The Treatment Plan Is in the Body

I had planned to become a DO. I was two years into the prerequisites — chemistry, anatomy — when a friend told me about an osteopathic college in Canada. I did what I always do: I called them. I talked to the administrator for over an hour, faxed my resume (yes, that's how old I am), and she called back immediately. "You're in." I withdrew from Chem 1 the next day and never looked back.

By the end of the first year I was ready to quit — I hadn't realized it was a five-year program. My tablemate wouldn't let me. I never thought about quitting again after that. I'm so grateful I stayed.

I had been a massage therapist for sixteen years by then. I had studied craniosacral for thirteen, plus structural integration, lymphatic drainage, visceral manipulation, neuromuscular therapy. And still I sat in that room intimidated and insecure, surrounded by physios and OTs, barely speaking.

It was this education that began my deep journey into critical thinking — how the body truly functions, how its systems are interconnected, and how the treatment plan truly is in the body if you learn to read it.

Why this matters for practitioners

So much training hands you a protocol: this condition, that sequence of techniques. But bodies don't read the protocol. The origin of a problem often lives in a system far from where the pain shows up.

The work I teach is the opposite of formulaic. We learn to listen — to let the body show us which system holds the root, and to follow it there. That is harder than memorizing a routine. It is also the only thing that has ever consistently worked. The plan was never mine to impose. It was always already there, waiting to be read.