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Join Vanessa Velez, a psychiatrist, as we explore the fascinating connection between our inner selves, the natural world, and the demands of modern life. Delve into the importance of bringing back the concept of “psyche” or soul into psychiatry, and discover practical techniques for staying connected to the cosmos and our true nature amidst the chaos of daily routines. Explore mindfulness practices, rituals, and traditions that can help us rediscover our deep roots and interconnectedness with the Earth and the universe.

Vanessa Velez is a psychiatrist.

She discusses the KevinMD article, “Restoring our connection to the cosmos: a vital step for healing our minds, bodies, spirits, and planet.”

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Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show. Subscribe at KevinMD.com/podcast, and get CME for this episode by clicking on the CME link in the show notes. Today we welcome Vanessa Velez. She’s a psychiatrist, and today’s KevinMD article is “Restoring our connection to the cosmos: a vital step for healing our minds, bodies, spirits, and planet.” Vanessa, welcome to the show.

Vanessa Velez: Thank you so much, Kevin. I’m excited to be here.

Kevin Pho: So let’s start by briefly sharing your story and journey.

Vanessa Velez: So like you said, I’m an integrative and holistic psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and artist. Originally, when I went into medical school I wanted to be a surgeon, and then in my third year I just fell in love with psychiatry. And then in training I just really appreciated outpatient, being able to work with patients one-on-one.

And at that time I started to work on my private practice, and I just launched in January, and it’s called Soul Psychiatry. So it’s really about integrating the mind, the body, and the soul. And I work with adults, young adults, and adult professionals with depression, anxiety, ecological distress, spiritual distress, and really helping them find inner peace. And I do that by combining medications when needed, providing psychotherapy, and using holistic approaches focusing on purpose, meaning, creativity. And I have a special focus on spirituality.

It’s really interesting because psychiatry translates into the healing of the soul, and so I really feel like we are soul doctors. And many folks, I do notice, have a hole in the soul, and they try to fill it with external things like money, fame, power, could be substances, alcohol, food, gambling, whatever it may be. Or this idea that once I get to point A or B, I’ll be happy. And that might have worked for a little bit, but then there’s sort of this even more emptiness of, like, gosh, I thought that that was going to do it for me, it was going to fill me and I was going to feel worthy and enough.

But it doesn’t really work to cure or heal an internal problem with an external solution. So I hope people really connect with an internal solution, and that really is connecting to the soul, the wisest part of ourselves, that connection to the universe. A lot of people will name this thing that’s larger than ourselves. It could be creative intelligence, it could be Allah or God, whatever name it is. But it’s that feeling of small and large at the same time, and having that deep personal connection with something larger.

Kevin Pho: So how did you get interested in that intersection between the soul and psychiatry? Tell me the story leading up to that.

Vanessa Velez: Sure. So I think since I was young I always asked those big questions of, who am I, why am I here, what is this all about? And I found a lot of purpose and meaning through academics. It feels good to be good at something.

And then there were steps along the way where I was just like, gosh, that feeling of, OK, once I get to college I’ll be OK, and once I get into med school, and once I graduate. But that, at least for me, didn’t fill that.

And so really looking at other aspects, and I’ve done things to help with that internally, like meditation, or reading a lot of self-help books, or different solo backpacking trips or pilgrimages, just to be able to find myself and discover. And it’s a process of unlearning all of the things that we gather along the way. I imagine we’re all kind of carrying a backpack with all the bricks of our childhood, or just the programming. And so it’s just really unlearning and then reprogramming.

And it’s really a process of learning and remembering. It’s really remembering those roots, and that connection to, wow, I am part of something larger, like the cosmos, like the big bang. And then just bringing it into the practical, of asking my highest self, like, wisdom, guidance, do I go left, do I go right, what do I do for my career, and how do I bring healing into psychiatry, what is my purpose?

So it’s been a lot of self-discovery and a lot of asking those questions, knowing that I’m not just a psychiatrist, I’m a daughter and I’m a friend and I’m a sister, and all of those things play a role. I think we’re ultimately here to really kind of walk each other home, like Ram Dass, the spiritual guru, has said, the late Ram Dass. But yeah, we’re just here to help one another.

