I believe that medicine’s potential is much more than the version we see in the world today. A doctor should be an educator with the goal of bringing patients to a place of deeper understanding of who they are in the world. To me, medicine is ultimately about self-empowerment through self-knowledge and growth.
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We have passed the second balance point of the year. Happy Autumn! We have recent memories of being embedded in the summer’s warmth and light. We lived for a while in the land of the sun. The earth’s blossoming nature, plentiful and colorful, had our attention.
There is no mistaking it: we are slowly descending. We all know where this is heading: the colorless, barren, cold winter. Outer, sensory input fades. Our focus is turned inward. We are more pensive in the winter.
If you look you will see the hallmark of the fall equinox — the fog. A mist is now more visible than any time of the year and points to what is to come. Notice it and think of it as dropping a veil across our senses, a mini shroud over nature pointing towards where we are heading: inwardly, deep winter. Summer lovers shouldn’t dismay too much. You wouldn’t know the joy of summer without the suffering of missing it. Besides, maybe these winter lovers can teach us a thing or two.
“I’m not an optimist or a pessimist. I’m a scientist.”
—some scientist somewhere (out of the limelight)
A standpoint for which to strive, if not all the time then at least frequently: “The most important thing to remember is that you’re always safe. The power recommendation is that whatever comes up, allow it. You don’t have to like it, but allow it. Say ok rather than running.”
We have to admit that all the social media posters and proponents for gratitude practices are right. It is so very healthy to be grateful. So why does it feel somehow disingenuous at times? It doesn’t feel awesome to be grateful for what I have when there are others that don’t have that or if it hurt others for me to have it.
“I’m grateful for my new gas-guzzling SUV.”
Today’s tweak — gratitude without self-orientation. No offense, but the things your personality is grateful for don’t have huge importance. My advice is to practice viewing from the point of humanity. It will resonate better. Practice gratitude from the place of universally positive things.
“I’m grateful for this beautiful day. Even though I’m inside working all day I know that lots of people are able to find joy in it, and I will partake in nice days soon, I trust.”
“Even though I’m struggling, I’m grateful for the human potential for transformation which many people have done and do.”
Do you catch my drift?
The exercise is gratitude for the nice things that we as a collective have at our disposal. Give it a whirl. And like the posts say: practice it daily with the intention of it being a habitual state. It just might cause a shift, for not just you.
