by Jim Berg, MD
The healing journey can be lined with confusion, frustration and despair. It can also bring us into higher levels of health and happiness. Each of us needs a strategy of healing that understands and addresses the root cause of our upset, and one that respects our particular healthy way. There are wiser and more graceful paths to healing. And there are wiser ways to utilize our doctors and hospitals. I help people to help themselves. As a medical doctor dedicated to natural healing, I offer myself as a healthcare consultant.
Gathering the wisdom of the east and west, ancient and modern, my job is to help a person understand their fundamental constitution, their illness, diagnosis and diagnostic procedures, their pills, potions, surgical options, and especially, the ways that they can nurture and strengthen themselves so as to hasten the cure. I believe that the basic disciplines and principles of a healthy way are critical to manifest preventively and during a healing crisis. Unfortunately, most people have lost sight of the fundamental principles or become undisciplined. Many place their faith in a medical system that is quick, impersonal and unempowering. Deep healing requires more than this faith, it requires vision, empowerment and skill. I help people see their path of healing and teach them the techniques that work best for them. Healing should be tailor fitted.
Thus we look to exercise and attitudes, foods, bodywork, herbs and supplements as ways to tune into health. These are my area of skill and wisdom. The lungs and heart, and liver and kidneys, nervous system and immunity, and so many aspects of our being can be tuned with skill and wisdom. Building and cleansing can complement any healing endeavor, as can balancing, insight and repair. It is usually better to negotiate with disease, before calling war on it, for war makes use of heavy artillery. And these weapons have a price. In times of trauma or as a last resort, we may need the heavy artillery like pharmaceuticals and surgery. But as a first line of defense for most health challenges, using heavy artillery can more often add to the problems. The healthcare facilities and providers today seem to have lost the art of negotiation.
Some health challenges lend themselves more to negotiation: fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, chronic pain, allergies, hypertension, PMS, depression, fatigue, anger, anxiety, aging, and stress. Yet even cancer, wounds, arthritis, infections, or other deep-set pathology can be helped by nutritive and tonifying techniques. No pill can do what movement can do, no surgery can replace foods, and no diagnostic procedure can take the place of wisdom. Each of these have their place.
I love modern medicine and understand and respect its strengths and shortcomings. I have been board certified in family practice, and I have been a Clinical Assistant Professor at Tulane University, School of Medicine, where I teach medical students about healing. I also lecture and train doctors, nurses, chiropractors, massage therapists, and other healthcare professionals in natural medicine. I have been sincerely devoted to science, oriental medicine and acupuncture, peak performance, herbal medicine, yoga, tai chi, aikido and qigong, healthy foods, meditation, and any safe techniques that help in healing. I am the founder and co-director of a healing school called the Barefoot Doctors’ Academy, School of Natural Medicine and School of Midwifery, where we teach people how to care for themselves, friends and family.
It is from this background that I practice my clinical art of medicine. I am a healing coach, personal trainer, therapist, bodyworker, herbalist, and doctor. My services aim to be kind, deep, and creative. I do care and live to share my skills.