Hello fam,
Welcome to my FIRST ever blog post!
Bear with me here.
While I do not consider myself a writer, I do consider myself a curious, introspective person with a whole lot of thoughts buzzing around my brain.
The whole point of this blog will be to voice and express my thoughts that are basically too long to fit into an Instagram post.
So onwards to this morning’s thoughts:
"What if finding your personal ‘why’ was lying right behind you just asking “why” more?”
We’ve grown up in a world where we are taught to accept things for what they are with very little value being placed on the ability to look at things for what they could be.
Who are we to question societal norms and generations of familial patterns?
This causes a curious person like myself to feel like my soul is in a constant tug of war with what is considered “okay” or “normal” in society.
Maybe that’s why I felt like a piece of my soul was dying throughout my three years of attending physical therapy school.
Throwback to three years ago #tbt:
I always thought PT school was what I was “called” to do, because it was safe, I would have security, etc. So I did it.
But throughout those 3 years, I couldn’t help but feel a massive disconnect between my personal thought processes, the way I view human rehabilitation, and the learning structure of the doctoral program.
In pursuit of a DPT, you’re taught information in order to regurgitate it, pass boards, and then move forward to practice physical therapy “safely.”
It doesn’t give you the flexibility to ask why, because why isn’t on the boards.
Fast forward three years later, I go out into my clinical rotations and I FINALLY had a little bit of freedom to be a creative clinician and ask patients (and myself) questions.
I would first ask, “what is happening here”, but more importantly I started asking: why is this happening, why is the patient feeling this way, what is their association with this dysfunction?
Even though I had more space to think creatively, I was still at the mercy of a licensed PT who had to deem my practices acceptable.
Honestly, I could feel the tension from some of the other clinicians in my rotations as they viewed my non traditional treatments as radical.
What I found was that as radical as my treatment methodologies were, my patients were not only improving physically, but mentally, and emotionally as well.
I called my mom one night after a long day in clinic and I told her I felt like someone put me in a cardboard box with the top taped shut and then cut peep holes in the side of the box and said, “go be a good PT.”
“We’re trying to create healthy fish in a poisoned river.” -Dr. Christopher Ryan
We are so paralyzed within a society that forces you to stay inside of your box and never ask “why.” We are literally taught to just accept things for what they are because they are the societal norm. In my opinion, that’s just a lazy way of living.
“The difference between holistic medicine and the traditional allopathic medicine is asking the question why.”- Dr. Kelly Brogan.
So here I am, post Physical Therapy school with absolutely ZERO desire to practice PT under the insurance system because I refuse to stop asking why at the price of a person’s wellbeing.
I literally wake up every morning and want to scream from the rooftops the potential I see in this world if we would all just started asking questions and getting curious.
I truly feel as if we are on the uprising of a shift towards healing and a greater understanding of knowledge, we just need to stop accepting things for what they are on the surface and dive deeper…get curious.
It’s super uncomfortable to have this type of personality and thought process because it feels radical, it feels rebellious…but I like it.
I embrace the f*ck out of that discomfort now a days.
It makes me feel alive and makes me feel like I’m contributing to the world in a way that is bigger than myself. My why is not to just be a good physical therapist. That’s not my calling.
I guess I’m here to tell you guys that I’m all about shaking up a radical rebellion for the optimization of humans, because I know that I’m doing it for the positive good of society.
Perhaps that is my “why,” and it all came down to me just being brave enough to continually ask why.