Lissa Rankin, M.D.
We Dare You!
Follow Lissa’s Tips for Owning Pink:
- Strip off the masks you wear and be authentic in your life, regardless of what others think.
- Aim to have a balanced week, rather than a balanced day. Distribute the activities that ground you throughout a seven-day period, rather than cramming them all into one day.
- Why are you here? What would you speak about if you have 10 minutes and 10 million people watching? Discover it. Do it.
- Let your freak flag fly. Embrace joy, silliness, and all the kooky idiosyncrasies that make you lovable. Don’t forget to have fun.
- Practice radical self-care and remember that your body is the foundation upon which all else is built.
- Express your creativity. We are all creators, giving birth over and over to babies, books, ideas, businesses, relationships. Embrace and nurture the creator within you.
Paging Dr. Mojo
October 2010
Dr. Lissa Rankin was living on auto pilot, seeing 40 patients a day as a full time OB/GYN until her Perfect Storm hit in 2006: Within two weeks, she gave birth to her daughter, her dog died, her healthy younger brother ended up with liver failure from an antibiotic, and her father passed away from a brain tumor. Knocked out of her comfort zone, Lissa asked herself, “If I knew I was going to die in a year, would I still be living the life I’m living?”
The answer prompted drastic changes. She took a leap of faith, quitting her job and moving her family to the country where she became a full time writer and painter. She spent a year writing a memoir on her decision to leave medicine all together, but the book never sold. However reluctant to return to a career that consumed her, she could not quit the calling to be of service to others.
In 2009, Lissa founded Owning Pink as a blog chronicling her journey back to herself. She sought to integrate all the facets that make her whole—her creativity, spirituality, relationships, career and interaction with the planet—and encouraged other women to do the same. In just three months, the blog attracted hundreds of thousands of readers. Owning Pink became a community of people who longed to be authentic and serve others. “It’s all about owning all that makes you whole—everything that makes you, you.”
In April 2010, Lissa opened the Owning Pink Center, the physical, bricks-and-mortar manifestation of the Owning Pink movement. She redefined her understanding of health to go beyond wellness to vitality. Her goal is to address the whole person—to uncover what is not working in their lives and impacting their health in a negative way. “The two questions I routinely ask patients are, ‘What’s missing from your life?’ and ‘What does your body need to be vital?’”
The Center offers holistic medicinal and healing services, but more than that, there is a focus on empowering patients to become re-acquainted with their own life force, which Lissa calls mojo. “The most important element of inviting people into their power is to first make them see that it already exists within them,” she affirms. “That is at the heart of what happens here—we see the ability people have to heal themselves.”
Her team consists of a medical doctor, a naturopathic doctor, a life coach, a Reiki healer, four acupuncturists, a nutritionist, a therapist, and a massage therapist. Collectively, they help their patients get their mojo back. And Lissa personifies what is possible.
Out this year are, not one, but two books that did get published: What's Up Down There? Questions You'd Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend and Encaustic Art: The Complete Guide to Creating Fine Art With Wax.