All Medicine is Mindful Medicine

All Medicine is Mindful Medicine

For the past few months I've been thinking a lot about why people seek out the medical treatments that they do. Today the average would-be patient has at least a dozen (if not hundreds) of potential avenues of medical care to address their ills--from the scientific medicine at hospitals, to specialty doctors, functional and integrative medical practitioners, urgent care, chiropractic, osteopathy, and seemingly endless iterations of alternative medical traditions.

While we can parse out the benefits and drawbacks of each approach, one fundamental similarity binds all medicine together: the patient feels some sort of symptom that they can't handle on their own, they seek out an expert who looks for signs of disease, and that person compares the signs and symptoms against other patient data to come up with a diagnosis.  This is the basic approach to medicine that has existed since...well...at least as far back as the earliest medical texts and probably quite a bit before then, too.  

If the first treatment doesn't work, then most patients won't just give up, but instead seek out other doctors or medical paradigms on their hunt for a cure. 

In this week's podcast I examine how the very ordinary activity of searching out solutions to your symptoms is, in reality, a very deep mindful practice--that has curative potential all on its own.  It doesn't matter if you stick only to doctors in lab coats or travel down to Peru on a spiritual journey--all medicine is at some level mindful medicine.

Check out Scott Carney Investigates anywhere you seek out find podcasts (Spotify) (iTunes) (YouTube).