Speaker 1: This is It's okay that You're not okay, and I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Megan Divine this week showing up to the
Speaker 1: full catastrophe of caregiving personally and professionally, with incredibly special
Speaker 1: guests Koshin, Paley Ellison, and Robert Choto Campbell, founders of
Speaker 1: the New York Zen Center for Work in Templative Care.
Speaker 1: Before we get started, two quick notes. One, this episode
Speaker 1: is an encore performance. I am on break working on
Speaker 1: a giant new project, so we're releasing a mix of
Speaker 1: our favorite episodes from the first three seasons of the show.
Speaker 1: This episode is from season one, in which I answered
Speaker 1: listener questions, sometimes on my own, sometimes with a guest.
Speaker 1: So if you want more of these Q and A
Speaker 1: style episodes, you can find the entire collection from season
Speaker 1: one wherever you get your podcasts. Second note, while we
Speaker 1: cover a lot of emotional relational territory in our time
Speaker 1: here together, this show is not a substitute for skilled support,
Speaker 1: for a license mental health provider, or for professional supervision
Speaker 1: related to your work. I really want you to take
Speaker 1: what you learn here, take your thoughts and your reflections
Speaker 1: out into your own world, and talk about it all. Hey, friends,
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep my intro here brief today, at
Speaker 1: least brief for me, because I want to use all
Speaker 1: the time we possibly have available for you to hear
Speaker 1: from both of our guests on the show today, two
Speaker 1: people I love and admire and respect so much, Koshin
Speaker 1: Pale Ellison and Choto Robert Campbell. Koshin Pale Ellison is
Speaker 1: an author, Zen teacher, YOUNGI and psychotherapist and certified chaplaincy educator.
Speaker 1: He and Robert Choto Campbell co founded the New York
Speaker 1: Zen Center for Contemplative Care, which offers contemplative approaches to
Speaker 1: care through education, personal caregiving, and Zen practice. Through the Center,
Speaker 1: they provide a lot of resources and education, but I
Speaker 1: know them best through their Contemplative Medicine Fellowship, a year
Speaker 1: long training for physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants who
Speaker 1: want to to change in the culture of care. You
Speaker 1: can probably tell that I am reading that directly off
Speaker 1: of their website because I want to make sure I
Speaker 1: describe it correctly. But there are two of the kindest,
Speaker 1: most thoughtful people I have ever met, and I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people. But enough about me, Let's get
Speaker 1: to our guest. Koshin Choto, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being here.
Speaker 2: It's a delight to be here. It's such a delight
Speaker 2: to be here, especially for me. I get to sit
Speaker 2: next to my husband of twenty years. I get to
Speaker 2: be in front of all your beautiful faces, Kim, Believe, Tanya, Meghan.
Speaker 2: It's just a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful way to begin my day.
Speaker 2: I treat the afternoon.
Speaker 1: Time is elastic.
Speaker 2: I'm already getting that face, Shoto, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: This is supposed to be a brief intro, and he's
Speaker 2: doing that thing where he does, you know, you roll
Speaker 2: your hands or over the.
Speaker 1: Thing off screen, off screen, you roll your hands off screen.
Speaker 2: You can have a little unbelievable what's your intro moment?
Speaker 1: Gone, I'm so glad to have you so Kohin the
Speaker 1: last time that you and I were in a gathering together,
Speaker 1: it was probably we've probably done it since, but it
Speaker 1: was like April twenty twenty, sort of height of the
Speaker 1: early pandemic in New York City, and I remember it
Speaker 1: was an online event, obviously pandemic, and you were in
Speaker 1: the middle of speaking and suddenly the sirens behind you
Speaker 1: sort of drowned out your voice, and you just stopped
Speaker 1: and closed your eyes and you said so sweetly to
Speaker 1: the audience, every siren is a chance to practice. And
Speaker 1: you took a beat, and then you just rolled along
Speaker 1: with whatever you had been saying about being present at
Speaker 1: the bedside of the suffering or the dying, or those
Speaker 1: facing difficult medical stories. It was such a beautiful moment.
Speaker 1: And I actually told our producers here that when I
Speaker 1: said that, I was probably gonna cry, because I do
Speaker 1: cry every single episode because I'm a human with feelings.
Speaker 1: But that moment, for me, really encapsulates what the two
Speaker 1: of you do. Right just when humanity intersects with the
Speaker 1: moment that we're in, that's really where the two of
Speaker 1: you shine. I don't really have a question there, but like,
Speaker 1: that's what I feel about you two.
