“Self.”
That was the word I spoke out loud as midnight carried me into 2024.
Every New Year, I choose a single word to guide the year ahead. Some words remain constant; purpose, passion, faith, family; the pillars that shape my life. But each year I choose another word that reflects something I need to reclaim, strengthen, or rediscover.
That year, the word was self.
I didn’t know it then, but that simple declaration would lead me back to ballet, back to my soul, and eventually to the creation of my medical practice, Luxury Lifestyle Medicine™.
The journey began with something small. On New Years Day, I locked my bathroom door and took a shower alone.
If you’re a mother, you understand the significance of that moment. Children seem to develop a sixth sense that alerts them the instant you attempt to shower, sit down, of lift a fork to eat your own meal. But that morning I chose myself. Ten uninterrupted minutes of quiet.
It was the first step in remembering who I was outside of the roles I served; physician, wife, mother, caretaker for everyone else.
Years before medical school, I had been a professional dancer and group fitness instructor. Movement was once a central language of my life. But medicine is a demanding calling, and motherhood even more so. Over time, dance quietly slipped away from my schedule. When I chose the word self, I stopped making excuses. I enrolled in adult ballet classes at Master Ballet Academy in Scottsdale.
The first class was humbling. My body no longer moved the way it once had. My turnout was limited. My flexibility had faded. I couldn’t lean backwards or drop into splits the way I could in my twenties. Standing at the barre, I remember thinking, “How could I have ever called myself a dancer”.
But ballet teaches you something profound: progress comes through discipline, humility, and repetition.
What began as one class per week quickly evolved into 300-400 minutes of training each week. My teachers pushed me, and I let them. Slowly, my body began to respond. My muscles strengthened. My flexibility returned. My posture improved. I began to move with intention again.
Yet the most powerful transformation was not physical. My mind sharpened as I memorized intricate choreography. My focus deepened as I learned to control every line and extension. My confidence returned as I stood taller in my own skin.
And something else happened. My soul ignited.
Modern science increasingly confirms what dancers have always known intuitively. Research shows that dance improved cardiovascular health, bone density, balance, and emotional well-being. In a landmark 21-year study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that dance was the only physical activity associated with a significantly lower risk of dementia. Unlike many forms of exercise, dance simultaneously engages the body, memory, rhythm, coordination, and social connection, creating one of the most powerful workouts for both the brain and the spirit.
But the most profound medicine dance offers cannot easily be measured in a laboratory. It reminds you what it feels like to be alive.
One year after returning to ballet, I stepped onto the stage at the Herberger Theater Center for my school’s spring performance. I had not performed publicly in over fifteen years. In December 2025, I was cast in the opening scene of The Phoenix Ballet’s Nutcracker at the Arizona Financial Theater.
Standing under the stage lights, I realized something: I had not simply returned to dance. I had returned to myself.
The discipline I cultivated in the ballet studio spilled into every area of my life. I began waking an hour earlier each morning to study and ultimately earned a second board certification in Lifestyle Medicine.
Movement had reshaped my body, but it had also reshaped my mindset.
In 2025, my word became abundance.
I approached life with a “yes, and” philosophy, welcoming opportunities, people, and experiences with curiosity and gratitude. That mindset eventually carried me across the world to the Maldives.
One morning, standing in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean, I felt a profound sense of stillness. I found myself speaking quietly to God from my heart, filled with gratitude for the simple luxuries we often overlook.
The luxury of my health.
The luxury of my family’s health.
The luxury of being able to dance without pain.
The luxury of vision to see new places.
The luxury of being fully present in my life.
In that moment of silence, something shifted. I felt a sense of calling to create a different model of medicine, one that honored the whole person and treated health as something sacred rather than transactional.
Two weeks later, I registered the company that would become Luxury Lifestyle Medicine™, a hospitality-driven primary care practice designed to restore the human connection that modern healthcare had lost.
Today, many women in their 40’s and 50’s come to my clinic with the same quiet concern: “I just don’t feel like myself anymore."
Their lab tests are often normal. Their vital signs look perfect. On paper, they are healthy.
But health is not simply the absence of disease. Health is the presence of vitality, purpose, and joy.
As a physician, it is my responsibility to evaluate fatigue and other symptoms thoroughly. But when the answers are not found in the laboratory values alone, we must look deeper. The health of the human spirit matters just as much as the health of the body.
Are the people in your life uplifting your energy?
Are you pursuing something that fills your heart with purpose?
Do you experience moments of flow, creativity, and joy?
There is so much more to health than what can be measured on a lab report. The truth is, no expensive supplement, magic pill, hyperbaric chamber, or red-light sauna can restore something that has been quietly lost within.
Sometimes the path back to yourself begins with something much simpler:
Movement.
Taking a dance class.
Walking outside.
Returning to a passion you once loved.
Because when we move, we reconnect with something deeper inside us. And in a world that constantly demands our time, energy, and attention, the greatest luxury may simply be this:
The luxury of returning to yourself.
And sometimes, the first step back begins not with a diagnosis, but with a dance.
Dr. Mila Lopez, MD is a double board-certified physician in Family and Lifestyle Medicine with over 12 years of experience, now welcoming patients into her new elevated Scottsdale space designed for personalized, lifestyle-driven care.
luxurylifestylemedicine.com
“I had not simply returned to dance. I had returned to myself.”