#3 - Dr. Neda Amani - More than medicine: a conversation on spiritual healing

A physician walks away from the exam room because she can’t ignore what she keeps seeing: symptoms rarely tell the whole story, and healing often starts where prescriptions end. I’m joined by Dr. Neda Amani, a University of Toronto–trained medical doctor who shifts from traditional family medicine into a broader path of integrative medicine, leadership work, and spiritual connectedness. We talk candidly about what modern healthcare does well and where it struggles, especially when time pressure turns people into problems to “manage” instead of humans to understand.
 
 Dr. Amani shares how the teachings of Avicenna, the Persian polymath behind The Canon of Medicine, help her think in whole systems: prevention, lifestyle, psychoemotional health, and the balance of body, mind, and spirit. We get specific about what that looks like on the ground, including the origin story of her Real You program, built around nutrition, exercise prescription, and root-cause change rather than chasing one symptom after another.
 
 Then we move into high-stress worlds: police wellness, executive health, government leadership, and the hidden cost of striving. Dr. Amani explains how leaders can create more impact by doing less, lowering stress, and facing the subconscious resistance that keeps them locked in overwork. She also offers a simple three-part prayer she once wrote on a prescription pad as a daily non-medical habit for health, purpose, and service.
 
 If you care about holistic healing, preventive care, mind-body medicine, and healthier leadership, you’ll find a lot to take into your own life. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Intro And Avicenna Teaser

Peter Kolakovic 0:02

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. My name is Peter, and you are listening to my best life. On this episode, I am speaking with Dr. Nada Amani. Dr. Amani is a physician, a medical doctor, who has recently, in the last few years, hung up her stethoscope to focus instead on healing in the largest possible sense of that word, leadership and spiritual connectedness. So in this conversation with Dr. Romani, and it's a wonderfully fascinating conversation, I learned quite a bit myself. In particular, she mentioned someone by the name of Avicenna, who was an inspiration for her. I was not previously familiar with this individual, this Avicenna, so after our conversation, I looked him up, and apparently he was one of the most significant physicians, philosophers, and scientists of the Islamic Golden Age. He was Persian. He lived between 980 and 1037 of the Common Era. Dr. Amani described him as a polymath. And when I looked him up, I saw that same word. And I guess I'm not much of a polymath because I wasn't sure what that what that word actually meant. And so, for those of you who are in the same situation as me, a polymath is someone with remarkably broad knowledge and deep expertise across multiple, often diverse fields or disciplines. So for example, art, science, engineering, and some of the uh commonly quoted examples of individuals who could be described as polymaths include Leonardo da Vinci and uh Benjamin Franklin. So, yeah, I, you know, I I learned that. And I learned that Avicenna wrote a manual called The Canon of Medicine, which apparently was very influential for a number of centuries. And what else? Yeah, what else? A really, really interesting figure whose philosophy really centered around holistic healing and really you know, focused on the fact that health depends on good health depends on a balance between the body, mind, and spirit. Some of the key tenets of his philosophy include evidence-based medicine, which I I think is is obviously a very important one. Preventive care. He he believed that prevention was was you know better than curing something, as in it's better to prevent it than than to allow the uh the disease to take root. Of course, you know curing is also great when things do take root, but yeah, big focus on prevention. And he emphasized diet, exercise, fresh air, and and lifestyle adjustments. So, you know, all of those things I think very much jive with my own personal philosophy. And what was the last thing? Oh, yeah, so he he also heavily emphasized the importance of psycho-emotional connectedness, arguing that emotional states directly affect physical health and heart function, which again, uh, you know, I I find no fault with that. I I I agree 100%. I believe that there is a strong connection between body, mind, and and soul. And so in this conversation with Dr. Romani, we we look at how the philosophy of Avicenna shaped her own views of integrative medicine. We talk a little bit about her experience with with police officers and with executives and business leaders and government officials. Yeah, it's just a a really beautiful uh conversation. We talk about her program, the the real you program that's that that she established. Yeah, and it's just a a a really uh wonderfully warm and and insightful conversation. And I hope you give it a listen, and if it resonates with you, please like it, please share it, please subscribe, you know, all that jazz. And uh yeah, without further ado, this is my conversation with Doctor Nada Amani. Enjoy. Dr.

Spiritual Connectedness Defined

Peter Kolakovic 5:33

Nada Amani, welcome to the podcast.

Neda Amani 5:37

Peter, thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here with you.

Peter Kolakovic 5:40

It's my pleasure. It's it's so nice to be speaking with you today. So I wanted to start by asking you about something that I saw in your bio on your website where you talk about advancing health and healing through spiritual connectedness. Now that's something that you don't often hear from medical doctors, so I'm I'm curious about that. Can you can you explain what you're referring to?

Neda Amani 6:11

Absolutely. This is my entire life's work, I would say. And it goes to the idea, the truth, that the world is made up of energy, and we are spiritual beings. We don't learn this when we're younger necessarily, depending on who our parents are. We definitely did not learn this in medical school, and somehow I've just known this personally, like my soul has always known this. Not related to medicine, but it became very, very obvious very, very quickly within my practice, like within I guess I'm gonna back up a little bit.

