Have you said “I’m sorry” even though the circumstance wasn’t your fault? Have you started off a conversation or a presentation with “I’m sorry?” Do you say "Sorry I’m running behind", "Sorry for taking up space or time in a group session", "Sorry for crying", "Sorry for not understanding", or "Sorry I am not available"? Listen to understand why you over-apologize and the impact it can have on your life, health, and happiness. Learn about common situations where you don’t need to...

An amusing discussion about mindful decision-making with 18-year-old Liam Mahoney, a high school senior.   In this episode, Liam shares his college decision-making process. He showcases his extremely abundant mindset, his positivity bias, and why he chose to become a UC Berkeley 2028 rather than a UCLA 2028. Liam shares how he made an authentic decision for himself despite conflicting advice from his two brothers and his grandparents. He shares why he didn’t let the opinions of his peers...

Words of wisdom from a professional pivoter.  In today's episode, we delve into the transformative power of pivoting in both life and career. Dr. Jillian shares strategies for embracing change, giving yourself permission, and learning to put your opinion above the opinion of others.  Trigger warning: Blunt mentions of suicide and eating disorders occur in this episode.  Giving yourself permission to pivot is hard. Societal pressures often lead us astray from what truly matters. We spend a...

Life, relationships, and medicine are full of urgency mismatches. Their urgency is not your urgency. Your urgency may also not be their urgency. Many things that feel urgent aren't urgent.   How often do you receive emails and texts from someone wanting something from you urgently? What story do you tell about it? How do you feel when you receive these messages? Do you feel anxious, resentful, resistant, maybe even angry?   How often is it truly urgent? We live in a society with a...

Are you sometimes overwhelmed and depleted by the demands of caregiving for both your parents and your children? Does caregiving wear you down or cause stress and anxiety? Do you think YOU have to do it all?   The inspiration for this podcast is the very full plate that we have both been living as caregivers for both aging parents and our own children.  We invite you to approach this abundance of caregiving with love, self-compassion, mindfulness and intention. If you can, you will likely...

Our special guest for this episode is Dr. Sogol Pahlavan. She is a board-certified pediatrician and a physician mindfulness coach, and TEDx speaker, co-founder of SoulpreneurMD and host of the Mindful Living Podcast. She’s a mother, a wife, a daughter of immigrant parents, and a managing partner of a pediatric clinic. She shares her journey of recognizing when she had burned out and the path she took to find her current state of calm, ease, and joy, and how mindfulness was interwoven into...

The legal system is not medicine.  Very little is in your control in a medicolegal cases.  What is in your control? How you respond and whether you get help and support along the way.  Mindfulness, self-compassion, therapy, and coaching are all key to staying as healthy, balanced, and buoyant as possible. Lawsuits pull the rug out from under physicians. There is trauma behind every curve. Lawsuits bring out the harmful side of our common default thought patterns as physicians. Many...

"The life you lead are the lessons that you teach." Do you wish you had a more abundant mindset? Do you wish you were better at supporting other women and colleagues? Do you want to share mindfulness and coaching with loved ones and colleagues but struggle to do so effectively? Dr. Miriam Rhew is a pediatrician and an unconditional supporter of friends and colleagues. She is a most effective influencer of family members, friends, and colleagues when it comes to mindfulness and wellness.  ...

We all “work” with our spouses all the time - we just don’t realize it.    Even if you don’t run an actual business or LLC together, you work together as parents and intimate partners. Running a home and family is the equivalent of a small business.   To work better with your spouse: Show up with mindful intention Choose the tone and energy you want to bring Communicate clearly and explicitly. Even if your spouse knows you really well, they still can't read your mind Set...

Do you want your child to do and be more than what they are capable of?  Have you yourself been indoctrinated into toxic achievement culture? Would you like to break free from the constraints of toxic achievement culture for yourself and your children?   This episode is another in the Parent with Presence series.     Our intention is to call out and identify toxic achievement culture and how, to some extent, most of us have been indoctrinated into it.  Through mindfulness and self...

It is very hard for those of us in medicine to pause or slow down. We were trained and acculturated to think that the pause and rest are not worthwhile. We were trained to think that pausing and resting is complacent and/or lazy. If we were to pause or rest we would definitely fall behind.   In actuality-- the more you do the more you need to rest.     Our society glorifies busy, empty, and exhausted. We are addicted to busyness and productivity. This leads us to burnout, exhaustion,...

Do you think there is a right and wrong way to go about change? And/or a right or wrong time to change? Is the fear of making a mistake holding you back from change? When you are “successful” it is harder to change.    What makes charge hard for those trained in medicine? We assume negative outcomes and tend to catastrophize. We focus on negative what if’s and we don’t like uncertainty. We like control, plans, and evidence-based action. We tend to be people pleasers and don't...

