Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Intersectional feminist conversations about doing work and life differently. Hosts Becky Mollenkamp and Faith Clarke talk with entrepreneurs, authors, and thinkers about capacity, care, bias, and burnout. We name the systems we're taught to ignore, and imagine what's possible when we stop performing and start being honest.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (00:15)
Thank you for being here. Today we're excited to be having a conversation with Dr. Judy Wright, who is a physician, a sustainable success expert and speaker who helps high-achieving women rise in their careers without burning out. She's also the creator of the Power Balance and the PACE framework, which I'm sure we'll get into some of those things today. Thank you for being here, Dr. Wright.
Dr. Judy Wright (00:36)
Thank you so much, Becky. Thank you, Faith. I'm I'm glad to be here.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (00:40)
Yes.
Faith Clarke (00:40)
Looking
forward to to all of the juicy details we're gonna get to hear.
Dr. Judy Wright (00:44)
Ha ha ha.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (00:45)
And I
just actually literally got back from the doctor's office. So I feel like I'm in such a great headspace to talk about the medical system
Dr. Judy Wright (00:52)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (00:53)
and those experiences. And I don't know if this is a good place to start, but I'm just gonna ask it anyway because this is something that I whenever I post about it on social, I can get really mixed reviews about my feelings on this. So I'm very curious from your perspective as a physician, especially as a Black physician who I think probably understands a lot of the
complex histories around something like BMI. I often will say I would prefer not to be weighed in at a doctor's office unless I'm there for something where I know that my weight will be an issue on what on deciding dosages for medicine or something like that. Because far too often the answer that I and many other women tell me they hear from doctors so frequently is lose weight, lose weight, without really taking many of their symptoms seriously.
And I'm just curious your thoughts on on that
Faith Clarke (01:40)
Wait, hang on a second. So, I mean, even just this idea of refusing, this is such a phenomenal idea that I could say no. I don't want to be weighed in. and just it's so many of our conversations are about power and all this thing, choice, consent. And it's like, wow, it didn't ever occur to me that I could say no. So even I'm curious about that.
Dr. Judy Wright (01:59)
I'm gonna start with what you just said, Faith, and then tell you guys the story. So you absolutely can say no, When you go into with into working with your physician, the concept of the medical home has become big. And I always want people to take their power, So I'm part of your team if I'm your physician.
That's how I say it, You're supposed to be the CEO of your health because let's be clear. I see you for a point in time. Whether that point in time is 30 minutes, 15 minutes, I see you for a point in time. And then for the rest of the 24 hours of that day until and then every day thereafter until I see you the next time, it's on you.
Faith Clarke (02:41)
Yeah.
Dr. Judy Wright (02:42)
So you absolutely can refuse. What I will say is that.
I think that having the proper information is important. Sometimes we like to lock things out. And I think having the proper information is important. But I do understand how people like, I came in for this, and you're making it about this. Now, if I can say to you, okay, yes, I see you didn't weigh yourself. You didn't get weighed. Why? And you can tell me.
I can say to you, so this is how I think that this can help with what you just told me about your history for me to know. You still get to make the choice on whether or not you want to be weighed. But I'm not just telling you you came in because you stubbed your pinky toe. I need you to go get weighed and just be like a sickler about it. You stubbed your pinky toe. You know? So yes, it's normal for us to weigh you, but if you refuse.
You have that right. Now, I smiled when you were telling this because years ago, we had no children yet. It was just me and my husband. We lived in a rental, you know. I used to suffer a lot from migraines. And I and this particular time, my migraine made my vision go Black for a second. And it scared me.
Faith Clarke (04:06)
Yeah.
Dr. Judy Wright (04:06)
And I couldn't get in to see my doctor.
So I asked him to call his, And we go to his doctor, and I explain what happened, and what I really needed was a medication that works for me. That's what I really needed. And then this man starts to talk to me about not just my weight, weight loss surgery specifically. I'm still suffering from said migraine. All right.
And he wants to talk to me about weight loss surgery. Needless to say, I got my medication. I never went back to him. I convinced my husband to leave him. My father-in-law would not leave him until he started to realize he you end up in the hospital for something serious. He's not even coming to visit. Can you leave this crackpot? Because I'm just not I'm just not feeling this,
Sometimes you really have to look into someone's not listening to you, That's a problem. And I think I got my medication because I myself am a physician. His partner was some was an attending who I when I was an resident rotated through his thing. So he immediately recognized me. So now he's like, okay. I think that's why I got my medication because I was like, I didn't come here for this. And I was very open.
I did not come here for this. My vision went by the way, he also had a neurology background.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (05:31)
Yeah.
Dr. Judy Wright (05:32)
You know,
so I
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (05:34)
Yeah.
Dr. Judy Wright (05:35)
totally get it. And in the end, and I want people to understand you have that right, but I also want you to say, Why would I do that? What would be the reason? Now, if you're somebody that goes in and you have a history of high blood pressure and you have a history of this, yeah, you should get weighed. Can you refuse? Absolutely. But you probably should get weighed. Just see where you are, you know.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (05:59)
Yeah. Well,
I love what you said about you are the CEO of your health. Because like you, Faith, forever. I just I think so many of us, there is some sort of almost like intimidation factor, probably because of your years of education, which we very much respect, I think most people respect the fact that in many ways you're smarter than us, and certainly you know more about these things than we do, And so there is like a deference that happens when you go into a medical office.
And I think sometimes you it can lead to the patient feeling intimidated and even unable to advocate for themselves because they feel like they're pushing it back against somebody who is gonna just use the fact that they know more about this almost like a weapon against them to just get them to do what they want. And I had had that feeling forever. And so just even like like you said, Faith, learning that I can say no to something felt incredibly empowering after so many years.
