If I’m Being Honest
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Day 1: Vibrant. Lipstick perfect. Lots of smiles.
Day 60: Frazzled. What lipstick? Hair in a top knot if I can find my elastic. Smiles are for 22 year-olds.
The down-side to going to medical school, especially when wellness is read on the face, is you can’t hide your bad days. In the past, I could hole up at home and send out SOS messages via text like: “I’m o.k.” (As if eating popcorn midday in pajamas you’ve worn for 3 days is o.k.)
Now with a full load of classes, which unlike client calls I have to arrive fully groomed and clothed for, I’ve had to confront my anxiety, a beast I’m still learning to tame.
The thing is, I thought I left it caged in the office of my formerly corporate life. Until then, I took a low dose of anti-anxiety medication. After I left that world and with my newly found freedom, I was able to ween myself off the medication and replaced it with exercise, something my five-to-eternity schedule never allowed for.
Slowly, I added meditation, but that took years of consistent practice to become an effective tool to manage my anxiety. (Yoga helped too, but not as consistently as meditation, which is why I’m in Shanghai studying qigong, a Daoist form of meditation.)
There’s a reason I’m making this public.
1) It helps me.
I’m a perfectionist. Sharing my imperfections with the world allows me to see myself as part of a larger picture, to shift my perspective from hyper-focusing on myself to recognizing other people like me struggling with exactly the same issues.
2) It might help you.
We all experience stress. That doesn’t mean coping with it is any easier. If everyone had a broken arm, would your broken arm hurt any less? So talk about how your feeling. Begin — or return to — a practice to help manage the stress and anxieties of being human.
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