mindfulness

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Letters to a Young Doctor.... first in a series

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Letters to a Young Doctor.... first in a series

Letters to a young Doctor… the first in a series

 “What do you wish you knew when you first started practice?”

“Everything”

 Hello,

There are so many things that I wish I had known when I started in medicine, things that unfortunately are unknowable until you have spent some time in practice.There are some things that you cannot know until you have walked this path for a while.It is like a pair of shoes you plan to take hiking, you try them on, walk around the store, climb the fake rock to see how they fit going up and down, and make your best guess.The felt good while you walked all over the REI, looking at everything, but when you hit the trail you find they are not quite right.The break is a little too far forward on the foot and so after 20 KM the midfoot is sore, as are your toes.There are so many things like that in the world, they require first-hand experience to understand…..

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Spaciousness

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Spaciousness

Fresh snow blankets the world, the wind was absent last evening as it fell, so it come straight down, settling into fluffy piles upon the surfaces.  Every branch has become a small shelf allowing the snow to rest for a while, the spruce trees with their small, tight leaves hold the snow so well among the branches, each one piled high with snow, undisturbed.  The lower branches are weighted down, touching the drifts that lay below.  In this space, there is a silence that is felt, the sounds of the world further away as these heaps of snow slow and muffle the noises of life beyond the pasture edges.  It is a silence I have felt before, in other settings, in other places, but it always brings the same sense of peace when it is here.

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Day 443....

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Day 443....

The sky is so blue when the storm has passed. It is clear in a way that it never seems to be on normal days. When it is cold, deeply cold like it is today, it is as if nothing can be in that air other than the blue. There is a deep beauty to this kind of day, you have to take a moment, slow down, and let it unfurl before your eyes. It is funny, I did not used to look at the world with this set of eyes, and they seem to grown in clarity over the last year, as my vision has slowed down, the clarity with which I see has changed.

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In this moment...

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In this moment...

It was another weekend of training in Hakomi.  We were working on figuring out our resources (those things in our lives that help us get through tough times).  It was the second day of training for this block, and my student therapist asked how things were going, “day by day, usual days, usual stuff.” “Why don’t you take me through a usual day then, how do you start seeing your patients? “. I begin to recount how I work without a nurse, and that I go up front to pick up my patients. She asked me to stop, slow down, and really focus on what I do when I prepare to get a patient, and as we work through that, I came to see what a resource I have built over the last 10 years.

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Compassion returns

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Compassion returns

There she was, it had been so long since I had caught sight of her, I wasn’t sure at first if I recognized her, she had changed so much over the years, or had I? She was peeking around the corner checking in to see how I was doing. I am surprised she still visits me, after the way I treated her all those years ago.  If I let myself, I can easily remember those days. Those had been rough days, when it wasn’t safe to have her around anymore. 

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Being seen...

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Being seen...

What a gift it is to be seen, really seen, in a way that nourishes you deeply.  It is a gift that everyone desires, but funny enough, we never seem to put it on the list for Christmas. It is something that we want so deeply that we may not even be aware of our longing until it is met, and then, in a rush of deep appreciation we feel what has been missing for so long that we forgot it had been lost.

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Focus and Attention

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Focus and Attention

One of the many wonderful things about moving to a place that you were completely unfamiliar with is how it points out to you, behaviors and patterns of thought that may not be serving you well. In 2007, Nancy and I discovered that our thoughts, values, beliefs, and ideas really did not resonate with the majority of the population where we were living. This is neither good, nor bad, it simply was something we had noticed.

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A Christmas Gift to You....

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A Christmas Gift to You....

It is no secret that there have been big changes in my life in the last 9 months. For anyone who has seen me, there is clearly a transformation taking place.  There are two transformations taking place, one internal and one external.  The external transformation is very clear to everyone, but what is harder to see is the transformation that is occurring internally. And of the two transformations, the internal one has had a far greater impact upon my life, and through those internal changes, the lives of every person that I touch.