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Hi ladies, and welcome to this week’s episode of Empowering Women in Chiropractic. I’m your host, Dr. Cathy, and this week we are talking about life. Happens. It happens. Life happens to all of us. Life happens to you. It happens to me. It happens to your team, it happens to your patients, and it happens to your community.
And what you do in those moments, your reaction, your follow through, every step that you take when life happens and it’s going to happen unexpectedly, and it’s gonna hit you sometimes so hard that you don’t even know how you’re supposed to get back up. But yet you do. We do because that’s what we do as women.
What you do, those next steps are what’s going to determine how your future plays out. So I have a little confession to make. I have recently stepped out of my practice. I have retired from practice. Now I’m fully engaged in chiropractic. Don’t worry about that. I’m fully engaged. I still love chiropractic.
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I still love the patients. I still love the students. I still love the doctors. I still love our philosophy, but life happened. My beautiful young little daughter has some very significant health challenges that require my attention, require our family’s attention. We’ve got some irrevocable life changes going on here, and what I realized in those moments is, we’ve said so many years in chiropractic that you serve your way through, and I have served my way through so many things, and I know you have too.
You have served. Your way through ups and downs, life’s ins and outs, through births and deaths and marriages and divorces, and new relationships and new businesses and losing offices and starting over. I know you have, I’ve talked to so many of you, and our biggest thing we’ve always said in chiropractic is serve your way through it.
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And we do. We have and we will continue to, but sometimes your best way of serving your way through it is to serve the people who are closest to you and for us, for our family of four right now, that means serving our daughter. That means paying attention and being fully present and fully engaged in every aspect of every day of her life.
That does not mean that I am not a chiropractor, and it does not mean that I don’t love chiropractic, and it does not mean that I’m not here to pour my heart out to you as a chiropractor so that you can be better with your team, so that you can be better with your patients and so that you can go out and serve your community and really make that positive impact on the world.
But I know that sometimes as women. We get stressed out. I know that sometimes as women, we get burned out and I know that sometimes as women, we forget that age old rule that they tell you on every single flight you have ever been on. We forget to put our oxygen mask on first. And so what ends up happening for so many women, and especially for those moms out there who are in practice, is you are serving everybody else, and you get lost in service, but you can lose yourself in service.
I know I’ve been there, many of you have been there, many of you have connected with me and told me you’ve done exactly the same thing. You’ve served so much and lost yourself so much in service that you’ve lost yourself. Sometimes we lose our dreams. Sometimes we lose our hope. Sometimes we lose our excitement or our passion for chiropractic or that fire in our belly, and that burning desire that says, I know why I was created for this life, and I know why I wake up every morning and I know why I do what I do.
And when you lose that it’s like losing a part of your soul. It’s like losing a part of your family. It’s like losing a limb. Because when that gets lost, because you’re so busy taking care of patients and practice and team members and taking care of marketing and your community and your family and the house, and juggling the bills and the billing and everything else, sometimes there’s just nothing left for you.
That might be your own health, that might be your own adventure, that might be your hobbies. That might be the things that make your heart sing outside of the practice, and when you start to lose that. It’s like just getting clouded over or I like to talk about having a diamond that’s just buried in the dirt.
And you know what? I just happen to have a diamond that’s buried in the dirt. How do you like them apples? Look at this. So I have a glass bowl here that is full of dirt, but inside you can see that beautiful diamond. Look at that. I’ve got a little bit, got a little bit of a gem here, a little bit of a gem that one of our little friends painted for us recently, right?
But I’ve got a diamond, and if this was a real diamond and it had dirt on it. Would you not like it? It’s you. It’s the diamond. Sometimes it’s just buried under that dirt and we can’t even see it anymore but you know what? Every now and then a little glimmer comes out and that little glimmer of hope makes you say, you know what?
Maybe I can get back to the dreams I had, or maybe I can get back to the life that I expected for myself. Or maybe I could polish some of that dirt off and I could start to make this sucker shine again and I can pull this back out. And I could say, you know what? I can be the person that I wanna be and I can do all the things that make me happy so that I can have the life that I truly dream of, the life that I’ve always dreamt of, the life that I truly desire and deserve.
Because we work so hard to take care of everybody else. Listen, sometimes you gotta wipe that dirt off. It’s okay, and you gotta keep moving forward. And it’s okay to take a pause at time. It’s okay to look at your life and say, am I where I want to be? How about your team? How about your patients? Are they where they wanna be?
Are they living the life that is of highest value to them? Are they doing the things that are most fulfilling? Are they waking up on a daily basis, being like, yes, I get another day to live this incredible life. Or they waking up going. I gotta make the breakfast and the lunch and get the clothes ready and get the kids ready and get everybody out the door.
And then I gotta rush and turn around and grab my stuff so that I can get in a 15 minute workout. ’cause that’s all I have time for because the kids were late and time is ticking and I don’t have time to do the things that matter to me. But I’ll get to me later and later. It just keeps getting pushed back until the point where.
