SO FUN! I went to my first industry dinner since before the pandemic. Heard a couple of informative talks while enjoying salad, pasta, fish, steak, and then the best tiramisu I’ve ever had! But the best part was talking to my new friend E. We had met before and we have mutual acquaintances, and tonight was our chance to know each other better. We talked industry, parenting, the pitfalls of corporate culture, topics of extemporaneous talks we’d give, and what we like about ourselves, as well as what we’re working on.
How often do you walk away from random conversations feeling uplifted, connected, intrigued, and reflective? How awesome would it be to have this every time you met someone, anyone, anywhere, under any circumstance? It may not be realistic, but hey, aim for the sun, right? Let’s see if I can inspire this attitude in tonight’s twelve, shall we? I’m excited for this challenge:
Food, music, sports, activism, travel — Whatever helps you connect meaningfully to other lovely humans is what I wish for you. Books, nature, insects– Whatever! đ
2. What do you wish people would ask you about yourself? What do you want to know about other people that’s related? Why not connect around either? Could be fun!
3. Who will be your next great friend? You never know, right? May you approach any new-to-you human with the spirit of potential and utter possibility!
4. May your openness, curiosity, humility, empathy, generosity, and kindness be rewarded at least ten times over, today and all days — May the positive reinforcement fill your tank!
5. Where in your body do you feel the first inklings of a new wonderful friendship? May that part positively vibrate on a daily basis! No such thing as too many friends! đ
6. What part of you really wants to be seen? May you find yourself surrounded by folks who really want to see it, and may you have the courage to show them.
7. I may not know you but I know you are worthy of attention and love. May all you meet today prove this to you, so you may never doubt or question again.
8. May you see in every person you meet today someone who is loved and admired by someone else. May that perspective lead your psyche in your own interactions, and may you be rewarded for it.
9. We have something in common with every person we will meet. How fun would it be to find out the most interesting thing we share with anyone? đ Wanna try with your next stranger? đ
10. You have fun and interesting things to say! Look around. Take a deep breath. Read the room. Be kind. Then let the interesting out!
11. What’s on your mind? Who can you share it with who will meet you there, ask you more about it, and take it farther with you? Why not reach out?
12. Oh, my dear darling. There are so many lovely humans everywhere, I know it. Not all folks are out to hurt others. May the next human you meet prove me right!
Ooo, that was fun! Writing them is the easy part–taking, cropping, and uploading the photos is the rate limiting step! I think I could keep going with this theme for a while yet… Maybe for the Ethos jar. đ Onward, my friends!!! xo
What energy do you get from togetherness? I get positively giddy, among other things. This past week I have peopled ‘to the max’ and I feel euphoric. “Connection” recurs in my mind more than any other word, but what does that actually mean? How does connection feel? Let’s see if I can describe it, shall we? Tell me how this lands:
Solidarity Our office moved last week. The team continues to amaze me year after year. Every day is a little different, with up to twelve full day patients each with intricately pre-arranged agendas coordinated with multiple other departments throughout the medical campus. SNAFUs occur regularly and the schedulers, medical assistants, dieticians, exercise physiologists all respond with flexibility, agility, and collaboration better than any other work team I have ever encountered. They executed Friday as usual, then pulled together and packed up the whole place with alacrity and aplomb. Movers came for the big stuff, and we all pitched in, some coming in over the weekend. Everybody showed up Monday morning in the new space ready to go. We hit the ground running with a full slate of patients, prepared for snags and speed bumps. All week we co-created scut lists of errors and fixes, crossing off items one by one, unpacking, organizing, learning the new layout, establishing nascent routines.
Not once did I hear anyone snapping, grumbling, or otherwise pulling anyone down. I witnessed the epitome of teamwork last week and I could not be more proud. Yes, we are here to serve and care for our patients. We understand that to do that well, we must care for ourselves and one another first, each and every one of us, no matter where we sit on the org chart or hierarchy.
This solidarity energy lives in my upper chest and neck. It makes me look up walking the new long hallways, making eye contact and smiling at how we’ve made the new space ours, welcoming patients brightly and joyfully, as if we’ve lived here months already. The swell of pride fills my lungs like a hot air balloon, elevates my mood, and convinces me that this team can handle anything thrown our way. We prove every day how a cohesive and collaborative ethos shines and gets sh*t done.
