EP42 | Conflict and Advocacy for our Kids with Dr. Alisa Minkin

If you work in healthcare, you already know this. Conflict is everywhere. In the OR, in labor and delivery, in committee meetings, between physicians, nurses, administrators, and teams that are all trying to do the right thing.

But here's the problem.

Most of us were never trained to handle conflict well. We learned procedures. We learned Diagnostics, but we didn't learn how to navigate the moments when 2 professionals strongly disagree. That's why I developed the SPARK framework. SPARK stands for stop, pause, ask, don't assume, reflect and respond, and create a path forward. It's practical system designed specifically for high-stakes healthcare environments. Through keynote talks, residency workshops, and Spark Masterclasses, I teach physicians, nurses, and healthcare teams how to turn destructive conflict into productive conversations that strengthen teams and improve care. If your hospital, residency program, or medical conference is looking for a speaker on conflict communication and leadership in healthcare, I'd love to work with you. You can learn more in the show notes. Because in medicine, conflict is inevitable, but handled well, it can make teams stronger.

In every operating room, in every ward, in every clinic, and every team meeting, a silent battle brews. Conflict, negotiation, identity. Welcome to the Scalpel and Sword podcast, where I, Dr. Lee Sharma, physician and conflict analyst, Explore the hidden negotiations behind modern medicine. Let's trade burnout for boundaries and learn the art of healing with precision and power.

Hello, my peaceful warriors, and welcome to the Scalpel and Sword podcast. I am your host, Dr. Lee Sharma, physician and conflict analyst. And I'm going to ask you a question. If you've worked anywhere in the clinical arena, You understand that advocacy and being a resource and a soldier for our patients isn't just limited to the OR, the clinic, or the outpatient facility. It is something we have to do on Capitol Hill with our legislators, within our community. And I don't think anybody can speak to this as well as our guest today, Dr. Elisa Menken. Dr. Menken is a pediatrician. She is board certified in pediatrics. She attended Johns Hopkins University, followed by the NYU School of Medicine. She completed her internship and residency at Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center. She has 6 children and she's married, but she also is an experienced podcaster and she currently has one of my favorite podcasts right now, which is Kids Matter. Elisa, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me. It's good to be on the other side. It's fun.

It is, right? After you've done this for a while, it's like, it's really nice. It's like, I'm gonna be the guest and it's really nice to sit in that seat.

Yep.

At what point in your career as a pediatrician did you really start to see how important advocacy is outside the clinical arena?

So I will tell you that I have an adult daughter with autism. And I took a long time off of work. And then when I came back, I was already very into advocacy for advocating for my daughter for all those years. So it's been part and parcel of what I do the entire time.

Wow.

So you really had a very strong personal connection because of your daughter and you saw exactly what she needed. What were some first steps that you took on that road to being an advocate for her? And then ultimately, of course, all the children.

So from the very beginning, I had to advocate for her medical care. She was a diagnostic puzzle for a very long time. So that was one piece, but I also wanted her socially included in our community. That was very important to me. And being on the autism spectrum, that's an area that she needs extra support in. It doesn't come easy to her. It's more difficult.

Right.

And so I really wanted her in a community school within our faith community. You know, we had her in one of our local Jewish day schools for about a year or so. She wasn't able to stay there anymore. And I had to put her in public school. I worked very hard to try to make my community have inclusive programs. So for example, I created a program called Art Buddies. And the program was from her Sunday school program for her Judaic studies with other children with special needs. I brought in an equal number of children who were typical and they did art together with a teacher who was trained to work with both populations. It was amazing. So I did that. I also helped start what's called a Friendship Circle club. It is from the group Chabad Friendship Circle. We were the 13th Friendship Circle. I think there may be over 100 now, but this was many years ago. And so I helped. do that, I started a support group in my community. So those are all things that I did many, many years ago. My daughter is 32 now, so this is a long time ago.

Yeah. But you could clearly see, I mean, you had a vision of what you could do to sort of expand this community and make it more welcoming. And especially being an early adopter of the Friendship Circle and things like that, like you said, now there's over 100. And when you started this, there were only 13. What was that experience like in terms of going to people and talk to them about the importance of these programs? Did you feel it was very welcoming? Did you feel like there were obstacles?

