65. How to Stop Your Negative Thoughts from Creeping Up on You with Dr. Arpita Gupta De Palma

00:05 Dr. Ann Tsung Are you struggling to advance your career and sacrificing time with your loved ones because of endless to-dos, low energy, and just not enough time in the day? If so, then this podcast is for you. I am your host Dr. Ann Tsung, an ER critical care and space doctor, a peak performance coach, a real estate investor, and a mother of a toddler. I am here to guide you on mastering your mind and give you the essential skills to achieve peak performance. Welcome to Productivity MD, where you can learn to master your time and achieve the five freedoms in life.

00:51 Hello. Welcome to Productivity MD podcast. I am your host Dr. Ann Tsung. And over here, we have Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma. She’s a retired pediatrician and also the Founder of Thought Work, MD. She’s also Director of Virginia iSpine Physicians, co-host of Doctors Living Deliberately Podcast, mother of two, and also a real estate investor. So welcome, welcome. And the reason I wanted to bring you on was because you teach and coach on how our thoughts affect our essential reality. And to be a peak performer and to be productive in all aspects of life — we’re talking about relationships, work, professional setting, with your spouse — I really want to dig into how our thoughts, how we can structure our thoughts so that we can be at the peak in all aspects. So thank you again for coming here. Can you tell us why you do what you do currently? How did you even get into this field of work?

01:49 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Yeah, well, thank you for having me. It’s been amazing getting to see your journey as well. I think, you know, honestly, it just kind of happened. And I know it sounds very cliche now but I got into this work because COVID made us have a hard stop, like in a pause, and the opportunity to reflect what was in our life and what we wanted to create in our life and bring into our life. And so with COVID, like I said, I’m a co-founder of the medical practice Virginia iSpine. It’s my husband’s practice, and we do interventional spine care there. We had to shut it down with COVID. Reopened after eight weeks and kept everybody on payroll, didn’t get a paycheck, pulling out of our savings to pay for everybody. Then all of a sudden, within three to four months after we reopened, we had almost 100% staff turnover. You know, I’m a pediatrician. I wasn’t actually practicing at that time. But up until then, I just kind of thought that everything in life was happening to us. And that led to me being very reactionary and angry and upset and frustrated when things didn’t go our way. And so I had to really kind of give myself that opportunity then, which was talking to one of my best friends who was a coach, and complaining about all the things that were happening where she gave me kind of the window for the first time of, hey, this is how you’re choosing to think about this? Do you really want to keep going that way? Because look at what it’s creating for you, this anger and how you’re showing up with your kids and all the things.

03:11 And so that’s when I started to look into this coaching. Because of course, as a physician — very productive, high-functioning, efficient person — why the hell would anybody need a coach? Like, what is this? I don’t need somebody to tell me how to do life. I can do life, right? But the key is, we were doing life in a way that wasn’t really happy, like bringing joy, contentful for us. And so I gave it a chance and figured out, learned about coaching, joined a group. That’s where my mind was really blown, where I started to realize that we are totally in control of how we’re choosing to think about all of the things that are happening in our life. And those thoughts, the way we think about things, ultimately impacts how we feel. And how we feel drives how we show up and what we create in our lives as a result of how we’re showing up. And so that’s what kind of started me on this path of, let me learn more about this. Wow. This is really, truly impactful. There’s a little bit of wow factor to this that I can’t believe we didn’t know this before, and I want to share this with other people. So that’s kind of what started it. I went into a coach certification. I started my business at the same time not really planning on that. Then it just kind of blew up into what I really love talking about and where I wanted to kind of learn more for myself and how I like to share this information with people. Physicians are near and dear to my heart because, obviously, I’m a physician. I’m married to a physician. And we are struggling quite frankly. And so this is who I really wanted to speak to and reach out to to help.

04:42 Dr. Ann Tsung Thank you for that. Just for the audience to understand a little bit, I wonder if you could give us an example of what it’s like to be reactionary versus what it’s like to be aware. You could maybe do an example of personal or maybe an example of professional. Because I feel like if you’re not aware, like if you’re reactionary, I think you’re not aware. So we’re talking about this. They might not even know that we’re talking about that scenario, if that makes sense.

