The Music Within Us

Day by Day, Step by Step in Yosemite

DrLisaChu — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 21:23:50 +0000

It's been awhile since I've posted here. Maybe you've followed me on my Instagram or Twitter accounts (@drlisachu) where I've been posting my daily art practice. If not, I'm here to let you know that TODAY is the first day of my Yosemite series, which will appear for the next twelve weekdays, each day at 10:00am Pacific Time, on my Wild Tomato Arts blog. I recently spent twelve days in Yosemite National Park, six days backpacking and six days as a volunteer with Yosemite Conservancy. I have traveled to Yosemite every year for the past six years. Five out of those six have included both volunteering and backpacking. Back in 2014, my volunteering trip coincided with my 50|50 Art project, making 50 small works of art in 50 days for a group show at Sanchez Art Center. This year, I created 46 sketches or pieces of art in 12 days, and I am sharing all of them, along with mini stories from the trip, in twelve, bite-sized chunks. Go over to Wild Tomato Arts "New and Fresh" page for all the latest blog posts, starting TODAY! You can sign up to receive the posts via email. And at the end of the twelve weekday posts, I will post all 46 pieces, without text, in one project on the front page of Wild Tomato Arts. Come with me and enjoy the illustrated journey in one of our nation's treasures.

Listen to my podcast on Self-Confidence with Sheena Yap Chan

DrLisaChu — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 16:17:13 +0000

Sheena Yap Chan is creating a valuable resource for women everywhere, with her podcast The Tao of Self-Confidence. She recently interviewed me, and I hadn't thought about the topic of confidence for quite some time. It had never occurred to me that I lacked self-confidence, because I had always been a high achiever. But in the interview, I realize that my source of confidence has shifted from outer accomplishments to an invisible inner source. Maybe this is the attribute we most wish for ourselves and for our children -- that we learn to trust our own life experience. Ideas of "success" and "happiness" are words we settle for because they make for polite conversation and convenient book titles. But what we really want is the confidence to live from our true self. Hear some of my thoughts and stories on my journey of self-confidence in this episode of Sheena's podcast here.

Remember, Celebrate, and Acknowledge…YOU

DrLisaChu — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 20:38:27 +0000

A sketch from my bike ride through Vail Pass in July 2015. Illustration by Lisa Chu.

