[ windspeaker confidential ] - Daniele Behn

Windspeaker: What one quality do you most value in a friend?
Daniele Behn: Loyalty. There are so many other good qualities I could say, but my true friends are the ones who will stand by me through the ups and downs of life.

W: What is it that really makes you mad?
D.B.: Myself. No person or situation can make me mad. It's only my reaction to situations ­ the way I choose to respond positively or negatively.

W: When are you at your happiest?
D.B.: The moment when I drift into enlightenment. When I'm in harmony in mind, body and spirit, when everything is in sync. Today I was with musical friends and everything was just flowing. Times like that are pure joy. It's when I'm in tune with patients, family or friends.

W: What one word best describes you when you are at your worst?
D.B.: Selfish.

W: What one person do you most admire and why?
D.B.: My mother. Why? I think just because she's been my greatest teacher and (I appreciate) her commitment to wellness and her grace. They are a gift to others. Her attitude and approach to things are quite marvellous.

W: What is the most difficult thing you've ever had to do?
D.B.: Trust myself. I know the Creator has a plan for all of us. I just have to let go and let Creator flow through me.

W: What is your greatest accomplishment?
D.B.: I feel a great accomplishment for me is getting to the place of understanding that I am fine in whatever I'm doing and wherever I am.

W: What one goal remains out of reach?
D.B.: I've sort of shifted my perspective given the wonderful people I had the opportunity to meet last year. I want to be always present in the moment and that goal is out of reach when I get on the busy track.

W: If you couldn't do what you're doing today, what would you be doing?
D.B.: I would be doing any number of things that make my heart sing ­ like sewing, playing guitar and singing, hiking or running.

W: What is the best piece of advice you've ever received?
D.B.: That I should learn to control myself and stop trying to control others around me.

W: Did you take it?
D.B.: Yes. Trying to control others doesn't look good. It's not flattering. But all of these answers are works in progress. I'm working on them.

W: How do you hope to be remembered?
D.B.: I hope to be remembered as just being my true self. I want to be remembered as someone who lived in loving kindness. As someone who was perfectly imperfect but who trusted her abilities.

Dr. Daniele-Behn has a family practice in Dawson City, Yukon. Born in Fort Nelson, B.C., the 28-year-old Eh Cho Dene woman said she wasn't raised in her culture, but was introduced to the power of herbs, songs, dreams, ceremonies and medicine wheels for healing, when she participated in a 13-part documentary for Vision TV called Medicine Woman. Last year she travelled around the world meeting with healers, shamans and medicine people who showed her plants and methods of helping her patients in natural and wholistic ways.