05:09 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Yeah, totally. Okay. So great example for me, anytime we would have employees that maybe didn’t do what they were supposed to where we’ve trained them over it, we’ve shown them, we have SOPs, we have whatever, and things were just not getting done, I would be irritated. I would get angry or frustrated. It came to a head where one of my thoughts was, “I’m sick of my dependability being dependent on that of others.” I.e., if these people don’t do their job right or if these people don’t show up, then it’s a reflection on me. And I can’t be dependable because I’m depending on them to help build the steps up to where I need to be. And so what that would translate into is me being very angry. Like, I would get upset with this thought that I’m sick of my dependability being dependent on that of others. And I would be frustrated and pissed off and angry. And I would show up that way when I was interacting with those people. I would bring it home to my kids. I’m frustrated after a long day at work. And they’d do something so miniscule — they didn’t pick up their shoes from the mudroom. They didn’t pick up their clothes from the floor, or they didn’t do whatever chores — and I would blow up at them. And so that’s reactionary. Because we’re already on the path of going down this anger route, this firm, strong, well-established neural pathway that every single time we have an event that activates us or makes us upset, we go down that pathway because it’s so much easier. So that is reactionary. It’s like an automatic response that we’ve started. It’s like a learned habit that we’ve become so comfortable and familiar with, because we know what’s going to happen at the end even if it doesn’t necessarily feel good.

06:42 The responsive instead is where we kind of are aware of what is happening, and we give ourself that pause, that moment to reflect, the moment to really think and consider other perspectives. And so in that situation when an employee doesn’t do what they’re supposed to do, rather than getting pissed off that I’ve shown this person so many times, I don’t understand what is the disconnect here, I wonder why this person is not getting it. I wonder why she’s showing up this way. So putting in that moment of pause, to allow that ability to have some curiosity, to consider other person’s perspective, to consider how it’s coming up, what emotions are coming up for you when you’re thinking about it gives you the opportunity to decide. Do I want to keep going this way, or do I want to shift it a little bit? Do I want to consider another perspective? Then that’s when we can be more responsive because we’ve given ourself that opportunity to take a pause. So I think that kind of is, yeah, it gives you an idea of what I mean from reaction versus responding, versus reacting to somebody.

07:46 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, those are two great scenarios so that it gives a definition of what we’re talking about. Why should people even care about this transformation or transition? I wonder if you can maybe share, maybe some of your clients or any stories. Like, what changes could happen in their lives if they actually take the steps needed? Because a lot of times, we’re reactionary because we just don’t care. We take care of ourself, actually. We don’t care anymore. We’re victimizing ourselves also. It takes motivation, and it takes intention to have to force yourself to actually stop and be aware and put down your pride. So the question is, why should people care about this, and why should they actually make the change?

08:38 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Yeah, I think it’s interesting that you bring that up. There’s a couple of levels to this. The immediate why for me in that scenario with how I was showing up back in 2020 was, I wanted to have my relationship with my kids. My daughter was a junior in high school then. My son was a freshman, and I knew they were going to be leaving the nest. And the way I was showing up was not conducive to us having a relationship, where once they left the house that they were going to want to come and spend time with me. My ultimate goal is that these kids want to be with us. They want to spend time with us. So that was my immediate why in that moment. So I think we can kind of figure out what is the why for that moment for why we want to change and shift. But on a more bigger, broader picture, or why we want to make changes in our life or how we’re showing up, I think you got to think about what is your compelling why. What goals do you want to aspire to reach, and why do you want to reach them? Like really spending some time reflecting on that for yourself.

09:37 So for me, with Thought Work, MD, I realized that one of my biggest compelling whys for why I do this is because I want to keep women physicians in medicine, right? We are getting to a point where people are leaving left and right, and I seriously am worried about who’s going to take care of my kids. Who’s going to take care of my grandkids? I have the luxury of having this amazing physician network even though I’m no longer practicing. Both of my kids are like, “Hell, no. We’re not doing medicine.” So they’re not in medicine. So I have even more angst around how are they going to have this network of people that can take care of them. So that was one of my major compelling whys for why. I wanted to help women stay in medicine, to recognize the joy that they can create even if they go to part time, even if they figure out a way to do it differently. It doesn’t have to look traditional, but what can we do to help you be enjoying what you’re doing?

10:30 Then the second compelling why for me was, I want to help my husband be able to kind of step down from working in traditional clinical practice, so he can create his integrative medicine telehealth practice. And so how do we do that? I’m going to try to supplement our income a little bit differently, in a different way, so that he has that cushion where he can kind of relax a little bit and not be feeling the burden of having to support the household. For me, when I talk to clients about how do you determine your compelling why, it needs to be something that you can think about when the going gets tough. When it’s really like you feel like, “I’m done. I’m quitting. This is not working,” what can you remind yourself of to help kind of keep you going through, pushing through to get through that hurdle so that you’re back to the area where you feel like it’s effortless?

11:14 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I think I definitely resonate with that immediate why. For us, it’s having the awareness, especially right now with a newborn of one month old, reactivity with my husband and I is just like gone through the roof. And the compelling why is to make sure we model the type of communication we want our son toddler, of 23 months now, to see. We don’t want this air of, I don’t know, we’re not arguing but it’s like an air of not crying maybe or not intimate. I think he can sense it if we’re talking about a task not done or a task that needs to be done.

