on others. Let us be free.

​Those who truly know me would never accuse me of being narcissistic. And yet, … I have had my moments. 

When I felt alone in the pain of extreme unfairness, I let myself be guided by well-meaning others into blaming my primary caregivers. But when I learned that I was not only alone, but in vast company, I let go of blame and started seeking understanding through the sometimes harsh light of truth. 

When I found myself unemployed along with millions of others at the start of this pandemic, I started to act like an entitled victim when I couldn’t get a job despite being broadly and highly competent. Yet I knew it was inappropriate to lay blame even as I did so.

We all have moments where we slip and fall and don’t react like an accountable adult. Yet there are those who spend their lives feeling special and entitled while bitterly blaming others for all that has been denied them. 

Whether we are immature adults part-time or full-time, each and every one of us is responsible for elevating ourselves into maturity. Our world is in great need of every adult doing their part.

I can think of no better spokesperson for self-maturity than Dr. Ramani, who manages to balance truth with vulnerability and courage in a way that can potentially move the mountain that is the suffering we have, all of us, brought upon ourselves. Life is challenging enough, let us not add unnecessary suffering to it.

Let us be good-natured and steadfast in the face of unfairness and adversity for it is the only path to freedom for one and all.

I am wind.
My wind cleanses.
My wind refreshes.
My wind topples the weak.
Wind despises stagnation.
Wind is not loud nor visible. 
Wind is not judgmental but responsive.
I am wind.