When I was younger, my mom took my brother and I to see a variety of doctors and mental health professionals to make sure we were “okay”. I’m not going to go into details, maybe another time, but let’s just say we didn’t live in the most peaceful environment.

I went to priests, medical doctors, counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, you name it, and they always ended up telling my mom that I was great. They would say, “Brooke is great and everything is perfectly normal and okay.”

Suffice it to say, they just didn’t know. My mom didn’t know and I definitely did not know.

They did not know how to read between the lines.

They did not know how to get out of their heads, and I definitely did not know how to get out of mine.

I was completely cut off from my feelings. I learned when I was very young- that it is much easier not to feel, that feelings were a sign of weakness.

So I chose independence. I chose to dwell in my head, with my thoughts on my own, in isolation.

On the outside, I was a soon to be college athlete at the University of Miami (golfer), an honors student with lots of friends- all looked well- but on the inside I was frustrated, angry and uncomfortable. I kept hitting the glass ceiling, which felt far more like a brick wall.

Yet, I always held out hope, I always believed- that the next mental health professional, doctor or book would be able to guide me to peace- to that something more that I craved- that I was longing for.

Fast forward to age 19, when I hit an all time low. I was overmedicated, confused and completely lost. My life was chaotic, and my body was a wreck.

I prayed every single night for answers, solutions, new experiences and change.

At this time in my life, I hadn’t realized how deep into the personal growth field I had already gone. It was becoming a passion of sorts that I had not yet realized was my own passion, possibly even my purpose.

I was in pure search mode. I had read hundreds of articles and had listened to countless audiobooks, especially on the putting green. And I was beginning to notice shifts take place, I was beginning to find peace yet I still kept hitting a brick wall.

Little did I know, I had not seen anything yet.

Little did I know that practices like meditation and positive psychology were just the very tip of the iceberg, just enough to draw me in.

A couple of months after the all time low, I met my first true mentor, and when I met her my whole life changed. The search mode I was in, changed direction, rather than searching outside of myself for answers, I now searched within.

Through this, I learned how to breakthrough barriers, how to feel, how to tap into my heart and get out of my head.  I learned how to get out of my own way, how to let go and how to grow.

At the same time, I had started to explore the aisles of Whole Foods and dive into holistic medicine, which I was introduced to for the first time in a medical anthropology class, where we learned about medicine throughout history and around the world.

I went on to learn that I, as an undergraduate student, could figure out how to heal my body in a way that the countless medical doctors I had gone to could not. Confidence.

Within 1 year, I was off all of the medications I was once on.

My incentive was not to be healthy or medication free. My incentive was strange. I was chosen to go on a spring break biology trip in Costa Rica, through an untouched National Park [Braulio Carrilo]. On this trip, we were to start our journey above the clouds and travel by foot through the tropical rainforest, where we would be immersed, with nothing but a backpack, for over a week.

I just could not picture myself popping pills in the trees, within nature. So I decided to get off all of them.

It was such a strange motivation, but it was deep, to the core, and it helped me through withdrawal symptoms like nothing else.

And it taught me that I had everything I would ever need to heal and break free, within myself, on my path and in my life. I had, for possibly the very first time, discovered my own power.

With that said, I dove deep into this process, deep into being and deep into learning about the mind and body.

Fast forward to present day.

I have so much to be thankful for, and I have learned so much through my mentors, distant and close, through books and in person, but mostly through my own experiences- especially the most painful ones.

And when I look back, I now know the difference, that difference I was looking for… which brings me to the title of this article… Why Cope When You Can Clear?

When we are able to connect, look at and learn from our life experiences, it becomes almost effortless to let go and grow.

This is the process I now teach my patients and the process I teach in the Let Go & Grow program.

This process is how I am able to help people clear issues rather than just cope with them.

Root cause resolution.

Clearing means that the issues leave, you’ve learned, whole patterns dissipate and you’re FREE, while coping means they are still there, built up and suppressed, you have just learned to settle, compromise and struggle with them.

Pardon the example, but coping looks much like placing flowers on top of trash can. They will die.

Flowers need rich soil, fresh air, clean water and the light of the sun. The whole landscape must change in order for them to thrive and grow- and that takes work.

The kind of work that starts with you.

If I could relay anything within this article, it is this…

There is another way.

You know that little voice within, that is telling you that there is something more? Hear it. Allow it to guide you.

Don’t settle for less when you know in your heart that there is so much more just waiting for you, within you.

You know that J.K. Rowling inspired magic you have always secretly (or maybe not so secretly) hoped for? It’s real.

And you know that doctor who says you can’t heal? He is wrong… unless you prove him right.

Why cope when you can clear?