Ep 18: Facing the Discomfort of Silence with Dr. Liz Aguirre

This episode is the second part of a profound conversation with Dr. Liz Aguirre, who practiced as a hospitalist for 10 years before transitioning to a non-clinical position, now also serving as a professional speaker on health and wellness. 


Dr. Aguirre shares:

• How the practice of meditation has helped her marry the body, mind, and spirit, keeping her grounded to her genuine self and walking her desired path.
  
  
  
• How to overcome common obstacles with meditation and embrace the discomfort that comes up with silence.  
  
  
  
• How coaching helped her to gain an awareness of her negative self-talk and self-beating. This has led her to be freed from her self-imposed expectations, resulting in further life transformation.
  
  
  … and much more, so tune in!

Resources for Dr. Liz Aguirre:

Liz Aguirre, MD, Professional Speaker at https://www.lizaguirremd.com

Course on Meditation for Doctors with CME credit (use code DARETODREAM10 for 10% Discount) at  https://www.theresttechnique.com/courses/meditation-for-doctors-a-guide-to-the-rest-technique


Dare to Dream Physician Resources:

Dare to Dream Physician, Life Planning for Physicians https://daretodreamphysician.com
 

Dare to Dream Physician on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/daretodreamphysician/

@DreamPhysician on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dreamphysician/

(Note: The vetted resources above may contain affiliate links and promo codes.  Any proceeds are used to support the mission of Dare to Dream Physician. Thank you for your support!)

Transcript

Note this document may have human or computer-generated errors in transcription. Refer to the audio file for the actual conversation.

SPEAKERS

Dr. Aguirre, Guest, Dr. Gray, Host

Dr. Gray, Host  00:00

This is the dare to dream physician podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Weili Gray. Many physicians today are feeling overwhelmed and unfulfilled living a busy life based on someone else's terms and expectations. My mission is to help physicians figure out what they really want out of life, and how to make their dream life come true sooner than they ever imagined. My fellow physicians, your time to live your only life is now become a dare to dream physician. Great things are going to happen. Make sure you hit subscribe and share this podcast with another physician you care about. 

Dr. Gray, Host  00:48

Welcome back to another episode of The Dare to Dream Physician podcast. In this week's episode, we're picking up on the second part of my conversation with Dr. Liz Aguirre who practiced as a hospitalist for 10 years before transitioning to a non clinical career. And now also shares her experiences and insight as a professional speaker on health and wellness. If you haven't listened to last week's episode respecting the power of the mind, which is part one of our interview, you can add that to your playlist after you finished this one. She shared her journey from being a child who grew up in a house at times without running electricity or water to attending junior college to university than to medical school. And she's very open and transparent about the doubtful voices that follow her along that amazing journey and how she overcame them. In the meantime, here's this week's episode as we're diving into a very profound part of the conversation.

Dr. Gray, Host  01:50

That is part of the purpose of this podcast is to make space for people to every week as they listen in for them to just think about what's important to them, and what are they good at? And what do they really want to do? Because like you're saying there is a lot of external expectations about what we should do. And it's not that we don't have to consider those expectations. But the part where you said being your genuine self that is also very powerful. How do you do that, by the way? So as you're going through, and there are going to be people who maybe discourage you or the naysayers? How do you know that while taking some of that as feedback to also just stay genuine to yourself? How does one do that?