Medical School Misses The Soul

Neda Amani 6:51

So I graduated from University of Toronto Medical School in 1998.

Peter Kolakovic 6:59

Okay.

Neda Amani 7:00

And I just always like so you know, different colleagues, different classmates are interested in different things throughout the medical training, right? It's rigorous, it's like basically like hazing to the highest thing. Oh, yeah, yeah. If you can survive medical school and still, you know, be like, you know, be a pretty put together, collected individual, like you've done a lot. Yeah, it's not, I mean, and that's part of the problem that it doesn't really tend to the soul of the individual. The whole training is actually messed up. Right. And so, and so people who are more connected to the spirit and the soul, which I have always been just since I was little, have a have a can really see, you know, the problems with even the medical training. So just how, you know, it's it's really focused on the disease and the pathology rather than the human being that's in front of them. Now, obviously, I've had, you know, professors and clinicians and seniors who were really, you know, caring and attending to the individual and the soul and the family as well as the disease. But it was more the exception than the rule. And I became really aware of this, and that's a whole other story of what I, you know, what I witnessed and experienced and viewed in the medical training. But very soon in clinical practice, I trained as a family physician. And so I started my practice in Toronto in 2000. And it was just very obvious that a lot of the problems that my patients and there at that time they were mostly ethnic women, immigrants, many from Iran, where I was born, and then from all over the place. It just became very obvious to me that you the diseases that I was seeing, quote unquote diseases that I was seeing in practice, were really connected to something much, much deeper that a prescription or a medication would not take away.

Peter Kolakovic 9:00

That's interesting. You you you've you've already touched upon the next question that I was going to ask you. So it's kind of like you read my mind. I was going to ask you about your personal and professional journey. And at what point you realized that practicing medicine, traditional Western medicine, was no longer enough to heal people.

Neda Amani 9:22

Oh,

Early Practice And System Pressure]

Neda Amani 9:23

it was quick. So I mean, I almost dropped out of medical school, at least while I wanted to, definitely, during psychiatry and surgery, just the, you know, the during the training of those two in residency, just because of how people I saw patients and people, not patients, people were being treated, particularly in those two specialties. And then I just, you know, I knew that I couldn't because I loved my work and I had wanted to be a doctor since I was very young. And I knew that I just had to like, you know, push through. And so when I started practice in, so I graduated in like June, July of 2000, and then from my residency and from family practice residency, and then opened up a clinic with my brother at the time in Toronto, and we just like opened up, we like renovated and created a whole clinic called Avicenna. It's the name of very famous Persian physician who was master healer. And so I was really aware of like the healing component of health and medicine, and that's why we know named the clinic uh after him. And so December, by December, you know, 2001, 2002, I just knew that I was miserable. I was so, I was so unhappy. And I was like, this is not gonna work because I was seeing, you know, I was work, I had been walking working in walk-in clinics as well at the time, and just seeing how you couldn't even make a connection with the human being in front of you in the amount of time that in practice now you're being asked to see a patient, diagnose them and treat them. You know, a lot of the physicians were like spending five, 10 minutes, and I was like, I can't do this. I can't even say hi, how are you, and get a feel for how the person is feeling or how they're doing. Yeah. Like, how am I gonna, you know, like, and it's all about economics, really. At the end of the day, you know, me at that time with my brother, we had fixed overhead. Whether we showed up to work, whether we were sick, whether we were doing anything, we had, you know, undergone a huge debt to set up the clinic. And now my part of the overhead was, you know, $10,000 a month, whether, and this is back in 2000, right? Whether 2001, whether, you know, I I went to work or I didn't, that was my portion that I had to pay. And so, you know, you realize very quickly, like, this is not what I wanted to do. I wanted to spend time to get to heal people and to make them feel better and talk to them because a lot of people not just that the talking will make them feel better, but in order to really diagnose people properly, you need to spend time and understand them from their world and what they're going through, their home environment. And I had read about Avicenna and how he was a master healer, you know, many years before even I went into medicine. And that's he would, that's what he would do. He would spend two, three, four hours, five hours by the bedside. He would travel to the person, to the patient's city, he would meet the family, you know, to make a proper diagnosis.

Peter Kolakovic 12:39

So

Who Was Avicenna The Healer

Peter Kolakovic 12:40

tell me a bit about Avicenna. Was this someone who practiced in modern times or uh very good question? Yeah, more distant past.

Neda Amani 12:50

More distant past, yeah. So he was he was after Galen, who is a brilliant physician. He was the greatest physician. He wrote what's called the canon of medicine, which pretty much all of Western physicians and medic uh medicine is was based on this canon of medicine. And he has chapters in there about, believe it or not, he has chapters on the healing plant of marijuana. He has, he has written, he had written a case of the first diagnosis that he had made connecting a skin condition of a patient to their psychology, to their mental health. You know, there's I haven't read the canon of medicine, but I've read about it. And yeah, so he was he was not a normal person. He was a polymath, he was, I think he had like memorized the Quran at that time as well. Like he was a very spiritual man. And obviously he was he was a brilliant clinician, physician. And so that was that was the basis that I had wanted. I wanted to be that doctor. I wanted to be like Avicenna, you know, and name the clinic after Avicenna. And then I get into real life practice. And now I have like a staff to run, I have like people to, you know, hire, train, fire overhead, like logistics of running a clinical practice, seeing patients, you know, in five, 10 minutes. Like it was just, yeah, it became very obvious that the way that the medical system was set up was not meant to tend for the soul and the human being, and was just meant to like basically look at, you know, one problem, two problems, which I never could, and then send them out, and then send them out the door.

