137. What medicine couldn't fix: one MD's path to mystic healing — Dr. Alexandra Perel-Winkler
Alexandra Perel-Winkler is very proud of her MD title, she went to Columbia and worked hard for it, but she still decided to walk away from her prestigious research career to become a soul-centered coach and medicine woman. She’s the founder of The Mystic Medicine, where she explores what it looks like to bridge the gap between science and spirit. In this episode, Alexandra shares about her journey from rheumatology fellow to healer, her father's miraculous recovery from pancreatic cancer, and what happened when Andrea experienced a Mystic Medicine ceremony herself just 24 hours before recording this episode.
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Intro
(03:15) The childhood yearning to be a healer
(05:05) Growing up without language for healing outside of medicine
(06:09) A mystical childhood: the stars, the moon, and subtle energies she couldn't explain yet
(09:43) Finding Kabbalah
(11:31) Why people of deep faith are actually some of her favourite clients to work with
(16:33) Nutrition, yoga philosophy, and the microbiome: what she was studying that most MDs weren't
(18:04) How her meditation practice and crystal collection both started in New York
(22:42) Exploring functional medicine — and why it still wasn't quite it
(25:57) Her father's inner knowing, Reiki and visualization
(29:38) Why elite athletes use visualization — bridging woo and practical
(30:32) Fighting for surgery and her father's unexpectedly strong response to chemo
(34:42) What Alexandra's week actually looks like
(36:06) What it means to be a "medicine woman" — a blend of the woo and the grounded
(39:32) The tools Alexandra weaves together
(42:05) Andrea's SSRI journey and Alexandra’s take
(45:24) The real question underneath: do I have the tools now to sit with discomfort?
(50:14) What the ceremony actually looked like — and how Alexandra grounds someone before going deep
(52:22) Andrea's throat chakra history and the complexity of using her own voice
(58:37) "I think I'm tripping out" — the out-of-body moment, and what was actually happening
(01:01:43) How vulnerability and voice emerged as the real theme of the ceremony
(01:04:39) "We are nature. People don't remember that." — on why we're always meant to be growing
(01:09:11) Alexandra's own reckoning with entrepreneurship and motherhood
(01:11:00) Redefining what success looks like in this chapter of life
KEY TAKEAWAY
Before you seek to heal anyone else, you really need to do your own healing first. Whether you're a working mom feeling disconnected from yourself, a high achiever whose body keeps sending signals you keep ignoring, or someone standing at an inflection point wondering who you are without the version of success you've built — the path back isn't through more logic. It's through reconnecting to the essential self you already know is there.
About Alexandra Perel-Winkler, MD
Alexandra Perel-Winkler is a soul-centered coach and medical doctor who blends science, spirit, and embodiment to help people reconnect with their body, heart, and soul. With 15+ years in Western Medicine and advanced training in Integrative and Functional Medicine, Applied Quantum Biology, neuroplastic coaching, somatic practices, energy work, and intuitive guidance, Alexandra makes the mystical tangible and the abstract approachable. She works with clients in person in Vancouver and virtually through The Mystic Medicine.
Connect with Alexandra Perel-Winkler, MD
Website | https://www.themysticmedicine.com/
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/themysticmedicine
