Living life lightly

There are undoubtedly many ways and aspects to living life lightly. Some of us are lucky enough to be born that way – with an innate lightness of being – others may learn it somewhere along the way.

Many years ago, on a cold dark winter night with snow falling heavily in my home country of Switzerland, I attended an evening group course in ‘Spieltherapy’ - or in other words ‘play therapy’. Now, this was a course for adults. Ooh, not what you might be thinking. It was all quite proper. No nude stuff.

For the life of me I cannot remember what prompted me to sign up. Not my usual evening entertainment for sure, but I did. Not expecting much of anything, somewhat curious and chilled to the bone, I showed up. And, during the course of two hours, I learned one of the most profound life lessons to date - namely, to hold things lightly.

So, we were given the choice of a ‘toy’ or game. Some people chose hula hoops or the diavolo, juggling balls, or pins. I chose a saucer and a long stick. It seemed an apt choice, as I was - and still am - juggling many saucers on many sticks at the same time. So, the idea is to keep the saucer spinning on top of the stick without it falling to the ground and smashing to smithereens.

Predictably, the first few attempts with the toy ended in the saucer crashing to the ground. Wisely, the Spiel therapist had provided plastic saucers in anticipation of over eager participants. After many futile attempts at keeping the saucer spinning on the stick, the Spiel lady took pity on me and suggested I try relaxing my wrists and giving the stick light flicks instead. Now, I had been white-knuckling the stick, desperately trying to control the motion of the rotating saucer at the top end of my stick with an ever increasing sore wrist and rising levels of frustration. Finally, I gave her advise a try, and flicked my wrist lightly. Lo and behold! The saucer started smartly spinning on its stick! My wrist had relaxed and was rotating easily. My fingers were holding the stick loosely. That bloody saucer kept wheeling for minutes.

So, what had I learnt? That holding on very tightly is painful. Attempting to control the movement of an object on the opposite end of a long pole - through sheer force - doesn’t work. And that a light touch does the trick, and that keeping a saucer - that would rather make its way to the ground - up in the air, can feel next to effortless.

Of course this is an apt metaphor for life. Since doing the ‘Spieltherapie’, I have come to notice multiple times, and mostly in hindsight, when I’ve been clinging too tightly to stuff, when I’ve tried to control an outcome, and hence the things have not gone to plan. And, I’ve realised it was because I was trying too hard. I was wanting to force things. Needing to control things. So yes, holding things tightly is not the best approach. Holding things lightly, however, often works a lot better, it enables you to live your life with a bit more ease and grace, not worrying overly much about the exact outcomes and not clinging to pre-formed ideas and expectations. This is a good thing. It opens things up, it creates possibilities, it gives space for stuff to unfold, it makes the experience more fun, easier - and sometimes - near effortless.

Do no harm AND take no shit

Mmh, maybe something to ponder for the beginning of a new year? I’ve just recently stumbled across this catchy phrase. I do not know who came up with it, but it must have been someone pretty clever. So, I’ve decided to unabashedly make this my motto, henceforth.

This really resonates with me. As a medical professional this is our highest tenet: “Do no harm!”, and so it should be. We’ve sworn an oath after all, and this underpins everything we do as health care professionals. We want to provide a benefit, not harm.

And yet… This seems a bit narrow and incomplete. Let’s look at this a bit more broadly. There is a real risk that doing no harm could be reduced to doing no physical harm, doing no harm to others. What about harm to self? Or it could be misconstrued as a justification to take shit, where no shit needs to be taken, to play nice when nice-play isn’t helpful, to not do anything before risk harming someone (which of course in and of itself can be the most harmful thing of all).

So, I’d like to advocate for the second bit. I strongly believe in doing no harm to others or to self. So, doing no harm as a standalone is incomplete. There needs to be an addendum. We need to add the ‘take no shit’ bit. This is about boundaries and respect. What this really means is that we subscribe to the first bit by being helpful, supportive, respectful, kind, competent, careful AND we maintain our boundaries. We let people know what is and is not acceptable to us, we make this clear, we advocate for our own boundaries and we enforce them if necessary. Knowing, communicating and maintaining your boundaries in essence is respecting, standing up for, and not harming ourselves. Once this baseline has been established, then we can start thinking about how a benefit can be added within the (therapeutic) relationship. A benefit where both parties come out of the encounter better than they were before. But that’s a topic for another day.

You’ve probably worked out by now that this applies to interacting with anyone, really, and goes beyond the medical context. It applies to patients, to colleagues, friends, family, you name it.

To sum to up, if I were to rephrase my motto in a broader sense, it means giving and asserting respect, interacting with care and honouring the integrity of self and others. It’s about minding boundaries.