An untreatable diagnosis is a statement about the medical system, not the patient. If given as a statement about the patient’s condition, it puts patients at a distinct disadvantage in their healing process. It leaves little if any room for the creative process of healing to come forth from the patient. It leaves no room for alternative care systems. It is far better when a physician says “I have done all I can for you. I am, at this time, unaware of any other treatments I can offer. If you wish, I will stand by you and keep you as comfortable as I can. Perhaps someone else knows another way.”

This is what all physicians are responsible for. They cannot take responsibility for other people’s lives or their health. Physicians cannot play God. This ought to be a relief to them. Yes, physicians have the light of God within every cell of their beings. But so does every patient. Physicians are likely to have more access to healing power than any given patient at any given time. But patients have complete ability to learn to tap into their power, which also ought to be a relief to the physician.

The responsibilities we have placed upon our physicians, and that they have shouldered, are simply neither fair nor realistic. They are based on the mechanistic model. If a physician is supposed to give us a pill or do surgery to take away something separate from us that is bothering us, then he or she becomes the responsible one. It is as if we had nothing to do with it.

I read the book in one sitting – it’s that readable and captivating. And I want to share a few quotes from it that feel really fitting as I launch this site.

“Many of us confuse hope with optimism, a prevailing attitude that ‘things turn out for the best.’ But hope differs from optimism. Hope does not arise from being told to ‘think positively,’ or from hearing an overly rosy forecast. Hope, unlike optimism, is rooted in unalloyed reality. Although there is no uniform definition of hope, I found one that seemed to capture what my patients had taught me. Hope is the elevating feeling we experience when we see – in the mind’s eye – a path to a better future. Hope acknowledges the significant obstacles and deep pitfalls along that path. True hope has no room for delusion.

“Clear-eyed, hope gives us the courage to confront our circumstances and the capacity to surmount them. For all my patients, hope, true hope, has proved as important as any medication I might prescribe or any procedure I might perform. Only well into my career did I come to realize this.”

One of the core issues that has come up for me again and again on my own healing journey is the downward spiral that I’ve fallen into when I’ve been symptomatic. I’ll notice a new sensation in my body, or an old one I was never a fan of, and I’ll begin to ask myself what it means and why it’s happening…questions that can easily go down a road of negative thinking and old, not useful thought patterns about my illness. In times like these, I wished I had a CD of someone leading me into a generative state instead – where I was relaxed, calm, and confident about my body’s ability to heal. Since Devon has trained with some of the best hypnotists in the world, he happens to be an expert at that sort of thing, and this was the major inspiration for this product. The health trance we’ve created will reroute your negative thought patterns and lead you to a state that supports your system being in optimal health. I can’t wait until it’s complete so I can use it myself.

The progressive relaxation and white light meditation are essential for stress reduction, and as you may already know, stress is a major factor in flare-ups and relapses of any chronic illness. But more than that, this product will help you to redefine what health means to you. One of the ways it will do that is to charge your system up with GOOD feelings. Why? Because if you’ve got a chronic illness, you’re likely really good and really familiar with feeling bad. What we want to do is give you an equally powerful, equally familiar, equally intense experience of your body when it feels GOOD, which is the domain of white light meditation. Have you ever done this? It feels AMAZING.

I’ll be updating you on the progress of the product, but I just wanted to let you know it’s in the works and will be available soon. If you have any thoughts on what you’d like to hear or what you need, please let me know!

I am thrilled that the first piece of content I’ve posted to this site is by Devon White, founder of Phoenix and the Human Operating System, which is the most cutting-edge behavioral software program every to be released in the public sphere. Devon makes his living teaching people how to be at their best. He is incredible at what he does, though I’m not exactly objective, since he has been my partner for the last three years, both personal and professional. I was blessed to have Devon in my life when I was diagnosed with MS, and in hindsight, I am so grateful I wasn’t diagnosed before I met him, because I know I wouldn’t have had the emotional tools to handle it. Devon always calls himself a one-trick pony. With all the various people in various fields and contexts where he works, he’s always just doing one thing – leading people back to how they are when everything is ok. He helps people come home to themselves, and for me, in context of my diagnosis, that meant he was stubbornly, infuriatingly forcing my attention on KNOWING that I was going to heal. He believed it strong enough for both of us on many nights when I would wake at three a.m. gripped by fear and anxiety, wondering what the future held for me. His attention never wavered from this truth that he held for me, and he would reframe every obstacle and challenge that came up for me as part of the path to my healing. As intense as it was to have been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, it was a magical and transformative time as well. Devon was teaching me what it meant to commit to an outcome, and be unwavering in its pursuit, which is an essential ingredient if you want to heal. I don’t want to ever imagine how dark a time it would have been for me had Devon not been there to hold my hand through it.

With that said, I am absolutely thrilled to kick off the site with a seven-minute audio of Devon talking about how your illness is in fact your call to adventure. I believe it does an excellent job of setting the tone for this site, and I can’t wait to share it with you. Check it out here.