On loving others

1.  Back in April, I went on a three-day leadership conference to Albuquerque, New Mexico and the surrounding pueblos. On our last night there, we went to the home of a Navajo healer who had a temescal in her backyard. About 12 of us huddled into this large earthen dome, which felt like it was at least 112 degrees and 5000% humidity. The idea of the temescal is that you will sweat out your illness and negativity and emerge healthy and clean. (In full disclosure: I'm very skeptical about the medicinal nature of things like this, unless it's some sort of placebo effect. It was certainly sweaty.)

this is an oven in the acoma pueblo. the temescal sort of looked like
this, but it was larger and had a cloth over the door instead
of a stone.

While in the temescal, one lady played a drum while another simply repeated "ohmetao" over and over.

"Ohmetao" means: "I see the divine in me, I see the divine in you."

2.  During a unique grand rounds back in October, where the subject was on how doctors can deliver more humanistic care:

"Find something to like about every patient. Even better, find something to love."

(I actually wrote it down because I liked it so much.)

3. During hot yoga today, from my instructor:

"See the goodness in yourself, and see the goodness in those around you."

4. And finally, Genesis 1:27:

"So God created mankind in his own image"

In this spirit of my sixth/unofficial New Year's Resolution, I'm hoping to keep all of these somewhat disjointed thoughts floating in my head, and try to remember that every single person I encounter is special and lovely and divine and deserves my upmost respect and understanding and love.