Nela - A doctors view

I am walking on a bridge between western science and eastern wisdom. And sometimes, I get confused. Maybe a doctor’s view can help me understand. I talk to Nela Gorovic - a medical doctor, psyhcotherapist and yin yoga teacher.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:04

You know that's a provocative question, right? Because you probably know the answer just as I do.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Beyond the noise, a search for modern happiness.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Having experienced that was something very different than what I knew being a medical doctor. I think more and more doctors are being more aware of that, but the system doesn't support that, unfortunately. Not yet.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Today I visit Nella. I met her at a yoga class in Living Studio when I was recovering from my concussion. I remember our talks very well. Maybe a doctor's view can help me understand. It feels like I am walking on a bridge between Western science and eastern wisdom, and sometimes I get confused. I know Anella worked full-time in hospitals as a medical doctor and then changed her path. Today she combines part-time work as a doctor with being a yin-yoga teacher and a psychotherapist. Our conversation ended up going in different and for me surprising directions. So it became two episodes in this podcast. Welcome to the first of these two episodes.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

For me personally, when I became a mother, entering motherhood really changed me and kind of put me in a crisis that made me look at life in different in different ways. And going through that, I also had to look at how I was approaching life in other areas of my life, including my work life. Something had to change.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

As a medical doctor, it's it's kind of a big step, isn't it, to take an education as a yoga teacher? Yeah. And also growing into psychotherapists.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Yeah, yeah, it is a big step. And also the steps didn't come like from one day to another. So it's been like a year-long process for me to change things a little bit at a time. Um, but it always went with what I thought was interesting and also what I thought really was meaningful also for me. So yin yoga and psychotherapy has been a part of my own journey as well, which is in that way kind of made it natural for me to be more interested and go to those approaches.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

You know, in one way, you know, it looks very different. Yin yoga, psychotherapy, medical doctor. Yeah. Another way it seems it could be connected. And it has been it in your life also.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

I really think I really think it is connected because if you look at like just being a doctor, for a lot of people or in a lot of ways to work, it's more about looking at diseases, looking at symptoms. But for me, it's very valuable to know a lot about how the body works, how the mind works. Um, and I use that in psychotherapy, and I also use that knowledge when I do my yoga teaching. So I really think it is connected, and the mind and the body is way more connected than we usually view it.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

But lin yoga, what did it do to you when you had the crisis and your stress? How did lin yoga speak to you?

SPEAKER_01 4:01

It makes you have to relate to what your thoughts are, what your body sensations are. You have to um you have to realize what kind of state you're in. And I think a lot of people, uh myself including at that time, but also as I see in my clients, a lot of people are so busy, so we don't take the time to actually slow down or the the time and the place to find out what is important to me or what what is my body telling me. And I think that's what that can do for you. So we're so used to being outside our body or being in our head. We have a society that uh values and uh praises being effective, being fast, being productive, and a lot of ways that's in a lot of ways that's not really what the body needs. So we kind of get disconnected from the body. Um so finding a way to slow down, finding a way to connect to your body, your senses, um your inner voice in a kind of way, that's possible in yin yoga. It was for me, um, and having experienced that was something very different than what I knew being a medical doctor.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

From a busy job as a doctor to uh yoga mad where yin yoga is, you know, you you lay in minutes in the same position, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 5:30

It's very slow, it's very slow, and uh I I often say it's like a very hard discipline. A lot of people um can't really imagine just lying and doing nothing as it looks like for three to five minutes. Um so it really is it's simple in a kind of way, but it's not always easy because you have to be with yourself.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

So so if I go to my doctor, I have let's say I have stress. Yeah. And I ask him, could you please send me to yin yoga? What do you think he will say to me?

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Um you know that's a provocative question, right? Because you probably know the answer just as I do.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

I think I think most probably your doctor wouldn't know that that would make sense. Probably a lot a lot of doctors wouldn't even know what yin yoga is.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

So in a way you balance, you know, you are a doctor in the medical system, you still have some jobs there.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

I do, I work with addiction, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

Yeah, and then you have your psychotherapy and your your yoga. So you're trying to somehow combine these three things.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

I think they are combined. I think they are combined because uh you connecting the body to our uh inner psychological states and also realizing that being healthy also physically but also mentally is a part of that. It is connected. We're just not used to talking about it as it is connected.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

