The power within can offer peace

Dr. Alma Garcia-Smith's home is beautiful in its simplicity. It's a large residence in a fairly new development in Liberty. The walls are painted pastel blue in the family room, and the carpet throughout is a cool beige. The furniture is large, soft and sparse, with little to distract.
It seems the perfect setting to interview a woman who has gone from a thriving medical practice to a business that promotes stress reduction through meditation.
Alma, slim and pretty in a soft pink shirt with simple black pants, bobbed hair and bangs, was born in Mexico and speaks with a slight accent. She attended medical school in Mexico City, where she met her husband, Dr. James Smith. Shortly after, they moved to Youngstown, where they have lived the past 21 years.
After working various places as a new doctor of internal medicine, Alma settled into private practice with a partner. She looked at treating her patients on two levels. "It was rewarding and challenging to optimize medical care, but fun to see if there was something in their lives, stresses, that made it worse and impinged on their dealing with their illnesses. That was my cup of tea," she said.
Eventually, Alma had two boys and her own private practice, with the accompanying hard work and her own stresses. Making matters worse, the Smiths discovered the boys' caretaker had relapsed into alcoholism.
Time off work
Alma took 17 months off to regroup and care for Michael, then 6, and Benjamin, then 2. "At first, I loved being home," she said," but I felt very inadequate as a mother. And I felt guilty for not having noticed the caretaker wasn't suitable."
"Also, I grew to miss the practice and my patients. My staff had been my best friends. I knew I needed something," she said.
Her solution was to find books on meditation. The first was "The Path to Love," by Deepak Choprah, then "Awakening the Buddha Within," by Lama Surya Das, which led to "another and another." Said Alma, "It got to the point where I felt I needed to do a retreat." She found the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Mass.
The contrast between the nine-day retreat and caring for two little boys was tremendous. Not only was there no television or radio, the days were spent in personal silence. Alma awoke at 5:15 a.m., began a meditation at 6, and did "working meditations like cleaning rooms," as well as walking meditations until bedtime.
What startled Alma most was her own inner dialogue. "You become aware of the nonstop chatter in your mind," she said.
A perfect calm
By the end, however, Alma achieved what she had hoped for. "It was a perfect calm, not wanting anything. ... It's momentary, of course, but it stays in the back as you do other things."
After the retreat ended, reality set in quickly. "The airport was a shock. I had become used to everything moving so slowly," she said and laughed. But she was eager to put what she had learned into practice.
Afterward, Alma meditated daily, and whenever she felt her motivation wane, went on another retreat. She also began practicing medicine one day a week. "I suggested some patients try meditation. Those who stuck with it saw big changes in areas like stress, anxiety, high blood pressure and symptoms of menopause," she said. "I thought, 'Oh my gosh, there's something here.'"
In 2001, she made the commitment to pursue teaching meditation. She left her practice a second time, bought "Full Catastrophe Living," by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the bookstore, and signed up for a program of stress reduction to learn to teach. She has, so far, given three workshops of her own.
Workshop
Now, Alma's boys are 15 and 11, and she is planning an eight-week workshop, which begins May 4. Alma is a strong advocate for traditional medicine, but she is also now an advocate for meditation. "Meditation is very empowering," she said. "It gives something that I don't have to provide, but that people find they have within. I don't have to write a prescription for it."
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