You may recall that I set some pretty ambitious (for me) goals at the beginning of the year. So how is it going one month in?
The Good:
"meditating every day" I have done this! I was pretty well established with my weekday morning practice, so my main challenge here was finding a way to meditate on the weekends. Initially, I thought that I would meditate first thing in the morning like I do on weekdays, but this literally never happened. Turns out, I really enjoy sleeping in and getting a lazy slow start to weekend days, and there is no part of me that wants to start the day on a meditation cushion. So I have been doing it before I go to bed on weekends, and it has gone perfectly so far.
"I mostly just want to keep working and
hoarding money for the future" I had nine days of very busy call this month, so I have done a lot of hoarding of money. It's lovely for the net worth, but I would honestly like to do a little less earning and a little more resting.
"I want to keep building on
the friendships I have." I've also been doing this! Even though it's been a busy month, I've made time to go with friends to see our local queer choir, to visit my godson and his family, to go for dinner with my brother, and to go out for dinner and a play with my mom and her partner. (I think there has been more? It's a bit of a blur.) For an introvert who has been busy with work, it has been about the maximum amount I can expect of myself.
The Not As Good:
"I would like to work on keeping up with everything." This has been very mixed. One of my proposed ways of achieving this was "just doing the shit now", and I have definitely incorporated this approach into my life, to good effect. I am constantly trying to spend a few extra minutes to do all the nagging little tasks as they come up, and as a result I'm getting a lot more done without it feeling overwhelming or like a giant burden. And I'm worrying less about missing things. Perfect example - I got an application for reimbursement of a work expense, which isn't due until April. My initial instinct was to put it in my to do pile (I had three months to do it, after all), but instead I took the five minutes required to fill it out, put it in the return envelope, and put it in the mailbox. And now it's done, and I don't have to worry about missing the deadline for getting money back.
The biggest challenge has simply been that work has been really busy. In addition to nine busy (and really emotionally exhausting) days of call, I had a week of teaching, and I've taken on a new volunteer position with a national organization (You know. Because that helps with burnout.) I've worked at least part of one weekend day every week since the beginning of the year, and still things are slowly starting to build up. It's frustrating.
And as for my "go to work earlier and stay later" approach?
Ha.
Ha.
Ha.
When I was writing my original post, I had the (utterly ridiculous, I don't know where it came from) idea in my head that I sometimes go to work late or leave early because I'm lazy. This past month has reminded me that it's actually because I'm tired. I have a limited number of productive work hours in me every day, and once they are finished, there is no value in me sitting in front of a computer trying to work. I need a mental break. So those days when I leave early are usually because I'm mentally shutting down and ready for the day to be over. And the days when I arrive late are usually because I've been suffering from insomnia and have allowed myself an extra hour to catch up on some sleep.
This has been an important reminder to not be too hard on myself and to extend myself a bit of grace. I am human, and I can only do so much. It's also a really important reminder to set boundaries and to not apologize for doing so. At the moment, I'm having to set some boundaries on fun things in my personal life, but I'm hoping as the year goes on and my call schedule settles down a bit that the boundaries will be more towards work. I've also firmly decided that I'm going to give up a volunteer commitment at the end of the year (I reeeeealy should've given it up at the beginning of the year, but I got talked into agreeing to another year), which will free up one precious evening every month.
The Total Nope:
"I'm aiming for a regular practice of four yoga
classes per week" At best so far I've made it to three classes in one week. Things have just been busy, and in some cases (call) I've had to skip yoga, and in other cases (social life) I've chosen to skip yoga. Part of me is sad, because I really do love it and am seeing a lot of progress, but I'm also making peace with it. I have a really full life, in mostly good ways, so it's okay that I'm not being absolutely perfect at everything.
So that's the one-month check in. As for February? I have three more weeks off call (yay!), during which I'm fully intending to get caught up on everything work related (plausible if I do some work on weekends), after which I have one week on, one off, and one on. Ugh. I'm intending to keep up with the daily meditations, as I do think they help keep me present and calm, even though my brain feels squirrely while I'm doing them. I'm going to try to do three yoga classes a week, as I think it's more realistic than four right now. And, perhaps mostly importantly, I'm going to keep learning from the process and being kind to myself. I'm actually doing pretty well at things that are hard, and I deserve to be proud of myself for that.
Showing posts with label Meditation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meditation. Show all posts
Friday, January 31, 2020
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
2020 - Progress, Not Perfection
It has been a few years since I made a New Year's resolution. In 2017, I resolved to say no to more things, which obviously wasn't enough given the burnout I hit in 2019. In 2018, I seem to have been in a bit of a dark place in which I thought resolving to do anything was futile, because I wouldn't be able to stick to it anyway.
The past two years have shown me that, under the right circumstances, I can actually make pretty big changes in my life. In that time, I've greatly expanded and strengthened my social circle, to the point where I couldn't see everyone I wanted to during my two weeks of holidays. I've started a (somewhat) daily meditation practice and gone to a meditation retreat. I've been really consistent with yoga, going to 45 classes in the first half of the year and 83 in the second half*. I've adopted an intuitive eating practice, which has led me to a much healthier relationship with food (and overall healthier eating habits) than I've had in my life. And I've cut back on my work responsibilities to the point where I am only slightly dreading returning to it tomorrow.
