Category Archives: love

Your Best Self Reflected

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I share below a message to my friend who requested my stories of when I have seen them at their best, as part of a leadership program they have begun. I hope my response serves their puproses and goals. I share here because reflections like this, between friends, nourish our souls mutually. The experience makes me consider others for whom I might do this exercise, so that I may deepen my own appreciation for them, and thus present more openly, humbly, and lovingly to them. There are definitely relationships in my life that could benefit from this boost of connection.

My question for you, Dear Readers:
Whom would you ask to tell their stories of you at your best, and how would those stories affect you, them, and your relationships?
I have only now asked myself this question, and I look forward to what emerges hereafter. Maybe I’ll even write about it sometime. 🙂

Onward:

—–

My Dear Friend,

Thank you for your patience for this feedback.  I apologize for the delay—I wanted it to be worthy of your review! 😜

On 21 May I wrote my thoughts stream-of-consciousness style, wanted to get the notes down before writing them out for you formally.  I’ve done this more lately with writing to others—like a first draft.  Then I find that after I’ve gotten it out, I’m less motivated to go back and edit/polish.  Fascinating!  I bet this is a part of my process that will require management if I’m actually going to write a whole book—so THANK YOU for helping me discover it! 😜  But this message is supposed to be about YOU… 😉

Please find below photos of the journaling.  They are not stories, exactly, but they are honest reflections of the time I have spent with you since we met back in 2017.  I hope the descriptions in ink serve the purpose and goals of the exercise—telling you stories of when I have experienced you at your best?  

What a GIFT our relationship is to me, because my only​ experience of you, I realize now, is you at your best– it’s you in friendship.  ​​It’s you in Agape loving connection, for no other purpose than that, for its own sake… Well, for the sake of living a life of meaning, in accordance with your core values and integrity…  My story of us, of our friendship, is that we are here to uphold each other.  We serve each other as pillars of validation, exploration, curiosity, learning, and growth.  It doesn’t matter what we’re dealing with in our lives, what’s happening in our other relationships—our friendship is both separate from and closely tied to all of it—does that make sense?  

​I write below about your caring, your patience, your trust.  I see now that I left out your practice of judgment.  I value withholding judgment, especially the kind that makes us closed to new information and experience in our relationships.  I also recognize the value of judgment in a different sense—the reconciliation and navigation of our observations and perceptions with and against our values and goals.  You don’t judge people and their actions/behaviors as good or bad.  You don’t label people and categorize them, write them off—like EVER!   Rather, you continuously observe, assess, and attune.  You actively seek both the consonance and dissonance that lead to insight and right action!  ‘Discernment’ keeps coming up for me now, as I attempt to summarize my ‘story’ of you at your best. 

sigh​

So lucky, so thankful.  Exercises like this, if they benefit you, the receiver at all, definitely also benefit us, the ‘givers.’  Reflection on relationship nourishes my soul—OMG I just live for it!

It’s raining outside today, and I feel positively lit—from inside and out, the fire of connection burning slow and bright, tended and stoked consistently with love from all around.  Going now to meet (Friend), another bright light like you.

Wishing you everything good, everything you need to keep your own fires lit and burning bright, my dear friend!!  Can’t wait to see you again and continue the conversation!

Blessings and peace, and love to you and all of yours–

❤️ Cathy xo

Love Letter to My MD Classmates

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My first stethoscope, retired now after 29 years.

Congratulations, Pritzker School of Medicine Class of 1999! It’s been 25 years.

Look how far we’ve come! Many of us were babies when we started–in our early 20s, brains not even fully formed, enrolled straight out of college, innocent and arrogant at the same time. Now some of our own children are that exact age, and we look at them hiding knowing smirks. Oh, they’ll learn life in good time, these kids.