Speaker 2: One of the other things that comes to mind when
Speaker 2: we hear the sirens on twenty third Street is we
Speaker 2: often will say to our students or who remember is
Speaker 2: in the zendo at that time, you know, let's all
Speaker 2: just hope that whoever is in that ambulance gets the
Speaker 2: hospital in time. Let's hope that technicians in the ambulance
Speaker 2: can do everything they can to save this life. And
Speaker 2: when the fire engines go by, it's the same thing.
Speaker 2: It's hope to get there on time to save remember
Speaker 2: is in trouble.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just that that moment of connection, right, I
Speaker 1: think I picked up from you saying that koshin that
Speaker 1: one of sirmen goes by, I just like close my
Speaker 1: eyes for a second and say good luck for everyone, right,
Speaker 1: person in the vehicle, the family and friends that surround that,
Speaker 1: the people who are driving that vehicle, and the people
Speaker 1: at the medical facilities who will receive them. Right, all
Speaker 1: of those concentric rings in that moment.
Speaker 3: I think that what's so striking is that our life
Speaker 3: is filled with what are sometimes called interruptions and annoyances
Speaker 3: or you know, the fly in the ointment or whatever
Speaker 3: it is. And whether it's a siren or you know,
Speaker 3: someone not responding to you in the way that you
Speaker 3: wished it was, or receiving a diagnosis that you wish
Speaker 3: you didn't receive, or someone has died that you wish
Speaker 3: didn't die. To me, the opportunities always say, well, this
Speaker 3: is what's happening, and how do I actually receive it
Speaker 3: and welcome what's here, Whether it's a siren or a
Speaker 3: whale from our own chest because we're just missing and
Speaker 3: yearning for someone who has died, you know, thinking about
Speaker 3: you know, a friend of ours, Stanley, and when he
Speaker 3: was in the grocery store aisle and picking up a tomato,
Speaker 3: and he burst into tears because the smell of the
Speaker 3: tomato reminded him of his wife who had died twenty
Speaker 3: years before. And there's no interruption, and after he wept,
Speaker 3: he just said.
Speaker 2: Look at this tomato. I love what you said about
Speaker 2: concentric circles because when we're with someone who is dying
Speaker 2: or someone who is suffering in the hospital, we often
Speaker 2: think that all the attention, and usually ninety percent of
Speaker 2: the attention should be focused on the patient of the
Speaker 2: person in the hospital, But we forget the speaking of
Speaker 2: concentric circles, we forget about the caregivers. We forget about
Speaker 2: the nurse's aides, the home health days, the doctor's the
Speaker 2: janitor brings the cleans the room, the person that brings
Speaker 2: the food to the room, as well as all the
Speaker 2: family members. Of course, we tend to forget all the
Speaker 2: people involved in one patient's care. So I love that
Speaker 2: idea of the illustration that you bring in a concentric circles,
Speaker 2: and they just continue to ripple out. And if you consider,
Speaker 2: for instance, the home health date or the nurse's assistant
Speaker 2: in a nursing home who has maybe two three hours
Speaker 2: of travel to get to where they need to go,
Speaker 2: how does that affect ripple out into the family when
Speaker 2: usually as a female, when she gets home after taking
Speaker 2: four bus rides or two bus rides or a subway
Speaker 2: in a bus ride, and she's exhausted, and she has
Speaker 2: to make dinner, and she has to take care of
Speaker 2: the kids. So it's not just about the one person
Speaker 2: and one identified patient, shall we say, So that concentric
Speaker 2: circle is really important to keep in mind. That's what's occurring.
Speaker 1: And it brings up for me this idea that invisible
Speaker 1: and not invisible web of helpers that we just expect
Speaker 1: them to keep helping, right, We just expect them to
Speaker 1: sort of be machinery of help, right or helpful machines
Speaker 1: and just keep going. And I love what you said there, Toto,
Speaker 1: Like often women in these positions and they come home
Speaker 1: and they have to serve more and they have to
Speaker 1: keep going in and certainly now like none of this
Speaker 1: stuff with the pressure on the healthcare professions. None of
Speaker 1: this stuff is new, but seeing all of this trauma
Speaker 1: and stress and death and loss and suffering on top
Speaker 1: of old systemic fractures, like this is really what I
Speaker 1: wanted to have you here with us today to talk about.