11:59 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma I think that what you’re bringing up is like a good piece, the part about the awareness there. Just having the awareness that, okay, we’ve just had our world turned upside down because we’ve got the small human in our house that is completely changing everything that we’re used to. So it makes 100% sense why we are both exhausted. We’re not necessarily sleeping the way we did. We’re running ragged probably doing laundry, all the breast milk stuff and the bottles and all that stuff. Who knows? But it makes sense why you guys are maybe more reactionary, why you’re spread a little bit thin, why you might be showing up the way you are. So how can you show up with compassion for yourself instead, for each other and for yourself, so you can come in a way that is productive for both of you? Right? That’s the awareness piece of it, that why am I showing up this way. And how does it make sense? How can I show up and not beat myself up after I recognize why I’m showing up this way?

12:49 Dr. Ann Tsung It’s always a work in progress just waiting until the baby goes to sleep. I can sleep like seven hours or something. I’m just curious then. What are your client’s, once they are aware and then enact what you coach on the strategies, the tactics, what kind of transformations have you seen in terms of what can they expect?

13:15 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Yeah, I think the biggest transformations — so almost all my clients are physicians. There are a couple that are not, but most of them are physicians. The biggest I think transition is giving themself grace, letting go of that perfectionism. Because we are kind of raised this way with our training, and it seeps into all aspects of our life. Then that becomes the source of a lot of doubt, the imposter syndrome, all the things. So starting to recognize where that seeped into our life and where we really don’t need to have it, how can we overcome that perfectionism? The other area that I think I’ve had a lot of clients have transformation is just, again, going from reaction to response. Like, how can I just give myself a moment to pause and build my awareness here so that I can choose to show up the way I want to show up in the situation, choose to create the results that I want here? I consider other people’s perspectives. It doesn’t mean that I have to act on it and go with it. But can I just consider that because that helps me be a better human with how I want to show up? So it’s really a lot about being more aware and being more intentional with what we’re thinking now, and then what we want to create.

14:27 I’ve done a lot of work with a couple of women who really just, again, not having that self-worth. So they’re undervalued. They’re underpaid. They’re not getting what they should be from their employer. And having them get into a mindset where they can recognize the value that they’re providing, so they can go to their employer and get that $50,000 raise that they should have been getting. And oh, that doesn’t mean I have to stay there because they’re giving me this raise. This is just temporary. And in six months, I might decide I want to go somewhere else. Getting over the fears that are holding them back from really creating the life that they want and their dreams. How do we create it?

15:02 If you had told me five years ago, you’re not going to practice peds ever again, you’re going to go and speak to women physicians and help and coach and create this business and do the sort of work, I would have been like, there is no way. I’m scared shitless about talking in front of people. I mean, I just don’t imagine myself talking on a computer all day long and helping people. That’s just not who I am. I’m very in the trenches and hands on. And it’s been a complete game changer when I start to recognize this is what I want to do, and I’m doing something different. And I’m not beating up myself for not practicing clinically anymore. This is a choice I’ve made. I am still a physician, and I’m doing something else that I totally enjoy. So I think it kind of — I will have it all over the place there. But it really is creating the results that each client wants based on what their goals are and their desires are. We can get them pretty much anywhere once they have that mindset awareness and the shift.

15:57 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, it sounds like it’s recognizing your own self-worth, being authentic and true to yourself. You’re not being a perfectionist and requiring everything to be done to 100%. 80% done is done essentially, just giving yourself grace on a lot of things. The reason I’m curious regarding your goals, like I say in five to 10 years, what are some of your goals that you want to see come into reality?

16:24 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma I would say, I think I want to just continue to grow my business. I enjoy my business. I enjoy doing one-on-ones. I want to keep it so that I am enjoying it as a mom-and-pop type of shop. I know a lot of people create their coaching businesses or whatever, and they want it to be huge, in groups and hire coaches and all the things. That’s really not what I’m looking for here. I enjoy that authentic connection one on one with my clients, and that’s how I want to keep it. So I do have the ability in the fall. With my son going off to college, my schedule opens up a little bit. So I’m looking forward to that to be able to bring more people on. But right now, I’ve been content with it just being exactly how it fits for me for my lifestyle. That’s part of also like what I was saying about, just doing what you want authentically for you. Because that’s what ultimately is going to bring you joy and not worrying about what other people think. For me to go from doc to coach, I had to really not give a crap about what other people think. I wanted to do it because it was the right thing for me.