What is good medicine? What is the medicine you actually need? How do you want to live?  Who is your Obi-Won-Kenobi teacher? Who are you?  What does it mean to be upright in your life? How do we create connections? We discuss all this and more in this very special guest episode with Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison who is Co-Founder, President, & Guiding Teacher of the New York Zen Center an educational non-profit dedicated to integrating contemplative approaches to care with...

Do you and your partner have different levels of sexual desire?  Do libido differences cause tension in your relationship?  Do you feel guilt, blame or shame about your desire for sex?  Studies show that a lack of interest in sex is by far the most common and distressing sexual problem.  When sex suffers, so do all other areas of life. The brain is our most powerful sex organ." Take a listen to Episode 88 with Dr. Kelly Casperson to learn more. As such, mindfulness and coaching are key to...

How might you care for your heart? What if you made your relationship with yourself your primary focus?   This episode focuses on heart-centered approaches to life, love, and health. We discuss why we are committed to growing love, practicing love, and celebrating love.  We outline what you can do to care for your heart – physically, spiritually, and emotionally.   We share how to grow self-compassion and we offer acts of kindness, self-acceptance, self-compassion and self-love. ...

Happy Lunar New Year!  Welcome to the Year of the Wood Dragon. The Dragon is an auspicious creature that symbolizes vitality, vision, vigor, power, nobility, honor, luck, and success. (chinahighlights.com). Dragon years are defined by momentum .  The element is wood, which fuels flames and enhances the intensity and instability of the dragon.  Globally, a Wood Dragon year might mean that things might get a bit turbulent, progress will come, but it might not be smooth. The lesson isn’t...

When you focus on the time you don't have, you feel rushed and anxious. When you focus on the energy you don't have, you feel overwhelmed. When you focus on the resources you don't have, you feel stressed and not valued. When you focus on the potential lack of opportunities or good outcomes you feel tight, anxious, and stuck.   When you ask how am I resourced?  You feel resourced. You start to notice different things and feel differently.   How do you begin to change your...

Just because something has always been done that way doesn’t make continuing to do it that way right. Do you work through lunch? Do you attend meetings during lunch? Do you teach for free? Give talks without compensation? Do you respond to patient emails and address results when you aren’t at work?  We have been indoctrinated into an archaic system with unrealistic expectations of healthcare professionals. It’s key to recognize when we are complicit in this, and that it’s ok and...

Dr. Preetika Sidhu has been coaching with me since July 2020.  In 2024, she lives a completely different life than when we met three and half years ago.    When we first met, she worried that she wasn’t “helpable.” Since then, she has changed her thoughts on money, medicine, relationships and even her vision of what a life well lived looks and feels like.    In this next episode in the successful coaching journey series, Preetika shares how coaching helped her learn to listen to her...

  Uncertainty = possibility. Uncertainty very often leads to things you never expected. Very often things even more wonderful than you ever imagined. “Just as a caterpillar thought the world would end, it became a butterfly.  Just when the blastocyst thought it would starve it found a uterus.” - Dr. Erica Bove Dr. Erica Bove, a board certified REI specialist shares her journey in the year since her Pause & Presence Yoga and Coaching Retreat in March 2023. She shares why she decided...

Have you ever had an unexpected outcome and been unable to stop thinking about it?  Do you go to shame, blame and guilt when you think you may have made a mistake? Have you tried to believe it will turn out better than you expect but in the end, it turned out worse?   This episode will empower you with tools to respond with more grace and ease in the face of adversity. We hope you will leave with a better understanding of how shame, blame, guilt, and rumination make hard things harder.  ...

Do you think you aren’t good at negotiating? Do you worry about offending people or disappointing them?  Do you want to learn some mindset strategies for effective negotiating?   Listen to learn why doctors and women often struggle to negotiate.  Learn the basics of effective negotiating. Leave with mindfulness and coaching tools to help you negotiate better.   There is much more to be learned from listening to this podcast, discussing the topic in person, and getting coached on...

If you want to become the most wise, authentic, engaged, and impactful version of yourself, you need a coach.   This episode is part 2 of Jessie answering questions from women physicians. Questions I address in this episode include: Why did I choose “coaching”? What drew me to it​? What is the difference between coaching and therapy?  Is coaching and running Pause & Presence what I expected?  Are there people that coaching is not right for?   What is the most surprising...

What should you do when you encounter self doubt?  What does it mean to have your own back?   This is the first in a series of Question and Answer Podcasts. This episode shares the lessons I learned from my personal transition story.    Questions I answer in this episode Why did I get a coach in the first place?   What was my background? Why did I pivot? What was it I wanted to do that I couldn't in my institution? Have I always trusted my intuition?  What does having...