Category Archives: politics

Decide in Advance

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be the lighthouse

NaBloPoMo 2018:  What I’m Learning

It’s the first Sunday of November of an election year.  The political ads are ramping up.  Tension rises; the agitation is inescapable.  Some media would have you believe that one outcome or another is all but inevitable, the world will positively end if one side or the other wins.  I admit, I have felt my share of darkness and despondence at the words and actions of some (many), not just the last two years, but for a long while now.  It’s hard not to feel sucked into an inexorable downward spiral of animosity and rage.

Thankfully, I still hear voices of uplift, words that speak to the optimist and idealist in me.  Let me share some of those voices and words with you here.

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My friend Donna Cameron, an expert on kindness, reminds us that we have a choice, not just on election day, but every day before and after, about how we conduct ourselves with one another:

We have to ask ourselves now, before we know the outcome of the election: Do we want a united country? Are we still capable of coming together to productively and positively address the complex issues that have divided us?

Civility and compassion are not weak. It takes strength to accept loss and move forward with resolve rather than bitterness. It takes strength not strike back when our buttons are pushed or our values are derided. It takes strength to recognize the pain someone else may be feeling and not belittle those feelings or dismiss their right to grieve.

Don’t look to the politicians or pundits to lose—or win—with grace. They’re going to be gloating in victory and blaming in defeat. It’s up to us to model what constructive behavior looks like and to demand it of our elected officials.

But what can we actually do?  How will we know when to act, and what to do in any given circumstance?  Isn’t it just too abstract to say, “practice empathy,” or “be compassionate?”  Maybe.  But if these are values for us, then we can translate them into actions and practice.  Empathy manifests as active listening, holding one’s tongue while hearing someone else’s story, resisting the urge to interrupt and tell our own story.  It means relating to their feelings and expressing understanding and solidarity.  “That sucks, I know that feeling, Me, Too.”  Empathic listening, validating words, and simply sitting with and holding space are good practices to start with.

The Southern Poverty Law Center offers 10 concrete steps to fight hate.  Examples include:

Repair acts of hate-fueled vandalism, as a neighborhood or a community.

Use whatever skills and means you have. Offer your print shop to make fliers. Share your musical talents at a rally. Give your employees the afternoon off to attend.

Report every incident.  Pressure your representatives.

Finally, look for role models.  If you have not read Ari Mahler’s personal account of caring for Robert Bowers in the ER, please click on the link now.  He is ‘the Jewish nurse.’  What would you have done in his place, called to the trauma bay to care for the man who may have just killed members of your family for their religion?

I’m sure he had no idea I was Jewish. Why thank a Jewish nurse, when 15 minutes beforehand, you’d shoot me in the head with no remorse? I didn’t say a word to him about my religion. I chose not to say anything to him the entire time. I wanted him to feel compassion. I chose to show him empathy. I felt that the best way to honor his victims was for a Jew to prove him wrong. Besides, if he finds out I’m Jewish, does it really matter? The better question is, what does it mean to you?

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Sometimes I wonder if my posts are redundant.  I have decided to think of them as iterative.  Looking back, I found a couple of posts relevant to today, written in similar periods/mindsets of portent, reflection, and seeking.  Right before January 20, 2017, I shared words I had written to friends.

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.’

Months later I connected with conservative friends in an attempt at mutual understanding. It was not as comforting as I had hoped; I did not really feel heard or understood.  And I learned a lot about managing expectations.

I admit that I felt a little defensive at times, as if anything I said about the origins of my distress would be met with, “You’re overreacting,” and “You’re worried about nothing, please…”  We later agreed that it is never helpful to invalidate someone’s emotional response to a stressor, regardless of whether or not we can relate.

Last week I had a new opportunity to hear a colleague’s conservative point of view on gender.  With practice, I have become so much more comfortable sitting back, listening for understanding, quieting my inner debater.  My urge to counter and convince did not escalate.  I heard earnestness, confusion, some fear, and mostly a desire to understand and integrate, to find balance and peace.  I was not asked for my opinion, and this time I was okay with it.  I hope we can engage again and again in the future.

Today, two days before we all head to the polls (if we have not already—please please vote), we can decide what kind of neighbor, colleague, friend, parent, child, coach, teammate, employee, boss, coworker, and American we want to be.

What if we choose to be the kindest, most empathetic and compassionate ones we have ever known?

Moving On From the Last Two Weeks

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N 10 Mile Creek Trail Aug

Hello again, friends!  Is this the longest I’ve been away since I started this blog?  Can’t remember, doesn’t matter!  Good to be back!  Hope you all are well. J

I aim to get back in the swing of writing before November’s National Blog Post Month, or NaBloPoMo, as it’s known… I have my list of potential topics all laid out, can’t wait can’t wait!  So here is the first of four weekly posts I hereby commit to attempting in October.

Soooo…  Is anyone else as mentally and emotionally exhausted as I am these past few weeks?  It would take too long to write it all out, and I am really trying hard to get to bed on time these days, so suffice it to say here that it’s been ugly and damanging to many, and we had all better figure out how to move forward lest we eat each other alive.

Throughout the debates on sexual assault, teenage promiscuity, alcohol use, judicial temperament, character, and integrity, I have truly appreciated voices that speak to our higher capacities for connection and understanding.  More specifically, I have sought people on one side of an issue seeking to bridge the gap between theirs and the other.  Now that the deed is done, I look back on the most thoughtful articles, the ones that give me hope for the future of civil discourse.

