Making the Invisible Field Between Us Visible

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.

— Rumi, from the poem "A Great Wagon"

In our work, we are trained to make decisions—diagnoses, treatments, interpretations, follow-up—with efficiency, precision, and often under immense pressure.  This kind of decisiveness has its place. But if we’re not careful, the habit of rapid judgment can bleed into how we relate to each other, to ourselves, and to our patients. Rumi’s line offers an alternative: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” It’s not a place where standards disappear, but where humanity takes precedence.

Consider how often your clinical judgement has been questioned; by colleagues, care team members, patients, their family ... even by yourself.  I still regularly recall when a patient care decision I made early in my career during a high-stakes moment was questioned by a colleague—not maliciously, but with a tone that left me unsettled and uncertain. I replayed the scene in my mind for days, questioning myself. What stayed with me was the weight of judgment—mine and others’.  It was a colleague’s reassuring words, “We’ve all been there.  That was a tough spot. You did your best.” that offered me not a fix or an excuse, but the grace that helped soften the ground beneath me.

This is the field I believe Rumi speaks of: a place not beyond accountability, but beyond condemnation. A space where we can be honest about uncertainty, vulnerability, and regret without fear of losing worth. It’s where we meet not as experts or titles, but as people. When a colleague gives us grace instead of critique, when a peer listens without trying to solve—we glimpse that field. And sometimes, it’s the one thing that helps us to keep going.

Peer connection has the power to create and protect sacred space. It’s not about agreement or shared opinions—it’s about choosing presence over judgment, compassion over comparison or competition. In this field, we don’t need to justify ourselves or rehearse our defenses. We can lay down the exhausting weight of proving and protecting, and simply be seen. This kind of connection doesn’t erase difficulty, but it does make it bearable. It begins with a pause—before reacting, before advising, before speaking—to ask: What does this person need right now—answers, or acceptance? Judgment rarely heals, but presence often does.

So this week, consider how you can be that field for someone else. Maybe it's a simple text, a reassuring word after a hard day, or choosing to listen without interrupting. These moments matter more than we often realize. In a profession where the stakes are high and the pace unrelenting, it’s this kind of open, compassionate presence that allows us to keep showing up—not flawlessly, but more fully human.  And that sure sounds like sanity to me.