17:25 Some other goals, I think I’m going to continue to talk and give my talks to women physicians across the country, hopefully across the world. Technically, it’s been across the world but maybe even more across the world. I’m going to launch a podcast, a new podcast. My other podcast, Doctors Living Deliberately, I did. And that one, we stopped recording in March. We kind of like had a year season of it, and now I’m going to launch a new one in the fall called From Pissed Off to Poised to help women physicians who are really, really busy, who are just trying to figure out how to do all the things but not be so reactionary when they do it. Then maybe do a group in the fall. We’ll see. Fall or winter, start a group cohort for my private clients or group clients. But those are my professional goals. Yeah, I think that’s all I need to do right now. That’s already a lot, I think.

18:09 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, it’s already quite a lot. I mean, just even one on ones, I know they’re really intense already to scale with your time. I am curious then regarding the process or the strategies that you can share. Let’s say, I might give some case scenarios depending on what your thoughts are. So maybe my case. Maybe I’ll scratch my own itch. You’re reactive with your spouse. There’s endless things to do in the household a lot of times. It’s not just my scenario. It’s like a lot of scenarios. I’ve spoken to my physician clients. In the household, one person is doing most of the household management stuff: dealing with the kids, logistics, dealing with like cleaners or whatever, just logistics. There’s an emotional burden too to have to handle those. So, anyway, there’s a disconnect in terms of how much one person is helping versus not helping. Then things become reactionary, et cetera. So I’m curious. In your work with people who have issues with their spouse, what are some of the top three things that they can take action on after this episode to either gain awareness or to decrease their reactivity?

19:24 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Okay. So with our lovely spouses and partners, I think one of the first things that I start with is — and it seems really hard and impossible, especially if you’re really ticked off at them — can you remind yourself of when you first met this person and fell in love with them and loved them unconditionally like a puppy, literally? Like when we were in love in that phase, they can do whatever they wanted minus maybe cheating on us or whatever, and we would be like, totally, “It’s okay. I love you.” How do you get yourself back to that place? Can you remind yourself that this human that you’re with is there for you to love unconditionally no matter what they do. And that’s a big piece to start, relaying that groundwork. Because if we can’t get to that, there’s always going to be the anger and the resentment and whatever comes up with it.

20:14 The next piece of what I recommend to my clients is, I want you to go to your spouse and have a conversation with them and say, “I’m starting to do some work on myself. And I want you to just know that when we have an interaction that I see is going south, when we are starting to bicker, or argue, or fight, when I just notice that we’re kind of in a pained body in a sense, I’m going to just kind of say, okay, I think I need a break. I think I need a minute, and I’m going to walk away. And I don’t want you to take that as a passive aggressive punch to you. I’m doing it out of love for both of us, because I know the next couple of sentences probably are not going to be productive. So I don’t want to make it worse.” So having that conversation with your partner when you’re not in that funky, nasty part, really is so productive. Because you’re both on the same page. You’re recognizing that you’re doing this with intention to create a peaceful space.

21:10 Then the next thing — I mean, there’s so many. But one of the other things I like is recognizing when we’re making their actions or what they say or do an attack on us or mean something about us, can you just kind of look at what the issue from their perspective? What if it has nothing to do with you? One of the things for me is like, “Why can’t my husband pick up his clothes?” For God’s sake, they’re all over his closet. Now we’ve got it. So it’s all in his closet floor. Maybe sometime in the laundry room. But they’re not put away. My son is like this, too. I’m like, “Why can he not do this? Does he not recognize that this is such a pain in my butt, that it’s so messy in the house? Like, he doesn’t care. I have so many other things to do. I don’t have time to pick up his clothes.” We automatically make those things and attack on ourselves, right? What if it has nothing to do with us? It’s not that he’s trying to make me angry by leaving his clothes on the floor. It’s more that he really doesn’t care. It doesn’t bother him. It’s not a big deal in his world.

22:05 And so I can choose to be upset about it and make it an attack on me, or I can choose to consider the perspective that this man just totally doesn’t give a crap about the clothes on the floor. And it has nothing to do with me. Which one leaves me feeling better? Right? If we can get to a point where our interactions with our spouse, we start to drop the need to be right and correct about things because we recognize that that value of that intimacy in the relationship is the most important thing, that’s what kind of gets us to that next level of being able to say, “Hey, I know what you’re saying. I hear what you’re saying. This is what I’m saying. I get your point, too. Let’s move on.” Which things can you draw up having to be right about to save the intimacy in the relationship? So there’s lots of different things. That’s just like the tip of the iceberg, but there’s so many different ways that we can look at our relationships.