Speaker 1: Like I think in my notes too, I was like,
Speaker 1: I feel like we need to have a conversation inside
Speaker 1: the apocalypse for those networks of helpers, the therapists and
Speaker 1: the home health aids and the people who serve the
Speaker 1: food and work in the kitchens, and the doctors and
Speaker 1: the social workers, and what we keep asking them to
Speaker 1: bear and how do we even talk about not being
Speaker 1: able to bear that anymore? And honestly, you know, normally,
Speaker 1: when I have a guest on the show, I sort
Speaker 1: through the listener questions and I find things that intersect
Speaker 1: with a guest so that we can open up those conversations.
Speaker 1: And this time, as I was preparing, I just found
Speaker 1: myself saying, like, I don't know what to say about
Speaker 1: this stuff. I don't know what to say about the
Speaker 1: compounded weight on the I don't know communities, legions, legions
Speaker 1: maybe of people we lean on for help, and where
Speaker 1: are they supposed to lean for help when we keep
Speaker 1: looking for them to show up and serve, and show
Speaker 1: up and serve, and show up and serve and not stop.
Speaker 3: This is something that we hold so dear to our hearts,
Speaker 3: you know, and I think that one of the things
Speaker 3: that we've been concerned about these folks for a long time.
Speaker 3: You know, Chadah and I have been teaching in particular
Speaker 3: physicians for about fifteen years and working with them and
Speaker 3: really figuring out how what's useful, how do we learn
Speaker 3: how to drop into ourselves and in particular physicians, you know,
Speaker 3: the highest rates of suicide, divorce, druken, alcohol abuse, as
Speaker 3: well as one of the unique things is that's the
Speaker 3: most people leave that profession of being a doctor. And
Speaker 3: so we've been deeply concerned and then when the pandemic hit,
Speaker 3: we realized that we needed to do something that we
Speaker 3: needed to meet that need, and so we created this
Speaker 3: Fellowship in Contemplative Medicine, this year long fellowship for physicians,
Speaker 3: nurse practitioners, and physician assistants to really address the roots
Speaker 3: of suffering, what the causes of their suffering are, how
Speaker 3: to pivot and what is the path And so it's
Speaker 3: based on the Fornoble truths and really looking at which
Speaker 3: is such a rare thing, is looking at our intrapersonal lives,
Speaker 3: like how are we inside of ourselves and our inner
Speaker 3: personal like how are our relationships going? Like what are
Speaker 3: we actually doing when we get home? And then you know,
Speaker 3: a third of it is also clinical work. But really,
Speaker 3: in some ways I feel like the call of this
Speaker 3: time has been part of the call of the medicine
Speaker 3: of this time is to remember we only have one life.
Speaker 3: You know, there's so much focus on work life balance,
Speaker 3: but really we have one life, and how are.
Speaker 2: We in that life. We want to come back, just
Speaker 2: for a moment to the importance of noticing the caregivers
Speaker 2: in the home. It's something like seventy five percent of
Speaker 2: caregivers in the home of family members. And we have
Speaker 2: a support group four caregiverers we meet once every two weeks.
Speaker 2: And one of the care giverers of a couple of
Speaker 2: month months ago said something so profound. Both her parents
Speaker 2: have Alzheimer's and the daughter she does the errands, she
Speaker 2: makes the food, she goes to the ATM machine, she
Speaker 2: does everything that she need that the parents are asking
Speaker 2: of for her. And one afternoon she just turned around.
Speaker 2: She said, I am not your robut mom. Can you
Speaker 2: imagine that what she had to go through to get
Speaker 2: to that point where she said, I am not your robot, Mom,
Speaker 2: I need to take care of myself. I mean that
Speaker 2: it's so for me that is so heartbreak to be
Speaker 2: diminished in such a way by her own parents, and
Speaker 2: to think about the suffering of the parents too with Alzheimer's.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously they were loving parents at one point
Speaker 2: because she's taking care of them. But that kind of
Speaker 2: shift in relationships is so important. Coach. She was speaking
Speaker 2: of the relationships from these doctors that come into the
Speaker 2: profession hearts open, wanting to serve, wanting to do the
Speaker 2: best that they can, and slowly turn into these not
Speaker 2: all but of course slowly turn into these workhorses that
Speaker 2: go home and their relationships with their family changed. We've
Speaker 2: all apart, for all apart, we're in the middle of
Speaker 2: a huge crisis.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of just that that reductive binary that
Speaker 1: we apply to all aspects of being human. Right, that
Speaker 1: if you are called to be of service, you must
Speaker 1: be at service to your own detriment forever and ever, amen. Right,
Speaker 1: And that there is no time culturally speaking, socially speaking,
Speaker 1: or in the workplace, there's no time for you to
Speaker 1: say I need a break, I need to stop. We
Speaker 1: don't support that. Instead, we come in and we say like, well,
Speaker 1: you got into this for a reason, and you need
Speaker 1: to draw on your passion for this so that you
Speaker 1: can stay resilient. Or in terms of a caregiver in
Speaker 1: the home a family member, it's like draw on the
Speaker 1: love that you had for them and give back and
Speaker 1: give back. So this is all something that that is
Speaker 1: a really big topic. We're going to go to a
Speaker 1: quick break and we're going to come back and I
Speaker 1: bet we're going to talk more about it. Hey, before
Speaker 1: we get back to this week's guest, I want to
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Speaker 1: or you can find a link in the show notes
Speaker 1: that reductive binary of humanness right, that you are supposed
Speaker 1: to give and give and give and give and give
Speaker 1: and give and give and say thank you for being
Speaker 1: depleted like that, that really messes up so many things.
