Thriving No Matter What Life Throws At You | Ep 187

Melissa Deally: 00:00:00

Music. Imagine getting up every day full of energy, as if you were in your 20s again. What would that be like? What would that be worth to you? What is your health worth to you? Think about it. Your health isn't everything, but without it, everything else is nothing. And yet, too many of us are taking it for granted until something goes wrong. No one wakes up hoping to be diagnosed with a disease or chronic illness. And yet, we've never been taught how to be proactive in our health through our school system or public health as a registered health coach and integrative health practitioner, I believe it is time this information is made available to everyone, combining new knowledge around your health and the ability to do my functional medicine lab tests in the comfort of your own home will allow you to optimize your Health for today and all your tomorrows, don't wait for your wake up call. Welcome back to another episode of The don't wait for your wake up call podcast. This is a special pota Podapolooza episode. I'm really excited to have Dr Jill. Rosenthal here with me today. Welcome to the show. Dr Jill,

Melissa Deally: 00:01:21

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: thank you. It is so great to be here,

Melissa Deally: 00:01:23

and let me just introduce you to the audience as we dive in. Jill Rosenthal is an award winning Harvard and Stanford educated physician who retired after 35 plus year career and has become certified as a wellness and mindset coach. Her extensive experience and training, coupled with her own transformation from a stressed, overworked, unhealthy physician, wife and mother into a happy, healthy, thriving coach, make her uniquely equipped to help others release unconscious thoughts, emotions and behaviors that hold them back so they can create their dream life. And thank you for coming on this show to talk about this as I have other shows recently talking about burnout, which sounds exactly what you went through. And I know it's something that many healers, many physicians go through, so I would love for you to share

Melissa Deally: 00:02:10

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: your story. It is, and actually a fair number of my clients are physicians, and you know I was chugging along, doing most of the things I like to do, and way too many of the things I didn't like to do, and and then, you know, had to do a timeout. I was taking care of my parents from across the country. And then a two year period, I, you know, I lost both parents. My I had foot reconstruction. My husband went to assisted living. He has Alzheimer's disease, you know, raising a teenager. And then, while I was still out on medical leave for my foot reconstruction, I got into bed one night and I found a breast lump, and so I got on the breast cancer train later that week, and so I had surgery, I had radiation, I had chemotherapy, so everything I just told you, and probably I left some stuff out, that was all in a two and a half year period. And so when

Melissa Deally: 00:03:25

that is so much for your nervous system to be, it was, it was, it

Melissa Deally: 00:03:29

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: was a lot. And I did being after another. That's one thing after another. And I strongly believe that the breast cancer was largely due to the chronic stress I had been under for so many years of taking care of everybody else but myself. And the thing is, you know when you when your wake up call is cancer, you know you gotta stop because cancer and so I still was doing some online work. I was managing my team, you know, and I tried to go back to work to see patients in clinic, and I just was not able to do that after my treatment. And I eventually had a disability retirement, and which was sad, because I loved what I did. I loved my patients, I adored my team, but it was kind of killing me, and I couldn't do it anymore in the way that it needed to be done. And I ended up, and

Melissa Deally: 00:04:30

I just want to stop you there, because you said some key words there that you kind of glossed over, the kind of killing me.

Unknown: 00:04:37

Yeah, really,

Melissa Deally: 00:04:39

it would have if you hadn't made significant change,

Melissa Deally: 00:04:43

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: yes, and so, you know, I realized at that point that some did have to change. And what needed to change was me, right, not just all the stuff around me, right? Um. And realizing that, then you have the power. Yes, right? You don't need the rest of the world to change. You know, you can change things in the world, but you first have to change what's happening in your your head and your heart and your gut. And so reality

Melissa Deally: 00:05:19

is, is the only thing you can change, is you.

Melissa Deally: 00:05:22

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: Is you right? You can't control other people. You can only control you. And when you do change what you do, you know that does affect them. It does change them. If you know, if you're getting all triggered about stuff, then, and by stuff, I mean a different word, but I don't know what the you know on your program how it goes, but that drives other people's behavior. And so when you're able to just be calm and present and listening and curious, you know they're not getting as triggered. So it actually does. You know, you change your side of the dance, they have to change exactly their part too. So I ended up getting a bunch of coaching certifications and and I became a coach, and I discovered it was like my life's calling. I became a coach by accident. Seriously, my first coaching certification, I had to log a lot of hours coaching people, and so, you know, I thought, I'm just doing this to learn for me, right? And then maybe I'll do a little coaching if I feel like it. And then as soon as I started doing it, I was hooked. And that was it. It wasn't something I wanted to do was something I had to do because I just loved it, and I was good at it and so and

Melissa Deally: 00:06:46

that's why all of those other things happened for you, right?

Melissa Deally: 00:06:50

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: And then life's

Melissa Deally: 00:06:53

purpose and passion,

Melissa Deally: 00:06:53

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: so many things, so many good things happened for me after that. Am I sorry I got cancer? Of course, I'm sorry I got cancer, right? But, but I'm not sorry that I got a new career. I'm not sorry that I met like, I love all the people that I've met and what I've been able to do and help people with as a result. And so, like, I can't be totally Well, screw that cancer, right? Because it did bring me. And I, you know, if it comes back, there's

Melissa Deally: 00:07:29

some gratitude in it. I Yes, because it's brought you to a new place and new learning.

