Category Archives: mindfulness

It Came Up In Conversation

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Friends, how are you?

So many people are having a really hard time right now. I feel it all around, and it’s heartbreaking. So much pain, both first hand and vicarious; such powerlessness, leading to agitation, rage, and despair… or at least an angsty restlessness, a deep vibrational yearning for things to be very different from how they are. **deep breath** Whatever you have going on, I wish you all you need to suffer as little as possible.

During one clinical encounter this week, Patient and I sensed a vague yet deep restlessness in her. At the end of the visit I had no useful advice to give. Rather than disappointed or apologetic, though, I felt stimulated. From her low energy starting point, I felt wide space for potential, and a rapid slew of questions coming on. So I grabbed my notepad and scrawled as they emerged:

  1. How much do you want a life change?
  2. If change then how, in what way?
  3. Why–what will that give you?
  4. What are the steps?
  5. Who can help (assume you need help!)?
  6. How will you measure progress?

As I wrote, I changed “(do you need help?)” to “(assume you need help!)” and “success” to “progress” in real time.

Looking back, I’m not sure she really wanted to engage with these questions, which felt okay to me. I did not intend to pressure her into doing anything. I did, however, want to share my sense of possibility, openness, curiosity, and agency on her behalf. No urgency or requirement to answer anything, I told her. To “live the questions,” as Rilke wrote, is all we need sometimes. Turns out I ask these questions of myself pretty regularly. Maybe that’s why they came to mind so readily.

What/how do these questions move for you, if anything/at all? What other questions do they spark, if any? What else?

“What proportion of your daily routine/decisions/actions/default activities are driven by convention, social norms, or otherwise extrinsic factors?”

Yet another spontaneous question, this time arising while looking in another patient’s ears and talking about their very young kids’ multiple sports and activities, the intensity and schedules of which rival that of my high schooler. “It’s what you do,” they said.

Getting married, having kids, buying a house, climbing the corporate ladder; PTA, kids’ sports, yoga, pickleball, having an opinion on everything: How much do we do these things because “it’s what you do”? Please understand, I’m not necessarily judging any of it. Social norms have purpose; they provide structure and order in our messy human lives. I also think it’s good to consider, regularly and often, how our personal values and goals align with our myriad forceful cultural defaults.

Where do convention and personal integrity intersect for maximum benefit, fulfillment, growth, and contribution?

I really like this question, I look forward to living it for a while, and I’m grateful to my patient for helping me form it.

Hey, National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) starts November 1! My 2023 theme reveal will drop here on October 31, so stay tuned. This will be Year 9 for me, and I think it could be transformative…

OK friends, now I get to tell you about my Big Fat Hairy Project.

I pitched my first ever book proposal to a kind young agent in June and received generous encouragement in response. Over the ensuing months, I have found myself stymied by fear and imposter syndrome, possibly to the point of physical pain. Admonishing myself to simply plant BUTT IN CHAIR was not enough to make me produce any content. Things shifted recently, though, not sure how or why. Maybe it’s the season? Maybe it’s seeing body changes in both function and appearance after 7 months of regular strength training, convicing me that I can do new and hard things? Maybe it’s connecting more closely with readers and writers, an innately inclusive, generous, and encouraging tribe? Regardless, there is movement afoot. Yay!

On October 15 I committed publicly to a nightly book work discipline: Typed word count, handwritten journal page count, time spent reading/researching, etc.–whatever I did, I resolved to track and share. I knew at some point I would need to actually write editable words in larger numbers–the shittiest first draft is better than no draft at all. But it was not until yesterday that I committed to something concrete there, too: 500 words three times a week or 1500 weekly words, however I can get them out.

Friends, the first 871 wildly imperfect words of my book now exist. O. M. G. And I will add more tonight! HOLY MOLY, is that momentum I feel? I have a weekly skeleton schedule written out: no book work required on days I see patients, at least to start. And I still need to consume books for my sanity (176 titles started this year and ohmygoodness, some are so good!). *sigh* I feel good in body and mind, joyous, solid, and buoyant, in this resolve and commitment.

If you’re interested, follow me on Instagram at @chenger91. Every Sunday I will post a photo of the laptop and my inspriational writing mug. Each day of that week I will log book work in that post’s comments. See 10/15 and 10/22 on the page now!

I wonder how I will stick to this and also write 30 blog posts in 30 days? WHOOO KNOWS?? It’s okay, I get to invent and evolve my way–nothing to lose! And I resolve to have FUN. Let’s do this.

Talismans of Love

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Barack Obama carries around charms in his pockets. People give him things when they meet him–little tokens, trinkets, you might say–offered with admiration and meaning, to feel connected. What would we expect a world leader to do with such bits and pieces? He keeps them in a bowl and every day picks a handful to tuck close, to remind him, he says, of why he does what he does. He writes about it in the memoir of his first term, A Promised Land, which I cannot recommend highly enough. What does it say about a man of such high status, who intentionally holds the well wishes of regular people on his person every day? I see it as profound humility and groundedness; I admire it and aspire to cultivate such qualities myself.

