Thursday night I received some news that bothered me greatly. It resulted my not wanting to go to work on Friday, but since I had no good reason for staying home – I went to work. Once there I was not in the mood to visit patients. That was a problem for me because part of my job is to visit patients. After I spent some time doing office work, it was time to begin making rounds, so off to the patient rooms I went.

The picture above is from the Internet and is representative of one visit I had with a patient. This patient had just been weaned off the ventilator the day before. The patient was also on dialysis several days a week. I was in my own mood of negativity, and being in that mood I was impressed the patient who had more reason for negative attitude than I did was very positive. As we talked I realized the patient had tapped into his own process of resiliency. It was serving him well, it allowed him to deal with undesirable facts and not feel overwhelmed by them.

This visit stuck with me throughout the day. I found myself tapping into my own process of resiliency. By the end of the day I was feeling good about the things I had done and about my own situation even though nothing had factually changed. The change was in my attitude and that made all the difference!