Melissa Deally: 00:07:35

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: It totally did. And here's, you know, part of what it brought me to, like, like, I told you that story, most people would run screaming from the room, but Jill, 2.0 the current version of me really does not get stressed about stuff, right? I, you know, I notice it. I'm like, I let it go, not I don't push it away. Pushing pushing it away is what gets people in trouble. That's how you get heart disease, that's the resistance,

Melissa Deally: 00:08:00

right?

Melissa Deally: 00:08:05

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: Yes, what you resist persists totally. It's, you know, the BOP clown, you know, those inflatable clowns, right? So you have to actually process it and feel it and let it go, because, you know, and you can't be like, putting your hand on the hot stove and leaving it there Correct. You have to pick it up, and then you can start to do stuff. And so now, if something, you know, you get that little hit of, you know, but it's transient, because I can let it go and then just go and take the action, or do whatever it is then I need to do without staying tied up in knots over it, right? Because you cannot function like that. And it, you know, it's just, it's just terrible for your body. It It is terrible your immune system. It's terrible for your brain. It's terrible for your blood sugar. It's just, you know it. And people were like the frog in the boiling in the water, in the hot water, and it gets hotter and hotter and hotter, and we don't realize it, because it's happening gradually. Yeah, we can do it. In

Melissa Deally: 00:09:21

my work with all of this, I know that 90% of all doctors visits are due to stress, and in that where I saw that stat, I also saw that 69% of all dis ease is caused by stress. And I've said that to doctors before, who have said, I would venture to say it's even higher than that, and I don't know how I agree with that.

Melissa Deally: 00:09:45

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: I think as we learn more about how stress impacts the body, people are coming to believe that more and more. But the thing is that we have to understand. And that stress, like we all have, stress around us, like we all have there. There are things that in the world and in our lives that we don't like, you know, there's always going to be somebody who says something obnoxious. There's always going to be somebody who, you know, cuts you off in traffic or whatever, but whether that bothers you and how long you let it bother you is that's in your control. But it's not a matter of like just telling yourself, don't think about that, don't worry about that. You have to actually feel it. And you know, my husband, many years ago, when he, you know, had had brain power, told me this, and this is like decades ago, and he told me this story about, like, two monks or something, who were like, they're walking along, and they get to a river, and there's a woman who wants to cross the river. There's no bridge, and she can't swim, and so one of them picks her up, and they wade through the river, and the other one's like, you know, we're not supposed to touch women. How could you you know? Like, then he gets to the end, and he's like, he's going on, they're walking. And he's like, how could you do that? We're not allowed to touch women. And the first one says, Well, you know, I just carried her across the river. You've been carrying her for the last three hours, right? And so, you know, how we hold on to this stuff makes a difference that the hot stove? Do we keep our hand on the hot stove, and sometimes keeping your hand this is important. Keeping your hand on the hot stove becomes part of our identity. It's our badge of courage, right? You know, if I if I'm not mad about this, then I'm saying it's okay. Or if I'm not upset about this, you know, like it, we think that there's, you know, I'm not a good mother if I don't spend my life in misery because my adult child won't talk to me, right? It's part of, you know, what we think we have to be. And of course, we want our adult children to have a good relationship with us. As you know, one of them, our kids are one of the most important things in our lives. But if your identity is so tied up to that that you think if I, if I let this go and just accept it, that it means I'm a bad mother, and so I have to hold on to it. Then it still hurts us, and eventually that all of those stress responses bit by bit by bit, you know, you throw enough pebbles and all of a sudden it's, you know, overwhelming,

Melissa Deally: 00:13:19

yeah, yeah. So I love, you know, I don't love your story, however, I love hearing your story and then where you've come to and how you're helping others now. And I would love for you to share what are some of the, you know, key learnings that you've had in terms of being able to now be in this place where Jill 2.0 doesn't react, doesn't feel the stress you're obviously have a strong self care practice that allows you to keep your nervous system regulated. So what are you doing?

