“I, Joel, deepen relationships and create community with my gifts of healing.” Each New Year, I settle on an intention, craft a prayer, and distill that prayer into a blessing that becomes the affirmation that I carry through the year. The affirmation calls back the entire prayer. (See my prior post.) Several years ago, I …Read More
Author: Dr. Joel Ying, MD
Physician-Educator-Storyteller. Integrating the power of story into medicine, healing sessions, workshops, speaking and performance.
A Friend’s Greeting ~ Edgar A. Guest
To my friends out there. May these words greet you on this Christmas Day and everyday. A Friend’s Greeting ~ by Edgar A. Guest I’d like to be the sort of friend that you have been to me; I’d like to be the help that you’ve been always glad to be; I’d like to mean …Read More
Form Follows Function ~ I’m teaching anatomy
It’s been over two decades since I walked into the anatomy lab at medical school. Immediately the memory of formaldehyde assaults my senses. Each week, I would change into the same lab outfit. At the end of the year, I threw out those clothes. There was not way to get the smell out of them. …Read More
The Cremation of Sam McGee ~ Robert W. Service
Long, long ago in a land called Texas, unemployed soldiers from the recent War Between the States rounded up herds of wild cattle and trailed them north to feed a hungry nation. Evenings along the way, as the sun set romantically in the west, the boys gathered and, accompanied by a crackling fire and the …Read More
Setting Intentions for 2023 ~ Online Workshop
“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it” ~ Paulo Coelho As the year comes to a close, I look back at what I have accomplished. Then, I look forward, what do I want for this new year? The universe will help me to achieve it… “If you don’t …Read More
Do you talk to someone?
“Do you talk to someone?” Sometimes a question stops you in your tracks. The Lifestyle Medicine retreat hired me to see all the attendees on medications for blood pressure or diabetes. In this retreat they would learn about healthy lifestyle changes. They would experience a healthy diet with food cooked for them, a morning exercise …Read More
Release & Renewal: January 2023
Are you feeling stuck? Get ready to release 2022… and step into 2023 with renewed energy. We’ve got something new planned. New processes to tune into the Wisdom areas to create an embodied prayer. New stories and ceremony to enter into sacred space and time together. “If you don’t know where you are going, any …Read More
Small Kindnesses ~ Danusha Laméris
Small Kindnesses by Danusha Laméris I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you” when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying. And sometimes, when you spill lemons from …Read More
The Sacred Dance for Life ~ Hafiz
The Sacred Dance for Life by Hafiz I sometimes forget that I was created for joy My mind is too busy My heart is too heavy Heavy for me to remember that I have been called to dance the sacred dance for life I was created to smile to love to be lifted up and …Read More
Graphic Novel: March by John Lewis
“We wanted to change America. Make it something different, something better.” The genre of the graphic novel is not usually associated with historical non-fiction. Most people are familiar with comic strips in the newspaper and comic book periodicals. The graphic novel delivers a stand-alone longer narrative in a form similar to the comic strip with …Read More