That's a great question. By the time the Friendship Circle came around, I didn't feel like that, but I remember when I started the support group and there had never been anything like that here in the community. And I remember that you could hear a pin drop in the room with people in it. There was like such a desire, such a need for it, but nobody had done it. So getting the parents together. That felt like a need that needed to be filled right away or maybe years ago. But what was harder was the concept of kids with special needs should be included socially with their typical peers. That was not a natural concept for people. And that's true for people who had kids with special needs and people who had the typical kids. I think both of them thought these are 2 populations and never the tween. Shall meet. And this is really before inclusion took off. You know, we're talking right, like 25 years ago.

Yeah. So it's so interesting because you would sort of think as someone approaching this topic that the kids who also had needs and those parents would be right along with you saying, we really want to help our children build a community with the children that maybe don't have some of these concerns. And yet. It sounds like you were really having to also sort of bring them into your worldview in terms of why you felt like this was important.

You know, I think that it's hard for parents of kids with special needs to have the idea that their kids deserve this just as much as any other kid. And again, this is talking many years ago. Thankfully, we've made strides both in my community and in the regular world to give my community credit because it's not fair if I don't. My community is where a program called Yachad was started. Yachad is a very big organization for kids with special needs and their typical peers at this point. It's very inclusive. And it started in this community with a woman with a vision in this community for a young person with a disability in this community well before my daughter. That organization started well before. So I sat on the Shoulders of giants, do you know what I'm saying? Like there was things done already and my community was already very ripe for this. And ultimately very, once you said it, it started to happen. So it wasn't as difficult as, you know, maybe I'm unfortunately making it sound. It really wasn't.

Well, and one of the biggest things about this is that you did see a need. You were led in your heart to meet this need. And like you said, you had other people who had done some work before you. But ultimately it was you talking to people about a point of view and a need. But there's something that you said in there that I want to get into, because I think it's going to lead us into further discussions about advocacy as a whole, which is you were in a place where people were ready to hear it. That at that point in time, they were ready for your message. And that was a big part of what made your advocacy, your efforts made it successful, but also having a group of people listening to you that were receiving that message. Have you been able, as you have gone through the course of your career and been such a strong advocate for kids, has that experience of sort of understanding that there was a fertile ground for the work you were doing, has that affected your timing in this work at all?

You mean now or then?

Yeah, now, because I feel like—

That's so interesting because I'm doing something very different now. I don't know if you wanna pivot ahead to my podcast already. I do.

Yeah. Because I feel like—

You ready for the podcast? I'm not sure it's the right time.

I'm really not.

I don't know.

No, this is great. That's great because what you did 25 years ago, this is a big lesson when we're talking about advocacy and advocacy is a conflict-ridden process and it's conflict on so many levels. And what's interesting about conflict and advocacy is that it's not necessarily seen as an adversarial process, but that is kind of what you're doing. You're walking into a group of people, introducing an idea to them. That you see as important and you understand its value, but they may not. And so a lot of successfully advocating for something is recognizing when this time is right.

And you did that.

You did that very early on. And so I wonder if now sort of instinctively, or even just by the virtue of the fact that you have this podcast now, you've seen that this is a fertile time for people to hear this message that you're bringing them.

I'm hoping it is, but I'm going back to that time and I'm remembering that I was very frustrated at the time because my idea of inclusion was not necessarily other people's idea. And I think the idea then is we'll be with those special needs kids. You know, they were not children. They were special needs kids. It drove me nuts. You know, they're kids. They're all just kids. And I think we're coming closer to that now, but 25 years ago we weren't. And it drove me crazy then, and yet I still wanted it then. So I think there was a gap between what I wanted to happen and what was capable of happening. And I think that's happening all over again. But I'm gonna try anyway, 'cause you gotta try. Yeah. It's just an interesting question that you're asking. I'm thinking about it. I think that we are in a post-COVID world, and I think that we've seen polarization Tribalization. I think people are tired. I mean, I'm tired. I hope other people are tired of no nuance and everything being like part of the outrage machine. I think we still react that way and we may still choose it, but I'm hoping that there's a yearning for nuance and also for coming together to solve a problem because I think we have problems that we think we can solve as individuals, especially as Americans. We're intensely individualistic. And yet our problems are bigger than that. They're not, I call them, they're not me problems, they're we problems. And I don't know if we're ready now to do that in large groups of people, but I think people are starting and seeds are being planted and I wanna get in on the ground floor.