Of the first thing I would hear about is weight when all of my markers that would be related to weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, all of these other things were okay, They're all within normal ranges and thinking, can we just look at these numbers instead of what you're seeing with your eyeballs? And let's talk about the numbers. And weight can be a piece of that. But and it's not that I always refuse it, but I just wanted to bring up this idea of that like advocacy, because I think that so many of us don't feel that.
Dr. Judy Wright (07:18)
On
hundred percent. And that's a big thing that I push to people is it's important to learn how to advocate for yourself. And s and it can be intimidating just like you said, because it's like I don't have all that information. I don't know. You don't you don't need to be well versed in medicine to be able to learn to advocate for yourself. But the thing is
The more you do it, the easier it gets for you, and so when we stay steeped in fear, but the other thing, because this is important, my father's in the hospital right now. And you know, if they're the older set, my parents are in their 80s, they're the older set it was whatever the doctor says, And so over the years, if I look at something, I'm like, but why did they do this? And they can't answer me. So now I'm calling the doctor, and I'm like, okay, no, absolutely not.
Or yes, okay, now I understand. Where my mom has gotten now, thank God, is it's okay, Ma. You may not know how to know how to ask the question. But now you know if I can't advocate for myself, let me find the person that can't. And that's me and my sister, who's a nurse. So she now immediately knows, picked that phone up. This is what I just saw. What is that? You know?
And so if you cannot advocate, if that's very hard for you, but you can find somebody that can help you to advocate or that you feel comfortable asking the questions. My friend used when her father was still alive, but he was in the hospital, she used to call me and say, This is what I see hanging. Could you tell me what all of that is? You you know what I mean? So you can
Faith Clarke (08:59)
Yeah.
Dr. Judy Wright (09:00)
you can get the answers that you need, however you can get them.
Faith Clarke (09:05)
Yeah, I think one of the things that as I'm listening to you, I think about is that the more okay, my son has autism, he's now 27, and so I have a history of advocating for him, and he does not he is not able to kind of stand. No, he can stand stand on a scale for a second. but there's a lot of the basic stuff that he wouldn't tolerate, and I
I I stood up in my full height. Like I am the expert on my child. You're the expert on the whatever you studied. I am the expert on my child. So I go in and I say how this will go. Some that don't shine any lights in his eyes. Whatever the if you want to see his eyes, know what you know, and things like that. So it's interesting to me when I think about myself that it's I'm slower on the self-advocacy.
than I am on this on the way I step into our doctor's office and how I, you know, manage that situation. And yet I also think about the fact that, you know, systemic injustice, And systemic issues, that the medical field, you know, the God complex is a trope for a reason. And so there is this sense of when you are face to face with a practitioner, I do know more than you.
you want to argue with me? Like, I also had this doctor I only went to one time who looked at me for five minutes and wrote me a prescription for blood pressure medication simply because he was just like, everything else is good for you and your blood pressure is high, it shouldn't be. So here's a script. And I was like, You're not even my family doctor. You don't even know me. You didn't have a conversation with me. How come this is your first line? And I, it's not that I critiqued the script, it was that.
I want you to be curious about me and my life and the moment I'm in, versus taking, you know, 1015 on a Tuesday and therefore making that be a prescription. So just this, we are navigating both the power and privilege of the credential and how how the system has taught that there's a hierarchy there. And then
How we are also taught like not to question and how do we kind of hold on and really believe that we are the CEO for our own health, especially when the doctors don't believe that we are the CEO of our own health.
Dr. Judy Wright (11:24)
Yeah, and you know
That can be the that complex is it it it is a thing, It's but it's not a thing for as many doctors as people think it is. So there's a lot of things in the system that can make physicians come off hurried and cold and cold because they are very hurried because there's
Faith Clarke (11:45)
Hmm.
Dr. Judy Wright (11:46)
like so many things.
Faith Clarke (11:48)
Yeah.
Dr. Judy Wright (11:48)
But
That's when it's really up to us. We know we came in for something and we we we need to ask for it. And you're absolutely right, Faith. pe people are we we can advocate for our family members so fast. And sometimes for us, you know, it's part of that putting ourselves on the backbone of thing. Suddenly, like we have all this mouth and then suddenly it's like we're not asking it. We're like, okay, okay, okay.
I have left doctors, just like I left that doctor, I've left doc I've left doctors who gave me whatever I wanted because they knew I was a doctor. Well, I didn't come here to doctor myself. You know, one of the things when when my when my son was born, my son is also autistic, when my son was born, I said to my husband, I know you know I'm a doctor.
Please do not look to me. I want to be his mom. Of course, if there's an emergency, I am going to handle that situation. Make sure he's stable. Get him where he needs to get. And then I want to slip back into mom. And I need you all to explain to me like I wasn't in medical school because at the moment that something terrifying is happening for a loved one.
Your brain doesn't do all the stuff it's supposed to do and all the things you're supposed to learn. You just want your loved one to get better. So I said, I want to be a mom. Please don't look in my face and be like, what now? What now, Judy? What now? You know? So I totally get it. I totally get it.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (13:21)
We you just mentioned, Faith, about systemic issues and you mentioned medical school, which is kind of nice because those are like the things I wanted to maybe, if you're okay, Faith to moving towards. Because I was just before we got on the call, I was looking up some of the issues of racism in the medical industry and particularly for medical students. And knowing that I mean, I think you can just scroll the insurance company's list of doctors and see that we there's a woeful underrepresentation.
just in the medical industry, most certainly at the level of doctor for of representing Black people of color, you know, I would say Black most especially, but other people of color as well. There's just this underrepresentation there. And obviously there's the issue of being behind on just even being allowed into medical school, So that puts people behind and just and the numbers catching up. But also in what I was reading, just some of the issues of
You know, Black medical students and residents getting lower clinical performance scores based on some of the perceptions that exist and the, you know, the the b biases that are there. And also how medical students of color, particularly Black medical students, suffer more from and I this is why I think it's interesting because it gets to some of your work around burnout. They're more likely to feel stressed, more likely to you know.
