Category Archives: writing

On Experiencing and Expressing Gratitude

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NaBloPoMo 2016, Letters to Patients, Day 23

To Patients Seeking Words for Gratitude:

I found them!

As we head to gatherings tomorrow and seek words to honor and express the occasion, I’m particularly grateful today to see the post below by David Whyte.  Where, you ask?  Why on Facebook, of course!  Back tomorrow with my own original words.  Until then, peace and gratitude to you all!

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GRATITUDE

is not a passive response to something we have been given, gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us. Gratitude is not necessarily something that is shown after the event, it is the deep, a-priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life.

Gratitude is the understanding that many millions of things come together and live together and mesh together and breathe together in order for us to take even one more breath of air, that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is a privilege; that we are miraculously, part of something, rather than nothing. Even if that something is temporarily pain or despair, we inhabit a living world, with real faces, real voices, laughter, the color blue, the green of the fields, the freshness of a cold wind, or the tawny hue of a winter landscape.

To see the full miraculous essentiality of the color blue is to be grateful with no necessity for a word of thanks. To see fully, the beauty of a daughter’s face across the table, of a son’s outline against the mountains, is to be fully grateful without having to seek a God to thank him. To sit among friends and strangers, hearing many voices, strange opinions; to intuit even stranger inner lives beneath calm surface lives, to inhabit many worlds at once in this world, to be a someone amongst all other someones, and therefore to make a conversation without saying a word, is to deepen our sense of presence and therefore our natural sense of thankfulness that everything happens both with us and without us, that we are participants and witness all at once.

Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness. We sit at the table as part of every other person’s strange world while making our own world without will or effort, this is what is extraordinary and gifted, this is the essence of gratefulness, seeing to the heart of privilege.

Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence meets and fully beholds all other presences. Being unappreciative, feeling distant, might mean we are simply not paying attention.

…

© 2015 David Whyte
from ‘GRATITUDE’
In CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.
© David Whyte and Many Rivers Press 2015

On Trudging the Road Forward

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img_4456NaBloPoMo 2016, Letters to Patients, Day 21

To Patients Who Doubt Your Ability or Endurance:

Don’t give up!  Stay on the path!!

Holy COW, Day 21!!  That’s three whole weeks that I have managed to post every single day!  So it really is true, the more times you try, the more likely you are to succeed.

I tried NaBloPoMo last year with “November Gratitude Shorts.”  It felt scary at first, then stressful, then deflating.  Then this past April, I did my first A to Z Blogging Challenge.  I had the insight to warn my family that I would be busier, and then halfway through announced that I would basically stop cooking until it was over.  It was not nearly the slog of NGS, but I did feel quite overextended and anxious for many days that month.  I submitted the last one with 30 minutes to spare on April 30.

The evolution here is worth examining, as it parallels other endeavors in life—exercise, parenting, the cultivation of other relationships… When I counsel patients around health behavior change, I often hear, ‘I tried that before, it didn’t work.’  This is usually when I point out that ‘before’ was a very different time.  Then they concede that since then, their experience, circumstances, and priorities may have evolved, sometimes drastically so, and maybe ‘it’ might work this time, who knows?

If we live consciously, observantly, and mindfully, I believe that all of our experiences make us stronger.  Trials and learnings in one realm of life inevitably pertain to all others.  If we can manage to see and appreciate this, then the potential for application and personal growth expands exponentially.  How much more could we accomplish if we just allowed ourselves to pick up and keep going, not only expecting to fall along the way, but anticipating it with gladness for the learning?

So let’s lighten up on ourselves, shall we?  Even if you have tried many times to quit smoking, establish an exercise routine, ‘eat healthier’ (whatever that means for you), and then consistently gone back to old habits, don’t give up!  Stay on the path!  Keep moving forward!  Try something new, learn something new, integrate, and continue!  Life is so much more fun when we don’t take it all so seriously, no?

So now that I have bragged on Day 21, what do you bet things will fall apart as we approach the Thanksgiving weekend?  Oh well, we shall see!  Even if that’s the case, I already have some valuable lessons stashed away:

  1. Try not so schedule so many conferences and presentations during NaBloPoMo.
  2. 500 words and 60 minutes are very reasonable limits for daily posts.
  3. Definitely warn the family; set expectations in advance.
  4. Protect the sleep!!

Happy Monday, all—and here’s to trudging the path together!

NaBloPoMo, Here We Come!

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The Cubs have won game 5 of the World Series.  Halloween is tomorrow.  In two days I will commit to publishing a post a day for 30 days.  Woo hoooooooo, bring it!!  It’s been a year since I tried this the first time, and I almost made it—26, I believe, and a few may have been reblogs of others’ work…  I felt embarrassed about the ‘failure.’  But then I got through the A to Z Challenge by the skin of my teeth this past April (last post at 11:30pm on April 30th), and that was much more fun.  So I’m trying again, yaaay!

I launched this blog 18 months ago to address physician-patient relationship.  I aimed to discuss communication, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence, as tools to rekindle that trusting, continuous bond that so many of us miss in medicine today.  Since then I have come around to the original theme occasionally, but not nearly as often as I had intended.  So I take this annual blogging event as an opportunity to refocus and try something new.

For Na Bo Po Mo 2016, I intend to write 30 letters to patients.  Some will echo routine conversations; others may reflect my musings on this vocation.  I may examine observations on the state of medicine today.  Or other things, who knows?  I will at least attempt to convey my deep love for the work and the people.  Maybe I can help fellow physicians and patients connect, or perhaps lend some perspective and awareness.

There is a lightness to trial and error.  When you try something new, you make a commitment, set an endpoint, and decide how you will measure the outcome.  But you don’t have to attach yourself to a particular outcome, just the process.  I commit to try my best and have fun, and see what comes out, in fewer than 500 words per post.  I wonder where this will lead?  Maybe it will turn into a monthly newsletter for my own patients?  A book?  A column somewhere?  Anything is possible!  I’ll never know until I try, and I like the openness of the adventure.

I hope you will visit often, and leave your thoughtful comments.

Let the journey begin!