Peter Kolakovic 14:31

You know, I I did notice again in your bio that you talk about combining modern medical and ancient healthcare practices. So that's why I was asking about what was the name? Avicenna?

Neda Amani 14:43

Yes. So in Arabic it's ebnesina. I can't speak Arabic, but it's ebnesena. Okay. And I think and I think he spoke, I can't remember what languages he spoke, but the English term is Avicenna. And so if you think about it, I mean he was, you know, the clinician who knew about, let's say, food, psychology, movement, and then what kind of herbs to use, you know, what kind of how to treat physical ailments that are connected to psychological presentations. And then, and obviously at that time, you know, they would have used like poultices and, you know, I don't know to what extent he would practice something like surgery, the approaches to infection and surgical situations, clinical presentations. I didn't really look into as much as the fact of what his philosophy was on diagnosis and treatment from a much bigger perspective, not from such a narrow, you know, the way we practice or we're taught in medicine is every organ system. That's

Why The Body Is Connected

Neda Amani 15:46

why you have like a gastroenterologist, you have a respirologist, you have, you have a rheumatologist, you have neurologist. Well, the body doesn't work that way. The body's not separate parts. Right. Everything, everything, like how you walk, how you place your feet on the ground is connected to whether you have neck pain, whether you have headaches, whether you have back pain, and that's connected to whether you develop, you know, metabolic conditions, and that's connected to whether you have depression, and then that impacts your breathing. And I mean, it's like the whole, the whole body is and the mind and then the spirit is all connected. So you can't, you can't look at, you can look at masking a disease, and that's what I would say a lot of Western medicine does do, except for the real important parts of Western medicine, which is obviously surgical, acute care, right, you know, infectious disease interventions, which is like that's why, you know, Western medicine, you can't throw out and say Western medicine has no use. It absolutely does. And certainly. Yeah, we've advanced incredibly. And I'm not one of those, I've never been one of those doctors who thinks, oh, you know, we need to just have NAC. No. We with the the the what we've been able to do in terms of diagnostics and treatment have evolved greatly from the time of Avicenna. But most of disease, you know, that's for 20% of disease. Majority of what we see, 80% of disease, is can be actually prevented and treated through this more holistic approach.

Peter Kolakovic 17:18

So you practiced medicine for 22 years before retiring and becoming a full-time speaker and educator.

Leaving Practice For Spiritual Work

Peter Kolakovic 17:30

So how did it feel to trade the certainty of a clinical diagnosis for the mystery of spiritual connectedness?

Neda Amani 17:41

Peter, it's a very interesting way for you to term that. I need you to say that again just because it sounded so good.

Peter Kolakovic 17:51

Yeah, certainly, certainly. So I was talking about how you how you were making this professional transition, and the question was, how did it feel? What did I say, to trade the certainty of a clinical diagnosis for the mystery of spiritual connectedness?

Neda Amani 18:08

Oh, I was I was certain that you had probably written that down because it sounded so bad. But if if you did that off the cuff, I'm pretty impressed.

Peter Kolakovic 18:17

I have a few notes. I have a few notes.

Neda Amani 18:20

Okay, because I was like, wow, that was really good. Well, really scary, like extremely scary. And you know, that's my that's been my spiritual journey. And that's actually been, you know, they have there's a scripture in the Bible, but it's the truth and it's and it's in all faiths and belief systems, right? Because I've I've been very passionate about studying and and learning about different faiths since I was a very young child, actually, on my own, just as a personal thing to do. And it's, you know, if you are a seeker of truth, you will find the truth, right? And so I've always been since I was little, just really passionate about helping people feel better, feel good, make them happy, bring joy. That's just been like, I believe that that's what God created me to do. And in order to do that, you know, I thought I had to become a doctor and, you know, train in Western medicine. I never thought about going to like, let's say, naturopathy or anything like that. But I I wanted to do in my mind the real deal, right? The real thing. And I was, I was able to help a lot of people. I had an amazing, I mean, I could write books on the different chapters and the different journeys that my career took me and different environments and experiences and specialties and stuff. Cause, you know, I tried many, many different areas of medical practice, even in family, because I just was interested. But the impact now that I'm able to have, and at that time, though, I was still in a model of even though I was very different than most physicians around me in clinical practice at that time and at this time, I still was in the mindset that it was I was going to be the one that was going to help people feel better. And and that came, ironically, at a huge cost to my own health and well-being. So what was really cool was that that love and that passion that I've always had, and I was willing, like I made a bet with God when I was in grade nine, that I was willing to like suffer in order to help humanity, you know, and I was obsessed with world peace at, you know, from a very young age. And I had made that bet and I was willing to, you know, do whatever it was to make other people feel better. God was like, and this wasn't my plan, this was God's plan. God was like, no boo, you know, as much as you've wanted to make other people feel better, like I want you to also feel good. I also want you to be healed. I also want you to be as healthy as you can be. And the move to leave clinical practice, there's a lot of reasons why God had me move from clinical practice and then come here to Texas from Canada. But I believe one of the key parts of it was that I've experienced was that he wanted also me to experience how if we move to the spirit and living by the spirit, then our own being is now a salve in society where I don't have to now do as much as I was doing and yeah, just do as much as I was doing in order to help people become healthier for that 80%, right? I'm not talking about like a surgical emergency acute care situation. I'm just talking about overall, you know, he has me in different environments here in Texas, and I'm not working as a clinician, but he has shown me how I can have that impact on helping people heal spiritually and how how their healing spiritually can have a huge impact on their health. And I'm I've been witnessing that more and more and was really witnessing it towards the end of my clinical career in Canada, where I wasn't needing to do as much or my team didn't. Need to do as much because I was transforming. Does that make sense?

