“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.”
Across the way and along our bank of stretchers, under the bright ER lights, families are pacing, reading, talking on cell phones, and some are even dozing. I’m sure they are waiting hours like we are.
My thoughts darken from possibly doing one crazy act (taking on the decision to manage my mother’s IV) to thinking maybe we could band together and start a riot.
“I don’t want to relax!”“Why should I relax!”“You’re telling me to relax?! You relax!”
When one is anxious and confused, relaxation is counter-intuitive to the brain in it’s attempt to survive a threatening situation.
Recognizing my slip-up, I grant myself a little moment of humor. If I had said, “Run!” to my mother, that probably would have made more sense. But “relax”, not so much.
And that’s what I did.
The whole city is on diversion and the doctors and nurses are scrambling to see everyone. My mom is intermittently confused and anxious, she’s getting some fluid and for now, she is safe.
I know the nurses and physicians that night were doing their best under difficult circumstances, but the truth about health care is, it’s always difficult, always busy, dynamic, complex, variable.
It’s one of the reasons I practice mindfulness meditation regularly and focus my work on teaching other health professionals mindfulness practices, so they too, find moments of stress are handled with greater ease and calm.
Do you need less stress and frustration, so you can work with more ease?
Research shows that health professionals who learn mindfulness meditation:
- improve their effectiveness at making decisions,
- enhance their communication with patients and with colleagues,
- get more rest and sleep and more work done in less time,
- enjoy their work more and,
- manage the stressors of a dynamic, complex and at times, inefficient system, with greater ease and mastery.
And are happier.
I want you all to have an opportunity to learn mindfulness and that’s why I created my course, Room to Breathe: Rewiring for Ease.
Room to Breathe: Rewiring for Ease Mindfulness Course for Health Professionals is open for enrollment through March 31, 2017.