22:56 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I think, for me, the biggest takeaway is, yes, definitely step away or take a pause. Just drop it, like you said. Because really, a lot of times, it’s not that big of a deal. Literally, like two days ago, I was telling my husband something. I said a sentence. He heard me. Then I said the next sentence which is a different topic. But then he zoned out and didn’t hear. I was like, “I was still talking. You heard one topic. But once I switched topic, you just zoned out? Why?” But anyway, initial reactivity was: why was I unheard basically?

23:32 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Yeah, you could not listen to me? Yeah, like, what a jerk. Why did he stop listening? He doesn’t care to hear what I’m saying. Right?

23:39 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah.

23:40 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma It could be, oh, crap, I forgot to pay a major bill that’s going to keep the lights on in the house. Like, we don’t know what’s going on in their head when that happens. But the tendency is human nature, to make it mean something about us. And majority of the time, it has nothing to do with us, you know.

23:57 Dr. Ann Tsung It’s not that big of a deal. I could choose at that time to just drop it. Like, okay, he didn’t hear me. I’d repeat what I said. But that time, I was like sleep deprived. I was tired.

24:09 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma So even just getting yourself the compassion towards that. Like, you have that awareness that, oh, my gosh. I’m so tired. It makes sense. So, of course, I’m going to be on edge, and anything he does is probably going to tick me off. So let me just separate myself. What does my body need in this moment to get back to a little bit more of a steady state, and how can I honor that? Super important. Because that’s part of it too. As physicians, we don’t know what our bodies are saying to us. We have no clue. Like, we never ate. We never slept. We never peed. When we were in training, it was just go, go, go mode. And so we’ve not remembered how our body responds to things. And we have to actually relearn it, relearn to listen to our body, relearn to pay attention to the cues that it’s giving us and then honor that so that we can kind of be healthy.

24:56 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, the self-care and having the grit to actually perform your self-care or being aware of your body, like you said, is super important. A lot of times, we forget that to put ourselves first. One of the goals I set for my clients a lot of times is like professional, professional, professional, professional. It’s like, what about yourself?

25:13 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Yeah, exactly. I have actually a talk coming up. I do a talk. It’s strategies to living an intentional life. The very first strategy, I say you get to pick your doctors. I know you’re going to want to do all 10. You get to pick 2. And if you’re not doing the first one, that’s one of the two. So you only get to pick one other one. The first one is, how have you implemented or built in rest or me time for you? That doesn’t mean you’re going to go to the spa or go and take a run. That means, how are you resting? I.e. sleeping, meditating, whatever that really makes your body feel like you’ve recharged it. What are you doing for that? Make sure that’s the number one thing you do every week for sure.

25:51 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I agree. Then you work around all of your duties around that instead perfectly. Agree.

25:59 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma You honor that commitment to yourself is the number one priority. Because we’re so busy honoring the priorities to everybody else. We have to make that the most important priority.

26:09 Dr. Ann Tsung I am curious. Now that we’re talking about this, what are some of your self-care things or anything?

26:13 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma So I am a little bit older than you. I turned 50 in October. And what I realized, I was feeling like I was doing the Duchaine crawl up my body. Everything creak and hurt and I was just not feeling good. So I started doing yoga stretch, kind of little PT. I work with a myofascial PT doc. I do that exercise for myself 20 minutes every morning. So nobody messes with me. Everybody knows if I’m in the room there, I’m doing my 20 minutes. I listen to an audiobook at the same time, so that’s fun for me. Bringing joy into it. I get ready and then I go and meditate for anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes every morning. Then I’ve started meditating a second time in the evening. So I am doing things that I know help me kind of settle my brain, that let me not have to think in terms of all the rat race, to-do list that’s going on. I get to focus on this instead. So those are things I do. I’m really authentic with regards to what I’m bringing in my life now. I know that there’s a lot of pull. A lot of people want to get together, a lot of activities, a lot of different things. I just really ask myself, is this an 8 plus in my life? From a scale of 0 to 10, would I rank it 8 plus? Like, Martha Beck talks about that. And if it’s not, I say no. I know people sometimes are disappointed in that, but I’m being authentic to what feels good to me. And that’s what matters. So those are some of the most important things. I think figuring out what you need in your life and making sure you’re upholding and honoring that time for yourself.

27:40 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, and talking about reactivity, when I was meditating more regularly every day, I could just let bad things happen or what you perceive as inconvenient things. If I meditated consistently, then I would just let it pass and just let it go very easily. But if I’d find myself, like right now, I haven’t been meditating because I haven’t been sleeping, then I’m super reactive, a lot easier to be reactive. So meditating, to me, helps a lot with that.

28:10 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Totally. Have you ever tried yoga nidra?

28:13 Dr. Ann Tsung Yes. And actually, every night when I go out to pump and then when I actually was sleepy, I play the two-hour yoga nidra and then I’d fall asleep.

