On the call with my life coach that week I could not fully verbalize the depth of my grief.  Through the sobs I could only choke out the words, “this is just not right and it has to stop.”

I never met Dr. Yin, so why did her death affect me so deeply? I only know that it caused me to profoundly recognize that we, in this profession we love so much, need help. Her death was the spark that set me on the path of Heal ThySELF DVM.  I could no longer stand by silently and let others struggle.

***

I grew up knowing I would be a veterinarian.  There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I would achieve this goal. It was a forgone conclusion.

In high school I shadowed a woman veterinarian who had a mixed animal practice.  I loved every single minute of that experience. I vividly remember helping her castrate a horse in the field. During that procedure I got some blood on my sneaker.  I was in heaven! It was a rite of passage for me. I wore that sneaker with pride and unwashed for months!

When I graduated Vet school I thought I was a superhero. I knew there were still things to learn, but I felt strong and capable.  But very quickly the doubts and the defeats started. I was soon haunted by a vision of a small, frail version of myself with heaps of dead dogs and cats piled around me. The bodies were accusing me of killing them unjustly or letting them die. Therein lay the conflict: my goal was to save every animal yet animals died by my hand.

I had multiple jobs between 1990 and 2005 due to family situations as well as dissatisfactory jobs.  What I came to realize is that all the jobs were the same. All of them beat me down with client demands, long hours, poor pay, friction with the staff and witnessing too much suffering and death. I was depressed and disillusioned about my profession.  But at some point I realized that I was the constant, the common denominator.

I changed jobs, but I didn’t change myself.  

***

My healing journey began quietly when I met Jane Savoie, an Olympic equestrian and transformational speaker, and realized that I felt better while in her presence. Something deep inside of me recognized that she had an optimism that I desperately wanted. So I started creating my path to healing.  I found people, books and animals who helped me remember things that I had once, as a child, known: How to find happiness daily and how amazing we all truly are.

One of the most powerful things I have ever heard is “You are not broken. You don’t need to be fixed. You haven’t done anything wrong.”  This was a revelation to me and it still takes my breath away. I believe it to be true for all of us.

That was where I started.  I started by taking those statements as truth.

I was not broken. I was just deciding I wanted something different.

I didn’t need to be fixed. Everything I had experienced so far in life was so that I could be the person I am today.  

I have never done anything wrong.  I have always made the best choices I could given who I was and what my options were at the time.

These beliefs and the powerful statement by Maya Angelou, “when you know better you do better” released me from self-flagellation over perceived mistakes.  I believe that I am in charge of how I feel. I know that emotions are attached to thoughts and I control the thoughts. I have learned that I can be compassionate without losing myself.  I have beliefs and techniques to relieve stress and stay connected to myself so that I can enjoy a fulfilling and prosperous career as a Veterinarian.

I know how important and possible it is to find that healing path for yourself as a Veterinarian. Through Heal ThySELF DVM, I enjoy helping other veterinarians explore their path in a safe and nurturing environment. That spark that I now have, and want to share with others, is eternal and ever growing. I will honor Dr. Yin by transmuting our common belief of inevitable sorrow into the belief of undeniable joy.

The suffering veterinarian will become a myth.  

***

If you feel, as I once did, if you are hoping that your career could be prosperous and happy, please set up a time to chat (totally free, of course) with me personally by clicking here: calendly.com/healthyselfdvm 

You can also reach out to me via email at pamela@healthyselfdvm.com 

Schedule your free hour long chat with me at calendly.com/healthyselfdvm.

Or schedule a talk at your office at http://www.healthyselfdvm.com/for-prac…/ 

And have a fanfreakingtastic day!!

I had planned on sharing another blog about boundaries, this one from a different perspective to last week’s.  I had it all planned out in my head. It was going to be good. It was going to make you salivate with excitement and possibilities!  And it was halfway down on paper and then… then I didn’t finish it (wuh, wuh).  I put too much on my plate (new and exciting ideas I wanted to play with while they were fresh so I could bring them to you), and it all got in the way of finishing this week’s boundaries blog.

So, here I sit with a choice.  I can beat myself up and pull an all-nighter to get the blog done and out today, but know it won’t be the best because I don’t work well under that kind of pressure.  

Or I could skip a week and not share any new ideas that might inspire you this week.  Not what I like to do with my colleagues.

Or I could write a blog about my failure, and in doing so, learn from it and let you experience working through the angst of feeling like a failure.  In failing to finish the originally planned blog, I created a chance to learn about myself.  I created the chance to be vulnerable.  I created the chance to learn what it is that makes us human.  

I played with the idea that I failed.  What story did I tell myself?  In the veterinary field we are all highly motivated, results-oriented people.  Lives depend on us — whether actual life and death situations, or keeping the doors open and paying staff.  

What words do you hear when you have failed at something?  Do you hear “I am stupid” or “I am lazy” or “I am a failure”?

Take a minute and consider if these things are true.  