Kevin Pho: Your KevinMD article is titled “Restoring our connection to the cosmos: a vital step for healing our minds, bodies, spirits, and planet.” Now, you talked about this a little bit earlier, but go into more detail. Tell us what this article is about for those who didn’t get a chance to read it.

Vanessa Velez: Yeah, so this article, I wrote it because I was noticing that mental health illnesses like depression, anxiety, trauma, they were at that time increasing and still continue to increase. And at the same time the health of our planet is deteriorating as well.

So just making the connection that our internal world is really reflected in our external world, and how we treat ourselves is how we treat the planet. And I feel like we’re a bit disconnected from that spiritual sense, and I think that’s leading to our possible demise in a way. And so we really need that spiritual nourishment, that nutrition.

And I speak about how it’s really tough to feel connected, and it’s very easy to feel disconnected, especially in this modern age. We’re consuming, competing, and conforming, and it’s hard to look at each other in the eye and really honor and respect each other. And it’s also hard to respect the planet when, at least for me, I have to get into my car and use fossil fuels, or use single use plastic when there are no other options, or I didn’t pack something. So it’s really difficult to feel connected.

So just normalizing that, and saying, hey, it’s OK to feel abnormal in an abnormal society and situation and culture. And at the same time we can bring kindness and compassion to ourselves and to each other, and just start to build that consciousness, that awareness, that universal consciousness, that we are not separate entities, we are connected.

I am because of you, you are because of me. I’m here because of all of the billions of people that came and contributed to this earth. I wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be here, if the person that invented the internet, you know. So it’s just about cultivating this larger awareness, that it’s not about the small, constricted ego self and that attachment. It’s like, oh, I’m Vanessa and I’m a psychiatrist, and I hold so tightly to that. Well, can I open up, can I bring some gentleness into that, and some love and courage?

I really think it’s about talking about that distress and normalizing it and being like, oh hey, you too, and just feeling more grounded into our reality.

Kevin Pho: So tell us some techniques, exactly how we can do that. Like you said, a lot of us, we are so disconnected, and with the advent of things like social media and our mobile devices, we are all in our individual silos. Tell us some stories or examples about how we can reconnect and see that larger picture that you’re talking about.

Vanessa Velez: Yeah, great question. The way I think about it is making it super practical.

So the second we wake up, just laying in bed or getting on our meditation mat or cushion, and sometimes that meditation doesn’t work for folks, it could be guided, but just having a moment of appreciation. Wow, I made it, I survived the night, I’m here, I’m alive. Thinking about the things that we’re grateful for, for yesterday, or the things that will bring us joy into the present day.

So that gratitude, that meditation, that quiet and stillness. And that’s the best moment, in the morning, before we check our phone, before we get caught up in the day, of having that stillness and the quiet. And that’s where there’s so much access to that love, that presence, is in that quiet, the stillness, and in the calm. So it really starts with that quiet moment in the morning.

And then throughout the day, asking for direction, like, what would you like me to do? So it’s really forming a connection and a relationship with this essence. It’s like any sort of friendship or relationship, you would talk to them, you would call them, you would text them, you’d write to them, you’d go on coffee dates. And so really it’s like a muscle, you kind of just exercise it, and you talk to this. And you can even, throughout the day or in the morning, write a letter to this presence and then have that presence write back to you. So that’s another nice technique.

So it’s really about that morning meditation, throughout the day, and then in the evening again just having that calm, that quiet presence and connection.

Kevin Pho: How can we learn to do that? Are there places online that we can be taught to meditate, or have that connectedness and have that mindfulness? Is it something that we can read? How can we learn how to do that?

Vanessa Velez: Yeah, so there’s so many different apps that one can use, whether it be Headspace or Calm. Those are nice because they’re guided.

There’s also so many different trainings, and MBSR with Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, Sharon Salzberg, Tara Brach. There are great retreat centers, also really wonderful, if one has that time just to be able to retreat for a while and learn, for the nervous system to be able to calm down, to know what it’s like to rest fully. And it takes time, because we’re always ramped up, but retreats are really helpful.