Peter Kolakovic 22:04

It makes absolute sense.

Neda Amani 22:06

Yeah.

Peter Kolakovic 22:07

The clinic, the program that you founded was called The Real You.

Neda Amani 22:12

Do you want

How The Real You Started

Neda Amani 22:13

to know how that came about?

Peter Kolakovic 22:14

Yeah, please, please tell me.

Neda Amani 22:15

Yeah. So we were at Avicenna, the original Avicenna in Toronto, and I had started, this is in 2003. And so if you remember, I started practicing 2000. We opened up the clinic in December of 2000. And, you know, I was doing walk-in clinics and like and organizing the clinic, helping organize the clinic and set it up before that, between graduation and December. And then so when we opened up the clinic in December in 2000, you know, I started seeing patients and I was seeing sometimes like, you know, 50, 60 patients a day, like just exhausting, right? And ethnic, you know, women generally have more medical health issues than men do. And also, you know, with immigrant population, you have like all the psychological issues, you have the economic issues, language barriers. I mean, it's just like the whole gamut. And so I had started basically helping people, just realizing, like, you know, here's like a, for example, a case that came in that really changed and really made me understand what was going on. So I

Getting To The Root Cause

Neda Amani 23:15

was at that time around 30 years old chronologically. And this young Iranian girl was around 25. And she sat on my the table and she was like, oh, Dr. Amani, I feel so old. I feel so tired. And I was like, You feel old? And then she was like, Yeah. She's like, I feel like I'm getting old. I'm tired. I have headaches. I have anxiety. You know, she had backaches, like just, you know, she just was like just besides herself. And so I spent, you know, usually I would I could never let the patient go with five, 10 minutes, usually. So I spent, you know, however long. And then I realized if I were to do what I had been trained in medicine to do, I would have given her a pill for her back pain, a pill for her anxiety, and, you know, in time, a pill, let's say, for her sleeping issues or her headache or whatever. But I spent quite a bit of time and I realized like her mindset was, you know, just not there. Like something, you know, got to the root of the problem, right? And so brought her back. And cases like this were many. And so I started teaching people how to realize so many of my patients were eating poorly. You know, immigrant populations usually gain when they come to Canada about 10 to 20 pounds within the first like decade that they come at least. And so their diet really changes. Weather in Canada, you know, in Toronto, and let's say specifically, like it's cold seven months of the year. So now they can't walk, they can't go outside like they do, you know, normal Canadians, let's say, would be doing. So I started really learning about the determinants of health at that time, which I'd always been interested in, but just more from a practical clinical perspective, and started teaching people how to exercise. And that was like the genesis of the Real You program. And so just teaching how for them how to exercise in the office, and people can read more about the details. It's a long, it's a book and a s and a couple of movies. But one day in 2003, so my staff was noticing like these people, and I was noticing these young people, these older people just transformed their health. And this was just with me counseling and nutrition. And I brought a trainer in the office, and we did a pilot project on the first real U, which was the exercise prescription component, to teach them how to exercise. And I was noticing, oh my God, things like pain was improving. My brother's patients started coming to me who were in the same clinic. He's a rehab specialist, and they were coming to see me to help with their pain just through the exercise program, without, you know, getting off medications, blood pressure improving. And so one day I came out to the staff during a break, lunch hour, I can't remember when it was, and I was like, it's like, it's like the real you is coming out. And then that's how, and then that's how, yeah. And if you look at philosophical and spiritual texts from all over the world, this concept of the real you or like the Atman or the higher self or the true self, you know, is is a real real thing in all the spiritual teachings from the beginning.

Peter Kolakovic 26:16

Yeah, well, that's that's beautiful. That's a beautiful story. You know, it was it was interesting what you were saying about, you know, uh the traditional approach being, you know, patient comes in, they come in with a problem, you prescribe a pill for that problem, patient goes away, and maybe they get some symptomatic relief, but it doesn't really go to to the root causes.

