Category Archives: love

Love You Into Being

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A couple of weeks ago I met my new medical students.  These 10-12 trainees will be my small group for the next two years.  We will meet monthly to discuss the soft stuff of medical training—hierarchy, tribalism, death and dying, medical errors, difficult patients, etc.  Some call it “third year medical student support group.”  This is my 6th year of the pleasure and privilege (I inherited my first group halfway through, when their previous preceptor moved out of state).

With each successive group I am ever more amazed at the students’ level of insight.  They articulate compassion, humility, and maturity that I don’t think I had at their level of training. Or maybe it’s because we did not have classes like this to explore such things when I came up (or maybe I don’t remember?).  More and I more I see my role as facilitator more than teacher.  I am not here to impart medical knowledge.  Rather, it is my job to stimulate exploration, conversation, and meaning.  It’s so freeing, really—there is no standardized test to teach to.  And yet I see it as my responsibility to help prepare these gifted young people to face the greatest challenge and reward of the profession: human relationships.

I feel no fear or trepidation.  We cannot ‘fail’ at this class, any of us.  Because the point of it is simply for everybody to participate, contribute, consider, and learn—myself included.  Each month the students are given questions to answer in the form of a blog post.  For example, “Recall an example of inspiring or regrettable behavior that you witnessed by a physician.  Describe the situation, and its impact on you, the team, and/or the patient.”  I read them all and facilitate discussion, tying together common themes and asking probing questions.  My primary objective is to help them maintain the thoughtfulness and humanity that led them to medicine in the first place.  Medical training has evolved in the past 20 years, for the better in some ways, not so much in others.  One way we do much better nowadays is recognizing the hidden curriculum, and shining light on its effects, both positive and negative, through classes like this.

We all have those teachers who made a difference in our lives—or at least I hope we all do.  I have multiple: Mrs. Cobb, 4th grade; Mr. Alt, 7th grade math; Ms. Townsend (now Ms. Anna), 7th grade English; Ms. Sanborn, 7th grade social studies; Mrs. Stahlhut, 9th grade geometry; Mrs. Summers, 10th grade English; Coach Knafelc, varsity volleyball; Dr. Woodruff, primary care preceptor; Dr. Roach, intern clinic preceptor; Dr. Tynus, chief resident program director.  My mom is one of these teachers, also.  She leads nursing students in their clinical rotations.  I have seen her student feedback forms—they love her.  And it wasn’t until I heard her talk about her students that I realized why they love her and what makes her so effective—she loves them first.  Teaching is often compared to parenting.  Our parents, at their best, see our potential and love us into our best selves.  They cheer us, support us, redirect us, and admonish us.  They show us the potential rewards of our highest aspirations.  If we’re lucky, they role model their best selves for us to emulate.

All of my best teachers did (do) this for me.  I’m friends with many of them to this day, and I still learn from them in almost every encounter.  I love them because I feel loved by them.  They held space for my ignorance and imperfections.  I always knew that they knew that my best self was more than the last paper I wrote, the last test I aced, or the last patient encounter I botched.  To them, my peers and I were not simply students.  We were fellow humans on a journey of mutual discovery, and they were simply a little farther along on the path.

This is my aspiration as a teacher, to live up to the example of all those who loved me into the best version of myself today.  This kind of love allows for growth and evolution, from student to colleague, to friend, and fellow educator.  This is not something attending physicians typically express to medical students, positive evolution of medical education notwithstanding.  But when I met this new group, I was overcome by love for them.  So I told them.  “If you take away nothing else from our two years together, I want you to have felt loved by me.  I wish to love you into the best doctors you can be.  That is my only job here.”  Or something like that.  It was impulsive and possibly high risk.  But it was the most honest thing I could say in that moment, my most authentic expression of my highest goal for my time with them.  I only get to see them once a month, and I want them to be crystal clear about what I am here to do.  We have lots to cover these two years, so much to learn and apply.  And love is the best thing I can offer to hold us all up through it.

Support for the Inner Work

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Things were a little crazy this week.  I have an idea for a post and still have not sat down to write it out.  But I want to share something that came out on my Facebook page (of course) tonight.  One of the reasons I love writing is that insights pop out when you least expect them.  Writing exchanged with others is even better, because those insights are then shared, and their meaning amplifies.