When I look back at the changes I've made, the keys for me have been twofold: motivation and gradual progress. I haven't made changes out of a sense that it's what I should do, but rather because I can see how the changes will make me happier and otherwise enhance my life. The goals I set for myself are personal and are aligned with my values, not things that other people think are important. I've also started slowly with things (It took me over a decade to develop a regular yoga practice!) and allowed myself to learn from the process of change, rather than thinking that I'll be perfect at a new thing the moment I start it. As Done By 40 said in a comment on my last post, "Progress, not perfection".
Looking ahead to 2020, my hope is to have a relatively uneventful year. 2019 was a year of tremendous growth and change, but it was also a hard one. I kind of want to catch my breath**. I want to continue with my mindfulness practice, and I'm aiming for a regular practice of four yoga classes per week and meditating every day. I want to keep building on the friendships I have. My financial situation is really good (No debt! Lots of investments!), and I mostly just want to keep working and hoarding money for the future. Overall, I don't anticipate any radical changes in 2020***.
But....in 2020, I would like to work on keeping up with everything. I feel like I'm perpetually behind - on housework, on work work - and I find it draining. I hate having clutter in my home and 100 dictations to sign off on in my inbox. I hate feeling like I'm perpetually catching up, only to have new work pile on top of me the moment I finally get through the old work. And it's not like I'm saving time by procrastinating on things - I have the same amount of work to do, regardless of whether I do it right away or put it off for weeks.
Which...is really everyone's problem, right? While the specific tasks may differ, I think we all have an endless to-do list that is never done to our satisfaction. So, while I'm setting this as a goal, I am also trying to be realistic. And to extend a lot of grace and compassion to myself. Because no matter how hard I work, I am never going to get to the bottom of the list. And I need to make peace with that.
As far as how to do this...I'm going to experiment. Try something for a while, see how it goes, then keep it or reject it. I'm not expecting that I will get to the end of the list by midnight tonight and then always keep up with it, forever and ever. I know it will be a process, and so I'm trying to give myself the time and space (and lots of grace!) to work with the process. For the moment, I am going to try three things that I think may help:
1) Going to later yoga classes: Some of my favourite yoga classes are at 5:30 PM, which unfortunately means leaving work at 4:30 and therefore losing out on a lot of potential work time. I'm going to try sticking to a regular weekly schedule, with a 7 PM class as my earliest, so that I get an extra hour or so at work at the end of many days.
2) Coming to work earlier: My work days start between 8 and 9:30 am (sometimes 10 if I really let myself sleep in) depending on whether or not I have a morning clinic. I'm going to try to get to work for 8 am consistently so that I'm getting some extra work time first thing in the morning. As an added bonus, I'm hopeful that the more regular wake up/go to work schedule will be good for my insomnia.
I recognize that I'm proposing to both start later and finish later, which has the potential to simply be too much work. But I'm hoping that this will allow me to get most, if not all, of my work done during the week, thus giving me weekends completely off to recharge. I'll see how it goes...
3) Just doing the shit now: I'm human. I procrastinate. Sometimes epically. Yesterday I logged onto a conference website, thinking it was the last day for early bird registration, and when I discovered that I still had two weeks, I logged off. I did very quickly log back on and register for the conference (also booked my Airbnb like a superstar), but my initial impulse was to procrastinate for another two weeks. I've already started trying to break myself of this habit, as I know it is a huge contributor to the piles of things to do that build up. So I'm trying to just respond to the email, just put my dishes in the dishwasher, just put away the laundry that I've already folded (instead of it sitting on my dresser until the basket is empty), and just add the item to my grocery list (instead of cursing myself when I get home from the store without it). Just. Do. The. Shit.
Who knows if this will work. I like some of the 5:30 yoga classes, so I might cave and go to them. My bed is very comfortable, so I may sleep in. Doing the shit gets tedious. But I'm going to give it a try and see where it takes me.
Any suggestions as I try to get more on top of things in my life?
*At least. I only track yoga classes for my main studio; I think I did another 10 or so at other studios over the year.
**I feel like I'm tempting the universe by typing this.
***Seriously, I feel like I'm baiting the universe with this post.
The past two years have shown me that, under the right circumstances, I can actually make pretty big changes in my life. In that time, I've greatly expanded and strengthened my social circle, to the point where I couldn't see everyone I wanted to during my two weeks of holidays. I've started a (somewhat) daily meditation practice and gone to a meditation retreat. I've been really consistent with yoga, going to 45 classes in the first half of the year and 83 in the second half*. I've adopted an intuitive eating practice, which has led me to a much healthier relationship with food (and overall healthier eating habits) than I've had in my life. And I've cut back on my work responsibilities to the point where I am only slightly dreading returning to it tomorrow.