Lifestyle Medicine Over Quick Fixes

Peter Kolakovic 26:37

This has been one of my personal criticisms of the the Western medical system that I believe I recall reading at one point that something like 60% of Americans are currently taking at least one prescription pill at any given time, and it was n a similar number, maybe a little bit less, for Canadians, which which kind of shocked me. I mean, it's I guess it's profitable for the pharmaceutical industry, but whether or not it actually addresses root causes of of disease, frankly, I'm skeptical myself. If I if I look at myself in the last 10 years or so, I can probably count on one hand the number of prescription pills that I've taken. It's it's very small because I, you know, I try to take care of myself, body, mind, and soul. So yeah, all of what you just said really, really resonated with me.

Neda Amani 27:29

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the thing is is that like people like to like demonize the pharmaceutical industry. And I'm not saying you just did. I'm just I just want to make a point of this because I know a lot of physicians in, you know, the health and wellness space do that. And I've I've never wanted to do that, and I don't believe it's and I don't believe it's true. And I don't, and I just want to make a point of why for the listeners that this is certainly important, this is important because you know, supply always generally, right, is in response to demand. So if the demand is there and people have now, you know, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, whatever, and they're seeking a quick fix for it, well, some entity, some person, someone is gonna come and create that quick fix, right? So, so you can't blame so much, although you can you can wish and pray that they have the awareness to maybe be involved in the space to prevent the demand. But, you know, given human nature is still where it is, I've always been to focus on how do we make people realize that you know they can there is a better way, and there is a role for some of these pharmaceuticals definitely on their journey, but there is a better way.

Peter Kolakovic 28:47

Yeah, yeah. And I and I certainly did not mean to imply that you know there's no value in pharmaceuticals. There certainly is, and you know, if God forbid I had an infection and a doctor recommended that I take antibiotics, I would absolutely take antibiotics. I think there's tremendous value in them. I guess my concern is more with the over-prescribing of pills in modern society. Yeah.

Neda Amani 29:11

Yeah, yeah. And people want to take it. But the problem is that people, you know, if you were to tell people, okay, you know, you can you can stop eating your your chips and your cookies and your bread and your pasta and all this, and you'll lose the weight. I mean, last five years of my career, I can't, I can't remember a single case of diabetes that we didn't reverse completely. Yeah. You know, so was I taught that in med school? No. But over time, again, trying to get to the root cause of the problem and being able to like encourage patients that, yeah, you can do it, we can do it. It was definitely an outcome that we did see.

Peter Kolakovic 29:49

I

What Police Wellness Taught Her

Peter Kolakovic 29:50

wanted to switch gears a bit and talk a little bit about some of your previous work because I know that you did some work with uh the Ottawa police in particular and and other individuals in in high stress roles, who I'm sure you know benefited from your very unique and and compassionate approach to healthcare. What did they teach you in the process as you were providing guidance to them? What did you learn from that experience?

Neda Amani 30:22

Very good question, Peter. That was a very good question. Very good question. A lot. I mean, there's there's one scene, it's my favorite scene, and I hope we get to recreate it in a movie of some sort because it's it will stick in my head. So we're going to the pilot program for the real you. Okay. So we're gonna go to the year 2011 February. And I had been asked by the chief at the time at Ottawa Blees to do a couple of pilot programs. He was trying to test me out and my team and see, you know, if he wanted to bring us in over like 2006, 2007. Then it took about two, it took almost 2008, maybe. Then it took about two and a half years for us to get approval from the city of Ottawa and the board to do just a one-year pilot. It took two and a half years. And then so when we started in February of 2011, I remember, you know, we were I was doing the intake of, you know, the first 100 patients. We had a pilot program for 100 people. And I remember there was a cop that was sitting in front of me. And so I was, let's say at this time, I was like uh 2011. I can't remember how old I was. It was 71. Do the math, 30, 40. I was about 30, let's say 40, maybe. That was all right, around that time. And and this guy was like, you know, probably in his 50s, and he was so sweet, so serene, a cop. He was like a veteran for like 20 years. Yeah, he would have been in his 50s and so serene, so fit, healthy. I was just like, I was like doing the intake and this like an 18-page intake, going through it all. And then I just stopped. And now me, okay, if we go to that time, I was like a young mom. I was launching this pilot program that's never been done before, 12-hour days, you know, downtown police station in the in the in the first aid room, and my staff was in the inner office by the cell block. We had like a fax machine in the first aid room. I had left my clinical practice to do this work with the police force. It was like the scene was like hilarious. That's why I want to recreate it. And so I look at this guy and I'm like, what are you doing here? And then he was like, What? I said, I need you to sit in my chair. I'm gonna go sit in your chair, and I need you to tell me what you've done because I don't know what I could help you with. Because this guy was like so chill, so relaxed, healthy, no health issues, and he was in his 50s. So the cops, particularly, because you know, we worked with the police officers and the civilians that supported them, but the police officers in particular are a very, very, very special group of people. People don't understand, you know, the the type of person that goes into policing. I I feel very, very privileged and I knew it was a blessing that God had given me to work so closely with these officers, you know, over a decade, so closely. I was their main, you know, wellness doctor for over a decade. They're just resilient. They're so funny, you know, so, so funny, lighthearted, taking things easy. And I certainly was, you know, I wasn't to that ext the extent that they were. I was always really surprised by how funny, lighthearted, committed to their fitness, dedicated, you know, the majority of the people that I was, particularly the police officers I was dealing with. So I would say they changed my life.

