In this episode, Dr. Cari Wise discusses the importance of recognizing and embracing the things that emotionally and energetically move us.
Dr. Wise shares her observations on two things that consistently move her: animals and music.
She emphasizes the significance of the human-animal bond, particularly in difficult situations, and how it enhances the overall experience for both pet owners and veterinarians.
Dr. Wise encourages listeners to pay attention to what moves them energetically and emotionally, both positively and negatively, as these patterns can provide valuable insights into one’s purpose, strengths, and opportunities for personal growth.
She concludes by urging listeners to reflect on their emotional experiences and consider what these patterns reveal about their future possibilities.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is auto-generated and may contain typos.
Hi there. I’m Dr. Cari Wise, veterinarian, certified life coach and certified quantum human design specialist. If you are a veterinary professional looking to uplevel your life and your career, or maybe looking to go in an entirely new direction, then what I talk about here on the Joyful DVM podcast is absolutely for you. Let’s get started. Hello my friends.
Welcome back to Reflection Friday for Friday, March 22nd, 2024. Today, I wanna spend some time talking about connection to what moves you. Over the last week, I have spent a lot of time being very intentional to watch what experiences are creating a connection for me and what’s really moving me in an energetic and an emotional way. The truth is that we encounter things every single day that spark an energetic or emotional re response from us.
But most of the time, especially if that emotional response is intense, we tend to push it aside, ignore it, and re-shift our focus to something else. But there’s something that we’re missing in our own patterns if we are completely trying to ignore everything that’s energetically and emotionally moving for us, I think there’s a bit of our purpose that hides behind that experience.
So over the last week, as I’ve really honed in on being aware of how I’ve been feeling emotionally, kind of moment by moment, I really found a pattern around two things. Now, these two things don’t surprise me, but it’s interesting when I’m, now that I’m watching for them how frequent they are, which tells me that they’re always frequent, but I’m not always aware.
It also tells me that I’m probably very well practiced at pushing it aside and getting back to work. I’m very good at doing things, taking action, and for myself, what I found over time is staying busy is one of my buffers. So those things that have moved me that are my pattern of connection, that really moves me energetically and emotionally. Those two things are animals and music.
Now, animals doesn’t seem to be much of a surprise. I would guess that for most of you, animals is also going to be one of your patterns of things that energetically and emotionally move you. And as I’ve been curious about that this week, what I’ve noticed is that it’s not only the animals themselves, for sure, there are moments like I just interact with that animal and I have this complete connection and internal energetic and emotional movement.
A lot of the time, it’s just a pure joy. It is a happiness, it is a lightness. It is a playfulness that I notice that I experience with the animals. But there’s another aspect of this animal connection that really moves me as well. And these are the animals that are very much in need. So they have some kind of illness that is apparent when I walk into the room and the client is also aware.
So this, this awareness is connection that is creating this movement, I believe is not only just the animal, but it’s the human animal bond that is present in that moment. And when that human animal bond is so apparent to me, I can’t help but experience it as well. And so in those situations when I end up re having to give, deliver some bad news,
so tests, tests that don’t turn out the way that I want ’em to, walking into a room with a sick cat to tell an owner that that cat has feline leukemia, going back into a room to let an owner know that their limping dog actually has osteosarcoma. So some of those really terminal things, those disease processes that we know as veterinary professionals very rarely turn out well in the long run.
When I go to deliver that kind of news, I notice a big energetic and emotional shift in me as well. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing at all, and for years, I have called myself a contagious crier because the truth is, if a client gets choked up, I’m gonna get choked up too. And I often get choked up when I’m delivering news that I know for myself would be hard to receive that for a lot of years.
Early, early on in my career, I thought that that was weakness. I believed that that was a problem, something that I needed to learn how to control and to contain. And I did. I shoved it down, I kept a stoic face, and then when I was home in the evening, then I would just kind of fall apart over it,
or I would get really, really busy and just never go back to thinking about it again. That doesn’t work in the long run as far as your own wellbeing, because all of that resisted and avoided emotion still keeps stacking up internally. It doesn’t actually leave. And so at some point we end up kind of hitting a wall emotionally, having a bit of a breakdown where all of it just comes spilling out.
It can be just even one simple little thing doesn’t go the way that we wanted it to. Like knocking a glass off of a counter and water spilling on the floor could be the thing that breaks it open. And then we have a bit of a mental release, an emotional release. So it could be crying, it could be screaming, whatever it comes out for as us.
And so knowing that that has been an experience of mine in the past, and as I’ve learned to allow the emotion and to stop trying to get rid of it, and I, as I’ve really realized that the most intense emotions only really last about 90 seconds. Like if we just keep breathing, we’re gonna feel better in a couple of minutes anyway, I’ve stopped resisting and avoiding the situations that I have recognized create this movement of energy and emotion within myself.
And so over the last week, like I said, as I was paying attention to when do these, what are the things that are really moving me energetically and emotionally, I’ve been quite honestly kind of comforted even by this recognition that this human animal bond, the experience of being able to share in this human and animal bond for somebody and their pet has a real emotional consequence for me.
And it’s, I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all. So in those moments when I am delivering news that I wish were better than it is, I am okay to be human about it. I’m okay to console the client and to give information, but to also kind of share my emotional experience of it. And I think that it makes a big difference for the client when they see how much we actually do care.
