Yolanda’s Story

and let's begin today's journey. Dr Elanda Lewis Ragland is a community pediatrician with Children's National Healthcare System in Washington, d C. A faculty member at George Washington University School

of Medicine, and a mother of three. Although she could have a lucrative medical practice in the Washington suburbs, she has chosen instead to live and work where she grew up, in Washington's Ward eight, which has the highest crime rates, murder rates, poverty rates, teen pregnancy rates, and death rates from COVID nineteen anywhere in the city. And she's been doing all this for eighteen years. Every day she deals

with life and death. She hears stories of grief and trauma of young children raised by grandparents because their parents are working long hours or incarcerated, or have died from drug overdose or violence. Dr Raglan is a woman of courage who succeeded in life despite a series of adverse childhood experiences that easily might have derailed her path. Her father was a Vietnam veteran who turned to alcohol and

became abusive when he returned from combat. Yolanda's mother was a hard worker employed at Boeing, who raised her and her three brothers alone in Seattle, where they fled for their safety's sake. A tight knit family, Yolanda was devastated when she lost her mother to lupus and a brain aneurism,

and a brother to drug abuse. As brutal as all this sounds, it's only part of Yolanda's story, and yet all those traumas drove Yolanda to search for something, for a way to cope with distress, manage her life be present for her children. She started researching meditation. Much to her surprise, Yolanda heard about a course in transcendental meditation being offered for free at the community center where she worked.

She learned to meditate, and right away she noticed the technique did what She hoped it built up her resilience and immunity to her real life dramas. She also noticed something else. She had a pressing deadline for a new book on childhood obesity, but she had writer's block and had made almost no headway in six months. After learning to meditate, the creativity flowed, and she wrote ten chapters and sent it to the publisher, all within three months.

Yolanda has has always been an advocate for community health. Now she saw the benefit of adding meditation to the mix, bringing it to her patients and their families, as well as to her fellow doctors and nurses who are treating patients in the front lines of word eight and beyond. I met you Loanda for the first time in Washington a few years ago during a town hall meeting about using meditation as a violence interrupter. I asked her an

obvious question. With all the things that are needed in war date, better health care, education, housing, jobs, why is she advocating for meditation. You need to improve everything. She said, When you live in a violent community with a lot of stress and poverty and depression, it's like everything is already stacked against you. You feel like a victim because you feel like you don't have any control. But with transcendental meditation, you do have control. You are empowered. It's

yours for life. You can reduce your anger, you can increase your energy, and if you're a student, you can improve your test scores. I believe this can be anyone's ticket out of any bad situation or circumstance. I thought long about what my health tip would be after talking about Dr Ragland, and when I think of her, I think of courage, Courage to overcome obstacles, to aim high, courage to be true to herself. And I'm reminded of

a quote by Maya Angelo. Courage is the most important of all virtues, because without courage, you can't practice any virtue consistently. So this is my tip wrapped up in Maya's advice. Take courage to do what you know to be right. Then all the other virtues will follow. All right, let's end this time together doing something that I think should be a feature of our everyday life, and that's

appreciation and gratitude. So let's take thirty seconds of quiet, thirty seconds to take a break, just take a moment. It turns out when we do that it's good for our health as well. I'll be right back all right. Thank you for joining me today. I hope you heard something that inspires, that uplifts you, and that you can incorporate into your own life. This is Bob Roth. Stay calm, hey, all of you out there, I'd love to hear from you. You can send me your stories, your questions, or anything

else on your mind. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram at meditation Bob. You can also send me an email at meditation Bob Roth at gmail dot com. I look forward to hearing from you