When I look back at the changes I've made, the keys for me have been twofold: motivation and gradual progress. I haven't made changes out of a sense that it's what I should do, but rather because I can see how the changes will make me happier and otherwise enhance my life. The goals I set for myself are personal and are aligned with my values, not things that other people think are important. I've also started slowly with things (It took me over a decade to develop a regular yoga practice!) and allowed myself to learn from the process of change, rather than thinking that I'll be perfect at a new thing the moment I start it. As Done By 40 said in a comment on my last post, "Progress, not perfection".
Looking ahead to 2020, my hope is to have a relatively uneventful year. 2019 was a year of tremendous growth and change, but it was also a hard one. I kind of want to catch my breath**. I want to continue with my mindfulness practice, and I'm aiming for a regular practice of four yoga classes per week and meditating every day. I want to keep building on the friendships I have. My financial situation is really good (No debt! Lots of investments!), and I mostly just want to keep working and hoarding money for the future. Overall, I don't anticipate any radical changes in 2020***.
But....in 2020, I would like to work on keeping up with everything. I feel like I'm perpetually behind - on housework, on work work - and I find it draining. I hate having clutter in my home and 100 dictations to sign off on in my inbox. I hate feeling like I'm perpetually catching up, only to have new work pile on top of me the moment I finally get through the old work. And it's not like I'm saving time by procrastinating on things - I have the same amount of work to do, regardless of whether I do it right away or put it off for weeks.
Which...is really everyone's problem, right? While the specific tasks may differ, I think we all have an endless to-do list that is never done to our satisfaction. So, while I'm setting this as a goal, I am also trying to be realistic. And to extend a lot of grace and compassion to myself. Because no matter how hard I work, I am never going to get to the bottom of the list. And I need to make peace with that.
As far as how to do this...I'm going to experiment. Try something for a while, see how it goes, then keep it or reject it. I'm not expecting that I will get to the end of the list by midnight tonight and then always keep up with it, forever and ever. I know it will be a process, and so I'm trying to give myself the time and space (and lots of grace!) to work with the process. For the moment, I am going to try three things that I think may help:
1) Going to later yoga classes: Some of my favourite yoga classes are at 5:30 PM, which unfortunately means leaving work at 4:30 and therefore losing out on a lot of potential work time. I'm going to try sticking to a regular weekly schedule, with a 7 PM class as my earliest, so that I get an extra hour or so at work at the end of many days.
2) Coming to work earlier: My work days start between 8 and 9:30 am (sometimes 10 if I really let myself sleep in) depending on whether or not I have a morning clinic. I'm going to try to get to work for 8 am consistently so that I'm getting some extra work time first thing in the morning. As an added bonus, I'm hopeful that the more regular wake up/go to work schedule will be good for my insomnia.
I recognize that I'm proposing to both start later and finish later, which has the potential to simply be too much work. But I'm hoping that this will allow me to get most, if not all, of my work done during the week, thus giving me weekends completely off to recharge. I'll see how it goes...
3) Just doing the shit now: I'm human. I procrastinate. Sometimes epically. Yesterday I logged onto a conference website, thinking it was the last day for early bird registration, and when I discovered that I still had two weeks, I logged off. I did very quickly log back on and register for the conference (also booked my Airbnb like a superstar), but my initial impulse was to procrastinate for another two weeks. I've already started trying to break myself of this habit, as I know it is a huge contributor to the piles of things to do that build up. So I'm trying to just respond to the email, just put my dishes in the dishwasher, just put away the laundry that I've already folded (instead of it sitting on my dresser until the basket is empty), and just add the item to my grocery list (instead of cursing myself when I get home from the store without it). Just. Do. The. Shit.
Who knows if this will work. I like some of the 5:30 yoga classes, so I might cave and go to them. My bed is very comfortable, so I may sleep in. Doing the shit gets tedious. But I'm going to give it a try and see where it takes me.
Any suggestions as I try to get more on top of things in my life?
*At least. I only track yoga classes for my main studio; I think I did another 10 or so at other studios over the year.
**I feel like I'm tempting the universe by typing this.
***Seriously, I feel like I'm baiting the universe with this post.
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
What it is Like to Meditate
When I started to meditate, I arrogantly thought that I would be good at it. I'm generally pretty good at sitting still, and I can stare off into space for hours, so I figured I'd be a natural.
Nope.
Nope nope nope nope nope.
My monkey mind is as active as anyone else's. From the moment I plunk my ass down on my meditation cushion at way-too-early o'clock, my mind starts wandering to anything other than my breath.
Should I put dried cherries or dried blueberries in my oatmeal today? I had dried cherries yesterday, but they are my favourite, so maybe two days in a row is okay.
Should I go to yoga at 5:30 or 6:45? I like the 6:45 instructor better, but I'm always hangry because I have to wait to eat supper.
I wonder if next year's conference is going to be in Barcelona. I've never been to Spain. I could eat tapas. Mmmmm. Tapas. Maybe I should go to the tapas restaurant this weekend and have patatas bravas.