So when you look back at the hospital now, when you were a doctor, yeah. Going in and out from patients.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Um that was definitely a way of living and a way of working that that didn't work for me. I think I need to go in a slower pace. I think that was one of my realizations for my own life that I had been running a lot, I had been chasing a lot of things, I had been trying to be effective and um like doing good in a lot of uh ways, but always measuring from the outside and having that switch to being more interested in what's actually working for me and um not waiting for the reward from the outside really was a shift.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

And you have also been living in your brain.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

I definitely have, yeah, and I I definitely have, and not always um I don't think it's it's something that I chose to do. I think a lot of people think, well, why don't you just do something else or why did you do that? But it's not that simple. I think a lot of the life we're living out in society kind of paces us to do this, but also what we come from. So for me, it was also going deeper and finding out what was my patterns and why did I have them and what made me, like what made this the natural state for me or the normal state for me, not the natural. So going back to what was it that was actually good for me was a really long process and and it still is, it's not like you finish it, right? So a lot of us um have the idea that oh, once you've like been fixed or once you've worked with yourself, you're done. But this is ongoing. I still have to um I find myself like, oh, this is going too fast again, or I find myself being a bit disconnected. So, but knowing that I can do that and come back to having that connection to myself and slowing down is very valuable.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

It's funny when we talk about this. I can't help thinking that that if people listen to this, some might think, okay, we cannot all be young teachers and take the pace down. We live, we have to, the society must work. But is is does there need to be a contradiction here?

SPEAKER_01 9:34

I don't I I think I think you're right that a lot of people would think that, like, oh we can't we can't everybody everybody can do that. But um I don't think it's a contradiction. First of all, I think actually we are more productive and we are more um effective at what we do when we are more connected to ourselves and others, um, and and maybe even like a purpose, like a higher purpose. So even in the workplaces, I know you've had that look.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Somehow you make it work better now.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

I make it work better, but I also don't work like full-time hours. That's a very high priority for me, as long as my kids are that age that they are. Um I think I choose differently now. Um, so the things I put my energy to, I'm very conscious of that that gives me energy and I think they're valuable. As before, I would do it because I would think, oh, that's probably a good idea, or somebody might think this is valuable. Um, so it comes from a different place when I make decisions of what's important to do.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

You know, yesterday I was on my doctor, you know. I I really like him, I respect him a lot. Yeah. So this is not critical. I just can't help thinking if he made a little bit yin just before and after some of his sessions, you know, because it's such a busy job to see, you know. He has not many minutes.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

You must have felt it also.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

So maybe sometimes the pace could go a little bit down, and you maybe the result would be better.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Definitely. As you've probably experienced too, um being listened to is very important when you come as a patient. And we know it actually doesn't take many minutes for the patient to say like everything they want to when they come to their doctor, and still we find that it's hard for the doctor to listen those couple of minutes. And also on the other hand, I know a lot of doctors, I I still work part-time as a doctor. Um, I think a lot of doctors really miss having the time or would really appreciate if the system was in a way where they could take a break between patients, or it could do just two-minute breathing, or whatever works for you. I think more and more doctors are being more aware of that, but the system doesn't support that, unfortunately. Not yet.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

So somehow we have to do it ourselves, don't we? Because we can't wait for the systems.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

That was definitely my way of looking at it. There was a lot of things I in the beginning when I started doing my transition and my changes, I really hoped that I could um still be in in the working places that I was, but it is um it kind of doesn't make sense for me at least to keep pushing and keep working in those environments because you can't change that one person at a time. It has to be a little bit more systematic. So, in that way, it kind of ends up being your own responsibility. This is really like a dilemma because like a lot of people get stressed, you know. We have like some people say like a stress epidemic, and it's so important not to say that this is like everybody's everybody's personal responsibility that they are stressed. Often it is more structural, and um you kind of can look at it from different different angles, and more things have to be um stressing for it to be like a problem. But definitely we have a responsibility in um that we get conscious of what is affecting us and how we want to relate to that. What kind of decisions do we want to make?

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Well, we can't really stop talking, but this conversation kind of ends here because somehow this dilemma must stay open. We must not blame people experiencing stress and say, listen, it's your own responsibility. Of course we can't do that. On the other hand, we can't really expect the leaders and systems to take care of us and our mental health, can we? This leaves us, you and me, with one important choice. Fitness, running, watching your weight, all that is so good. But how can we become much more aware of how we take good care of our own mental health in our everyday life? Because we have to be better at this, don't we? If we want to be happy, and this honestly quite crazy and often disturbed modern life. Are you curious about my project? Quietly against the pace of our time.