Sadhguru has a lot of different YouTube videos. Ram Dass is another beautiful resource.

And there’s so many other resources for physicians as well. These podcasts are amazing. Physicians Anonymous is a beautiful resource, and Dr. Diana Londoño’s program is beautiful, with physician coach support.

So there’s so many ways to reach out to learn. It could be through self-help books, podcasts, mindfulness. And I think community is really important, finding a local community. It could be some sort of spiritual center, meditation center, or could just be like your YMCA or your Zoom book class. And just having that connection and communication with others, because like you said, we are all very siloed and very separate. So just connecting to that humanity locally and also on the worldwide web.

Kevin Pho: So tell us how you bring that spirituality and connectedness into your office or the exam room. When you talk to patients or clients, how do you incorporate that into your treatment?

Vanessa Velez: Yeah, so I definitely meet the person where they’re at. So some people might be super spiritual, or maybe super religious, or they might be angry at their religion or their spirituality and have resentment. So it’s really about diving into their relationship with something larger. Do they believe in something, do they not, what is their relationship? So really diving into that.

And then having them just practice talking to that essence, or however they access it, through prayer and meditation. Creativity is another beautiful part of expression, because I do believe that we are channels and instruments of this loving presence. And so how do we bring forth our talents, our skills, our abilities, to express that love and to help others?

And often it’s usually finding the hidden gifts and golden nuggets of our traumas. And it’s really hard in that immediate moment to find any silver lining, but then with time we can see how perhaps it protected us from something more difficult, or it’s an opportunity to lean in and get closer to that essence.

So really diving deep into, how do we make meaning, and how do we learn and evolve and grow? Because I do feel that we are spiritual beings having this human experience. So how do we use life as a classroom, how do we learn? And terrible things happen to people, and it’s not to discount that at all, or say that we need suffering to learn, but sometimes suffering is the best teacher and the best friend at times.

Kevin Pho: Tell us a success story where you incorporated some of these teachings and really moved the needle for that patient. It could be a real patient, it could be hypothetical, but I want to kind of see these concepts in action.

Vanessa Velez: Yeah, so I think the most telling is with addiction. And I’ve seen folks recover so incredibly beautifully through the 12 steps and through community. It doesn’t necessarily have to be through the 12 steps, but that is a program where people have to rely on this higher power, this concept of whatever they believe in, but it’s something larger than themselves.

And just the transformation, of being so incredibly ill, physically, mentally, and spiritually, in the disease of addiction, and then coming on to the other side and recovering, I think is just so incredibly beautiful. And it shows the power of that higher power.

And they say that it’s not that you’re cured, but you’re recovered, and it’s a spiritual program, and it’s a spiritual daily action plan. So I’ve seen people really use that and have that guidance, and talking to other people in the fellowship about how do they live life. How do they, when things come up, when a resentment comes up, when things don’t go your way, how do you kind of quit playing God and how do you just see what is the universe’s plan for you? And it’s really beautiful.

So I help people really connect to that, and be able to ask them, hey, what is your relationship with God, and really incorporate that into treatment.

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Vanessa Velez. She’s a psychiatrist, and today’s KevinMD article is “Restoring our connection to the cosmos: a vital step for healing our minds, bodies, spirits, and planet.” Vanessa, let’s end with some of your take-home messages to the KevinMD audience.

Vanessa Velez: Definitely. So the first takeaway is that it’s OK to feel abnormal and strange and weird in this weird human experience. It’s definitely OK.

And at the same time, we can talk to each other and support one another, and start to ask those big questions of, who am I, what am I here to do, what are my talents, my gifts, and how do I connect to the earth and the cosmos? How do I treat myself with love and cultivate an ecosystem of peace inside of me, so that that will have a ripple effect in my community and then at society at large, and to support the health of the planet?

So really building that universal consciousness, and even considering that we are on a rock in the middle of space, or a speck of a speck of a speck. And so just thinking about, what are we going to do with this beautiful life, and how can we help each other?

Kevin Pho: Vanessa, thank you so much for sharing your time and insight, and thanks again for coming on the show.

Vanessa Velez: Thank you so much.