All sorts of like burnout and other issues in medical school because of some of these things that are being brought into that experience. first of all, not having professors or clinical, whatever you call that when you're a resident, but the people you're studying under, I guess I don't think call them professors still.
Dr. Judy Wright (14:56)
It is.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (14:57)
But not having people who look like you, who understand your lived experience in the room with you, being judged differently while you're there, having fewer folks.
in the room at your level, if you were peers that also have your lived experience, all of those things are going to contribute, I would assume, to that burnout. So I wonder if you could just share a little of your experience. It's, you know, I think it's been a little bit, but if you what you can remember about your entry into medical school and how much of that rang true for you and how much of that kind of affects your interest in helping high achieving women like yourself with burnout.
Dr. Judy Wright (15:33)
Yeah, so this is a good question. so I I'm a public school baby. Maybe I went to public schools. I probably did three months in a private school once. Didn't like it because I didn't feel like I was learning as much as I had been learning in a public school. If you can imagine. and but one of the things that was hard for me.
was standardized testing. In New York we used to have something called the citywide and I did very well on those. But as you went higher up and the SATs and and all that, that stuff was much more difficult for me. taking d that level of standardized tests. And so you know, that kind of transferred. I say all that to say that there was a I p I had problems in medical school. I did.
And it was really around the testing piece that became more difficult for me. and it took me a longer time to get out of medical school than a lot of medical students. And you know, and part of it was I had done so well all my life.
that people didn't realize that things took me a little longer. You know, I had been validatorian from elementary school, then I was validatoring again in high school and you know I grew I graduated cumulati from college. People just didn't realize it took her longer. I just overcompensated. I didn't, you know, we started off talking about sleep. I didn't get a lot of sleep at all. Thought it was a waste of time because I knew I had to get through all of this stuff. And then you get to medical school and the volume
information you need to take in. Crazy. And you're right. representation matters. getting that help matters. Luckily for me, I had started going to the school psychologist because it really started to affect me. Like you put some identity around, I am a great student, and then all of a sudden it feels like that's snatched away from you, and medical school became
very hard for me. But once I I was tested and we realized that my processing, how I process information was a little slower and stuff like that, and some accommodations was put in, I took off, It was very important to me to be a physician because in college, I took one sociology class and fell in love with sociology and and what it meant, you know, to see how people interact in community and
And I wanted to be, I I I didn't know the lingo for representation matters, but what I used to say is there has to be a trust factor there so that you can build this rapport in particular communities, especially because of the history, the medical history in this country of what has happened to people in in general, Black people of color in general, but Black people specifically.
Okay, used as test subjects to their detriment, entire generations. that there's not a tra a trust factor there so much. So I wanted to be: here's a face you recognize that that will recognize you back, that's willing to listen, that understands that you may come from another culture, and the big thing for you is not medications, it's herbs.
Now, may you you might need to be on some medication, but I'm not closing you out and saying, no, what you're doing is completely wrong. Get rid of all that stuff. Because the moment they feel like you're closing them out, they're gonna close you out. And they'll tell you, Yeah, we're doing what you said, and they're not. Yeah, we yeah, yeah, yeah. We took your suggestion, we took your recommendation. N not necessarily. So this is really that
That part was always really important to me, that building that rapport and really understanding the patients. When I was I, you know, I'm not doing patient care now, but when I was in patient care, that was so extremely important to me. But you're very correct. It is problematic from that standpoint, but it's also problematic for the patients. We still have a lot of medical students.
And interns who think that Black people don't feel pain the way other people feel pain. Where are they picking that up from? I don't remember somebody saying that to me at all, but the realization that there is still a good percentage, like it's not it's like 40% that thinks that Black people don't feel pain the way.
Other people feel pain because they have thicker skin. Where'd you get this from? People used to say to me, Judy could feel her hair grow. That's how much I used to feel pain, So where did you get this from? And so that type of thing is very scary, especially when you're thinking about how most of the people who are genetically are inclined to get sickle cell disease and therefore crisis.
Are Black people. So now you're going to under medicate because you think what? They're drug seeking or you know, so these kind of things we you know we have to think of. And I'm gonna be honest with you. Other Black people are more likely to think about that than people who don't look like us.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (21:03)
Can I just
Dr. Judy Wright (21:03)
Just a way to
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (21:04)
I just want to reiterate in faith, I want you to because I can see you have something to say, but I just want to emphasize where you said a face, you see a face that looks like you. I've thought that that piece that you said and that sees you back. that just really, that really hit me. So I just wanted to, I want to pause and emphasize on that. Like that is such an important piece of that that matters
Dr. Judy Wright (21:26)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (21:26)
so much. Cause it's not just you seeing a face that looks like you, it's that that face is seeing you back. beautiful.
Dr. Judy Wright (21:31)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (21:32)
Sorry, go ahead, Faith.
Dr. Judy Wright (21:33)
Extremely,
extremely important.
Faith Clarke (21:35)
No, I think the the doctor w the one of the doctors that had the most impact on me in terms of my son care with my son had a kid on the spectrum. And I'm like, we we had a honest conversation. I'm like, what would you do? And he's like
Like I know your life. I would do this. I said, What would you do with what do you do with your son now? And he told me the protocol he used. I said, What would you have changed about that? He said, You know what? I'd have gone back and tried this thing and that. And I felt like it the seeing you back is so essential.
that it's otherwise, like you're saying, Dr. Wright, we we definitely don't have enough trust in the system. I know you don't see me. So I'm just trying to get what little you know I can get from the system if I must, but just acknowledging that without the trust, I won't be able to receive what care is available. And so then the the various crises continue and escalate. And we know that people with multiple marginalized identities are.
at greater risk of everything, you know, in terms of health and so on.