One way to define love is "sustained, compassionate attention". These words came from John Muir Laws, a naturalist, educator, and artist who inspires stewardship of the land by sharing his practice of nature sketching. When I read these words, I began to see the importance of my own art practice in developing sustained, compassionate attention for myself. I have noticed, in just a few years of deliberately making art daily, that my well of self-compassion has grown wider and deeper. And gradually, my capacity for compassion toward others -- even the ones it would be easy to judge or dismiss quickly -- has become more of a habit. I have been teaching myself to make art via a consciously different process than the way I have learned most things in my life. My ways of learning early in life were shaped by classical rules of aesthetics, systems of academic achievement, and the belief that receiving criticism was the way to develop resilience and mastery. None of these is either right or wrong. But, just as it is impossible for a fish to know what water is until it has attempted to live on land, it is impossible to notice that there is an "other way" until that other way is revealed and acknowledged through contrast in experience. Many of you have heard or read my signature story of being told to "Play the wrong note", at a moment in my life when I was very invested in playing all the right notes, literally and metaphorically. Some of you may have been shocked and appalled by my willingness to embrace and challenge the idea of "wrongness" and proceed to unlearn what I had systematically been trained to do for so long. Yet the more I live in commitment to this path -- my particular path -- of discovery and creative expansion, the more trust I feel in following my own truth. The truth that is not a concept, thought, or belief, but a feeling of inner peace, still and silent in the center of my being, known only to me. When I was told, "Play the wrong note", it was an invitation to pay attention, to linger awhile with sustained compassion for and interest in these so-called "wrong" notes. To observe and listen, not only to the sounds themselves, but to my own experience of receiving these sounds. To ask, "What is the nature of my reaction to what I consider wrongness?" That moment, and everything about those four little words, have remained with me like a Zen koan, tickling my brain like a puzzle whose solution still eludes me. And upon reading John Muir Laws' comments on the value of observation (asking) versus getting it right (answering), and falling in love by observing deeply, another door opened inside me. Consider the possibility that the depth of compassion we have to give is equal to the depth of our own self-compassion. Imagine that we can only extend to others the level of understanding we have available to us. As we cultivate, grow, and expand in self-understanding, we can also cultivate, grow, and expand our capacity to understand others at a level deeper than pity, categorization, or labeling. The audacity of the dare to "Play the wrong note" was an invitation pointing directly to the door of self-compassion. It was a suggestion not only to be willing to experiment with loving a sound I had previously assigned judgment to and trained myself to avoid, but to love myself as I expanded my capacity to accept more of the world's nuances into my field of attention. Learning to walk toward and through the door of so-called failure was a necessary threshold for me to cross as I deepened my capacity to love. Art was one new territory where I could venture safely without preconceived identities and learn - through daily deliberate practice - to love everything I create, and experiment with the attitude that, "There are no wrong notes. Only different choices." I have come to see love as not an opinion or a preference. Love is born in the application of sustained, compassionate attention. In the case of my art, applying compassion to my art, as I look outward at my creations, is simultaneously applying compassion to my creator self. As long as I remain free of ideas of "right" and "wrong" in my art, each gesture is an inquiry, an invitation, and a dare to love myself more deeply. Each blank page is another practice in seeing what comes to me and through me, and receiving it with my full attention. I am enjoying this time of year-end reflections and visioning for the new year. I sincerely thank each of you who have read this newsletter, attended a class, purchased art, or listened to my music during the past year. Your sustained, compassionate attention has been received with great appreciation! Here are three creative ways to reflect on your own past year: 1. Set a timer for 10 minutes. Get a pen or pencil and a blank sheet of paper. Start writing, moving your hand across the page, without editing or correcting any mistakes. Lose control. Keep your hand moving and don't stop until the timer goes off. This is a Natalie Goldberg technique, and I've experienced great results myself and with clients using it. Try it with the following prompts, related to your 2015. "I remember...", "I celebrate...", and "I acknowledge...". Start your writing with any of these prompts and see where your hand takes you! If you get stuck, go back and write one of the prompts again and again until something else comes out of your hand. 2. Get a set of colored markers, crayons, or pencils, and a large blank sheet of paper. Make a series of "blobs" -- of any shape -- all over the paper. Don't think too much (or at all!) about this. Just let any shapes to appear on the page in any colors. Now take some deep breaths, close your eyes, and reflect upon your entire year, month by month. Remember, celebrate, acknowledge. Notice what comes into your sustained, compassionate attention related to 2015. When you have reviewed the entire year, open your eyes and start making marks on your paper. You can write, scribble, draw, doodle, or make more shapes on top of the ones already there. Give yourself at least 10 minutes for this exercise...more if you're really having fun! 3. Make a collage. Get some inspiring magazines (try asking if any of your neighbors is getting rid of old issues of colorful magazines). You can start either with a blank piece of posterboard OR the paper from exercise #2 above (for extra fun!). Take a few deep breaths and close your eyes, reflecting on your 2015. Notice what you remember, celebrate, and acknowledge. When you open your eyes, grab the first magazine you see and start tearing out any pages that contain anything that catches your attention. You are in a state of sustained, compassionate attention -- without reading the articles or ads in the magazines! Give yourself 10 minutes MAXIMUM to tear out pages. Now get some scissors and a glue stick or rubber cement. Start cutting out the images you want to use in your collage. Arrange them on your posterboard and attach them with the glue. Then, take a step back and look. What do you see? What do you hear? If this image had a story for you, what would it be? Write it down. Sing it! Dance it! Take a photo of what you create. Share your results in the comments below! Have you found your own practice of applying sustained, compassionate attention to yourself and your surroundings? I'd love to hear about it! You can also participate in my live event, New Year New Vision PLAYshop, on January 23, 2016, 1pm to 4pm, at New Leaf Community Classroom, Half Moon Bay, California. You'll be guided through a visualization and imagination activation process, and create your very own ARTifact of your journey. No prior experience necessary! Registration details here.

