You're in the Jungle Baby

About 7 years ago, I was working as a nurse practitioner in a Level 1 Trauma Center in Charleston, West Virginia.  On the night shift, there was a young physician who would call for a pause in the provider area when she arrived.  We would gather around a tiny speaker as she ceremoniously would put her phone on a small speaker as we listened to,"Welcome to the Jungle" in its entirety prior to commencing our shift.  Somehow we needed to hear out loud,"do you know where you are?  You're in the jungle baby."  We would end the song mentally prepared for our night of high speed motor vehicle accidents, snake bites, local drug seekers and the occasional victim of the portable meth lab explosion.  The perfect song for the perfect circumstance. 

I guess that habit stuck as there are still times I find myself with this playing into my headphones as I walk from my car to the current emergency room in New York that I work in.  Meth is not really a local favorite in Albany, and the trauma center is down the street, but where I am now, the patients are sick.  The volume is high and the waiting room full.  At any given moment, to an outsider it would appear loud and chaotic.  There are monitors beeping, phones ringing, other equipment alarming and people racing around to try to manage it all.  I suppose any ER is its own jungle to a certain degree. 

I would suspect that after 7 years of practicing this type of medicine on the heels of practicing neurosurgery for 10 years, my senses have dulled a bit to the noise that seems to exist in my own head when it comes to dealing with the rest of life.  The commitments of my home life, running two companies, two clinical positions, kids, family, race training....  perhaps I truly did not leave the chopping down the deep brush with a machete to be able to see the jungle creatures coming at me only at work.  In fact, I was pretty sure I generally live in the jungle routinely.

This brings me to a simple question posed by a client recently.  She put up a post wanting to know simply what it was other clients were working on.  A simple question meant to garner support for our collective goals.  As I read through the posts, I saw physical challenges of running a mile, conquering a race, or committing to a number of minutes of cardio each week.  There were diet challenges for things like giving up fast food or increasing vegetable intake.  These were all commendable things.  My clients setting goals and moving forward.  However, I read through all of this, post 60 hour work week in the ER, and even though I was home, I could still hear the noise of the ER despite being in my own living room as brain tried to prioritize all of the things in my life that had been placed on the back burner as I was at work all those hours. 

It was then that I realized I had plenty of physical goals and a clear path to reach them complete with schedule.  What I didn't have was quiet.  How often did I take a little time to just be still?  Much as I love yoga, work and endurance training for my next race has taken that over to a degree as of late.  How about an evening of doing nothing?  Well, work commitments have put a damper on that as well.  No, I think I was way more in the jungle than I would have realized.  So, I took the leap and committed to one simple thing.  Silence.  Ten minutes a day I would be silent.  No music, no phone calls, texts or social media.  I would take to time to attend to the silence and see what happened.  Although this seems like a little thing, simple enough, the jungle way of thinking is such a part of me, it actually has become more of a challenge than running a Spartan Race.

Since making the commitment for silence, I have had to schedule it like my workouts.  Some days this exists in my commute to work, some days, like yesterday, it exists sitting at my desk at home watching the snow as it falls into the pine trees in my back yard.  Today, the snow is thick.  The flakes were huge and my poor pine tree now has branches dragging on the ground due to the weight of 10 inches of fresh snow.  Yet, it is quiet.  It makes no sound.  There are no roaring lions, howling monkeys swinging from tree to tree, or boa constrictors hanging off the branches, yet at the same time it is powerful enough to take down a 25 foot pine.  As the silence allows me to toss out needless noise from my life in ten minute increments I begin to realize, that all along I had been ignoring the final phrase of the iconic Guns 'N Roses song, yes, you're in the jungle baby....and you're gonna die.  Needless chaos and noise had overtaken the power of silence.  Concerns over things I had no control over, or wasting the energy on the disappointment of a less than perfect workout,  or worrying about one too many macros today.  I was missing out on all the great things, like, wait...I worked 62 hours and didn't miss a workout, or maybe my macros were not perfect... but three years ago I was 85 pounds heavier and the only thing I counted was how many snacks were left in the kitchenette by the big TV.  I had missed the celebrating the success by simply attending to the noise.

Now I am beginning to see that the silence is just as necessary as the badass heavy metal mental preparation that was my norm.  I am finding it provides a new sense of recentering required to take on the day.  Yes, I still exit my car at work, headphones on and play,,"Welcome to the Jungle" as that is the environment I am entering, and I am a creature of habit.  The difference now is the ability to enter the jungle more prepared due to the power of the silence that came before it, and learning to shut it off at times so as the song goes, I'm not... gonna die.   Instead, I believe it is time to treat the silence like I do my cardio....and up my goals and see what else I can discover.  I have a feeling it is like I always say, I will find the best is yet to come.