Dr. Judy Wright (22:38)
You you if you feel like they're acting like they see you, but they don't really see you, you're gonna act like you heard them, but you didn't really listen. And so
Faith Clarke (22:44)
Yeah.
Dr. Judy Wright (22:46)
it's like, you know, I you I I really I'll be honest with you, people have called me slow because I'm one of those people that I I'm always like, don't you guys wanna know the story?
Faith Clarke (22:58)
Yeah.
Dr. Judy Wright (22:59)
I wanna know the story. I wanna understand this this patient. And
understand their life and I want to know the story. And so to this day, you know, I work now in a managed care organization and people will tell me about a particular one of our members. And then maybe a few weeks later they're like, okay, Doctor Wright, I we spoke out this this member weeks ago, but I'm gonna go over it again. And they will say like two, maybe three sentences. I'm like, is that the one that did the and I'm just and they're like, my God.
And it's because I asked them enough questions that I formed a story in my head and now I understand better. And so we don't have we don't have to go aft over everything anymore because I remember this this case. You know, what is the update? You know? So yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (23:50)
Can and and I I I love all of this because we're talking about the systemic piece. And I'd love to just go a little more into the burnout part if we can, like because
Dr. Judy Wright (23:58)
Yeah, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (23:59)
you mentioned about the testing and how, you know, and obviously standardized testing, there's been a lot of evidence around the racial biases baked into standardized testing. So no surprise, honestly, there, That that would be more challenging. But where did the burnout come in for you? Was it in school? Was it when you got into practice? How did that show up?
Faith Clarke (24:19)
I'm gonna complicate the question a little bit. It's
Dr. Judy Wright (24:21)
Yeah.
Faith Clarke (24:22)
just and then you can, you know, go anywhere that you want. I as you were talking about yourself in medical school, I thought about Claude Steele's work. He's a social psychologist. He used to be in New York, I think he's California now, and he came up with this frame called stereotype threat, which we use in lots of ways as we talk about the impact of an identity that we hold that's important to us, and that
other people have bad stories about. So he did research on women in engineering and math. He did research on Black students in Ivy League schools and just recognizing that if there is a story about an identity that's important to you.
that a negative story about that identity, half your brain is spent trying to prevent that story from being true to you. So I'd I'd really if I had a hundred percent of my brain available to do this class, I only have half of it because the other half is saying I don't want to be perceived as that Black student who blah blah that woman who couldn't get the engineering problem right. You know, whatever it is. And then he, you know, their research talks about ways of deactivating the stereotypes and stuff.
Like that. But I I as I listened, I just just felt I felt I went to Colombia and I felt that as in this Ivy League school of coming from Jamaica. I I was half of my time was just this, my god, these people don't think I know anything, and do I really know anything? And so just wondering if you know if there's any relation like that in your story and the contribution of that to the burnout was because.
you're navigating so many more things or any other place where, yeah, any other causes for burnout for you.
Dr. Judy Wright (26:06)
So thank you for for telling me that because I I've never heard of that. but what what it brought to mind is I I said to you that I was I've always been at or near the top of my class. My last name is Wright. So I always used to say the only way I can get to the front is to be number one, but despite
Being valedictorian or salutatorian or suma cumulade or all of that. for the longest time, I felt like it was all luck. I didn't necessarily feel I was smart. I felt like I did the work.
And then I felt like luck took the rest. I I did not really think I had anything to do with it. And I felt like, and I used to say to myself, this is why talking to yourself nice is real important. I used to say, one day my luck is gonna run out. And that felt that's what it felt like when I was in medical school, Like a self fulfilling prophecy that my luck ran out.
I'm a New Yorker at heart, I have that face that I'm not I'm not gonna look vulnerable and I'm not gonna this and but at the same time I didn't want to come off as the scary person in medical school. I didn't want to become off as as that scary people. And people had stories about me. I remember
we're in the lab doing anatomy, and have you guys seen Judy? I think she must have worked in like a mortuary or something. What? What are they talking about? I the the only other time I had dissected anything was the frog in high school. Wait, where did they get this from? But I think it's because
I held my face a certain way that they thought I exuded all this confidence. The truth was, I did not. I didn't want to come off as weak, but I also didn't want to come off as overbearing. once I started to learn what was happening, I had to take some of that power back from me and say, you can do this. This is not all luck. You can do this.
You know, and once I started to forge ahead and just kept moving, I was like, You're smarter than you think you You know, you you have to own your smartness. And a psychologist said that to me one day. She's like, Why do you not think you're smart? Why why don't you think you're smart? And she was like, You need to start owning this and I I I really had to start owning it. So
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (28:33)
It did the burnout then not happen for you until you got out into practice?
Dr. Judy Wright (28:38)
So thank you for bringing me back, Becky, because let me just say this. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (28:40)
No, no, that's okay. I loved what you just shared, by the way, because I think so many folks can relate. Whether we
were the smartest and hiding it or whatever the things are, I think that idea of of kind of like the masking and the showing up the way you feel like you have to and the weight that that
Dr. Judy Wright (28:53)
One hundred percent.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (28:54)
carries. So I love that you shared it, but I am yeah, I'm curious about the burn.
Dr. Judy Wright (28:58)
If I say to you that I just realized within the last six years that I probably also experienced burnout in medical school, I did not recognize it. I did not have words for it. I have but I'm here to tell you that being able to look back, I've I had I realized I had experienced burnout multiple times. And I had not done the work.
So people slip in and out of burnout all the time. I burned out and now I'm not burned out. I'm burned out and now I'm not burned out. People slip in and out of burnout. That's entirely possible. but I've burned out multiple times and I I finished medical school. So okay. But when I burned out at different jobs, my answer was I need to find a new job.