Yeah.

And you 100%, and you definitely are with the work that you're doing. I love what you just said and I wanna kind of dive into that a little bit more. This idea that you've got groups of people coming together that are working on something singular, but you have this whole group where you have, maybe we all agree on this is why we're sitting here, but we may not agree on how it should be done. We may not agree on a timeline. We may not agree on the best way to proceed. And so even though you have brought a group of people together that are all advocating for the same thing. You've got conflict within that in-group. Have you seen that happen?

Oh yes. I think you're thinking about the world of autism, possibly.

Yeah. And you talk about that in one of your podcasts, and it was such a fantastic discussion that this idea that you think the main source of conflict with advocacy is the person you're advocating to. You don't think about the fact that the person that you're advocating with may also be a source of conflict as well.

And I think that that's really true for the more polarized topics. Not everything is equally polarized. Autism is insanely politicized and insanely polarized nowadays. And the viewpoints within the group of people advocating are very disparate and often at each other's throats in a way that's so sad because, you know, there are those who were saying it's not really that we're having so much more autism, we're just better at diagnosing it, better at recognizing it, diagnosing more of the mild end of the neurodivergent spectrum. And then there are others who are saying this is an epidemic. This is an absolute crisis. We are having a surge, a huge surge in autism. And I'm going to tell you right now that I fall into that latter group. And I'm saying this as a pediatrician who basically burnt out trying to care for more and more kids on the autism spectrum and the ADHD spectrum. The amount that we are seeing nowadays is really high and it's not just better identification or reclassification. And to me, it feels like we're putting our heads in the sand and that gets me mad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's hard when other people within the field of advocacy are saying it's not even a true increase. How can you solve a problem if you don't even think about the scope of the problem?

And as you are in these groups and you're seeing this sort of fracture, and especially I think your voice becomes so valid because you are a pediatrician. You are seeing these patients. You are making the diagnoses. If anybody's going to actually see these trends in real time, it's you. And yet you're in a group with a bunch of other people that may not have your insight and your perspective. Is there a point when you are working within these groups that they can look at each other and realize that this disagreement or maybe lack of alignment within group that's advocating is actually hurting advocacy efforts.

You mean we have to come to our kumbaya moment?

Yep.

You know, I don't see it happening. And I think that there's also a lot of other interests at play here, particularly financial interests. I'm not saying within the advocates, I'm saying in terms of what's driving what people believe.

Okay.

So that's a really hard Part of it because it's also hard to see things that you may feel that you can't do anything about.

Mm-hmm.

And so I think, for example, the message that our polluted environment, you know, multiple toxins here talking microplastics, PFAS, lead, all of these kind of things could be causing the rise in autism. That's a huge problem and it's gonna be really expensive to solve and My podcast episode is not out, but I did one on it. It's not specifically on autism, but on fighting environmental toxins. And people have already told me, but we don't wanna hear that. The general public doesn't wanna hear that. And I understand the lure of the vaccines cause autism and vaccines do not cause autism, but I understand the lure of that because it's a simple explanation and you could potentially have control by not having the vaccines. And that's why people are fighting over it. So fiercely because they want to have something they have control over and then they want to have control over it.

