Monthly Archives: November 2020

At My Best

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NaBloPoMo 2020 – Today’s Lesson

Tonight’s lesson emerges from my Engaging with Difference class.  It’s a classic “Duh-HA!” (Duh + ah-HA!, thank you Tony & Diane!) epiphany, arising from a novel (to me) and profound mindfulness practice that I plan to adopt permanently.

Duh-HA!  At my best, I am relentlessly curious and ask excellent, open and honest questions.  When I’m hijacked or triggered, I speak in unqualified declarations and generalizations, which I hate. 

What is the worst version of yourself, is it what you loathe most in others?

The practice is Critical Moment Dialogue (CMD), developed by the Personal Leadership folks.  In a nutshell, when I feel “something’s up,” ie I notice some kind of internal hijack occurring in real time, I can choose to react as usual, or do a CMD and find a better way through. 

I reflected on a recent, disconcerting conversation with a colleague.  One of the six elements of CMD practice is attending to physical sensation.  The Duh-HA occurred when I recalled my desire to raise an eyebrow, cock my head, and curl my lip, which manifested as left temporalis muscle tightening.  The CMD exercise helped me understand my subjective experience in that moment:  I felt a disconnect.  My counterpart and I were enacting our usual misunderstanding pattern.  I usually blame him for being vague and self-absorbed, but now I realize that we probably grasp divergent meanings for the words we choose.  Just this one insight, in the instant I apprehended it, reoriented my entire attitude toward him and our future conversations. 

The next time we meet, I can breathe slower and more deeply, and slacken my jaw.  Evoking my commitment to curiosity, I can remember to ask more clarifying questions before making false assumptions and jumping to antagonistic judgments.

Seriously, DUH.  HA!

Walking the Talk

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NaBloPoMo 2020 – Today’s Lesson

Where do you fall into dogma traps?

Back in March I told friends not to wear masks in public.  I was angry at people for hoarding PPE for personal use when hospital workers did not have enough.  My classmates sewed cloth masks for nurses while people perused grocery stores wearing N95s around their chins.  I stated my opinions strongly and ate those words later.

This week I find myself softening previously strong opinions about in person school and personal gatherings.  I have successfully sought varying perspectives on these issues, and not always so successfully incorporated contrary information into my perspective.  At the end of summer I could not imagine how hordes of kids could be brought back to school safely.  Now I have seen multiple accounts of schools and universities that did it safely.  The keys:  Cogent plans based on local conditions; heavy investment of myriad resources; and constant, clear communication.  While I worry increasingly about family gatherings for the holidays, it looks like restaurants, bars, and churches may still be the chief culprits of the current COVID surge.

I still get a little palpitative hearing some patients’ plans for Thanksgiving, and picturing college students coming home this week.  It could be bad. But thinking in broad, overgeneralized terms, and especially making skeptical assumptions about people and their motives, doesn’t help anything.  I just get grumpy, and my neck hurts.  We messaged our patients about how to do the holidays safely.  Though not quarantining, many have tried earnestly to minimize exposures in advance of gathering.  It could be okay, maybe.

We are all doing our best.  I speak and write about withholding judgment and being present with generosity.  Now is a good time to hold myself accountable to that standard.

Death Comes Closer

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NaBloPoMo 2020 – Today’s Lesson

How many more before it’s over?

This weekend I felt the Reaper’s cold breath over my shoulder again.  It came last 20 years ago, when I left residency for a week and flew to Taiwan, where my grandmother was dying.  The ICU at the teaching hospital in her city was positively rudimentary compared to where I was training.  She was intubated but fully awake, and rolled over before the doctor even had to ask, so he could listen to her failing lungs.  That was Po-Po, always making life easier for others, even at the end of her own. 

Imminent death agitates and disorients like nothing else.  In training I learned to detach just enough to be objective.  My elders modeled the compassion and empathy required to shepherd both patients and families through the passage.  In the emergency department and ICU, and on the cancer floor, we observed a calm, professional reverence for the end of life.  But only a few patients might die on any given month-long rotation.  Today my friends in these specialties witness death, sometimes multiple, often gruesome, on a daily basis.  They risk their own lives, and serve also as intimate messengers and chaplains, in service of helping soul after soul ascend in peace, if that’s even possible. 

When it was my Po-Po, I was beside myself.  I cried non-stop the whole 15 hour flight stateside.  And then I went back to work. 

Tonight I pray for all of us, especially our healthcare heroes.  Death will likely claim someone in each of our circles before this pandemic is over, if it hasn’t already.  I wish I could do more to halt the unyielding march.  But how many times can I say mask and distance?  It’s futile.