The topic of yesterday evening’s weekly North Valley Town Hall meeting was Workforce Wellness. The faculty included leaders from psychiatry, human resources, physician wellbeing, and the employee assistance program. It was my pleasure to represent physician health and wellness. During Q&A, a listener asked me to identify the one wellness practice that I have observed to be effective during the entirety of my thirty-one year career with TPMG. My immediate answer was CONNECTION. Why connection? John Travis, the founder of the modern wellness movement, said that “the currency of wellness is connection.” I like to say that “connection is the coin of the realm in the kingdom of wellness.” Connection to what? The answer to that lies in the writings of Dr. Richard Swenson in his book, Restoring Margin to Overloaded Lives.
Connection to other people = your social life. During my first year of work with TPMG in 1989, I was doing weekend rounds on an elderly gentleman on the hospice service. After I completed my bedside evaluation, he asked permission to give me some advice. Of course I said yes. I was a 29 year old newly minted family physician who didn’t know much about anything. He leaned in and said, “Young man, I just want to let you know that at the end of your life, all you really have are the relationships you developed with other people.” His words immediately struck me as pure gold. He died a few days later, but his wisdom lives on, today in this email.
Connection to yourself, your purpose for living, and the story you tell yourself about you = your emotional life. This emotional life is in many ways the most complicated one. I encourage you to consider meeting with a counselor to make sure you get it right.
Connection to God or a mighty transcendent being or idea = your spiritual life. For many people, this is the one abiding life, the one that unifies all elements of life.
To appreciate the importance of connection to wellness, consider the consequences of life without connection: isolation, loneliness, simmering in destructive stories about the self and others, wandering with no purpose or direction, the futile pursuit of happiness based on things and circumstances. You get the picture.
Connection to other people = your social life. During my first year of work with TPMG in 1989, I was doing weekend rounds on an elderly gentleman on the hospice service. After I completed my bedside evaluation, he asked permission to give me some advice. Of course I said yes. I was a 29 year old newly minted family physician who didn’t know much about anything. He leaned in and said, “Young man, I just want to let you know that at the end of your life, all you really have are the relationships you developed with other people.” His words immediately struck me as pure gold. He died a few days later, but his wisdom lives on, today in this email.
Connection to yourself, your purpose for living, and the story you tell yourself about you = your emotional life. This emotional life is in many ways the most complicated one. I encourage you to consider meeting with a counselor to make sure you get it right.
Connection to God or a mighty transcendent being or idea = your spiritual life. For many people, this is the one abiding life, the one that unifies all elements of life.
To appreciate the importance of connection to wellness, consider the consequences of life without connection: isolation, loneliness, simmering in destructive stories about the self and others, wandering with no purpose or direction, the futile pursuit of happiness based on things and circumstances. You get the picture.
In summary, there is consolation in community, and desolation in isolation. The choice is yours. Make a good choice. If you need help doing this, please reach out to a wise person that you trust. It might be a licensed counselor, a religious leader, or your favorite relative. It might also be a patient who has been through a lot, and in doing so, has learned something important that he/she is eager to share, much like the hospice patient who intentionally connected with me in the sunset of his life.
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