Got a 'memo' last night that I needed to arrive to work 30 minutes early today. (Okay, it was an 'email,' but for some reason I just felt like pretending it was the pre-email era of say 1983.) "Photo shoot with journalists." Okay. Whatever that means.
I arrived to work 30 minutes early and actually put a little make-up on (not part of this nature girl's normal daily routine but hey, why not). There were about 5 people in my office setting up lights, cameras...The hosts of some U.S. cable show called 'Spa Seekers' were visiting the resort for 3 days shooting a piece highlighting our resort...and I had been chosen to be their health consultant. What does that mean? That means that for the next 2 hours, I repeated the same 5 sentences of health advice over and over and over...with the camera to my right, to my left, focusing on the 2 young female hosts, focusing on me, focusing on my finger pointing at the brochure....Needless to say, any dreams I've ever had about becoming a famous movie star quickly evaporated into thin air when I quite swiftly learned how incredibly boring and monotonous it is to shoot probably what will end up being a 30 second clip! Anyway, it will air in the US on the Cable Vision channel in Jan '09....I suppose you could say it will be my 30 seconds of fame....Well no, I don't think so. That will be when I'm on Oprah talking about stem cell therapy...
Noon arrived. Lunch time. Headed out of my air conditioned office into the hot, humid air... that I truly love. (I have been cold in Seattle for years...sometimes even when the sun is out I was cold. Not here! The air warms me to my bones! I am sitting in my bedroom right now and its 80. I love it.) Anyway, walked the 3 minute stroll down the back alley that runs along the outer border of the resort into the staff cafeteria. Remember back in junior high, when you'd walk into the cafeteria and take a quick scan looking for perhaps 'the cool' table, or trying to decide which group of your friends to sit with? Well, when you walk into a cafeteria full of Thais speaking Thai, and then there is one little table of white skinned people speaking English, there really isn't much of a debate about where you're going to sit. I could sit at one of the two outside tables on the tiny little deck....with the smokers. So I got my food and went to have a seat at 'my' table.
My dear colleague Will was having a discussion about one of his morning patients. She fully acknowledged that she was obese and an alcoholic, that she wanted to do nothing about it, and that she was deeply happy with her life. Will stated what a load of bs that is because when one is a slave to an addiction, freedom and full contentment cannot coexist within that state of slavery. What followed was an excellent discussion. "There are many different levels to the human psyche," I said. "What if she was truly a slave in her earlier years and now she is free? Happiness is a relative thing. Perhaps being a slave was the most horrible experience she could ever dream of and now that she is free, she's elated. What was once just a dream, is now her reality." "But she doesn't see that she is not free. She is still a slave....now to her addiction." "Sure, she is an addict. But pain is also relative. Your pain, her pain, my pain... can never be measured apples to apples. The entirety of ones life's circumstances determine how one views life. It is never the event that is good or bad....only what each individual's take on it is real. Perfect example: movies. One person hates it. You love it.... it's always less about the movie than about how each person chooses to look at it. Such is true with everything in life.... Furthermore, defense mechanisms are powerful realities...so powerful that they can make people believe even the most absurd lies. Pain? What pain? I am blissfully happy....And so it is." The clock hit 12:50 and back to our little air conditioned offices we went.
Ring. Ring. "Jody, your next client is here." I walk down the hallway and greet, let's call her Susan (patient confidentiality...can't use real names). Susan has come to see me for a nutrition consultation. "I must lose 20 kilograms. I hate this (as she points to her body). Tell me what to eat. Tell me what to do for exercise. What tea should I drink? How do I get rid of cellulite? What massages should I get? How often? What else do I need to do? This body isn't me. I must lose 20 kilograms." I take a deep breath and assess the situation. The counseling side of me is coming up with a lot of ideas of how to proceed. Yet, I must realize that I have 50 minutes with this woman whom I will likely never see again. If she was a patient in MY practice, that would be one thing....I'd have much more time to work with the deeper issue at hand...of perhaps self hatred and fear. But in a ritzy resort, a lot of people wont be happy unless they, "just lose this weight!" Working here has been an excellent exercise in learning to work with patients where they are at. They have an agenda. I have an agenda. The art is finding out where the middle is....
With Susan, I just focused on answering her questions. "More fruits and vegetables is a good start. Here is a list of low and high sugar vegetables..." "Pumpkin is high sugar?! THAT is why I am fat! I eat pumpkin all the time!" "Well, Susan, 'high sugar' vegetables doesn't mean that you can never eat them. What it means is.....And as for this list of fruit, if you are having blood sugar level issues, you should probably limit your fruit intake to no more than 2-3 fruits a day." "Watermelon is on this list! I love watermelon! So I get to eat the whole watermelon as one fruit?!" "Well, actually sorry to make this confusing but no...." "My body doesn't feel good when I eat wheat so I only eat whole grain bread." "Well, Susan, 'whole grain' doesnt mean it doesnt contain wheat. 'Whole grain' just means that the wheat hasn't been refined...." Does anyone else see the humor in these basic, basic nutrition questions?!
It was a fun day. :-)
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