The unrecognized power of our thoughts

We've all heard someone talk about how control is an illusion. It is even in talked about in movies. I may be dating myself, but I can picture a scene from Days of Thunder where Nicole Kidman is yelling at Tom Cruise about this. But just because it is said and thought to be true by people, and maybe even generally accepted to be true, does that make it true? You can ask this same question for anything. It may be a good practice to get into, instead of accepting things at face value. I'm not saying that the idea of control is right or wrong, true or false. I'm just asking the question is it. Like many or even most things in life, it depends. One of the main reasons people say you can't control things is in relation to life circumstances. So many things in our day to day lives are indeed out of our control. Traffic lights, other drivers, screaming babies, lines at the DMV or airport security, the weather. I could go on and on, but you get the picture, and have more

I recently came across a TED talk that just resonated with me like few things ever have. The talk was called Gender Violence - It's a Men's Issue. I highly recommend this, especially for anyone that works with people that have been abused, assaulted, or harassed. I first started thinking about this topic when I noticed that every week, a new story would surface about someone being involved in some type of inappropriate sexual activity. This was happening across all backgrounds and professions, across all socioeconomic statuses, and in all industries. How could this be happening? Why is this so prevalent? Larry Nassar, Harvey Weinstein, Senator Al Franken, Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby, Dallas Mavericks, Penn State football. What is going on in our society and culture? It has to be not just an individual's background, nature, and nurture causing this; it has to be a much bigger cultural and societal problem for it to effect every industry and profession so generally. I w

I have written about a few of the things that I have learned over the last several years. Things that have helped pull me out of some dark places. Things that quite literally have saved my life. But I have not yet written about what precipitated me needing to learn these things and go through the experiences I have had. It's time I do so.  My outward behaviors started while I was in Residency. I was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. While in the hospital, my nurse was one that I had quite a bit of contact with as she worked on the floor that had the majority of our patients. I had flirted with her quite a bit, and I took this further and we started kissing. This went on for several months. I finished residency and moved to Utah, where I opened my own practice. Over the course of nearly ten years, I kissed two patients. The second patient reported me to the Licensing Board in Utah. When I met with the investigator, and later with the Board, they asked if there were