I started blogging again to support the marketing efforts of my internal medicine and weight management practices in Schaumburg and Vernon Hills, and at the same time, starting to write again has been a gift. It’s giving me a platform to talk about life changing ideas that I’ve discovered through my studies of mindfulness, meditation, conscious communication (also known as non-violent communication or NVC), enneagram studies and the works of many others involved in caring for people in novel ways. Mindfulness is providing me an interesting skillset with which to watch with new eyes my experiences, the experiences of those around me, and the habits ingrained in our culture.
I just returned from an amazing trip to Europe with my 19-year-old daughter, Karina. After sending her away to California for her first year of college, and then to Madrid to study physics for the summer and improve her Spanish, I was thrilled to have two weeks to travel to places I’ve never been with my first child to cross the threshold into adulthood. While we were travelling, I brought with me a book by the renowned writer and surgeon, Atul Gawande, entitled Being Mortal. I first heard about the book five years ago when it was released and more recently a patient gifted me a copy which sat on my nightstand with all my other “must reads”. I never know why my hands fall onto just the right book at just the right moment in my life, but once again, reading about the three marks of existence – illness, aging, and death – seemed like the perfect thing to bring on this celebratory trip with my daughter.