Mission and Purpose Last Thursday I attended the Digs With Dignity Welcome Home Gala. My good friend and Ethos coach Kim Hannay co-founded Digs six years ago, and this year they celebrated 250 homes furnished for families emerging from homelessness. Dear friend Donna came as my date, we met other Ethos friends there, and heard all about how Digs fills that liminal space at the intersection of humanitarian uplift and environmental sustainability (upcycling and expertly refurbishing about 1,100 pounds of furniture, art, and homegoods per home, keeping it all out of landfills). Follow Digs on Instagram and see every Friday how they transform housing units into places where families can truly feel they come home.
The energy of togetherness at the gala positively buzzed. Kim leads her team and all of us supporters with crystal clarity and conviction, and strong, strategic vision. Growth progresses steadily and years later, the families they serve still thrive, breaking the cycle of homelessness in the most joyful and fulfilling way. I could not be more proud to call myself a friend of Digs, among so many others who showed up to celebrate and contribute.
I feel this mission and purpose-driven energy like the stretch of my glutes, thighs, and hamstrings, in position to explode forward in a race or up in a deadlift. This is our center of gravity, where our strongest, most powerful movements originate. It’s my favorite body part to train, and where I make the fastest and most satisfying gains. If my parents fall, I know I can lift them without hurting myself. When we pull together in deeply meaningful, shared mission and purpose, we can lift our fellow humans sustainably, and even uplift our systems to new levels of function and service for all.
Visibility, Understanding, Non-judgment, Acceptance, Safety, Security, and Love The Mate Games, my friends. Enter the universe. Join the community. You can thank me later. Yesterday in St. Charles, Missouri, about 150 people from across the country and across the pond gathered to celebrate this immense and intense literary universe of paranormal and fantasty romance, and the amazing humans who create and bring it to life. Authors Kim Loraine and Meg Anne, voice actors Aaron Shedlock, JF Harding, and Lauren Landa, Tyler and Ashlee from Plunk Productions, and artist Alyssa Dennis gathered with us readers and listeners, organized by Catherine Heffernan and Megan Munoz and their fearless staff, for a day of communion and fun. Voice actors Samantha Brentmoor, Teddy Hamilton, and Christian Fox even participated live via Zoom for a table read of a scene Kim and Meg wrote specifically for the event.
Those familiar with the paranormal and fantasy romance world know and embrace the depth of intentional inclusivity and the absolute commitment to freedom of expression and wholeness of self. When this ethos underlies a gathering of admiration and gratitude, the energy that exudes is pure love and connection. The creators’ answers to audience questions always circled back to authenticity, meaning, mutual support, and showing up for the people you care about–whether as characters or in real life. Panelists teared up multiple times, moved by this world of fantasy fiction that resonates so deeply with real people, in our real, complex lives and relationships. I’m only now about to finish listening to the first of the twenty books, but as soon as I knew about this convention last year, I registered without hesitation because I knew these are my people. Proceeds from the event will support three charities: Save Puffins, TWLOHA, and The Trevor Project.
Once again, like at AJ’s meet and greet, I feel the power of possibility from these gatherings. When we convene in love and the ideals of authenticity, mutual uplift, honest and full expression of our whole selves, and we take that energy home and turn it outward, what amazing good could we accomplish in our respective communities? When we stay connected after the ‘cons’ (short for conventions, I have learned), when we continuously fan that flame of solidarity, shared mission, and commitment to wholeness, how could we transform our world?
This energy feels high to mid-abdominal to me, somewhere between ribs and navel, like a thick, resilient cord, umbilical or otherwise, that threads the common consciousness of humanity. In the end, our needs are all simple and shared–to feel seen, accepted, cared for, and that we belong. What can we do in our daily lives to promote this connection for ourselves and one another?
Connection, Creativity, Synergy, and Rocket Fueled Possibility I drove home from St. Charles today just in time to host Brian and Krista, my elders in residency training, for a chat and snacks. They are here from Iowa to attend the memorial service for our beloved program director, Holly Humphrey, who died earlier this year of cancer. Tomorrow I will meet Jim before work, as he has also flown in from North Carolina to pay his respects. Looking around at my colleagues in the UChicago Internal Medicine Residency diaspora, another energy of pride wells in me, similar to when I consider my med school classmates. We are all out in the world doing our respective awesome things, helping people. Solidarity, shared mission, shared history, and mutual uplift–it’s all there, like a deep and protected flame of conviction and purpose, when I maintain my connections with beloved colleagues and friends.
So many contexts, so many gatherings, so many tribes, cohorts, and communities where humans show up, connect and do good.
