Life's Fuzziness

Life’s Fuzziness

Yesterday, I had my simulation for the radiation I will start next week to stop cancer that is eating away at my right 7^th rib.  My oncologists is concerned that someone could give me a tight hug, or accidentally hit my rib cage breaking the weakened rib, and possibly puncturing my lung.  I walked back to work feeling a cold déjà vu kind of fear from the 33-radiation treatments I’d had 8 years ago. 

As I rounded a corner, Tom Burke, MD (EVP MDAnderson Cancer Network), was sitting working on emails.  He asked about my cancer, and then we talked about the fuzziness with this part of cancer journeys.  It’s the fuzziness in life that can zap our confidence and passion if we let it.  We high-fived, and I walked away from Tom and the cold déjà vu fear, realizing life’s fuzziness has always been the most exciting part of this journey we call life.  Today enjoy life’s fuzziness.  

Fear

I faced my first kidney stone at 33 and the pain of the first stone, left a fear that for the next five stones had me rushing to the emergency room begging for morphine to escape the pain and fear.  My Army tour in Europe I served with a Military Police Company at a time of heavy drug use.  One early morning duty I faced a soldier tripping out on LSD, and threatening others with his combat knife.  As I worked to talk him down, he attacked and as fear washed over me, I reacted as I had been trained, waiting for his lunge, grabbed his wrist and disarmed him.  That day my fear brought out the best of who I was.

This past week my work life has been a challenge accompanied by a mix of emotions laced with fear making sleep impossible.  There have been days I’ve wanted to escape the fear, and other days it has brought out the best in me.  This morning as I rode across the bayou bridge, the full moon greeted me and reminded me that today is a new day to step up and be the best of who I am. 

Core Value Lessons

Last week, I once again learned a hard lesson about trust and integrity.  Trust is built on a foundation of integrity, and integrity is one of MD Anderson’s core values. Our employee Handbook entitled Do the Right Thing, defines integrity as “We work together to merit the trust of our colleagues and those we serve”.  One of my first experiences with death in the Army was all about trust.  I remember kneeling on the ground, tears streaming down my face, as the medevac flew away, so angry because it had been such a senseless death.  I gathered the squad around me, and all I could think about were the 12 scout laws that I’d memorized years before, that start with trustworthy and loyal.  But just like that day as the hum of the medevac disappeared, last week I knew I had to let go of the sting of broken trust and move on, for life goes on.  Be open to core value lessons.

Connecting to Our Happiness

Some mornings I take a shortcut by cutting through Texas Children’s Hospital west tower entrance.  There are always a few families waiting outside for a ride after a long night, mixed with the arrival of early staff hurrying to work.  Most days she’s standing just off the main doors guiding people in and out of the lobby, more with her smile than her words.  As I stop at the walkway to let people pass, she looks up with her smile and waves, and I wave back.  MaryBeth is usually asleep when I get up, so my first shared moments are with Sun Dance our cat.  My next shared morning moments are a smile and wave from a security guard at Texas Children’s that starts the internal and external smile I nurture all day.  How do you reconnect to your happiness as you start your day?

Lean into Your Brokenness

MaryBeth and I are members of the Patient Family Advisory Council and last night we attended its monthly meeting.  MD Anderson believes that patients and families should be full partners in their care, so having an advisory team ensures a safer, more efficient and satisfying care experience for all.  The meeting always begins with a patient story and last night Laurie talked about her discharge day, and how she just wanted to get home and wash her hair.  One of her nurses suggested she go to the free beauty salon where they offer shampoos, haircuts, shaves, and provide wigs, scarves, and hats.  She came back from the Beauty Salon feeling so much better; she had leaned into her brokenness and taken a big first step to not letting cancer rule her life. 

I remember after my surgery, I asked my surgeon when I would walk again, he told me “get up and walk as much as you can”.  When I left the hospital, I still wore my catheter, which was painful when I moved.  My first day home I got up early and walked around the block, and each day after I added more steps.  It was my way to leaning into my brokenness.  MaryBeth came home after her segmental mastectomy and the pain limited what she could wear, but I remember the smile on her face as she slowly wore the loose blouses she loved, she was leaning into her brokenness and getting back to being herself. 

Today, lean into your brokenness and head home.  

Special Friends

Yesterday afternoon I received an email from a good friend thanking me for my words on how life purpose helps us lean into our brokenness, quieting our negative mind chatter allowing our hearts to breathe and thrive.  His words, actions, and friendship have always been authentically kind.  After reading his email several times, I realized it is through these special friendships we are nourished by their encouraging life energy, which is so very necessary in our efforts to live life to its fullest each day and thrive.  Just as the ocean calls us to wade in and dive into the deep, these special friendships touch us in ways that support and sustain our efforts to enter life each day more fully and thrive.  Today, reach out and touch one of your special friends.   

