Have you ever flashed back to crazy, possibly dangerous, times in your life and thought: "holy crap, I should have
died!"
You shudder. Maybe you look over at your kid, your partner, your cat, or even at your own hands. You feel your heart beating in your chest. You feel your breath slide in and roll out of your body. And in that swift and fantastic moment, you are so fully alive.
What happens next? A surge of gratitude for yet another
opportunity to be a badass on this earth? A sharp reprimand from your inner bully? How long do either of these moments last? Do they faciliate change? Do they make us better, healthier, or more resilient?
I love thinking about what creates resilience in each of us, and what moments, words, thoughts, or behaviors create change. Many folks talk about change culminating from a little bit of everything, over
time, and moving the needle from pre-contemplation to contemplation, or even action. I am not certain that this is true.
Confession: I am a fire force, Pitta-dominant change agent. I acknowledge and appreciate the small, step-wise changes that get us places everyday. And I hunt far and wide for the experiences that change everything in an instant. That burn the house down. That leave you
breathless, brittle, but still standing. It's probably why I have been drawn to birth work, not just the birth, but the surreality of postpartum unveiling and transition.
Maybe you are like that too.
Yet our whole medical construct and the way that we offer medical care is based around the small, step-wise changes. The repetition. Learn
the rules before you break them. Move the needle from pre-contemplation to contemplation; and hopefully- before it's too late- to action. Meanwhile, docs are banging their heads against the wall because it often feels like nothing can be said or done to inspire change.
Is slow and steady really what gets us to change?
Or do we need to become brittle, broken up, and almost dead?
When I consider resilience and change in my own life, I think that my ability to keep pivoting and coming back for more is because it should have been me- but it wasn't. This time. I am not dead today.
A year ago one of the dearest and greatest friends of my
lifetime passed away. Her life and death were a gift to me. She let me be perfectly myself when I was too angry, too busy, or just generally too much for everyone else. I never felt like I had to apologize for being exactly who I was.
Unfortunately, her greatest and final gift to me was in her suffering and her death. I had to be 'not dead today' to have all the lights go on and all the switches
flipped for real.
Because you know what? It should have been me. I was older than her. I put myself through insanely stressful things. I put loads of insanely toxic things into my body for years. I put myself in many unsafe, precarious situations. I was literally working myself to death.
It was a
near-miss. One that I am not taking lightly.
I want what we teach as healthcare providers to be magical and inspiring. I want the safe, small steps to be enough for you. But I get it if they're not.
We are never so alive as when we are not dead.
And if you are reading this, you are not dead today.
