Category Archives: stress management

We Are Tested

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9-2018

What a shit week.  I wonder, how are you doing, my friends?  Because I look around and it really seems like I’m not the only one feeling it.  A friend’s young, healthy sister-in-law was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer and possibly also lymphoma.  Another friend’s cousin died from a drug overdose after recently completing rehab and getting back to her young family.  Patients are sick with mysterious and disconcerting illnesses.  Pipe bombs were sent to a slew of Democratic leaders and supporters.  And today a man commits yet another deadly, hate-driven shooting.  Seriously, WTAF?  And I honestly think we have yet to hit rock bottom.  I don’t see any of it turning around anytime soon.

I have barely made it through—so much psychic energy required to simply move from one task to the next, taking care of many (and not so much some others).  This past year, actually, sometimes I’m barely holding it together.  First the knee injury, then taking on a new big role at work.  Then surgery/rehab, and another personal crisis that derailed all of my health habits for spring and summer.  As I go around the country talking about personal resilience and culture of wellness, I wonder, am I being a hypocrite?  Am I really walking my talk?  Because if I’m not, I had better just sit down and shut up.

I wrote to a friend today, “I hope you are able to take care of yourself and recharge.  The energy in the world is so tumultuous and agitated.  It’s no help to blame and lament (well maybe lamenting can be a bit cathartic—for a while).  I guess this is a time to exercise our best skills—sharpen them against the harsh and jagged surfaces of challenge and trial.  I feel like all year my professed self-care practices have been called out and called forth—TESTED.  And I’m still here…  Still doing some good every day (I think), alongside the mistakes, the sub-par moments, the not-my-best words, actions, and thoughts…  But hey, who’s perfect?  Nobody.  And are we all here doing the best we can?  I agree with Brené Brown’s husband Steve, the pediatrician: It helps me live better when I choose to believe that we are—all visible evidence to the contrary.” (Here is another article that describes well the benefits of this mindset.)

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Similar to last week, as I consider this idea, I am met with readings and conversations that deepen the exploration.  Friend and author Donna Cameron published an op-ed today in which she, in her typically kind and gentle style, encourages us all to be our best and see the best in others—on November 7, a day full of potential for vehement loathing and gloating celebration.  In her wisdom, Donna urges us to think ahead and decide in advance how we will choose to think, speak, and act.  How can we be our best on that day, to ourselves and to one another, no matter what the circumstances?

Recently I have had conversations with trusted friends, my coach, and my therapist, focused on my own most cavernous arenas of personal self-loathing and shame.  How lucky that I have such generous, loving, wise, candid, and brave people holding me up.  With their help, I can move past shame, take a step back, and recognize that I simply have some dysfunctional patterns, just like everybody else.  I slide into these deep grooves when I’m stressed, exhausted, and distracted—they are the default. They are part of me, and also subject to change—to intentional modification, gradual evolution.  These days I meditate often on the distinction between perfection and healthy striving, and I’m also reminded daily of the benefits of cultivating a growth mindset.  These days, instead of berating myself for falling into the same deep hole in my sidewalk, I can hold it more lightly, laugh, and exclaim, “How Fascinating!” climb out (often with a little help from my friends), and walk—ever onward.

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Today as I walked outside, slowly (I’m so tired), I noticed the leaves again.  I think autumn is my favorite season.  It reminds me of the wholeness and beauty of transitions.  They are inevitable.  They are temporary (or constant?).  They are unpredictable, at times prolonged, at other times sudden and acute.  They can feel at once painful, joyous, terrifying, shocking, enlightening, overwhelming, confusing, awe-inspiring (or simply inspiring).  It occurs to me that the best way through them involves practicing some combination of mindfulness, self-compassion, empathy, generosity, deep breathing, sleep, connection, self-awareness, magnanimity, and of course love.  The only way out is through, and if we do it well, we can grow a little at a time in the process.

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Who knows what shit will be flung our way and hit the fan next week?  How will we cope?  I know I will be leaning on my tribe and looking to make our ties ever stronger and thicker.  Thank you for being here to share the journey.

One Cheek in the Saddle

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Hello friends!  I live!

The blog is now two years old (celebratory post forthcoming).  Looking back, I have strayed often from the declared theme of patient-physician relationship and communication.  I have yet to figure out my optimum writing practice and discipline.  And every day the thing I long for most is to write for fun!  *sigh* Life.

If my world were a horse, happily trotting along a winding dirt trail in the Rockies, oblivious to my riding its back, then I would have fallen off multiple times from confusion, inexperience, fear, overreaction, awe, inattention, and impulse.  Sometimes I roll a ways down the hill, too.  The past two months or so have seen all of these and more.  Thankfully, as dust-covered and disoriented as I stand at times, the horse always allows me to remount.  At this point I’m about halfway back in the saddle again—one cheek on.  The next few posts will document my return to two-buttock riding.