Peter Kolakovic 33:52

Hmm. Well, that's that's beautiful. I mean, police officers are a group that gets dumped on quite a bit. And, you know, in in some individual cases, there are obvious reasons why why that's the case.

Neda Amani 34:04

Well I can tell you that I would always say, God, why did you choose for us to do this, you know, rev this a revolutionary program. Our impact was like incredible by his face. And I was like, Why did you choose cops? Why did you not choose like, you know, and I realized that if I if he hadn't first of all, that he chose the cops because they were so dedicated, so committed, and so grateful. And they did what, you know, my team and I, they were really, really motivated and our results were showcased by their dedication. And then the second one was that really I wouldn't have survived if he had had me do the program with a group of doctors or accountants. I think I would have been like, bye-bye. I'm not saying, I'm not going through this. So for me, it was like, okay, I will continue to do it because these guys are so funny.

Peter Kolakovic 35:02

Yeah. Well, it certainly has to be, you know, amongst the most challenging professions out there. Police officers have to deal with so much, you know, just going answering their their calls every day, dealing with situations of domestic violence and I mean exposed to all sorts of secondary trauma. I can't imagine doing that job myself. I don't think I'd want to. So well, you know, good on the ones who are who are taking care of themselves and trying to to stay uplifted.

Neda Amani 35:33

Most people wouldn't last a week. I would say that's a good thing. Yeah, yeah. I believe it. I believe it. Yeah.

Peter Kolakovic 35:40

You know, it's

Staying Human Across Deep Divides

Peter Kolakovic 35:41

fair to say that we we live in a society that's you know torn apart by all sorts of divisions and you know, this is this this is one of the fault lines, right? People's attitude towards the police and and you know, persons of authority. So how getting back to, you know, the the theme of spiritual interconnectedness, how do we practice that, you know, with people that we may fundamentally disagree with? Because, you know, there may be some people out there that still harbor resentment towards police in particular, you know, because of incidents that have that have taken place, you know, which we we don't have to go into here, but you know, how how how can we maintain that sense of yeah, connectedness to others when we're our society seems to be so torn apart by all sorts of different divisions, whether it's political division, racial division, religious division.

Neda Amani 36:42

Yeah, I think you need to I think the biggest thing is for people to come out of themselves is when when I create my reality based on me, my beliefs, my values, my ideas of what is right and wrong, and and then I see other people as, you know, as you know, do they fit into that or not, and basically make a quick judgment, that's where we we cause harm to ourselves and we cause harm to others. Now, of course, if someone's doing something that's harmful to another person, right, then we have to call that out and there's gonna be consequences in this life and the afterlife for that. Outside of that, if you look at that, everyone, like if you look at the fact that, and I think this is a gift that I've been given, like we all are born with natural gifts, but for some, I think for for this reason, for this work that I I've been called to do, is that I've always been able to really see perspectives that are very, very different from mine and try to understand them by honoring the humanity and whoever is in front of me. And, you know, whether for their view, I mean, I I have friends that have completely opposing views from me that are very close to me and they're very extremely opposing on some very important issues, but I can see the humanity in them and keep that fact that they are where they are at with their understanding of the subject matter at this moment in time, knowing that also myself, I have changed how I see things and how I see the world and uh how I see life, you know, every year, like every, you know, from even six months ago. So, how can I judge another human being of where they're at at this moment in time or their belief systems? I can't because we're all ideally in the process of evolving. So I think with the cops, for example, some of them, I'm a very soft person in general. I want everyone to be happy, I want everything to be peaceful. You know, there are people I remember one woman cop, she came into my office. This was a really cool case. And she came in, she was very crusty, very nasty, very rude, like from that first visit. Like just very rude and very crusty, just had her whole, you know, her guard up. And she had just chosen to come to the program and do the program. And I was just like, and then, but she was being really obnoxious, right? Really overtly obnoxious. So I just I had to, after, you know, 10-15 minutes, I said to her, I had to like call it out. And but I did it in the most loving way. I said, you know, I said, this whole act, literally, this is what I said to her. I said, you know, this whole act that you have going on here, that you're this some nasty, rough, tough cop, you know, and you're being rude to me. I said, I'm not buying any of this. I said, I don't see the you and I didn't, I wasn't buying any of it. I said, I don't expect, I'm not gonna mistreat you or be rude or disrespectful to you. And I said, and I expect that you are gonna treat me in a respectful way. If you want to do the program, you're welcome to come and I will do my best as my team to take care of you, but I'm not expecting this behavior. And at the same time, I want you to know that this persona that you've created for yourself is not the real you, right? In those terms. And she was like, not only was she shocked, but I was shocked at how I called her out on it, right? And like literally God made me call her out on it. And she ended up having one of, she ended up being not only one of my greatest fans in the organization, but fans meaning she really was grateful and appreciative and like really endearing to me, you know, over like the year that we were together. But she ended up like really, we ended up addressing a huge issue that she had had for for over a decade, like a chronic pain situation, resolving where her husband came to me and was like, you know, whatever you've done, like this has been, you know, and that's that's the story of, you know, when you look at somebody's heart, when they've gone through trauma, when they've gone through pain, they might act in a certain way, and then their body will also respond in a certain way in terms of quote unquote disease. But if, but if you're really going to the depth of who they are, you're gonna see beyond that. And if you can help them get there, then then nobody wants to be nasty and mean, I don't think, you know? And and that nasty and meanness, anger, hatred, frustration actually shows up in pathology. Not to blame anyone. I don't want anyone to be like, oh, so you're blaming me for no, no one's blaming anybody, but I've seen this in my own life and in my own healing journey and definitely in in my over two decades of practice.

