Slice of My Life as a Surgeon
present moment and the fragility of life✨
Beautiful human, thank you for reading Permission Slips (PS). It is an invitation into self-inquiry and an offering to question your beliefs and judgments and wake up to your authentic truth.
Permission Slip : I give myself permission to be here now ✨
With all the talk about fight & flight I imagine that you likely know about how our survival mechanism has our minds wired to focus on what’s next (future planning) or replay what’s already happened (past regrets). This often keeps us distracted and missing the joy and richness of the present moment - the Eternal Now.
In this PS I share a short 500-word personal essay I wrote for submission to an online publication. Since they didn’t choose to publish it I can share it openly here with you😊. It’s about an experience I had while working in a Level I Trauma Center in the Bronx during my surgical residency. Yes, I may look sweet but I had my badass days, LOL. This essay helps depict how we are essentially a conglomeration of our past and our present experiences. And at times, these virtual worlds collide wildly inside of our minds in a given moment. When we awaken to the fact that this collision is inviting us to return to the present moment, we can intentionally come back to the here and now.
(*trigger warning - involves trauma/death)
My Story✨
Lessons From A Short Life
Little grimy fingers full of grass and dirt from soccer practice squeezed my hand, “I want a strawberry milkshake, Mommy.”
My son’s voice faded into the background as I focused on the menu above the cashier at Yogurtland. The bright ceiling lights brought me back to the bustling emergency room where I spent two years of my surgical residency. Suddenly the stench of urine, excrement, and vomit filled my nostrils. The nurses’ loud voices rose above the chaotic hum of beeping monitors. Time disappeared.
I was in my familiar green scrubs, white lab coat, and messy ponytail – two chocolate lifelines tucked into my back pocket, Twix and M&Ms. It was the heart of the Bronx in the mid-’90s – we nicknamed it the Bronx Zoo. Gang violence, drive-by shootings, and turf wars were at an all-time high, feeding us a nightly dose of stab wounds, hit-and-runs, and gunshots.
While suturing Mrs.Garcia’s facial dog-bite cheek laceration in ER slot six, I spotted the paramedic team rushing a stretcher into slot nine. The operators frantically shouted overhead, Trauma Team to the ER, Trauma Team to the ER. With pupils focused, heart racing, and my mind alert, I sprinted to meet my fellow residents at the patient’s side.
“Sixteen-year-old male, unresponsive. Gunshot wound to the chest, pupils fixed and dilated, unstable vitals. Picked him up at the 7-Eleven on Tremont. Probable drive-by shooting by a rival gang,” the head paramedic shouted.
My gaze anchored on honey-colored eyes half open, as if flirting. Three ripening pimples on the right cheek and an endotracheal tube hanging from his mouth, as if chewing on a large straw. I zeroed in on a quarter-inch hole with jagged edges near his hairless left nipple, under the golden Jesus on a cross pendant that hung from his necklace. Was it a gift from his mom to keep him safe on the streets?
The sweet scent of regurgitated Big Gulp slushy clung stubbornly to the air, blending grotesquely with the coppery tang of blood and bile-soaked stench of vomit, a too-bright scent in a place with no room for sweetness. My mouth watered involuntarily.
My gloved hands pumped his chest vigorously. With each compression, his strawberry breath faintly blew the sweaty bangs on my forehead. He looks like my younger brother, barely old enough for a razor.
The chief resident interrupted my thoughts, “Another one bites the dust.”
***
“Mommy, strawberry milkshake, pleaseee!” His sweet voice chimed, bringing me to blink rapidly, clearing out the bright lights of the Yogurtland ceiling and returning me to the fullness of the present moment. Be here, I told myself, caressing my son’s smooth cheek. Realizing that his hand would soon be too big to fit in mine.
Deeper Dive✨
We’re challenged on a daily basis to balance our minds with the weight of holding our past experiences and also with the temptation to either plan for the future or worry about it. All the while, remembering the immediacy of the present moment that beckons us to return from our thoughts. In the experience I shared above I engaged with this collision of mental chaos and grief before making a deliberate sharp turn back to the present moment.
Throughout my spiritual journey of the past 16+ years, I learned that all the causes and conditions of the past have shaped me and brought me to this time in my life. I also learned that the present moment is what grounds me and allows me to find meaning in my experiences. Through many silent retreats and the ancient wisdom teachings I’ve practiced present moment awareness and mindfulness so as to return within minutes, though mostly it takes seconds, to ground in the present moment and savor the ordinary joys of the Now.
The poet Rainer Maria Rilke spoke of life’s paradoxes when he wrote,
“Let everything happen to you, beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
This is the reality of the unembellished “what-isness” of the present moment. Our days are colored by both, life’s sweetness and pain, as they coexist within our lives. With intentional practice we can learn to ground back into the profound aliveness of the present moment, savoring the Now.
Closing Thought✨
Through a myriad of experiences I’ve learned that our human lives are shaped by both trauma and loving moments. While throughout it all, the present moment awaits for us to return home to the Now.
Journaling Prompts✨Can you bear it all, the beauty and the terror of life?
How do you ground yourself in the present so as not to miss life’s fleeting sweetness? (journal, take a deep breath, do a body scan, or other tools?)
What percent % of your day do you live in the present moment and how much time do you spend ruminating about the past and/or planning/worrying about the future?
I invite you to write your own PS : I give myself permission to…
In deep gratitude. In Love, Dr. Tamy, Soul Surgeon ✨
TheMindFul Space/ https://www.tmfspace.com/
*p.s. i love you❣️
READ PERMISSION SLIP # 2:
I loved this, Tamy! These words are so true and powerful: "...at times, these virtual worlds collide wildly inside of our minds in a given moment. When we awaken to the fact that this collision is inviting us to return to the present moment, we can intentionally come back to the here and now."
Our brains are such powerful time machines, and anxiety and trauma so often want to take the past and slingshot us into the future, and the future is never good when anxiety is at the helm. This is a powerful reminder to stay in today. Thank you!
Trauma can have the most in opportune triggers. I’m an emergency veterinarian and have struggled with leaving the events of the day at work so as to be present with my family when home. It’s a continual practice to stay in the present moment. Thank you for sharing this.