Unlocking Hidden Treasures: The Gift is In The Challenge

This is a transcript from episode #243 of The Happy Doc podcast. Please listen to the episode here (or search “The Happy Doc” on your favorite podcasting application). Please note: the transcript has been lightly edited for clarity in the blog post

Hidden Treasure

So hidden treasures, what do I mean by this? So I want to start off, talking about conflict because in life it is unavoidable as physical people. As people on this planet who have physical bodies, we will always deal with conflict. It is impossible for you to avoid physical challenges, mental challenges, spiritual challenges, relationship challenges. It is impossible to avoid these things. It is part of our existence as humans, because inevitably, although I don’t want to always bring this up, we are all going to die. This is a fundamental challenge.

There is a stoic philosophy called Momento Mori and this is a concept, which means because we have been born, we are ultimately going to die. It is one of the greatest challenges of living a human experience, and in that experience, we obviously want to enjoy our lives. Which is why I have the podcast, the happy doc to discuss fulfillment.

We want to be excited and do all the amazing things that humans and people such as ourselves can do. But it’s impossible to avoid conflict. As soon as we enter this world, we are ambushed by environmental stressors, viruses, bacteria, the challenge of breathing all of these things. Of course we have life challenges that arise. This is 2020, I’m recording this right now during the pandemic, right? It is just impossible that there’s not going to be something coming up challenging us.

Changing Words Such As Conflict Or Struggle

I don’t actually like to use the word conflict when we have conflict. It has the connotation of it not being resolvable or it being very difficult and being very hard and it’s a fight, right? So conflict is a fight, it’s something that is harder to resolve. So one thing I want to point out in the beginning of this conversation or discussion is, is the word choice we use has a lot of impact.

You might have noticed that I actually used the word challenge even as I was discussing all of this because in my mind, I take the word fight or conflict and transform that into the word challenge.

And the challenge to me is exciting. It is an obstacle or an exciting thing that we can work on. It is a process of working through something. There is a resolution and there’s something that we can work on and get past. So editing word choice in what we are facing is very important. I think challenge allows us to then look for the resolution. So word choice is going to allow us to get past what we are facing.

The Gift Is in The Challenge

Now, I want to talk about the gift that’s in the challenge. Now, again in the beginning I mentioned the words hidden treasures, right? The hidden treasure to me is that there’s a gift in every challenge at different parts of our life.

We are going to be challenged with different conflicts, different things that we are struggling with, and it’s going to happen at different areas of our life. A lot of these challenges are very much interpersonal or, how we personally are interacting with our environment, interacting with other people, interacting with other things around us.

How are we going to handle this challenge? The issue that I see often when I work with people is the difficulty of figuring out what we can personally do to work through something. If we analyze the challenge, and if we try to say that it’s someone else’s problem. If we try to put it off, it takes the pressure off of us, but it doesn’t force us to grow.

Now, every challenge, in my opinion, is an opportunity for us to personally evolve. Whether that’s evolving our communication skills, evolving our personal power and strength to take action, evolving our ability to rest and relax and find new avenues of dealing with something we face.

At every challenge that we’re going to face, we’re going to have to come up with a way of working through that, and that’s where I think the gift is. The gift is ultimately unlocking the ability for us to be able to work through a challenge. And when you unlock a gift, when you learn the lesson from the gift, that challenge isn’t hard anymore. Because the answer is the solution or the strategy to handle the challenge.

The Challenge Of Healers

As you become better at unlocking personal gifts inside of you, you’re better able to handle challenges in the future. But what happens for a lot of people and, and especially in physician culture. And I know in other professions as well, is the challenge of giving to myself. How do I provide to myself, my energy needs, what I need for me to thrive, to recharge my battery, to make my cup full versus the opposition? The opposing challenge is giving to others.

So if you have the mindset of wanting to give to others, our greatest challenge is sometimes we give too much and then we let ourselves burn out. So the challenge there is energy balance, understanding that we as individuals are is incredibly important and that we need to ultimately fight for our energy so that we can give better to others.

I actually am in the mindset now that it is not one or the other but by giving to myself, I better can give to others, and by giving to others, I better am able to give to myself, because we’re all connected. And I know that sounds. Sappy or, woo or spiritual, but I really do feel that when I help someone and I’m effective at that, it helps me too.

Helping others gives me meaning it gives me purpose and I’m giving them meaning and purpose through the connection and allowing them to thrive. We really need to look at this as, instead of a dichotomy helping myself OR helping them, it is more that by helping myself I can better help them. And by helping the other, I help myself.

Burnout Culture And Stopping Yourself From Being Dragged Down

I think that’s how we can work through that challenge. The burnout culture in medicine and in other professions is a real thing we have to deal with. We have to understand that when you’re in a culture that is sick, when you start to look healthy, they’re (the unhealthy) are going to start to try to drag you down.

Don’t let anyone drag you down for trying to be healthy. Don’t let anyone drag you down for trying to operate your best self. You have to work on boundaries. You have to be able to work on the ability to maintain yourself. Even in the face of other people, drowning themselves. Don’t drown. You want to be at an energetic standpoint where you can stand.

This is one of the challenges of being a healer, and we are traditionally not fighting for ourselves. So really set those boundaries, it is incredibly important. And so with this fundamental challenge of healers, what I want people to understand is that it’s so important to allow yourself to find what makes you thrive.

Let Yourself Thrive, Get Out Of Your Own Way

Notice the things that are going to allow you to light up and notice the things that are taking your energy to the next level. Because when you do that, you’re going to be able to operate at a higher level, at a level that’s going to give better to others. That’s going to increase your ability to be more compassionate, more empathetic, and give at your highest level.

When we are thriving, we can give from a full cup that is overflowing, rather than when our cup is empty. Again, we’re reaching into an area where we’re not able to operate and give at our highest levels. So whether it’s for your family, for your friends, for your patients, for your clients, I want to encourage everyone to find the gifts from the challenge.

Find the gift of ultimately giving to yourself and giving to others. Be able to find these hidden treasures through challenges, which will increase your capacity to do good and ultimately thrive in life. Be happy because at the end of the day, we might as well live this life fulfilled, excited, and energetic about what we do.

Let us lay our Mark on this planet, do a great job and leave it all out on the line. Those are my 2 cents for today’s episodes. I hope you guys are doing amazing and as always guys take care. I hope I’ll see you on the next episode of the happy doc.