Speaker 3: I think that's one of the reasons why we've been
Speaker 3: really thinking about language. And you know, we have a
Speaker 3: habit of talking about caregivers, right, so it makes us
Speaker 3: one person just giving, giving, giving, giving giving, It's kind
Speaker 3: of almost like a machine. And so we've been really
Speaker 3: reflecting on language and really moving from caregiver to care
Speaker 3: partner because I feel like in many ways that that
Speaker 3: is actually moving to centering generosity, which for us is
Speaker 3: a different way way of thinking about care. If we
Speaker 3: think about generosity, which is giving and receiving equally, so
Speaker 3: we're actually nourishing ourselves. And if we're not actually including
Speaker 3: ourselves in the circle of care, then what kind of care.
Speaker 2: Are we offer. We're the agent, We're the.
Speaker 3: One so coming to the bedside or the zoom side,
Speaker 3: whatever it is, to show up. If we're not nourishing ourselves,
Speaker 3: we're just bringing that depletion to the relationship. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean again with this the keg of.
Speaker 2: The support groups that we have, they come in for
Speaker 2: the you know, it's an hour and a half of
Speaker 2: be together, and you'll have a group of say eight
Speaker 2: or ten people with one commonality. I'm exhausted. I don't
Speaker 2: know how much longer I can do this. Even often
Speaker 2: is voiced I love my mom, I love my dad,
Speaker 2: but it's time. It's been sick for so long. And
Speaker 2: I hate to say this, but if they died, it
Speaker 2: would be a huge relief for me and my family,
Speaker 2: and I love them so much, but this is unbearable.
Speaker 2: And with them twenty four to seven and I'm exhausted,
Speaker 2: and then be you know, without a blink, the rest
Speaker 2: of the group we're saying, yeah, I understand the relief,
Speaker 2: the relief. So this is you know, this is also
Speaker 2: a huge, huge question that we have. What are we
Speaker 2: doing to take care of our care partners, our caregivers
Speaker 2: and you know, very.
Speaker 1: Little, yeah, very little, we share that same approach. We're
Speaker 1: telling the truth about it is the most powerful act
Speaker 1: we have currently available, right because we're so often rushing
Speaker 1: people out of their exhaustion or speaking their tiredness or
Speaker 1: their irritation, right, reminding people to be resilient and all
Speaker 1: of these things that we do. And so even just
Speaker 1: that ability or the welcoming of the truth in that
Speaker 1: situation does something I also I wonder about. You know,
Speaker 1: we're speaking about family caregivers. This same sort of deficit
Speaker 1: of generosity shows up in all of the caregiving professions.
Speaker 1: So how do we start talking to you know, the
Speaker 1: social worker at the hospital or the internists who just
Speaker 1: they can't take a moment to be generous with themselves,
Speaker 1: They can't ask their colleagues to be generous with them
Speaker 1: and take care of each other because we're all working
Speaker 1: from such such a deep deficit that like, there is
Speaker 1: effort involved in caring for yourself and I can hear
Speaker 1: the frustration and so many people I speak with and
Speaker 1: hear from. I don't have the energy to figure out
Speaker 1: what I need to do to take care of myself.
Speaker 1: And this is yet another one of those unsolvable challenges
Speaker 1: here what do we do there?
Speaker 2: I don't know that I quite buy into that we
Speaker 2: teach a doctor's and a caregivers you know what, because
Speaker 2: they'll come in that statement, I don't have time, I
Speaker 2: don't have climate to rush my You don't have to
Speaker 2: see you know, fifty impatients in an hour or whatever
Speaker 2: to say, actually, you know what, it takes one minute.
