Love as a Culture Bolster
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We enter into the profession of caring for animals with the purest intention of love. Whether we are doctors, nurses, rescuers or anyone in the animal care world, we are there for one reason, to protect the wellbeing of animals. We have taken a vow that above all, we will do no harm. Loving our patients is the easy part.
It’s loving ourselves and each other that become a little more difficult. In an ego-centric society fueled by selfies posted on social media, it is essential to recognize this for what it is – a society that resides in the ego. But I firmly believe that our culture is also at a transition point moving from the ego and into the heart. It might be hard to see during this bumpy time of removing rights and intolerance for others, but in order to shift the culture, we move from our own ego into our heart. One person at a time. We start out as a tiny wave in the middle of the Pacific until we become a tsunami of love that covers the land.
Self-love requires appreciation and affinity for ourselves. It is the building block of self- compassion. Self-love provides higher resilience, a willingness to take good risks, empathy, and the ability to say no setting boundaries that protect us. And the great news is that we can actually learn this skill! We can learn to love ourselves so that we can truly love and connect with others.
While self-love is a prerequisite to loving others, so is humility. In humility, we appreciate the other’s beauty, their dignity and recognize their humanness. The word humility comes from the root word, humus, meaning earth. It has nothing to do with being meek or mild, but understanding what our place is in the world, or how we fit into the bigger picture. If we have humility, we are able to acknowledge our successes and failures without any attachment to them. With this powerful trait we can understand our weaknesses as well as our strengths. With humility, once again we move from our ego and into our heart center.
As a young doctor, I wrongly considered humility to be a negative trait at work. I was concerned that if I showed humility that my clients might lose faith in my ability to heal their pet. Trying to act like I knew everything was tiring and just a lie. So quickly I was able to say, “I don’t know the answer to your question.” And I was also able to listen to the needs of my clients and incorporate those into the treatment plan of the pet. While we are certainly there for the animals, love tells us we are also there for the clients. Humility gives us that ability to listen.
Three months after I opened my mobile practice, I was called to help trim a miniature pot bellied pig’s tusks. While I did not treat farm animals, I did treat exotics and the client seemed desperate. No one would help her. Consulting my Plumbs on drug dosages, I found a dose for a sedative to administer in the nose. This seemed relatively easy. I certainly could handle a tiny pig.
Fortunately, I had the foresight to schedule this appointment as the last of the day. My technician and I arrived anticipating a fairly easy last appointment. Our goal was simple – sedate the small pig and trim the tusks as quickly as possible. We arrived before dusk to a mobile home with one of the largest pigs I had ever seen. Surely this was not my patient. I immediately thought back to the phone call in which she needed help for a miniature pig. Perhaps my patient was behind him. Porky had the run of the place and looked quite content relaxing in the front yard after a long day’s work. As a young veterinarian, it is critical to maintain the appearance of confidence when first meeting a new client. I began channeling my inner James Herriot. Turns out Porky was a miniature pig that loved food.
As Porky’s guardian filled out paperwork, I eyeballed this monstrous pig and guessed at his weight. I tried to avoid my technician’s “Is this really happening?” stare. My best drug dose was calculated and a tip placed on the syringe for easy nasal insertion. I learned so many things that day, none of them pertained to medicine. I learned that pigs don’t squeal, they scream continuously. I learned that while a book might say intranasal application, getting the entire dose in the nose is nothing if not impossible. I learned that I could say no in the future.
I ended up completely under the mobile home, a mouth full of dirt, having a stand-off with a pig not even remotely sedated. How on earth had I gotten there? I looked at Porky and I said, “You win, Porky. You win.” I started laughing so hard and once I climbed out from under the house, wet with sweat and dirt, my client saw me laughing and she started laughing. We talked about that for years. While I was not successful in sedating that pig, I grew as a human and as a veterinarian. I learned how to listen to the animal. It became an essential part of my practice. Never would I force an animal, particularly a frightened animal, to submit. To me, that was breaking their spirit.
That lesson stayed with me always. When I was frustrated with a large dog or ferocious cat that would not behave and let me do what I needed to do, I stopped, backed off and assessed the situation. I could not hear of a client telling me that their pet was so traumatized that we had created a shift in the wellbeing of that animal. To me that was unacceptable. Porky was my reminder to remain humble because it is impossible to maintain a false ego covered in dirt and defeated by a pig.
If we have humility, the animals will always teach us. And if we are so lucky to own our own hospital, and we operate with humility and love, the staff will thrive.
I will part with the words of the famous songwriter Kendrick Lamar, my son’s favorite – “Sit Down. Be Humble.”
And may I be so bold as to add one more line to his catchy lyrics? Love with Abandon.
Find me on The Veterinary Compassion Fatigue Project Spotify Podcast, my website, Facebook and YouTube @TVCFP. Let’s keep talking about what we face in the veterinary and animal care world and ways that we can help each other. Reach out if you have a particular topic you would love to hear about. Subscribe to hear updates on our annual restoration retreat to be launched in Spring of 2025. As always, I hope you find what you are looking for and share it with anyone who needs it.
With love and hope,
Dr. Erin Holder