Cancer and Life Purpose

There have been moments in my cancer journey I have wandered off and lost the light of my life purpose, which gives my life its passion and meaning.  It is during these times I feel broken as a cancer survivor and run from my brokenness, but living a life with meaning helps push away my anxiety about the unknown, and quiets my negative mind chatter allowing my heart to breathe.  When I take time each day to remember who I am, the love I give and receive, and why my life has meaning today, I am able to open my heart and breathe in life.  Take steps today to inspire your heart through living a life with purpose and meaning.

Cancer Thrivership

They added more chairs to the back of the room for the employees that were standing against the wall as MaryBeth and I started our session on Cancer Thrivership for the MD Anderson’s Internal Medicine educational series.  The first slide was a picture of us taken in Colorado Springs in springtime as we stood in an unexpected snow flurry.  We used the slide to describe thrivership as living with an open heart and learning to live with, through, and beyond life’s challenges.  Our challenge is that we both have cancer, and we have learned mindfully thriving with cancer is better – together!  Sharing our cancer journeys mixes the grit of our humanness connecting our living essence (heart, emotions, intuitions, and life experiences) and drives us to thrive - together!

Learning to Wait

Yesterday, I spent a few hours in the morning getting blood tests and having a CT scan with contrast of my chest to follow up last month’s finding that my cancer had probably spread to one of my ribs.  I had deskwork, several meetings, and a laughter yoga class to teach before my oncologist appointment at 4 pm, where we would review my test results.  A cancer journey gives you many lessons about patience.  My laughter yoga class included a couple from El Paso, a pair of lifelong friends, a woman with inflammatory breast cancer, and a woman who was re-learning to swallow.  It was a good class, we all left with inside-out smiles and I left realizing I was not waiting alone.  At 6:10 pm I left my oncologist, we had a good plan to radiate my cancerous rib to stop the progression of bone loss.  My wait had begun again, but I am okay for I am not waiting alone.  

Still Deep Listening

It was a beautiful crisp still morning as I watched the fog roll ofe a lake in Ohio where the only sounds were the geese.  In his, book Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to what is Sacred, Mark Nepo writes that still deep listening holds everything open ‘till what can’t be seen or heard is felt – changing who we are.  Deep listening is not about outside stillness, but deep inside stillness, that changes who we are, and who we will become.  I remember the moment my first child was born, he was a month early, and came our screaming.  The moment he screamed, I felt deep inside; I was now a dad and would teach my new child not to be afraid of life, but to learn how to experience life’s awesomeness.  Are you a still deep listener?

Healing Through Heart Led Stillness

We were deep into our vacation and just starting to let go of work emails and our to-do-lists.  It was beautiful mild sunny California afternoon, and we were hiking a nature preserve on the coast along a tree-lined trail.  The trees were old, weathered, knotted, and twisted reminding me how tangled our lives can become.  Richard Moss in his book Inside-Out Healing reminds us how heart led stillness in the midst of life’s chaos:

·       Better connects us with ourselves and others

·       Provides strength and clarity

·       Expands our capacity for empathy and compassion

·       Serves as the pathway to inner peace, gratitude, fulfillment and open-hearted living

·       Provides a foundation from which healing in all areas of our life can be built

Today, practice heart led stillness to heal and grow.

Recharge Your Resiliency Batteries

This was a busy weekend.  Saturday, I worked on my upcoming keynote in August for the American Association of Nurse Anesthesia Annual Conference on Resiliency, and on Sunday, I was a speaker at the “Living Well with Advanced Prostate Cancer” town hall meeting held by Patient Empowerment Network at MD Anderson.  Yesterday, as the town hall progressed, and men at various stages of prostate cancer ask questions, shared their stories and fears, the importance of resiliency practices in living high quality lives with cancer, became obvious.  Resilience is not just the ability to bounce back from life challenges, but a state of mind built upon our passions and presence in life.  We recharge our resiliency batteries through daily practices of optimism, positivism, self-belief, and turning our daily tasks into mindful moments, which leads to whole person living.   

*Baun Resiliency Interview

What Would You Give Up?

After my Army basic training at Fort Sill, I came home and helped my dad take care of my mom.  She had asked us to move her into my sister’s bedroom, where she could enjoy the sun, birds and multiple summer colors in her front gardens.  We repainted the room soft yellow and moved her bed so she could see out the front window. It was my first summer home for many years for I had become what priest/poet James Kavanaugh called a searcher or a life wanderer. 

My mother’s looming death brought me closer to the poetry she loved, and I spent hours reading to her, and sharing the poetry I was reading like Kavanaugh’s There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among the Wolves.  The moments I had with my mom that summer drove the poetry I was writing as a life wanderer and still write today.  “I would gladly give up / A few of the soft tender moments / I have yet to experience // To savor once more / That summer / Wrapped within your soul.”  Thanks mom!