And on and on. No matter how many times I bring my attention back to the in and out of my breath, it inevitably wanders back away. Over and over again.
Which, for a perfectionist, is just a little annoying. Some days I can sit with the distraction, watching my thoughts wander away and patiently bringing them back. Other days I scream in my head "OMFG what the fuck is wrong with you it's just sitting and breathing it's not hard stop thinking about eating Hagen Daas when you get home from work tonight!"
The only reason I've been able to stick with it for over six months (six months!) is because I am a compulsive reader, and every single thing I've ever read about meditation has said that this is okay. This is normal. The wandering and returning isn't failing - it is the practice.
But I still find it hard to let go of the idea that someday I'll figure it out and every meditation will be bliss. A few weeks ago, I went to a group meditation, and I meditated for a solid 45 minutes. And it was awesome! I have never in my life sat so peacefully and been so focused on my breathing. I thought I had done it!
And then the next morning, on my cushion, my brain said "Don't forget to take your lunch to work today because it's the pasta sauce you really love and you'll be really sad if you leave it on the counter and you have a busy morning clinic and the pasta sauce will be good after clinic as long as you don't fuck up and do something stupid in clinic, in which case you'll be crying into your pasta sauce and it will be ruined forever and you'll need to find a new favourite recipe which is really hard to find so you'll probably be miserable until you die alone and without good pasta."
So yeah. This is me on meditation.
Nope.
Nope nope nope nope nope.
My monkey mind is as active as anyone else's. From the moment I plunk my ass down on my meditation cushion at way-too-early o'clock, my mind starts wandering to anything other than my breath.
Should I put dried cherries or dried blueberries in my oatmeal today? I had dried cherries yesterday, but they are my favourite, so maybe two days in a row is okay.
Should I go to yoga at 5:30 or 6:45? I like the 6:45 instructor better, but I'm always hangry because I have to wait to eat supper.
I wonder if next year's conference is going to be in Barcelona. I've never been to Spain. I could eat tapas. Mmmmm. Tapas. Maybe I should go to the tapas restaurant this weekend and have patatas bravas.
And on and on. No matter how many times I bring my attention back to the in and out of my breath, it inevitably wanders back away. Over and over again.
Which, for a perfectionist, is just a little annoying. Some days I can sit with the distraction, watching my thoughts wander away and patiently bringing them back. Other days I scream in my head "OMFG what the fuck is wrong with you it's just sitting and breathing it's not hard stop thinking about eating Hagen Daas when you get home from work tonight!"
The only reason I've been able to stick with it for over six months (six months!) is because I am a compulsive reader, and every single thing I've ever read about meditation has said that this is okay. This is normal. The wandering and returning isn't failing - it is the practice.
But I still find it hard to let go of the idea that someday I'll figure it out and every meditation will be bliss. A few weeks ago, I went to a group meditation, and I meditated for a solid 45 minutes. And it was awesome! I have never in my life sat so peacefully and been so focused on my breathing. I thought I had done it!
And then the next morning, on my cushion, my brain said "Don't forget to take your lunch to work today because it's the pasta sauce you really love and you'll be really sad if you leave it on the counter and you have a busy morning clinic and the pasta sauce will be good after clinic as long as you don't fuck up and do something stupid in clinic, in which case you'll be crying into your pasta sauce and it will be ruined forever and you'll need to find a new favourite recipe which is really hard to find so you'll probably be miserable until you die alone and without good pasta."
So yeah. This is me on meditation.
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
Words
In March of last year, about 5 months after my major breakup, I decided that I was ready to start dating again. I had gotten past my initial euphoria at leaving a bad relationship, allowed myself to grieve the good parts, and reached the point where I felt okay with being single. I was ready.
As I was getting back into dating, I distinctly remember thinking about how good a mental space I was in. I felt like I had worked through a lot of my old demons (anxiety, self doubt) and kind of figured things out. I understood shit. I can even remember, in one particularly arrogant moment, thinking that I had learned most of the big things in life and really didn't have that much more to learn.
(Cue deep laughter from the universe.)
In my last post of an unsuccessful NaBloPoMo, I wrote somewhat glibly about starting to meditate, completely diminishing the magnitude of the impact it has had on me. On one level, it has done what I expected it to: made me appreciate the present moment more, helped lower anxiety, and improved my always inconsistent sleep. What I completely didn't expect was the deeper changes it has brought about*.
Through meditation, I am learning to see everything more clearly. I am getting more comfortable with difficult things and learning to sit with them so that I can understand them better. Habits, thought patterns, relationships. The last half of this year feels like a veritable explosion of self understanding and personal change. Far more has happened than I can possibly capture in a single New Year's post.
It became popular a few years ago to choose a word for the year as a way of setting an intention, and while I didn't do it at the beginning of 2018, in retrospect, my word for the year was clearly growth.
And what for 2019? Mostly, I want to keep going on the path that I'm already on. I want to remain in the present moment, enjoying it when I can and learning from it when I can't.
2019 is going to be all about mindfulness.