Are you stupid?  I bet you can find evidence that you aren’t.
Are you lazy?  Look at your calendar and I am sure you can see that you aren’t.
Are you a failure?  Well, when asked directly like that, it is very obvious that you are not a failure.

You succeed despite having setbacks. You know that even when things don’t work out the way you wanted, you will survive.  You are a rockstar badass who continues to learn and move forward with grace and compassion.  

And, another important point I want to make here.  Any words that follow “I am” are extremely important and influence your beliefs about yourself.  So when you say, “I am a failure” or “I am depressed” or “I am sad” you can start to take on those qualities as a full-time persona.  Your brain hears those words and says, “Ok.  You are sad.  Always.  Here is how you will go through life.”  So be very careful what words follow “I am.”  Try inserting the word “feel”.  As in “I feel sad.”  Your brain interprets that very differently and allows it to be a transient emotion vs a way of life.

So, for today, I feel like I failed you.  But I guess in failing, I actually was able to grow as a human and shed light on something that you may be grappling with as well.  Failure.  So this blog is experiential learning for me as well as for you.  Failure is just a way to check in with how you talk to yourself and how you view life.  Use the sense of failure as a challenge to grow.  Admitting when you have failed and moving on with the lessons learned is powerful magic.  

Let me know how you deal with failures.  Please reach out to me if you want to explore new ways of framing failure in your own mind so that you can live the life of your dreams.  I can be reached at pamela@healthyselfdvm.com.  

Until next week!

What is a belief that you would like to let go of?
What belief is holding you back, making you feel mad, angry or frustrated, making you feel less than you know you are?
Are you ready to let it go?

2018 is a year to take your power back and feel how you want to feel.  

I believe:

Our thoughts create our emotions.
We are in charge of our thoughts.
Therefore, we are in charge of our emotions.

So what thought is creating yucky feelings for you.  Let’s take an example.  Perhaps you believe you are unappreciated at work.  What emotion does that cause in you?  Sadness?  Anger? Frustration?  Take a moment and think the thought “I am unappreciated at work.”  What sensations does that create in your body?  Where are those sensations located?  Don’t try and change anything, just notice it.  

Now, can you say for 100% certain that you are unappreciated at work? Perhaps no one says thank you but they think it.  Perhaps if we asked your co workers they would say that they really do appreciate all you do at work to make the day go smoothly.  

So, can you agree that you cannot be 100% sure you are not appreciated?  Even if you still believe you are unappreciated at work, are you ready to change that belief and feel better?

Let’s create an affirmation about this.  

“I am appreciated at work.  I am an important part of the business and I know I do my best every day.”

Let’s also think back to a time where you know you were appreciated. Maybe someone said a heartfelt thank you for something you did.  Maybe someone gave you a high five or a hug for something you did.  Think about that time and notice what emotion you feel.  Is it happiness, worthiness, joy?  Where in your body do you feel it?  

Take that memory and the feeling of your body and use it when you say your affirmation.  You do know what being appreciated feels like so create it in your body daily, multiple times.

We know that for any belief you can find evidence in your life to support it.  So when you feel unappreciated you can find times when no one thanked you, maybe times they even gave your grief.  BUT,  I suggest that you can also find at least 1 time when someone said thank you. And if not, that’s OK. You have experienced appreciation at some point in your life and you can draw on that.  As you go through the next few days and weeks using these tools I believe that you will find evidence that people do appreciate you at work right now, or at the very least, in other areas of your life.  That’s the magic of this work.  

So I want you to be conscious of what thoughts you think, what emotions they create and if those emotions are serving you or not.  If not, what thought might feel better and create an affirmation, a visualization, a memory of what it felt like and use it to create a new belief that becomes part of you.

A belief is just a thought that has been thought so much that it becomes truth.

Take your power back.  You are in charge of your thoughts.  Your thoughts create your emotions.  You are in charge of your emotions.  It takes some awareness and some discipline but I know you got this!!

If this resonated with you or you would like to explore the process more, please sign up  for a free phone conversation about something that you would like to change in your life.

You can pick your time at https://calendly.com/healthyselfdvm.

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

While I agree that this is an important topic, I feel that her approach was hurtful and disrespectful of her colleagues. Everyone in the field of veterinary medicine does the very best they can every day, day in and day out, despite the pain and suffering we see every day. We are not in it for the money, that’s for sure!  

I created this with the desire to help my colleagues who may have been hurt by the video.

Some things to think about as you watch the video are: What does anger feel like in your body? Can you respond to anger in a new way, and what would that look like to you? When you feel angry at someone, could you deal with it differently by acknowledging that there is an underlying cause of the anger?

You can watch the video and let me know how you answered any of the above questions by emailing me at pamela@healthyselfdvm.com or setting up a private 1 hr phone call by visiting my scheduling center. 

And please, as always, let everyone see the unique, compassionate person you are!

Common beliefs that can hold us back involve having to be right, what kind of career we want and how we deserve to be treated.  Check out this video by Prince Ea:

Then let me know what belief you are willing to let go of to let more joy and abundance into your life.

