Who is Kara Nance, MD?

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Welcome to Kara Nance MD’s Healing, Holding & Exploration Space. Think of it as a virtual office where my hope is that you experience an atmosphere that allows you, your family, or your organization to unfold exactly how you’re supposed to. I’m hoping you’re here because you’re tired of flashy quick fix solutions and all the NOISE that exists in the health and wellness space. I’m a healer of the body, heart and mind that works with anyone facing challenges in the relational realm. This includes the relationship with yourself, your family and friends, your colleagues, or the greater world at large.

If you’re having trouble loving yourself or others just the way you/they are you’re in the right place. I invite you to settle in, get quiet, and open your heart to what you most deeply long for and then allow your intuition to guide you through this site to learn more about my offerings.

Kara's Philosophy

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As an internal medicine doctor, my focus has been on healing the body for 25 years. What I’ve learned over this period is that dis-ease in the heart, mind, and soul is often what leads to the symptoms in the body. I’m hoping you’re here because you already know that there is no pill or magic solution that will fix your problem. I’m imagining you have a sense that the roots go deeper. Usually, it’s a moment of despair or hopelessness that brings people to this point. If you work with me, I’m going to invite you to become very familiar with your tender spots because the suffering stops after we learn what the pain is here to teach us. I will invite you to visit the heart and mindspaces where you hide your fears and failures. While we can’t avoid these unpleasant experiences, we can learn to dance with them.

Have you ever golfed in Scotland? I haven’t, but I’m told that the courses there are not manicured or kept, and that the golfer is supposed to work with the natural terrain. I find this to be a beautiful metaphor for our internal landscape. Many of us have been taught that our fear, grief, rage, and disgust will not be welcomed and so we use medication, substances, experiences, or any multitude of strategies to numb ourselves to the turbulence that lives within.

My invitation is to welcome your experience in, no matter how scary, because it may be clearing you out for some new delight.

What is Kara's Specialty?

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Upstreaming is my specialty. 

We all wake up and discover that our life is flowing in a direction that we may or may not be enjoying. Once you can see the direction that you're flowing. I specialize in helping you to swim back upstream so that you can change course, if you decide it's necessary.

An “exam” with me will likely reveal that you are both incredibly unique and predictable. I doubt there is a feeling, thought, or sensation that you could be having that hasn’t been experienced before. Hopefully this is reassuring because there are many, many, maps that we can use to orient us to where you are and help you plan your next move. My medical degree has enabled me to be an excellent diagnostician of the body, and my studies of the Enneagram, Myers-Briggs Typology, and the Instinctual Drives has led me to be an astute diagnostician of the head, heart, and soul. You or your organization may be experiencing “symptoms” which I will go upstream to help you understand so that we can develop the most strategic treatment, referral, or therapy.

How to Work with Kara

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One Hour Meet & Greet 

Schedule an hour to tell me what ails you or come with a question. We’ll use this time to hear your story, allow me to Upstream your situation, answer questions, and decide if we’re a good fit.

Mapping Services

A proper diagnosis always begins with investigation. Consider getting profiled so that we can understand the machinery that is running your program. Some people notice an aversion to typing. No worries. Kara can do assessments without typing and she finds her frames to support clarity and understanding.

We all have blind spots. Maps often reveal things we can’t see. We do not use typing to put you into a box, but rather to discover the box you have unknowingly jammed yourself into. Our approach is about accessing and integrating ALL the energies that live within you, knowing that unity and oneness is available to everyone.

Instinctual Drive Assessment

What are the instinctual drives?

Instinctual drives are the unconscious programs that have kept us alive.

The Self-Preservation Instinctual Drive 

The Self-Preservation Instinct is the most primordial, is present in every life form, and exists to make sure the organism stays alive. Even single celled organisms will move towards stimuli they believe to be nourishing and away from stimuli that seem threatening.

In humans this drive manifests as concerns around health, comfort, food, shelter, routine, and material security.

The Sexual Instinctual Drive

The Sexual Instinct evolved when single celled organisms starting bumping up against each other and exchanging genetic material. It is through these transmissions that evolution began.

