Be Courageous

"I remember a time when I was about to go into my postdoctoral studies at UCLA. I had just finished my graduate work at UC San Diego, and I was about to present my work on energy healing to a very well-known society in psychoneuroimmunology. I was actually receiving an award for the research. So as I was presenting it, one of my then up-and-coming mentors at UCLA, who was a very, very well-known researcher, took me aside and he said, what are you doing, you have to stop. People are not ready for what you're saying, and you're going to ruin your career. And that was a real turning point for me because I came into a realization of my purpose at that moment. And I asked myself, well, this is curious, what is my purpose. Is my purpose to have a thriving academic career and be lauded and keep receiving these awards from society, and do the safe thing and study what people are comfortable with, or is it really to deeply explore the nature of our healing process and the truth of it, no matter whether it feels uncomfortable for people or not, to explore the bounds of consciousness and its effects on healing. So at that moment, I really felt like I came into my purpose. I did do the postdoc at UCLA, and I still kept on the path of studying healing, including the biofield and the energetic aspects of it. So I never left it. But sometimes we come to those choice points where we realize what's my purpose and what isn't my purpose. For me, my purpose was not to be an academic. It was to be a true scientist, a true seeker."