And if you would like to explore letting go of beliefs that do not serve you, please visit my online scheduling center and set up a one on one personal call with me.

I used to feel like I had to hide the stress or sadness of the previous appt from the next one. But I realized that as I did that, I was also stuffing down and ignoring my emotional needs and by the end of the day I was exhausted and depressed. I would go home and binge eat, or not eat at all, and yet never really let go of the emotional stresses of my day.

That is what leads to burnout and compassion fatigue.

What I have found is that spending just 30 seconds on dealing with the emotions I am feeling in the moment helps me feel better throughout the day.

Here are several ways I release tension and emotions throughout the day so they don’t build up and overwhelm me, especially if I am crazy busy or running late with appointments:

• I will pause before opening the exam room door, take a couple deep breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth. I feel the breath in bringing in peace and happiness, knowledge and confidence. I feel the breath out releasing any negative emotions I might be feeling-stress, anger, sadness.
• I will tell the client of the next patient a 1 sentence explanation of why I might have run late, such as “I am sorry to keep you waiting, the last client had some difficult decisions to make and I could not rush them. I appreciate your understanding. Now, I see that Fluffy is very excited to be here today.” Telling them that I respect their time and that I am only human has been well received. Most clients respond with “when it is my pet, I know you will do the same for us.”
• I “shake it off.” Literally, just like the Taylor Swift song says. I do a full body shiver, shake or jump around for 5-10 seconds. It releases tension, can be a source of laughter for my staff, and it allows me to feel brighter and lighter moving forward. If you can’t do a full body shake, try swinging your arms or bouncing on your toes.

Seeing new clients and pets every 15 minutes or so can be very draining if there is no effort to stay centered and balanced throughout the day. In the coming weeks, we will explore ways of releasing negative emotions by reframing your thoughts and honoring your feelings.

If you like what you just read, or if you have other ways of releasing negative emotions during your work day, I would love to hear from you. Please visit calendly.com/healthyselfdvm to schedule a free, 1 hour phone call with me to explore ways that work for you.

Have a fantastic day!!

It is so easy to go through the day complaining about all types of things-the weather (it’s always too hot or wet or cold), the clients, the computer system, the staff, the management.

But complaining, and getting others to join in with you, is a way of continuing to keep yourself tied down to negative thoughts and emotions.

For today, I challenge you to not complain about anything!

If you feel the need to complain, stop, take a breath, try to recognize why that situation invokes your need to complain and find a way to breath through it and let it go. Make a list of the things you really want to complain about and see if there is a common underlying thread. Maybe they are situations in which you are feeling powerless. Maybe they are situations that challenge beliefs about the world or yourself.

Sometimes finding the common thread helps you to be able to play with ways of changing your beliefs so those situations do not irritate you any longer. We will be discussing ways of changing those irritating situations/thoughts into better feeling ones as we move forward. The first step is noticing what you want to complain about and what is the underlying belief.

So for this week, try noticing what situations cause you to complain the most. When you have some quiet time, see if there are any common threads to the areas.

What sets off your complaining mood? I’d love to hear from you.

Click here to set up your free, 1 hour one on one call with me to discuss these ideas further.

Why someone makes the decisions they do. You just don’t know what is going on in their lives, what medical/relationship/financial/life stresses they are experiencing at the same time their pet is ill.

You just don’t know their deeply, yet perhaps unconsciously, held beliefs around illness and death for themselves and their pets.

So can you allow for the possibility that the decisions they make, including lack of treatment, has absolutely NOTHING to do with you, and everything to do with them?

There are no words to make them understand the need for treatment. There are no words to make them come in to see you the first day of the vomiting instead of the 5th. There are no words to make them get a physical exam at least once a year.

You have minimal power to make the client do things. BUT…. You do have infinite power to control how you feel when the client does something with which you disagree.

For today, thank each client (silently or out loud) for seeking your expertise and skill no matter the circumstances. Be grateful they came to see you. Even when you perceive they made a mistake, remember that you do not walk in their shoes and you have no idea what is going on in their life.

I think you will find that as you are able to allow them to have their experience in life, you can have yours. Your job is not to make someone do something. Your job is to advocate for the pet. Once you have done that, allow the client to make the decision they feel is best.

Do not attach your self-worth or happiness level to the decision the client is making. Attach your self worth and happiness level to knowing that you made the best recommendations possible and that is all you can do. You have the power — by focusing on how you want to feel — to have a good day in the face of crappy situations.

Be grateful that they sought you out, allow them to have their experience, and you get to have a good day by not feeling responsible for their decisions.

And as the carrot attached to this recommendation from me, I know that the less stressed you get by client decisions, the more you will see clients that take your recommendations and the less you will be presented with those that won’t. You attract what you think about and spend energy on so spend it wisely.

If this idea resonates with you, or if you have questions about it, please click here to sign up for a free 1 hour phone consultation where we can discuss it more.