Being with so many of you this weekend, some not since we graduated, filled my heart with such expansive warmth and joy. We are all now still who we were then–same smiles, postures, mannerisms, quirks. And we have all definitely ‘matured.’ Some of us now sport lighter hair and heavier bodies. Others, damn you, exhibit no observable physical changes. Our greatest acquisition, however, is our hard-earned wisdom and character–that which can only come with lived experience. Med school was no joke, and residency a trial by fire. We have all witnessed life at its first and last breaths, and among all of us, everything in between. We listen, watch, palpate, percuss, incise, excise, medicate, compress, intubate, ventilate, inject, evacuate, saw, cauterize, staple, and suture. We research, write, present, teach, and lead. We are the experts in our fields. And yet, our age and work have taught us humility, made us reverent, lifelong learners first. As technology accelerates and we increasingly inhabit a world of human creation, with which we are not physiologically equipped to cope, we, the Class of 1999 and our colleagues of other years, persist in our oath to care for our fellow humans to the best of our ability. We commit to Helping however we can, to comforting even when we cannot relieve or cure.

I feel a kind of double vision, seeing us as we were then when I look at us now. The playful comaraderie, the stories, the shop talk–it’s as if no time has gone by–we are still us, Pritzker ’99. This is how deep, bonded belonging feels. How many of us marveled repeatedly this weekend over tacos, drinks, snacks, and dessert at the special-ness of it all? We are a tribe within a tribe, a cluster of diversity unified over time, experience, and age. Differences between and among us in youth feel almost irrelevant now, frictions dissipated, shared memories cemented. Interdisciplinary stereotypes and tensions evaporate among us as classmates. We knew and know one another first as whole people, in the same boat from the outset, rowing together, ever forward. HA! We grew from undifferentiated, pluripotent stem cells into fully functioning end organ tissues, now differentiated and still attuned to one another–like a nascent, then seasoned orchestra playing an ever larger and more complex repertoire.

OH, how I reveled in the hugs, the smiles, the recollections, reflections, and communion, the hopes and plans for future sustained connection. It felt honest and vulnerable, soft and strong, professional and personal–safe–one of you said it felt like coming home. Yes.

*sigh*

I had no idea 25 years ago that it would feel this way now. It’s the best, most heartwarming surprise. I wrote about our 20 year reunion, which I only just now remembered. Clearly, these events move me immediately and deeply, this time even more so than last.

My greatest wish for us all, my dear classmates, is that we may continue bravely, wholeheartedly, generously, joyfully, and humbly, on the mission of our esteemed profession, for many years yet. My greatest hope is that we maintain and tighten our bonds, holding one another up in spirit across the miles and over the coming decades. My greatest joy is that we may stay connected, no matter what happens in our careers and lives.

Peace, love, and light to you all. May our collective affection and bond call forth the best in us, for ourselves, our patients, loved ones, institutions, and all of humanity that we have the privilege to touch.

Practicing the Art of Possibility Since 2009

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It’s been 15 years since I attended the second ever Harvard Coaching Conference, where I met Ben Zander and The Art of Possibility changed my life. I reference the book’s concepts and practices regularly on this blog, and have given four copies to friends in the last five months–a spate that catches my attention. With the most recent gift, I was moved to listen again, prepared for yet a deeper, more incisive experience, even after having read and listened countless times already. HA!–this just occurs to me–It may be the very practices from the book that underlie this latest re-exploration. Openness, humility, honesty, creativity, authenticity, and connection–I valued these highly even before 2009, and AofP has reinforced them all repeatedly.

Describing the book to a new friend recently, I focused on the authors’ distinction between our Calculating Self, the one engaged in social norms of measurement, competition, and conventional success, and our Central Self, the honest, inner, relational soul that understands and seeks connection and collaboration that brings deep meaning, joy, and peace. I remember flipping through my print copy sometime last year and thinking wow, I have really internalized these teachings! I pull on the catch phrases often–Give the A, Be a Contribution, Rule #6, The Way Things Are, Be the Board–and the practices they point to guide me daily through circumstances and interactions that would have perturbed me much more a decade ago than they do today. The more I thought about it and spoke to Friend, however, the more I wondered what new and more I’d get out of yet another listen–ready for advanced, deeper practice–because though the slope of the curve may have shallowed, I am definitely still learning; I have Possibility yet to harness!

