“It will happen to all of us that one day you’ll be tapped on the shoulder and told — not just that the party’s over– but slightly worse: the party’s going on, and you have to leave. That’s the reflection, I think, that most upsets people about their demise.” -Christopher Hitchens I don’t know about you, but I like nothing more than listening to this man speak. It doesn’t matter if you believe in his ideology or not (he was…
“Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.” -Hafez Happy Shab e Yalda! If you do not have a Persian heritage like I do, you would love to learn about this tradition. It falls on the Northern hemisphere’s winter solstice. It falls somewhere between December 20/21. You have to check with the stars to figure the actual date. Zoroastrian, the oldest monotheist religion known to man, used to believe that…
“Sisters: For me, there is no higher love.” I don’t know what your relationship with your siblings is like. I can tell you that I hope sooner rather than later you can come to terms with the relationship you have with your brother or sisters. There may be a chance that you are an only child. There may be a chance that you don’t even have a sister. I wish someone like that in your life (maybe a friend like…
“When you make the present moment, instead of past and future, the focal point of your life, your ability to enjoy what you do and with it the quality of your life increases dramatically.” Eckhart Tolle Christmas is here. This year, it seems like it came a bit earlier. It is always strange to celebrate Christmas in tropical climates. The first 13 years of my life in the United States were spent in cold climates. Spokane, Washington. Philadelphia. East Lansing…
We have all heard about the “Gratitude Journal”. This is not woo woo. It’s actual science showing us that keeping a daily journal thinking of three things in our life that we are grateful for actually has a direct positive effect on our well being. I will post something about the “Gratitude Letter” here after I have released my podcast on it, which is this Thanksgiving weekend. But have you heard about “Naikan Therapy?” I lived in Japan for 2…
You can’t lift two watermelons with one hand. Persian Proverb I love this proverb. It sounds comical but it’s implying that there will be times in life that you need help. You should ask for help. You cannot handle life alone. When I was living in Sacramento, my daughters’ Waldorf school was the opposite direction of my hospital. Dropping them off and heading back to work was almost an hour long ordeal. Realizing my work was only one mile from…
‘Wear Gratitude Like a CloakAnd It Will Feed Every Corner of Your Life.’ First of all, you should know that I am a very grateful person. Incidentally, as I type this, there are more than 1100 of you in my “Physicians Living Intentionally” group space, and the podcast that I just started a little while ago has been downloaded more than 2600 times, too. Countries all over the world. My heart is thankful. I am grateful for what you all…
I was trying to motivate you all here (myself included). There is such a thing as a running mantra. What you tell yourself when you are running out of steam when you are running. Be it one mile or an ultra marathon, which is traditionally any distance covered beyond a marathon race (26.2 miles). So I put it out there in my physician mom group to share their mantras so I can put it here to share. I think so…
“Whatever the present moment contains,Accept it as if you had chosen it…Make it your friend and ally,Not your enemy.” It is funny that I try to write these blogs like I know it all. I don’t. When I was regularly writing for “physicians living intentionally”, people used to say that I am wise beyond my age. I am not. Most specifically, it all came down tumbling down when a series of political events unfolded. I was in the depth of…
“Be good to yourself‘Cause nobody elseHas the power to make you happy.” Good Monday morning friends, I have been thinking, do you have insecurities? About how you look, what you sound like, what your vocation is, how your children behave, or how you show up in this world? As a woman who has just moved into her fifties, I have a lot to look back on. I remember when I went to Mexico for the first time on a spring…