Walking on Thin Ice

Dead man’s pond was one backyard and three houses away, and the University Lakes were only 2.5 miles or a 30-minute bike ride.  Growing up in Baton Rouge, these haunts provided an escape from the dread I experienced around my mom’s cancer and gave my life a sense of adventure.  My neighbor Gordon and I built rafts out of bamboo, old trees, or barrels we would find in the swamp and spent hours being Tom Sawyer or Robinson Crusoe.  A few winters when it was cold long enough our water play yards iced over.  Once I walked across the ice to a cypress tree growing just off the bank of University Lake, before the ice broke and I ended up in several feet of water and mud.  Gordon and I had a good laugh for we were deep into our roles as Lewis and Clark. 

Much of my life I have been willing to walk on thin ice, and now realize taking risk has been a life tenant leading to my life as an entrepreneur.  As I relived memories with Gordon early this morning I realized it’s not just been my willingness to take risks, but my perseverance to positively impact others, guided by my faith that has made my life an awesome adventure.  Are you an ice walker?  Do you have a Gordon in your life to share the adventure?  What are you waiting for?

Life and July 4th

Watching fireworks at our lake house on July 4^th brought several nights of dreams of past July 4ths.  In 1967, I was working at Camp Union in New Hampshire sitting by a campfire in the White Mountains.  The summer of 1968, I drove big trucks for a farmer near Dixie, Washington, and remember driving with my buddy Teddy Bear from New Orleans, to Walla Walla to a hamburger drive-in.  In 1969, I was in Germany working at an orphanage as a lifeguard and we celebrated the 4^th early by stopping the milk cart and drinking our first milk all summer from a bucket.  1970 took me to Fort Sill and my basic Army training.  My tent mates and I spent the 4^th on Lake Elmer Thomas.  We camped next to a returning Vietnam vet and his family who shared their food and his war stories.  After completing my basic training, I went home to be with my mom who was dying.  The summer of 1971, I managed the LSU Summer Dinner Theater; it was my last summer semester in college. 

I’d lost track of 1972, but this morning going through old papers I found my Airborne Course diploma and realized Tuesday, July 4^th 1972 I was heavy into jump school and by July 1973 I had already rode in too many medevac’s.  Three nights of July 4^th dreams, seven years of life experiences that added to who I am today.  Pick a seven-year life stretch and ask yourself, “Where was I July 4^th and what did life teach me.”  You might be surprised at what you learn. 

1970 Airborne Recruitment Ad 

July 4th - Cost of Liberty

The Second Continental Congress voted to approve a legal separation from Great Britain on July 2^nd, and then debated and revised the wording of the Declaration for two days, finally approving it on July 4^th.  Of the 56 me that signed the Declaration of Independence, five were captured by the British and tortured before they died.  Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned, two lost sons serving in the Revolutionary Army and another had two sons captured, and nine died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. 

Fifty-six men of means and education that had security, but valued liberty more and were willing to sacrifice everything for their cause: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”  Did you fly our flag on Saturday?  I’m hoping you also took a moment to read the Declaration of Independence and pledged as President Lincoln did in his Gettysburg address “highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain…”  

Passing on Pride

At our last National Wellness Institute (NWI) Board meeting, Aldrenna Williams and I received handmade vases in thanks for our service to the field of wellness and the Institute.  My vase sits in my office on my round table beside the bird tree I bought when my friend Alberto invited me to share my passion in Brazil, and the green button elephant I bought when I spoke in Chile last year.  The past few weeks I’ve been going through business cards I collected at the conference, and answering  request for copies of my presentations (Becoming a Wellness Entrepreneur and Physical Activity – The New Smoking: The Art of Programming), and promised articles.  This brought a wave of thank-you emails, which has been a very humbling experience. 

Tuesday, I realized I am almost out of business cards, so I requested new cards without my NWI Board of Directors affiliation. I woke Tuesday night with the memory of Bill Hettler, co-founder of NWI, and I at his house many years ago, where he gave me a bunch of his NWI Board of Director polo shirts.  Wednesday, I wrote Joel Bennett, a newly appointed NWI board member, and asked him what size shirt he wore for I had some board shirts to pass on.  He called it a “hand off”!   Letting go this piece of my life has not been an easy decision, but after a few short email conversations with Joel yesterday, I realized how good it feels to let go by passing on the pride and traditions someone gave me to me.  Stand tall Joel and Mim for you are in for an awesome journey as new NWI Board members.   

Active Calmness

Night at the lake house is when the forest wakes with amplified sounds of insects, night birds, frogs, and far off dog barks.  An occasional soft splash heard from the lake sitting below the trees almost perfectly reflecting the night sky, brings calmness hard to find in the city.  We all look for this calmness; expect it at night, when worn down from the busyness of daylight hours.  What is your evening practice around calmness?  I have found, even in the city, deep breathing shifts my energy to a place where my healing meditation and prayer practices bring an almost immediate calmness.  The practice of active calmness fully opens our hearts to experience the moments we have been given each day.  Today, practice active calmness.