108. From Stuck to Empowered: The Truth About Choice

Between stimulus and response, there is space, and that space is our power to choose. Find that pause between that stimulus and the response and ask yourself, am I reacting into autopilot or am I responding with intention?

Are you, a woman in medicine, feeling overwhelmed and disconnected from the personal fulfillment that you desire? You're in the right place. Join doctors Joanne and Erin as they rewrite the rules for women in medicine. Let's begin.

In this episode, I can't wait to interview my Amazing Co host, Dr. Joanne Sotelo, and she's going to challenge your thoughts about choice. Oftentimes in medicine, especially these days, we think I don't have any control over this circumstance. And, and yet oftentimes we have more agency than we think. Joanne, I can't wait to hear your perspective on this. Let's dive in about that topic of choice.

Thank you, Erin. This is something that I find myself talking about so often when I talk to other physicians, whether it's in from my work or as clients. And it's this sense of loss of agency, loss of autonomy, and how often we find ourselves saying, I don't have a choice. I know I have but many times said that to myself. And then it's the question, is that true? Is it a hundred percent true, like Byron Katie says? And then figuring out that maybe there's some truth in that concept, in that statement, but it doesn't mean that it's a hundred percent, I don't have choice. So that's what I really want us to focus on in this episode because it's also what it does to our brain when we feel trapped by our schedules, by the systems, by the roles that we have that we feel demand everything in us. And then that sense of being stuck, we know that activates different parts of our brain. So our good, calm, very thoughtful, executive functioning, frontal part of our brain, to get technical here, doesn't work as well. So then that makes it even worse. So this is so important for us to be aware of and always with compassion. So the statement of, I want you to hear this and believe it, you, you always have choice. It might not be a hundred percent, it might not be exactly what you want, but there's always choice. And it's always about how you respond, how you show up, what you say, yes or no to those boundaries that we talk so much about. And the concept of thinking of choice as power, right, it is that ultimate lever of personal freedom and change. It's not about controlling everything as we believe so much in medicine, but it's control over what you respond and what you choose to focus on. It's thinking of choice as agency, right? Like I like to think of the holding the wheel, who's in that driver's seat of your life, and that sometimes we have more passengers that we want in the car, but it's. We're the ones holding the wheels. That's another way to think about it. Instead of just responding to external circumstances as we do so often, or living in autopilot just because that's the way we've always done it. It's really, really important, you know, and thinking about it, for so many of us here who are in healthcare and we're physicians, it can feel very rigid, exhausting, right? And we live in this kind of system that's in some ways so advanced, but in other ways we just kind of keep on spinning the wheel in the same way. And that's part of what leads us to stress and overwhelm, burnout. And then we start losing that love that we have for medicine. And we deserve to live in alignment, not just to respond to what's going on around us, which is how a lot of us learn to be in medicine, right? And it begins with a decision to heal, to dream, to step into courage. Because if, when there's no choice, there's no progress. And this is kind of that empowered choice. I got a little philosophical there, but that's what came up.

I love that philosophy. And I'm going to highlight your philosophy of curiosity and asking yourself, is that a hundred percent? Not just is that true? Because maybe there is some grain of truth to that, but is that a hundred percent true? And what I love about our philosophy as coaches is that one of our jobs is to challenge sometimes fixed ways of thinking. And medicine can be very stuck in its ways. And so I would love to hear from you, Joanne. You talk about. It begins with a decision and help us understand why is it so important for those of us in the medical fields to focus on this power of choice.

So I like to think about it in, in different aspects and, and to repeat some of what I said also before, because it's. We understand it intellectually, but yet we keep on falling into the same patterns. And so we have an illusion of powerlessness. And again, it's that it's not true. But medicine often makes us feel like that, like we're stuck, but it's really an illusion. We always have choice, especially in your response, your recovery, your self talk, your boundaries. I know that that's something that we've talked about in. In this podcast so much because that's how we stay really in alignment and we find that harmony even when the circumstances are difficult. So it's a very important point that's worth repeating and making that distinction something else. It's the difference between response and reaction. And I love this phrase from Viktor Frankl, so that he says, between stimulus and response, there is space, and that space is our power to choose. And I talk about that so much, and I use it as also in my life of reminding myself, find that pause between that stimulus and the response and ask yourself, am I reacting into autopilot or am I responding with intention? And that choice lives in that pause. It's magical. That's. That's where our power really is. And then also reminding ourselves that choice awareness can be a process. So one first step could be asking ourselves, where do you identify yourself as feeling trapped? And then asking, is there at least one small choice that I have in that moment? Then we can name it, identify it, so it's not just something vague in our brain taking a lot of space and then making the choice, right? Like, I know that you talk so much, Erin, which is so great that you help so many people when they get stuck, talk about being stuck in their charting. So if this is you, Erin, is your person, this is very important coaching work and then thinking, okay, right? Like, we can get stuck in the circumstance of, oh, I cannot, you know, the medical record and the messages, and there's so many, and I cannot write my notes and then saying, I can rearrange my day at least a little bit, even if it's a few minutes here and there, or you take a breath, you find that pause, you. You make those decisions to get your day feeling better, even if the workload is the same. And also the awareness, we can't really avoid emergencies frequently in the work that we do, but we can choose how to respond to it. And then very important here, the recharge, especially because it's easy to kind of plan our day. And I talk with a lot of humility here because I say these things. I'm so aware, I teach them. And then it's. This is a constant reminder because I pack my days as if nothing else would happen. And then other things happen, you know, like, I don't know, like, in something as simple as you left your keys at home, so you have to go back and find your office keys and to cope, right? And then you start your day 20 minutes later. Even things like that that make us feel out of sorts. And then we can choose how to reset and recharge from there and not living by others expectations or your own internal expectations all the time. And we talk about comparison and perfectionism. Those are important distinctions because again, it's not as easy as oh, just change your mind and decide. It's taking all of this without judging yourself. And a lot of compassion as well.

