It’s a day of remembrance, and also looking forward. I’m finishing up the podcast—at least for now—and thinking about what is needed now. If you’ve been listening, you have built a new habit about detaching from the day, and worked with intenti

What we're unlearning

May 23rd, 2020

Inspired by Peter Senge today—in this moment, what’s our intention? We all have a usual answer, but today could listen beneath our usual chatter? And: i’d love to hear what you have taken away from this podcast here—10 randomly selected respond

Making space for a reboot

May 22nd, 2020

As clinicians, we’ve generally thrown ourselves into the next phase of life without much forethought—for physicians like me, for example, the transition from student to resident wasn’t something that occasioned a lot of reflection. But this pan

Surfing the changes

May 21st, 2020

We’ve entered a new phase of the pandemic. And you’re still surfing the changes. What makes that possible? Plus: fill out a feedback survey and get a chance for a phone call focused on your resilience!

Witnessing all the names

May 20th, 2020

Many of us have been inundated with patients, and I’ve heard more than one clinician confess to feeling guilty because they can’t remember them all distinctly. Perhaps there is another way for us to process all this. Today, a poem by Billy Coll

Something you can depend on

May 19th, 2020

Whether we’re in a place where the ICUs are full, or a place where the pandemic hasn’t really hit, the uncertainty can be exhausting. So what do we turn to when our usual sources—the news, our friends, our livelihoods—only seem to raise questio

Feeling into your roots

May 18th, 2020

If you’ve ever felt that you ‘can’t unsee’ something, this one is for you. How do we recover when we feel pushed off-center? The research tells us that the answer is not in suppressing our thoughts—it’s something quite different.

Putting everything down

May 16th, 2020

We end up carrying so many things during the day. So when it’s time to power down, is there a way to put everything away for the evening? It’s a mental habit you can build.

Strengthening your coherence

May 15th, 2020

With the news of furloughs for some staff, it seems that we’re entering a new phase. The stresses are changing. Which makes it even more critical for us to be working from a robust psychological stability. Today, then, is about coherence, and h

Recovering a sense of fluidity

May 14th, 2020

Some days, especially when the work is intense, it is hard to separate from the day. You walk out of the hospital with unfinished business still swirling around in your head. Could we find the mental fluidity to shift into a different mode for

Feeling our power

May 13th, 2020

The first sign of civilization was, to Margaret Mead, visible in a healed human thigh bone. She was pointing us towards an important part of the purpose we enact in caring—something that we are rediscovering along with clinicians around the glo

Defusing our triggers

May 12th, 2020

Even with the resources out there, some days it feels like the pandemic is presenting us with just too much. We’re in some kind of huge phase shift. But even though the new normal is still unclear, we can find our way back to a grounded place.

Finding tenacity

May 9th, 2020

The moment when we realize that we can’t turn away happens so quickly we often don’t think about it. But when we have those shifts it is worth understanding what enables us to stay present. What is it that we can cultivate within? Today—reflect

When compassion emerges

May 8th, 2020

There’s a lot of attention give to the experience of seeing someone else’s pain. But what follows—the moment that makes all the difference—is when we move from being confronted with pain to acting. Today, we deconstruct how that can happen.

Sadness is adaptive

May 7th, 2020

A paramedic was talking today about the emotional toll of his work. What he witnessed left him with a deep sadness, and one that is compounded with new experiences. But if we take the long view, an evolutionary view, sadness is adaptive. It’s a

A new structure of feeling

May 6th, 2020

We know that a new normal is coming, but what it will be like is still blurry. These in-between times are what Raymond Williams called moments when a new structure of feeling is emerging—we can’t articulate it fully yet, but we can sense a bit

Returning to a place of strength

May 5th, 2020

It’s so easy to feel overextended in the midst of this pandemic, and to feel that everything you’re feeling are signs of weakness. But it is possible to return to a place of strength—it’s within you.

Stepping back for a larger view

May 4th, 2020

We all have cases that stick with us—ones that occupy more of our bandwidth than they deserve. What do we do with them? Today, we’re dealing with emotional fallout, and moral residue. Because it turns out there is a way.

A poetic moment

May 1st, 2020

Today, we’re shaking up the language of powering down. We spend so much time in a particular relation to language—at work it’s the language of technicality and expertise. Yet another way language can work is in a completely different mode—to ca

Riding the waves

Apr 30th, 2020

When you are starting to feel tired, it’s easy to let the emotional intensity of the hospital become your everyday fuel. Yet if that becomes the norm, when you walk out to go home, what you might first notice is absence: no overhead pages, no b

Expanding & unwinding

Apr 29th, 2020

After an intense day, it’s common to leave feeling depleted and contracted. But at that point, putting more and more effort to make yourself ‘relax’, can exacerbate that sense of contraction and easily turns into more problem solving. Instead,

Offering a tribute

Apr 28th, 2020

As the number of health care workers who have become infected grows, we pause for a tribute. Can we recognize their contributions in a way that strengthens all of us?

Priming post-traumatic growth

Apr 27th, 2020

The media, while sympathetic to health care workers, has also been generating ominous predictions—the coming psychological trauma, for example. But while psychological sequelae are real, there is also another interesting phenomenon: post-trauma

Calling a truce on war metaphors

Apr 25th, 2020

We keep hearing that we’re at war: the surge is coming, crisis standards, peak engagement. Certainly those war metaphors grabbed everyone’s attention. But now, as we settle into something that is actually much different, it is worth stepping ba

A moment of release

Apr 24th, 2020

Yesterday, NPR ran a story about front-line clinicians that described how a nurse would spend his hour commute home ‘haunted’ by all the stuff that he hadn’t been able to do. It’s totally understandable—we just shouldn’t valorize it as a coping