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Body, Celebration, Creativity, Culture, fenix, Health, Logosoma, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Neuroscience, phoenix, Psychiatry, Psychology, Reflection, Resilience, Science, Self, Self-help, Social Media, Story, Stress
My uncle Mike ( and my dad, Mario, in front of El Fenix Bakery in Edinburg, TX
Felipe Romero, my grandfather and namesake, fled the Mexican revolution (1910-1920) and immigrated with his wife, known to me as “Mama Cuca.” I only met him once when I was very young. My dad, Mario, and his brother, Mike, were born in Texas in 1918 and 1926.
The family story is that Felipe worked as a prison cook in Edinburgh, Texas to support his family. He opened his own successful restaurant, but it tragically burned to the ground. Upon the ashes, Felipe rebuilt a bakery —El Fenix Bakery. It is still a thriving family business to this day—famous for its cakes, doughnuts, traditional pastries, and my favorite, their wedding cookies!
The story of El Fenix has been a personal myth for me since childhood—inspiring my attitude that tragic loss, setbacks, and disappointments are not an end, just an opportunity for transition and making things new. Thank you, Grandpa Felipe.
In the spirit of El Fenix, I am embarking on a career step into social media and internet teaching. The mission is to translate the clinical tools I created for my patients—Logosoma Brain Training—to detoxify relationship stress. I developed these tools from my training and practice in mindfulness, my studies in social neuroscience, and my personal experience with creative resilience—my Art = Survival project. I will explore my life-long passions for brain/mind science and art, consciousness, mindfulness training, clinical psychiatry, creativity, family health, cultural evolution, and much more.
Having faced many adversities across my life, I want to share my experience, strength, and hope with a wider audience outside my practice. Here are a few of my most memorable life challenges:
As a freshman in college and pre-medical student, I worked as a firefighter with the Port Arthur fire department. During this time, I had my first near death experience. While putting out a house fire, I fell through the floor. It was terrifying, and I thought my life was over, but my fellow firefighters pulled me up and out, saving my life.
In medical school, I struggled with my fledgling art career and keeping up with my studies. However, Dr. Torres Theorell, a visiting cardiology fellow from Sweden who was studying the mind-body links during stress, become my mentor. Thanks to his support, I found my calling for my medical career—the study and treatment of stress in families.
As a doctor, with years of success in my medical practice, starting a family, and developing my artist life with many one-man shows, I stressed myself into burnout at age 48. Divorce soon followed. With the tremendous support from the Physician Health Program, I was able to recover, return to practice, and begin my writing career to make sense of what had happened to me.
The greatest challenge of my life came as tongue cancer in 2005. For the next year, I endured arduous treatments: chemotherapy, surgery, and what felt like endless radiation. The type and intensity of treatment was such that I could no longer take in food or water orally for 6 months. During that time I had a tracheostomy and a feeding tube was surgically inserted into my stomach. My thanksgiving meal that year, was a can of liquid food supplement poured down a tube. Despite these tough times, and even moments of wanting to give up, I survived. I couldn’t have done so without the help and support of my family and a great team of healthcare professionals who saved my life.
Each of these instances, I was aided by help and support of others to be reborn anew and continue living life.
The next incarnation of my Phoenix Phenomena came in the form of writing—in 2010, I published two books: The Art Imperative: The Secret Power of Art, and Phantom Stress: Brain Training to Master Relationship Stress. For the first time I was able to put into words the work I had been doing as a clinician and artist and share it with a larger audience.
In 2009, after fully recovering from tongue cancer, regaining my ability to eat and drink, despite some loss of sensation in my head/neck area, I lost my father. He remained a charismatic and caring man until the age of 90-years-old. During the grief period, I felt so depressed and drained of all energy and during my annual visit to the oncologist, I found that I had a second cancer—a lymphoma of the bone marrow. This condition depleted my red-blood cells causing severe anemia. Luckily, I responded well to treatment, and I continue to receive maintenance therapy to keep this illness in remission.
My most recent trauma was in 2015 and came in the form of aging hips with resulting hip surgeries. As if that wasn’t enough, I had an accident after completing my second hip surgery, which resulted in breaking the new hip and also my wrist. This lead to more surgery. But since then I have been going to physical rehabilitation, and with the help of a trainer, gaining greater confidence in my strength, despite my aging body.
Throughout these darkest of times, my daughter continues to be a pillar of love and support. With her help, she reminded me of my own personal El Fenix to renew my mission to help others and take it public via social media.
I look forward to the challenges ahead in launching my projects on the Global Brain circuits of the internet. I hope to spark your own personal “Phoenix Phenomena” to help your creative resilience guide you through the global stressors of our time.
LOGOSOMA Living 