Amanda Dinsmore, MD
Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. I am Amanda.
Laura Cazier, MD
I'm Laura.
Kendra Morrison, DO
And I'm Kendra.
Amanda Dinsmore, MD
And today we have a special treat. Dr. Arpita Gupta De Palma is back. She is a pediatrician, trauma-informed physician coach, podcaster, and beloved friend of ours. If you recall, Arpita visited with us about anger way back in 2022. It seems crazy that it's that far away, on episode number 37. So she's an OG with us.
And today she is back to talk about how trauma affects our anger reactions. Thank you so much, Arpita, for joining us.
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Thank you for having me. It's so fun to see you guys. I know I've seen Amanda intermittently, but to see Kendra and Laura after a good bit, it's so good to see your faces. So thanks for having me.
Laura Cazier, MD
Good to see you too.
Kendra Morrison, DO
Thanks for coming, Arpita. This is going to be great. I know this will definitely probably trigger a few people, but also be able to relate very consistently with quite a few of our listeners.
So, in your experience as a trauma-informed physician coach, how do you define anger, and how is it a signal? What is it alerting?
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yeah, so, you know, this was really—just to give a little bit about how this evolved for me. And I know if listeners want to go back to listen to that episode, you'll kind of get the basics of where this kind of came up for me.
Amanda Dinsmore, MD
And today she is back to talk about how trauma affects our anger reactions. Thank you so much, Arpita, for joining us.
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Thank you for having me. It's so fun to see you guys. I know I've seen Amanda intermittently, but to see Kendra and Laura after a good bit, it's so good to see your faces. So thanks for having me.
Laura Cazier, MD
Good to see you too.
Kendra Morrison, DO
Thanks for coming, Arpita. This is going to be great. I know this will definitely probably trigger a few people, but also be able to relate very consistently with quite a few of our listeners.
So, in your experience as a trauma-informed physician coach, how do you define anger, and how is it a signal? What is it alerting?
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yeah, so, you know, this was really—just to give a little bit about how this evolved for me. And I know if listeners want to go back to listen to that episode, you'll kind of get the basics of where this kind of came up for me. But what I noticed personally was I was showing up angry all the time as life evolved in situations and scenarios that really didn't warrant the anger.
It was a lot of times misdirected anger or reactions that were out of proportion to the instance or the situation at hand. And, you know, it came to my attention, honestly, with my husband, where he kind of brought up to me, you know, you just don't seem happy anymore. You're always kind of fussy or frustrated or just easily agitated.
And it's just not who you always used to be. And he would say that for—I remember him saying that to me for quite some time, and I kind of like was like blowing it off. But this is what life is now. You know, we've got careers, we've got kids, we've got other responsibilities. We've got to make sure everything is happening. And this is kind of what happens.
And so I kind of fell into that belief system that this is normal life. Everybody is frustrated like this. I really don't have any room to be complaining or, quite frankly, bitching about it because look at all the things we have in our life and all the things we've created. And you know, I should be happy, but I'm just a little bit pissed off at the same time.
And then it started to kind of click when I started doing this work with regards to coaching, you know, having the awareness around our thoughts and how we're choosing to think about things, with that optimal word being choose, and how that would drive the emotions that we were creating or that we create for ourselves.
And so that was a huge eye-opener for me, and that's kind of, I think, where I was when we spoke on that first episode. And then after that, I really decided I wanted to do a little bit more work with regards to how our past impacts how we show up.
Kendra Morrison, DO
That’s really good. I know that especially in the ER when we're working with a patient, I noticed this come up for me. I would get really triggered, and it wasn't necessarily like a critical patient, or like—it was like a type of patient made me feel a type of way. And I really had to go back and figure out, like, what is it about this type of patient?
And like, my thoughts going in would start with me just reading the track board. And if I saw like this, you know, 42-year-old woman with belly pain, for example, in the middle of the day or like at the time when school should let out, like, I was immediately triggered. And I was thinking, like, "What are you doing here?"
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Thank you.
Kendra Morrison, DO
Like, "Why aren't you getting your kids off the bus?" Like, this is all going through my head before I even got in the room. And I could recognize that I was going into that room already angry with that person and not giving them a fair shot at even just hearing what was going on. Like, I gave them zero chance.