Coming Full Circle

DrLisaChu — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 22:57:04 +0000

I recently returned from a week-long stay in Keystone, Colorado. I was there with a small group of physicians gathered to restore their voice to the practice of medicine. How I got there was through a series of events I can only call synchronicity. What I felt was a profound feeling of "coming home". I showed up as all of me, in full color. My role was to listen deeply and expansively, and I chose to record what I heard in visual form. It was as if everything I practiced was serving me in my service to this gathering. Each morning I woke early and rode my rented bike along the many trails around Keystone. I listened to the Snake River winding its way through the trees. I inhaled with awe each time I arrived at the vista of Lake Dillon. I clawed my way up a steep hill only to be rewarded with the jackpot of a stunning view of Breckenridge and beyond. I had learned from these past few years of practicing self-care that these morning steps were my fuel for being present and thinking creatively. I knew what to do - even in an environment away from my familiar surroundings at home - because I had practiced them into new habits. I had my biking clothes, I was comfortable riding, and all I had to do was explore new roads and read new maps. I also had my daily sketching and art journaling practice in place, something I started only within the last two years. I have experimented with many different formats and media, and I am comfortable drawing outside. On this trip, I brought a small Moleskine Japanese album with accordion pages. It fit in my small travel purse or pocket, and I carried a pouch with pen, markers, and water brushes. On my morning rides, I often sketched a scene quickly in ink, filling in color later in the day or in the evening. I noticed what I noticed. I took note of the stories I wanted to tell. And by the time I got home, there were three or four panels that needed coloring, which I completed within a few days. New experiences, new people, new places -- all of these fuel my creativity and keep me inspired. I am grateful for the daily practices I cultivate at home, so I am well-prepared to stay open when I'm on the road. For a frame-by-frame caption story of my Keystone travel journal, see my post here. For an in-depth reflection on the contents of the physician meeting and its impact on me personally, stay tuned!