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So much inner work done to date, and so much yet to do!  And I am infinitely grateful for the dense, strong, and unfailing network of support that surrounds me.  2017 could be my most productive and effective year yet, and I need help organizing.  So a couple weeks ago, I scheduled a session with my life coach of 12 years.

Her pre-call questions for me, and my spontaneous answers:

What do I want more of?

Connection, understanding, civil discourse.

To see people being kind to one another.

For people to truly listen to one another and try to understand each other’s points of view.

For us all to hold our shared humanity above all else, and see one another as fellow humans, all trying to make our way through an uncertain life.

Inner Peace.

Time outside, preferably in Colorado, in the mountains, but pretty much anywhere is good.

To write with purpose, discipline, and impact.

Integration—of everything I do, even the small things—for my Why to show up everywhere I go, with everybody I meet, most of all with my kids—to model the Why for them, in person and out loud.

To read primary literature, writings of the great thinkers and contemplatives, past and present.

Discernment—what is worth my time, contributes to my purpose, vs. what detracts from it?

Focus on what I’m for, rather than what I’m against.

Focus in general—to channel my energy to activities that align most with my central mission.  See Distraction below.

 

What do I want less of?

Rage and seething.

Repression of rage and seething.

Time wasted for lack of discernment.

Distraction.  I feel like Doug, the dog from the movie “Up”—Squirrel!  It all matters, but I cannot do everything at the same time.

 

What thoughts are uppermost in my mind these days?

The daily shit show that is our government and how it vexes me (see above, rage and seething)—sooo many squirrels.

I need to do something useful, to help, to contribute.

We are all in this together, we have to get through it together.

This is a test.  We can pass, and with flying colors, and only if we work together.

Every time I get angry, sarcastic, etc., I contribute to the negativity and morass.  I need to be better.

Why have I so much trouble walking the talk?  Why have I not achieved inner peace althef*ingready?

 

I present thusly to my trusted coach. The process always brings new insights, connections, and openings of mind and heart.  I plan to emerge on the other side of 60 minutes with increased clarity, confidence, and drive.  I’ll let you know! 😉

Oh yeah, and the Rules of Engagement also live, just taking an unplanned hiatus.  More of those to come, also.  Like I said, I’m only one cheek back on right now. 😉

 

 

On the Golden Positivity Ratio

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Courtesy of Bryan Jorgensen, Las Vegas, NV, 2016

NaBloPoMo 2016, Letters to Patients, Day 25

To Patients Seeking Positivity:

Aim for the Golden Ratio!

As many of you know, I have recently undertaken to re-evaluate my Facebook usage.  Not long after I established my account c.2008, I decided to make my page a monument to positivity.  I realized that after I die, it would be the most visible and accessible legacy I leave, and I have total control over what I post.  I minimized complaining and ranting, and when frustrated I would try to write with an attitude of learning, of moving forward.  Lately I tend to leave off the latter.

Somewhere along the way, I think over the past year, but I’m not sure, pessimism and cynicism snuck in, no doubt related to politics.  The layers of consciousness infiltrated by the negative campaigning this time around extend deeper than any other election cycle in my memory—but maybe I just don’t remember.  I think humans have evolved to forget pain as a survival mechanism.  If women remembered all the pain and anxiety of pregnancy, delivery, and caring for a newborn, we would never do it more than once, are you kidding me?

I used to review my Facebook posts and feel elevated.  Today they often bring me down; it feels terrible.

Thankfully, I have some tools to resist the negativity.  I was reminded recently during my 3 Question Journal Shares with Donna over at A Year of Living Kindly.  I remembered something about healthy relationships maintaining a 3:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions.  Turns out it’s actually 5:1, widely attributed to observations by Dr. John Gottman, renowned marriage and relationship psychologist.  I think the same thing applies in other realms, too, such as self-talk—a reflection of our relationship with ourselves.  It’s not a far leap to see how this idea pertains to news, social media, and any other human interactions.

Business researchers have discovered a 5.6:1 ideal ratio in highly functioning organizations, whereas low-performing teams’ ratio landed close to 0.3:1.

For more information on the science behind the theory (and motivation for practice), I highly recommend Positive Psychology in a Nutshell, by Ilona Boniwell.  For a brief overview, check out this PDF.  The book summarizes the origins of positive psychology as a field, and the research and wisdom of its study and application.  For example, psychologist Barbara Frederickson has described how positive emotions contribute to our personal growth and development (taken from Boniwell’s text):

  1. Positive emotions broaden our thought-action repertoires
  2. Positive emotions undo negative emotions
  3. Positive emotions enhance resilience

So hereafter, I will pay more attention.  I will likely continue to share articles that illuminate my concerns for the future.  But I will aim for the 5:1 positivity ratio.  Holy cow, can you imagine if that’s actually what we saw on the news and social media?  And why not aspire to 5:1 in my personal interactions, too?  That’s taking charge of my own happiness, yes.