Why Soar?

Business case striving becomes personal manifesto.

I'm writing to create conversations that bridge modern health care technology and ancient preventative medicine - the grounded, innovative life we were created to thrive in.

I dove in.

Invited to join a 6-week long writing workshop in January despite my already busy schedule, I sat on the application until the day it was due. I love to write, but I don’t love to share it. Resolved to define the business case of integrative medicine that helped me back to health, I met with my coach on the first day with research ready and strategy brain in command. I was ready to prove it.

I’ve never been so grateful to be slowed down again. Sharing the truth about ourselves is one of the most vulnerable and empowering things we can do. My coach, now friend, asked why I was so passionate about this bridge between ancient and modern.

I felt so seen.

Vulnerable and desiring to keep someone else from having the same story as me, I had often hidden the darker parts of my story behind my plans of “what next”. Driven to create a world in which my story would not be repeated in someone else, I’ve had a 10 year career working in one iteration of health care innovation or another - but I never shared my why.

The truth is, I wanted to be accepted more than I wanted to be seen.

Hidden behind large organizations, my mission had always been articulated to the people I thought could stomach my “hippie”, “out there”, “eastern”, “idealistic”, observations and dreams for the American health care system. Few colleagues or friends knew the full story. Some made assumptions when I got my 200 hour yoga certification. When I entered the Foster Writing Community hoping to lay out a plan that everyone would magically and dutifully follow because of my perfectly pontificated research, the ivory tower of power started to smell like moth balls.

My truth starts with the whole story. I hope I get to learn yours.

The systems we create together will be better off if we start by seeing each other fully.

This Substack (which still needs an overarching name) will explore pain and healing, power and weakness, the ancient and modern, land and sea, faith and questions, mother and daughter, traditional medicine and modern technology and it will seek to do so in conversation with you, my family, close friends, and eventually my colleagues (when I muster the courage).

I also write on Medium: https://medium.com/@amanda.azadian/hey-mamma-series-of-letters-part-0-c8d2f4dd576a

I’m glad you’re here.