Welcome! I’m Dr. Jillian, a physician leader, mom, and coach who is on a mission to help overwhelmed, ambitious women live less stressed, more satisfying lives. If the full post doesn’t show up in your e-mail, come over to the webpage or Substack App to see the whole thing. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:
One of the questions I dread when meeting new people is, “What do you do for work?”
Over the years, I’ve learned that many people have strong reactions when I tell them that I’m a pediatric critical care medicine physician. Only a small percentage of people have a positive (or even neutral) response.
So many have an intense negative reaction. Something like: “Oh. Wow. I could never do that! Way too sad!”
Or even worse: “I could never do that. I love children too much.”
Clearly, loving and wanting to help children is one of the reasons that I do the job that I do. Unfortunately, because I don’t get to control the universe, taking care of them sometimes means caring for them at the end of their lives. But it usually means getting to help make them better along with a great team of people.
I think that many people respond the way that they do because my job is a reminder to them that negative experiences happen every day, even if they aren’t happening to us right now. And these people seem to think that if they pretend that everything is ok, grief and stress and trauma and death will pass them by.
But these things don’t pass any of us by. They are universal human experiences.
As Sloane Crosley’s book title reminds us, “Grief is for People.”
As someone who witnesses a lot of hard things, I’ve seen that many people are blindsided by these experiences.
They are left reeling. They wonder how this could possibly happen to them when they have been “good people.” They ask me how they can possibly go on.
It seems impossible.
And yet, most of them do go on.
Most of us continue to go on in spite of what we experience in our lives, including those of us who work up close to the difficult experiences on a daily basis.
And we can make it easier by having tools to help ourselves.
The seven tools that I’m sharing today are the things that kept me going when I was experiencing burnout and depression.
They carried me through profound grief after my dad died last year.
They continue to carry me through the inevitable daily difficulties of life.
Having a toolkit won’t save us from hard times. But it will make it a hell of a lot easier to carry on.
If you prefer to read rather than listen, you can find them here.
Either way, I hope that you find them helpful no matter what you are currently experiencing in your life.
If life is hard, I hope they bring you a bit of comfort.
If life is going well, I hope they help you create your plan for the next time that things are difficult.
What tools are in your toolkit?
I’d love to hear in the comments. Even if you have a tiny breakthrough or idea, it all counts. If you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover how to build their own toolkit, I'd really appreciate that too.
xJillian
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