I feel proud of the work I’ve done to lead with my Central Self. It started before the Harvard conference when I connected with Christine, my life coach, in 2005. At that time coaching was seen as froo-froo fringe activity, as evidenced by the groan and eye roll from my colleague when I mentioned it. So I continued silently after that, learning techniques of open, honest questioning, mind-body query, and honoring peoples’ stories, the unique meaning we each make out of any situation, regardless of how or whether it makes sense to anyone else. I have honed high self-awareness and -regulation of my own stories, appreciating both their partial validity and heavy biases, ready (almost) always to have them challenged, corrected, and nuanced. Showing up from my Central Self, recognizing and lovingly inviting forth others’ Central Selves, has yielded such color, texture, meaning, learning, and connection in my life, that it increasingly defies verbal description. Meeting Lessa Lamb at Readers Take Denver last weekend and feeling this instant resonance, I tried articulating it anyway, and it came out as, “Exponentially Synergistic Cosmic ROCKET FUEL,” which is pretty close!

Now halfway through The Art of Possibility again, the humbling has struck. I am indeed proficient at these skills in multiple domains. I have incorporated the principles seamlessly into patient action plans and public presentations for at least the past ten years, each year more organically and easily. Still, in my most complex and difficult relationships, I have far yet to go. Old narratives and deeply grooved relational patterns stemming from childhood–oh how they persist wih force! Thankfully, I also follow Tara Brach and Kristin Neff, and as my self-compassion grows, so too does my capacity for deeper honesty, acceptance, and advanced inner Possibility work. I vibrate at a high relational frequency, and The Art of Possibility has resonated deeply from the moment I heard the authors speak. The teachings amplify my innate signals of deep human connection, and help me show up increasingly All In, All Me, with courage and conviction, including to the work of the slaying and dissecting my own demons.

–*sigh*–

Part of me regrets not being further along on this self-development journey. I’m already 50 years old, worked with Christine since age 32, and others before her. Even with the turbo boost from The Zanders at age 36 and Simon Sinek, Brene Brown, Adam Grant, and others since, I still swirl at times in patterns of fixation, reactivity, and agitation. The episodes are definitely less frequent, intense, damaging, and prolonged, though, so that’s a win, and I feel my inner peace proficiency accelerating lately.

So, to the practices I return:

The Way Things Are: Be with it all, whatever it is, including how I feel about it. I am competent, maybe even expert, and not yet a master. Learn, practice, train, ad infinitum. Mastery may or may not come; the nature of the work is to persist. I can be at peace with this, with all of it, the way it is, while I work to make it all better.

Give the A: As I do for others, I can give myself grace and compassion for showing up every day to do my best. I see my potential and that of others. I help myself by getting help from others, so that I can help others, all of us together on the journey.

Being a Contribution: Every day, with any and every interaction, I can bring my best self, show up to lift up. It doesn’t have to be big or flashy. Presence, eye contact, listening, reflecting, connecting. People can feel well when they meet me. I can help, and lead by example in this way.

Telling the We Story: This one makes me shiver with Possibility. It’s about seeing us all, every single one of us, as inextricably connected–we all matter to one another and to everything in nature–a complex, adaptive system of systems, the butterfly effect in motion and action. When I remember the We story, rather than feeling overwhelmed, I feel calm, empowered, and purposeful, because just by being a better me, I make the world better.

I hope my friends get as much out of this book as I have, over the last 15 years and for many years to come. The wisdom and application are infinite, as we humans muddle and struggle through our own counterproductive behaviors and conventions. The practices in The Art of Possibility give me the validation, confidence, hope, and conviction to keep sharing, speaking, and loving, every chance I get, even (especially) when it’s hard.

Wishing us all a present, open, kind, and loving week. May we connect meaningfully with our fellow humans, and may that connection both anchor and uplift us all.