Speaker 2: Stand still, wear your feet, they're on the floor, ground yourself,
Speaker 2: take a breath. I am hearing this moment. In this moment,
Speaker 2: I'm giving myself permission to stop. And it can take
Speaker 2: one minute. We say three minutes, it's preferable, but one
Speaker 2: minute will do it before I go to the next
Speaker 2: patient or to the next encounter. It's just and then
Speaker 2: moving on. They could mount up to say, I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's thirty minutes a day. So for thirty minutes of
Speaker 2: your day, you've stopped. You've noticed what's happening in your body,
Speaker 2: You've noticed what's happening to your breath and you've come
Speaker 2: back to center. So people often think that if I
Speaker 2: have to meditate, it's gonna be thirty minutes and I
Speaker 2: don't have time. Well they don't. For the most part.
Speaker 2: One minute everyone has.
Speaker 1: I love that, thank you. That's something that I try
Speaker 1: to practice. And even I forget that. We get into
Speaker 1: that cycle of depletion and think, oh crap, right, like, oh,
Speaker 1: this means that I need to make myself healthy food,
Speaker 1: which means I need to find time to go to
Speaker 1: the grocery store and make sure that I get this
Speaker 1: and this, and then I have to come home and
Speaker 1: then the dog needs this. That sort of rapid cycling
Speaker 1: of the mind that says I can't, I can't, I can't,
Speaker 1: I can't, And it really is that brief one minute
Speaker 1: of connection. One of the things when I when I
Speaker 1: speak at hospitals, back when we used to do things
Speaker 1: in person, when I speak at hospitals and very often
Speaker 1: speaking to nurses who see a lot of death and
Speaker 1: suffering and they don't have time to, you know, have
Speaker 1: a decompression session with their colleagues to talk about how
Speaker 1: hard it was to watch that kid die, what can
Speaker 1: we do, Like, what's the medicine that we need in there?
Speaker 1: It's that moment of grounding and centering you spoke about,
Speaker 1: and a moment of connection, whether that's with our own
Speaker 1: selves or with the people around us. And that's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't do it now because nobody will
Speaker 1: see me on air. But the thing that I often
Speaker 1: encourage people in those fast paced environments to do is
Speaker 1: put one hand on their heart and make eye contact
Speaker 1: with somebody split second. There is something so medicinal in
Speaker 1: that communal acknowledgment of the moment, Even if that's all
Speaker 1: you have time for.
Speaker 2: Just as important as to remember that this moment of
Speaker 2: stopping and grounding oneself doesn't have to be limited to
Speaker 2: our work hours. We can do this on our day off.
Speaker 2: We can do this on a weekend, if anyone has
Speaker 2: a weekend. But to be able to just in the
Speaker 2: midst of enjoyment, in the midst of shopping with our
Speaker 2: favorite things, looking at the tomatoes, whatever it is to
Speaker 2: be able to go up and that trains us, trains
Speaker 2: the mind to come to standstill, to stop. So I
Speaker 2: wouldn't just concentrate totally on the work environment. So in
Speaker 2: the home, environment, hiking, whatever it is, just take a moment.
Speaker 3: Even it's like a moment of sabbath, you know, of
Speaker 3: actually taking a moment to be at one.
Speaker 2: With where you are.
Speaker 3: And many of us think, you know that that whole
Speaker 3: thing about self care and self care this and get
Speaker 3: a manicure or watch Netflix or whatever that is, and
Speaker 3: all of those things could be fun. But I think
Speaker 3: that how do we make time to not do even
Speaker 3: if it's that moment that we're talking about, you know?
Speaker 3: And I was thinking about nurses too, and how Toyo
Speaker 3: and I we're on an impatient oncology you know it
Speaker 3: which you know mostly is the people are many of
Speaker 3: them will die.
Speaker 2: And when they died, you.
Speaker 3: Know, there was just this accumulative trauma on the staff
Speaker 3: because people love these people, and people said, don't we
Speaker 3: don't have time to do the memore, We don't have
Speaker 3: time to do anything. And we realize, like what we do,
Speaker 3: Actually we have three minutes. We can get in a
Speaker 3: circle and say this person has died, and what did
Speaker 3: you miss about them?
Speaker 2: What did you love about them? And everyone, yeah.
Speaker 3: Everyone can say one thing and it was so healing.
Speaker 3: We often are investing in habits that are depleting more
Speaker 3: than we're investing in habits that actually are nourishing. So
Speaker 3: to me, it's also about how do we just get conscious.