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yeah, and that just speaks to your core value of how important it is for you to provide for your kids. And maybe even looking back to scenarios in your life where you might not have had that. And that's why it's a defense mechanism for you that I am going to protect myself and everybody around me from this danger.
That's very, very real to you because it might be something that you experienced. And not only that, it might not even be what you experienced.
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
What I learned with Bonnie Badnock is that trauma can be passed down in 14 generations’ worth of cell lines. And so, that’s incredible—blew my mind when I learned that. And it honestly helped me start to make sense of—and I don’t know, you guys might think I’m a little weird for this, but I want you to actually maybe speak up and see if you’ve had any similar scenarios.
There are times where I will feel the hairs on the back of my neck just stick straight up, and I have no idea why. There’s nothing that I’m in an immediate danger with, but something doesn’t feel right. And this is what makes me wonder, makes me believe, that the accuracy of this is coming through.
One of the things for me specifically—I still have this issue—even when I started coaching, I was very clear that I’m not coaching males. I’m not opening up my calendar or my scheduling to random males. And I was like, why do I have this thing with males that I don’t know—this discomfort around unknown males?
I’ve never had any, thank God, traumas or any known issues happen with me. I don’t know of any in my family. But it very much made me realize that it is very possible, quite possible, that something has happened in some of my ancestors or with some of my ancestors that might have been passed down as a “Hey, danger, danger, you’ve got to be careful, be mindful, be aware.”
So, I mean, that’s a very extreme example, but I think there is definitely some validity to this and how we don’t even necessarily recognize why we’re becoming activated in a sense.
Amanda Dinsmore, MD
Yeah, that’s interesting. Because our male clients are fantastic. But yeah, you can see how, like, if that was triggering for you—and it’s interesting to think about where that might be coming from. That’s really interesting.
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yeah, yeah.
Kendra Morrison, DO
Yeah, and you wonder too, a little bit of socialization may play a role too. The environment with which you were nurtured, and the way that maybe you grew up in a traditional, patriarchal family, or maybe you grew up, you know, with something. It’s interesting how we’re socialized as well, that maybe even just in that unconscious, we may have some views that were maybe a little bit programmed, unbeknownst to us, but because we’ve grown up and now we see certain things through a lens that maybe we weren’t readily available to until that trigger occurs or until those hairs start standing up. You’re like, interesting.
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yeah, and I 100% do think it’s a variety of factors that impact it, like what you were saying, your programming. I remember very clearly, as I was growing up, my mom teaching me and telling me how to be careful and how to be mindful and, you know, self-defense mechanisms and all these things.
And it just seemed very intense and very extreme, but it also kind of makes sense if it is something that was passed down or maybe that she or somebody in her line experienced. But definitely, yeah, so many different possible contributions to why it’s there in the first place.
Amanda Dinsmore, MD
Well, I mean, the facts would bear out that there is a high risk, unfortunately, for women sometimes. Unfortunately, it’s almost more than an unknown male—it can be a known male as well. So, it makes sense, but not on a Zoom call, you know what I mean? So, interesting.
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Right.
Kendra Morrison, DO
That is interesting. So explain a little bit more of the evolutionary role of anger. I know you touched on this kind of generational component, but could you elaborate a little bit more for our listeners?
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yeah, I mean, it primarily goes back to that primitive caveman brain, right? Like, when we, in those primordial days, would have that triad that we needed to be able to live and survive well—that motivational triad. If that was not met, we were in danger.
So, a primary clear example is you have a face-eating bear coming at you as a caveman, you see it’s a danger, and you’re going to fight back. That’s the response.
As we’ve evolved as humans, that is no longer really true in terms of having that type of danger. But our bodies and our brains are not evolved to be able to differentiate the difference between a physical threat that’s coming at us versus even the emotional threats that we are perceiving.
And so, the response is the same. And so, that’s why even in today’s world, when we perceive the threats that we have, it may or may not really be to the level where we’re physically in danger or could be dying, but the response is still the same.
So that evolution is a little bit behind, essentially, where we’re not able to keep up in a way. But ultimately, it’s a protective measure. It’s our brain’s way of keeping us, quote-unquote, safe in whatever scenario that we’re in that it perceives as threatening.
