Go With the Flow

Most people and teams default to some variation of “no” or “yes, but.” The alternative is your ticket to resilience and peace.

In rapidly changing and uncertain circumstances, the practice of “Yes, and” and the related principles of improvisational theater provide a refreshing and hopeful alternative to the human tendency to react based on fear or a desire to maintain control. When it comes to being present in the moment, letting go and trusting the process, and […]

Some of our richest and most helpful learning comes after our failures or someone else’s. A little humor can help.

This time around, we’re focusing on a potentially more sensitive topic: the consequences of judging others and ourselves. As always, the intent behind the thoughts we share here is to support more “flow,” or the state where we are fully present and meeting the challenges of the moment with a calm, clear focus and access […]

The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar can rob us of our sense of curiosity, joy and wonder.

Wholeness, which we’ve explored in previous articles, is the need to feel sufficient as an individual and connected to others as part of something larger. Most importantly, from our perspective it’s about striking a balance between being and doing. Success in life and work depends on your ability to focus on who you are being, […]

If you’ve reached your mental limitations, get centered, exercise self-compassion and remember to do something fun every day.

One way to bring more flow into your life, as our column has explored, is to be aware of and hopefully avoid the states of mind that are incompatible with flow. In our last column, Jeff shared his brush with burnout and his insight into how to heed the warning signs. This time, Trey will […]

Recognizing signs of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion is the first step in returning to your natural flow state.

Are you having fun in your work and life? If not, you might be on a path toward burnout. Anyone who’s spent time camping in the woods will likely recognize Smokey Bear’s admonition: “Only you can prevent wildfires.” As the incidence of burnout rises steadily in our profession, it’s important that we learn to become more […]

Self-esteem can leave you when you need it most, so try building more self-compassion into your daily experiences.

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” — Buddha If you had to choose between feeling good about yourself or forgiving yourself and accepting yourself completely, exactly as you are, which would you choose? Would you rather feel good about yourself or have compassion for yourself? Would […]

Compassion, curiosity and courage are a potent antidote to the common fears that can paralyze us as human beings.

We’ve been focusing lately on the first two components of emotional agility: compassion and curiosity. Now, we turn our attention to the final component, courage. “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” — Maya Angelou As Maya Angelou suggests, courage is an essential […]

When we are sincerely curious, we unlock new fields of possibilities.

Our most recent column [“Wholeness and Self-Compassion,” February/March 2019] explored the importance of acknowledging our wholeness as a first step to finding peace in the present moment. While presenting on the topic of wholeness at VMX 2019, what became clearer to us than ever before was that members of the veterinary profession struggle with the […]

Finding peace in the present means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.

What does it mean to be fully present, both at work and at home? How does the quality of our presence impact our happiness, our relationships, our resilience and our sense of peace? These are incredibly important questions for us to be asking. That’s because, based on our experience and what we’re continually learning about […]

Being able to see any situation from a calmer and more balanced vantage point is one rung on the ladder to achieving flow.

This column has focused on exploring flow, that state of complete clarity and awareness in which you feel most enlivened and operate from a state of relaxed ease and, even, bliss. This time, let’s look at the role of centering as a step in achieving flow. Centering is a way to calm the mind and […]