Circumstances are neutral.  They are not inherently good nor bad.  They don’t have the power to cause our feelings.  It’s our thoughts and interpretation of the situation that cause us to feel a certain way.    For example, let’s say you’re meeting a friend for dinner and they’re 30 minutes late.  Your friend being late is a neutral situation.  Your thoughts about this can generate a wide variety of feelings even though the circumstance (your friend being late) didn’t change

I remember one of my favorite attendings telling me this story during residency.  Since then, I’ve heard different variations, but the overall point really struck me and stuck with me all these years.  It’s something I remind myself from time to time when I feel like things don’t seem right.   In the story, a teacher pulls out a large jar, 5 big rocks and a bottle of sand.  She asks a student to come up and transfer the rocks and the sand into the jar.  The student pours the

My son loves the Dogman books and we have gone through many as part of our bedtime ritual.  Lil Petey is Petey the Cat’s son and likes to ask “WHY?” over and over and over (and over) again which drives his Dad absolutely mad.  So naturally, when I would come across those lines in the book, I would make sure I used my most annoying “Why???”  voice.  It would elicit strings of giggles from my son, making it so worth it!   Well now there’s a Dogman movie and of course we had to

Can you go a whole day without judging something or someone?  Seriously, can you?  I thought I was a nonjudgmental person- I prided myself on that.  Until I tried to go a day without having any judgements and I fell flat on my face.  Literally.   I fell flat on my face and judged the curb I tripped on.  I lost my perfect streak within minutes of starting.  Epic fail.  Oh wait, that was a judgment too.    It’s hard to go a day without having any judgments.  As humans, it’s wha

For as long as I can remember, my life was all about the “grit, grind and suck it up willpower” to achieve my goals.  I kept a positive attitude and knew how to “keep on keeping on” because let’s face it- as a student in medicine, life was regimented during the schooling days.  The steps were laid out and I just needed to do whatever it took to keep progressing towards the one big goal of becoming a doctor.  I’ve always seen myself as someone who needed to study harder or wor