First, Benjamin Wittes wrote two pieces for The Atlantic.  Initially he laid out how Brett Kavanaugh could present himself such that we Americans could sleep at night with him on the high court.  Despite the impossibility of proving or disproving the allegations against him, Wittes argued, it was his responsibility to convince us that he is truly worthy of the post.  After his rageful and disrespectful performance at the second hearing, Wittes wrote again, expounding on why the judge, despite his legal qualifications, should not be elevated due to his apparent lack of candor and the caveat that would always follow his opinions.  In both pieces, Wittes makes clear that he has no problem with conservatism and Kavanaugh’s jurisprudence.  But as a progressive myself, I felt reassured by Wittes’s words that someone on ‘the other side’ understood my concerns and validated them.

I read a lot of social media posts pointing to the devastating sequelae for men when falsely accused of rape and sexual assault.  I felt gratified to find at least one article reviewing evidence and statistics for this, basically showing that the number is vanishingly low, compared to the incidence of actual sexual assault and violence.  When I post such articles, though, my friends who support Kavanaugh’s nomination are unlikely to read, and more likely to feel I simply ignore their concerns.  So when I found this article, written by Emily Yoffe, a victim of sexual assault herself, advocating due process for the accused, I wanted to share.  I thought that by acknowledging and validating ‘the other side,’ I might open a window for my point of view to enter my “opponents’” minds and prompt consideration.

I admire Senator Murkowski from Alaska, for voting and speaking her mind, pointing us all to the larger picture of the integrity and reputation of our democratic institutions, while also pointing to and maintaining the humanity of all involved.  And then this article by Howard Zinn from 2005 came across my feed this weekend, reminding us citizens of our role in the workings of government and societal progress.

Finally, I was able to unwind with the kids today by watching some Avengers movies.  We like Black Panther in particular, with its epic vistas, futuristic technology, and rich cultural backdrop.  At the end, when King T’Challa addresses the United Nations, his words struck me as exactly what we need across our country and indeed around the world today.  I may print and post them by my bed, to remind myself of how I want to think, speak, and act:

“We will work to be an example of how we, as brothers and sisters on this earth, should treat each other. Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe.”

Now is the time, more than any in my life so far, when we must call loudly and desperately on the ‘better angels of our nature.’  How can we manifest them the most radiantly?

 

Hold One Another Up

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Hello Friends!

How was your week?  I wrote in my last, very brief post that it had been a hard few weeks, but whoa-Nellie, these past 10 days or so have been a bit unbelievable.  But then again, almost nothing is truly unbelievable anymore.

When the news first came out about families getting separated at the border, I felt profound empathy for the parents, and then the kids, imagining their despair, grief, and lasting trauma.  But the administration is now targeting even naturalized citizens, looking for fraud on applications to deport people.  My parents, my husband, and all of his siblings are all naturalized citizens.  My son is currently abroad and it occurred to me to wonder whether he will be held up in customs and immigration on his return.  At this point I cannot know for sure that my own child, a native-born American citizen, won’t be kept from me, and even though it is unlikely, I now feel it fully in the realm of the possible.  I know I’m not the only one.  That is simply unacceptable.

It also occurred to me that any of my Latinx friends and co-workers could be stopped on the street or approached on a bus or train, and commanded to show proof of citizenship, as so many across the country have experienced, illegal and unconstitutional as it may be.  45 actually autographed photos of people who have been killed by illegal immigrants, while denying that native-born citizens commit proportionally more crime than immigrants, legal or illegal.   Right now, June 2018 in the United States, it feels to me that only straight, white, Christian, cisgender males are safe.  It all makes me want to vomit.

In the past year or so, people who know me call me an ‘activist.’  I take immense pride in this perception, and at the same time feel a little unworthy.  What have I done?  In 2017 I wrote a lot of letters to Members of Congress–even had Healing Through Connection stationery printed to do it.  I called.  I donated.  I marched.  2018 has been slower in action.  I’m still reading, keeping up, donating, and engaging on social media.  But I feel like it’s not enough, that I should be doing more.

Today I am more aware than ever that most of my colleagues and institutional leaders are white.  I am East Asian.  We are not the targeted groups.  However empathetic and outraged we may feel, we are likely only indirectly affected by current events.  So many of our support staff, however, are people of color.  They hold positions in the organization with the least autonomy, authority, and voice.

We are all expected come to work every day and do our jobs.  We take care of patients.  We put our personal feelings, stressors, and worries aside and meet our patients where they need us, and nobody knows what we might be dealing with ourselves.  But we do this now during a mind-bending crisis of national conscience.  Now is the time when our emotional and social support networks are called forth and tested.  As a physician, a default leader of the patient care team, how can I not acknowledge this profound disturbance of our collective consciousness?  How can I expect my team to perform optimally in a false vacuum?  The realities of our world are simply inescapable, and they affect us all, like it and accept it or not.

I may not be marching in front of Congress or the DHS.  I may not be writing legislators or calling them every day.  I am not a designated leader of my professional society, publishing op-eds on the long term health and societal consequences of our government’s actions.  But I can absolutely stand up in solidarity with and for the people closest to me.

So this week I expressed to my teams in no uncertain terms that whatever anyone is feeling or going through right now, they should know that their physician leaders support them, and we will be here for them however they need us, just like we are all here for our patients.  I made no overt political commentary.  I simply acknowledged the moral morass I see in our country and tried my best to make it safe for us all to experience it together, out loud and in person, and to help one another through it.

If there were ever a time for physicians to walk the talk as leaders, as caregivers for the caregivers, it is now.  I know now that I don’t have to be the loudest or most visible ‘activist.’  I just have to act in accordance with my core values.  And it starts with holding up the people right next to me every day.