Being
I had an unusual day yesterday that went in every direction but the way in which I had planned it. My Saturday plans included a day of class and dinner with my family. What I got instead was a trip to the ER via ambulance after going into anaphylactic shock because of taking an antibiotic that had been prescribed to me (and which I’d taken) twice before. It was the most frightening thing I’ve experienced to date and I was sure that I was going to die. All of this is because I woke up with symptoms of a UTI – something I have experienced at least once a year throughout my adult life. Not fun, but also not a life or death experience.
O.k. I know the “I was sure I was going to die” thing sounds overly dramatic, but that was what I was feeling and thinking. My blood pressure dropped to 50/20 when the paramedics were with me before I got to the hospital. It was bad and it was scary. I completely lost consciousness for the first time in my life. Was I actually close to death? Probably not, but it sure felt like it.
So, you may be wondering why am I writing about this? Well, first of all, I want everyone to know that the Sacramento Fire Department and their Paramedic staff are kind, talented professionals who deserve our thanks and gratitude on a daily basis for always being there to serve when we need them. Second, I want to give a shout-out to the kind, dedicated medical staff in the Emergency Department at Kaiser Morse. All of these folks stayed with me and kept me apprised as to what was going on while providing excellent treatment. It’s important to me that I express the gratitude that I feel, not only to them but that I share my gratitude for them with you. They truly were wonderful, and I felt cared for throughout the experience.
Additionally, I want to share that I feel changed by the experience and I don’t want that feeling to be transient. You know how it goes – something special (or scary) happens and you think “oh, I’ll never forget what this feels like” and then a few days or weeks later and it’s like it never happened. I’m hoping that by writing it down and sharing it with you, I’ll be able to preserve the change and maintain the gratitude that I am still feeling today.
I tend to be a check-off-the-list kind of gal. I’m always doing something – working, volunteering, starting a new business, going to school, and/or getting additional training. All things that will hopefully help me to be a better person and live my best life – at least that’s what I tell myself. I have to say though, that yesterday in the midst of what I considered a crisis, I wasn’t thinking at all about the things that I have done or even the things that I haven’t done. What was I thinking about? My kids, my grandkids, my husband, and my friends. Had I been the person that I wanted to be with them? If I did die, how would they remember me? Who would they remember me as? What about my colleagues – people who I spend hours with every day? Had I always been the person I wanted to be with them? Who would they remember me as?
This morning, I had a coaching call scheduled, and my client and I were talking about “state of being” and how we can choose our state of being in each moment. My very eloquent client described this process as taking “a pause in time to allow for something different, and to do so in such a way as to catalyze creativity in order to restart and prepare for the next chunk of time that is to be.” (I did say she was eloquent, right?!?) Profound words to describe a process that we can voluntarily choose to use to ensure that we are “being” the person that we want to be. Now, I know that this is easier said than done, but with practice, it really does work – I have done this, and if I can do it - then I know that you can, too. I stop and choose who I am going to be before every coaching call. This is not to say that I don’t sometimes get distracted and off track, but the blessing is that I can always stop, re-choose, and begin again. And usually during my coaching calls -not always – but for most calls, this works well, and I get to be the coach that I want to be for my clients.
It’s funny, part of my morning routine is to set my intention for the day, and most days I set an intention to accomplish things, some days I set an intention around expressing kindness or gratitude, but mostly as I look back over my journal for the past few months it has been around doing, not being. What I realize today is that all of those doing things matter, but they don’t matter nearly as much as the being. I seriously doubt that the people I love will care if I checked 15 things off of my to-do list if it means that I wasn’t able to stop and be with them, notice them, and express my love for them. Likewise, I doubt my colleagues would care if I accomplished 10 tasks if it meant that I didn’t take a few minutes to hear them and be with them.
I’m fortunate in that I’ve chosen professions – coaching and therapy - that allow me to “be” with people during sessions, and as I stated earlier I’m usually successful in the “being” during the course of my work with clients; however, I don’t always take those skills and apply them in the rest of my life. My learning from yesterday is that I want to “choose who I be” with everyone that I encounter, not just my clients. I want to be compassionate and kind and grateful all the time, with everyone. Does this mean that I won’t have bad moments or days? No, I’m human and I’ll never be able to do anything perfectly but if I can simply remember that the choice is always mine, then hopefully more often than not, I’ll be able to choose to “take a pause in time to allow for something different.” If I can do this, then I have a feeling that when my time does come, my family, friends, and colleagues will remember me as a person who cared about them – always. This is a legacy I can live and die with.
Now, I’d like to take a moment and go back to something that I said at the beginning of the post about my Saturday plans of “a day in class.” I’m a staff coach for the McLaren Transformational Coaching Essentials (TCE) 2020 Coach Training Program. It is an amazing training program where aspiring coaches are taught all the basics of coaching over a 12-month period. I was part of the inaugural class of 2019 and have been blessed to be able to continue my learning while also supporting the learning of the second TCE class. If you are interested, and I hope you are because the world needs more well-trained coaches, you can find information on TCE here http://www.mclarencoaching.com/coach-training-program/. Please take a few minutes to check it out – I promise, it will be worth your time!