Speaker 3: And that's one of the things that I'm just loving
Speaker 3: about our fellows is that they're learning about how to
Speaker 3: undo and to remember what they care about most. And
Speaker 3: then that's one thing is awareness, but then the crucial
Speaker 3: thing is learning how to put it into action. So
Speaker 3: seeing them really changing, like learning to look at their
Speaker 3: partner in the eyes, learning to look at their children,
Speaker 3: learning to look at themselves in the mirror, like who's there,
Speaker 3: you know, And it's so beautiful to see them actually changing.
Speaker 3: But I think that a change only happens when we
Speaker 3: cross the threshold of awareness. We all kind of know
Speaker 3: what's off. But it's amazing to see when people say,
Speaker 3: I know it's off, and I'm going to practice and
Speaker 3: not be good at making a new group.
Speaker 2: So excited.
Speaker 1: I love that those those creating habits that actually feed you.
Speaker 1: I think divorcing that like, I hear the things that
Speaker 1: you're suggesting in the things that you're saying, and I
Speaker 1: can hear people sort of saying, but that's not going
Speaker 1: to fix anything. What like sort of that collapsed despair
Speaker 1: and despondency, like, what is this one overly simple tool
Speaker 1: going to do about the reality of this life and
Speaker 1: the death and the suffering and the constant fatigue and
Speaker 1: the exhaustion. And it's sort of that, you know, Davy
Speaker 1: and Goliath moment, what do I have? And I love
Speaker 1: how you framed that as like, try it and see,
Speaker 1: try it and see. This is an experiment.
Speaker 2: It's going to wake you up to the reality of
Speaker 2: your life and the reality of suffering around you, and
Speaker 2: the reality of the suffering of the world. And it
Speaker 2: may spark some moment of what can I do? What
Speaker 2: can I do when I take the attention totally away
Speaker 2: from myself? What can I do to change the situation
Speaker 2: the hospital? How do I advocate for myself? How do
Speaker 2: I advocate for the staff? Do I advocate sometimes for
Speaker 2: the patient? So it's not so self centric that one
Speaker 2: minute may evoke a moment of clarity, and it may
Speaker 2: be you know, I don't need this bullshit. I'm out
Speaker 2: of here. I need to take care of myself. I'm
Speaker 2: done with this shit, I'm done with that being overtired,
Speaker 2: I'm being doubly being underpaid I'm done with being treated
Speaker 2: like a robot to use that way again, or maybe
Speaker 2: you know what. I love my job. I love this job.
Speaker 2: I just need to focus on that minute, that moment
Speaker 2: of clarity when I realize I'm exhausted. Yeah, I'm so exhausted.
Speaker 2: How can I get help my husband, from my wife,
Speaker 2: from my kids? Just one thing? So I don't buy
Speaker 2: that the one minute stopping will not It's not about
Speaker 2: fixing anything. It's about being aware. So much in this
Speaker 2: world we cannot fix, but we can be aware of it.
Speaker 2: And what do we do with that awareness? Exactly? You
Speaker 2: can change the world.
Speaker 3: And that complaint, Oh that's not going to work though,
Speaker 3: that's you know, like it's so popular, right, and we
Speaker 3: hear that all I tried that. I tried it. I
Speaker 3: tried it once.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It just reminds me of this story where this guy
Speaker 3: goes up to this meditation teacher, Jack Cornfield in the airport.
Speaker 3: He's like, you're Jack Cornfield and they're in the Miami
Speaker 3: Airport and he's like, it happened to be and he said,
Speaker 3: you know, I went to something about meditation with you,
Speaker 3: like thirty years ago. And he's like, oh, how was
Speaker 3: that and he's like, it was horrible, didn't work. He's like,
Speaker 3: but the funniest thing, I was on the gurney going
Speaker 3: in for open heart surgery and suddenly that was the
Speaker 3: only thing that made sense. And I'm so grateful, like
Speaker 3: I was able to come back to myself.
Speaker 2: So I think that.
Speaker 3: There's something so amazing about our lack of receptivity to change.
Speaker 3: We resist change, resist death, we resist actually reality of
Speaker 3: how things are changing and how do we just in
Speaker 3: some ways like have a bit of playfulness around that
Speaker 3: voice of like it's not going to work. It's like,
Speaker 3: I hear you grumpy, you know, I hear you, jaded
Speaker 3: part I hear you, I see you, I love you,
Speaker 3: and step aside.
Speaker 1: Well time share in the psyche.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's such a popular voice, you know, that kind
Speaker 4: of dissenting of change because we're so in some ways
Speaker 4: addicted to our suffering.