What talismans of love do you carry, visible and not?

My senior year of high school, after volleyball season ended, I started wearing one of my mom’s rings from her teen years. When it broke I replaced it with another gold band, another gift from a family member. When I started med school and had some money, I bought an intentional replacement, one with a bamboo motif, signifying my Chinese family roots. Now I also see it as a symbol of strength and flexibility, two practices I value highly, and which Ma exemplifies. I still wear my ‘one breath’ ring, and upgraded to a more solid yin-yang band. Like my wedding rings, these pieces stay on 24/7; if you find me down, you will still/already know some things about me.

When I travel, I wear a necklace with four pendants: Son’s and Daughter’s birthstones, and each of their passions. When Son left for college I got him a keychain admonishing, “Have Fun, Be Safe, Make Good Decisions, Call Your Mother.” He left it at home, but when I text him ‘HaFuBeSaMaGoDe’ he knows what I mean. It’s a shortcut. A reminder. A way to stay connected across time and distance.

Rosaries, malas, crosses, heirlooms. Poems, paper scraps, letters.
Wedding rings. Tattoos.

Symbols. Representations. Expressions, signals. This is what matters to me, the talismans say. We feel seen when someone notices, acknowledges, and admires, reminded again of our choice to mark ourselves. The objects and signs communicate visually, tactilely, beyond what speech can convey. It’s almost visceral.

Comfort. Power. Hope. Agency. Meaningful objects remind us of our core values, direction, and purpose. We get to choose our symbols’ meaning. It may or may not matter whether/how others understand them; they are for ourselves and those with whom we bond over shared significance. We rub, clench, kiss, and hold them, often in the hardest, lowest times of our lives.

What if we try harder to notice and admire one another’s talismans? Get curious and ask the bearers to share their stories, and practice kind, reverent presence with it? How might that make things just a little better?

Acceptance Is Not Always Joyous, Turns Out

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*Cosmic laughter* and some tears… HOW FASCINATING!

I wrote my last post on the liberation of acceptance in a state of sincere joy and revelation; I still stand by the whole piece. And, the last ten days have humbled me with my own premise. I have struggled for a good 20 years to negotiate, reconcile, and yes, accept, certain hard realities in my life. Looking back, I’ve come a long way, suffering much less now from self-induced frustration and rage than at the turn of the millenium. Ten days ago I honestly thought I had come to that joyous place of whole-hearted acceptance and creativity, looking ahead and feeling ready to charge forward and invent my new way of being and doing.

And I was ready–in my thinking mind. This happens sometimes, that I understand a concept in my newly evolved, analytical brain, express it eloquently in words, and think I’m done (see ‘self-delusion’ in the last post). I can observe patterns and understand logically that certain things will not change. I can create strategies to suffer less by changing my rational expectations. I can plan to take alternative action in the future when I encounter typical and recurrent friction. I can think my way to practical solutions and cognitive peace.

I don’t realize the gap. Then my feeling mind catches up and catches me off guard, knocking me on my ass for a while. Turns out acceptance occurs in layers.

“When I accept the thing, I can put it down, let it be.” Writing this, I had forgotten that while carrying the intellectual burden of the thing I don’t accept, I hold with it an unrealistic hope, an emotional investment, in the thing being other than it is. The latter is not rational; it’s qualitative, limbic, and drives my thoughts and behavior from a place that has no capacity for language. So when I truly, honestly put the thing down, I experience a deep and ineffable sense of grief at letting go–abandoning–my sentimental hope and investment, unrealistic as they were.

I even wrote about it! “Anger, jealousy, self-loathing, grief, sadness, conflict, …: Allow it.” This is where the cosmic laughter chortles now–allowing grief and sadness means feeling them, DUH! Seriously, is avoidance of that discomfort the basis for all of my non-acceptance this whole time? I’m not sure, but even if it is, I don’t judge myself for it. Discomfort aversion is a fundamental survival reflex, the impulse for which originates in deeper, even more primitive parts of the brain than the limbic system. And I imagine that the epiphany I describe in this post is still nowhere near the last stop on my train ride of self-discovery and -education. It’s an important waystation, though.

This past week I hunckered down, allowing the grief and sadness more openly, with more vulnerability. It felt like wallowing for a bit, if I’m honest. I journaled rivers of ink, forsaking my intended blogging schedule. I did a lot of escape and comfort reading (YAY, smutty romance!). I attended to the hard feelings gently, embracing them (at times as if I were hugging a cactus, but still). And it helped. The sadness and discomfort dissipated, and I soon felt lightness and relief, if not quite joy, on this side of it.

I sense now a slow shift, a reorientation. I am able today, at least partially, to show up differently to my reality, which feels new and different from even two weeks ago: less heavy, more fluid and flexible. I carry fewer rocks in my emotional rucksack now; made a cairn with them these last days. And yeah, I can feel some joy coming on.