Shiva and Shakti at the Doctor
There’s a tantric practice in which partners take turns embodying Shakti, the divine feminine, and Shiva, the divine masculine. The one who is Shiva sits in stillness, witnessing with deep presence. The one who is Shakti tunes in to the creative force within, allowing her body, voice, and emotions to express however they want to.
In yoga philosophy, Shiva and Shakti are inseparable. They’re energies that exist within each of us and we also relate through them. Shiva is pure consciousness—the ultimate witness, presence itself. Shakti is creative energy, the life force that animates everything. Together they form a divine union: Shiva giving direction and structure to Shakti, and Shakti making Shiva come alive.
These energies speak to what makes a good doctor’s visit. I write a lot about the shortcomings of the medical industrial complex. Another way to describe what needs to change in healthcare is to say we need more Shiva and Shakti in our healthcare.
Presence is one of those words we use without really knowing what we mean by it. We know presence when we feel it, and we like it when we feel it from our doctor. But what is it actually? Presence, you could say, is Shiva. He is the ultimate witness. When a doctor or nurse practitioner brings Shiva energy into a visit, they also invite in Shakti. The doctor holds the witness role, creating the container for the patient’s story to be heard and for their body to be understood.
This is true in the dynamic between doctor and patient, and also within each person. Presence generates access to the shakti within, allowing for a more creative approach to the patient’s problem. The more access a doctor or nurse practitioner has to their own inner shakti, the more they can be guided by intuition, recognize patterns, and connect dots that aren’t so obvious. Shakti is both a goddess and creative energy itself. She is aliveness. What could be more important to health and healing than cultivating aliveness?
These concepts are vast and I’m only touching the surface here. But I find it genuinely useful and exciting to think about Shiva and Shakti as a framework for what we’re missing in modern healthcare.
So the next time you leave a doctor’s appointment feeling unheard, unseen, or like your symptoms were just plugged into an algorithm, know that what you’re sensing is real. And it’s important.
You deserve a provider who shows up as a witness and applies their full human capacity to their work. Not someone who just mindlessly orders tests according to the protocols. Not someone who could be replaced by AI (and probably soon will be), but someone whose presence creates space for your body’s intelligence to be heard.
That’s what I’m building at Wise Body. If you’re ready for healthcare that includes both the rigor of modern medicine and the aliveness of Shakti, I’d love to meet you.