28:21 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma And you’re out. Yes, that’s one of my favorites. Especially when I’m really activated, or I can feel myself like a buzz in my body, like an energy that I don’t love, that’s my cue that I need to do something more deep state, meditative state. I have absolutely loved it. It just feels like a pure zen. So I highly recommend that for anybody as well. You can start in the beginning, or you can start with just a basic meditation. I mean, if we’re talking about this, I’ll say that a lot of people are scared of meditation because they don’t understand what it is. They’re like, “I can’t empty my brain. My brain is always full of the thoughts and the chatter.” Meditation is just recognizing that those thoughts are there and then bringing yourself back to a focal point like your breath or your heartbeat or something else. So it’s a practice not that you’re supposed to make your brain clear but rather refocusing on something else to allow yourself to have the break.

29:10 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, and so for those of you guys who are not aware of what yoga nidra is, you can just Google N-I-D-R-A. You’d get very, very aware of your body. You could go through guided meditation if you haven’t meditated before. I also do something called 6 Phase Meditation by Mindvalley as well. Tony Robbins has a Priming one. That’s a form of meditation as well to get you into a beautiful state. So, I mean, if you don’t do anything else after this, just take one micro action and just Google a one-minute meditation.

29:40 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Yeah, totally.

29:42 Dr. Ann Tsung And now I wanted to go into the professional scenario. We can do a lot. I mean, it could be like, I wonder how perfectionism — I guess, for example, my perfectionism causes me to have expectations of people who help me and support me on my team. So I’ve had to let go of looking at the gap of what they didn’t do and really look at the game and how they supported me. Then also, like if, say, somebody didn’t complete something, instead of automatically having to go to it’s their fault, but coming back to, did I give the instructions correctly and things like that? So that’s an example of perfection. I’m wondering, is that the kind of perfectionism you’re talking about, or do you have something else that you’re—?

30:29 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Yeah, I think it varies for each person how it shows up for them. Like you were saying, there’s two different — it sounds like, one, they aren’t doing their work. And number two, why are they not doing their work? And how does that impact me now me having to go in and step in? And so with the perfectionism, the first question I always ask is: why is it there? Like, why do you feel like it has to be perfect? Why does it have to be the certain way? What are you afraid of is going to happen if it’s not that way? Like, what’s the problem here? And really, first, starting to figure out. Because it’s not just like one and done perfectionism. This is how you cure it, and you’re gone. It depends on what is the underlying kind of thoughts and history behind why you have that need to be and maintain that perfectionism. Right? For example, it sounds like for you, these people are supposed to be doing this work, and they’re not doing it. And now I have to check in, and I’m kind of irritated why they’re not doing it. You have that awareness of, maybe I didn’t explain it. But I want to go and ask you, why does it even matter? What are you worried about is going to happen if it’s not done perfectly?

31:33 Dr. Ann Tsung Wasting my time.

31:34 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Wasting your time. Okay. And how do you know that that’s even going to happen?

31:38 Dr. Ann Tsung I guess my thought process is usually like, okay, I wrote down these instructions. I try to be as detailed as possible. I come home expecting things to be done to save me time. But when it’s not done, then it takes away time from me and having quality time with others.

31:55 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Got it. Okay. So yeah, so that makes sense. So you have the high value on your time. And so there’s almost this urgency of, what’s going to happen if my time is wasted because they didn’t do that? And so what is going to happen if they didn’t do X, Y, and Z? Why is that a problem?

32:12 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, most of the time, it doesn’t really matter. Like, it doesn’t matter that he didn’t get his probiotics for the day.

32:19 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Yeah, I mean, in the grand scheme of things. So this is where we get to decide, do we want to take on this negative emotion that comes on this frustration, the angst of it? Or do we want to kind of just say, okay, this was not what I wanted, and it’s not the end of the world? And there’s so many shades of grey in between. It’s not one or the other. It’s how you’re choosing to think about it. For me, my perfectionism came from, “I need to show up X, Y, and Z. We owe this medical practice in the community. We are known in the community. And if somebody in the office doesn’t do their job well, it’s a reflection on us. People are going to think bad things about us.” And so I had to do a lot of work to drop that belief that everything that happens in this office is a reflection on us. Because it’s not. It’s a reflection on the whole team. And you’re always going to have the haters. So even you can do everything that you wanted to do the best that you could, and people still may not be happy with it. So starting to recognize where it’s coming from for you. Then from there, kind of making some strides and some shifts on how we’re thinking about it. It’s very, very individual what’s causing it, where it’s coming from.