All right, that was my answer. So no, I didn't just burn out in clinical medicine. I burned out in academ academia because I actually worked in academia for a few years at Mount Sinai in New York. So I burned out in academia, I burned out in clinical medicine, and I burned out in corporate. And that last one was the one that made me say, I need you to look at yourself a little bit.
Everywhere you go, there you are. And it's not because I'm necessarily to blame for the burnout, but I I need to take responsibility for what can I do to minimize the risk that this will happen again.
That I absolutely need to take responsibility for. And also need to take responsibility for what part did I play in it? Not that it's I I I I'm bad and and I'm weak, but what part did I play in it? What did I not pay attention to? What did I loosen? For me, my boundaries became a suggestion without me realizing, And I also
Was not engaging in any self-care whatsoever. I was taking care of everything and everybody else. I was not taking care of me. And that included not making appointments, missing appointments I made without even realizing I missed it till like a week later. I'm like, didn't I have an appointment? You know? knowing that things were going on, my blood pressure was out of control. And the answer was just add another medication.
And I would add another medication, it'd be okay again. And then my blood pressure would, That's not okay. So I wasn't doing the things to take time for myself either. So that goes back to putting ourselves on that back burner again. I'll get to it. I'll get to it. But the kids, they need this. You know, my parents are getting older, they need this. My husband, they need this. The job, it needs this.
Yeah. So I I would say does it lend to the burnout piece? Yeah, because I will say this about medicine.
Without it's one of those unwritten things, unsaid things. If you don't pay attention, it teaches you how not to take care of yourself. It teaches the physician how not to take care of themselves because they're busy making sure they're taking care of the community. But my feeling is if your physician is not well, the community will not be well.
What are we mirror mirroring for everybody else?
Faith Clarke (32:31)
I love that comment that you can be in burnout and not recognize it as burnout, whether you don't have language or whatever. And so I go back to grad school and just remember
my surprise at having my first ever yeast infection and it felt like it was out of the blue. But I also I had the what I now call the US 15 pounds. I came from Jamaica in January, started grad school, put on 15 pounds by March and had a yeast infection. And and it was it's in, you know, by the time I graduated, it was like wow, this this was me coping with the environment and not knowing what
boundaries what can I say no like I I was just like at sea just trying to cope and trying to get the grades and watching them like you Dr. Rice I thought I was you know I was it was luck and so I was just like yeah it doesn't work here whatever my little lucky charm is is not working here and the result in my body is you know now I can say that was that was what that was so I think how do we then know we're in burnout
And what are some of the like what do we do? What is what's the approach? What's one thing? Cause as a busy mother still of an adult, so I'm still actively parenting. The moment you start speaking, I'm gonna like in what hour? Between two thirty and three in the morning, you know. So like what's what's an what's possible, what's easy that I could shift to protect myself? but how would I know?
Dr. Judy Wright (34:03)
I think when you what what what you said was super important, when you said you gained the the 15, and I was like, I watched my my family's from Jamaica, I watched cousins come over like this and
Faith Clarke (34:16)
Yeah.
Dr. Judy Wright (34:16)
end up like this in a matter of months, and I'm like, what just happened?
Faith Clarke (34:19)
What happened?
Dr. Judy Wright (34:20)
but here's the thing, and a lot of us like to act like we don't have time.
It's not to put down anybody. We're not making time. We're not being intentional about pausing. And when I so when I was on medical leave, I I had cancer, and I was on medical leave, it was the first time I got to sit down. And you know, my family was like, You better not lift an arm.
To even open a window, Because you just had surgery and you know, I wasn't really supposed to be using that arm and everything. And all I could do was sit down. Now, let me tell you, that first couple of weeks, that drove me nuts. Cause I didn't know how to do that. And then I had to say, okay.
There's some things I need to be thinking about because I realized I was in a different space. I wasn't having headaches. My blood pressure had normalized, and I had not taken any medication, And because I wasn't doing my routine, I forg kept forgetting to take my medication in the morning. How's my blood pressure? Normal, and I had to start to think about some things. Now, I was on medical leave. Everybody's not gonna be on medical leave, you know, people are not gonna be on sabbatical.
What can you do? You can pause. This is the first thing when I say the you know, my pace method. You need to be intentional about pausing. And that's not just be intentional about I'm gonna take vacation over here. No, it's being intentional about pausing. I like people to to figure out times in their day that they're just going to pause. Even as a physician, when we're doing clinical work.
We are literally running from room to room to room. And it doesn't matter how easy or how difficult that patient was. Because sometimes you have to give somebody difficult news. It it eats you to your core, but you're supposed to just keep going. No. Stop. Take a moment, So that you're not carrying that to the next thing. I tell people it's important to have a transition. A lot of us don't transition.
ourselves well from work to home and from home to work. We just everything is just crossing. We need to be intentional about taking a pause. Why? Because so many of us, and this is so true for women and so true for high achieving women who hold so many roles and responsibilities from the home to the job. We are on auto
An intentional pause helps to break the autopilot. Cause you you look and like I don't even remember what did I eat I don't know about you guys, but I'm like, did I eat lunch today?
Did I eat today? It's 4 p.m. Did I eat? So I had I I had to get more intentional. Now am I perfect? No, I still have some days like that. But I had to get more intentional about how I pause. But for me, yesterday I had to pause because I was doing all these things, plus navigating and advocating for my father at the hospital and doing all these things.
And do you know what helped me? Because my brain was like this. Do you know what helped me? My my daughter needed index cards. I said, fine, let's go to the Dollar Tree. We go to the Dollar Tree and I do what I do best. I got lost in the stationary section. And I'm looking at all of these things and whatever have you. And by the time I made it back home, my brain was clear. I now knew.
What I had to do. Because I happen to like stationary. And so that for me was like a break, you know. You need a sketchbook, my daughter loves to draw. You need sketchbook, you need this, you need that. Ooh, look at these post-its. Look at the that was like a a a moment for me to clear my head. We need intentional pauses. And we're not doing that enough. And when people tell me I don't have the time, you don't have five minutes, then we need to have another discussion.