I posted this article from the Washington Post yesterday: “Nearly half of liberals don’t even like to be around Trump supporters.”  It’s a summary of a recent Pew Research Center survey, which finds that 47% of liberal Democrats “say that if a friend supported Trump, it would actually put a strain on their friendship.”  It posits, among other things, that liberals are less tolerant of dissenting ideas because they are clustered in urban areas, lending to louder echo chambers.  By contrast, only 13% of Republicans answered that “a friend’s support of Hillary Clinton would strain their friendship.”

From the survey report: “…Nearly nine months after the election, most people (59%) say it is ‘stressful and frustrating’ to talk about politics with people who have a different opinion of Trump than they do; just 35% find such conversations ‘interesting and informative.'”

I consider myself a socially heavily left-leaning, fiscally centrist Independent, but I identify more with liberals than conservatives, by a large margin.  This article made me sad, that my ‘tribe’ shows itself to be much more intolerant and judgmental than I would like.

I posted this comment along with the article:

“Ooohh, so much data here, so much potential for blame, and also for self-exploration. Humbling, no question.
“Be extra kind with your comments on this one please, friends. No need to reopen barely scabbed wounds. I mean for my page to be a safe place for all of us to engage. We are all in it together, and the sooner we *all* figure out how to deal with 45 and one another, the better we will all be.
“Also, I’m bummed that Asians are always left out of the data set.”

I got some comments from my liberal friends about how hard it is to talk to Trump supporters, so much so that they avoid talking politics with those friends altogether.  But one friend exemplified my aspiration for all of us.  She wrote:

“… I recently had dinner with a very close friend who voted for Trump. Typically I think I’m a really good listener, listening with curiosity and a desire to raise the conversation and all involved to a higher level. However, when our conversation turned to politics I found myself cutting her off, getting defensive and bordering on being critical of her. I was horrified by my own behavior. I think this article hits on it – the support or opposition of Trump feels like less of a political stance and more of a statement of a person’s values and morals. I don’t think that’s necessarily true- I think a large population of Trump voters (my friend included) were actually voting against Washington more than for Trump. While I can’t get behind Trump I can get behind a vote to change the system. I wonder what might happen if more of us looked for what we can stand behind together?! Thank you for continuing to be a voice for this movement!”

Exactly!  Immediately I felt connected to my friend in a higher calling, and a shared struggle.  I replied:

“(My dear friend), I derive so much of my strength and curiosity from you. How many of us can own up publicly about our own flaws and failures, like you did here? And I know you know I use the word failure in the most empathetic and loving, mutually understanding way. I think that is the first step–complete humility and openness to our own imperfection. It’s so fucking hard. And I’m so lucky to have friends like you, (these four other dear friends), and others… I know now, better late than never, that we cannot do this work without unwaveringly reliable support, no matter how motivated we are.  And for those of us who are already well-supported, I think it’s our responsibility to look outward and support others. You never know when or where someone may be standing on the edge of openness, and when your small gesture of encouragement may nudge them on. Thank you for your loving support, my soul sister!”

It really is true, we cannot dig deep and bring out our best selves by ourselves.  We are meant to hold one another up and accountable, to bring out the best in each other.  It breaks my heart when I interview patients, and learn how sparse and frail their emotional support networks are.  There is no stereotype for this scenario, it can happen to the best of us.  Past experiences, circumstances, timing, life events—they can all combine to undermine our relationships, thereby weakening our capacity for self-awareness and exploration.  So we fall back on default modes of defensiveness, righteousness, denial, and blame.  Whether it’s quitting smoking, sticking to a healthy eating plan, or elevating our political discourse, we are truly stronger together.

I share this tonight because I so admire my friend for owning her whole self.  I am so grateful to her for sharing her imperfections and vulnerability with humility and hopefulness.  She gives me strength to keep going, despite how fucking hard it is.  And I hope I can do the same for many, many others.

Innocence, Indignation, and Idealism:  An Optimist’s Reconciliation

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I took my daughter to see “Wonder Woman” last weekend.  I highly recommend it—such a strong, complex, and inspiring portrayal of humanity at its best and worst, with a hopeful ending.

