Journey from Heart Attack to Healing - Encore

Due to the overwhelming responses and popular demand from the initial publication of this article, I am thrilled to share it once more with our newsletter community. For those who have read it before, this encore serves as a reflection of its impact and relevance. For those encountering it for the first time, you’ll find a deeply personal account of transformation, healing, and empowerment that resonated with so many. Thank you for your continued engagement and for making this story one worth revisiting.

DISCLAMER: The following article is not intended to be regarded as medical advice or information. It is solely for consideration as personal insight. All medical decisions should be made in consultation with the readers’ health care practitioners.

Encore: Breaking Free - My Journey from Heart Attack to True Healing

Several years ago, towards the end of a client hypnotherapy session I began experiencing a little light-headedness and what could best be described as a queasy sense of body disorientation. There was not any acute pain being detected but I clearly had never had this type of bodily experience before and knew it wasn’t something to simply ‘write off and see if it would pass’ – I intuitively knew, ‘something was up.’

Fortunately, during these most unusual body sensations, I was in the closing salutations that typically end a therapy session wherein the client is scheduling their follow up session date. In hindsight, fortune indeed smiled on me that questionable day as, fortuitously, that session concluded five minutes after detection of the mysterious body symptoms, and it was the last therapy session of my day.

Had it not been the last session of the day perhaps I might have decided to see if the symptoms would indeed pass until at least the finish of the next client hour. (Which, in subsequent diagnosis, could have literally proved fatal.)

A Heart Attack During a Hypnotherapy Session

The moment the office door closed upon that 3pm client’s exit, I immediately summoned an Uber to take me to the nearby hospital emergency room. While enroute on the eight-minute drive to the ER, I witnessed myself feeling weaker and weaker, unbeknownst to me at the time, I was in the midst of cardiac arrest – a heart attack.

Even as I arrived at the emergency room street entrance and walked myself to the attending ER admittance desk, bending over the attending desk like a wilted plant in need of water, I had no clue what was occurring with me – but boy, did the knowledgeable attendants know.

What then occurred was like a surreal scene out of a TV medical drama: a wheelchair jutted the fold of the back of my knees as I was guided into the chair and three medical attendants, one of which politely ordered me to, “lift up your shirt,” began attaching various monitoring applique strategically to my upper torso.

What then followed was a series of diagnostic tests and X-rays assessing the body’s cardiac state. I was informed that indeed it was a heart attack – but a ‘mild one’ due to a blocked artery – the source of most cardiac arrests.

I relay this experience not to share the drama of the incident itself, but for what has transpired in the ensuing years since that fateful day which turned into the mother of all wake-up calls for me. It became the kind of wake-up call that drives me to share this personal experience through the mediums that amplify my therapeutic work with the power of the subconscious mind.

My Ego Battle in the Midst of Health Emergency

As I was being surfed on a gurney through the corridors of Cedar Sinai Medical Center (again, how fortunate it is that my office is near one of the preeminent medical centers in the United States) enroute to a surgical room for a procedure to clear the artery, I was mentally having a battle with my ego.

While being whizzed through the judgmental ceiling lights of the hospital corridors courtesy of the enforced view of my prone posture while being wheeled to the waiting warlords of western medicine, I asked myself, ‘how did I get here?!’

Me, the pescatarian who can literally count on one hand how many times I’ve dined on fast food in my entire adult life. “Blocked artery?!” Me who, again, can count on one hand how many times I’ve consumed alcohol and have never smoked cigarettes. Me, who has been fortunate to have never carried excess weight. “I was on a gurney due to a heart attack?!”

As I battled my disbelief during what seemed like an endless ride to the procedure room (which I’m sure really wasn’t more than 2 to 3 minutes), I rebelliously mentally asserted, “I must be at least a “7” on the 10-scale of healthy living! This shouldn’t be happening!” (angry emoji!)

But then ego reaction parted way to some sober reflections: Heart disease does ‘run in my family’ (You will see a bit later why that consideration is in quotes) – my mom suffered two heart attacks during her lifetime, high blood pressure is a familial trait as well, and, though I am not an exceedingly sedentary person, as a therapist, I do occupy a chair for a living which does not promote cardiovascular health as is well known.

The Emergency Room Experience: A Wake-Up Call

Shortly thereafter, the emergency procedure having addressed the blocked artery successfully and a balanced taking of stock mentally of the hereditary profile of my physical existence, I was given western medicine’s prognosis from on High: you’ll be taking heart medications, blood thinners and cholesterol lowering medications for the rest of your life. So declares Zeus of western medicine.

While spending a few days in the sterile confines of a hospital room recovering and having been given western medicine’s prognosis (I keep inserting the ‘western medicine’ caveat to dispel the mass hypnosis of western medicine’s arrogant absoluteness of care), I had a flashback to the hometown excursions I would make to visit aging parents. On the kitchen table of my parents’ home were two lazy susan’s filled with prescription bottles. Was this to be my fate?

I decided I wasn’t (literally) ‘going out like that.’ And this brings me to the point of this personal treatise: what determines our fate? Is it the hypnotic jurisdiction our heredity, cultural and medical paradigms impose on us? Or do we have more latent autonomy lying in sweet repose awaiting the awakening of this sleeping giant?