*This whole post feels so hokey, and if I'd read someone else's version of it a year ago, I'm sure I would have rolled my eyes and accused the writer of having drunk the magical kombucha.
As I was getting back into dating, I distinctly remember thinking about how good a mental space I was in. I felt like I had worked through a lot of my old demons (anxiety, self doubt) and kind of figured things out. I understood shit. I can even remember, in one particularly arrogant moment, thinking that I had learned most of the big things in life and really didn't have that much more to learn.
(Cue deep laughter from the universe.)
In my last post of an unsuccessful NaBloPoMo, I wrote somewhat glibly about starting to meditate, completely diminishing the magnitude of the impact it has had on me. On one level, it has done what I expected it to: made me appreciate the present moment more, helped lower anxiety, and improved my always inconsistent sleep. What I completely didn't expect was the deeper changes it has brought about*.
Through meditation, I am learning to see everything more clearly. I am getting more comfortable with difficult things and learning to sit with them so that I can understand them better. Habits, thought patterns, relationships. The last half of this year feels like a veritable explosion of self understanding and personal change. Far more has happened than I can possibly capture in a single New Year's post.
It became popular a few years ago to choose a word for the year as a way of setting an intention, and while I didn't do it at the beginning of 2018, in retrospect, my word for the year was clearly growth.
And what for 2019? Mostly, I want to keep going on the path that I'm already on. I want to remain in the present moment, enjoying it when I can and learning from it when I can't.
2019 is going to be all about mindfulness.
*This whole post feels so hokey, and if I'd read someone else's version of it a year ago, I'm sure I would have rolled my eyes and accused the writer of having drunk the magical kombucha.
Saturday, November 3, 2018
How I Started to Meditate
I've been thinking about meditating for years.
Although I don't remember specifically, I suspect that I first heard about mindfulness meditation sometime during my medical training. It was probably during a session on "resiliency" or "work-life balance", and I was probably cursing the fact that I had to sit through an hour of stupid talks before I could get back to the ward to finish my work and go home. I probably laughed at the idea of using my precious free time to sit on a cushion and focus on my breath.
But it kept coming up. In talks, in articles, from friends and co-workers. And always with an emphasis on all the things it has been shown to help with: depression, anxiety, stress, insomnia, and pretty much every other bad thing that people struggle with. So I read a book, which I loved. And went to one class, which I hated so much I practically ran to the instructor to get a refund at the end of it. And I thought often about doing it. But never did.
(This is the point at which I would love to insert something profound about a life-altering experience that motivated me to start meditating. In reality? (Rosemary is going to laugh at this.) It was a girl.)
I met a woman online who is super into yoga - does yoga at least once a day, reads books about yoga, goes on yoga retreats, and has a yoga tattoo, into yoga. And...she was really cute. And while I couldn't become an expert in yoga in the week between when we met online and when we met in person, I had enough knowledge about meditation that I felt I could claim some proficiency in it after a week. And meditation is basically yoga without all the stretching, right? So I started getting up 15 minutes early every morning to plunk myself down on that cushion and focus on my breath.
Sadly, the date was not the beginning of a great romance that I have failed to talk about here (Despite my abysmal blogging record recently, I would have blogged about something that exciting.). But the meditation stuck. From day one, I felt a little less anxious, and a little less stressed. I slept a little better. In exchange for getting up 15 minutes earlier, I really do feel 10% happier.
Apparently online dating can pay off.
Although I don't remember specifically, I suspect that I first heard about mindfulness meditation sometime during my medical training. It was probably during a session on "resiliency" or "work-life balance", and I was probably cursing the fact that I had to sit through an hour of stupid talks before I could get back to the ward to finish my work and go home. I probably laughed at the idea of using my precious free time to sit on a cushion and focus on my breath.
But it kept coming up. In talks, in articles, from friends and co-workers. And always with an emphasis on all the things it has been shown to help with: depression, anxiety, stress, insomnia, and pretty much every other bad thing that people struggle with. So I read a book, which I loved. And went to one class, which I hated so much I practically ran to the instructor to get a refund at the end of it. And I thought often about doing it. But never did.
(This is the point at which I would love to insert something profound about a life-altering experience that motivated me to start meditating. In reality? (Rosemary is going to laugh at this.) It was a girl.)
I met a woman online who is super into yoga - does yoga at least once a day, reads books about yoga, goes on yoga retreats, and has a yoga tattoo, into yoga. And...she was really cute. And while I couldn't become an expert in yoga in the week between when we met online and when we met in person, I had enough knowledge about meditation that I felt I could claim some proficiency in it after a week. And meditation is basically yoga without all the stretching, right? So I started getting up 15 minutes early every morning to plunk myself down on that cushion and focus on my breath.
Sadly, the date was not the beginning of a great romance that I have failed to talk about here (Despite my abysmal blogging record recently, I would have blogged about something that exciting.). But the meditation stuck. From day one, I felt a little less anxious, and a little less stressed. I slept a little better. In exchange for getting up 15 minutes earlier, I really do feel 10% happier.
Apparently online dating can pay off.
