So where has Dr. Kim been for a little over a year? To be honest, trying to do my best at being minimal. I was realizing that while I was conducting business and learning how to grow my practice, I was not able to thrive my own life as well as practice what I was preaching. So I decided to stop blogging and making videos. It was taking enough of my time that I was starting to notice an issue with my time management and recovery.
So what did I do instead? I intentionally did less. Took less patients, worked less hours, and made a plan that would allow me more free time and better time management. From working pretty much 7 days a week to 4 days week. From 90 hours a week down to 35 hours. While still growing my business and practice. No rate changes, but income some how grew, by drastically cutting back my time, my practice started to grow more. So I asked myself this question, “Why is it that when I do the opposite of what the world says I should do, does my business begin to grow?”
Now, this is an odd thing, all my life I was told that I had to work hard, and work sleepless nights, and then I would have a successful business. I still remember my own father telling me that if I am sleeping well at night than I must not be doing well at making money. I know what my father was trying to tell me, but somewhere deep inside I knew that money really is not really a big deal to me. Sure, having more money would be helpful, but that’s just it, it’s a tool that could make my life easier. Yet, the tool itself if wasted and used for things that distract or take us away from the things that we are truly passionate about, no longer serves it’s purpose; At least for me it didn’t. More money never made things easier, nor did I like what I was becoming for the sake of making more money. My purpose and goals for my practice were very quickly shifting to something unrecognizable to me. Now, of the person who’s life goal is money, this whole things changes right. Yet, these are the folks that know that money is the tool and they enjoy working with that tool and maximizing it’s potential. For me and my own passions, money is not the tool that helps me. I still need money, who doesn’t, but it’s not a priority, simply a hammer that fulfill a specific need to my own personal goals.
With money out of the picture and playing a predominately side line role, what have I done to help grow my business while being minimal? I worked on getting better at what I do and can offer. Nothing really profound, nothing really supernatural, I simply prayed, meditated, focused on improving myself, my awareness, and the skills that are currently a part of my life.
Improving Myself
While working as an Acupuncture Physician, I give out a healthy does of advice on health and well being, so as to help bring insight to my patients lives. The level of awareness that I hope to reveal for my patients is what helps me as a Physician to treat and diagnose correctly. Yet, as with many aspects of life, hidden truths maybe great, but truths that are revealed in the light can be more effective. So, I needed to heed my own advice I was giving, and start working on myself. Correcting my own diet, sleep habits, lifestyle habits, and physical movement (still working on that one).
I started to wake up earlier in the day, trying to make a strong effort to rise before the sun, and in turn this obviously leads me to sleep just after the sun sets as well. Making my best efforts to abide my sleep cycle to a more temporal clock according to the sun, moon, and seasons, rather than the man made interpretation of time. By sleeping and waking according to the sun, I have gained more focus, energy and sustained drive throughout my day. Able to accomplish more and recover more at the same time. The best part is that the ancients were right! Be ever closer in tune with nature and the body will be in balance with it.
Next, I worked on my food, making strong effort to pay attention to what foods matter to me and what foods I could live without. This process was easier than expected and I was able to determine with great speed at which foods would be value added and which I shouldn’t even consider food. The greatest lesson for me in this is that no one person will ever be the same as the next. There is no one diet to rule them all, no super food/fruit, no magic bean. The longest time, I had lived by a mantra, that many have used and still use to this day, ‘Food is Medicine’. I have to say that this is such a limiting statement that it undermines the process of life and food itself. I have learned that food is far too dynamic to be pigeon holed into tidy charts and categories. Just as life itself is ever changing and dynamic, so is the food that we consume. In essence, when we eat something, we are taking upon life and nature itself. Something beyond medicine, something beyond cute statements that make us feel better or worse about ourselves (you are what you eat). It’s a process that just like sleep, when I became in tune with how food responds to me and what it ‘tells’ me, I became more in balance with my own health. The perk, i lost weight naturally, no calorie counting, no worrying about cheating on my ‘diet’, no dieting’, and very little exercise if any during some months.