Without the sexual instinct there would be no primal urge to reproduce and ensure one’s genetic material is passed on to the next generation. A person’s preoccupation with their sexual attractiveness and particular courtship display is the human manifestation of the sexual instinct. Humans have evolved to not only pass on their DNA, but also their ideas. Hence, people with a strong sexual instinct are intense not only in their relationships, but also in their interests and activities.

They enjoy becoming wholly immersed and merged with their intimate partners or activities and may be driven to leave some type of legacy.

The Social instinctual Drive

The Social Instinct evolved when certain species started caring for their young instead of only laying eggs and trusting that baby to somehow make it on its own.

The social instinct is so strong that in some circumstances it even overrides the Self-Preservation instinct, such as when we see a mother sacrifice her needs or even her life for her child. In a more day-to-day way, your social instinct is in play whenever you sacrifice your needs for the greater good. People with a strong social instinct are particularly loyal to a job, family, or any other type of social structure.

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Everyone has a unique relationship to their instinctual drives. We all have a dominant instinct which means we prioritize it above all else and may even be neurotic around its expression. I am self-preservation dominant, which means I can be overly concerned about my comfort, safety, and security.

For me this manifests as a preoccupation with nutrition, exercise, sunscreen, seatbelts, preventative care, and physical safety measures. I tend to be financially conservative and practical. When I’m not balancing my other instinctual needs I can have a hard time accessing play and my attitude becomes heavy and intense.

Interested in learning about the Enneagram? Fill out the interest form.

Kara's Story

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I’m a human just like you. I’ve had joys and struggles and experience the entire range of human emotions. My bio includes degrees in molecular biology, neuroscience, and medicine from Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Chicago.

I hold certifications in Internal Medicine, Obesity Medicine, Nonviolent Communication, Resonant Healing, The Enneagram, Meyers-Briggs Typology, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, Unwinding Anxiety, Craving To Quit, and Eat Right Now.

Yes, that is quite a list.

My 25 years of experience as a medical doctor has given me a front row seat to human suffering, and I’m here to help. Maybe we can “fix” your problem and more likely I will guide you toward solutions that already live inside of you.

More important than all the certifications listed above are my experiences as a single mother to my three boys ages 14, 17, and 18 and my 23-year-old daughter. I also have a three-year-old poodle, Zeus, that is my fur baby. I was built for mothering. I have a huge heart, lots of stamina, and good boundaries that enable me to hold a loving presence. I name this because at the end of the day, I believe we’re all looking for the sensation that we’re safe, loved, seen, and have arrived home. Like Dorothy, I’ve learned a lot along my “yellow brick road” and love sharing the wisdom I’ve acquired as we all discover what “home” really is.

I’m also a survivor of divorce. I married my college sweetheart and was married for 17 years before we started to go our own ways. Since our separation began in 2010, I have had two four year partnerships and a multitude of other loving relational structures. During this time, I have also endured a 2.5-year court battle that wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars over child support. I know the deep pain of being unable to heal a relational wound. This part of my journey has brought me closer to my own humanity than any other, and I talk about my discoveries in the hopes that you can have an easier time in your romantic and family realm.

In an era where 50% of marriages end in divorce and so many others remain unhappily partnered, I deeply long to transcend our current thinking around love, collaboration, and commitment.

I am also a business owner. I have been running a successful solo medical practice for twelve years in an era where you supposedly can’t do that. I prioritize the quality of my experience, my patients, and my staff over our productivity metrics and yet my staff all has competitive salaries, medical and dental insurance, a 401k with match and a profit sharing plan. My four employees are my second family. We are all working moms that know how to pull together in creative ways to support each other and enable us to provide exceptional care to our local patients in both primary care and weight management.

I am also a daughter, sister, and friend. My parents moved to Chicago to support me when my first son was two weeks old. We have navigated the joys and challenges of being so involved in each other’s lives and my gratitude for my parents’ support knows know bounds. Whether we’re talking about your biological family or the family you choose, we have everything we need and we need each other to show us we have everything we need.