Peter Kolakovic 41:27

I love what you said about honoring the humanity and others, including those with whom we have profound disagreements. In

Leadership That Spreads Calm

Peter Kolakovic 41:36

addition to working with police, you've also worked with government leaders, executives of big corporations who themselves, you know, come under a fair amount of scrutiny, often with good cause. So t tell me a bit about that work and and some of the challenges that you see with, you know, government officials and executives.

Neda Amani 42:00

Yeah, I mean, that part, like it certainly I didn't expect, and it was incredible because we were, I was then pulled into environments with, you know, lead very high-level leaders in policing, military, and then all, you know, as you said, the government and executives and business. So it was very, very different environments. And what was the most exciting part of this that I saw and that people saw, and there's a huge resistance, because I had this resistance myself and in my own health and healing and you know, leadership journey. And I saw this also, and I've seen this in in a lot of leaders, although it's definitely that's changing, it's changed a lot from 10 years ago, and it's gonna even become more and more right now. This is where our world is going. But was the outcome that people would see? Like I had like these leaders come in and they'd be like, Dr. Armani, I'm doing so much less. I remember one of the cop leaders was like, I'm doing so much less. I'm not stressing as much. I have more time. I'm, you know, exercising more regularly, meditating, spending more time with my family, and I'm getting so much more done. I'm, you know, having such a greater impact. My subordinates, my team, you know, are doing better. I mean, and that's, you know, that's that ripple effect. You know, we we call it the secret healing agent effect. It's like that ripple effect that that leader now recognizing that them doing more, them striving more, them pushing more to make something happen is actually not the way. And them being healthy, peaceful, taking things slowly, being present, you know, their essence is actually what was now going to be transforming and getting work done. Because, you know, if you look at read about Lao Tzu, you know, I heard in your first broadcast you mentioned Lao Tzu, which I've studied from for many decades, is the way is the way. It's not like I'm gonna do all this so I can get to there. Yeah, no, and that's how. Our society has been built on is that we want this outcome, we want this objective, and we will do anything, push, force, you know, not sleep, you know, neglect ourselves, our family, you know, be rude to people, nasty, whatever it is to make that no. That's why our society is the way that it is. It's how I'm living from moment to moment and who I am as a person and my level of peace and grace and calmness and joy that then is going to actually make the world a better place. It's not what I'm doing. And so this was the greatest outcome that actually I saw in the leadership change and was probably one of the is probably one of the most rewarding things that I see is that, is that your own transformation then has this like ripple effect on everybody around you. And the greatest challenge that I saw in doing that with people and helping to facilitate that was letting them know, because you know, people who get into leadership positions for the most part, not all, but for the most part, want to serve, want to do good, want to have an impact, want to make a difference in the world. But many of them are willing to do that at a great cost to themselves. And I was one of them, or to their families, or to, you know, their community, let's say their larger community, they might do that if they go too much on the narcissistic ego side. Yeah. You know, and we have a lot of that. But but so the resistance is there because the ego is like, no, if I don't, if I just sit back, if I, you know, if I'm gonna fall behind, I'm not gonna be able to have the impact. I'm not gonna, if from a narcissistic perspective, I'm not gonna be recognized, I'm not gonna go move up the ladder. I mean, there's very different motivations. Most people aren't even conscious of their motivations because they're subconscious leading them, right? But they're all there. And so my biggest task has always been, and even now, because I work with people now in a different way, is to be able to look at those subconscious motivations for them, or let's say in a better way, look at the subconscious resistance that they have to ascending to that higher state of being. So, how can we address the subconscious motivations that people have that prevent them from ascending to their higher state of being at an individual level? And obviously that then that translates to a collective level of organizations, of you know, you start with the individual and then you have the family, and then you have the community, and then you have companies, organizations. And the most exciting thing that I was seeing is that when you address that resistance in the subconscious for the most part, because that's what is leading people in that individual leader, now you have changed the whole organization and then therefore the world.

Peter Kolakovic 46:57

Beautiful. Again, you've kind of anticipated my next question. You've already touched upon it in some ways.