A whole different discussion. You know.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (38:33)
Yeah, because you're talking about a pause. And that can
Dr. Judy Wright (38:36)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (38:36)
be 30 seconds. It can be a minute, like five minutes, like you said. I think too often we get this idea that taking the the idea of self-care because you know capitalism has turned it into you gotta go to the spa. In fact, self-care is it can be the one minute of taking some deep breaths. It can be you sitting five minutes in your car before you come into the house just to decompress and those things.
They they add up, I assume, in the same way that they say, You don't have to do thirty minutes of exercise at once, you could do three ten minute break t ten minute walks and it's the same effect, It it's cumulative.
Dr. Judy Wright (39:06)
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Faith Clarke (39:07)
I would
I'd say to parents, I used to do self-care work for parents of kids on the spectrum, and I'd be like, go into the bathroom with a Kindle. Like take an extra three minutes while you're sitting on the toilet. Read some junk. You know, it's like it it was this. How do we identify those moments that we can just pad with nothing? Like I'm
Dr. Judy Wright (39:27)
There's nothing.
Faith Clarke (39:28)
yeah, I'm I'm already the the kids have already. Yeah, there was a time when I had the kid in the bathroom with me, but for the most part.
I'm already by myself. So can I just add two minutes on either side of that and just be like, I'm gonna
Dr. Judy Wright (39:42)
It's
Faith Clarke (39:42)
sit on right here.
Dr. Judy Wright (39:44)
Minutes
and do and do something. It could be breathe, it could be something you enjoy, something that gives you a giggle, whatever it is. And the other thing is, don't be so quick to fill up the space with something else. You know,
Faith Clarke (40:00)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Judy Wright (40:01)
I remember telling my one of my friends years ago, she was like, Well, the vacation fell apart. I'm just gonna give the time back. For what? I don't care if you stay home to scratch, you're behind.
That's your why would you why? You were looking forward to this vacation mostly because you needed a break. You can take a break at home. Yeah, but what would I do? Nothing. And that's okay. You don't have to fill up everything. But I grew I had to learn that. I grew up, my mom was is even now, but was the queen of
You're too idle. Go go do so. All right.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (40:40)
Idle hands.
Dr. Judy Wright (40:42)
You're too idle. What do you mean you're bored? That means you don't have anything I'm like, that's not what I was trying to say. I didn't mean give me a bunch of work to do, you know. and and I grew up with that and we we it tr it transferred 'cause n it was like, no, I'm not I gotta find something to do. I I can't just not do anything, you know?
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (41:02)
Well, I'm
glad you said that because it makes me think we've talked several times in this about identity. And I do think that in those moments where I will hear especially women come like saying that they don't have time, they can't do things for themselves. When am I supposed to do that? So much of that, some of it's real. Like, so I don't want in any way discount that there is a lot of that that's real. But sometimes there's also so much of this like this self-identity about who I am.
Both how I want to be perceived by others, but also how I need to perceive myself. And that looks like somebody who is caring for everyone, handles it all, you know, the superwoman complex, Juggling all the balls. I can do everything, all of that kind of a thing. And or the the messages received culturally or familially, or both, where it's like idols' hands or the devil's work, or you know, you're lazy, or it's too selfish to do that. All that stuff comes into play that actually sometimes is convincing us.
that we can't take the time or we don't have the time to take because the actual confronting of like taking the time, like you said, you have to actually confront some of those things to be able to do it. So if you can convince yourself you don't have the time, you don't have to sit with the like discomfort of claiming time.
Dr. Judy Wright (42:10)
Absolutely.
and and of being to yourself and of being in your thoughts. And I always I also tell people because when you are a high achieving woman, I also say to people, and I had to learn this, and I'm still learning it by the way, some of that is is control. It's a sense of control. But as you're holding tightly to that sense of control, whether you think of it of it that way or not.
You are taking that from somebody else, By saying, No, I gotta do this. They don't know how to do this, blah blah blah blah blah. Then why don't you teach them how to do it, So now we're teaching my son and my daughter how to wash their own clothes, And and part of that is so that we don't have to do it. Yeah, you could unload the dishwasher. Do they do it well? No. Does that drive me crazy? Yeah.
But I gotta let that go. I I I have to let that go. One, because it leaves too many things on my plate, no pun intended. But two, how are they gonna be able to try to function you know as they're getting older? You know, I have a teen and a preteen. You know, how are they going to function? We can't just throw them out in the world and think, yeah, you're just gonna know how to do it. No.
So as you're holding so tightly onto control and on control and have all these things on your plate and you're and you're stressed out and wondering why, you're taking that ability from someone else, you know,
Faith Clarke (43:41)
Yeah.
Dr. Judy Wright (43:41)
and not allowing them
Faith Clarke (43:43)
Dr. Sh Shanika Walker Barnes, I think is her name, she said she was teaching, I don't know if it was ministerial students or something. She was teaching in a school of theology to leaders. And she said, when you're overfunctioning, it means somebody else is under functioning. And I was just like, stab me in my chest. You know? It was just like, yeah. It's it's, you know, so just just even owning
Dr. Judy Wright (44:04)
True. It's true.
Faith Clarke (44:08)
that. Yeah.
Dr. Judy Wright (44:09)
It's true. People it is extremely
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (44:10)
But again, it's that difficulty in owning it that can get in a lot of people's way.
Dr. Judy Wright (44:14)
it is extremely difficult. And frankly, when you're moving on autopilot, you're not thinking about all of that. You don't have time
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (44:20)
Mm-mm.