Then came lifestyle, this included work for me because I love my work. I honestly get excited to go to work most days and love being in my office. Some weeks I have to force myself to leave so that I can be with my family or other obligations. However, this is a reason as to why I really started investing in this aspect the most in my life. I am a rather scatterbrained person, I forget things very easily because I am usually overly engrossed in what ever catches my interest and then in turn I will completely disregard anything else. So, I needed to make sure that I did my best to limit what was stimulating me or distracting me. I started to de-clutter, ALOT! Throwing things away, selling things, putting things in to storage which I am not taking apart to clear more out. It is a slow process for me being as I live with three other humans and a great deal of things are not my own, but we live in a home where we all own each others things. Yet, home decluttering is only on part of this equation, I also downsized my work life. Staying more in my private practice and making the choice to leave a group practice was the first step. A lot of aspects of my life were somewhat pointing in that direction and I was mostly hesitating in moving forward, but when the time was right, let’s just say that God has a way of making things happen even when we think we aren’t ready. Then, making the transition from regularly working 6-7days, to strictly and earnestly working only 4 days a week. This was a very big move for me, I didn’t really change my hours, but I had to make a very strong choice in that 3 days a week I will not look at my work laptop, I will not answer any calls or emails unless it is an honest work related emergency, and if I had fallen behind on some admin work or other things, then it would have to wait till the next day that I would be back in my office.
Next came Physical Movement…This was a tough one. I had to be mindful of this because of injuries and some other issues, but in the end I decided that I was going to row. I’ve started to learn how to row, even if it is indoors, and I’ve found it to be mentally relaxing. I’m able to workout in the mornings with little noise (waterrower) and the sounds are meditative to me. I try to keep up with this as often as I can especially with a soon to be 4yo son who likes to wake up early with dad and play. My true passion for movement is and will always be Aikido. If I could make a way to practice aikido every day all day, I would do it. Unfortunately due to time and distances that I would need to travel to practice, this is currently not something that I can pursue again anytime soon. I miss it all the time, every day, and I can’t wait to be able to go back to the dojo and practice.
Awareness
All of these practical things eventually have allowed me to be more aware of myself, my patients, my family, and the most importantly, the world around me. In time since starting this journey, I have learned to be more patient, which eventually became a natural thing. I allowed myself to not be stuck in a method, knowing that a rigid way of life also means a myopic one. So, very similar to aikido, I slowly learned to be more flexible and dynamic with my life. Doing my best to be flexible and respond in a gentle and positive way, that can be as mutually and universally beneficial to all. My sense of self, I could feel becoming more expanded and deep, with greater understanding of who I am, where I came from, how I came to be, and how I navigate through my pain and my trauma. I’ve learned to be more receptive and empathetic to my patients, and even though this may be and can be painful at times, the therapeutic effect for my patients and myself to learn is profound. I have a greater desire to connect and understand more, and strong pull to find and feel the connections that somewhat silently and gently tie and guide all things. When I was taught by my mentors that there really are no coincidences, this now has more meaning to me than something just cerebral. All these aspects, help to improve all that I encounter and do. My drive will ebb and flow, some days are greater than others, but then when they are high, I need to catch those moments and when they come down, I need to learn restraint and restoration.
Skill
With more open time, I have been able to invest more energy into study and practice of this wonderful craft and art of Chinese Medicine. Tremendous respect to my teachers and mentors, and the ancestors who made the choice to pass on this knowledge. I’ve continue to let these works build within me a body of work that can hopefully become something profound and life changing to others as well. I feel that If I can continue to walk faithfully in God, and allow myself to be transformed by the gifts that are available to me, than I can only believe that the invisible hand must be a part of this connected world. That I only need to allow myself to be molded and transformed by that unknown machination that gently leads with a power of unending Yang.
How did my practice grow? I believe that all things happen for a reason, there are no coincidences unless in jest, and that when one’s life is more in balance, and in balance with the flow of existence that has manifested true, than what is there to fear or desire. The self only need be, to watch and engage with balance to be free of the burdens of trying to make life happen on one’s own terms. I worked on me instead of working on the world, I focused my life on becoming harmonious with the space around me and let it be, thereby becoming content, and I trust, to be one with the life blessed to me that all will be good.