What We Need

Posted on November 2, 2020 by Catherine Cheng, MD

NaBloPoMo 2020 — Today’s Lesson

It’s Election Day Eve. Big day tomorrow. What do you need?

A few of us asked each other this question today. I need to stay connected to my tribe and get good sleep. Another needs to form a tribe, learn to reach out and connect on her own terms. Others need safety. Crystal ball, genie, group hug (but COVID GRRRRR), a certain election outcome… I suggested maybe we need an hourly, one song, Zoom dance-along throughout the day. The playlist is growing.

After multiple queries it becomes clear, as it always does, that more than anything, we need each other. My Facebook friend, a Trump supporter, told me how a colleague came to work crying the day after in 2016. He hugged her. No matter what I think of his politics I need for him and me to stay friends, to commit to not abandoning each other as fellow humans and fellow Americans. I’m not sure if that’s what he needs… I should ask.

We all need, once again as always, to feel seen, heard, understood, accepted, and loved. And we need to help others feel it, too. This does not mean we are not held responsible for our words and actions, and the harm we cause with both. Compassion and empathy are not exclusive of accountability and reform.

We need vulnerability and courage. We need to come alongside rather than come at. We need to monitor and manage our own assumptions, to hold a mirror to ourselves and own our contributions to current state. We need calm, discipline, breath, and self-control.

We need to heal.

We need grace—to give and to receive.

The Value of Brevity

Posted on November 1, 2020 by Catherine Cheng, MD

NaBloPoMo 2020 – Lesson for the Day

November is National Blog Posting Month! This will be my sixth consecutive attempt—30 posts in 30 days. Every year I think I lack the bandwidth, and I try anyway. This year feels even more impossible, so I’m even more determined. To practice dynamic life balance, so I can do the things I need as well as those I want, I commit to an additional challenge: 60 minutes and 300 words or less per day. One hour for me; one minute for you.

This month I will apprehend a key learning each day and write about it. I expect certain lessons will recur, and I look forward to seeing what patterns and themes emerge, especially as we navigate the election, the pandemic, the holidays, winter, and darkness (the last perhaps on multiple levels).

When you are challenged to distill, and then perhaps amplify, a central tenet or message, how do you do it? I rail against soundbites most of the time, and sometimes they also have value. Well-crafted statements—slogans, I guess—can inspire, move, and change our world. What single statements best express your experience of our current challenges? I’ll take my stab below. Share yours in the comments, as well as your favorite mantras/sayings.

I will park my butt to meet you here every night this month.

Election: Leadership is about character.

Pandemic: On the long, hard road ahead, we must all care for each other as much as ourselves.

Holidays: Take the aberration in stride and get creative about connecting—we can do this.

Winter: Cold and dark make us treasure warmth and light; let the annual appreciation practice commence.

Darkness: There is always light somewhere; seek it earnestly, inside and out.

November 30: Blogging Makes Me Better

Posted on December 1, 2019 by Catherine Cheng, MD

NaBloPoMo 2019

I think I can honestly say this after 4.5 years.

Candidate topics for this last post of the 30 day challenge included People, Relationships, Connection, Movies, and Ma Jiang. Of course all of these make me better, but tonight Blogging wins.

Writing for a public forum makes me more cognizant of my potential audience, more discerning. I have to choose my topics carefully, balance honesty and vulnerability with privacy. It gives me a venue to practice various skills—writing, time management, storytelling, editing, and online interaction. Since I have committed to visiting the blogs of all bloggers who like my posts, I have also discovered the writing and lives of others whom I’d likely never otherwise come across. My horizon is widened.

Blogging allows me to put thoughts into the world and find others with similar thoughts. It’s a diary of experience, a web-log that serves, if nothing else, as a timeline of my personal and professional evolution, which I can then query over time in order to understand myself better. But I don’t write it only for myself—otherwise why make it public? I write to connect, because that makes me better, always better.

Maybe I can ask more of the blog in 2020. Maybe I could make it more focused? More organized? More goal-oriented? Or maybe not. Nothing has to be decided tonight. I’ll know when something needs to change.

Meanwhile, my sincere and heartfelt thanks to all who take time out of your lives to read Healing Through Connection. I hope you get something out of it that makes you better, too.