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
So, you know, that’s where anger now is—again, it serves as an alert system to you. What has been violated? What is your body perceiving as a threat to you in that moment or in the interaction that you’re having with the patient or any interactions that you’re having with coworkers or your boss?
Amanda Dinsmore, MD
Mm-hmm.
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Your body is perceiving it as a threat to something that has value or is important to you. And that’s the response it typically will go to. And as we’ve talked about before, that anger response develops because we get used to doing it. It becomes kind of automatic, right? Because it’s predictable.
We know how we’re going to show up. We know what’s going to happen, even though it doesn’t feel great. And even though we might regret it later, it feels more comfortable than the fear of the unknown, the fear of the uncertainty, the other negative emotions that we might have that we don’t want to feel. And so that’s why anger becomes more kind of like automatic as the one way we always respond.
Amanda Dinsmore, MD
Yeah, I think a lot of people feel a whole lot more comfortable with the energy that anger gives than feeling helpless, you know, or feeling disappointed.
Laura Cazier, MD
Mm-hmm. It’s a more empowered energy than feeling sad or rejected or helpless.
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yeah, it’s a false empowerment, I would say.
Laura Cazier, MD
Right.
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
It’s a false empowerment because it makes us feel like we have control in the situation. It makes us feel like we have power in the situation. But I would offer that ultimately when we show up that way, it ends up losing—we end up losing—credibility. We end up losing that power that we actually have by the perception of others.
Amanda Dinsmore, MD
I mean, we see this a lot in the ER with patients that are inexplicably angry, but yet we’ve taken their clothes away. They have no power, or they sense that they have no power. They’re feeling the most vulnerable they’ve ever felt probably in a long time. And it’s manifesting as anger. It makes sense when you’re thinking about it that way—that, like, they probably do feel a false sense of control, but it feels better to them in that moment than hopelessness.
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yeah, right. And even in the scenarios you’re describing, that’s where they are perceiving themselves as being under threat, right? Not having that security anymore. And so that’s the way they lash out in any effort to survive in that moment.
Kendra Morrison, DO
Yeah, that’s a good point. Because I think, just like you said, Arpita, the safety in knowing that that’s my go-to—and until you really have that emotional granularity to take a step back and be like, “Okay, it’s manifesting as anger, but it’s really disappointment or it’s really fear or it’s really…” When you really start to be able to name it, then your brain’s like, “Okay, not so much a threat. Okay, back her down.”
You know, like, “Hey, I can deal with disappointment. That’s like a little bit less on the intense scale.” And, you know, I feel like in my growth, the time when I was at the most growth was really learning how to be like, “Okay, is this really anger, even though it’s my go-to?” Like, really being able to pause and being like, “Oh, actually, I’m just frustrated,” or “Actually, I’m just disappointed,” or “Actually, I’m whatever.” And then I was able to go through the process of, “Okay, I think I can deal with disappointment. That seems less intense.”
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yeah. Oftentimes what I’ll ask—and I tell my clients or when I give talks about this—is just, you know, look at that scenario that you became so activated and angry in and ask yourself, “What am I feeling if I remove the anger?”
Like, if you didn’t have to tell anybody, you just kind of picture yourself in that scenario and you push the anger aside. What’s the other emotion that’s there, that’s underlying it? And like you said, sometimes it is frustration or resentment or some other flavor of anger, and that’s okay.
But many times, it’s the shame, the disappointment, the sadness, or whatever it is that we don’t like to feel, the fear that we don’t like to feel. And that’s why we jump to the anger instead. And so, part of this is just giving ourselves grace and recognizing that most of the time, there is a reason for it—even with the underlying emotion being a negative emotion.
But it also can be tied to other things that might have happened in your past that you’ve kind of siloed away that you’re not really even noticing.
Amanda Dinsmore, MD
Mm-hmm.
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
I’ll tell you a story that happened that I think kind of drives the point home…
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
I’ll tell you a story that happened that I think kind of drives the point home. Just recently, I think it was this past… about a year ago actually in December, we were driving—my daughter and I were driving from Greenville, South Carolina, back to my mother-in-law's house in Aiken. It was about a two-and-a-half-hour drive.
My daughter was driving; it was dusk, rainy, you know, just kind of starting to get yucky on those back roads in South Carolina. Two lanes, and there are semi-trucks on these roads. It's just like… not ideal necessarily, but it’s the quickest way to go. And in a nutshell, we got in an accident. That’s the first time I have ever been in a motor vehicle accident that was of that level.
