Learning to Fall

My family recently joined a climbing gym, and it has been a fun outlet for all of us. When I first started, I was a little unsure of how it was going to go, as I don’t consider myself a very athletic person. Surprisingly, it was quite accessible as there are different levels of climbing you can challenge yourself with, and I found myself easily working my way up to the top if I grabbed the least challenging holds. Interestingly, I found it relatively easy to scale the wall this way, but it was actually the coming down that felt really tenuous. Suddenly the height felt so much more palpable. The most intimidating part for me was the idea of popping off the wall and letting the auto-belay kick in after a second or two before you slowly were let down to the ground by the mysterious contraption above. 

I found myself clinging helplessly to the wall and looking down at my 10-year-old daughter who had suddenly become my emotional support coach. She looked up at me with her big brown eyes and said “Mama, you can do this. Just look at the wall, not down, count 1-2-3, grab the rope and come off the wall.” Funny enough, she’s been testing herself with this very challenge the last week or two and worked up to it by slowly scaling up part of the wall, and releasing into the auto-belay at progressively increasing heights. She coached me to do the same thing, and it worked. By making the leap a little more achievable and less scary, I was gradually able to challenge myself into this trust fall of sorts and finally embrace the thrill of a transient sensation of free-fall. 

I had been so focused on the work of ascending before, but I realized that once I knew how to really fall, I felt so much more empowered to challenge myself to greater heights. Suddenly it felt so much less scary to take on the harder paths. I wasn’t afraid of falling anymore. Whether it was the auto-belay or my partner providing his counter-weight down below, I could stop catastrophizing the possibility of losing my footing and know that the worst that would happen would be a bit of a fumbling mid-air. And best case scenario, I finish an awesome climb and can celebrate with a joyful leap into the air and maybe a bit of a sloppy drop onto the mat and laughing embrace with my daughter. 

I see now that the more you can fall, the higher you can climb. This applies to making mistakes or facing “failures” along the way - if we’re willing to be a little vulnerable, take risks, put ourselves out there - the missteps don’t have to paralyze you, they become less scary and lose their power. As tough as this can feel in a field like healthcare where striving for perfection can seem like the gold standard, I’ve told my learners countless times that the mistakes we make as we care for patients can be some of the most powerful lessons and contribute to significant growth in our professional identity, strengthening the way that we show up for future patients. 

So I’m going to keep climbing, and falling, and learning and growing and having fun along the way. And when I might find myself faltering, I’ll be grateful for the ongoing inspiration from my small but mighty daughter.

Using our voice where we can

These days, it can feel overwhelming with all the changes and threats happening in our country with the current political climate. But I am grateful for ongoing dialogue with friends and colleagues who recognize that what is happening is not okay, and while it is easy to feel helpless, we do have agency to band together to address injustice that is unfolding. 

It was an honor to be able to collaborate with some dear family medicine colleagues through this op-ed in the San Diego Union-Tribune:

 

I'm grateful for the opportunity to share our perspective, and we're just getting started. First is making sure the public is aware of what is happening. Next is gathering a critical mass of folks to advocate for change. 

Looking forward to the California Academy of Family Physicians' All Member Advocacy Meeting next month to collaborate with other family physician colleagues and speak to our representatives about key issues affecting our patients and our work in primary care.

When we feel we are coming up against a wall in the impact we can make in certain issues within our exam rooms, it's time to break outside those walls to address the issue head on. While many of us in medicine feel that we aren't experts in advocacy work, it's important to recognize that we advocate for our patients all the time in our clinical work, and we can do this out in the world. We have to trust that with a little support from our village, we can take that same energy to advocate for our greater community. 

Chasing the sunset

On my evening flight from San Antonio back to San Diego, I found myself entranced by a seemingly endless warm color palette out my window as our plane chased the sunset. What a strange concept to gain time, to get a little something back in the time-space continuum, especially when life can easily can feel like an hourglass spending the grains of sand away. That image feels even more real at a time of so much loss and grieving - from the atrocities in Gaza and other war-torn countries to the natural disasters in the setting of climate change to the assault on science and evidence-based medicine to the threat of the basic human rights of women, immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, and the transgender/gender-diverse community…

There is so much fear and uncertainty and so much at stake. 

It’s dizzying because there’s so much wrong right now, it’s hard to know where to turn. So maybe that’s why I clung to the practically infinite sunset - a bit of something beautiful and surreal at a time when things feel pretty ugly and unreal. 

Maybe that’s why I leaned even more into my MedEd conference this weekend, hugging kindred family docs who inspire and amaze me at the impact they make on their communities. And why I clamored together for community and resonated even more deeply with folx committed to gender health while beaming about the power of gender affirming primary care at the Transgender Healthcare Symposium.

I'm trying to breathe in as much self-compassion as I can these days as I send loving-kindness vibes to so many hurting. Staying connected to my people and leaning on my villages has been essential to keep me grounded at a time of such insanity. I still hold on to hope that maybe enough change makers can assemble to face the injustice unfolding in so many ways. Sarah McBride shared her hope that as we face the challenges of this new administration, that we see it as a potential slingshot moment:

"yes, we are pulled backward, but the pressure and tension of being pulled backwards ultimately propels us to destinations that we've never been before."

Time and again, I have felt the power of fierce optimism to be the essential fuel for resilience and commitment to advocate for what's important. So while we maybe can't quite shake some of the unsettling feelings of helplessness and despair at the state of our country right now, we can still do our best to channel our energy into the continuous pursuit of a better future.