Dr. Judy Wright (44:21)
to think about all of that. 'Cause you're just going. You're just going. So you don't
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (44:26)
Yeah, cause you know, when you guys
were talking about the toilet, I'm thinking, my husband has no problem. He will be in that bathroom 20 minutes on end or more. And and I'm like, I'm and I because I got things to do, In my head, I get frustrated with him because he's not getting out and getting other things done. When in truth I think it's that I'm jealous that I don't do that for myself because why can't I claim that same time? I could. It doesn't have to be in the bathroom. But the point being, the socialization that he has experienced versus what I have experienced are very different where he doesn't feel guilt.
Dr. Judy Wright (44:53)
completely
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (44:54)
Yeah. He feels no guilt about taking
Dr. Judy Wright (44:55)
completely different.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (44:56)
that time in the toilet. And I'm like, if I'm in there, I'm feeling lazy, I'm feeling selfish. All these messages are coming up, So it's easier for me to just go back into motion so that I don't have to hear the messages. So it's
Dr. Judy Wright (45:08)
Completely.
Do you you know how they have these showers? Like they're supposed to be like sauna showers now. is it really expensive? I was like, We don't need that. You just have to go into the bathroom after my husband takes his shower because he has no problem being in that hot shower for fifteen to twenty minutes. And I'm like, You have one body, And then when I first started something, what
Faith Clarke (45:29)
Why don't you watch it?
Dr. Judy Wright (45:29)
are you washing? But I'm like
He's taking care of himself. He just wants to sit there and let the shower and the steam be on him. And and it took me a long time not to feel like that's the most idle thing ever. And you're wasting hot water. You know.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (45:48)
Well, yeah, 'cause it's always
been easier for me to turn it on him and make it a him problem that he's doing it versus what it really
Dr. Judy Wright (45:52)
Yes.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (45:54)
is, which is it's actually I'm envious that I that I'm not claiming that for myself. Yeah.
Dr. Judy Wright (45:58)
Yes. Yeah. Absolutely correct.
Yeah. That's true.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (46:02)
Well, and I'm curious then, because
Dr. Judy Wright (46:03)
So
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (46:04)
you work with a lot of really high achieving women and you mentioned the pause, but like even before getting them to practice that pause, which I'm a huge fan of practicing pauses, do you get involved in some of this part of the how how to get them into the place of believing that they can claim that time, that they can confront these identity issues, to just even say, I'm deserving of, I'm allowed, it's okay for me to because before you're gonna get me to practice a pause, I gotta like believe that I can do it.
Dr. Judy Wright (46:31)
I think understand s so sometimes people don't have language to put to things. And when you start to talk to them in a language that they're like, wait a minute, you know? everything from I don't have time for this, I don't even have time to think, okay.
too much too, you know, that that seems like a luxury to to think you have all that time. Where am I supposed to find that time? Okay, because Faith said it herself. Three o'clock in the morning. Where am I supposed to find that time? I'm going from the time I get up to the time I get to bed.
And that was me for a good long time. I'm like, I'm up, I'm getting the kids ready, I'm getting the kids out the door. My husband's already gone to work. So now I'm getting the kids ready, getting them out the door. I'm running to work, working meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting. Okay. And then I'm rushing out of there to get them out of aftercare because I brought them to before care. And then I'm making dinner and I'm helping with homework and I'm doing this. And then when I finally get them to bed, I get back on my computer.
To do more work. And it felt like just this roller coasters, this wheel. And I'm like, I don't have time to that seems like it's gonna be extra stuff you want me to put on my calendar. And all I and and what I say to them is it's not extra stuff to put on your calendar. It's let's look at your calendar. You know, one of the things that people are scared to ask, why? Why?
A bunch of meetings just showed up on your calendar. Because when you you work in corporate, stuff shows up on the calendar, And then we just think we have to show up. Instead of stopping and saying, Hey, I saw this meeting show up and I didn't see an agenda on it. What is the purpose of the meeting? Because there are plenty of times where they just do a rampant sweep of people. Am I a key player in this meeting?
What would be the need for me to be in this meeting is very important because every time you go to a meeting, if you're supposed to be there, you're gonna have some takeaways and some deliverables. But while you're in every meeting, you're not meeting the deliverables you had to meet. And that's where you're now at home after you put your children to bed working on stuff you could have been working on during the day. And so when you start to tell stories like that, people are like.
Wait a damn minute. You know, the things that they tell themselves, I don't, I didn't get any work done today. My friends used to say that. Now she's getting better. She's like, you know what? I'm gonna stop saying that. I didn't get anything done today. Stop it. You were at work all day, meeting after meeting after meeting. You got a lot of work done. What you didn't get done was the stuff that you
had on a list to do because people kept dropping meetings on your calendar. So now this stuff that you had on a list to get done, you didn't get done. Doesn't mean you didn't get any work done. You know? So once they start to realize that's true and how it sets us up to just keep running. Just keep running. And sometimes we have to say, wait a minute, I need you to ask this answer to me this question. What's this meeting about? Am I needed there?
Okay. What's this thing about? What's this? Somebody's calling, can you be at something? It could be a friend. It could be, what's about? Is this essential right now? I I have a focus. Somebody said to me online this morning, they said, When things happen, when crises happen, health crises in the family, it puts things into perspective real quick. And all I'm asking people to do, because my cancer put things in perspective real quick for me.
All I'm asking people to do is not wait for the hard hit and the crisis to put stuff into perspective. Take that, take that five minutes. It helps you clear up your head and realize, okay, mm-mm, wait a minute. You know, even and sometimes, how many people get out of their bed, Becky and Faith? How many people get out of their bed and we're off
Faith Clarke (50:48)
Right.
Dr. Judy Wright (50:48)
to the races? We're off to the races.
How about you get up, sit up for a moment?
You know, maybe have a moment of gratitude, maybe have some deep breathing. I know people feel like I was asleep, I was breathing all night. I don't care. We now focus on right
Faith Clarke (51:02)
Wake breathing.