We both were fine, very lucky. The car was completely damaged, had to get towed back to Virginia for repairs. And, you know, after the fact, we’re taught to look at the gifts: the gift that the car didn’t hit the tree, that there was no semi-truck coming as the car spun on the road. We didn’t hit anything on the other side; we survived. So looking at the gifts—okay, thank God, we’re so gracious for the good.
Fast forward to the summer. She comes home for break, and we’re driving home from the grocery store. It’s around the same time, starting to rain, and we’re on the road that’s leading to our house—two-lane road. She was probably going a couple of miles over the speed limit, and I pretty much lost my shit. Like, I lost it.
And I had told her a couple of times on the road, “You know, make sure you’re driving the speed limit. Stay under the speed limit. It’s raining. The road conditions aren’t great.” But in that one moment, when I was on that road, I really lost it.
I got home, came upstairs, and I kind of decompressed. I started to reflect back on what happened, and the visual cues were exactly the same. Okay? The dusk, the rain, the trees on both sides, the two-lane road, her driving, same car. I mean, it was amazing how my body was queuing into all of the stimuli that was putting me back in what happened in December, where we almost died.
So, that is how powerful our body is. And it’s not like I’ve perseverated on this since. It came out of nowhere, six months later. So just giving yourself grace for recognizing that everything that you show up with, in terms of how you’re showing up, makes sense in some way. The puzzle is trying to figure out why, if you want to.
Laura Cazier, MD
That’s such a powerful example.
Kendra Morrison, DO
Yeah, that really drives it home.
Amanda Dinsmore, MD
So briefly, what are the biological and psychological responses activated when we experience anger? Like, how does the body know when to activate this response?
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
So as we kind of talked about it, these memories that we have might be siloed in our left brain. We might have embodiment of the emotions where, you know, you might notice that your shoulder’s super tight.
But I read this book called Transforming Your Anger—actually put out by HeartMath—and they talk about how the heart is really the central communications center of the body, and it connects to the brain. And so there are four pathways with which it sends out the signals to all of the other systems.
One is obviously the neurological system, our PNS and SNS. The second one is biochemical, where we have our hormones and our neurotransmitters. The third one is the biophysical. That’s where our blood pressure and our… it affects how we’re contracting and impacting the heart and the input and the speed and the rate.
And then the last is the electromagnetic fields—the energetic fields that we put out there with our body, which is… I think a lot of people might think it’s a little bit of woo, but again, it goes back to when you tap into, when you walk into a room and you can sense that the temperature is off. You can sense that there’s tension in the air. That’s part of what we’re talking about—the electromagnetic field that we’re putting out there.
So to go back to it, it’s a combination of all four of these that impacts how we show up. But ultimately, when we have anger, we are creating reactions or… a trickle-down effect in our bodies that don’t always serve us. With our cortisol levels going up for the hormones and the neurotransmitters, with our blood pressure going up with the biophysical, and the energetic feel that you put out there—you’re like, “I don’t want to be around that person right now. I can just feel that they’re in a pain body.”
That kind of gives a little bit of an idea of how it shows up in multiple different systems and how that actually is the way it impacts us when it manifests, which we may not always be super aware of.
Amanda Dinsmore, MD
That is so fascinating, and I’m glad you mentioned that about the electromagnetic fields. I can’t wait until—I feel like sometime in the near future—there’s going to be some way to measure that, like to be able to see it, because it’s definitely real. You can definitely pick up on that stuff.
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yeah, so there’s something called HeartMath with the heart-mind coherence, where you can put this little monitor on your ear. And what it’s doing is it’s measuring your heart rhythm patterns. And they talk about coherent versus incoherent patterns.
Coherent patterns are when you’re envisioning and embodying feelings of love and compassion and, you know, good feelings that make you feel joy and contentment. That leads to us having a sinusoidal wave, which—I don’t remember anything from calculus—but that’s the good one, okay?
When we’re in the negative emotions, when we’re in anger, when we’re in frustration, resentment, any of those, we are in an incoherent pattern where it’s very kind of jumpy, patchy, skipping up and down. That is not beneficial for us. And so these tie in with the electromagnetic waves as well.