33:26 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I think maybe it’s a little bit of like fear-setting technique, I wonder. We often have this big fear of like if we ruin our reputation, then basically our business will fail. Something like that. Like, if my time is wasted, then worst case scenario. When you fear — this is something I learned from Tim Ferriss — you basically go through the fear case scenarios, and you think about risk mitigation strategies. And you really think about like you can’t handle the worst case scenarios. If you have mitigation strategies, it’s really not that bad. Maybe another scenario would be, I was really stressed out about this tenant I was evicting and then also stressed out about property management company not getting people evicting her fast enough and getting it rented out fast enough. But I thought about the worst case scenario. I think I was like, maybe I’ll pay $8,000 to cover the rent or mortgage or something.

34:24 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Yeah, that’s what happens. Our brain, we’re like, “Oh, my God. This has to happen. And if this doesn’t happen, it’s going to be the end of the world.” But we don’t actually solve for it. So that’s part of with the coaching. Okay. Let’s just assume that happens. What would you do next? Right? It’s kind of walking and stepping people through their worst case scenario to help them see, yeah, this isn’t ideal, but I can figure it out. Right? Another big piece of it is this uncertainty. Like, we don’t like being uncertainty. We want everything to be mapped out for us perfectly. That fear of the uncertainty is what leads us to constantly have worry. And that worry doesn’t serve us. So really kind of honing into, I’m ultimately the person that gets to choose how I want to feel about literally every situation in my life. And it boils down to, I get to decide that by how I’m choosing to think about it. Let me explore how I’m thinking about it. Let me explore worst case scenarios. Let me decide what I want to feel, and then how do I need to think about this to feel that way? And that’s it.

35:28 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, that’s very true. You’re right. It’s basically running the entire sim on your scenarios, like through instead of just stopping by halfway and then you’re spinning.

35:41 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Exactly. Like the what if. It’s the what if, what if? That’s another one of my favorites with my clients. They’re like, “Well, what if this happens? What if this happens?” I was like, let’s shift it. Let’s make it: even if this happens and then finish the sentence. That gets you thinking more in a troubleshooting type of mindset rather than this anxiety mindset of the what if, right? So just these little tiny hats of how do you shift the way you’re thinking to get you in the place that you want to be.

36:08 Dr. Ann Tsung That’s great. I’m going to use that, actually. “Even if” instead of “what if.” I’m wondering also, do you have experience with any clients where due to stress that they have a weight issue, or overeating issue, or anything like that? Is it similar to what you coach on? I’m just wondering. Do you have any strategies for that?

36:27 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma I don’t focus on weight loss with my clients. I do have a couple of clients who would love to work on it, and I’m working on it with them a little bit with regards to recognizing, processing urges, working with desires. And so I tackle it from that standpoint, but I don’t do a lot of deep work with, okay, let’s get on a plan now for you’re going to lose 30 pounds by the end of the month. That being said, starting to build the awareness around where you have urges and allowing yourself to just kind of sit and be in the urges, that’s kind of like what I teach with regards to sitting and being with the negative emotions. That allows you to kind of like have that urge pass. And it doesn’t feel good. That’s the whole point. When we have an urge to eat a bowl of ice cream, we give into the urge to satisfy it. Because it doesn’t feel good to just sit with the urge. So instead, can we start to learn to be uncomfortable with the discomfort of sitting in the urge? And it kind of goes away. For me, personally, most of the time, I forget about it. So I do very light work with regards to that. But typically, I’ll send those to other coaches that are more in that field. I have a couple of favorites that I send for that.

37:33 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, and I’m not talking about the nitty gritty of specifics on how to do weight loss, but it’s how to address the urges, like you said, due to stress. It doesn’t have to be food. It can be any addiction, really. It could be smoking, drinking. It could be anything. It could be wanting to work more. So it sounds like it’s just to recognize and sit with the discomfort of that urge instead of giving in. And just remember that’s in front of you. Because I know in the hospital, there’s pizza, cookies, candies, whatever, graham crackers, whatever they have in the doctor’s lounge. I don’t know.

38:08 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma I mean, it’s funny you said that. Because we refer to it as buffering like when we do something else, because it temporarily makes us feel better than feeling a negative emotion. So for me, when I came back to the office, I would overwork. That was my urge, was to overwork. Because I had to work to prove that I was bringing value. And so I had to recognize that. I slowly recognized this. I don’t like working five times as much as I was working as a pediatrician. But I’m doing this because I don’t want to feel the feeling of low self-worth, the feeling of not contributing to the family. So that’s how I was compensating for it. So it’s building that awareness of, I’m doing this because I’m trying to avoid feeling this. What’s the worst that’s going to happen if I just sit in the feeling of not feeling good about doing this instead? Like, can I sit with it and allow it just to be there, that negative emotion, and let it slowly pass with time without taking on the urge? Right?