Dr. Aguirre, Guest  02:38

So part of the reason I talk about body, mind and spirit is because I really have come to a new place in my journey. So I took a meditation course. And I will tell you a lot does come to me and meditation. It really does. It's so hard to explain. But when you feel it in your core, and you feel it right. It's hard to allow the naysayers in to try to push you in a different direction or to criticize you because in your heart of hearts, in your spirit in your soul, you can feel it, you know you're doing the right thing. You know that if I were to listen to them, it would prevent me from following my true passion, my true path. And this is so new to me, because I've been trying for years to meditate. And I do mean years. My husband is a long time meditator for as long as I've known him. So I have journal entries from eight, nine years ago that said, I tried to meditate today. I only lasted a minute, but it was a good minute. So now it's every day religiously. The first thing I do when I get up is I meditate. And when I'm really really struggling, if there's something that's really bothering me, and I'm looking for an answer, I ask that question in meditation, what comes to me? And that's the part that people think, Okay, that sounds totally woowoo. But what is woowoo? What is that? people throw around that word? What does that mean? Even? So there's science. And there's some kind of spiritual space out here that people feel. And the woowoo is that space in between, right? That that connection to the universe or God or a higher power or whatever you believe in and science and the woowoo is that kind of space in between. And so, again, it goes back to surrounding your self with people who believe in the things that you believe in, and everybody else, thr things they say really are none of my business, because those are not the things I believe. And if you start letting yourself get caught up on that, then you're going to start slipping and not following your passions or your beliefs or the things that truly resonate with who you are. And so I did want to just speak, I don't often throw out resources or anything, but this meditation course it was CME approved for physicians. So I think it's worth mentioning, it was called the "rest technique." And the physician who created that course, was also a hospitalist, and started teaching meditation. And I think the reason it resonated with me is because as physicians, we need to know and understand the why. And she kind of went into that in this meditation course. And the course was very simple. It wasn't anything crazy or elaborate. But it just was my time to finally click and understand it and hear it taught in a different way. So ever since that course, I've been able to meditate and feel more of a connectedness to my genuine self. And I've never been able to do that before. And that's only been since I've really started meditating. And I say that because my husband is a deep meditator. And for a very long time, he has said, I wish you can see you the way I see you. And I would always think, gosh, that is so much along the lines of what my dad used to say. My dad used to say, I wish you could see you the way I see you. And that even makes me emotional, because these are two of the biggest influences in my life, my dad, who believed in me when I didn't, and my husband, who for the last 10 years has been telling me these things. And so I just did a talk for a hospitalist group conference this last weekend. And immediately after the conference, someone came up to me and said, Would you be open to speaking at our hospital, because I really, really think that you connect, because you talk about the studies and the research, but you also talk about suffering that is not spoken about. And that's the mindset and the limiting beliefs and understanding more of that. But it took me a long, long time to figure it out. And sometimes people don't figure it out by hearing it once or twice, or three times, or by hearing it from you or me, or your next 10 podcast speakers. But then one day, it's going to click, and it's going to click because someone said it in a different way that you hadn't heard it, or with a slightly different twist, or because your mind was slightly more open now than it has ever been before. And then you just get it. And so not giving up, believing in yourself and who you fundamentally are, really comes from, again, surrounding yourself with the people who believe in you, but also finding a way to connect with yourself deeper, in a very honest way, without fear of what other people think. Because it's that fear of what other people think that prevent us from being our authentic and genuine selves.

Dr. Gray, Host  08:28

Wow, that's amazing. Most physicians, especially the younger generation have maybe heard a little, even if they don't do meditation themselves. They've heard of some benefits of meditation. It is one of those things to me where it's woowoo. And it's very different from what we do in our day to day, what do you think about our current culture and our current kind of practice environment, right? There's so many distractions, there's so much noise in the environment. And even when there isn't noise, we create our noise by logging into social media. And even the way that information is being delivered with less people focusing on the more traditional forms of media like newspaper articles and magazine articles and more looking at the things that come on Twitter, just these very short clips. Now it's a six second clickbait that gets people's attention. Even the things that used to draw our attention 10 years ago, are no longer drawing our attention. And there are studies that show our brains literally have changed as a result of the way we're processing information, the way that information is being delivered and these short bytes and meditation from my understanding and from how you're describing it just sounds like completely opposite, right? Going back to the basics, perhaps to a way that our brains were more designed to be. We're living in this fast paced everything short attention span society, and the meditation is the complete opposite of that and by doing that every day, perhaps that pulls us more towards where our brains are better adapted to do?