Well, speaking of hypnosis, as a therapist specializing in the therapeutic use of this naturally occurring mind process, my awareness of the impact our subconscious associations have on our living fuels my resolve to leverage awareness of this undeniable reality. And this cardiac incident was the wakeup call that upleveled that subconscious leverage.

Western medicine is the best option for acute physical distress, there is no approach better when one is in a dire state of being. However, we should use this methodology but not be used by it. If one almost severs a finger while dicing up a tomato, bring on the suturing and the antibiotics to ably aid the body’s natural healing mechanism. Or in the case of cardiac arrest, bring on the best of what western medicine has to offer for immediate intervention. For five months I dutifully followed doctor’s orders, protocols and taking of prescribed medications in the recovery from my health incident.

Western Medicine’s Immediate Impact and Limitations

And while the typical response in the aftermath of a life-threatening incident would be to primarily reflect on relief and/or gratitude, what I did during those post-procedure few recovery days in the hospital was to mentally examine what was I unconsciously perpetuating? I started challenging all the mental programming that apparently was running the subconscious mind’s receptivity of what was acceptable and therefore normalized regarding health.

I challenged the mental program that heredity was an unavoidable sentence. “Heart disease runs in the family.” No, the program that heart disease runs in the family is the sentence. Our bodies and experiences adhere to the programs that are running it!

Everything experienced in the phenomenal world – our health states, our financial states, our relationship states, our business or career states originate as a mental program. These absorbed programs, whether beneficial or detrimental, are superimposed on a fundamental program. Life’s essential nature only intends to thrive – that’s why the phenomenon of growth occurs (plants, animals, children) – it is Life’s fundamental mandate to thrive being witnessed.

After five months of using western medicine and more relevantly, forthrightly mentally canceling an avalanche of programming we take for granted as ‘normal,’ – heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, aging – yeah buddy, I went full monte, challenging and canceling the assumptions wrought from all these mental programs and then an interesting occurrence was witnessed.

One day, I routinely commenced taking my western medicine protocol of medications – the heart medication, cholesterol, blood pressure, blood thinner meds and maybe two more medications I no longer recall, and I started to break out in a skin rash all over my body.

Challenging the Mental Programs That Shape Health

I, at first, hadn’t made the correlation that would soon become evident. The rash and itching begin to subside after about 12 hours from the breakout. Next day, again I routinely took my ‘lazy susan’ round of meds and the rash occurred again within an hour after consuming, only to subside again by evening time.

Still, not making the connection but really puzzled as to why I was having the outbreaks – was it something in my diet? Had I tried a food I was allergic to? Upon reflecting on my eating habits since the outbreaks started, there was nothing unusual in my food consumption.

After the fourth day of this pattern – taking my meds, breaking out, subsequent subsiding, repeat - I begin to wonder about the seeming correlation. So, the following day I didn’t take my round of meds – no breakout.

I then thought maybe one of the medications was the culprit (even though I hadn’t experienced unusual side effects before this sudden reaction started), which led me to ponder if it was a tolerance thing with a particular med). I decided that through the elimination process over several days, I would take only one medication per day to identify the source of the breakouts. I still broke out with the rash no matter which one of the meds I took.

My being was literally indicating to me, ‘enough already, this protocol has served its purpose.’ I didn’t arbitrarily decide not to take the medication protocol anymore. I wasn’t intentionally attempting to wean myself off the meds.

However, I was indeed adamant in my resolve during those five months to release the programming that resulted in the “mental adherence” that was compromising my well-being; compromising life’s innate desire to thrive.

My body was no longer adhering to the mental programing necessary for that life-long prescribed protocol.

My metaphor for the use of western medicine for other than acute issues is like taking a sledgehammer to a thumbtack. Do we really need the overkill of medicines that now casually cite death as a ‘side effect?’ 

To be clear, there was not a magical cessation of aliments because I discontinued participation in the perpetuation of deleterious mental programming. The invalidation of sabotaging programming, no matter what thought paradigm (including the medical one) deemed, “normal,” “natural” or “factual,” fueled a thought position within me.

A mental perspective that led me to uplevel responsibility for my own vessel (body) autonomy. Beginning with releasing the mental programming of illness I was unwittingly subjecting my being to.

How Hypnotherapy Can Reframe Health Beliefs

Now, several years since the cardiac incident, a recent health checkup indicated stats a man half my age would be envious of. For years I haven’t taken – or needed - a single allopathic medication. My deprogrammed thought process led me to holistic protocols, a diet loaded with fish, tofu, vegetables and whole grains, I installed in an alcove of my studio office a workout setup with exercise equipment and weights with which I vigorously work out with consistently. This resolve also led me to health practitioners that realize the sledgehammer approach is not necessary because all beings’ fundamental mandate is to thrive anyway. Our thriving nature is not merely a wishful desire, it’s intrinsic to being alive.

It is important to emphasize that the upleveled lifestyle habits are not the source of the beneficial impact on my well-being – they are the consequences – it is the release of sabotaging mental programs and normalized assumptions that empowered the reset to a well-being homeostasis.

What area(s) of your life do you want to reprogram on behalf of fundamental well-being? Whatever your present status is with your health, uplevel your resolve and reset strategy today and put the interfering, limiting beliefs on notice.

As for my lazy susan? It now spins around offering potent, effective natural supplements and homeopathic protocols. Program that!

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