Saturday, August 11, 2018
Self Care
When medical schools interview prospective students, the question
"How do you deal with stress?", or some variant, inevitably comes up.
Having been an interviewer on a few occasions, I know that every
interviewee with at least basic interviewing skills will come up with
some combination of the following:
Exercise
Rest
Adequate breaks
Healthy eating
Meditation
Yoga
Time with friends and family
Etc.
When I said those things in my medical school interviews, just like everyone else, I was very earnest. I legitimately thought I would find the time and energy for all of them in my medical training.
(Insert sound of my laughter here.)
Medical training was the hardest and most life-altering thing I have ever done. Not so much the first two years - those were almost entirely classroom based, and I had long ago mastered the art of sitting in lectures and writing exams - but definitely everything that came after. The moment I set foot on a ward for the first time, I transformed into a human-shaped bundle of stress and anxiety, constantly terrified that I was going to be responsible for letting someone die. And unlike with many of my classmates, that feeling didn't go away for a very long time.
My strategy for dealing with this terror was to pretty much never stop working. I would come in earlier than everyone else, work through lunch, and stay late. I convinced myself that double, triple, quadruple checking everything would make me perfect and prevent me from ever making a mistake. (Spoiler alert: It doesn't.) Any time I thought about putting in less than 100% of my maximum effort at work, I would remind myself of what was at stake: People will die if you screw up.
Not surprisingly, my perpetual state of panic and overwork wasn't very conducive to taking care of myself. I essentially stopped exercising on day one of my clinical rotations. I gave up cooking for myself and ordered food so often that the receptionists at the delivery services recognized my voice. And I started spending all the money I wanted, whenever I wanted, because "I deserved it".
Yoga? Did my stomach doing nervous back flips count?
Healthy eating? If I bought my Coke and Nacho Cheese Doritos from the vending machine on the Cardiology ward, did that make them healthy?
I don't know how long I would have continued being so completely and utterly negligent of myself had it not been for a few key events. The first was a crisis at work, which woke me up to the fact that I might not ever graduate and earn a doctor's salary. (Spoiler alert: I did! And I paid off my student loans yesterday!!!) Suddenly it no longer felt okay to spend more money than I was earning, so I discovered the great Mr. Money Mustache, started a budget, and got my financial life back in order. The second was some upheaval at work, during which I reached out to some of the other attendings, and which ultimately led to me being connected to a wonderful performance coach. While I have only seen him twice, I credit him with enabling me to let go of my self-destructive perfectionism and to forgive myself for being human.
The third thing wasn't a specific event, but rather years of working with people with lifestyle-related illnesses. I spend a lot of my time at work counseling people about the negative effects of poor diet and lack of exercise, as well as treating them when their bodies break down after years of misuse. Somewhere around the thousandth time that I said "Pop is basically poison", the message started to sink into my brain. I'm not immune to the things that affect my patients. I also need to care for myself.
So slowly (sometimes oh so painfully slowly) I have started to change the bad habits that I learned in medical school. I've almost completely abandoned sugar-sweetened beverages. I've started mostly eating brown rice* and brown pasta. I cook a lot of my meals from scratch, and I try to pack them full of veggies and other healthy things. I'm even exercising again and (amazingly) kind of enjoying it.
And so many other things, like getting enough sleep and meditating and taking enough vacations and quitting Twitter. All of the things that I said I would do in my medical school interview 13 years ago, I am finally getting around to. And it feels really, really good.
*This is huge for me, because I love white rice with a fiery passion and can happily eat two large bowls of it, smothered in butter and salt, in one sitting.
Exercise
Rest
Adequate breaks
Healthy eating
Meditation
Yoga
Time with friends and family
Etc.
When I said those things in my medical school interviews, just like everyone else, I was very earnest. I legitimately thought I would find the time and energy for all of them in my medical training.
(Insert sound of my laughter here.)
Medical training was the hardest and most life-altering thing I have ever done. Not so much the first two years - those were almost entirely classroom based, and I had long ago mastered the art of sitting in lectures and writing exams - but definitely everything that came after. The moment I set foot on a ward for the first time, I transformed into a human-shaped bundle of stress and anxiety, constantly terrified that I was going to be responsible for letting someone die. And unlike with many of my classmates, that feeling didn't go away for a very long time.
My strategy for dealing with this terror was to pretty much never stop working. I would come in earlier than everyone else, work through lunch, and stay late. I convinced myself that double, triple, quadruple checking everything would make me perfect and prevent me from ever making a mistake. (Spoiler alert: It doesn't.) Any time I thought about putting in less than 100% of my maximum effort at work, I would remind myself of what was at stake: People will die if you screw up.
Not surprisingly, my perpetual state of panic and overwork wasn't very conducive to taking care of myself. I essentially stopped exercising on day one of my clinical rotations. I gave up cooking for myself and ordered food so often that the receptionists at the delivery services recognized my voice. And I started spending all the money I wanted, whenever I wanted, because "I deserved it".
Yoga? Did my stomach doing nervous back flips count?
