Quest for Self-Alignment

Dr. Meredith Sagan is a UCLA Semel Institute-trained holistic psychiatrist, holds a Masters in International Public Health, has a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry, and is an expert in treating trauma and addiction through movement and body-based therapy methods. Connect with Meredith at https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/meredith-sagan-md-mph-b14552ab/

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From age 5, I knew I wanted to be a doctor. But in medical school, I almost walked right off this path that was my true calling.

When I got to medical school, I believed I would learn the art of healing, the central concept of which is the elevation of the doctor-patient relationship. What I found was disconnection, and what I needed was connection.

Fortunately, times have changed. Today I see patient care encouraged and taught in a way that I was not exposed to in my younger days. Back then, the paradigm was that, as doctors, we weren’t supposed to feel. We were supposed to be different (read, “better”) than everyone else.

Personal growth was not a topic, except in the sense of getting ahead of your peers to stand alone at the top of the class. Everything around me was rooted in competition and lacking in human connection. Relationships between students, teachers, and patients were cold. Sterile. “Clinical.”

Case in point: One time when I sought to connect with a patient (my raison d’etre as a doctor), the attending physician froze me out. “Get out of your feelings and just do the job,” he instructed.

In a flash, I saw ahead into a bleak future: health without healing, science without art, doctor without patient. Was this what I was here to do? This vision stirred up feelings of despair and sent me reeling on a decades-long search for something deeper: the authentic human connection underlying true healing.

Needless to say, medical school was not helping me stay connected with myself. In fact, I was becoming ever more disconnected as time went on. I felt myself losing my individuality and passion for medicine within the medical system’s rigid, cut-throat structure. As I learned how to think, act, and speak like a “typical doctor,” I found myself drifting further and further out of alignment with myself.

But, ever the good student and top performer, I persisted. On some level, I still wanted to be there - after all, I wanted to be a doctor so that I could one day be in that position professionally, to help people heal.

Over the years my feelings were beaten down to the point where I was living an anesthetized, zombielike existence. Midway through medical school, I hit a low point when I simply couldn’t get out of bed. I was depressed. I felt like my soul purpose was not being met in the only place I thought I could find what I needed.

Under the weight of my depression, I managed to drag myself to the clinic. I was given a medication and I experienced first hand the effect of prescription drugs as they dramatically shifted my brain chemistry.

That was a life-changing moment. I gained powerful insight into the healing potential of balanced brain chemistry and alignment with one’s core self. At the same time, I knew that medication was not the lasting cure. I had to find a way to heal myself from the inside out. From that point forward, I vowed to learn how to live in alignment with my inner self and continue to learn and grow, despite the fact that I was in a system that did not support my way of thinking and being.

With that boost, I was able to get myself together enough to realize that I needed to step away from this sterile environment that was breaking my soul and indoctrinating me into a mold I didn’t feel connected to. Although the system was working for some people, it was not working for me. Therefore, I decided to pursue a Masters in International Public Health in order to travel the world between my second and third year of medical school in order to play a more active role in seeking the education that I personally, desperately needed.

Taking that chance was a deeply refreshing, healing, reaffirming move that set the tone for the rest of my career and personal life (and continues to shape me and my work today). Having finally landed in my true direction, I was unstoppable in my quest for knowledge.

That being said, by the time I was 21 years old, I already had done my first 10-day Zen meditation retreat at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA. I started eating raw foods in 1992 (far before this was popular - you can imagine the weird reactions my peers gave me!) I did a self study course with spiritual masters and healers from all over the world (from shamans in Senegal, to yoga masters in India, to healers in Peru, Siberia, and beyond). I studied Eckhart Tolle’s work at its inception and learned about the power of the present moment.

Over the course of my journey, it steadily became clearer that I wasn’t studying inner alignment just for myself, but as a tool to serve and empower others. Every time I was exposed to something new, I explored it fully and found ways to integrate it into my healing practice as a doctor. (Even to this day, I continue to learn and incorporate innovative approaches to health and wellness in my practice.)

I eventually landed at UCLA to study intuition in my field of psychiatry with the pioneering researcher and leader in the field, Judith Orloff. In the late 90s I helped to develop the early seeds of what is now the Mindfulness Awareness Research Center (MARC). In 2001, as a UCLA resident, I was permitted to go to India for six months where I studied the use of yoga therapy in the treatment of anxiety disorders.

My quest for self-alignment has taken me around the world many times over in search of the best teachings on how to not only keep myself alive in the medical system as it existed, but how to thrive in it and create new pathways to healing that had not yet been introduced to my field. By ever deepening my ability to drop into a state of inner alignment as I am with myself and my patients, I have developed a career for myself that I love and find deeply fulfilling.

Today, I understand that there is no vehicle for healing if I am disconnected from myself and my original purpose, because healing moves through me to my patient. I now remember in every moment that I am a doctor because I love and care about people.

Looking back, I realize that my breaking point was actually my greatest opportunity to learn and grow in my true direction. That moment allowed me to uncover my life’s true path. I learned that in order to heal, I needed to connect with myself and others - as a doctor, and as a human in all of my relationships. Now I teach my patients the same thing: how to get better through the healing power of connection with self and others.

If there’s a moral to my story, it is this: We all thrive best when we have an authentic, healthy relationship with ourselves. From there, we can be healthy in our relationships with others so that we may lead vibrant, fulfilling, purpose-driven lives.

It took me years to learn this lesson, but I will never forget it… because now I know this is what I live my life for.