A Journey in Sketches

DrLisaChu — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 22:46:12 +0000

I recently returned from a week-long stay in Keystone, Colorado. I documented my journey in daily sketches created in a Moleskine Japanese album (small size). My tools were Pigma Micron ink pens, Faber Castell Pitt Artist pen, Kuretake Clean Color Real Brush markers, Derwent watercolour pencils, Sakura Koi field sketch watercolor set, and Kuretake waterbrushes. First, the SFO airport. There was an exhibit on Art Deco and I loved the patterns, colors, and shapes in it. Since I had a couple of hours to wait for my delayed flight, I started sketching and painting.I went back to photograph the original pieces that had inspired my memory. Then I looked over my shoulder to see that a large watercolor mural had been placed high up, near the ceiling. I copied the quote on the painting and general feeling of it. Then I noticed the number of billboards in this terminal devoted to issues of network security and cyber attacks. I captured this by placing three of the ones I remembered together. On my flight I read two magazines I never usually read. One had Amy Poehler on the cover as one of the "100 Most Creative People In Business". The other had a headline and article I will never forget (much as I would like to), entitled, "Why Die?". It describes the efforts of PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel's multi-billion-dollar venture fund's investments in biotech. He is focused on "eradicating death" from human experience, envisioning a future in which this "disturbing inconvenience" is made obsolete. I road Colorado Mountain Express shuttle from the Denver airport to Keystone. I captured a few quick sketches of what that ride is like. Flat flat flat, then you're in the Front Range, with walls on either side and endless ranges unfolding in front of you. My driver was a Keystone local, and he recommended the Mexican restaurant directly across the street from my airbnb condo - Dos Locos. I hadn't rented a car, so this seemed like a perfect dinner option on my first night. Ended up being the best pork chile verde I've ever had! Plus some great conversations with locals. The altitude was noticeable right away, and I was glad I came equipped with plenty of water, hydration mix, energy bars, and herbal tea. I had plenty of room to stretch out in my studio rental from airbnb. I woke up early and took a walk, noticing the wildflowers along the Snake River. I also almost walked right into a mama moose and her twin calves, standing in the road and munching on some leaves. They looked like horses until they turned their heads and I could see the shape of their snouts. Their legs were also extra lanky. When eight o'clock rolled around, I was first in line for a bike rental at Mountain View Sports, next door to Dos Locos. I took a quick ride of about 10 miles round trip, not sure how the elevation would affect me. The first glimpse of Lake Dillon gave me motivation for the next morning's ride. I was ambitious and determined to find the Natural Grocers store I had researched in Dillon. I had no idea whether I would be cooking my own meals for the week, so this was part of my self-care plan: find the local organic grocery store. One very steep hill climb nearly shredded my lungs, but I made it. Awesome staff, beautiful food, and a great thing to find while traveling. It was raining by the time I got to the store, so the helpful ladies showed me the schedule for Summit Stage, the Summit County free bus system. I could have gone to Vail, Breckenridge, or any of the neighboring towns all for free on this system! Instead, I put my bike on the rack in front, and took the ride back to Keystone, where the sun was shining and my five-minute ride back to the condo was easy. The next day I rode in the opposite direction, up Montezuma Road. Montezuma is a ghost town, and Montezuma Road hugs the banks of the Snake River heading east out of Keystone. I only got about a third of the way from Keystone to Montezuma, but I was rewarded with a lovely view of the canyon and riverbed. I also took a moment to create my "ode to aspen trees". Aspens are everywhere in this part of Colorado, and when the wind blows, their leaves do a dance that looks like "jazz hands" to me.Later in the afternoon, I had about an hour to sit by the lake and do some reflection. The theme of that day was fear and courage. I was thinking a lot about how fear turns into courage, and how we can facilitate that transformation in ourselves. The next ride I did was Swan Mountain Road Trail, which leads from Keystone to Breckenridge, which requires climbing a big hill. I started out early, and didn't know how far I would go. The light was gorgeous, and the wildflowers were everywhere on this paved trail. I kept thinking I would turn around but every turn brought new wonders! I finally reached the summit and the reward was a jackpot view of Dillon Reservoir. Saturday I did not take a big ride, but simply captured this feeling from all the love I experienced during the conference. Did I mention my reason for being in Keystone? Through what I can only call cosmic alignment, I was invited to be part of the Let My Doctor Practice Summit. This was both a virtual and live gathering of physicians committed to restoring their voices to the practice of medicine in America. I had spent the week taking notes during the webcast portion of the summit, and then on Saturday I captured as many of the back-to-back live talks as I could, going through almost three complete pads of easel paper! Now that I am home, my next project is to go through all the drawings, check for accuracy, and assemble the individual images into a book. Here are some examples of the drawings and the live proceedings of the Summit: Sunday morning I took the 9am transport from Mountain View Sports to Vail Pass. I road 26 miles back through Copper Mountain, Ten Mile Canyon, Frisco, Dillon (the perimeter ride of Lake Dillon is GORGEOUS!), and back to Keystone to feed the ducks and geese in the pond. I also bought some local jerky, local honey, local organic stone fruit, local corn, and a locally baked gluten-free lemon-lavender muffin. As I sipped a chai in Frisco and reflected on the themes I had just witnessed during the Summit, an article in the local paper announced that the CEO of Vail Resorts had donated one million dollars to his alma mater, the Wharton School, to fund research on Leadership and Emotional Intelligence. These three words popped into my mind as not only the keys to leadership in business, but leadership in any arena in today's evolving world:

What Feeds You?

DrLisaChu — Fri, 22 May 2015 14:28:38 +0000

"We are the soil" ink and watercolor on paper, 9"x12".

"When you touch one thing with awareness, you touch everything." - Thich Nhat Hanh

Since moving to the coastside community of Half Moon Bay three years ago, I've become more and more inspired by farmers. Specifically, local organic farmers and the ecosystems they steward. I am not sure how this evolution happened, but somewhere along the way, in the age of industrial farming and processed foods, in the trance of busyness that convinced me to prioritize my "job" over taking the time to feed myself well, I woke up to the way farmers are actually key players in the health care ecosystem. For me, the past few weeks have included the following. On the first Saturday of May, my acoustic rock duo provided the live music for our local farmers' market. Our evolution from being loyal customers to becoming more active participants in the ecosystem providing this precious resource for our community has been a dream come true for the kind of musicians we desire to be. We play for tips, lettuce, strawberries, olive oil, bread, chocolate, a bit of cash, and a big dose of the love that comes from knowing we are feeding the community with our art and joy. Two weeks ago, I became a member of my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). This means I signed up to get a box of locally grown, organic produce delivered to my door by a farm collective every two weeks. In each box is a note from Farmer Paul, with a poetic missive on his observations in the field, followed by some bullet points on "how to be a great and green member of the farm family". These two lines really hit home for me:

"Remember, you are not a customer; you are a shareholder in our farm. Paying your bill is not enough. Owning a share means doing your share."

