SOUL. The Most Powerful Tool In Healing.

I arrived in Europe to learn from doctors with different training, perspectives and employing different therapies. What could I take home to my patients? What is the secret sauce for healing? I had traveled a long way and waited a long time to find out.

I can rattle off the therapies and diagnostics used at the Swiss Mountain Clinic - and it’s an impressive list: hemoadsorption therapy, bio-electric terrain analysis, orthomolecular medicine, niche infusions, microcurrent, magnet therapy…

But when I asked the doctors what is the one therapy they have found the most impact with, they all separately said the same thing: community.

The final evening of the week-long stay for the guests includes a “gala” dinner with a special menu, white tablecloths and live music. Oftentimes, guests get up to dance. In a moment of joy, the head doctor came over to me, grabbed my hands and shouted above the music, “Healing is more than just therapies.”

It turns out, maybe you don’t have to travel across the world for healing that just may exist within your own neighborhood. It can start right now with sharing time with community that joy, connection and quality relationships reside.

But don’t take these doctor’s word for it - the Harvard Longevity Study is renowned for showing the same data. The best predictor of health at age 80 was high relationship satisfaction thirty years earlier.

The Swiss Mountain Clinic is truly an incredible clinic that lived up to the years of anticipation for me. The facilities, the setting, the staff, the therapies. But Dr. Petra was right - community is the foundation from which it is all built.