Ep. 51 | Why I'm Telling My Brain "Leave It"

Lately, I've been treating my brain like a dog. This is what happens when a veterinarian becomes a health/life coach. 😉 Have a tendency to take on too much or to make things harder than they have to be? I have a feeling you might want to teach your brain this trick, too.

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Music: “Play Thing” by Ketsa
From Free Music Archive

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Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical, mental health, or professional advice. I am a certified health and life coach, not a licensed medical or mental health professional. Please consult with a healthcare provider before making any changes to your physical or mental health routines. If you are experiencing a crisis, seek help from a qualified professional or contact emergency services.

Connect with me on your favorite social media channel: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn!

To learn more about my approach and the programs and free resources available to support you, visit my website: www.lifeboost.today

I love to hear from you. You can always reach me at amelia@lifeboost.today.

Transcript

0:57

Hey life booster. This is Dr. Amelia health coach and veterinarian here to help you ditch yoyo, dieting people, pleasing and perfectionism by breaking the norm and living a life that energizes you from within. Today, I am sharing one thing that I am practicing this month. And if you identify at all with having some perfectionist tendencies or people pleasing tendencies, you may benefit from this too. And I also have a dog analogy because I'm a veterinarian and that's where my brain goes. So here we go. So this month, I am practicing telling my brain,"no, leave it". A lot like a dog that is really drawn to a yummy, delicious steak. Because while my brain is just programmed, it's like, as if I was designed to think of something that I want to do, like to say yes to take on a whole new project. Like my brain just loves that it is drawn to that. It is like a dog to a fatty piece of steak. And even though my brain is really drawn to those things, it does not mean that that is necessarily good for my body. And that is so similar to a dog that is drawn to a fatty piece of steak. They may just like instinctually want that. They may be salivating at the idea of it. But that does not mean that that is what their body needs and it can sometimes have catastrophic results. It can be a really terrible snowball effect. And that's kind of like what happens when I instantly say yes to some things that I haven't really thought about. why I am really practicing, reprogramming and retraining my brain so that instead of just impulsively saying like, yes, or taking on something new, I am pausing first and I am saying, leave it. And then I am allowing myself to really actually think through if this is something that I want to take on. As a health coach and veterinarian, it means that I have two careers and two opportunities to sometimes make my life harder than it has to be. And the perfectionism and the people pleasing those tendencies, they creep in for both. So with health coaching and as an entrepreneur, like there's not a clear on and off, or, you know, when I'm working and when I'm not. I am grateful to be doing something that I feel so passionate about that allows me to be so creative. And that is both, both a blessing and a curse because. I am constantly inspired and I have endless ideas in my brain of either like content that I want to share with you, a reel, that I want to make a new program that I want to create. It's sometimes overwhelming the number of ideas that I have that I want to share with you. And so it's very easily i either take on like a whole new project, cuz I'm like, oh, this is just an amazing thing that I have to have to create and share. And that can feel very exciting, but it can also easily snowball into a bigger project than I anticipated. Or there can just be lots of little things, lots of little content that I want to share. Things like different food ideas or recipes. I mean, it's endless the number of things just like jumping around in my brain. And if I listen to all of those and just impulsively am like yes to every single one of those then easily. Any kind of work life balance starts to disappear. And I end up feeling a little bit overwhelmed and I think the most challenging thing for me is that they're all things that I enjoy, right. Like a dog to a steak. I truly do enjoy all the topics. I love sharing info with you and helping you to see how health and a healthy lifestyle can actually be something that you want to do, that it doesn't require discipline and willpower. I love helping you to see how healthy can feel doable to you, but at the same time, And ironically, if I do that too much, I end up not, not having a good work life balance. And I really need to be practicing what I'm preaching. And then to layer that on, I also take on veterinary shifts and as a relief veterinarian, where I fill in at different hospitals it can be very tempting to take on extra shifts because right now in the veterinary industry, there's