One of the things that you talk about in, I think it is the episode that you kind of, it's a recent one talking about neurodiversity, is this role of narrative. Like as you're talking about telling these stories and people talking about, you know, the stories of microplastics and the stories with environmental associations with autism, that these are stories that we tell and we tell these stories. Not even just to sort of illustrate our felt and lived experience, but we also use this as advocates. One of my previous guests on the podcast, who's a dear friend, is a pediatric neurosurgeon who is advocating for gun safety. She's a very powerful advocate. She lives in Louisiana. She's an amazing human. Dr. Jill Plouffe, if you're listening, I love you. But one of the things that she does is she tells these stories about having to care for these children who have been injured. In gunshot situations and not always outside the home, sometimes finding guns inside the home. And all she really does, but it's so powerful, is she tells these stories. I wonder, as you're telling, hearing people tell these stories about autism and these lived and felt experiences, are these stories moving the needle with advocacy as you see it?

Are you talking about vaccines and autism? Because, you know, there's a thought that telling stories about children who have been hurt by the vaccine-preventable illnesses will be so powerful. And the problem is the stories that the anti-vaccine advocates tell are super powerful. And it's also more germane to them because it's their kid or their neighbor, so on and so forth. So stories are very powerful.

Right.

If you're talking about the narrative that vaccines don't cause autism. Stories, I don't know how effective they are.

And I think one of the things that also happens with those stories, and you talk about this, and this is what really struck with me, and we were talking about it before we went on mic, was you used a word, denialism, in terms of telling these stories. And in terms of advocacy, how do you see this concept of denialism and how does it affect the advocacy process? Because I think it was a great descriptor as people start telling stories.

You mean denialism that there's actually an autism epidemic or surge?

Yes.

So that's really, really a problem. And again, I hear it from the people who believe that vaccines do cause autism. They don't wanna hear that answer is not correct.

Mm-hmm.

Right. For people who believe that there's just an increase in diagnosis, again, they would prefer Prefer that story. So the problem is they're bolstering their denialism for a reason. I honestly do not know how to get past this because right now the research money is going into genetics. And so makes sense if there's not a real rise to say autism is genetic. But you don't have a genetic epidemic. You don't have a genetic outbreak or surge or whatever. And then there's the whole piece about the neurodiversity people. Talk about groups within autism, you know, going against each other. Mm-hmm. I love the idea of neurodiversity. I really do. I love the idea that all brains belong, that we were created with so many different minds and we don't need to fit into a box. And we should be more welcoming. I am a huge fan, by the way, of The Pit, which when I'm done with you, I'm gonna go watch. The next episode drops at 9.

Yep.

And what I love about that show is they show a character who's not labeled with any specific condition, and yet she's clearly neurodivergent.

Mm-hmm.

And she has a sister who's autistic, and then they've also brought some autistic characters on the show, so they're showing the spectrum. It's really great representation. I love it. So I love that piece of it. The problem is the neurodiversity advocates who are very loud right now are anti-autism as a disorder. They say autism is a way of being, and they object to the term disorder. They object to ABA, which is applied behavioral analysis, which is a whole separate conversation. It's really complicated because it used to be punitive. It can still be, if it's done in the old-fashioned discrete trial way, be very rigid, except that over time it's become much more naturalistic. And for people who have a disorder, it can be very helpful therapy. And so they are going against what is benefiting the more impaired end of the autism spectrum who truly have a disorder. In the name of neurodiversity for people who may be just quirky. So that is a huge conflict. Please help us solve this.

I don't know.

Yeah.

And this was my question as you were talking about, and that's why I think that term really spoke to me, because I think this is what happens when people start using stories in conflict. And especially if you're using stories to bolster a position and not stories to bring together, because I think there's a way you can tell a story or there's a way you tell the story That I'm not trying to win or lose. Sometimes we tell stories to win or lose, and I want to win you to my side. And so I'm going to tell a story that's going to win you to my side. And if that story is denying science, if it's denying trends, if it's denying things that we clearly see developing, especially in terms of the disorder, you do start to create more conflict than resolve it. And I think that was the thing that really struck me is that In terms of advocacy work, and we start telling stories, this idea that I'm going to tell a story that invites you in and doesn't box you out. Is that possible for the advocates, and especially in a group, like you said, a group that's so diverse as the people who are advocating for autism? Is there a way to do this? Because I think as you're telling this, and I'll be honest with you, I have gotten so much more of an understanding. Of the spectrum and the advocacy for neurodiversity. As I've listened to your podcast, I've learned a lot. And so it's made me more invested in learning about this advocacy conflict because I do see people telling these stories, but I don't see it as something that's unifying.

