Am I walking the talk?

It’s been a week, friends—I shall spare you the details.  Suffice it to say that somewhere along the way I started to ask myself the question above.  As I prepare to kick off a series of wellness presentations based on the idea that we Lead from Any Chair—that how we show up for ourselves and others has power and impact whether we intend it or not—I must check in on my own integrity.  How do I show up?

I jotted notes for an “Impact and Impairment” post a few days ago:

Progression of stress:  What are the first signs, when and what do I notice?  Are they thoughts?  Body sensations?  Moods?  What are the smoke alarms, and can others detect them before I can?  What do I do in response to awareness?  How am I impacted by this stress right now—sleep, workouts, eating?  And how is my function?  Am I getting everything done that needs doing and would I notice impairment soon enough and have the resources to recover?  What does the housefire look and feel like?

Lazy Susan unicycle:  I can’t remember the last time I thought of this image, which I wrote on this blog many years ago.  Sometimes life feels like holding a lazy Susan in each hand, loaded with life things and spinning in opposite directions, while unicycling through traffic wearing a scratchy pant suit.  That it came to me this week felt like a sign that I felt the impact of everything, no question—volume, intensity, risk—all my stress management skills and mantras called forth and tested:
ODOMOBaaT
Goals and trade-offs
Do what you can
Do what works
Commit and Flex

After my last commitment on Friday I could finally breathe and relax.  All I wanted to do was cut and write jar smiles.  It was positively meditative and recharging, for hours while listening to romantasy in the most delicious voices—that was all day and night yesterday—ready to attack today!  Then the WiFi crashed at home (fixed now, thanks Hubs).  No problem, there’s a café down the street, I could cram all internet-requiring tasks into a single time window and crank through.  I’ got this!

I started to wonder how constraints like this could make me more efficient in general, which led me to question my own capacity for discipline.  I estimated it as moderate, and the words ‘good enough’ emerged with force.  How do we define ‘good enough’?  Looking back, I compared my grades in high school to college and med school, and realized that what mattered was not the grades themselves, but whether I thought I was showing up to my full potential, and whether it mattered to me.  Whatever grade I got was ‘good enough’ as long as I had done the work that was worth the costs to me at the time.  In retrospect, I have always had a strong intrinsic sense of the value of my energy and effort.  Except for some parts of residency, I have rarely self-sacrificed or burned out in any pursuit that I can recall. 

I found the lower limit of my half-assedness in college, when my life task balance seesaw hit the ground with a resounding thud.  It was the first quarter of physics—mechanics.  I hate physics.  Hubs and I were just starting to date.  I chose to hang out with him rather than study the week of the second midterm and failed the exam spectacularly.  I got a C for the class; that did not feel good.  I have studied enough and not failed another exam since.

Morning pages.  Exercise.  Blog writing.  Patient care.  Parenting.  “Yes, I am disciplined and also flexible,” I journaled today—in the morning but not formally as Morning Pages.  “Consistency…80/20?  I am consistent enough to get the results I want—mostly…”  I don’t have the body I want (very ambivalent relationship with my body at the moment—more on that another post, perhaps); yet I put forth all the effort I can muster each day in that direction.  “For now, I feel ok with my body the way it is because I know in my thinking brain that I am strong and healthy… And in my feeling brain I still kind of hate how fat I am now compared to before…  But would I rather be that shape and weaker?  Hmmm… I think given the choice, I might actually choose me now.”  That felt good, and I’m glad I took the time to write it out.

“All or something,” says The Betty Rocker

I concur. 

When I look at the long arc of action in the domains that matter—exercise, patient care, relationships, and even nutrition, where healthy habits are still such a struggle—I show up consistently and reliably with my core values, highest goals, and integrity in front.  When things get heavy and stressful I feel it, as we all do.  It’s very uncomfortable and I don’t like it.  I think it’s fair to question my responses, to assess whether I do what I recommend to others in such circumstances, and what I have written every week on this blog for the past decade.

Our culture pressures us to be perfect.  Impossible.  Traffic gets heavy, the suit gets sweaty, and things fly off the lazy Suzan.  Sometimes we must put it all down and reset.  Then we get back on, maybe with lighter loads on smaller roads.  We get to decide.  Slowing down and taking time to look behind, here, and ahead can help ground us in perspective and confidence that we are indeed showing up how we want—compassionately and consistently.