I recently spent five days in the hospital…and then sat around doing practically nothing for weeks.

It was an unexpected, emergency surgery, and I was required to rest for six weeks before I could lift, push, or perform my job as a chiropractor or yoga teacher.

As a doctor, I want to share my reflections on healing for anyone going through a personal healing journey and those who may also be in a supporting role. I hope these tips reach someone struggling with pain, recovery, or living with physical discomfort.

Here’s what I’ve learned about healing while being a patient, a doctor, and a human.

1. Family and friends are medicine. My son flew from Vermont to help me. His face, his smile, his reassurance gave me hope and courage. There is nothing like the power of love.

2. Good thoughts are uplifting. Being thought of by others brings you out of the lonely places. I received flowers and texts with heart emojis, and realized how much reaching out matters.

3. There are those who are doers. Let them do. They make soup, they clean your house, they bring your underwear to the hospital, they take care of the dogs, and they hold things together you didn’t even know needed tended. There are also those who let you sleep, guard you, check in, and remind you that you are okay and should go back to bed.

4. There are those who love and hug, touch and tuck you in. I was grateful for every nurse and doctor who straightened my messy bed and touched my toes as they left. There are people in many roles who added to my recovery simply by being good at their jobs and caring. Presence comes in many forms, and touch can be reassuring during a hospital stay.

5. Healing is as much mental as it is physical. Pain, medication, fear, and the unknown all put your body in fight or flight. We can’t heal under the influence of the stress response. Heck, I’m a yoga teacher who knows how to meditate and breathe but I didn’t do it well when I needed it most. Thanks to YouTube, I was able to watch two or three meditation recordings a day to settle my worries, turn on my healing systems, get back to my emotional and heart center, and do the work of emotional healing for wholeness.

Meditation helped relieve me of the guilt I felt for what felt like endless rest. Mentally, I knew I needed sleep to repair my body but time off of work and not tending to my usual life requirements disrupted my mind.

6. Self-advocacy is the long game of health and recovery. Realistic expectations are anyone’s best guess. Physicians, me included, can only do so much. People have weird anatomy, old injuries, systemic inflammation, and other problems.

I must believe my doctor did all he could to fix me, and then I must take the personal responsibility of much of the other “stuff.” That other stuff being lifelong rehab and self-care. I’ve always believed chiropractic care is as much injury care as it is maintenance and self-care, but I was reminded to re-commit to my rehab and self-care routines.

7. We need hope and encouragement. You can’t focus on the what ifs. Whether it comes from others or you muster it yourself, you’ve got to believe there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The little wins matter more during hard times. As a doctor, I have a renewed belief in the power of baby steps.

8. A pause is compassion. On the worst day, I was afraid of dying and yet I couldn’t cry. Years of being strong built a dam that was only penetrated by kindness and compassion. Tears would provide relief, but only if could shed them.

Compassion looks like stopping whatever you are doing, focusing on the person having a rough moment, waiting for them, and then offering reassurance. At one point, two nurses were stuffing a tube up my nose and down my throat and I was gagging and bleeding and begging them to stop. They were trying to help me—I understood that—but I just needed a minute to settle down.

A pause is compassion. A touch on the shoulder is compassion. A thoughtful decision when you can’t make one is not pressure—it is patience. Allowing a moment, transferring your confidence to a vulnerable patient or person, is not a moment wasted. For me, I noticed the pauses were powerful; a deep breath, a reassuring touch, a hug, a shoulder squeeze are what I needed to relieve my worry, ease my fears, and muster just a little more courage.

9. Healing takes time. This is a hard one. We can influence a timeframe but, in the end, things take as long as they take. Bones take about 6-8 weeks, muscles can take 3-12 weeks, and tissues have timeframes and must go through all of the phases of repair. By understanding and having realistic expectations, I believe I can influence my healing by doing what I know to reduce inflammation, increase strength and stamina, and give my body the best chance at repair.

My mind struggles with denial and acceptance to understand what I can’t see on the inside. It’s easier when you can actually see a bruise fading or an X-ray with a healed fracture or a scar forming over a cut. It’s harder to not see. If an MRI or CT is the only way to know, and there are limitations in cost and quality, we are left with trusting what we cannot see.

We must trust time to heal. We all have a different relationship with time and whether there is or isn’t enough of it. If I want healing, I must respect its agenda, not mine—a hard but necessary pill to swallow. I am reminded not only for myself but for my patients who ask me for a quick fix or question their own longstanding problems. Again, this is the long game.

10. Focus on acceptance and gratitude. Our bodies have problems, and many of them are silent or in process. Despite healthy lifestyles or practices, we are who we are and are dealt our own set of cards, both physically and just in life. Learning to work with what we have going on rather than pushing through is a life skill.

Healing offers layers of growth opportunities, and although not necessarily fun, we can learn a lot about ourselves and others in the process rather than resist or hate it. Gratitude flows, whereas resistance stagnates. Better is still better. Focus on someone or something you appreciate to get the attitude of gratitude moving in the right direction.

I hope these tips help you along your own healing journey or feel free to share with someone you know who could use encouragement or perspective.

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