The "aha" for me was that I do have a responsibility. I was not just "buying" a box of food delivered to my door each week. I am now responsible for holding a piece of the thread. I am now a weaver of our local ecosystem. I am adding my voice to the chorus saying "Yes!" to locally grown organic produce, picked by hand, delivered by hand, and gifted to us all by the land. Do you feel that? We are gifted our food from the land. The land is not a factory. It is a generous donor and partner. And what we give to the land it gives back to us in multiples. Several days later, I attended a lecture by Daphne Miller, MD, a family physician and author of the book, Farmacology: What Innovative Family Farming Can Teach Us About Health and Healing. Her curiosity about the relationship between her patients' health and the health of our soil led her on a global odyssey to visit small family-owned farms, as well as agricultural scientists and ecologists studying organic farming practices. The one-sentence summary of her talk was, "We are the soil." What we put into the earth, we put into ourselves. And what we put into ourselves, we also put back into the earth. All of this has gotten me thinking more about both how we feed our world, and how we are fed by our world. The thought seeds that take root in our consciousness create feelings which course through the cells of our body as chemical signals and are digested in each cell, creating our experience of life. Imagine the gut - our digestive system - as the place where our feelings about the world are taken in, broken down and digested into the elements that fuel our entire being system of Soul+Body+Mind, driving our decisions and actions in the world. Each of us is a mini ecosystem living within a sphere of progressively larger ecosystems - our bodies, our relationships, our homes, our families, our communities, our nations, our planet, and our cosmos. Mindfulness of food - what we put into our mouths - equals mindfulness of what we take in from our experience of life and what we perceive through our consciousness. When we touch the essence of "WE ARE THE SOIL", we see that what we feed our consciousness we also feed to our world. What are some things you can do now, in your world, to live more from this awareness?

walk outside and breathe fresh air...imagine and feel the air feeding every cell of your body
notice the products you choose that wash down the drain -- this eventually becomes part of our soil
plant a garden
walk barefoot in or touch actual soil or living earth
vote with your dollars and support a local organic farmer in your area
receive the sounds in your environment and notice how they are feeding you
clean up your thinking...junk thoughts equals junk food
love what you feel and trust your gut

Your mind may react to this list as being too simple to have an impact. But I believe we can each find our own way of remembering the ecosystems we are already part of. And when we remember, we touch everything in our world in a new way. We can reclaim our position as owners again...not just customers, but holders of our own share in this web of life.

Greeting Fear with Love

DrLisaChu — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 21:00:53 +0000

Fear has been up for me lately. I'm stepping into new unknowns and therefore a new level of courage is required. And in order to function, I've woken up to a new way of greeting fear. Instead of trying to beat it down, or conquer it, which both contain the quality of resistance, I practiced this: "It's OK, fear. Come on in. You are welcome here. Sit down at my table." The subtle practice here is being with, but not believing in, or becoming consumed by, the guest at my table. Just loving my guest - fear - exactly as it is. Not "falling in love with" it, but being OK with it. More importantly, feeling OK with it being there. Not trying to change it in any way. This is entirely new for me. Only when I actually heard the words "it's OK" did I realize how much resistance I had felt towards fear. I never said to my fear, "It's OK." Two simple, comforting words that were not an automatic response in my internal dialog. I like to "get over" things, conquer them, put them behind me, become better at them. But simply and sincerely saying, "It's OK", had never occurred to me. I played with "It's OK" two nights ago before going to bed. Instead of trying to talk myself out of the fear I was feeling, I repeated, "It's OK." I made it OK that I couldn't get rid of my fear. I made it OK that fear was what I felt. I made everything about me in that moment OK. And I really meant it. I woke up the next morning feeling noticeably different. More relaxed. More at ease. Without effort. Later that day I saw three new books being released by bestselling authors with "Fear" in the title. Martha Beck and Deepak Chopra are doing an event called, "Turning Fear into Fuel". Lissa Rankin's new book is called "The Fear Cure". And Elizabeth Gilbert's fall release is subtitled, "Creative Living Beyond Fear". Apparently I am not the only one for whom "fear is up". It's the subject of a larger conversation. It seems the collective call is to look at our relationship with fear, and create a new way to dance. When we choose to step into new territory, or when life hands us an unknown, fear will come knocking on our door. We can respond with the automatic arsenal of fight, freeze, or avoid. We can fight fear with fear. Or we can greet fear with love. Whichever we choose, "It's OK."