You're right. And that's, I think, maybe what rubs me the wrong way about asking doctors to tell stories about kids who've had vaccine-preventable illnesses. To try to move the needle, literally. And I'll tell you another story about me. I don't mind telling this. I had a vaccine hesitant phase in my life. And that was when my daughter was being diagnosed and Andrew Wakefield, you can go back and look him up if you don't know who he is, but his article was in The Lancet for 12 years before investigative reporter Brian Deer debunked him. And during that timeframe, it made sense to me. I remember reading RFK Jr.'s article in the Rolling Stone. I believed everything.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I mean, I didn't become against all vaccines, but I was certainly hesitant. And now when I approach someone who has vaccine hesitance, I approach them from, hey, I was there too. I understand where they're coming from. And I don't tell stories like that. When I talk to people, I come from the perspective is I know what you're coming from.

Yeah.

I understand why you don't trust. I understand why you believe what you believe. I do. And I understand that the fear that's behind it and the desire for control that's behind it, because that was me.

I'm going to cry. That's beautiful because this is, you know, as the essence of building communication and building trust within that relationship is being able to say, I can see your point of view. I understand where you're coming from. And that's something unfortunately, as doctors, we're just not good at. You know, and that's something I think we all need to get better at being able to not only just literally sit in the patient's shoes, but actually say, I see where you're coming from in terms of a thought process. I think that's so powerful. And that's, to me, a big part of how you get buy-in, not only from patients, but also in advocacy. I think that's a big part of how you get legislators to buy in, how you get organizations to buy in. Is that I see your point of view. Maybe we agree on point A, but not on point B, but I can see where you're coming from on point B. I'm more likely to be with you on point A and point B. I think that's a huge part. The fact that you had that experience, that you had vaccine hesitancy, I think actually makes your advocacy stronger.

I hope so, but I'm very worried about what's happening with social media now, because by definition, it pushes people into echo chambers. And it pushes people into reacting by outrage the minute you say something that doesn't fit into their worldview. It's a very black and white situation. I don't know how to fix it. I just know that on my podcast, I'm happy to have people on that I might not agree with or that you might not agree with, but I want to hear what they're saying because I think we all have a piece of the puzzle to put together. We can't possibly have all the answers. And if we don't listen to different people, how are we ever going to figure it out rather than just reinforce what we already believe?

And what you just said, I think is incredible because one of the things I see with advocacy is a lot of times people will advocate for a specific, let's say legislation position, whatever. And you are absolutely 110% convinced that your way is right. My way is right. My policy is right. My policy is going to fix everything. That's a possibility, but that's less likely. It's more likely that you're going to meet a lot of other people. who have had experience or who've talked to somebody in another state or who've talked to somebody in another organization who said, well, I see what you're doing, but I also see they've done well with this. Can we incorporate part of this? And then all of a sudden your policy push becomes stronger because you've been able to incorporate something somebody else did. It requires a lot of humility to be able to be in this process and have it be effective. And I think one of the great things about having Kids Matter and inviting guests on the show that you may not necessarily agree with is that number one, you are creating stronger conversations by having somebody who has another point or another perspective, but also you are inviting the listeners to open their minds more. You have to be open-minded to listen to people have these conversations. And I think when you're doing that, that's what's so powerful. And that's where you get agreement. Not necessarily one side winning or losing. You get agreement. And that's something that's very different.

I'm hoping that it works like that for people. Somebody recently told me that one of the people that was on my podcast that they were telling me about what they didn't agree with, and they weren't even listening to the podcast. They were just telling me something that this person wrote. And I'm like, I can't wait to talk to this guy because I want to hear his take.

Right?

That's how I learned what I believe is I listened to different viewpoints and I see what makes sense. And then I try to Fact check it and put it together. Nobody has everything. Nobody has the whole truth.