Healthy eating? If I bought my Coke and Nacho Cheese Doritos from the vending machine on the Cardiology ward, did that make them healthy?
I don't know how long I would have continued being so completely and utterly negligent of myself had it not been for a few key events. The first was a crisis at work, which woke me up to the fact that I might not ever graduate and earn a doctor's salary. (Spoiler alert: I did! And I paid off my student loans yesterday!!!) Suddenly it no longer felt okay to spend more money than I was earning, so I discovered the great Mr. Money Mustache, started a budget, and got my financial life back in order. The second was some upheaval at work, during which I reached out to some of the other attendings, and which ultimately led to me being connected to a wonderful performance coach. While I have only seen him twice, I credit him with enabling me to let go of my self-destructive perfectionism and to forgive myself for being human.
The third thing wasn't a specific event, but rather years of working with people with lifestyle-related illnesses. I spend a lot of my time at work counseling people about the negative effects of poor diet and lack of exercise, as well as treating them when their bodies break down after years of misuse. Somewhere around the thousandth time that I said "Pop is basically poison", the message started to sink into my brain. I'm not immune to the things that affect my patients. I also need to care for myself.
So slowly (sometimes oh so painfully slowly) I have started to change the bad habits that I learned in medical school. I've almost completely abandoned sugar-sweetened beverages. I've started mostly eating brown rice* and brown pasta. I cook a lot of my meals from scratch, and I try to pack them full of veggies and other healthy things. I'm even exercising again and (amazingly) kind of enjoying it.
And so many other things, like getting enough sleep and meditating and taking enough vacations and quitting Twitter. All of the things that I said I would do in my medical school interview 13 years ago, I am finally getting around to. And it feels really, really good.
*This is huge for me, because I love white rice with a fiery passion and can happily eat two large bowls of it, smothered in butter and salt, in one sitting.
Thursday, October 6, 2016
The Time I Failed At Meditation
A few months ago, when I was struggling with my recent breakup, I had the brilliant idea that meditation would make me feel better. I searched around a little, found a legitimate-sounding course on Mindfulness-Based Meditation, and paid $500 to sign up. The orientation session was last night. It went somewhat like this:
Shit. I'm late. These things never start on time though, right?
(Enter room in which people are sitting in a circle with their eyes closed and their hands in their laps.)
Crap.
(Noisily take the one remaining chair at the front of the room. Drop bag on floor, causing multiple people to open their eyes.)
Okay. I can do this. Close my eyes. Ommmmmmm. Do I smell like McDonald's? Can the people around me tell that I just ate a Filet-O-Fish?
Ommmmmmmm.
Is it morally wrong to eat a Filet-O-Fish before a meditation class?
Ommmmmmmmmmm.
"Good evening class. My name is <weird New Age name that I would bet money she made up>. I will be your leader for the next ten weeks."
Ten weeks? Shit.
I'm not sure I can do this for ten weeks.
(Notice that the instructor is barefoot. With her bare feet on the classroom floor. Try not to be grossed out thinking about the number of feet that have touched the floor and are now contaminating her feet.)
Okay. I need to pay attention. What is she saying?
"...homework requiring approximately 45-60 minutes..."
Homework? I didn't know there was homework.
It's okay. I can do 45-60 minutes of homework per week.
"...per day..."
WTF? 45-60 minutes PER DAY? Who has time for that?
Do these people not work?
(Look around. Notice that many of the people in the class appear to be under the age of 20. Suspect that they all live in their parents' basements and do not in fact have to work.)
(Notice really smiley girl across the room who is listening intently to everything the instructor is saying. And nodding enthusiastically. And smiling as if she took really good drugs prior to meditation.)
"Everyone taking this class will feel differently about the process. It's important that you use your inner wisdom to guide you to your best possible outcome."
(Snicker at use of phrase "inner wisdom". Notice that smiley girl is nodding as if the instructor is sharing truly profound insights into the nature of the universe. Uncertain if I should be feeling vastly superior or inferior to smiley girl at this moment.)
"...inner wisdom..."
OMG. I can't listen to this woman talk about "inner wisdom" for ten weeks. I will kill her.
"...inner wisdom..."
AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH.
(Look around to see if anyone else is losing their mind like I am. Notice more people smiling and nodding at the instructor. Am now convinced that the instructor handed out drugs while I was stuffing my face with fries in my car.)
"And now we will work together to develop our guidelines for supporting each other through the next ten weeks, as we learn more about meditation and about ourselves. Who wishes to suggest the first guideline?"
No. OMG no. Are we five? This is what I used to do with the kids at the summer program I ran as a teenager. THE KIDS WHO WERE FIVE.
(The woman next to me speaks) "I think it's very important that we respect each others' inner spirits. Because we're all here to make our inner spirits stronger, and if we say hurtful things, it can weaken our inner spirits."
(Officially hate woman next to me. And do not ever want to hear the word "inner" used in any context ever again.)
(Notice that the name tag of the woman next to me says Beaghan. Because her parents were clearly crazy.)
(Smiley girl talks) "I just want to say that I feel really lucky to be here. So, so lucky."