It’s the heart, my friends. The center of all these energies of togetherness lives right there, center mass, where it all comes together, a warm and rhythmic metronome of love. If we’re honest, our hearts beat for one another as much as for ourselves. When we gather in that energy, that shared need to connect in meaning and belonging, we sustain one another through whatever life may bring. Whether we care for patients, upcycle furniture and create homes for families, write fantasy fiction, perform it, process the audio, create the art, read and listen to it, or do anything else that involves or touches other humans, we each and all have the power to make people’s lives better.
In the days to come, notice how you do this yourself. It may be more often and meaningful than you realize. Own it. Amplify it. Live it fully and watch the love you output zoom around like a circuit of lightening, energizing those around you and coming back to recharge you.
There is so much to be hopeful and optimistic about, my friends. We all have it in us to make a difference. Now go shine your light. I bet I see it from here.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
My dear darling friends, and you know who you are:
Please receive, accept, internalize and integrate the affirmations, admiration, adulation, and love offered in earnest by others. Know and trust wholeheartedly in your complete and total worth, just by virtue of your existence, before anything you think, say, or do. And when we express how wonderful you are for the latter, how you impact and contribute your awesomeness to the world and make all our lives better, take a deep breath, relax a little more into openness, and let it in. Allow the full truth of your value as a member of humanity to seep in and saturate your being.
I know it can be uncomfortableâwhat is that about, anyway? Social conditioning? Imposter syndrome? Whatever the source of this resistance to being loved and lifted, Iâm not sure we need to dissect it much. We can simply practice navigating life and relationships around it, like a shapeshifting, creeping haze that seeks to thwart our full thriving. Maybe we can even think of it as a game, a clever adversary to be parried with childlike agility and joy, like Peter Pan with Captain Hook.
You have told me you understand in your thinking mind that accepting othersâ praise is the ârightâ thing to do, that dismissing it hurts peopleâs feelings. Thus your conflict and ambivalence create a niggling internal distress: You sense the love, know itâs valid, and want to accept itâto complete that circuit of connection. But something holds you back from opening fully to the reflection of your own light back onto you, your spirit, your soul. You may feel guilty for how your denial, earnest and humble as it may be, makes others feel rejected. Maybe that guilt turns back onto you, as if to say, âSee? You make others feel bad, so of course youâre not worthy of praise.â How fascinating, this delusional, circular, self-fulfilling prophecy! How can we break it?Â
Alton Brown has described hospitality as what I take to be a reciprocal act of connection. Receiving anotherâs offering is not just about making yourself or them feel good. Itâs about strengthening relationships. Offering and accepting connection weaves and tightens our social fabric, moving the needles of words and actions back and forth, over and under, honoring our bonds in vibrant color and dense texture. How wonderful.
What if we all owned our awesomeness and power to connect, uplift, and shine, from within ourselves onto, and in reflection of, one another? What if we all sought first the light in ourselves and others, focused on meeting each other shining that light in front, then refracting in reciprocity out onto the world? Wow, maybe thatâs why weâre afraidâitâs a lot of light, like gazing into the sun. But thatâs what cool shades are for, no?
So, how can we do this? What practices will make a difference? My nascent ideas:
Breathe deeply and slowly.
Get still.
Recall self-love and self-compassionâits words, images, tactile and visceral sensations, and the people and environments with whom and in which we have felt them deeply and unassailably.
Connectâto those who matter most and uplift us genuinely, those who can sit with our confessions of discomfort and resistance to praise and patiently, lovingly hold the light for us to step into, one toe at a time.
Lift others: Act bravely and joyfully on impulses to acknowledge, validate, admire, praise, and otherwise amplify their light. Any small word or act counts, even the awkward and stuttering ones. People can sense our sincerity and appreciate it. When you shine your light, then feel it fully accepted and radiated back by another in a smile, taller posture, or simply knowing you made their day better, what happens for you? Soak that up; amplify that.
I know many of you know all this already. I know many who practice and model the skills of receiving graciously, openly, humbly, and lovingly, leading us all by example. But we all have moments of self-doubt, or even longer periods of self-disbelief, when we perceive our own light to have dimmed. Perhaps this is precisely when we need to open ourselves to receive the light we have consistently shone on others reflected back on us. Hmmm.
Thank you to the people who inspired this postâcreators, carers, artists and just straight up wonderful humans I have the pleasure and privilege to connect with and know. May you all know how much you are loved. When you need reassurance and validation, may you be still and find it within yourselves, and may you reach out early and often to those of us who stand ready to recharge you. Plug into that power grid of connection, participate in that alternating current, so we may all carry the spark of love and relationship that saves us.Â
We each have a bright and unique light. There is no âtoo much.â Shine on, my friends.
Healing Through Connection 