Hello everyone! I think it is about almost a month since I recorded an episode. I would write my intention in my SMD, you know my SMD start my day, but other activities which seem as important, you know, seem as important, would show up and there you go, I would just abandon this podcast episode, doing the podcast episode. By now you know that, you know what triggers me to do a podcast episode, right?
I have to show up, that's as simple as I have to show up. For anything for that matter, for doing anything, it's just that you show up, show up in your present, show up in your present moment with your body, with your emotion and with your intellectual ability, right? It's all showing up. Right, so that's exactly what I'm doing right now.
Normally I record the episode in the morning, but today I'm doing it in the afternoon. I wrote, I just, you know, masterminded with myself and I wrote and then I just put it aside and today is Friday, I have my Friday Pooja and I said, should I keep it for Saturday or should I just do it? And I just, I said, you know what Lalita, let's do it. Let's do it.
I'm doing it now. So last couple of days I wasn't feeling my best. I had my annual physical exam and also a booster shot. I don't know about you, but when it comes to an annual exam, one thing that I get most sensitive about is this.
I have a very small wing and the nurse struggles to get the blood. She struggles to get the blood. I am visualizing the pain that I'm going to have, the pain of the entire process of her searching and all that stuff, you know, her searching, not getting it, all those thoughts, feelings and actions going on there. Part of me feels, oh my God, it is going to be painful and that creates some stress.
And you know, it's a physical examination, so they're going to test your blood pressure and everything. So then I'm thinking, oh my God, stressing about this, the thought of all these blood work is going to shoot my blood pressure. And I also have that whiteboard syndrome. Guess what?
This time my baby was normal, okay? Ha ha. As that was the first step in the process before going for the blood work. I was so happy as though I won a prestigious award.
Then I had to wait in the lounge for my blood work. Yet another thing. It's the fasting blood. No, no, you can't eat anything.
I couldn't take my medicinal water, which I take every morning and also a hot cup of tea. Nope, I couldn't take any of those. I know you must be wondering, how was the blood work, Lalita? What is going on?
Well, as usual, the nurse was searching for the veins in my left hand. I know she can look in my right hand. I said, let her do it. I was sure that, you know, she should be able to get it in the right hand.
In the right hand. And there you go, she was searching. So she started searching at every one of her fingertips, kept my eyes closed. I kept my eyes closed and I looked on the other side.
I dare not look at the right hand where she's locating the right elbow, where she's locating my veins to collect the blood. After a few minutes of her struggling, she got ahead and warned me, hun, it is such a narrow vein. I started biting my teeth and I said to myself, Lalita, be patient with yourself. Don't resist.
What do you resist versus suggest be patient with yourself? Then she said, if you have pain, please let me know. I was actually putting my face the other side. Number one, number two, I was biting my teeth.
There was absolutely no way that I'm going to open my mouth and speak and say, oh, I'm having pain or blah, blah, blah. Okay. That was the way I was coping up. I didn't respond, but within few minutes, the process was over.
I was a happy camper smiling away and walked out of the room. I'm wondering, why did I even choose to share this experience with you? Here you go. As I asked this question, why did I even choose to share this experience with you?
There comes the answer. This was the dominant roller coaster ride of happiness and fearsome emotional experiences, you know roller coaster, emotional experiences that I went through very recently. I'm sure you all must have gone through the annual physical exam or you must have gone through some other exam which you fear like I do. For the purpose of this episode, I will cover how I have changed or evolved my response to the thought of my blood work.
It's an annual blood work, right? So it's going to pop up every year. But anyway, I'm just observing myself, you know, and how have I evolved in the last 10 years, right? I've gone through my blood work and I've gone through my narrow ways.
My relationship with this entire process, right? Let's cover the last 10 years. During the first five year period, the first five year period, I was visiting a primary physician who would examine me and would draw me a blood. I would go to the doctor with the fear of having pain and the doubt of whether he can locate the vein in my elbow area.
In my opinion, he was a great fell bottomist because he would draw the blood also, so he was a trained fell bottomist and a practicing physician. So there was one instance when he could not locate the vein in either of my elbows and he had to draw blood from my palm. Oh my God. What is it called?
The palm is the inside, the outside, whatever you call. I'm not getting the right word. So he had to draw blood from the hand, the upper side, a palm, but on the upper side. The thought of that experience itself is making my heart beat faster.
Oh my God. So, oh yeah. Okay. So let's come to the second five year part period of the last 10 years.
So I had to change my doctor to switch it to the hospital system, you know, because all the records will be in one place. I didn't want to change, but in the long run, it was a better option because, you know, all the records will be in one place. So now you don't have the same doctor and that doctor is not a fell bottomist. Okay.
So every year I have a different fell bottomist and every year I had to relay my story about my, you know, my fighting my vein, it is difficult and all that blah, blah, blah. They would ask me, did you have enough liquid, flow water and I would say yes and all that stuff. I will get to meet a new person. Okay.
So I will get to get to meet a new person. I'll have a new experience. I'll become better at understanding that person. Each fell bottomist become more compassionate to myself.
Hey, Lalita, you're doing good. You're doing better. Whatever. And be loving and compassionate, compassionate observer to the fell bottomist.
So initially I would say, oh, you know, I need to train the person and all that stuff. And then slowly I started, you know, telling myself, you know, okay, let me trust, let me trust her ability or his ability to do the blood work, you know, slowly the evolution of my thought process, mainly because of the meditation I do, maybe because of the prayers I do, maybe because of the self talk, which we, which I do as a part of myself development process, personal development process. I don't know. These things do matter, right?
So you might be wondering, where is this going? Well, here is the message. As much as we resist change, change is the only thing that is constant. We get attached to that one doctor or that one person judging that he or she is the best.
He or she would really do wonders for me. In any, you can try to apply this in other domains also. I'm just giving you one example of this blood work event. But when we give ourselves permission to be more open minded, when we give ourselves permission to embrace the change, take it as a challenging learning experience without beating ourselves up without keeping an attachment to the way we want the outcome to be.
Wonders happen. Wonders happen. Yeah, another thing. Here that suffering, remember this equation, interesting, try to see whether it applies for you.
Suffering is equal to pain times the resistance. S is equal to P into T. That's right, P into R. So if you give yourself permission to reduce resistance, reduce resistance, okay?
Reduce R. Then you suffer less. Then you suffer less. For sure, I realized that this equation worked out true for me in the blood work event.
Now it's your turn. Now it's your turn to put it into practice. Try it for yourself in any domain that you want to and let me know share your experience. By the way, the podcast also allows you to record a voice note if you want to as you're testing one as your insight.
Or you can just send me a WhatsApp message as to what you have to say. With that said, until I connect with you in my next episode, you have a fantastic day and a great weekend. Bye bye.