Not at all. And that's honestly, to me, as you are doing this kind of work and you're reaching out to people and helping them understand how to advocate for kids, is understanding that this process not only has to be collaborative, not only has to be humble, it has to be something that works both within the group and outside the group. It has to be all of those things. And that is actually how I forget where I read this, but this idea of making, you can make a policy. You can say, we're going to do X. Okay. We're going to go, we're going to mow the lawn every Tuesday. That's fantastic. I love this for you. But all of a sudden you realize, wait a second, Tuesday it rained. Wait a second. Tuesday I was out of gas for my lawnmower and I couldn't mow. It's not practical. You can't say that's a practical policy. And so there is One of the great things I think about having people who disagree with you help you make policy and help you advocate is that you are more likely to find something workable, something that will actually stick as opposed to something that, oh yeah, we have this policy, but it doesn't work. And I think that's the thing I love about you having guests on your show that coming from these different backgrounds and different points of view.

Absolutely. I agree.

Yeah.

So. As you are moving forward and, you know, obviously Kids Matter has been a big part of your advocacy and of course you've got a long history of working. What are some topics that you really feel like are important for you to advocate right now for children besides working with autism?

So autism is a big one, partly because of my daughter and partly because I do believe, you know, that it's rising and we're going to, especially as they age out of the support that they get in school and they fall off what we call the cliff. Adult services for autism, no one's talking about that. That's a huge problem. So I'm passionate about that. I'm very fortunate that my daughter has been able to live in a very supportive small group home. I'm very fortunate for that, but there's not nearly enough resources out there. So that's a huge problem that I'm very concerned about in terms of advocacy, but mental health in general. For our kids is a huge problem. We don't have mental health parity despite whatever laws have been passed. It's very hard to access any mental health care, let alone quality mental health care. So that's something I'm very passionate about. I'm passionate about screening kids for these problems because the earlier you pick them up, the easier it is to handle it if you can find the resources. Back to that problem. So those are what I'm most passionate about. As a pediatrician, I believe.

Yeah.

And those are such, especially I think the push for mental health right now. I think that's pivotal for our children. I've seen that in so many, I mean, I'm, my population, I'll treat them as young as 12 or 13. So even as a GYN, I see how much of this is really affecting our children into their adulthood and beyond. I think that's incredible that you're advocating for that. Let's say you're talking to a pediatric resident. They're coming, they're talking with you, and Dr. Menken, I'm really excited about, you know, going into practice or doing academics as a pediatrician, but I know how important it is for me to advocate for my patients. Tell me one thing, one piece of advice that would help me be a good advocate for kids.

So I have to say, we haven't talked about how hard it is to be a pediatrician nowadays. Before you even get to advocacy, just Trying to be a good pediatrician feels impossible. Did you see the Barbie movie?

Yeah. Love the Barbie monologue. I probably have it memorized. I've watched it so many times.

There needs to be a monologue like that for pediatricians about how impossible it is to be a pediatrician. So before I talk about advocacy, I want to say that it's just so hard and I wish we could advocate for ourselves better because I think if we could advocate for ourselves better, we'd have more to give to our patients and families.

Wow.

It's sad. It's really frustrating. I mean, I did leave for a reason, right? It was just too hard for me dealing with so much of the mental health problems and the developmental problems. And we have very limited time. So like when you're talking about conflict resolution or getting into the person, empathizing with the person, where you have a 15-minute visit in which you're supposed to give those vaccines and do a million other things on the computer, by the way. It's really hard. And so something I'm also very passionate about is taking care of yourself as an individual. And I wish we could advocate for ourselves as pediatricians as a group. I really wish we could. I think pediatricians are the nicest people and the most giving people.

Yeah.

And I don't think we stand up for ourselves. I think we put ourselves last in that kind of way you do when you are, you know, a person who cares deeply about children and you're a person who's Love language is service, right? That's how I feel before I say, how should somebody advocate? Do the best you can on an individual level. I can't really ask them to go and do political advocacy. I don't even do that myself. Yeah, that's super, super hard and it's a really tough climate.