Dr. Judy Wright (51:04)
wake breathing, you know, instead of just being off to the races, you know. Now I'm in my fifties, we'll leave it there. I'm in my fifties and I'm like, I gotta get up and turn my legs.
And let my brain connect to my muscles because if I move the wrong way, a muscle get I will get twisted intense. But it makes me just stop and
Faith Clarke (51:27)
So around
Dr. Judy Wright (51:27)
think. And I I and I just want people to start doing that. Everything doesn't have to be off to the races for the next sixteen hours.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (51:35)
Yeah. Thank you so much.
Faith Clarke (51:36)
Twenty
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (51:37)
sorry, go ahead, Faith. I just wanna I know I wanna be mindful of our time, but
Faith Clarke (51:40)
Yeah, I'm not I'm going on, but as I'm listening to this autopilot thing, which is a thing I'm preaching to the choir, and yet just yesterday I put vitamin C in my coffee. And I'm so I'm tasting this coffee and I'm like, What's wrong with it? Yeah, it's because no
Dr. Judy Wright (51:54)
you didn't do it on purpose? Okay.
Faith Clarke (51:56)
No, I d it wasn't the plan. I wasn't trying to get time. Yeah. I w what was happening is that the smoothie was next, which was for my son. And I'm trying to be efficient. So I'm making my coffee and I have all the ingredients for everything else, you know, because I'm setting up the you know, the the the whole conveyor belt sort of. And so I I had this moment where I'm like, What's this white powder? I just and then I and then I went back into autopilot. So it was after I'm there like, this tastes awful.
I
Dr. Judy Wright (52:25)
Yeah.
Faith Clarke (52:25)
was just like, And just just the reminder that it's so easy to slip into autopilot and hyperproductivity, even in even like you're saying, we're not interrogating it. Turn a moment, it's not necessary. It's not necessary. I wasn't rushing into any meeting. I was I just had myself in the kitchen setting up my morning and I slipped right into let's multitask and
Dr. Judy Wright (52:48)
Uh-huh.
Faith Clarke (52:49)
then
laid out all the stuff on a white powder here which it was not collagen. It was vitamin C. Beca you know? And so just yeah, just the the practice of slowing down.
Dr. Judy Wright (52:55)
Yeah. Right. And and just
and just that. And I tell people that doesn't allow you to be as successful as you think it it looks like success, But it doesn't allow you to be successful for as long as you can be when you're just working on autopilot. That that stuff is not sustainable, And it's not gonna get you to your next level of success and your next level of success if you just keep doing things the same way. So
If people can just slow down a bit and break the autopilot, you know, a couple of times a day and and and do it that way so that it becomes a part of their natural normal being. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (53:34)
And where can people go to learn more about your work and and specifically around burnout or just in general?
Dr. Judy Wright (53:40)
Yeah, so I am on LinkedIn mostly. Now I'm also on Instagram, but I'm on LinkedIn mostly. in in both places, my handle is JudyWright MD. Okay. And there's a link in my bio that will send them to the hub that will have all kinds of information about taking a sustainable success assessment just to kind of understand where they are and if they're the way they're
been building their successes it built to last. But it also they can see me speak. They can see my TEDx talk. They can, you know, if they want to book me for an event, they can do that. They can see things I've written. So it's a it's a nice little hub just to connect with me as well. and connect meet me on LinkedIn. I love when people connect with me on LinkedIn and let's let's talk and let's laugh and let's, you know, just just do the things, all of the things.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (54:35)
I will make sure that we include those links in the show notes or description wherever you're getting this so people can find you in those ways and connect. And hopefully people will take a moment now to pause. and we forgot to ask our three final questions. So we'll end right here with this.
Faith Clarke (54:50)
what are you saying yes to right now?
Dr. Judy Wright (54:52)
I say yes to my energy and how I hold my energy and how I manage my energy. It's super important to me because no matter how d doing all this time management and not paying attention to my energy was not a winning strategy at all. So I say yes to having energy renewable that I can renew and bring back up just by going to the Dollar Tree.
Faith Clarke (55:18)
and then i i love yes and because it's that way to just continue a conversation it doesn't have to be about a but it doesn't have to be about a contrast
Dr. Judy Wright (55:26)
Yes.
Faith Clarke (55:27)
so what's your and
Dr. Judy Wright (55:29)
That's a good question. Yes, and I do all these things, but I am a high achiev I am a high achiever. So I am going to be ambitious. I'm going to go for what I want. Okay. And I am going to do the things that are going to get me there. As I'm doing that, I am going to make sure I'm taken care.
of myself, I'm not losing the essence of who I am in the process.
Faith Clarke (55:58)
Thank you. Otherwise
Dr. Judy Wright (56:00)
What's the otherwise?
Faith Clarke (56:01)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Judy Wright (56:02)
So one of the things that people don't realize is as I'm doing all this stuff, there's other stuff that I have interest in. So like gardening has been a big thing for me this this this year. And it's part of my DIY nature. that DIY nature I have to quell some because it makes me want to do all the things myself, including stuff I need to let go of and let other people do. But
I've really been pulling myself back into doing the things that give me joy at cooking, building things, gardening. and so I really wanna continue to do that stuff because it just it it it really brings me joy.
Faith Clarke (56:43)
Thank you. I I I'm a crafter or rather I'm a collector of craft materials and I'm a craft starter. I'm a craft starter.
Dr. Judy Wright (56:52)
I love that I'm
a collector of craft materials.
Faith Clarke (56:56)
I I'll even start, you know. But yes, just
Dr. Judy Wright (56:58)
Okay.
Faith Clarke (56:59)
if it gives joy, why not? Absolutely. Thank you so much, Dr. Wright.
Dr. Judy Wright (57:04)
Thank
you. Thank you very much.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (57:05)
thank you.
Dr. Judy Wright (57:05)
It's it it it's been a pleasure. It was great fun. Thank you.