How do we become more conscious and work with our patients in such a way that we can improve the outcomes, improve their health?
“BE THE CHANGE”
Gandhi
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Transcription
Hi, this is Michelle Sherman, president of MichRX Pharmacist consulting services and your host for the conscious pharmacist podcast. Welcome to this week’s episode that I have called put on your oxygen mask. First. You know how it is when you get on those flights and they’re doing their pre-flight safety, schpeel and how the flight attendants always say, you know, in the event of, um, you know, losing pressure in the aircraft, the oxygen masks will fall down.
And if you have small children, remember always to put on your oxygen mask too. I thought this was really a good way and a good title for this week’s podcast because you know, as pharmacists, we are so busy taking care of our patients, dealing with the stresses of day to day pharmacy, if you will, with all of the tsunami and all the problems of things that we have to navigate with PBMs, decreased reimbursements, margins, how are we changing our practices and innovating and becoming conscious with ourselves and with our patients.
How do we become more conscious and work with our patients in such a way that we can improve the outcomes, improve their health? We deal with all these things and really we the last people to put on the oxygen masks. We, I feel we put on it on the oxygen mask, on everybody around us and we suffer and take the last breath, um, with the last bit of oxygen that’s left. So this analogy of what they do on an aircraft before it takes off about the oxygen mosque was really the impetus of today’s podcast because we have to be conscious and aware of our own stresses and strains that we go through. On a daily basis and be able to practice self-care for ourselves unless we take care of ourselves and we’re conscious, become mindful and take care of ourselves. How are we going to take care of our families, our staff members, our team members, our patients?
How are we going to do that if we can’t take care of ourselves? So it really started at the top of that pyramid, that episode on the aircraft where the oxygen masks drop down and we put those oxygen masks on for ourselves. Once we can take their first breath of oxygen, we can put the oxygen mask on everybody else around us, our families, our children, our, our communities at team members, our patients.
When we take care of ourselves and we practice self-care for ourselves, we are really then able to take care of the rest of our community and our families. So that’s the impetus of today’s podcast. And what I wanted to, to introduce this time is, um, the initial podcast where we talk about some books that are good to read and you know, from time to time I’ll be doing more podcasts on some of the books that I’ve read.
But I found for myself, taking care of myself is critically important. That enables me to do the things that I need to do for my family, for my community, for my business and for my patients. When I practice self-care for myself by doing meditation practice every day, doing yoga, stretching, I feel better as a whole. And then when I feel better in my energy centered and aligned, I can take better care of my family, my team members, my business, my patients, and everybody around me. So the books I wanted to talk about today or books that I loved, I read a lot of books.
I find that it’s like a meditation for me. It’s like get out of pharmacy and HIV and the business and doing everything we do is to shift in a complete different direction and read some books. I really like reading spiritual books and books that are going to empower me to take care of myself and to take care of all those around me.
Essentially practicing the spirit of Ubuntu. Right? So the books, the three books I want to talk about today, I draw your Trinity, a trilogy of books that are very easy to read and books. I can only encourage you to or grab a copy from Amazon, um, the links to the books or on the transcript of, of, of this podcast. But let me just tell you, I love these books. I can put them down and um, they really made a difference to me. So, David Michie, he’s an author. He’s originally from, grew up in, um, is Zimbabwe and went to, um, a university in South Africa actually.
And he’s written books on Buddhism, mindfulness and spirituality, but he’s written this trilogy of books. Um, the first one’s called the Dalai Lama’s cat. These are novels and it’s about a cat, but the Dalai Lama’s Cat. But our incredible stories with extraordinary lessons that a very easy read and you really walk away with a wealth of information, it really makes you feel better.
So his first book is called the Dalai Lama’s cat. I’m talking about the cat and how he came to be with the Dalai Lama and his journey with um, learning about himself from a kitten. Um, the second book is called the art of pairing, which is really essentially a book about happiness and how when seeks and finds our happiness all through the eyes of again, the Dalai Lama’s cat. And the third book is called the power of meow, which is like a play on the book of Erckhart Tolle, the power of now.
And it’s really, a book through the eyes again of the Dalai Lama’s kit, but a book about being present and being in the now not worrying about what happened five minutes ago yesterday or in the past or all the stresses we have about what-ifs about the future, but actually being in the now.
So I would highly recommend you grab these books off Amazon and read them. They like fun books, enjoyable books, taking care of ourselves and self-care is so important. So I wanted to really talk about these books and um, I just saw that David has, um, a new cat book coming out. So it will be the fourth one on November 19th of this year, it’s called Four Paws of Spiritual Success, basically a playoff the four laws of spiritual success. So I pre-ordered my copy already and I can’t wait for it to arrive from Amazon and um, start reading that book. So again, I want to stress the importance of self-care, putting that oxygen mask on for yourself, putting it on you when you have yours on. You can take better care of your family, put their mask on, put on the mask of your team members and your patients and our entire communities become better.
So I hope you get these books. I hope you enjoy them. The Dalai Lama’s Cat, the OD of pairing in the power of now, again, I wanted to remind all of you that we are very proud and happy to be now part of the pharmacy podcast network. So you can find us on iTunes, you can find us on the pharmacy podcast network.
We encourage your team members and, and other pharmacists that you know to listen to this podcast and to the plethora of podcasts that are found on the pharmacy podcast network. So remember, be the change and we’ll see you next time.
