“Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.” ~Thomas Gray.

My father was a man that many confided in.  Whether it was because of his profession (a minister and teacher) or personality, he had a ready ear, and gentle words of advice.  Of course, as his kids, we may have heard words that were not so gentle, more like commands than suggestions!  If we complained that we couldn’t fall asleep his advice would be to ‘think about your holidays’, which in today’s pop psychology would equate to guided imagery.  I use it in the classroom before an exam, when students are too anxious to focus.  With eyes closed, in a relaxed posture, I take them on a walk along the beach, or through the woods, in other words, on their holidays! (The English term for vacation).  If a fit of coughing woke the whole household you would hear his stern voice telling you to ‘Turn on your side, and go to sleep!’ I don’t know if it worked, but it certainly intimidated the cough mechanism!  He was not so much the sage with words of wisdom, as a father whose words were obeyed!

In later life I met a wise woman, one with many talents.  She could analyze handwriting to give you a personality reading; she was a Tarot card reader; but she was also a gentle soul who had a calm and reassuring way about her.  Once, when I was complaining about the frustration of a car malfunction, she told me how she looked at such situations.  ‘Breakdown, breakthrough’.  She said that when she was forced to sit and wait, such as when her car broke down, she would accept that this was a situation she had no control over.  Then she would wait for a breakthrough, for when the universe gives you the opportunity to do nothing, that is when a solution for another problem may come to you, or an idea, or a plan. 

When one of my sisters was going through the breakup of her marriage, she learned some wisdom from Buddhists.  When going through a situation that provoked anger, instead of responding you should think: ‘Thank you for giving me the opportunity to exercise patience’.  I suggested it to a friend once, a nurse, who could only laugh as she pictured saying it to one of the most obnoxious physicians we had to work with.  I don’t know if she ever tried it!

There is a name for this flipping of the way we see things, a reframing of our thoughts that is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.  I may be oversimplifying it, but when we recognize how many of our emotions are triggered by negative thoughts and find a way to see things in another light, that can help us to regain control of our world.  There is a phrase used in mental health: to decatastrophize.  This again reminds me of nursing students, to whom everything is the end of the world, from a heavy assignment, to a bad exam score, or even having to wait on an exam score.  They don’t appreciate when I tell them that when I took the ‘Boards’ to become a Registered Nurse in the 70’s, we had to wait 3 months to find out whether we had passed or not (bad news if the envelope was fat with the reapplication package!).  Nowadays having to wait 24 hours to find out is torture!

Another lesson that is both essential for patient’s health and student’s wellbeing is understanding that the body responds to your thoughts whether you are thinking about imaginary bad outcomes or facing real threats.  Those thoughts trigger outpourings of cortisol, the stress hormone.  It is crucial in helping to tamp down the inflammatory response, but in the meantime it triggers your blood pressure to climb and floods your bloodstream with glucose for energy.  Over time these responses become chronic, and form the foundation for hypertension and diabetes.  Again, this is an oversimplification, but sometimes stark messages work better than complicated cellular level lectures.

Training yourself to change the way you respond to life’s challenges is one thing.   But how do we change the narrative in a country in which the language has become so crude; reactions have become so violent; truths have become so twisted?  When a segment of society has been deluded into believing propaganda which is supported by political leaders, how can we help to bring the temperature down?  Hospitals can be emotional places, full of drama and life-threatening situations.  When there is a person who may have anger control issues, who is observed yelling at another healthcare professional (stereotypically this would be a physician yelling at nurses, but it doesn’t have to be), coworkers are taught to surround the yeller, supporting the one being yelled at without joining in.  This has been shown to calm the situation down, as the one being obnoxious is made aware that their behavior is unacceptable.

We have seen videos of too many people yelling inappropriately at others, and for the most part there is a racial component to the disgusting behavior.  What if we responded by silently surrounding the one behaving badly?  Unfortunately, we have also seen examples of more than yelling, of unprovoked violence.  When did this kind of behavior become acceptable?  How do we change the narrative?

We are challenged to be the voices of reason, to calm down the rhetoric instead of amping it up.  Far too often it is the ones who are oppressed who are charged with changing their response to the violent outpourings of hate.  But how, as a society, do we go back to being concerned citizens who look out for the wellbeing of others?

There are those who feel that violence should be met with violence, but as Ghandhi once may have said, an eye for an eye renders the whole world blind.  What will our legacy be? What will we stand for?

This Friday morning, I challenge you to change your own narrative, find those unhealthy thoughts that lead you astray, and flip them! And if you hear someone being cruel to another human being, stand up for that person.  Let us try to reclaim kindness and forgiveness as a way of moving through this world, to reset the narrative.

Have a wonderful weekend, Family!

One Love!

Namaste.