You don’t even rec recognize yourself at some points. You don’t even recognize the person who was so optimistic and so full of hope, and so full of dreams five years ago, 10 years ago, 30 years ago, and now you’re just living a day to day to day life. If that sounds familiar or if that sounds like some of the patients that are coming into your office where they come in and they’ve just got that road grime, that dirt of the universe just piled on them and they can’t even see the diamond that is so deeply buried within them.
They don’t even know it exists anymore. You see those? Ah, gosh. Those break my heart because I know what, I’ve been there. I’ve seen so many people be there and it doesn’t. Diminish the value of a diamond because it has dirt on it. Your dreams are not diminished because you’ve had to focus on other people.
Your desires are not any less. Just because you’re busy and just because you have obligations, you still are entitled to having your wants, your needs and your desires met. Your expectations fulfilled. You still are entitled to living the life that you desire. Living an extraordinary life. We put the time and the energy and the effort into taking care of so many people for so many years.
But you know what? You deserve that too. Who’s taking care of you? Who’s saying, Hey honey, listen. I gotta talk to you ’cause I’ve been noticing that you’re doing the same thing. Day in, day out, day in, day out, day in, day out, day in, day out, and you don’t seem happy anymore. You don’t seem excited anymore. You don’t seem like you’re on fire for chiropractic.
You seem like you’re just going through the motions and like it’s become a job, not a career, not a passion, not a fire. It’s become a job and when things become a job, they become a chore. And when they become a chore. You don’t really look forward to doing that. So how do we get that spark back? How do we find that diamond that is so buried, so deep and how do we start digging it out and digging it out and saying, you know what, it’s okay.
I can, I’m gonna get a little dirt on my hands, but I got that diamond. I found it, and I’m gonna hold onto it and I’m gonna let it shine. How do we get back to that point? And how do we start polishing that diamond and saying, you know what? It deserves to be shown. It deserves to be shared.
This is what I am at my core. This is who I wanna be, and these are the things that I wanna continue to do in my life, or start to do to really enjoy in my life. So when you start looking at life that way, look at all the things that you do. For everybody else, and I know busy moms, I get it.
Busy moms we’re over here. We’re juggling. We’re juggling. We got every plate going. You’re spinning. You got the one that stick that’s in your mouth and you’re spinning. You got one on your foot, you’re spinning. You’re like, I got it. I got it. I can keep it going. Because the reality is if you stop for even one second, they’re all coming crashing down.
So what? So what? Our whole life went on pause 10 weeks ago, completely on pause, just. Crashing stop and everything had to focus on one person, and all that focus is worth it because we’re gonna do what we gotta do to have the best outcome possible. And. It’s okay if some of the plates come crashing down, because think back a couple years ago, when this whole covid craziness happened in the world and everything came crashing down.
A lot of you had super, super busy schedules. You were running from here to there, to here to there, and back to this place, and over this place, and you had no time to breathe. And then all of a sudden the whole world just stopped and you survived. And then when the world started spinning again. You were a little bit more selective about what you said yes to, weren’t you?
You were a little bit more selective about the things that you engaged in and the opportunities that you said maybe not right now, and you were a little bit more selective about the events that you go to and the places that you commit yourself to, and the organizations that you say, yep, I’ll help out.
Yeah, I’ll help out with that. Yeah, I’ll help out with that. Not right now. And you still are living because you don’t have to be the one juggling every plate, doing everything. You have to put your oxygen mask on first and in order to be a great leader for your team, in order to be a great mentor for the students that are coming behind you in order to be a great doctor for the patients that come to you.
For answers for their biggest questions and their most important questions, which are the questions about their health. In order for you to be at your best, you have to
chill, breathe, relax, calm down, whatever word you wanna use. You have to sharpen your axs, right? You can’t just keep chopping and chopping because your ax is gonna get dull and you’re gonna get tired. You need to take a break. You need to stop. You need to sharpen your ax and whatever version of taking a break, that means for you.
Maybe it means going on a vacation, maybe it means going on a bike ride. Maybe it means just getting outside of the office and getting out in nature and just like feet in the grass, eyes up to the sky and just grounding whatever that may mean for you. When you take the time to do that, when you take the time to recharge your batteries.
Holy cow. You come back as such a better version of yourself and when you get a little taste of that, it makes you go, you know what? I think I need to do that more often. You know what? I think I need to, I think I need to step back a little bit. I need, I think I need to start breathing more. I think I need to start making my wants higher up on my to-do list versus everybody else’s needs.
I think I need to start remembering that if I’m not healthy. I can’t help other people be healthy if I’m not happy how am I gonna present myself as my best version to keep the people around me, my team, my family, my patients, my community? How am I gonna show up if I don’t have a great mindset? And I’m not constantly yes, I’m right where I need to be for the right reason, with the right people at the right time.
And I love what I do and I’m, so grateful and I know why I do what I do. Then you’re never gonna figure out how to do it better, and you’re never gonna figure out how to do it with a passion that says, I’m here for the right reason. See, we have a gift through chiropractic, and because of this gift, so many people come to you and they look at you as the answer, as the solution, as the natural, most logical, most.
