Stress management

 ''The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds.''  Thomas Merton

  Here is a list of the mental and emotional rubbish that must be cleared before I can work:
computers, family problems,presenting work to the world, travel anxiety. admin., financial worries, helplessness, personal safety, invasion of self, dealing with rudeness, evil.
  It is not an exhaustive list but illustrates sufficiently what affects not just my ability to do work but to make work. And of course it is not just me that experiences this.I have seen how frustrating it is for a surgeon to come into work expecting to operate on someone in desperate need only to find that there is no bed for the patient. The consequences can weigh heavily on them and whereas you may not have a vested interest in my mental health you would have in that of your surgeon.
   How do we deal with the lunacy of our lives? It is the act of making and doing that keeps us sane whether you are an artist or doctor.The need to 'do' is a powerful force in our lives and this force must be allowed to flow through us.If thwarted it makes us unhappy and sometimes ill.
   If I could I would give every hospital a garden for the doctors to tend, an art room for them to paint in and a piano in the staff room so that they could keep their hands supple and their hearts peaceful.