All About Love – Unpacking the L Word

DrLisaChu — Thu, 05 Feb 2015 19:30:14 +0000

"Heart Shines On", acrylic on canvas, 16"x20" by Lisa Chu

Why is "love" such a hot button word for so many of us? It seems we remain as divided with respect to this word as we are on so many other issues. There are "hopeless romantics" and there are "anti-Valentine's" party hosts. There are those who sprinkle the word "love" over every communication with strangers or friends, and there are those who use it sparingly, like precious strands of saffron reserved only for the finest occasion. We never said the word "love" in our house, so during my childhood, I formed the belief that something was missing from my experience compared to the outer world of suburban midwestern America I lived in. We didn't talk like the characters on The Brady Bunch. The emotions expressed in my family were much more raw, more volatile, so close to the surface and not easily contained. The love I experienced was unrelenting, filled with the need to protect me from constant imminent danger, and would never let me off the hook. Over a lifetime of accumulating ideas of what love is - from what I was told, from what I experienced, and from what I imagined - I decided, other-than-consciously, that it was not safe to love fully. So I made up a definition of love that suited me, protected me, and preserved my belief in what was possible. I chose different outer images to imitate. I tried on many different outfits in my attempts to recreate safety in love. First, it was a white coat in medical school. Then, it was a pant suit that placed me at the negotiating table, equal to men. Next, it was high heels and feminine-looking skirt suits that projected a combination of power and approachability. Finally, I went barefoot and wore "spiritual" clothes (whatever that means). These were symbols of the stories I made up about love. I believed I had to earn love by being a skilled professional, by being accepted by a prestigious institution, by measuring up to someone else's standard, by performing above all the rest, or by joining in special rituals. I believed, other-than-consciously, that how I chose to present myself on the outside actually represented how much I loved myself on the inside. So I placed my attention on my outer presentation, believing I could come up with the "right" thoughts or do the "right" things to create the outer world I desired, while continuing to avoid the depths I feared most. The bigger experience of love I have recently awakened to, through the precise application of language, love and presence, has truly gone to the root of all - and that is consciousness. I finally touched and stayed in places I had avoided for so long. I was shown, by experience and not any concept, how to love my fear, love my pain, love my anger, and love even what I had given up on ever loving again. And to allow "loving what I feel" to transform each emotion into a petal of my heart's desires blooming in action. This was an experience of love bigger than my imagination could accommodate. It was beyond the box of my known reality. Any thought pattern I chose in the past as a way to survive is no match for the power of being fully present and allowing the love contained in presence itself to shine its unrelenting light on my anger, pain, grief, and even apathy. I had believed that by not touching these feelings, I would somehow rise above them. In fact, I was unaware of the energy required to keep them suppressed and avoided. My buoyancy returned only after being willing to touch, stay, and love exactly what I had believed to be untouchable, unworthy of my attention, and unloveable. In the light of love, which I experienced as pure nonjudgmental and unflinching presence, everything I once thought I was not safe to feel became my love, expanded. I found myself forgiving people I was once convinced had really "damaged" me. I found myself spontaneously making lists of the things I love about my mom (how she never let me off the hook, how she unrelentingly saw my highest self already expressed in the world, and how she did it even though it was hard for her so much of the time). I am now excited when I experience uncomfortable feelings, as they are a chance to expand my capacity for love. I get to love what I feel, and let my love grow. I now reclaim my love as the life force which has loved me into existence, expressing itself in every experience, feeling, and desire that has come through me. I AM my love. And I love my love. I facilitate this awakening in my Eye Reading sessions and this is the level at which all of my work is offered. It is time to play a bigger game. This month, you can join me in awakening to your greater depths of love in a free teleclass, "Renegotiating Love", a free Friday talk at Prajna Center in Belmont, "Receiving The Love That You Are", and my ongoing introduction to my program for physicians, "Live Your Medicine: Responding To The Evolutionary Wake-Up Call to Remember Your Love, Your Art, and Your Medicine".

