I know, I know….it’s been a couple of months since I’ve reached out to you. I’ll tell you why and hope that my experience can help you along your health journey.

Over the past 2 decades, I’ve been on a mission to help each of you find the best version of yourselves. Yes…I’ll repeat that: 

My mission is to share tips and tools to help you see you as your best self. 

I do this with everyone I meet: the cashier at the gas station, my patients, my online community, my friends, my family, and the folks I pass on the street. I do this in working on being MY best self and showing up in the world being ready to serve in whatever way that comes up.

I show up ready to give a smile, a hug, some words of encouragement, a listening ear, buying cookies for the security guards at the court house, writing a health blog for you to enjoy, and being present with my clients in my office so that I can try to align with how I can best serve them in that particular moment.

The reason I’ve been off line these past few months is, because I’ve needed to take a break from the bigger world and go deep inside to serious, much-needed self-healing. I’ve been ‘out in the world’ for so long and taking care of everyone else, that I had neglected my own heart and spirit, and their need for quiet and healing. Last year, this resulted in some serious sleep issues, anxiety and a very weak nervous system. 

I had a particularly distasteful incident on social media occur in early November that put me into a tail-spin that took me about 6 weeks to recover from. In that time, I talked A LOT, listened a lot, read and drew a lot, meditated a lot, spent a lot of time with my immediate family and close friends. I made a focused effort of conserving my energy and healing my nervous system and doing a lot of self-reflection. I’m sharing with you because I had to make some very un-popular ‘cuts’ in my life.

• This was a lot of saying ‘no’ when I wanted to say ‘yes’.
• It was taking a break from relationships that were taking me down and leaving me feeling stressed and angry.
• It was listening to my heart and noticing when it started beating too fast to tell me that something was causing instability in my life at that moment.
• It meant setting very strong boundaries for myself and becoming aware of patterns with friends and colleagues that were no longer working for me.
• It was asking my in-office clients to pay a ‘no-show’ fee if they cancel last minute or don’t show up. 

I came to terms with the fact that, any anger I experience, is because I haven’t set good boundaries for myself, and that leads to me feeling disempowered and resentful. 

I finally realized that, being a ‘nice person’ doesn’t mean that I need to be a door mat for the world. Being ‘nice’, as my friend and healer Tauz Tamu-Povi put it, is taking care of ourselves. Once we are nice to ourselves, we can decide where the surplus of ‘nice-ness’ can flow next. 

You may be reading some of the above and relate to some of them. You may be reading some of them and think that I’m being brutal. You may be reading these and cheering from the sidelines. I hope that you think that all of the above are true. 

In today’s post, I just wanted to share all of this, because I think people think I have everything completely held together. I put on a brave face when I leave my house.  In many ways I am brave and strong and put ‘together’, but, in a lot of ways, I’m always growing and trying to ‘do better’. I want to share this because, I’ve talked to hundreds of people over these past few months, and I know that everyone of us has anger, fear, hurt, shock, anxiety that we’re carrying around with us. None of us are alone on this path. I think that most people feel that they’re carrying their own ‘baggage’ around by themselves and everyone else (especially those folks on social media and the movies and television) looks like they have their lives in perfect order.

We all have our stories that have contributed to who we are. What I’d also like to share is that there are A LOT of resources available to you to help heal the multiple layers of stress and trauma that you may have experienced in your life and are still causing anxiety and fear. I’m going to share a few of those with you today. 

….and of course, I’m always here for you. If you think you’d like some time for me to go over your health concerns with you, you are welcome to set up an appointment time with me and we can work from wherever you are in the world. Just click here to set up your appointment

The above-mentioned ideas are just the tip of the iceberg as far as things that you can do for yourself. I’ll be sharing more with you over this next year. 

With love and hugs from beautiful New Mexico, where we’re grateful for all of this year’s snow,

Dr. Arjan