So being able to monitor that using this device that they’ve created—you can clip it onto your ear. And essentially, you’re practicing how to breathe, breathe with intention, breathe with positive feelings, in order to promote that sinusoidal wave—the coherent heart patterns.
If you just measure it and see how it is when you’re not doing that, it’s amazing. I can’t remember off the top of my head, but there is definitely an impact that’s consistent with how often and how much of the coherent heart patterns you have in your day-to-day life. So practicing it, just as part of a meditation practice in the morning or a routine to add this in with using that device, can be helpful for people to help kind of settle the glitter, settle the nerves, settle the chaos if they find themselves in it on a regular basis. It’s a place to start.
Amanda Dinsmore, MD
So, Arpita, your husband did the Integrative Medicine Fellowship too, and I don’t know if they did this for him, but we had energy healers that would come and talk, and we would try to practice, like, feeling where their electromagnetic field ended and ours began.
And it’s interesting—they say a psychotic patient has a much bigger energetic field. Like, people who take the time to try to feel that, which, you know, we don’t take very much time; we just barrel into patients’ rooms in the ER. But you can—you can kind of feel that, and they are going to be much more sensitive to you in their personal space than somebody who’s totally calm.
And also, apparently right before you die, allegedly, it kind of expands one more time. But that—that was just like… well, I promise you, I’ve never thought about that once!
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yeah, he actually loved that. I think there was a book by Joe Dispenza where he talks about the quantum field that he really enjoyed. And he does do the HeartMath with the device every morning. He still does that to put himself in heart-mind coherence.
So, you know, there’s something to be said about how it helps promote just peace, honestly, in your life if you find yourself in a constantly activated state.
Laura Cazier, MD
Wow. That is super cool.
Amanda Dinsmore, MD
So how does anger manifest differently in people who have experienced trauma? Is their alert system—this seems like an obvious question—but is their alert system more sensitive or reactive?
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yeah, I think—it may not actually manifest differently. I think the key here is determining what might be the source of it. And again, going back to not making yourself wrong when you’re having an anger response or reaction, giving yourself a little bit of grace and compassion to figure out why it’s there.
Because there is something that’s tying into your having that reaction. Now, there are people that completely have gone off the deep end with regards to their reactions and have no emotional adulthood per se—not taking responsibility for how they’re showing up.
And that’s not what I’m referring to here. I’m referring to people who can notice and recognize that they’re having a reaction that, again, might be misdirected, might be out of proportion, doesn’t quite make sense, and they are wanting to figure out why.
Because it really can show up. When somebody shows up angry, you’re not going to know from the way they show up what is the source of it. It could be a trauma, it could be—it’s legitimate for what’s going on. It could just be an underlying emotion. It’s where you start to dive deeper into the why of why it’s there that you get some of the answers.
Laura Cazier, MD
So how does anger develop in childhood? And can early experiences shape how we respond to situations later in life?
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yeah, I think with childhood exposures to anger, it can lead to people going in so many different directions. Some people will mimic, and that behavior was modeled for them, so they think it’s okay, and then they go on to do the same thing with their interactions later in life.
Other people will see that as something that was bad, something that was scary, and so they kind of shut themselves off. And so when they have those same interactions or similar interactions later in life, as they get older, they might completely turn inward or involute and not really interact at all.
So there’s not really any, again, one set way of how people develop when they’re exposed to anger. I think it looks—what happens here is that it just depends on all of the interactions and all of the environmental influences that they have at that time, with how they choose to cope with that scenario that works for them.
Laura Cazier, MD
That makes sense. So how does trauma complicate anger management in leadership roles, for instance? And how can a trauma-informed approach help professionals regulate their emotions more effectively?
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yeah, I think with leadership roles, again, your past and how your traumas might have impacted you can show up so differently for each individual. And so just having the awareness around that is key with regards to how you’re showing up and then interacting with your colleagues, your employees, et cetera, et cetera.
But if you are open to considering that perspective and doing that work for yourself, this gives you the opportunity to really decide, "Hey, this is something that I want to improve upon for my own sake, for how I interact, and how I serve as a leader so that I can model and interact with others in a way that aligns with my values."
And it also gives you the opportunity to start to notice when other people might have also been impacted by traumas and how it’s impacting how they’re showing up.