What Doctors Can Learn From Artists and Entrepreneurs

DrLisaChu — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 16:00:24 +0000

Since leaving medicine, I’ve been an entrepreneur and an independent artist. They are similar pursuits, and both have taught me about the experience of living in creative rather than reactive mode. How do you know if you’re living in reactive mode? If you define and measure yourself based on external circumstances, and you believe you really are limited by what’s happening outside yourself, you are in reactive mode. Most of our institutions, including the education system, government, mass media, and the medical training system, are based on the reactive mode. These systems teach you to believe that your success is measured by your ability to manipulate external circumstances, so your attention and efforts should be focused on external metrics. You compare your performance to others on a so-called objective scale, and you rely on statistics to know how you are doing. There is nothing “wrong” with reactive mode. It is the way most of the systems in our society operate. Creative mode requires a 180-degree shift in this perspective. The creative way of seeing recognizes that you are the originator of your unique perspective, which is itself a creative force. There is no such thing as a “neutral” observer, because in the very act of observing a thing, you have had an impact on the thing you have observed. In other words, you are (along with every other being in existence) in constant creative conversation with the world you are experiencing. The good news is, you matter. The bad news is, you have both the responsibility and power to create your own world. Why “bad” news? Creative mode means your claim of being a victim of anything that “happens to you” will no longer hold any credence. The creative mode implies that any time you blame outside circumstances, like “the system”, the government, the higher-ups, or the people in charge, you are creating the very circumstances you lament being a victim of. In the moment that you consent to their being in opposition to you, you create the experience of having opposition in your world. What if you had the audacity to admit that you consented to, and at some level created, everything “outside” yourself that you now blame for your current suffering? Some part of you is probably rebelling against this idea right now, because admitting your role in creating your circumstances means you would also have to let go of claiming you are a powerless victim. There is always a silent payoff in accepting the role of victim, or you would not have accepted the role in the first place. What is the payoff for you? In the moment you can claim your role in creating the experience you are having right now - as reflected to you by the external circumstances you find yourself in - you begin to take a creative stance. You begin to see yourself differently within the grand puzzle of your world. No longer can you point your finger and your attention outward at “them”, but now you must see the source within you that holds your power to create, choose, and act. Every artist and every entrepreneur has had to touch this inner place in order to bring a never-before-seen vision into material reality. Whether you name it “imagination” or “vision” or “desire”, every human being has an inner source of creativity. Some of us have placed this in a box in the basement of our consciousness. Maybe we have given up on ever being able to use it in this lifetime. But as long as you are alive, you have this source within you, waiting for you to open the space for it to breathe. Here are four creative mindsets you have within you, waiting to be awakened and remembered: The Audacity to Love In a world of outrageous pain, it takes audacity to love. The kind of love I am referring to is beyond the interpersonal romantic love we were sold by Hallmark greetings, and beyond even the familial fight-or-flight-based love we may have experienced growing up. The audacious love I am talking about is the very evolutionary life force that has loved you into existence, and continues to emanate as you, through you, and in you. This love is the constantly available source of your creative power. You are this love, whether you choose to remember or not. Creating From Possibility The artist and entrepreneur create from possibility. Often what is required to connect with possibility is space. Our daily routines, the comfort of familiarity, and our current box of “what’s possible” are rooted in past experiences. Using the metaphor of an artist’s canvas, we often confine ourselves to creating only from what we have painted before - what we have seen others do, what we were told we could do, or what we believe based on what we’ve done in the past. When we commit to creating from possibility, we turn our attention toward the blank canvas, and try something new. Trusting The Invisible Every creation involves taking a bold step to bring the invisible into visible form. By definition, this requires trust and courage. No one in your world can do this for you. Only you know what you hold as real in your inner vision. Trust is like a muscle, requiring courageous action (in advance of seeing external proof) in order to build strength and coordination. Waiting for external confirmation of your internal knowing will result in a lot of waiting, and will be of no benefit to your trust muscle. In fact, waiting to see proof actually reinforces the reactive mindset. Loving Your Failures As products of the educational system that brought you through medicine, your biggest liability is your unfamiliarity with failure. You most likely have a highly developed aversion to anything that smells of vulnerability, weakness, inferiority, mistakes, and, the most dreaded word of all, failure. Yet, every artist, entrepreneur, and person engaged in a creative process has stories to tell about facing failure. These stories have the common theme of breaking through the illusion that failure is something bad happening to you, branding you forever as a reject, undeserving of love, respect, or attention. The importance of walking through what you imagine to be “failure” is really about learning to love your self more completely. The biggest light you can shine on the experiences you have feared and avoided comes from walking through them with love. A first step for most doctors would be to touch failure, perhaps for the first time. While medical training didn’t afford you this chance - only landing you in front of an academic review board - there is a far vaster reservoir of forgiveness, self-compassion, and personal fulfillment awaiting you beyond the reactive walls of your current reality. When you touch your ability to love yourself through your failures, you gain the opportunity to create more authentic relationships - first with yourself, and then with everyone in your world. The future of medicine and health care, as well as your personal future, already exist within your heart. Do you choose to react or create?