Dr. Aguirre, Guest  10:05

Well, here's the deal here, here is something that was very eye opening for me. A lot of people think that they can't do meditation because their minds are too busy, and their thoughts come in and out. And the reality is, those thoughts still come in during meditation, there still going to. But what what I found to be true for me is the reason I could not meditate is because I was uncomfortable with that silent space. So a lot of physicians think I don't have enough time I have too much on my plate. There's too many things to do, and not enough hours in the day. But the reality is, sometimes we create that because what happens when we have a moment of silence that we can recharge, and we can recover, we can rest, what can we do? We pick up our phone, we get on social media, we start scanning our emails, we are uncomfortable with silence. And that is the reality that we're all facing because of this clickbait. And because of this fast paced nature and what we have become accustomed to doing us physicians in the hospital or in our clinics, it's Go, go, go, go go. And then you have a moment of silence. And you're like, Okay, what do I do, I should be doing something, right. And so meditation is very, very uncomfortable at the beginning. Because you're challenging yourself, to have silence. And in that silence, you have to face uncomfortable things that are living under the surface, that you don't even know, you're not even aware that you're pushing out, you're not even aware that they're there. And when you're in silence, you have to face them. But the other beautiful thing is, once you face those things, once you face those things that are under the surface that are uncomfortable, only then can you move past them. And allow yourself to be more open to receiving these amazing thoughts and opportunities that are there for you that you just don't see, because you're busying yourself. It is so hard to grow, and to develop and to create new things. When your mind is so busy with so many things coming in. It's almost like if you think of a runner, and runners talk about runner's high, when they're just in that zone, and they are flying with the wind. Well, that's the same thing when you're developing a business or you're growing. When you're in that zone, where you're just focused on the one thing, you're focused on that for direction for developing a podcast, right? Then the thoughts and the ideas start to flow and you're like, I need to write that down. That's a great podcast episode, or I need to write that down. That's a perfect next direction, that you only can get those thoughts coming into your mind when there is some silence, and you're allowing some room for them to come in. So that's the part that I think is challenging for people to see because I would have never understood that before. Never. And I would never even allow the opportunity because I'm like, Alright, that was two minutes. That's all the time I have. I have things to do people to see little bodies that are waiting to see their mommy. And I wasn't allowing it. I wasn't allowing that space. And just this morning, I had that good moment and meditation because I keep telling myself, I want to plan white space on the calendar, right? don't have anything scheduled just so that the space is there. And then I realized, huh, that's a story  I'm telling myself, I do have whitespace I am just choosing to fill it with the need to should do all of those things. In reality, nope, I don't need to do any of that. I have the whitespace right now, I need to not pick up my phone, I need to not check my email, I need to not feel obligated to spend that time with the kids. I'm just going to spend the next 10 minutes all to myself. That's it. We have the space we choose not to see it sometimes. And it's easy to get distracted with all this stuff and fill that space with things.

Dr. Gray, Host  14:31

Yeah, it's so true. All of that is so true. I'm curious because you're a mom with young children. And I have this problem because I am a firm believer in the value of meditation. I'm also in full agreement that it seems really daunting and and scary and something that I can't do, which is so funny, right? Because if you just do nothing, and that's the one thing that I feel like I can't do. And so the I think the struggle that a lot of us have because you've mentioned you do it the first thing in the morning is when do we do that? And how long do we commit to doing this? And how do you get your kids not barging through the door and interrupting you?

Dr. Aguirre, Guest  15:08

So okay, see, this is so good, because I learned this in the meditation course I didn't know this. You just tell them, that's it. Mommy's gonna meditate right now, if you walk in the morning, if you walk in my room in the mornings, and you see me sitting there quietly in meditation, you cannot interrupt me because I will not answer you. And the first few times they came in my four year old patting me on the light, Mommy, Mommy, did not answer him, did not acknowledge him. Only in an emergency. If there's an emergency, you can interrupt me. So now fast forward, and my little boy was three at the time three. Now he's four. He walks in the room, I can still hear him. He'll walk out quietly, mommy's meditating right now. So let's just go watch TV or let's just go do this. They will say that, oh, mommy's meditating, let's get out the room. There's no interruption. They respect the space. Right? You have to establish it. And it never occurred to me that I could just tell my kids I'm meditating. That's I will say that course, she did recommend meditating twice a day. I don't get to meditate twice a day. I did at the beginning. I did it for the first six months. I don't do the second meditation of the day, unless I really feel I need it. So what do I mean by that? When I'm feeling agitated when I'm feeling frustrated? When I'm feeling overwhelmed? When I'm feeling like I'm about to blow a gasket? Or I feel like why am I getting so worked up about nothing? Then I tell myself, it's time to for me to stop and meditate. Because that's signaling to me that whatever the circumstances here, no matter how small, I don't have the reserve capacity to deal with them. I'm getting agitated, I'm getting frustrated. I'm taking it out on my kids and family. So what do I need to do? I need to take a moment, I need to stop and I need to refill my tank. And I can do that with meditation.

Dr. Gray, Host  17:09

Wow. Yeah. That's great. And so currently, how long do you usually carve out for meditation in the mornings?