Speaker 1: In some ways, that's a voice of depletion that I
Speaker 1: have nothing in me to try these things, these things
Speaker 1: can't possibly work. That is seeing that voice as a
Speaker 1: voice of depletion. We've been talking so much about caregivers
Speaker 1: and showing up in the moments and the power of
Speaker 1: that telling the truth to yourself and telling the truth
Speaker 1: to others. So, as educators and as practitioners, if you
Speaker 1: had sort of okay, one succinct, sort of pithy message
Speaker 1: that you wanted to give to other educators and other practitioners,
Speaker 1: what do you think? What do you wish other educators
Speaker 1: and practitioners would know, either about grief or exhaustion or
Speaker 1: telling the truth. What do you wish they would know?
Speaker 2: You can't put it all in one bucket. There's no
Speaker 2: succinct answer. There's no same answer for each person. Grief
Speaker 2: is unique to each of us. We all do it differently.
Speaker 2: We're all grieving differently for different things. Oftentimes, you know,
Speaker 2: people are thinking they've lost a partner or child, or
Speaker 2: we could be grieving for the loss of a dog,
Speaker 2: the loss of any pet, the loss of any animal.
Speaker 2: Grieving can be the loss of a job, you know,
Speaker 2: the loss of a home. So we can't always assume
Speaker 2: that there's like one pet answer or one pet recommendation
Speaker 2: to deal with grief. So, for me, the pissy, if
Speaker 2: you like the use that word, is take a look
Speaker 2: what is it really about. Remember, in the moment or
Speaker 2: a period of grief can touch into so many other
Speaker 2: grief experiences. You know. It's like it's the domino effect.
Speaker 2: It's like the uh, my cat died, and I'm direct,
Speaker 2: I'm beyond, beyond sadness, And then's realized, why am I
Speaker 2: thinking about my mom? Why am I thinking about X,
Speaker 2: Y and Z? Why am I thinking about that person?
Speaker 2: I haven't processed my grief from twenty years ago. So
Speaker 2: how do I say to someone, you know, recognize the
Speaker 2: grief of what it is in this moment, Recognize the
Speaker 2: grief for what else it could be. It's not always,
Speaker 2: it's not always, so I have to not get stuck
Speaker 2: in some idea are you grieving?
Speaker 1: I think that makes sense for grief in our own
Speaker 1: lives and also as education and those who show up
Speaker 1: to serve people who are in really difficult times of
Speaker 1: their lives, is to wander into it and be curious,
Speaker 1: rather than thinking we know all the answers or that
Speaker 1: there are any answer. So I think that's a really
Speaker 1: beautiful place for us to sort of come full circle
Speaker 1: with the beginning of our conversation into this conversation about
Speaker 1: curiosity and experimentation with what it means to be fully
Speaker 1: human and fully here even in the moments when you
Speaker 1: don't feel like you can be fully here. Friends, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for being here. I'm going to link
Speaker 1: to all of the places that people can find you,
Speaker 1: and the Fellowship and all of those things, but tell
Speaker 1: our listeners right now where they can find you individually
Speaker 1: and collectively and anything else you need them to know
Speaker 1: before we get into our questions to carry with you
Speaker 1: after the break.
Speaker 3: So the New York exens Center for Contemplative Care can
Speaker 3: find us at zencare dot org and at New York
Speaker 3: send Center at New York Zen Center for Instagram, and
Speaker 3: Koch and Pale Ellison at Coach and palel for our
Speaker 3: Instagram and Toto Campbell.
Speaker 2: Care Zo.
Speaker 1: Or applications for the Fellowship open soon.
Speaker 3: For the Contemplative Medicine Fellowship are currently open is open enrollment,
Speaker 3: and so we're already filling up for the next cohort.
Speaker 3: And we have a podcast it's called Zendcare and you
Speaker 3: can find that on Apple Podcasts. Oh and our books
Speaker 3: Awake at the Bedside, Contemplative Teachings I'm Pailative and End
Speaker 3: of Life Care and my book co Heart It's Slow Down,
Speaker 3: Help Out, Wake Up. Both of those books can be
Speaker 3: found anywhere that books are sold excellent.
Speaker 1: Each week I leave you with questions to carry with
Speaker 1: you until we meet again. It's part of that whole.
Speaker 1: This awkward stuff gets easier with practicing. But this week
Speaker 1: we are not wasting an opportunity to hear from our
Speaker 1: guests with their questions to carry with you.
Speaker 3: So one of the things that I invite you to
Speaker 3: do this week is to reflect on what else is true?
Speaker 3: And so when you find yourself caught in some thought
Speaker 3: about a sadness or an anger or grief, just to
Speaker 3: invite the question what else is true?