39:02 Dr. Ann Tsung Got it. And I know we talked about many different scenarios and very many different strategies and actions. If we were to leave the audience with, let’s say, three takeaways or three action steps, what would it be?

39:14 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Oh, we did. We talked about everything. We’re all over the place. Okay. So my number one thing is really, number one, recognizing and coming up with your compelling why. Like, what do you want to create in your life, and what’s your compelling why behind it? Because until you know what that is, you’re kind of going to be a wanderer. You got to figure out what that purpose is from that standpoint. Number two is really listening to your inner knowing, and that’s going back to being authentic and true to yourself. We do so many things in efforts to please other people, or in fear of what other people are going to think about us, or for whatever reason. Can you slowly instead just kind of tap into your gut and your heart and really know what you want to do, and then create the courage and the desire to just move forward with that? And I would say, number three is just be a good human. There are so many people that are just not good humans. So when you’re acting in your day to day, are you acting out of integrity? Are you acting the way you are proud of yourself for behaving? I think that’s super important because it’s kind of not always present with everybody. So those are the ways of life that I would say. And from there, if you’re starting with that, you can kind of figure the rest of it out.

40:33 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, so I would say figure out your why, being authentic, and then behave with integrity and character essentially. Going back to authenticity, another spin on it that I talk to my clients about is not lowering your standards. That’s also being authentic as well. Trusting your intuition, like you said, like if you know someone on your team, for example, is not a good fit for you, somebody who’s supporting you who is not a good fit for you, but you keep trying to make it square peg fit around a hole because you’re lowering your standards, because it’s in a way not listening to your inner voice in a way, not speaking your authentic truth in a way, and people pleasing as well.

41:21 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Yeah, totally. I think you just have to pick. Like in that scenario, you pick your discomfort. I can choose to not speak up and just deal with the headache of what is, or I can choose the discomfort of saying this is not working. I think we’re going to let this person go, and have the discomfort of that. You get to pick your discomfort there. Then from there, which one ultimately has the least long-term discomfort for you? Right? Just kind of analyzing it from that standpoint as well.

41:48 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, time. The discomfort of times exponentially, whatever.

41:53 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Yeah, exactly.

41:56 Dr. Ann Tsung That’s awesome. Thank you so much. And for the audience to find you, can you tell us a little bit about what you offer in terms of coaching, the programs that you have, where they can go to find you or contact you?

42:08 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Sure. So my name is Arpita DePalma. My company is Thought Work, MD. You can find me online. I’m on Instagram and Facebook. LinkedIn, I think, is Arpita DePalma instead. But the rest of them are Thought Work, MD. And I love doing the one-on-one coaching. I do a lot of one-on-one coaching with clients. I have a couple of packages with that. I also do group coaching for institutions, hospital systems, private practices. So whoever is interested in that, all that information is on my website on www.thoughtworkmd.com. Like I mentioned, we have that podcast that is great content. If you’re wanting to live an intentional life, we have a lot of guest speakers on there as well. It’s called Doctors Living Deliberately. That one, we’ve finished recording back in March. But it’s kind of evergreen content. Then the upcoming podcast is From Pissed Off to Poised, and that should hopefully be launching in the fall. So I’m excited about that, too. But yeah, I would love to hear from anybody who has questions or anything about this. It’s just part of living an intentional life.

43:06 Dr. Ann Tsung Awesome. Thank you for sharing everything so far. We talked about multiple scenarios, multiple strategies. And I know whoever’s listening to this, there’s not a time where we can be perfectly non-reactive. So I know that they’re going to benefit a lot from our discussion together. So, again, people, go reach out to Thought Work, MD. Go to Thought Work, MD and reach out to Dr. DePalma. Then just pick one action that you will do after this podcast, instead of listening to absorbing everything and then let it pass and then nothing changes. Right?

43:41 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma It’s super important. Start with minimum baseline. One thing. You pick one thing and start doing that.

43:45 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, it could be that one-minute meditation, perhaps.

43:48 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Yeah.

43:49 Dr. Ann Tsung Or just go give your spouse a kiss and tell them like a plan of stepping away or something like that.

43:54 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma I love you like a puppy unconditionally.

44:01 Dr. Ann Tsung And making a decision. Yeah, old photos of when you guys went on your first dates, I think that helps too. Because when you put that photo of seven years ago, I was like, oh, it’s kind of—

44:10 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma I did like you. I did like you.

44:13 Dr. Ann Tsung I was like, oh, okay. Anyway, so thank you guys again. And thank you, Dr. DePalma, for your time. I really appreciate it. And of course, everything that we talked about is going to be in the show notes on productivitymd.com. And just remember that everything we need is within us now. Thank you.

44:32 Dr. Arpita Gupta DePalma Thank you.

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