just a huge demand there's just not enough help. And so there are always extra shifts to take. And so it can either just be appealing like, oh, I see like technically this free day in my schedule where in reality that day would be a day for me to create some content that is going on in my brain for my health coaching brain. Or it could be a day for me to just not work. That's also an option. But there's easily a tendency for me to see, oh, this is a free day. I could, I could take on another shift and sometimes even that people pleasing, you know, if someone is asking me, then there's like that, oh, it's open. I could do that. So the past couple of months both of those sides, you know, the health coaching and the veterinary side, I was just saying yes, too much. And so I am really taking a moment and I am making a point of practicing training my brain. Saying"no, leave it" just like a dog drawn to the steak. and the analogy that I am thinking of is that dogs love, you know, the fatty piece of meat, right? And sometimes owners really love to give them those pieces because I mean, when a dog looks at you with their cute eyes, then you just want them to be happy, right? But, and this is a little PSA. Do not feed your dog a fatty piece of meat. Okay. Because there is something terrible that can happen when you do that. It's called pancreatitis. So, so when I say yes or I take on a new project, initially, it feels good. I'm happy. I'm excited a lot like a dog having a piece of steak, but that can snowball, right. If I keep doing that, then suddenly I have no free time, or I feel like I'm taking on too much. I'm overwhelmed. I don't have a good work life balance, you know, start to get stressed and stress causes issues throughout the body. Right. That's when it starts to impact, you know, we think back to the three life boost, B's, belly, meaning gut health, blood sugar, and brain. That stress impacts all of those, right? It makes it so that your blood sugar isn't as well re regulated, it starts to impact your gut. And if that's ongoing enough, it causes inflammation in your body and inflammation, reeks havoc. And that is a lot like a dog with pancreatitis. So pancreatitis is when the pancreas becomes inflammed. and a fatty meal for dog, especially like a beef or pork product, that can be a trigger for pancreatitis. and pancreatitis is the kind of thing that can really snowball. So the pancreas, that's both an organ responsible for insulin and helping to regulate blood sugar, but it's also key in digestion and they have these enzymes that are really important. So typically the little digestive enzymes that help you to break up your food, they're in these little packages, so they're not active until it goes into the intestines where there's food and then it gets activated and it helps you to digest your food. But when the pancreas is inflamed, suddenly those digestive enzymes, they get activated too early. And that means that in the abdomen, suddenly there are these digestive enzymes. They're not where they should be. And the pancreas is right next to the liver that can start causing damage to the organs around. And then the dog becomes very sick. They have vomiting or diarrhea. They have a lot of abdominal pain and in some cases it can become very severe life threatening. They have to be hospitalized. You can see how this little innocent thing that they were really just instinctually drawn to. They were salivating for. That you may have been so tempted to give them because they were looking at you with those eyes. Now, something so simple can snowball into such a overwhelming, terrible thing. And, and that is why it does take draining your dog to not you know, jump up on the counter and grab something and even training yourself that when your dog is looking at you with those eyes, give them some veggies. Veggies are great treats, just like for you, but please resist the fatty pieces of meat because that can snowball. So just like with a dog right now, it's unrealistic to think that they're just going automatically leave a super tempting piece of meat, right? Like you have to train them to not do that. And maybe to show them like, if they leave the tempting piece of steak, then they can get a better treat that is not going to cause pancreatitis. So I am working to train my brain to notice when I am driven and having that instinct to say yes, and to instead catch myself and pause. And so the first thing is just really paying attention to any time I'm about to say yes, and coming up with a way to help me pause. And I'm doing that in a few ways. So one thing that I am doing is anytime I notice someone asking me like to take on an extra shift or asking me to do something, I am having a phrase now that helps just to give me time so that I don't have to give an answer in the moment. So I'm just being honest and saying, you know, I have a tendency to say yes to too many things. So right now I'm practicing, just pausing and giving myself a little bit of time. So can I get back to you? And give them a period of time giving myself that go to statement has really helped. And it's interesting, seeing the reaction that people have, because a lot of the times