Today I’m (somewhat) inspired in parallel by (some) politicians, three Republican senators in particular, calling for transparency in drafting healthcare reform.  I hereby present my attempt to integrate that exquisite Wonder Woman Experience with my current political outlook.

***WARNING*** THIS POST MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE.

Innocence

Diana of Themyscira grows up believing in the innate goodness of humans.  The Amazons are educated, independent, strong, and proud, and also collaborative, compassionate, kind, and sensitive.  When Diana learns of the horrific war waged by mankind outside of her paradise home, she relates it to the story of Ares, the God of War, who corrupts the hearts of men to commit acts of hatred upon one another.  So, naturally, she sets out to kill Ares and fix it.

We journey with Diana through challenge and triumph, as she learns that, of course, it’s not that simple.  She kills the man she thought was Ares, and nothing changes, the war rages on.  She must reconcile the possibility that the heart of mankind is not actually pure goodness.  Even without an insidiously corrupting God of War, humans are prone to their own malignant beliefs and actions.  Her innocence is pierced.

In the summer of 2009 or 2010, my best friend from college and his wife came to visit.  He, a molecular biology and political science double major and emergency medicine physician, and she, a worldly intellectual and future legal counsel for a major media outlet, were the first to burst my innocent political bubble.  For some reason, likely due to the tremendous inspiration of Barack Obama, I had gone from thinking all politicians were liars and performance artists, to seeing them as genuine public servants, working to advance their authentic ideas of how society functions better for all citizens.  I know, La-La Land!  My friends described an alternative, more realistic path to politics: Person succeeds at business, rubs elbows with regulators and influences them (with money or otherwise) to facilitate his/her business success.  Said person then realizes s/he could actually become one of those regulators and make a more permanent positive impact on these business interests, and so runs for office.  I still remember how deflated I felt, shoulders slumped, spine rounded, at this sudden and stark realization.

Indignation

As with everything, I’m sure political reality lies somewhere in the messy middle between pure altruism and blatant, self-serving avarice.  But these days, for someone who loved Obama and almost everything he stood for, it’s hard not to see the whole of our current political landscape as the latter.  I think, Really, WTF?  Can those in power really see nothing valid whatsoever in anything accomplished the past 8 years?  Do they really think that see-saw policy-making, each administration reversing everything from the previous one, replacing wise, experienced public servants with ignorant neophytes (my opinion), is the best way to govern?  OMFG, you have got to be kidding me.  I seethe.  But what can I do?

Ares reveals himself, and taunts Diana in her most vulnerable moment with his arrogant disdain for man’s weakness and corruptibility.  He also reveals that she is, in fact, the only one who can vanquish him—only a god can kill another god.  Diana, daughter of Zeus himself, possesses the power to Kick. His. Ass.  Yet he dismisses her out of hand, oblivious to her inner strength of conviction and compassion (I know, so much to expound on here, maybe in another post!).  Nope.  Righteous indignation rises.  She digs deep, finds that core courage, and obliterates him.  Fist pump.  He never saw it coming.

Idealism

In the end, Diana realizes that humans are a paradox: a big jumble of contradictions, perpetrators of horrific rage and destruction, and also fully worthy of love, forgiveness, and compassion.  She somehow finds peace in this enigma, loving the best of humanity and vowing to protect us against our worst selves, helping us to become better.

This resonates with the idealist in me.  This is how she helps us, and how we can help ourselves.

How Can We Help?

We can choose to fight against one another, and thereby focus on what we hate (about ourselves).

Or, we can choose to seek the good in one another, and focus on what we love— even better, focus on love itself.  We all want access to healthcare, and to be free from bankrupting medical expenses.  Everybody wants to be safe from gun violence.  We all want an efficient government that sets reasonable regulations, protects citizens’ constitutional rights, and spends money wisely and with accountability.  We all want to feel protected and free, loved and free to love.

The messy middle is the how.  That is where we negotiate.  That is also where the magic happens, as Brené Brown says, and that is where we must go, where we must persist.  We can bring our best selves to meet others’ best, in mutual respect.  It can be high risk, so we can enter slowly, strategically, with realistic expectations and a few trusted friends.

To this end, I will continue to seek out and hold up elected officials who call for more thoughtful political processes.  My friend Triffany and I have made a habit of writing thank you notes to Members of Congress to validate their cooperative acts.  We harbor no illusions about purity of intent, but we also know that positive reinforcement works.  We can be Diana to anybody’s Ares.

