I have noticed several themes emerging for me this year. One in particular has shown up both in my own life and in the lives of my patients: the realization that I have been over-efforting.
In many ways, this was ingrained in me long before medicine, though medical training certainly reinforced it. It is not entirely the fault of traditional medicine; rather, medicine amplified a part of me that already struggled with low distress tolerance for the suffering of others—a part that felt responsible for needing to fix.
Naturally, this led me into a helping profession.
Years later, however, I have come to understand something very different: healing often asks us to slow down. To let a person’s journey unfold naturally. To truly hold space. To do less and simply be more present.
That has been far easier said than done for me.
I was introduced to the practice of slowing down through Somatic Experiencing—a trauma modality that teaches the art of slowing down enough to allow the body’s natural process of trauma resolution to unfold. Rather than forcing change, it invites trust in an organic intelligence already present within us.
As I sit here preparing for another training this weekend, I find myself chuckling at the dichotomy. As clinicians, we often try so hard to do more for our clients. There are many layers beneath that impulse—care, responsibility, fear, our own histories.
Yet I have found that my best work comes when I go insanely slow and do almost “nothing” except remain fully present—both with them and with myself. Fifty-fifty. I check in with myself, inhale. I check in with them, exhale. Co-regulation. Holding space. Allowing the process to unfold, which increasingly asks of me something I am still learning: patience.
Ketamine therapy has been another profound teacher of this. There is often far less doing than we imagine. Instead, there is allowing—trusting the inner, organic intelligence of a human being to reorganize, heal, and find its own way. Sometimes there is nothing to do except remain in relational presence.
My work mirrors my own healing path.
For much of my life, I have been trying to “heal more”—more tools, more modalities, more ways to feel better. Yet what has increasingly been asked of me is something entirely different: letting go.
Letting go into trust.
Trusting in the natural wisdom and unfolding process that lives within all human beings.
Michael Yasinski
Reach Out
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