Red Pill or Blue Pill?

DrLisaChu — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 21:08:20 +0000

There is a scene in the movie, The Matrix, in which the main character Neo is offered a choice between the “red pill” and the “blue pill”.

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more.

Does it excite you to imagine discovering how deep the rabbit hole goes? Or do you notice a resistance toward leaving the comfort of your current reality? In the movie, “truth” at first appears as a chilling image of the planet taken over by machines, living off the energy of human beings who are lying unconscious inside jars of gelatinous solvent. Towards the end of the film, it is love received from his beloved which finally wakes Neo up to the reality of his own illusion. That he has believed in everything within the Matrix, and through that belief he has created his own truth. With new eyes touched by love, he sees everything as it actually is: a construct of his own consciousness, where elements take on only the meaning he assigns to them. Awakening to choice - realizing in any moment that you have a choice - is a moment of connecting to your creative power. Notice that your power to choose always resides inside you. You choose whether to activate your own power by choosing to choose. No one, no thing, no place, no circumstance outside you can, without your consent, take your power away. You may have been taught to give your power away in the past. Forgive yourself and choose now to be your own power. The most powerful choice you have is to awaken to the love that you are. Survival and “getting through life” may have hardened you to this truth. You may have learned to protect your core from fully receiving what you feel. By protecting yourself from what you feel, you have denied yourself love. You have refused to shine the light of love on certain aspects of your experience, while insisting on exposing only the so-called acceptable parts. When you encounter a situation that brings you close to touching what you feel, do you stay or do you run? My experience is I had a strategy of keeping intensely felt experiences at an arm’s length, making it about “them” or “those people” over “there”. I thought I was dealing with these experiences in a "professional" manner by detaching myself, seeing “objectively”, and disconnecting from what I feel. I experienced burnout in a caring profession as a result of the very pattern I had been taught was “professional” and proper. Only when I was guided, with love and no judgment, to receive what I feel inside me — reversing the pattern of distancing myself from what I feel — did I wake up to the magnitude of the love that I am. I cannot describe in words or quantify this magnitude because it is not a measurable “amount of something”. I can only say that I felt my love, as me, come through me, in a moment of complete awe and flow of both humility and security. I simultaneously felt the smallness of my human self and my human thought forms, and the vastness of my true self as an expression of the love of all-that-is. I have a vision for the evolution of medicine being led by those physicians who, through burnout, have come to the point where they are no longer able to play the game of denying what they feel. Physicians whose old strategies for survival have run their course. Physicians who have reached a recognition that their visceral knowing contains a truth which, despite being unexplainable, is worthy of their attention and love. Physicians who are prepared to choose the red pill. I have no plans to teach doctors how to run their practices, or how to define their professional roles. I wish only to point to a door within you, which opens in. Perhaps you have been living your life trying to push outward, when all along you simply never knew that the door opens in. Any true resolution to the current pain in health care lies beyond that door within you. Will you open it? If your heart says YES, join me on my next free telephone introduction to Live Your Medicine.

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