Unnnngggghhhhh.
"I feel like the universe has presented me with a gift of wonderful people to learn from and to grow with."
UNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGHHHHHHH.
Shit. I hope that noise is just in my head. Am I making that noise out loud?
Do I smell like french fries?
"Alright class. This is an excellent list! I can tell that the next 10 weeks are going to be a joyful experience of learning and growing..."
No they aren't.
"...and sharing..."
I'm not sharing anything with you crazy people.
"...inner wisdom..."
Stop saying that.
"...inner spirits..."
Now you're just fucking with me.
"Now, some people decide after the first class that they simply aren't ready to take this journey that we're about to embark on."
Oooh...me! That's me!
"Maybe their lives are too busy, or maybe their inner spirit just isn't in the right place to undertake a spiritual quest at this time."
Or maybe they think you're nuts, you barefoot hippy.
"If you are feeling this way..."
Yes! Me! I AM FEELING THIS WAY!
"...you can receive a full refund on your course fees until 4 PM tomorrow."
And that is how I failed at meditation.
Shit. I'm late. These things never start on time though, right?
(Enter room in which people are sitting in a circle with their eyes closed and their hands in their laps.)
Crap.
(Noisily take the one remaining chair at the front of the room. Drop bag on floor, causing multiple people to open their eyes.)
Okay. I can do this. Close my eyes. Ommmmmmm. Do I smell like McDonald's? Can the people around me tell that I just ate a Filet-O-Fish?
Ommmmmmmm.
Is it morally wrong to eat a Filet-O-Fish before a meditation class?
Ommmmmmmmmmm.
"Good evening class. My name is <weird New Age name that I would bet money she made up>. I will be your leader for the next ten weeks."
Ten weeks? Shit.
I'm not sure I can do this for ten weeks.
(Notice that the instructor is barefoot. With her bare feet on the classroom floor. Try not to be grossed out thinking about the number of feet that have touched the floor and are now contaminating her feet.)
Okay. I need to pay attention. What is she saying?
"...homework requiring approximately 45-60 minutes..."
Homework? I didn't know there was homework.
It's okay. I can do 45-60 minutes of homework per week.
"...per day..."
WTF? 45-60 minutes PER DAY? Who has time for that?
Do these people not work?
(Look around. Notice that many of the people in the class appear to be under the age of 20. Suspect that they all live in their parents' basements and do not in fact have to work.)
(Notice really smiley girl across the room who is listening intently to everything the instructor is saying. And nodding enthusiastically. And smiling as if she took really good drugs prior to meditation.)
"Everyone taking this class will feel differently about the process. It's important that you use your inner wisdom to guide you to your best possible outcome."
(Snicker at use of phrase "inner wisdom". Notice that smiley girl is nodding as if the instructor is sharing truly profound insights into the nature of the universe. Uncertain if I should be feeling vastly superior or inferior to smiley girl at this moment.)
"...inner wisdom..."
OMG. I can't listen to this woman talk about "inner wisdom" for ten weeks. I will kill her.
"...inner wisdom..."
AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH.
(Look around to see if anyone else is losing their mind like I am. Notice more people smiling and nodding at the instructor. Am now convinced that the instructor handed out drugs while I was stuffing my face with fries in my car.)
"And now we will work together to develop our guidelines for supporting each other through the next ten weeks, as we learn more about meditation and about ourselves. Who wishes to suggest the first guideline?"
No. OMG no. Are we five? This is what I used to do with the kids at the summer program I ran as a teenager. THE KIDS WHO WERE FIVE.
(The woman next to me speaks) "I think it's very important that we respect each others' inner spirits. Because we're all here to make our inner spirits stronger, and if we say hurtful things, it can weaken our inner spirits."
(Officially hate woman next to me. And do not ever want to hear the word "inner" used in any context ever again.)
(Notice that the name tag of the woman next to me says Beaghan. Because her parents were clearly crazy.)
(Smiley girl talks) "I just want to say that I feel really lucky to be here. So, so lucky."
Unnnngggghhhhh.
"I feel like the universe has presented me with a gift of wonderful people to learn from and to grow with."
UNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGHHHHHHH.
Shit. I hope that noise is just in my head. Am I making that noise out loud?
Do I smell like french fries?
"Alright class. This is an excellent list! I can tell that the next 10 weeks are going to be a joyful experience of learning and growing..."
No they aren't.
"...and sharing..."
I'm not sharing anything with you crazy people.
"...inner wisdom..."
Stop saying that.
"...inner spirits..."
Now you're just fucking with me.
"Now, some people decide after the first class that they simply aren't ready to take this journey that we're about to embark on."
Oooh...me! That's me!
"Maybe their lives are too busy, or maybe their inner spirit just isn't in the right place to undertake a spiritual quest at this time."
Or maybe they think you're nuts, you barefoot hippy.
"If you are feeling this way..."
Yes! Me! I AM FEELING THIS WAY!
"...you can receive a full refund on your course fees until 4 PM tomorrow."
And that is how I failed at meditation.
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