I love that, Joanne. And I wonder, you're so good about having frameworks about the how and what actions we can take in order to take more control in our lives, even when we work in something as complicated as the medical career. And do you have a framework to share with us?

Yes. And I love putting all this information in ChatGPT and asking ChatGPT give me a cool acronym for this because it's so much easier for us to remember. It's not just to make it cool, it's a good way to remember. I was, this is a side note, I was giving a presentation not that long ago and I had, it was kind of last minute that they asked me to present and I had a friend asked me later, how did you do that? How did you remember all of that? And I said I just had an acronym. So it really is like an easier for our brain to remember. So, so hopefully as an acronym it's easier for you all to, to remember this too, because this is important for so many aspects of our lives. I know that we, a lot of times we end up talking about medicine and work, but this is true for if you have some struggles with your kid or a good friend or you're making another life transition. So, so here it goes. So it's the word choose, of course, because it needs to make sense. So the first letter C is create space to pause, which again, one of my favorite things to talk about, pause before you respond. And that space is where your power lives. H is honor your values. And this is so important, it's beautiful work to really check in of what are your values in this time of your life and the order of them. Because if we're not clear in terms of our values and our priorities, it's very difficult to set those boundaries, to create that space and know what you want to do. Where's the decision, where's the choice? And that's why we end up in reacting rather than responding because it's just easier to go with what's outside in the circumstances. So really reflect on what matters to you, not just what's expected. The first O, own your narrative, know again, know what's important to you? What's that inner story that becomes your reality and rewrite it? We should have an episode just in this. It's so epic, so important to really be aware of what life have I been living? And is that how I want to keep on living? And if the answer is yes, because of course, like there doesn't need to be anything wrong, but then you can ask how can I make it even brighter and fuller and more fulfilling? So these are all very important questions to ask ourselves in alignment to the power of choice. The other O, because we have to make it catchy, is opt out of guilt. Another episode all on its own of how much we let guilt make decisions for us and that can no longer be the case. And you're allowed to choose you every single time. The S is for set intentional boundaries again because we have to protect our time, energy, purpose, being clear. And then the E is of course embrace your power. Every moment is a chance to act in alignment with your truest self. And wrapping it with a pretty bow here, of all the things that we always talk about in this podcast that.

Is so powerful, Joanne, and I love how you set up that great framework. I'm going to do a little recap here. So in this episode you talked about how we can sometimes or often feel trapped in our life, especially in medicine, and yet how we can get curious to find out what's really true about going on, maybe think in fewer absolutes that we can tap into our power in the pause and that one small choice sometimes can have big effects and that we need to remember to recharge because it's really hard to pause when we are reactive because we don't have any buffer and we haven't taken time to recharge. I love that reminder about self care which we are so fond of sharing with you and also ties into kind of the opposite of this is that learned helplessness. And we talked about that in episode 98, whole episode about learned helplessness. You talked about our sometimes go to automatic thinking patterns of comparison and perfectionism and challenging that how can we instead have compassion for ourselves? And then also this framework, Joanne, so well put the framework of the word choose The C creates space to pause. H is honor your values, not just what's expected of you.

O.

The first one own your narrative. The second O is opt out of guilt. The S is set appropriate boundaries always so important. We talk about that a lot on this show. And the E is embrace your power. I love that framework, Joanne. And I wonder, is there one more piece of wisdom that you'd like to share with our audience today?

Yes, I would like for you all to take this little homework with you. So maybe this week, even if it's just once, try to notice where you feel trapped and ask yourself, what choice is available to me right here? And even a small choice in alignment is a way to return to yourself and the reminder of you're not powerless, you're not stuck, and you are not at the mercy of your calendar, your inbox, your the charts and the reminder of you can always choose again.

I love that. And breaking it down to just the smallest little change can start this bigger ripple effect. So powerful. And if you loved this episode and had some great takeaways from from Joanne, would you do us a favor and share this episode with someone who might need to hear our message? The more we share this podcast, if you believe in it, if you think you take good things away from it, you share it with others. That's going to help us grow and get in front of more individuals who might be struggling with some of the same issues you are. And with that, stay tuned because our next episode is coming right up.

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