Dr. Aguirre, Guest  17:18

Yeah. So I'll do a 20 minutes in the morning. And it's usually, first thing of the day, I get up, brush my teeth, wash my face. And then I go sit, and I do my 20 minutes first thing in the morning. And you also, the other thing I recently learned through coaching, actually, I did a physician coaching program, and I was receiving coaching. The other thing that I learned is I was putting a lot of expectations on myself. And I have a very rigid morning schedule, I had to get up at five o'clock, I would do I would wash up I would do my morning meditation, I would do my stretches, I would do my journaling, I'd read for 10 minutes, I'd make sure I drank my eight ounces of water, I would do my cold plunging. And I have all these expectations of what I would do in the morning. And when it did not go as planned, it ruined the rest of my day, it would not ruin it. But I would feel like I wasn't accomplished or I didn't do what I wanted to do. And then I started realizing that that morning routine was actually negatively impacting me. So I learned I can still have a morning routine. But when it doesn't go exactly as planned. If I go to bed later than expected, I'm not going to get my workout in the morning. I'm just not. And it's okay to adjust and do a limited routine in the morning and move that to later, until later. But we have to be flexible with ourselves. And a lot of times as physicians, we think we need to do this, we need to do that. We were responsible for this, we're responsible for that. And when it doesn't go as planned, we beat ourselves up and we have a lot of negative self talk. And that to me, I was not aware of at all, at all. Until I had physician coaching. I had no idea I was beating myself up. I was saying mean negative things to myself, you should have done this, you should have done that. Well, if you had done this, that wouldn't have happened. And that awareness was able to help me make a shift that I didn't realize so.

Dr. Gray, Host  19:21

Yeah, that's that's great. So for meditation for inner listening, developing self knowledge, but also coaching to look at the blind spots that we may not have been aware of.

Dr. Aguirre, Guest  19:33

Yeah. And just to talk about physician coaching for just a second because honestly, I have I'm new to physician coaching so a lot of people are like, you know, well what is that? I've never even heard of it. Physician coaches. They get certifications on how to coach people how to think about their thoughts and their minds and dig a little deeper and really just help you to see your potential and guide you to reaching your full potential, and it's very different because they're not operating in the capacity of a physician. They're operating in the capacity of a coach. And I say that because there are a lot of coaches, the vast majority of life coaches are not physicians. But for me personally, finding coaching from another physician was very helpful because they understand how a physicians mind works. They understand how we beat ourselves up the standards that we hold ourselves to, and so forth.

Dr. Gray, Host  20:33

Yeah. Agreed. I've also gotten a lot of physician coaching and totally new, I didn't know really what that was, and was, not skeptical, but just didn't think that it applied to me. But in the last six months, I met with a lot of different physician coaches, and I have to say, it's been life changing.

Dr. Aguirre, Guest  20:53

Well, I will say, I totally was skeptical, and my husband reminded me about this. And I got really sad when he did about a year or two years into our marriage. He had told me he wanted to get a coach. And I was like, for what? I totally didn't get it. I totally didn't understand spending 1000s of dollars to have a person coach you for what coach you in, I don't get this at all. And I totally, just totally shut him down. And so fast forward. Eight years later, I was going to him saying, Yeah, I think I want to get coaching and he's Oh, I think that's a great idea. I remember I remember I talked to him about that one time I wanted to do it. And when he said that, the thought immediately came to me and I had just this intense amount of sadness, because I was like, I just totally shut him down because I didn't understand it. And I limited his growth because I know the power of coaching now. Right? And I limited his growth because I was closed to that idea. But it because I didn't understand it. Understand it all.

Dr. Gray, Host  22:18

Wow. So that was part two of my amazing conversation with Dr. Liz Aguirre. Don't miss next week's episode, it'll the last part of our conversation, and Dr. Aguirre will be discussing her burnout experience and her transition from clinical medicine to a non clinical career. You can find Dr. Liz on her website: lizaguirremd.com. I'll link that in the show notes as well. And if your group or organization is looking for a wellness speaker, I would absolutely recommend Dr. Aguirre. Go to her website right now and get the information to connect with her. She can either speak in person or in a virtual forum. 

Dr. Gray, Host  23:05

Thanks for listening. Make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss another episode. If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend and give us a five star review so we can help more physicians dare to dream and create their most abundant lives.        There is also exciting news at the Dare to Dream Physician. For those of you who wish to get clarity on your own why, and get energized as you explore, envision and create your dream life. I am so excited to announce that I'm taking on a limited number of one on one clients for life planning. To get the complete details and sign up for an exploration meeting. Go to my website, daretodreamphysician.com. I really look forward to working with you. And it would be such an honor and privilege for me to be able to help you create your life plan. I truly believe that life planning will transform your life and will give you that energy to pursue your dream life sooner than you ever imagined. See you next week.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

life planning, dare to dream physician, meditation, physician, meditate, people, coaching, morning, space, life, understand, dream, feel, coach, expectations, uncomfortable, hospitalist, planned, thoughts, silence, create