Emotions – Page 2 – Heal ThySELF DVM

Why the Most Important Relationship is the One with Yourself

Starting my business, Heal ThySELF DVM, has been a journey for me for many years, all my life you could say. And the amazing thing is that every time I try something new – a webinar, a blog, a facebook presence, a weekend retreat, etc. – I get more and more clear about what motivates me and what my message is.

Why did I create this business? My why is that I want all of my colleagues to be happy, healthy and fulfilled. I want you to have fun as a veterinarian and enjoy your life outside of veterinary medicine to the fullest.

My message is that the most important relationship we have is the one with ourselves. When that is healthy and grounded we can achieve anything we want. When that relationship is filled with beliefs of doubt, unworthiness and a lack of self love, we will be adrift in the seas controlled by others.

We are only able to control and change ourselves. The way we orient ourselves to feeling better is by monitoring our thoughts. Our thoughts create our emotions and our emotional wellbeing is everything.

My invitation to you is to join me in creating a world where we are happy and fulfilled in our careers. I want each of my colleagues to be able to live the lives that you want.

Let’s start by realizing that what you tell yourself about yourself and the world is what you will live. The quiet whisperings, the outright rants, the thoughts that follow you home and keep you up at night are not true. They are lies. The reason you know they are lies is because they make you feel bad. You are a part of the divine, something bigger than this physical body you inhabit. Let’s start being aware that thoughts that make you feel bad are an indication that it is not true for you. I have tools and techniques that can bring this awareness to you and allow you to live the life that you wish.

Today, I encourage you to commit to noticing what you are telling yourself about yourself as you move through the day. Are you blaming and shaming yourself? Are you doubting yourself? Are you angry at yourself? Are you feeling stupid and unworthy? If so, then I am glad you are on this journey with me. Let’s repair the relationship you have with yourself first, and as we do that, your relationship with your clients and co-workers will improve as well.

I would love to talk with you and hear your dreams for your life. Let’s create the thoughts and emotions that will allow you to achieve your dreams. Pick a time convenient for you at https://calendly.com/healthyselfdvm and take the first step to the rest of your life.

How to Diffuse Your Anger by Doing the Best You Can

I see a lot of my colleagues dealing with anger issues – anger at themselves, the clients, the staff, the world. But is anger the real issue or is there a deeper, even yuckier feeling emotion that anger is covering for?

First, a little background discussion about emotions. We have typically labeled emotions as good or bad, but I believe all emotions are good. They point us in the directions we want to go. When we feel sad it is an invitation to find thoughts that feel better to move toward contentment, or hopefulness, for example.

Anger is an emotion that feels better than hopelessness or sadness. Anger has movement to it — we are often physically agitated, we use our breath and voices more, our hearts beat faster — all forms of movement. Movement usually feels better than stasis – hopelessness or overwhelm; where you want to be still and curled up in a ball.

The question to ask yourself is: WHY am I angry? And the answer cannot be based on someone else’s actions or words. What the person did or said is not important, the important thing is how it made you feel and WHY. Let’s look at a possible scenario:

Client comes in with a sick dog. Not life threatening but definitely in need of medical assistance. You make recommendations. Client declines all, just wants a shot of antibiotic for the dog. You get increasingly angry at their refusal to do anything else.

Why are you angry? What is the underlying belief that you have that is causing you to get angry?

Are you angry because in declining, they imply you don’t have the right answers? You believe you are an imposter or a liar.

Are you angry because you believe that their declining of your recommendations shows that you lack the ability to communicate effectively? You are a failure.

Are you angry because you feel the animal is helpless and you are their only hope? You are helpless.

We can see from these possibilities that anger is often the outward expression of denying other lower emotions or beliefs – helplessness, failure, incompetence, sadness, frustration.

If you can name the underlying reason why you are angry, then it is possible to play with it and diffuse it by changing your thoughts. This can be done in the safety of your home so that you can be a little more prepared the next time anger wells up inside of you.

There are many ways to let go of the underlying beliefs and we will explore them in the coming weeks.

Today I want you to play with the idea that you always do your best. That statement is simple, you say. Of course I always do my best! But how often do you beat yourself up for not knowing something, or having an animal die unexpectedly, or believing you missed something on an exam? We do it all the time. But if we truly believe that we always do our best, then there is no reason for beating ourselves up.

That negative self talk has no place in our brain. You always do your best. Yes, you cannot know everything. Yes, mother nature sometimes has her own plans. Yes, you may have missed something on an exam, but it doesn’t mean you didn’t do your best. It means you are human. And it means there is always more to learn. That’s it. In every situation there is always more to learn-even when the outcomes are terrific and defy the odds-there is something to learn.

And, let’s flip that statement around to the staff, the clients, the public. Everyone always does their best! The place that understanding and compassion comes from is realizing that their best is not necessarily in line with what you would do. And that is ok. It is their best. There is no reflection whatsoever on you. You did your best – examining, diagnosing, creating the treatment plan, doing the surgery, etc. There is no reflection on you no matter what they chose to do and no matter the outcome. If you believe that you did your best then there can be no judgments and no negative self talk.

So, one way to diffuse the anger is to adopt the belief that you always do your best. I give you permission to say this! Give yourself permission as well. The outcome is not in your hands. There is nothing else that can be asked of you but to do your best. Learn, grow, explore yes, but no beating up on yourself.

You are a rockstar bad ass veterinarian and you always do your best.

How to Use Affirmations to Change Your Reality

Today let’s talk a little about affirmations. They are a simple, yet powerful tool to change your perspective about something and to adopt new beliefs about yourself or the world.

The key to affirmations is that they need to be stated in a positive way and they need to resonate or mean something to you.