Melissa Deally: 00:13:55

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: Yeah, and I'm a work in progress, right? I don't exercise as much as I would like to, but I'm very good at regulating my nervous system. You know, I'm, I'm a plus at regulating my nervous system, and that's one of the things that I work with, with all of my clients, not just for like things in the moment, but in actually healing the stuff that they've been carrying around so it no longer triggers them, and it no longer bother bothers them in the least. So a lot of it, a lot of it really is managing that what happens to you when stuff is coming at you. And some of that has to do with a lot of it has to do with boundaries, right? And boundaries are not a lot of people think boundaries are telling people what they can and cannot do or say to you, right? But it's more about how you respond when they do it, because you can't control them, right? Like you might be able to tell people in your family, don't call me after 10pm right? But you can't tell the whole world. You can't hold everybody in the world responsible for knowing that you don't want to be called after 10 and you know, and you go on a trip to the East Coast, and all of a sudden, you know the West Coast, people call you at 930 but it's 1230 on the east coast where you like, you can't hold people responsible for that, but you don't have to answer a phone Correct. You can put your phone on Do Not Disturb. So a lot of it has to do with how am I going to respond? You know if someone calls me, you know if someone calls me when I'm on a coaching call, I look to make sure it's not the memory care unit, right? Because if it's the memory care unit, I know your husband, yes, just make sure everything's okay, but otherwise it's just going to voicemail. That's my boundary right now, I'm willing to take that call but, but we get to choose what bothers us, but it has to be done from the inside, and so boundaries have to do with, I mean, some of it is logistics, right? Shut your door when you need to tell people, I'm going to be on a call for the next hour. Put it in your calendar. Do you know whatever it is like you can train people some of that stuff. Set up office like there's all sorts of stuff like that, but a lot of it is the inner work, and frankly, what stops people from taking all the actions, like the physical actions they could do, to insulate them a little bit from the rest of the world. I'm going to come back to that. The thing that keeps them from doing that is their own internal boundaries, like I couldn't possibly do that, but, but, but, but, right? And so it's that mindset thing that, like giving yourself permission to do this, that's really the core of, you know, everything I do with people, and I do want, I just want to come back to that sort of insulating you know, you're sort of like you want to have a protective bubble that keeps out the stuff that really has no business getting to you. But it's not about insulating yourself from the world and from other people. It's really about connecting life. Is about connecting with people, and so getting rid of the garbage allows you to connect with people. And in fact, you know, when people are feeling overwhelmed, one of the best things they can do is to take a quick action that helps them connect with other people. And I, even, I actually have a challenge, a challenge that I, you know, that I send people that they can do on their own time. So it's really, it's kind of an interesting, you know, the interplay between what are you going to let in, and how are you going to respond to it? And, you know, let in, be porous to the good stuff. Yeah,

Melissa Deally: 00:18:28

it's about, you know, elevating and connecting with the people that lift you up,

Melissa Deally: 00:18:34

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: yeah, and lifting them up and

Melissa Deally: 00:18:36

lifting them up, and then maybe releasing the people that don't. So I love this conversation. I agree wholeheartedly with everything that you've shared here, and I know we could chat for longer, Dr Jill and we definitely, however, for today's purposes, please let me know I ask every guest on the show this What does don't wait for your wake up call. Mean to you?

Melissa Deally: 00:18:56

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: Well, personally to me. You know, I have to go back to my cancer, right? Like my wake up call is cancer, but even that, I have to, it's like a grain of salt, right? Because it brought me a lot of good things, but, but certainly, I was suffering in a lot of ways prior to that, and I was not being in allowing myself to be the dumping ground and the take care of everybody thing, I actually wasn't being the model I wanted to be right to my daughter. So like, the wake up call to me is like, notice what's going on around you and inside of you, and decide, you know, is this what I want? Because if it's not exactly what you want, you you can totally have it be what you want,

Melissa Deally: 00:19:55

and you're a perfect example. I

Melissa Deally: 00:19:57

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: need help doing it right. You might need some guidance. So that you feel that you can but but you can have what you want. And don't wait until you have a life threatening illness that takes away your career, if you love your career, or takes away you know, don't do that. Beautiful.

Melissa Deally: 00:20:17

Thank you so much. And if somebody wants to reach out and work with you, Doctor Jill, what's the best way for people to best way for people to get hold of

Melissa Deally: 00:20:24

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: you? They can go to my website, and if they want, they can book a quick call or a longer call. My website is Dr Jill, rosenthal.com, and I have a gift that they can get about, you know, 31 quick actions, quickies they can take to help set boundaries and get their life back. And they can get that at Dr Jill, gift.com/boundaries,

Melissa Deally: 00:20:57

perfect. I will make sure

Melissa Deally: 00:20:58

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: anybody wants to know about the connection challenge. They can ask me about that. Too

Melissa Deally: 00:21:03

wonderful. I will write, have all of that in the show notes. And is there any last word of or words of wisdom you would like to share with the audience?

Melissa Deally: 00:21:12

Dr Jill. Rosenthal: Um, I think it's, it's just that like you are, you are in control of all of this, and you just have to, you have to be able to let stuff go. And if you can let everything go, you know, just surrender, surrender and see what the universe brings you, you have to be paying attention.

Melissa Deally: 00:21:38

That's beautiful. I love that word of surrender. And thank you so much for coming on the show, Dr Jill, thank you to my audience for tuning in and listening to each and every episode of The don't wait for your wake up call podcast. And if you know someone that needs to hear this message from Dr Jill today, please share this podcast with them and see you back here next week at the same time. Thank you for investing this time with me on the don't wait for your wake up call Podcast. I'm so glad you joined in. If you can take two minutes to share this episode with someone you think can benefit and have a positive impact on their life, that would be wonderful. Please leave a review by going to your favorite podcast listening app and let me know what you enjoy or would like to hear more of it will support me in my effort to bring the possibility of natural healing to a wider audience and help disrupt the sick care system we have today and make human Health a global priority. Health is your true wealth. You