I think it, in general, just allows for a lot more curiosity with how we interact with ourselves and how we interact with other people, instead of just immediately jumping to, “This person sucks,” or, “This person doesn’t care,” or, “This person is ridiculous,” you know? Which is a very common way for us to handle things, especially when we’re in these roles where we’re in charge, we tell people what to do all day long, and we kind of are the boss in a sense.
Laura Cazier, MD
Yeah, I think that that’s super important, especially if someone has a reaction to something we do that seems like it doesn’t make sense, seems out of proportion. And instead of just chalking it up to, “Oh, they’re crazy,” to be curious: Is there something in the way that I interacted with them that actually triggered something else that—it really wasn’t about this situation; it was reliving a prior situation?
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Right. And you may never know what it is, and that’s okay. It’s just coming at the person or the scenario with the perspective of, “I wonder what might be going on here. I wonder how this may not be a direct attack on me, or the system, or any of that—it has nothing to do with me. But I want to show up in a way that allows for them to feel like they’re in a safe space.”
Amanda Dinsmore, MD
In the same way that we encourage people to always assume that the other person has good intentions, maybe we always assume that their reaction makes sense if we knew more.
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yes.
Laura Cazier, MD
Yeah, definitely.
Amanda Dinsmore, MD
Well, I happen to know that you have a new podcast, and I was hoping that you could tell us about it. First of all, I love the name—it’s called From Pissed Off to Poised, and I think that is hilarious, and it’s going to be perfect. Tell us all about it.
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yeah, so I decided I wanted to really share with the world what I have been learning. I think a lot of this came from the fact that most people are ashamed to even admit that they’re angry. Like, it’s not—it’s not an acceptable emotion to have. It’s not kind of seen as something, especially for women, that’s okay.
And so I wanted to kind of normalize and create a safe space where people could listen and learn and take some of these tools that I’ve implemented in my own life and share with my clients for themselves, even if they are not able to seek help from other people.
Because ultimately, we just really want a peaceful earth, a peaceful being, you know, to be with individuals. And so I figured this would be a great way to just put it out there.
It’s literally my anger course that I have online, but I’ve kind of chopped it up into small, digestible bits. It’s going to talk about the trauma, the emotional processing, where anger stems from—all of those things.
And then for me personally, one of my anger activators was anytime I felt this sense of urgency, like I didn’t have enough time to get things done, and I’d get so pissed off because the kids were holding me back from getting out the door. And so I realized it has to do with time management and making sure my time was well addressed and handled.
So I have the second half of the podcast talking about time management tools as well. So it’s kind of a little bit of both for everybody, but it’s a limited series.
Laura Cazier, MD
I’m excited.
Amanda Dinsmore, MD
Awesome! So it also sounds like people could get your anger management and time management courses, but how would they reach out to you or learn more about them?
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
Yeah, they can just go to the website. It’s www.thoughtworkmd.com, or they can find me on social media at ThoughtWorkMD and message me and just go from there. But there’s a way to connect and contact me on the site.
Amanda Dinsmore, MD
Awesome. Well, before we close out, are there any things that we should have asked that we didn’t? Any closing thoughts?
Dr. DePalma | Thought Work, MD
I think just giving yourself grace—like first giving yourself props if you’ve decided and have awareness that you’re showing up in a way that you want to change. Because that’s hard to admit. So giving yourself props for that, and then doing it in a way that you’re comfortable with—not making yourself wrong, and knowing that we all have anger in our life. It’s just people don’t always want to admit it. So you’re not alone in this, and this is how we start making change.
Kendra Morrison, DO
Love that. Thank you so much, Arpita. This is great work that you’ve done. We’re so thankful that you came back on our podcast, and we can’t wait to check out your new podcast.
And as always, to our listeners, if this helped you, if you’re feeling crusty and angry and this gave you a little enlightenment on where it might be coming from, leave us a review. Give us five stars, and give us a sentence or two because, you know, it helps other doctors find us and makes our ripple that much bigger.
And we want to tell you about our new free video training: How to Crush Physician Burnout for Good Without Cutting Back Hours, Quitting Medicine, or Sucking It Up in Silence. Scroll down in the show notes for the link and check it out today.
And until next time, you are whole, you are a gift to medicine, and the work you do matters.