So first-keep them positive-no negative words like not, don’t, won’t, never etc. Instead use words like always, am, and do.

So for example a poorly worded affirmation is:

I am not responsible for how others feel.

The reason this is a poorly worded one is the word not. Interestingly, your brain does not 🙂 recognize the word not, it hears “I am responsible for how others feel” which is absolutely untrue. And, another reason is that we always want to put positive thoughts into the world.

So a better way to frame the affirmation is:

I am at peace with knowing that I am only responsible for my emotions. Others are responsible for their own.

See the difference? Say the poorly worded one and the better one out loud and notice the difference in your body. Which makes you feel better?

Affirmations can be used in many ways, but one of the simplest is to repeat them out loud multiple times a day. And for more power, say them while looking at yourself in a mirror. So, SO transformative then. Saying them adds POWER. It makes believing them easier. Try it and see! You can create them yourself but I will give you a few to try on and see how they feel.

Affirmations:

I am at peace knowing that I am only responsible for MY emotions. Others are responsible for theirs.

I am a Rock Star Bad Ass Veterinarian!

I am beautiful inside and out.

I move through my day with ease and confidence.

I do my best every day and in every way.

Try writing your own affirmations. I’d love to hear what you create and how they transform your life at pamela@healthyselfdvm.com

Adopt the Wonder Woman Pose!

Have you seen the new Wonder Woman movie that came out this summer? Wow! I really enjoyed it. The strong female lead, the hero’s journey, the ability for her to move forward when everything in her was saying to stay safe. Lots and lots of good stuff in there. But what I want to focus on today is her pose.

Now, granted it is a little airbrushed and wind machine aided hollywood style but look at the stance. It embodies to me an easy confidence in herself. Her shoulders are back, her back is strong, her core is strong yet exposed, and her eyes are soft yet focused on what’s in front of her.

It has been shown that our body posture reflects our emotions. When we are sad or depressed we tend to slouch, round our shoulders, look down, not make eye contact, talk softly. When we are mad we are standing tall, leaning forward, muscles tense, eyes laser focused, brows furrowed.

The cool thing is that our body can create our emotions! Yep! All those synapses that create our posture also hold the keys to our emotions. Holding our body in certain ways creates emotion, thoughts and habitual ways of acting.

So this week, I want you to first notice how you hold yourself throughout the day. How do you stand when feeling confident? How about when a client is questioning you? How about when a cute puppy or kitten comes in? Notice how your body stance changes, your facial muscles feel, your back feels.

Now, practice your version of Wonder Woman. We’ll call her Wonder Vet!!!!!! Stand tall but relaxed, shoulder blades rolled back and down, weight going down through the ground, eyes focused but soft allowing you to see peripherally, and feel your breath expanding in your core, your abdomen.

I encourage you to practice your Wonder Vet stance in the privacy of your home and then take her out with you! When you are delivering a diagnosis, an estimate, a treatment plan, stand in your body’s version of confidence and strength and see the difference it can make in the way the information is given and received. I think you will find it a wonderful experiment!

How Can Not Taking Things Personally Lift You Up?

Taking things personally is so easy to do! We do it without even thinking of it!

When someone attacks us verbally, or makes comments about us to others, it is so easy to fall into the trap of taking it personally.

What does taking it personally mean? It means that we make the comment about us, we put meaning to it that satisfies our need to be right, our need to be safe and our need to defend ourselves (thank you monkey mind). When we take something personally we are assuming that we know what the other person meant and wanted us to feel. But, can we ever know what someone else is truly thinking?

Taking things personally, making it about us, is a great way to create drama, emotion and stress where there may not need to be any. Let’s look at an example.

We hear someone say that “we are just in it for the money, we are gouging clients”. Right away our hackles go up and we are ready for a fight. But this only happens if we have taken it personally. If we have allowed their comment to affect our belief in ourselves or affect how we believe others think about us.

If you can allow that first flush of anger wash over you and through you and take a step back from it, you can see where maybe, the comment is a reflection of THAT person’s beliefs and practices, not yours. Perhaps THAT person feels some sort of conflict about charging clients, their clients’ ability to afford them, their own finances and debt etc.

Or a client tells us that we don’t know what we are talking about, they found real info on Google. If we take that comment personally then we are insulted, miffed, angry and that can spiral out of control over the days and weeks we keep replaying the comment in our head. But what if, when they say that, we can allow it to wash over us and not land inside us? What if we can recognize that they are entitled to their belief about me, but it has nothing to do with me!

I know myself, and I don’t need to take their opinion of me into consideration. I can then end the appt with allowing them to go on their way, find another Vet they can feel better about and I can move on. Not taking things personally also sometimes means that I have to let go of the need to be right and the need to be the right person for everyone.

So I encourage all of you to practice taking a step back whenever you hear anything that flares your defensive, emotional muscles. Take a breath. Ask yourself “ How could what I just heard have nothing to do with me?” “What would I be like if I knew that others’ opinions do not matter to me?”

How would it feel to not react in anger the next time you are confronted? Not taking things personally allows you to find a thought, a solution that makes sense to you instead of getting caught on an emotional merry go round that you cannot get off.

It doesn’t mean that you are ignoring the situation. It simply means that you have moved past the monkey mind induced negative emotions into the realm of self-care and finding solutions that allow you to feel better.

Please let me know how not taking things personally allows you to be more of the person you know you are. How does your day flow when things roll more easily off your back?

You can contact me via pamela@healthyselfdvm.com or set up a personal free 1 on 1 chat about this by visiting my scheduling site. And, as always, continue to be the wonderful, compassionate rock star badasses that I know you all are!