Wellness in weariness!

During my walk in our garden, I noticed the rose flowers above ready to open. Thy looked fresh, colourful  and the petals in sharp margins. The flowers were fragrant and soon the bees and butterflies would come looking for nectar. 

On the other end of the garden were these rose flowers which blossomed a couple of days  back. Both of them had the petals folded in the edges, only faintly fragrant and carried a withering look! They did bear the marks of exposure to the sun and rain. 

 Sometimes the sights we see create within us a train of thoughts. 

It brought into a focus to enquire into my state of wellness after fifty years in the practice of medicine, out of which forty years were spent with children having neuro-developmental needs. 

I wondered for myself what might be the marks that I carry with me,  following this prolonged exposure to situations of parental distress in having had to cope with the special needs of their children. 

When I retired one month ago, I knew that I was physically and emotionally tired. I felt that I needed a distance from regular clinical work because listening, which was easy and relational earlier, had recently become burdensome and demanding. There was an inadvertent traction to dwell on the difficulties and needs of families in a preoccupied way. I slept well, maintained good physical health in the recent years and did most of the things that I have been used to do. There was a constraint on time and the working hours had prolonged into longer hours. 

The weekly personal audit, monthly break for three days for reflection and rest and taking time to have personal debriefing with a senior friend regularly became erratic for a few years. The work place demands were more than I was comfortable with. The annual retreat that Anna and I were used to, got discontinued for ten years . 

Having sensed this about five years back, I knew that I was no more like the flowers in the first photo. I knew that the last two flowers represented my inner state of weariness. 

I decided to take a break.  I was ready for it three years ago. A colleague who went for neurology training was to be back to take responsibilities in my work place in 2021. I longingly waited for that to happen. But that did not happen. I could not prolong the wait. So when I stepped out of my work place when I turned 75 years, I knew that it was the beginning for restoring wellness and finding the new vocation for the next phase of life. 

During the last one month, the exercise of identifying  the stress factors in the recent years, my responses to difficult situations, and discerning the inner ambience gave me the opening to turn the next phase of life into 'harvesting'. So much has happened in the last forty years!

It was while writing the Neuro-developmental summary of a child who visited in 2013 when he was four years with right sided hemiparesis, who is now 14 years, I realised how his life took a new turn into plentiful opportunities over the years. He is at school, walks, talks and relates normally. There are grey areas of learning, comprehension and cognitive abilities. But he is a person ready to move on to exercise his residual abilities. His parents are a tower of strength to him. 

While reading the clinical of notes I wrote in the hospital record, each time he came to visit, about three times in a year, I felt lifted up in my spirit to see the incremental recovery he made. 

This remarkable story of one child turned my attention to about 20 children with hemiparesis, who have been in similar follow up discipline. It was while remembering their progress and coping skills, I found another optic to look at the previous years. It was in giving, one receives back. It brought an inner ambience of the cause which I was enabled to pursue!

The rose flowers blossom for others. In the process, flowers whither and fade away in the fullness of time. I liked how the last tow towers had water drops on the petals, a reminder of provision to amend the dryness in the petals. 

Till when one's time has come to fade away, it is good to live full, well and abounding. It is for this reason each professional person ought to have a personal development plan. It is this approach that can protect a person from weariness setting in before time.

As I move thorough the process of recovering from weariness, the message I carry with me, is that wellness amidst weariness is also a reality!

A doctor who had to appear twice for the NEET examination to qualify for his post graduate studies, spent his in between time helping medical students in the final year,  who were struggling after the COVID season without enough clinical exposure to bedside clinics. He turned his disappointment in to an opportunity. 

Finding wellness amidst weariness or anxiety!

Life is for Living, Learning and Growing!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)