Speaker 2: For me?
Speaker 3: This is a way to learn how to widen out,
Speaker 3: not to bypass anything, not to deny anything, but to
Speaker 3: actually allow ourselves to ground ourselves right where we are.
Speaker 3: I remember walking down the street the other day just
Speaker 3: feeling so sorrowful and looking up in the sky into
Speaker 3: seeing the birds flying.
Speaker 2: Above and the.
Speaker 3: Branches, the bare branches framing the sky, like that was
Speaker 3: also true. So the finding how do you drop down
Speaker 3: and widen out and find what else is true?
Speaker 2: There's a really overused sentence or cliche, wake up and
Speaker 2: smell the coffee. I like to ask you to wake
Speaker 2: up and smell and notice and see whatever is in
Speaker 2: front of you. You're walking down the street, a lady
Speaker 2: or gentleman with a stroller and a baby are walking
Speaker 2: towards you. Notice that moment of look at that beautiful baby,
Speaker 2: or ough that baby doesn't stop crying. Why isn't a
Speaker 2: parent taking care of it? Just notice? Notice dog shit
Speaker 2: on the sidewalk, Notice the beauty of the buzz that
Speaker 2: are beginning to appear now in the spring or whatever
Speaker 2: the time of the year is. But to really notice
Speaker 2: what is in front of you from your home, on
Speaker 2: the way to work. What is it like to step
Speaker 2: onto the bus, the transition from the sidewalk to the bus,
Speaker 2: to people on the bus, who are they? Notice them?
Speaker 2: Don't get stuck in your iPhone, your pots, whatever it is.
Speaker 2: Be fully awake to your life, to each moment of
Speaker 2: your life, because it's short. In my meditations, I say,
Speaker 2: each in breath is bringing life into the body, and
Speaker 2: each outbreath is a small death. The last thing we
Speaker 2: do is die on the exhal when we die, and
Speaker 2: the last thing we do is exhil ah. So honor
Speaker 2: each in breath where you are in your life right now.
Speaker 1: I want to know how to send your questions into
Speaker 1: me to maybe answer in a future show. This show
Speaker 1: is nothing without your questions. It is literally a Q
Speaker 1: and A show. I use your questions to talk about
Speaker 1: the wider world. So if you have a question, I
Speaker 1: guarantee that at least one thousand other people have the
Speaker 1: same question. There's no empirical evidence for that number, so
Speaker 1: don't quote me. But I'm sure whatever you're wrestling with,
Speaker 1: other people are wrestling with it too. So bring me
Speaker 1: your questions, your clinical questions, your frustrations about caregiving or life,
Speaker 1: anything that you're really wrestling with, and you could use
Speaker 1: a script for let's talk it out. Call us at
Speaker 1: three two three six four three three seven six eight
Speaker 1: and leave a voicemail. If you missed it, you can
Speaker 1: find that number in the show notes or visit us
Speaker 1: at megandivine dot co. If you'd rather send an email,
Speaker 1: you can do that right on the website megandivine dot co.
Speaker 1: We want to hear from you. This show, this world
Speaker 1: needs your questions. Together, we can make things better even
Speaker 1: when we can't make them right. You know how most
Speaker 1: people are going to scan through their podcast app looking
Speaker 1: for a new thing. They're going to see the show
Speaker 1: description for Hereafter and think I don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about that stuff. Well, here's where you come in or
Speaker 1: reviews let people know it really isn't all that bad.
Speaker 1: In here we talk about heavy stuff, but it's in
Speaker 1: the service of making things better for everyone. So everyone
Speaker 1: needs to listen. Spread the word in your workplace, in
Speaker 1: your social world on social media and click through to
Speaker 1: leave a review. Subscribe to the show, download episodes, and
Speaker 1: send in your questions. Want more Hereafter? Grief education doesn't
Speaker 1: just belong to end of life issues. Life is full
Speaker 1: of losses, from everyday disappointments to events that clearly divide
Speaker 1: life into before and after. Learning how to talk about
Speaker 1: all that without cliches or platitudes or simplistic think positive
Speaker 1: posters is an important skill for everyone. Find trainings, workshops,
Speaker 1: books and resources for every human trying to make their
Speaker 1: way in the world after something goes horribly wrong at
Speaker 1: Megandivine dot Co. Hereafter with Megan Divine is written produced
Speaker 1: by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown, Elizabeth Fazzio,
Speaker 1: edited by Houston Tilly, and studio support by Chris Uran.
Speaker 1: Music provided by Wave Crush