Saturday, September 01, 2007

Compassion Fatigue / Stress

I mentioned the main point in the Compassion Fatigue seminar: Relax Your Kegels.

Beyond this piece of voodoo, hippie dippy, swami salami craaaaap, it was good to go to the class.

It’s always nice to get a break from the routine and listen to folks with other jobs and other perspectives.

It was nice to be reminded that:

All I can do is all I can do.


There is power in this statement. It’s a succinct version of the serenity prayer (not as pretty but it does allow me to avoid praying).

Another thing this guy talked about was (did I mention that he was doing sphincter-checks dozens of times an hour?) living in the moment.

I love this idea but I can’t see how it’s even possible.

You cannot change the past and the future cannot hurt you (yet) so don’t worry. Plan to avoid stress but otherwise there’s very little you can change but your attitude about things.

Okey dokey but part of what makes me good at what I do is that I second- (and third- and fourth-) guess myself.

All I can do is all I can do but if I pick it apart then next time I can do better. I can forgive myself but I cannot forget. And if I screw something up then what I did was not good enough. I’m eventually moving on but I’m not going to just skip over mistakes with a “oh well, fiddle dee dee tomorrow is another day.”

Forgetting the past and therefore being doomed to repeat it is unfortunate but ignoring the past and repeating it is … unnecessary.

~~

Photos:

Swami

Scarlett O'Hara

1 comment:

John Cowart said...

All I can do is all I can do!
Thanks, I needed to hear that.
I wrote about my problem with it on my blog this morning and I mentioned your seminar.
I wish I'd learned what you say years ago.