Normal thing to do, right? A lot of people do. There’s some, there’s still some people that are like, I don’t understand that. But that’s where education comes in, and that’s where we get to educate people, and that’s where we get to help people make better choices about their healthcare and about their families.
Because when we really feel engaged and connected to what we do, we’re such a better representative of it. And we’re such a better salesperson for the, for lack of a better word, but that’s what we’re doing. We’re selling ourselves every day. We’re such a better promoter and educator. Of the principles and the practice of chiropractic, and I know that you have it in you, and maybe for you, your diamond is crystal clear.
It’s polished, it’s shined up, it’s ready to bring it out to the world. Maybe for you it’s buried, maybe. Maybe you stuck it in your pocket and you’re like, I don’t know if it’s that valuable. I don’t know if my dreams are really that important. They’re not as important as everybody else in this household, or they’re not as important as everybody else on my team, or they’re not as important as my patients.
But you know what? Your diamond doesn’t stop shining just because you put it away. I. Your dreams don’t stop waking you up just because you put them to bed. Just because you said, ah, not now. I’ll get to that later when I have time, I’ll do that. Your dreams are just as important. So whether that means growing your practice tremendously or stepping into speaking or leading in the practice or teaching our students, or whether it means getting on your state boards or state organizations, whether it means getting out in the community or online and educating people or bringing your community together with a big vision.
Maybe you’re doing a competition in your office, I don’t know but your dreams are just as important. So while you’re busy empowering the world to go live an extraordinary life, don’t forget to empower yourself first. Don’t forget that little girl who said, when I up, I wanna be a. That’s you did that.
You accomplished that. And don’t forget that girl that was in chiropractic school. Oh my gosh, I cannot do one more exam and I can’t do one more board. And you know what? This is like driving me crazy because I’m missing out on family things and I’m missing out on friend things. And I’m missing out on fun times.
And I gotta be at school every single day because I gotta take these tests. And ah, and you know what? You survived it, and here you are, and you’ve been doing it for a long time. So celebrate that. Acknowledge that and say to that younger version of yourself, you kicked ass and you did it. You did such a phenomenal job and you’re still doing it.
And you know what? There’s more to come. There’s more to come. Whatever you dream of, whatever you desire, whatever you imagine for your life, whatever you envision, there’s so much more to come when you start taking care of your own dreams and your own desires because they’re important. They’re still shining.
Even if you got ’em hidden, they’re still shining. So when it comes to life happening and changes happening, that can be unforeseen, that sometimes are good, sometimes are not so good at all. Sometimes throw you for a loop and knock you on your butt and you don’t know how you’re ever gonna get back up. But you do.
And when those moments come, dig down deep, really deep. Into your soul, into your heart, into the very core, the very essence of who you are and say, what is it in this moment that really matters? If we strip away everything else and we take care of just what we need to take care of, what can we get rid of to make sure that we’re creating the greatest life we can for ourselves, for our families, for communities?
When you get that.
Essential list of what has to happen or the world stops, not what got put on your schedule and needs to happen, but what has to happen to continue your world in a positive direction. When you get that clear, all of a sudden you go, you know what? I don’t necessarily have to do that event, or I don’t necessarily have to do this thing, or I can put this aside so I can focus more on educating my community, or I can focus more on serving my team, or I can focus more on building my team so that they can serve the community or I can focus more on my family, whatever that may be for you.
When life happens, don’t just jump forward. Take a breath, survey the scene. And then decide what’s your next best direction. And if anything I said to you today resonates with you, if anything I said to you reminds you of someone you know who just feels like they’re burnt out, they’re obligated, they’re stressed out, they have no time left for themselves because all of their time goes to everyone else and everything else.
And there’s that feeling that, I’ve got a good level of success. And I’ve got a good relationship and family situation. I have so much to be grateful for, but I just don’t feel fulfilled at a level that I feel like I should be at this point in my life. If that resonates with you, if you’ve ever felt like there should be more, I.
And I know that I’m capable of more. I just don’t know how to get there. I don’t know how to let go of what I have, or I have a little bit of fear of what if I try and it doesn’t work. If that resonates with you, I want you to reach out to me and you can send me a message through Facebook or you can go to we just had my team just set up a little what if.app and we’ll drop that down, the comments for you so that you can get to that.
If anything I said resonate you and talk this through, please, I having this conversation. There’s something about being able to uncover your deepest desires that just reinvigorates you and it brings back this desire to serve. And maybe it’s because you need to step back and serve your family. Maybe it’s because you need to step forward and serve your community more, or maybe it’s that you just need to step internally and you need to serve you whatever stage you’re at in life.
You are there. Meet yourself there. Don’t shy from it. Don’t make excuses for it. Acknowledge it and say, this is the chapter of my life right now and this is where I am. And when you do that, amazing things will uncover themselves. You just might find a diamond in the dirt. Ladies, I hope you have a phenomenal day.
Please stay connected with me. I love the messages that I get from all of you. Thank you for listening. I look forward to seeing you again right here on ChiroSecure’s Empowering Women in Chiropractic. I.
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