The, what you just said, and I wanna bring this out because I think this is a really important point, that if we're talking about being of service, to our patients, we have to first be of service to ourselves.

Absolutely.

And we can't engage in these processes without being in a good place. We have to have reserve. We have to have that level of self-care. We have to be in a good place. And when we're in a good place, I would almost argue that that's probably the strongest set of advocacy we could be.

I agree 100%.

We are the biggest poster boards for how to love ourselves and how to love our patients. And if the biggest step in being that person for your patients is that I had lunch today and I got to go home and sit on my front porch and read a book and play with my dog, that was my advocacy today. That's the work that I did. I was a healthy provider for these kids.

The best way to teach as a parent is by modeling, and I would assume that same way as a physician.

Absolutely.

I love that.

And that to me is one of the most powerful messages you could give to a young physician or a physician in training is that this is where advocacy starts. I love to get into sort of the nuts and bolts of conflict, but what you just said really spoke to me that this is the fundamental place to start is we advocate. For us. And then as we grow in those roles, I think advocacy almost becomes natural. You want to talk about it. You want to talk to other people. You want to share a message. You want to do the work that you're doing on the podcast. It becomes a normal outgrowth of that, but it has to start in that inside place.

Absolutely. It's absolutely true. And I will say that, you know, I've taken a little time off from my pediatric practice. And I am so grateful for how much I've grown as a person. And I'm gonna come back, and I told you this before we started, I'm coming back to the same place because I'm very grateful to the practice I was in. They're a lovely, warm place. Love everybody there. But in that time off, I've become a different person. So I'm going back to the same place, but as a different person.

So my cup is now full. Lisa, that's beautiful. Oh my gosh. I'm so glad your cup is full. I really am. And they are lucky to have you.

Thank you. Thank you. Well, I'll be lucky to have them. So, you know, it's wonderful when you find a place where you feel it's your home away from home. So I left on good terms because I felt like that then, and I feel like that now. So looking forward to going back, but on a smaller scale, because you know what, your life changes. You don't always realize that you're in a new phase of life. And I'm in the grandma phase now.

Yes.

More time to be the grandma. And I'm making more time, you know, because one of the worst things I think you can do is to keep pushing ahead, doing things, thinking you have to do them and you don't have room for what's so important to you. Who didn't make time for that? You didn't make time for it.

Yeah.

So like I said, now I'm going back with my perspective aligned with where I need to be. In this phase of life, and I'm ready to go back in the grandma zone. Very limited hours.

That is so exciting. You're going to get to celebrate your grandma role. You're coming back with this wonderful new fresh perspective. It sounds like you're really excited about going back as well.

I am.

That's incredible. I'm so happy. Elisa, so we're definitely going to link Kids Matter in the show notes so people can listen to the podcast. I have listened to, I don't know how many episodes. episodes I've listened to, and I am definitely a huge fan. Thank you.

I love yours too.

I've been binging. I'm so glad. Thank you for being here. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you for showing us this very personal place that advocacy comes from, the challenges that we may encounter both within the groups we're advocating with and people we're advocating to. And also the idea that we grow in that process and we understand how best to tell our stories, that there is a way to tell those stories that actually becomes very positive and productive. And we want to be very conscious of that too.

Thank you so much. I love what you're doing. Keep up the great work.

Thank you.

I'm so glad you're here, Lisa. You're definitely going to have to come back. You'll definitely have to come back and we'll have to talk. I'm coming online, remember?

Yes.

I'm so excited for that. That's going to be fantastic.

Me too.

For all of our peaceful warriors today who have joined us on the Scalpel and Sword, thank you so much for being here. And until next time, be at peace.

Every episode is an invitation to speak, to negotiate, to choose. I'm Dr. Lee Sharma. Join the dialogue by subscribing to Scalpel and Sword. Until next Until next time, peaceful warriors, may your choices be sharp and your voice be even sharper. This podcast is a reflection of lived experience and research in conflict resolution. The Scalpel and Sword is not intended as medical or legal guidance. For personal matters, please consult a qualified professional.