Huy Vo, MSN

There is a Haruki Murakami quote, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” I spent the past 10+ years working in palliative care, liver transplant and anesthesia. I began my career as a bedside nurse working on a palliative care unit as well as a liver transplant intensive care unit. While both environments could not be any more different, the one commonality between the two was having to witness and help patients face their own mortality. You learn a lot about people and yourself when you're acting as a steward at the bridge of life and death. The noise (and there's a never ending surplus of it in our ordinary consensus reality) of life quickly gets whittled down to the bare essentials: authenticity, compassion, love, forgiveness, and acceptance. My experiences as a bedside nurse have greatly impacted how I move within my own space and how I enter the space of others; which is with great respect, tenderness and awe. I have since transitioned to nurse anesthesia where I have had the unique privilege of administering ketamine in a number of different environments, from the medical to a ceremonial somatic context. I have worked in the ketamine space for over 7 years, where I have assisted with occasioning non-ordinary states of consciousness, while also employing the experiences learned from taking care of individuals at the end of life, as a tool for healing for individuals suffering from chronic pain, depression, anxiety, addiction, mast cell activation syndrome, and migraines. What often emerges in these journeys is embodiment. Whether at the hospital or clinic, I have witnessed innumerable expressions of transcendence and grief. To be embodied means to be human. To do that, it requires the capacity to hold space within ourselves and between each other. When we can embrace all experience with equanimity, we move into contact with something liminal...ineffable...sacred. When we touch the sacred, we are able to become embodied.