We recently connected with Sonny Miles and have shared our conversation below.
Sonny, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?
I always knew that I wanted to be a healer. I grew up in the world of natural health and healing. My mom had a natural skincare company that I worked at when I was old enough to help, and she went back to school to become an acupuncturist when I was in high school. I was fascinated by the body and all types of healing, especially energy healing, herbs, and indigenous medicine. I read Dr. Andrew Weil’s books, Dr. Lewis Mehl-Medrona’s book Coyote Medicine, Dr. Lori Arviso Alvord’s and Elizabeth Cohen Van Pelt’s book The Scalpel and the Silver Bear…. anything I could find that taught me about the body and healing. I didn’t know what kind of healer I wanted to be. I went to undergrad at MIT and studied Brain and Cognitive Sciences. I wasn’t premed because I didn’t know I wanted to be a doctor. I did research as a student and signed up for a summer medical program in Houston. I had the opportunity to shadow my mentor at the children’s hospital (he was a pediatric neurologist), and I did not like being in the hospital. For me, the hospital held so much pain and suffering, and it was a difficult for me to feel and see all of that suffering. When I graduated, I felt called to pause and do something different. I served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay. It was exciting and terrifying and so meaningful. During my time in Paraguay, I saw so much traditional healing happening as part of life. Herbal medicine was used everyday, and people frequently visited traditional healers. My host mom had a serious health crisis during my time with them, and I saw how difficult medical care was to access. One day, one of my the members of my host family had something fall on him and cut his head open. I remember staring at this wound on his head and trying to clean it and care for it. In that moment, I knew that I wanted to be able to provide that kind of service to people. I decided to go to medical school. I didn’t know where it would lead me, but in that moment, I knew that I wanted to be a doctor.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am a physician who practices integrative medicine and palliative care. My experience taking care of those with serious illness has fostered a special interest in intentional living and connecting our physical health with our emotional and spiritual journeys. I opened my own boutique integrative medicine practice in Loveland, Colorado in 2023. My hope at Healing with Intention Integrative Medicine is to create a beautiful, safe, nature-inspired space that facilitates deep emotional, spiritual, and physical healing.
I received a bachelor’s degree in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I then spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay. After returning from South America, I completed medical school and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. I really wanted to serve people, and I wanted to hone my skills as a physician so I spent several years working with Indian Health Services in New Mexico as a hospitalist, taking care of patients sick enough to be admitted to the hospital. I became disillusioned with what I called, the “revolving door” where we would get someone well enough to go home but then days or weeks or months later, they were back with the same problem because they didn’t have the skills, or resources, or knowledge to improve their health. I knew that my ability to impact the lives of the people I cared for was limited with my skillset. I wanted to help people more comprehensively – body, mind, and spirit – and with a much more individualized and comprehensive toolkit. So I returned to my earlier interest and completed a fellowship in integrative medicine through the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine.
I also saw how sometimes the care in the hospital was mismatched with a patient’s goals. I felt we needed to do a better job communicating with patients about what our care could and could not do and what patients actually want when they are ill. I found it incredibly meaningful to have these difficult and yet important conversations when someone is very sick or dying. So, I returned to medical training to complete a fellowship in hospice and palliative medicine at the University of California at San Diego and Scripps Health.
After completing both of those fellowships, I spent several years caring for those with serious illness, talking to them about what mattered and how they lived their best possible moments with illness, and sometimes about the challenges of living when a person knows they are dying. I had the opportunity to spend two years at Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center practicing palliative oncology. I learned so much about the cancer experience, about facing serious illness and mortality and about intentionally living in spite of serious illness. Although I loved this work, I still felt limited by the conventional medical toolbox and the way that healthcare is delivered. I wanted to create my own space, my own schedule, and be able to care for my patients more slowly and more holistically.
I believe the first step in healing is reconnecting with ourselves and our deep intuitive wisdom. Every person’s healing journey is unique. We each need different tools to heal. On my own healing journey, I have found benefit from all sorts of modalities and healers – acupuncture, therapy, coaching, craniosacral therapy, rossiter, yoga, ayurveda, hypnotherapy, shamanic healing, energy medicine, essential oils, mind-body medicine, and others. When we reconnect to our own wisdom and find the right healing guide, we begin to see the path forward more clearly. I also believe healing has to happen on multiple levels. We cannot just treat the physical body. We need to also support and treat the emotional and spiritual components of dis-ease in order to move towards wholeness and health.
Healing with Intention is slow, intentional living and healing. As a healing guide and physician, I aspire to be truly present with you on your journey, to know you as a person, to offer my own expertise and wisdom and to help you connect to yours. I offer in person visits and workshops and telehealth in Colorado.
Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?
Absolutely! Being a doctor is such an honor. When I get to connect intimately with people and be present for them in moments of difficulty, it is such a profound experience. Helping other people during difficult moments in their journey shapes how I show up in my own life every day. It’s also the reason I created my own practice so that I could truly live what matters most to me and work in a way that feels like I’m contributing the best of me. Getting to understand the human body and our spiritual and emotional journeys and go ever deeper into how we heal and what we need is such a fascinating and never ending journey. My path has not been linear but I’m grateful for all of my training and for the different specialties I’m part of (internal medicine, hospice and palliative medicine, and integrative medicine) and for all the different paths I’ve had the opportunity to walk and the amazing people who’ve taught me so much (teachers and patients).
Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?
Humility, curiosity, and self-study (svadhyaya in yoga). Humility because despite the many years of study and practice, the human body surprises me over and over. Humility because despite the amazing capacity of modern medicine to treat disease, we still have so much to learn. The human spirit is often unpredictable, in a beautiful way. Humility because each person’s healing journey is unique and they have to journey in their own way. Curiosity because each person has a story, hopes, wounds, pain, and beauty. Your story shapes your healing journey. Curiosity because there is so much to learn about medicine, about healing, about the human spirit and psyche. Svadhyaya because it is the inner work that I have done, my own healing journey, that allows me to show up for others in their moments of crisis and illness and pain. It is my own self-study that allows me to keep pulling back the layers within so that I can continue evolving as a healer and a human and show up in my life the way I aspire and continue honing my craft as a healer.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.healingwithintentionim.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healingwithintentionim/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/healingwithintentionintegrativemedicine/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonny-miles-md-0482b3246/
Image Credits
photos of me credit to Dear Kate Studios