Focus on and fight for what we love: common goals and interests, shared humanity, connection, and one another.  It’s a lifetime’s worth of work, and well worth the fruits, if we can stick with it.

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Inspired

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…by a friend of a friend.

It’s okay to lament the darkness. Grief is normal and healthy.

But then go get a candle and light it.  Then go about lighting other people’s candles with yours.

The best part is, the light just multiplies. Your light shines no less brightly for giving some away.

And pretty soon darkness gives way to all of our light.

Peace and hope, friends. 

Inaugural Intentions

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Things are feeling a bit dark again…  Reminds me of October, when I got emotionally hijacked by current events and found myself anxious and angry, but wouldn’t admit it for a while.  On the eve of a new presidential administration taking office, tensions run high once again and I’m challenged to avoid a similar decent into despair.

It really helped to take the Holiday Break and write to my friends.  I did it by hand, with colorful pens, stickers, and rubber stamps (I love rubber stamping).  I intended to connect more personally, and that’s exactly what it felt like.  As I see and hear expressions of fright, dread, sadness, anger, and pessimism among them, I intend to continue corresponding by pen and paper.  There’s just something more tangible about it, more intimate and permanent than email, text, or Facebook.  I have included excerpts below—the ones that felt particularly inspired.  They represent my intentions for managing myself in the coming years, of reinforcing my core values and focusing on my highest aspirations.  As Simon Sinek posted once:  “Fight against something, we focus on what we hate.  Fight for something, we focus on what we love.”

To my friends who have expressed, “get over it,” and “stop whining,” I respectfully request that you try to empathize with those of us who feel despondent.  Nothing will improve if we keep ridiculing and belittling one another.  If you experienced this from ‘us’ before the election, remember how it felt.  Rise above our worst collective behavior and help us overcome our fears and disappointment by showing us that we really do share more love and connection than we might think.

Unity and true indivisibility require all of us to pitch in and reach out.  I hope that by one year from now, we can all look back and feel proud of the connections and relationships we strengthened, from left to right and otherwise.

***

What a crazy year…  All bets are off, no one can possibly predict what will happen now—so much anxious uncertainty surrounds us all over the place!  …And yet I feel hopeful and optimistic.  This is the time for our best selves to truly shine—the perfect opportunity to call on everything we have trained for—all of the grit, the kindness, the curiosity, the openness, the brave vulnerability~~~all of it, in service of connection, mutual understanding, and forging a way forward to a BRIGHTER future!  Because we now know, again, in humanity’s history, what darkness looks and feels like.  We can’t stay here, and we won’t—we can each shine a light.  And if we stand close, the light amplifies exponentially.

So thanks for being a fellow light shiner, (my friend)!  May we keep our connections with each other and our other fellows ever close—we need us—the world needs us—now more than ever!!  Keep it lit, my friend.

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…Hope this card finds you well and HOPEFUL.

Because I have decided that that is what we all need to practice more now than ever—HOPE.  Those of use who strive for conscious living and more connection than the superficial have TRAINED for this moment in history—to PRACTICE OUT LOUD and IN FRONT of everybody—to lead by example and make the difference we were born to make!  We don’t need to do big things—we just need to keep the faith and stay the course!

’Small things with great love,’ I think Mother Theresa said?

Please know I am here to support your efforts, as I know you are for mine!  Let’s get together and hold each other up again soon!

***

…Because I know so many people whose core values represent the BEST of our shared humanity—equality, compassion, community, connection, love, and forgiveness.  The world needs these qualities and practices by us more now than ever—so if we hold each other up, we’ll all be able to do the work better—TOGETHER!!  So here’s to long friendships and deep love!

***

I received this handwritten response from an old friend today.  It warms my heart and holds up my hope:

“While we may snarl a bit at anticipated political shenanigans, let us remember we have strength in numbers and determination to keep life in this country respectful and fair—simply by the ways we live and interact.”

***

And finally, I’m also encouraged that our international leaders express a similar optimism:

Angela Merkel: “I am very much convinced that we as partners benefit more if we act together than if everyone solves problems for themselves, and that is a constant fundamental attitude on my part.”

Peace to all of you, dear friends.  Let us manifest our best every day.