Now, I’m not asking anybody to fake it. I want you to pay attention to what’s real for you. And my approach isn’t the approach for everybody, it’s just the approach that works for me. But what I found for myself is that this job is so much more sustainable and fulfilling when I allow myself to be human as part of my role. I don’t need to be just the person who walks in the,
in the white coat, who has all the information, who does all the tests, who makes all the recommendations, and then walks out. When I make that connection with the human and the pet, it makes the entire experience for me much more enjoyable and sustainable. And it actually makes that experience for owners much more relaxed, much more trusting. At least that’s the experience and the feedback that I’ve gotten.
So that connection with animals and specifically animals in their owners in hard times is one of the things that really moves me and keeps me connected to myself. The other thing is music. And as I really considered this one over the last week, there’s a couple of things that I’ve become aware of. Many of you know my story that that I actually, before I decided to go to veterinary school,
even though my dad was a vet, so I’ve literally been in vet med my whole entire life. Then my first year of college I was a music major. And after I made my pivot and decided to go into veterinary school, it’s been like blinders on straight ahead the whole time. So I was a little bit driven, if you will, to complete all of my prereqs or vet school in two years and two summers,
I did a year of like music, which ended up mostly being electives, two years and two summers of undergrad, just dedicated to getting everything I needed to do to be able to apply to go to vet school. I got early admission after my third year of college and graduated from veterinary school when I was 25, which has now been 25 years ago.
And I, like many of you just kind of stayed in the channel of veterinary medicine as my only focus for years and years and years, which did lead to total burnout. That was a good thing. The reason it was a good thing is was because it brought awareness to me of how important it’s to have a balanced life. To not have one thing be your soul focus.
And for any of you who are still in that phase of your life where this is your sole focus and you are feeling burned out and you’re feeling like your life doesn’t matter anymore, like there’s just nothing other than beyond VetMed that you don’t have any personal value beyond what you experience in your job. I just want to encourage you that VetMed is part of your life,
but it is not your identity and that you have opportunity to reengage in other aspects of your life. That could probably be its own reflection Friday episode, so maybe I will consider that. But the reason that I’m bringing all this up now is because as I, what I have noticed is that I still have not been, and I have not created a habit of implementing music into my life every single day.
Yet music is something that can move me in an instant. I can be watching a movie about anything, and the music that is playing in the background is going to make the entire experience for me. I can watch the, the commercials with the music going on. You know, those like Sarah McLaughlin, A-S-B-C-A videos or commercials with the music. I can watch that commercial and I will probably be in tears by the end of it,
but if I just shut off the volume, then I’m good. I can see it. If I’m watching a scary movie, if I just turn off the volume, I can make it through it, but without it, I’m having a very intense emotional experience. Now, this is intentional, obviously with things like commercials and movie making, right? They’re trying to create an experience for you,
and I am their ideal customer in this regard because music plays a very big role, but it’s not only in ex, like those external kinds of ways. There are lots of thing, probably everything in my life that has had any significance has some kind of music associated with it. And so music takes me back to different experiences. It can help me to generate different emotional states.
And this is really, really important, especially if we develop a practice of intentionally interacting with music that helps us to be lifted up, to be encouraged, to be inspired, to be confident. So over the last week, as I’ve paid attention to what, from a music perspective, maybe pulling me down what might be boosting me up, it has just been a beautiful reminder that part of my connection with my own being has a musical component.
And if I will just develop a practice of implementing music into my day every single day, it for me will work very much like meditation does. So this being said, my question for you today is what moves you? What is it? Is it animals? Is it nature? Is it, I guess, I guess what I have to is I say that out loud and I hear the birds chirping outside.
I have to put birds on. There is another thing that really moves me because I just have become this crazy bird person and I’m always fascinated with what they’re doing. And now that I’m not home seven days a week like I was for years, it’s, I think that connection, it’s still very strong, but it’s not an everyday thing that I, that I experience by just happenstance.
So another thing I would have to intentionally put in, but I digress. My question for you is what moves you? I want you to pay attention this week to what actually moves you energetically and emotionally, both up and down. And many of you might listen to this, and you’re gonna focus on what pulls you down, because that’s what our brain does.
It’s always looking for the negative. And I don’t want you to really, I’m not asking you to focus on what’s sucking the life out of you. That’s like a different question. I’m asking you to pay attention to how you feel energetically and emotionally, and what really pulls at your heartstrings, what really elevates you into the best version of yourself? Where do you feel most connected with what’s going on in the world around you?
And what’s happening in those moments? Because you will find a pattern. And as you find that pattern, those patterns are these little whispers of information that help you to know why you’re here, what your purpose is, what your strengths are, what your opportunities are moving forward. We have so many data points and evidence points available to us, but because we stay so busy,
like that habit of busyness that I’ve used as a way to cover up emotion for years, because we stay so busy, we miss all of the evidence and clarity that is all around us. So this week, I want you to pay attention to how you are feeling and what is going on, what is actually moving you, and then ask yourself a question at the end of the week,
what do these patterns actually tell me about what’s possible for me in the future? I would love to know how this activity goes for you this week. Feel free to send us an email, drop us a note, let us know. I would be excited to hear what you learn about yourself as you start to pay attention to what moves you. All right,
my friends. That’s gonna wrap it up for this week. See you next time. Bye for now.