How Tragedy Helped Me Find My Calling

Dr. Nima Rahmany
5 min readMar 4, 2022

“Gwen died of a heart attack.”

That was what Gwen’s husband told my office receptionist when she called to see why she no-showed for her appointment.

Gwen came in 3 months prior to that with low back pain, sciatica, walking on crutches for months before we started her Chiropractic care plan.

She made leaps and bounds progress with her back and leg pain.

Off all crutches and pain medications.

But we never went deeper than that.

I ignored talking to her about the long list of medications for anxiety. For depression. For her high blood pressure and blood sugar issues.

I ignored her reference to unresolved issues of a dark past.

Gwen wasn’t only dealing with back pain.

SHE WAS STRUGGLING BECAUSE OF STRESS-RELATED DISORDERS DUE TO

UNRESOLVED TRAUMA.

I ignored my intuition, even though whenever clients would come in with similar issues, I would feel “off” just sweeping it under the rug, and tired of referring them to a Counselor or Psychologist with no transformation.

It was her death that was like a kick in my backside I was given by God/Universe to call me forward to figure my own shit out first of who I am, and then of what I wanted to offer to the world.

I knew that if I was to live a purposeful life and make a REAL impact, I wouldn’t just stop at healing on a structural level with people. It would have to involve helping them deal with their own emotions and past traumas.

I studied from the greats in the world of mind and body health and transformation. I learned their methods and integrated them to create my own version.

I just didn’t know where to begin, and who I was best to serve.

I knew that most people’s health issues were tied into relationship anxiety… I didn’t know how to offer something that tied it all together… the “health through healing relationships” model. It’s so different than what most people see and expect.

So I just kept creating live trainings that soon expanded to weekend workshops to help people heal.

TURNING INWARD FIRST

Then it was my own “stuckness” in the realm of relationships that had me look deeper for answers. I found myself again and again — in Relationship Anxiety, not knowing if I should stay or go, unable to move forward with any confidence and clarity.

This whole concept of finding a “secure attachment” kept alluding me.

I was a wizard at helping people clear their past pain and finding their voice.

I just couldn’t do it for myself.

Until my last failed relationship, I decided I was going to do whatever it took to plug all the holes and figure it out.

They say in business, it’s important to delegate your weaknesses, but in personal relationships, you need to work on them yourself.

Even though relationships can be an opportunity to face and own weaknesses, it’s easier (and far more common) to blame the other person, or blame ourselves for making the mistake of choosing wrong.

The truth is, I didn’t have the courage at the time to face the REAL problem and own my part. I was using relationships as a transaction of what I could GET.

To meet MY needs.

To distract me from my Insecurities.

To avoid the pain of being by myself.

To prevent myself from feeling what I now understand to be an implicit memory in my Nervous System that was there long before I was able to communicate verbally:

The pain of being left behind/ abandoned, and alone.

I had to learn how to become my own medicine.

I took 6 months off of helping ANYONE ELSE with their problems (which was another distraction tool of mine I became a wizard at) and stopped all cognitive work and learned how to get into my body.

I learned how to process the unresolved trauma that was stored since I was pre-verbal.

I learned Attachment Theory, and Poly Vagal Theory which is a relatively new Science that explores the impact of family dynamics and parental relationships on our unconscious relationship patterns.

Within one year, I learned how to regulate my anxiety, to get into my heart, to rekindle my purpose, to take full responsibility for my triggers, and to finally heal from a toxic relationship, appreciate time alone, and eventually find me a secure and stable love that feels more like home than I’ve ever felt.

Now we are married and have a beautiful little boy named Dominic, and a growing community of Self Healers learning how break cycles of Intergenerational Trauma, stopping the pattern of making the same unconscious choices our parents did, repeating patterns we swore we never would but unconsciously are.

This why helping people with Relationship Anxiety and crisis, separation, breakups, and all the stuckness and health challenges involved with a Dysregulated Nervous System is so meaningful to me.

It’s meaningful to me because it impacts health and well-being.

It passes on to our children.

Growing up, we aren’t taught the most important foundational skill as a human: How to regulate ourselves to create secure attachments in family, social and work dynamics. That is, unless your parents are unicorns and you were lucky enough to have great role models in those areas.

As a result, inter-generational family trauma has become an epidemic with people searching for answers to the associated problems with doctors:

ADHD

Anxiety

Depression

Bi-Polar

Auto-immune Issues

Digestive problems (SIBO) and Bowel disorders

Thyroid and Glandular problems

Reproductive issues.

These problems are all associated with Trauma, and the INABILITY TO DIFFERENTIATE OUR EMOTIONS FROM OTHERS.

Also known as “Enmeshment Trauma”.

This requires a top-down and bottom up approach that’s comprehensive and leaves nothing out.

The model I use is the model I needed.

It’s working. When people commit and take it on whole-heartedly, amazing things happen.

People clear their past, restore confidence in themselves, discover their own voice they’ve been silencing out of fear of rejection.

Self Expression and freedom emerge,

and a new relationship with themselves develop as a result.

Anxiety fades, calm ensues, and self-love begins to set in.

When we heal ourselves, relationships transform — either partners step up and heal WITH us, or we can finally find the clarity, courage, and confidence to uncouple with each other lovingly, and in a short period of time find a proper match: A relationship based on mutuality with someone who’s willing to use the relationship as a safe space to heal and evolve and grow together, WITH you.

I didn’t know it at the time, but my so called tragedies helped me find my calling:

To help people break their own toxic cycles, resolve all their destructive baggage & create healthy relationship dynamics within months.

I stand for healed, healthy families that break cycles of intergenerational trauma, who can step up as leaders for others in times of crisis.

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Dr. Nima Rahmany

Dr. Nima Rahmany is a retired Chiropractor and interpersonal trauma specialist studying and teaching principles of healing mind and body.