A Three-Part Prayer Prescription

Peter Kolakovic 47:06

I was going to ask, and this is going to be my curveball question, if you could prescribe one non-medical habit to every world leader, every high-level executive, every senior government official, anyone in a position of influence and power, what would it be?

Neda Amani 47:26

Very good question. I knew that this is a very good question. Very, very, very, very, very good question.

Peter Kolakovic 47:33

You could, you could, it doesn't have to be just one. You can you can list more than one.

Neda Amani 47:37

Yeah, I was gonna say, well, definitely the prayer that I would, and I'm gonna say it here because I think it's really important, but the cops again, God bless their souls, the cops, just a shout out to my police officers and military all over the world. May you be the peace officers that you're supposed to be in the in the blessed name of Jesus. I would say that this prayer came to me in my own healing journey, wanting to be the best that I could be for humanity. And then, and then I was called to share it with the cops, particularly, and many of them would have me write it down on my prescription pad for them. So it's a three-part prayer, and I would say this is the first thing. So the three parts, are you ready?

Peter Kolakovic 48:20

Yes.

Neda Amani 48:22

Okay. So the first part is God, please help me to be the healthiest that I can be. So that the second part is so that I can fulfill your will for my life. And then the third part is for the betterment of all life, all mankind. So again, so God, please help me because we need help. We cannot do it alone. God, please help me be the healthiest that I can be so that I can fulfill your will for my life, because I didn't create me, so how do I know what he wants me to do for the betterment of all mankind? And this prayer not only allows this supernatural transformational healing and health, which we saw, you know, in the clinical practice in the decades of with the police force and all the leaders and my own health and journey. I mean, if I were to list that's another podcast, if I were to tell you all the health problems that I had, that you know, God has helped me heal them throughout my lifetime, I mean, people would be surprised. But it also taps into our ability to focus our life and our health journey with something greater than just, I want to be healthy, I want to be fit, I want to look good. Those are all really good. But I saw that in my career, those are egotistical based, you know, motivations and they work for a certain time, but they don't work through the challenges and the problems and the struggles that come with life, with living. And so if you want to get through those challenges that are always present at different stages in different ways, you really want to dedicate your life and your health and your healing journey so that you can be of service to humanity at the highest level.

Peter Kolakovic 50:12

What

Faith And What Best Life Means

Peter Kolakovic 50:13

is the most beautiful thing that you've witnessed since you started following your you know, your your your your life's true mission?

Neda Amani 50:29

Well, I mean, I would say I've always been a believer of God and I've always wanted to serve him. But I would say God revealing the truth of Jesus Christ of Nazareth of Yeshua to me, which was a supernatural thing that happened to me in 2018, 2019, and I never asked for it. I never said I never sat down consciously and said, Go God, show me who Jesus is. Born Muslim. And, you know, I don't he doesn't want me to call myself a Christian right now for particular reason to say that Jesus is a gift to all humanity, everyone from every faith and no faith. So I would say that that's the most, that's the most beautiful thing because it really changed it just it's changed my life in in the most miraculous way. And and then also my ability to, you know, my heart, heart, Amani, my last name, believe it or not, means peace and all your wishes fulfilled.

Peter Kolakovic 51:22

Wow.

Neda Amani 51:23

And yeah, and Neda, which my dad, you know, God rest his soul, said to me that he was called to, and he was not at all a religious man whatsoever. Sometimes he would even say he didn't even know if God existed. So that was my father, but he was a little Buddha. He was the sweetest man you could ever sweetest, loveliest, most patient, calm, loving man. And he he said that he was called to call me Neda, and Neda means voice from God. So, so the thing that I've seen is that when you follow God and you really want to serve him, he will give the desires of your heart that is the best aligned for humanity, right? Not for your own self and your own ego. And and I would say that I've seen that, you know, that peace then comes to you even in the most difficult circumstances, that you and in the Bible it writes, you know, the peace that goes beyond your understanding. And that's what I would say really, really is the most beautiful thing that happened to me that I I had I didn't even know was possible.

Peter Kolakovic 52:23

Thank you for sharing that. Dr. Romani, one last question for you. The theme of this podcast is living one's best life. So what does living your best life mean to you?

Neda Amani 52:43

Being loving to yourself, to who God created you to be at any point in time, even if even if it's painful, even if you're suffering, you're you're not where you want to be, you're not experiencing you know the reality that you think you should be or you need to be, always being loving to yourself and therefore loving to other people. Because if you maintain that, no matter what, there's no way that you can't live your best life.

Closing Gratitude And Blessing

Peter Kolakovic 53:26

Dr. Neda Amani, thank you so much for joining me for this uh really wonderful and inspiring conversation. Um I I've really appreciated the perspectives that you've shared, and I appreciate all of your wisdom, your compassion, your insights. It's been a truly wonderful experience for me. So thank you.

Neda Amani 53:49

Peter, praise God, hallelujah. Thank you so much. God bless you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. God bless all the all all the hears out there. I'm so grateful for what you're doing. Thank you, Peter.

Peter Kolakovic 54:03

Thank you.