they're like, wow, good for you. It's like, they are thinking maybe I should also be doing that. They respect it. And for those that don't respect it, you know, I think that that's more an issue for them. Again, an example where establishing boundaries, when you are doing that and creating healthy boundaries, you really need to just be more focused on what you need and worry less about what the reaction's going to be from others. A reminder that when you are establishing boundaries, Guilt is almost inevitable and certainly may show up, but that does not mean that you are doing something bad. It just means that your brain kind of thinks that you are doing something bad. And I was actually just listening to a podcast. I wanna say it was Sahara rose, and in that interview, they were talking about how that inevitable guilt that shows up. You can think of it as growing pains. And I really loved that because it is like, as you are growing into a truer version of yourself, as you are establishing healthy boundaries to create a life that you want, that energizes you, there may be some uncomfortable growing pains and that's okay. And then the other thing that I am doing is, every morning when I journal, right now I am asking myself, how am I feeling? and what do I need for today to feel doable? And so that is a great time. I have a lot of different checkpoints in my day and my week when I'm able to check in with the things that are showing up on my to-do list and my schedule, and they're an opportunity for me to rethink and to ask, how am I making my life harder than it has to be? So even for example, today, I had a lot of little things that I needed to do, and I was noticing that I was starting to just feel like there was just too many little pieces. And so that was a time when I really got critical and evaluated all of those things. And I took something off that just truly, wasn't something that I had to do. And I also asked myself, like, what are my top priorities today? And I also even broke down like, okay, let's be realistic. How much time are these things going to. and have I just given myself too many things than I can do today? That helps me and I, and I do that also on a weekly and monthly basis. So at the start of every month, I write down some of the bigger things that I want to accomplish. And then each week I look at that list and think about what I can take on. And I'm just constantly checking in as like, is this feeling like too much? Is this, you know, do I need to move something? How am I feeling? And what do I need for things to feel doable and remembering that that downtime is really critical for me to show up as an inspired and energized health coach. and it's also critically critical for me to show up as a energized and focused veterinarian. And then the final thing that I have been doing is I have been establishing some guidelines for myself. So sometimes it's really hard. Like say someone asks if I can take an extra vet shift. That leaves me to just kind of like decide, can I take on another one or not? And my tendency would be to say yes. So instead I've given myself some very specific guidelines, knowing that I had overbooked myself a little bit, I chose a number of vet shifts and I told myself that is the limit. You are not accepting more than this. that way in the moment, and I've had so many like emails or requests we're taking on more shifts. It's so much easier because I already determined that I'm at my limit and I can just say no. Similarly, I have recognized that I need a day or periods that are quote unquote free for me to be able to be doing my health coaching content and projects. And so I am actually blocking off that time and making it clear, like that is not actually an opportunity to fill that is a space that I need to leave open. Cause that's critical for me to both feel energized as a vet and to show up as my best self as a health coach. So I encourage you to just think a little bit, do you have a tendency to say yes to too many things, to fill your schedule too much? Are you like a dog attracted to a really juicy fatty piece of steak? And do you need to start maybe training your brain to resist that temptation of taking on too many things? which of these things can you put into practice today? And if you are women who tends to overschedule yourself, take on too much, if you're just feeling a little bit overwhelmed with life. Then, please join the life boost slumber party, because that is an amazing opportunity to join an incredibly supportive, welcoming community of women who can absolutely relate to that. And it's an opportunity to start practicing, establishing healthy boundaries, and you can sign up following the link in my caption, you can also find me on Instagram. Life boost with Amelia. Wishing you an amazing day and today pay attention to what you can say no to or how you can give yourself a little time to think if you really want to take something else on. And take a look at your to-do list, how are you making your life harder than it has to be?. What is actually not super necessary and do you have a little bit of time for you to recharge today? Okay. Cheers. Your health, happiness and success.