Kirbaybay

If anyone was wondering, wondering at all what it is I want to do in life.. read this personal statement I wrote for Seattle Institute for Oriental Medicine.   I got a lot of help from fam and it turned out to be a great representation of what Im about right now.  It also has a bit of my story mixed in.

Goal Statement

As early as the age of four, I bore witness to my mother’s struggle to find her worth. Throughout my childhood I watched helplessly as her life deteriorated because of her relentless use of methamphetamines and cocaine. I struggled with the responsibility of feeding, clothing, and caring for my two younger brothers because my mother lacked the energy to do so. Years later, the effects of her lifestyle manifested themselves as utterly devastating. My mother, once a lively and energetic spirit, now appeared to be walking death. Tethered to and imprisoned within her addictions, the relationship of her mind, body and soul had fragmented. The tragic irony is that my father’s predicament seemed to cosmically mirror my mother’s. At the age of eighteen, I sold my car and purchased a ticket to Samoa in order to find him after sixteen years of separation. Upon my arrival, I discovered that he suffered from Paranoid Schizophrenia and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of his combat service in the Gulf War. My father not only lacked the knowledge of who I was, but also had a distorted reality of himself and the world. I flew across the world looking for the very thing that could not be found and was left having to confront the reality that my journey brought me no closer to finding myself or my identity. I lacked role models to show me what it meant to achieve greatness in this life. This experience and my drive to follow a different path of life engendered a responsibility to myself — to heal my deep and stubborn wounds and achieve a natural state of greatness.  This mission led me to learn how to consciously connect my mind, body and soul. For six long years I trudged desperately, but steadily down a path that eventually allowed me to do what my mother and father had yet to accomplish: I reached a state of wholeness, therefore realizing what I am truly capable of. Greatness was finally actualized.  By achieving a state of wholeness, I have in turn discovered my calling- to assist others to do the same.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

This state of wholeness can be called many things: self-actualization, self-mastery, integration of mind, body and soul, and so forth. I believe wholeness is a point at any given moment when we are consciously aware and have been able to make decisions from an integrative state in which the mind, body and soul are connected. From this place, individuals can make well informed choices and come to understand their true purpose on this earth, know that they are destined for greatness, and act accordingly. My personal observations of myself, family, friends, community members and colleagues has lead me to believe that it is both a rarity and a privilege to have someone operating from their true self – their whole self. They either have all the parts and have yet to learn how to corporate it all together or they are ‘missing’ key components. I have found that the more someone deviates from this ‘complete’ state, the more that individual lacks the opportunity to make conscious choices, inhibiting his or her true potential to become fully realized.

My mission is to be a conduit. To me, a healer is the ultimate educator. I see my role as being two-fold: To provide the tools an individual needs and/or to help make them become aware of what they already possess and to accompany others on their path of self-healing until they are able to continue the journey themselves. My role is not archetypal when compared against the traditional view of a patient-doctor relationship, one that is so often, tragically, based on dependency. Typically, a patient goes to a doctor assured that he has all the answers and they themselves possess none – verses being an active participant in the process of their healing. At the same time, the doctor, to maintain his job, is in a position to treat the symptoms of their patient’s illness verses the root cause, which forces them to return repeatedly without seeing any sustainable results. Instead of a relationship that is predicated upon equity and justice, where each person has a clear role and responsibility to play and the goal is to heal, there is a hierarchal dynamic that feeds this vicious cycle. It is my highest aspiration to assist others to heal, to bring them to a state of wholeness, where they are consciously using their mind, body, and soul to navigate through this plane of existence and come to find the true purpose of their lives.

Pursuing a degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) at Seattle Institute for Oriental Medicine will enable me to achieve that goal. A TCM degree allows my natural inclination towards energy and body therapies to be nurtured. From my educational experience, I know that I benefit the most from an apprentice approach to learning that is based on experiences successfully captured over thousands of years, agreeing with SIOM’s understanding that “a modern acupuncture program must be grounded in the clinic.” I have had numerous opportunities to take advantage of the student clinic available at SIOM.  Every occurrence gave me a sense of peace and balance. I was treated exceptionally well at every visit, giving me the lasting impression that the teaching styles at SIOM enable all students to succeed in attaining the skills and principles necessary to be a successful TCM practitioner. SIOM, therefore, has demonstrated its ability to foster success in its students. In addition, I have been able to get the opinions of a variety of acupuncturists and health care providers in the area, unanimously suggesting that I pursue a degree at SIOM. 

No matter how far I progress and what I achieve, I must never forget where I came from.  Healing and forgiving does not mean that I have forgotten; for the very things that have brought me pain and trauma I now use to assist others. If I fail to remember my past, then I will lose my ability to truly connect with those I am meant to serve. I may be the product of a drug-addicted mother and an alcoholic father battling mental illness but while these experiences have shaped a part of me, they do not define me. I am a testament to the power of the human spirit. The human spirit is one of the most difficult concepts to define – it is topic that has been debated for millennia by humanity. However, it is my firm belief that we have both a physical and a spiritual reality – both being as legitimate as the other – which compose and comprise this essence. However, power and potential of the human spirit is finally beginning to re-emerge from the limbo of obsolesce that it has been relegated to by a humanity that lost touch of its capacity. It exists almost as a dormant seed that simply needs nourishment in the form of affirming its existence. And the fires of that much needed nourishment have been lit, which I myself have bore firsthand witness to – they are fires which smolder as small embers in the belly of humanity. Though currently existing just as a flicker of orange light against the backdrop of a humanity drowning in the shadows of materialism, decadence, and consumption, those embers possess the capacity to engulf the world in a fire that will bring with it the awareness of our potential for greatness. The reason being, that the stories and proofs of the human spirit endure, as they do with the story of my own life I have just recounted, even as evidence of its existence is debated over the passing years. Knowing and understanding such latent power within is the key to anybody’s healing journey.  I never want to forget the purpose of my life and why I was created. By doing what I love at SIOM, I will not forget. I would be honored to receive such an education and am excited to learn from SIOM and its diverse faculty, staff and peers and participate in creating the next generation of TCM leaders. It is this reciprocal process of learning and sharing that acts as a confirmation for my applying to SIOM.  I hope that my application is accepted at SIOM not only because of my accomplishments of my past, but my drive to become a health care practitioner and an artist of healing the mind, body, and soul. It would be my pleasure to represent SIOM throughout my career.