Are You Appreciating Others? 

– By Dr Nav Ropra. 

Are you in a relationship that is strained or causing you stress?

Have you forgotten why you decided to employ this staff member in the first place?

Do your staff or patients value you the way you would love to be valued and appreciated?

Are you projecting your own values onto others, or injecting others values in order to fit in?

Nothing can be more demoralising to a dentist than having patients or staff that do not value them, their services, products or treatments. Remember, the outside world will value you to the level you value yourself as one does affect the other.

We can behave unconsciously with others, react to them and make them responsible for how we are feeling. We can then feel guilty or fearful about our actions and then act carefully or carelessly around people. When that happens, we don’t see them for who they are and they don’t get to see us for who we are.

Ultimately, the elations or depressions that we feel around people are the signs and symptoms in those relationships that we are getting as feedback showing us what we have not loved in ourselves.

‘Nothing can be more demoralising to a dentist than having patients or staff that do not value them, their services, products or treatments.’

It is a fact of life that human beings want to be loved and appreciated for who they are. Whoever does this the most efficiently and effectively we perceive as supporting us.  We tend to like them and label them as ‘good people’.  Those who challenge our value systems we try and avoid, tend to dislike them and label them as ‘bad people. No one is worthy of being put on a pedestal (good) or in the pit (bad) but each of us deserves to be in people’s hearts and appreciated for who we truly are.

‘Ultimately, the elations or depressions that we feel around people are the signs and symptoms in those relationships that we are getting as feedback showing us what we have not loved in ourselves.’

If you are having these problems at work, chances are that you may be also having them in your personal life too. In very extreme cases, turning to alcohol or drugs can get have serious implications on your practice or personal life and even trying to resolve them by having extra-marital affairs can make things worse!

Taking responsibility and responding rather than being irresponsible and reacting is a more mature approach in dealing with relationships.

True caring arises when you can convey what is important to you in terms of what’s important to the other. Being truly grateful for someone will help you dissolve your own false personas and masks and set you free from your own self imposed bondage.

‘If you are having these problems at work, chances are that you may be also having them in your personal life too.’

Why not start today and be grateful to your staff, your patients, your friends, your family and even your so called ‘enemies’. After all, they are all here to show us something about ourselves and to teach us how to grow!