What's in a Name?

For many of us, amid the fears and uncertainties of the past year, the pandemic has been a time of reflection and re-integration of our life vision, purpose and meaning. The pandemic has brought many of us face to face with what really matters, and, for many of us, the things that mattered most before the pandemic matter even more now.

Mick Krasner and I, as founders of Mindful Practice®, have been going through a similar process, looking back at the evolution of ideas and programs that we’ve developed over the past twenty years, and looking toward the future.

Coming Out of Seclusion

This period of seclusion, isolation, and separation during the pandemic and the fears and anxieties that have arisen as a result highlight the lived experience that we are always stepping out of seclusion as we are at the same time always moving back into it. Now in some places, in particular the United States, we begin to move cautiously and joyously out of the physical seclusion and simultaneously back into the gifts, however clear or opaque they have been experienced, that the disruption of the pandemic has provided us, whether they be a clearer sense of the importance of connection, reflection and silence in our lives, or the uncomfortable realization of what it is to be, at some level, utterly and entirely alone.

Finding Resilience in the Community

I have been enjoying Spring in Rochester — the trees are flowering, the bulbs are blooming, and the birds are filling the air with their songs. It has been lovely to walk outside without a jacket on and feel the sunshine on my face. As I walk, I encounter people walking their dogs or gardening.

The hunger I have to be around people in community is palpable.

Kindness: Reflections on a Year of Pandemic

It seems as if now is as good a time as any to begin reflecting on the past year in healthcare, in the lives of our families and communities, and in the lives of the many families and communities who inhabit this planet.

Shifting Perspectives

It can be useful, in this chaotic and stressed life, to pause and ask questions that promote reflection, and thereby expand the ability to recognize and hold the multiple perspectives, the contradictions, and the paradoxes.