A Holiday Break

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Happy Holidays, friends!

December flies, does it not??  What is it today, the 18th?  Holy cow!  The kids are off for winter break, holiday greetings have overtaken snail mail (Yippeeeee!!), and now that NaBloPoMo has concluded, I am back to scrounging for blog post topics again.  How fascinating…

2016, what a long, strange, CRAZY trip!  The moments (periods?) of shock and disdain stand out, but there were also times of profound inspiration, learning, and connection.  2015 did not see any holiday greetings from us, a lapse after at least 15 consecutive years of not only composed letters with photos and personal notes on every one, but also often a craft of some sort.  I was just overwhelmed with other stuff to do, though now I can’t recall what all that stuff was.  This year I contemplated the annual year-in-review letter.  I have also proofed a bookmark on vistaprint.com.  But the mass-produced, conveyor belt greeting feels unsatisfying right now.

We have all witnessed the escalating anger, division, and destruction of relationships, both individual and between groups, these last 12 months (really, much longer?).  The emotional hijacking took me over for a while, too.  After all we’ve been through, I feel an urgent need to connect with friends and loved ones more intentionally, personally, and directly.  Many on my ‘list’ have known me most of my life, and I want to take time to write to them.  I used to write them all the time–I went to college with 100 postage stamps freshman year, and used them all.  I feel a need to tell people one by one this year how much they mean to me, how they have shaped the person I am today, what I admire about them, how I see them contributing to our world.  I want to encourage them, hold up their optimism and hope.  Most of all, I mean to reinforce my connections with them, so we may all help one another soldier forth in a world of increasing uncertainty.

We cannot control what others say or do.  But we can call out the hatred, illuminate and inform the ignorance, and stand up for core values of love, connection, inclusion, equality, compassion, and justice.  We can do this all the better if we support one another in action.  That support must be cultivated, tended, and protected.

So I’ll take a break from regular blogging for a while, to write by hand (with fun-colored gel pens on cute cards, and lots of stickers).  We’ll see if I break my tardy record for holiday greetings, St. Patrick’s Day…  I think it’s okay–never too late to make a meaningful connection.

Please share your intentions for the new year here, if you like–the community I have found here lifts me every time I open the window or the app.  Thank you for your engagement and encouragement, and Best Wishes to you all this season!

 

 

On Experiencing and Expressing Gratitude

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NaBloPoMo 2016, Letters to Patients, Day 23

To Patients Seeking Words for Gratitude:

I found them!

As we head to gatherings tomorrow and seek words to honor and express the occasion, I’m particularly grateful today to see the post below by David Whyte.  Where, you ask?  Why on Facebook, of course!  Back tomorrow with my own original words.  Until then, peace and gratitude to you all!

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GRATITUDE

is not a passive response to something we have been given, gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us. Gratitude is not necessarily something that is shown after the event, it is the deep, a-priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life.

Gratitude is the understanding that many millions of things come together and live together and mesh together and breathe together in order for us to take even one more breath of air, that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is a privilege; that we are miraculously, part of something, rather than nothing. Even if that something is temporarily pain or despair, we inhabit a living world, with real faces, real voices, laughter, the color blue, the green of the fields, the freshness of a cold wind, or the tawny hue of a winter landscape.

To see the full miraculous essentiality of the color blue is to be grateful with no necessity for a word of thanks. To see fully, the beauty of a daughter’s face across the table, of a son’s outline against the mountains, is to be fully grateful without having to seek a God to thank him. To sit among friends and strangers, hearing many voices, strange opinions; to intuit even stranger inner lives beneath calm surface lives, to inhabit many worlds at once in this world, to be a someone amongst all other someones, and therefore to make a conversation without saying a word, is to deepen our sense of presence and therefore our natural sense of thankfulness that everything happens both with us and without us, that we are participants and witness all at once.

Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness. We sit at the table as part of every other person’s strange world while making our own world without will or effort, this is what is extraordinary and gifted, this is the essence of gratefulness, seeing to the heart of privilege.

Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence meets and fully beholds all other presences. Being unappreciative, feeling distant, might mean we are simply not paying attention.

…

© 2015 David Whyte
from ‘GRATITUDE’
In CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.
© David Whyte and Many Rivers Press 2015