I smile. “I know that feeling. But how many days do you spend frantically running around, thinking you’re getting a lot done, but at the end of it all, you realize you didn’t accomplish much because you couldn’t focus on one thing at a time, and you end up feeling even more frazzled and like you wasted a day.”
Amanda opens her mouth to argue, but then her brows bend in even more, and she closes it again. “I guess I never realized it, but yes… I’ve done that more times than I can count.”
My entire place is dark, save for that small light from my diffuser and the lights of the city sparkling outside my windows. We’re seated on two small cushions on the floor of my living room, where I usually meditate, and I can’t help but think how much warmer my condo feels with her in it.
Reaching forward, I fold my hand over her knee, squeezing until her eyes find mine.
“I know it’s tough. It’s weird. It’s frustrating. That’s all normal. It’s going to take time. They call it meditation practice for a reason — because there is no perfect way to do it, no achievement you can mark off that suddenly makes you a master. You just show up, and you try to be present. That’s it. That’s the practice.”
Amanda’s eyes fall to where my hand is on her knee, so I clear my throat and sit back, removing the touch.
Her shoulders slump even more then. “Why is it so hard.”
I smile at that. “Because we all have monkey minds that want to drag us from the present moment by thinking about the past, or the future, or ideas or thoughts or things we have on our to-do list.”
“And what do you get out of it? I mean, is it just permanent frustration forever?”
I chuckle. “No. It…” I pause, thinking. “Eventually, the more you practice, the more you start to find peace. And not just when you’re meditating, but in everyday life. You can enjoy the present moment more, find more space for gratitude and less for anxiety.”
“You sound like such a hippie right now.”
“Just humor me,” I say on a laugh. “Let’s get through this first session without you calling it quits. Just listen to the guidance. Twenty minutes,” I add. “That’s all I’m asking for.”
Amanda sighs, but I smirk, holding up our secret b sign with my fingers curling into my thumb.
She smiles at that, sitting up straight again and cracking her neck. “Fine, fine. It might kill me, but I’ll do my best to be quiet for twenty minutes.”
“Might set a new personal record.”
She peeks one eye open before flipping me the bird, a smile on her face as she closes her eyes once more.
Then, I hit play on the meditation, taking three deep breaths to settle back in.
The female voice guiding us is low and soothing, walking us through focusing on our breath. Every now and then, after a prolonged period of just the music playing, the facilitator reminds us to not get frustrated when our mind starts going, and instead just kindly bring our attention back to the breath or point of focus — which, for me, is almost always my hands.
I feel a distant tingling in them, like a reminder that I’m alive, that I have cells and blood and muscles and organs that make up a human body.
It doesn’t take long before I slip into that calm state of being I’ve come to love so much. My mind clears, settling into a subtle kind of awareness. I’m not trying to force anything. I’m just existing.
I remember what it used to feel like, how I would get bored, agitated, or frustrated with myself for not doing it right. But over time, meditation has transformed for me, bringing me peace, bliss, and inspiration.
A quiet bell rings, signaling the practice is complete, and our facilitator thanks us for joining her and invites us to open our eyes.
When I do, it’s just in time to see Amanda’s eyelids flutter open, and she releases a long, quiet exhale.
“Well, how do you feel?”
She frowns, then smiles, then frowns again, shaking her head. “I… don’t know. I mean, at first, I was just annoyed, honestly. But, after a while, I started to get the hang of it. I think. I mean, I definitely had to keep pulling myself back to the moment, but I wasn’t as frustrated as when we started.”
“Just wait until you go deep,” I say, stretching out my legs.
“Go deep, eh?” She waggles her brows.
“Perv,” I tease. “I mean when you reach this crazy kind of calm, and you feel so relaxed and focused at the same time that the time flies by, and before you know it, the bell is ringing.”
Amanda’s lip curls. “You mean I have to do this again?”
I bark out a laugh at that, standing and reaching a hand down to help her up. “That is kind of the point. But if you hated it, I won’t force you. You tried it once. That’s enough for me.”
Her eyes find mine through the dim lighting when she’s standing. “Is this why you’re always so calm?”
“I’m not always calm,” I tell her. “But yes, it’s helped. Especially in the OR. I don’t have time or space to be anxious there, you know? I need that focus, that calmness, that clear-headed ability to think and make decisions.”
Her eyebrows raise. “I never even thought of that, the pressure you must feel when you’re putting someone under.” She pauses. “Is it scary?”
I grab my neck. “It used to be, when I was first learning. They drill it into you how important every minute detail is, how one small thing being off could be catastrophic. Imagine if you were put under enough to where you couldn’t verbalize or move, but you could still feel pain?”
“That’s like everyone’s worst nightmare.”
“And it’s my job to make sure it doesn’t ever become a reality.” I nod toward the kitchen, and Amanda follows me over as I pour us both a tall glass of water. “But really, once you go through school and residency, it all starts to become routine. As crazy as that sounds. Car accidents, people missing limbs, bleeding or barely alive… you run through the motions, so to speak. It’s all protocol, like an algorithm.”
“Does it stay that way?”
“For the most part.” I hand her a full glass of water and take a sip of my own. “The scariest thing now is when you think you’re going in for something that should be pretty standard routine, something easy, and then it unexpectedly goes wrong. The patient might not be getting enough oxygen and I have to figure out why and how to fix that. Or when a woman comes in to give birth, for example. That’s usually a situation where everything goes smoothly. But now and then, you have something go terribly wrong — preeclampsia or a uterine rupture or worse — and suddenly what should be one of the happiest moments of a woman’s life is a terrifying life-or-death situation that I play a huge role in.”
Amanda sets her water down on the island, her eyes wide. “That’s so much to have on your shoulders, Greg.”
I swallow but shrug it off. “It is. But this is what I love to do. It’s what I’m trained to do. And ninety-nine percent of the time, I feel confident that I’m doing everything exactly as I should. But that’s exactly why meditation is so important to me, because me second guessing myself, or letting any kind of anxiety or self-doubt creep in doesn’t just affect me. It affects another human being. A human being trusting me to keep them alive and okay.”