I didn’t trust doctors very much and had and still have a long list of grievances with them. It was personal. Doctors had impacted the lives of family member. One doctor, my father’s last neurologist, told me that my father had early stages of dementia. He obviously wasn’t paying attention, or perhaps, he thought my father was another patient. My father’s memory had declined to the point where he no longer recognized friends or family members and would ask “Exactly where do I know you from?” I knew what early stages were and my father was far beyond early. Given that he was diagnosed thirteen years earlier, it was highly unlikely that it would remain in the “early” stages. Then there was the doctor who billed my father’s insurance company for a hospital visit the morning after my father died. Then and then there are too many more that include, lies, misinformation, promises, bad decisions and you fill out the rest.
It is not just my experiences. The experience of others has made me include doctors with the other two notorious Ps politicians and police. In fact, it is unlikely that you don’t have stories. Perhaps you have resentments too.
My resentments/irritations are intertwined with fear. I don’t want to be in their system, in their clutches, having to trust them and wondering if their medicines have side-effects and what they are and having to look up what doctors tell me to detect their lies. My feelings border on either paranoia or healthy skepticism depending upon your viewpoint.
Resentments Cause Disharmony
It recently occurred to me that it would be good to release my bad feelings as I know that resentments basically cause bodily disharmony and work against the person who has ill thoughts and feelings, meaning me. How was I going to do this? I tried understanding the medical profession. Ok. They didn’t receive nutrition training. That was clear. They make mistakes. We all do. Some of their errors injure or kill people. Some of their mistakes make some people worse or do not heal the ailments that were promised. Haven’t we all made promises that we didn’t keep? Still I had a charge around the medical profession.
I posed a question again. How could I release my over-the-top prejudice that ultimately was only harming me? I knew if i asked the question enough, answers would come to me. It always had. About two weeks ago, an answer presented itself as they often do when we aren’t looking. I was on my computer watching Ted Talks. Somehow i found myself watching a talk about death and dying. A man by the name o B. J. Miller who manages pain at the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco was talking about his work. In the middle of a talk about how to live meaningfully while preparing for death he said that most people enter the medical profession with good intentions and then other things happen. There was the line , the one sentence that I had been waiting for. “Most people had good intentions” and I took it in.
No Comments