Lessons from July!


Good evening friends,

I was really tempted to not write this week seeing as I just returned from two weeks of grueling summer school, but I was filled with inspiration and decided to share. Despite how exhausted we all got really fast, summer school was amazing. I went specifically for medicine, but there were students there for other subjects as well. We had afternoon and evening activities with my favourites being the talent show night (I sang in public for the first time in like a year and was legit shaking the whole time which was weird cause I normally don't have stage fright... but there's a first time for everything!), the walking tour of Cambridge (the tour guide was so good at her job), the Scavenger hunt (that only happened for like five minutes because we got caught in rain and hail outside), movie night ('the trial of the chicago 7' is sooo good) and sports day (my team won nothing, but I got a medal for my effort!). But I actually enjoyed the classes the most. I truly feel like I've learnt so much about the science behind medicine; there are loads of things we are told are healthy and unhealthy, but learning what these things actually do inside your body makes all the difference and has encouraged me to check some of my habits. Besides that, we spoke a lot about what medicine is really like; the lack of representation in clinical trials (so many drugs have only been tested on men or white males and so we do not necesserily know the effects on diverse subjects) and the lack of understanding a lot of doctors have on what actually happens in the body with the drugs they prescribe. A book I've been reading by a doctor has also introduced me to the world of expectation that is being a doctor. I won't lie; it's scary and there are some things that have been normalised that I think are unacceptable. But I know I want to do this... so it's good to have a heads-up on what the career entails.

Today was actually kind of tough mentally/emotionally. I forgot to do a couple of things and lost some things and cause I was travelling today, these little mistakes made all the difference. Do you know what's it like to be trying so hard to do the right thing and be the right person but find yourself constantly making the same mistakes? Well I do and when I was making these mistakes today, I would mull over them and generally make myself feel like trash. This is not an encouragement to try less... but when I give myself such a hard time, I find peace knowing that God does not see me as any less despite my mistakes. And so I get up, dust the dirt off and try to find some way to move on from what has happened. Because what I've realised is that you can receive all the forgiveness from people and from God and never move forward until you forgive yourself. And a huge part of that is accepting that what happened happened, accepting the role you played or didn't play and acknowleding the way forward.

Also, I was listening to an interesting youtube video this evening about 'love and fear' and one of the guys speaking said that your actions are either driven by love or fear, and that really hit home for me. Everytime I have taken the time to really analyse the reasons behind my decisions, I have sadly discovered that fear in one form or the other always has so much influence. Fear of what people will do, fear of what people will say, fear of failure, fear of making mistakes.... even though most of the time, hiding away and surpressing myself does not take the fear away or change the outcome. I'm trying to hold myself accountable and stop giving fear so much control. They were also talking about how we mirror each others energy. That was so ironic because during summer school, we learnt about mirror neurons that are present in the human body that help us experience things we notice in other people. These neurons help us to empathise with others because we can imagine (or maybe literally feel) what they are going through. So the guys in the video were talking about how the initial energy given off can affect how you respond; if someone starts off the conversation anrgily, you are very likely to get angry as well, and how important it is to choose our friends carefully so that we are inviting the right energy into our lives. It's true... we need people that can hold us accountable and tell us the truth, but also people that will support us in being healthy and utilizing our potential. I have found that sometimes, I have really wanted to be in relationships with people that were bringing the wrong mindset or energy into my life. I don't intend to avoid such people forever, but there is value in knowing who to confide in with your dreams and hopes. The right people can nurture and support you and the wrong ones can distract and derail you, consciously or unconsciously.

God bless.

Dera

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