What My Blood Pressure Knew
The dentist walked back into the room and told me she couldn't give me the Novocain. My blood pressure was 235 over 180. She offered to call 911 and have an ambulance take me to the hospital instead of fixing the tooth.
I'd cracked it grinding my teeth. Apparently for a while. I hadn't noticed my own jaw doing it.
That afternoon I had a conference call to finalize a talk on lawyer wellness for a national conference.
You can't make up that kind of hypocrisy. You can only live it.
I was doing everything right. Exercising. Meditating. All the boxes checked, on paper, the way I'd coach any lawyer who came to me half this wound up.
None of it showed up in the number in that dentist's chair.
You can do the practices and still miss what's actually loading the gun. I wasn't short on discipline. I was carrying weight that was never mine to carry, and no amount of meditating on top of it was going to make the weight lighter. It just made me calmer while I carried it.
What I was carrying, specifically: my clients' stress. The hostility that comes standard with opposing counsel. Insults from people I didn't respect and didn't particularly care about.
I was absorbing them anyway. Free of charge but at a cost of 235 over 180.
Four thoughts, in order
#1. The first thought was resentment. What is wrong with them?
#2. The second was self-criticism. What is wrong with me?
#3. The third turned outward again, but differently. What can I learn from these people?
#4. The fourth turned back in, differently too. What can I learn about myself?
Notice the order. Resentment comes free. Self-criticism comes almost as fast, and it's the one that does the real damage if you stop there, because it turns someone else's hostility into evidence against you. The two questions worth actually asking are the last two, and they only show up once you've let the first two pass through instead of camping out in them.
The reframe
You don't have to consider repulsive people your teacher. That framing asks too much of them and lets you off too easy.
Think of them as your mirror instead.
A teacher implies they have something to give you. A mirror just shows you something that was already there. The opposing counsel who insults you isn't instructing you in anything. But your reaction to him, the clenched jaw, the reread email, the resentment that won't quit by the time you're home, that's information about you, available nowhere else, for free, if you're willing to look at it instead of at him.
This week
Next time someone genuinely repulsive gets under your skin, skip the first two questions. You already know them by heart.
Go straight to the third and fourth. What is this showing you. Not about them. About you.
