So at first heard about my yesterday, the shell, when I stumbled upon an asset that she had published earlier this year, entitled when this war is over many of us, will leave medicine. It was about the reality of her day to day life and those around her her colleagues as an your dark dirt The early days of the pandemic. It is this devastating powerful, deeply human read? In that light me too her equally beautiful and moving and at times heartbreaking, yet hopeful near hans, bacilli, memoir, the beauty and breaking so graduate harvard and the renaissance school of medicine at stonework university, for Entire career michel has sought out emergency medicine positions in hospital.

that serve under resource communities, often communities of color and she's not just a devout physician and a healer. But all an advocate, an advocate for dignity for equality for change and the siege for this path. planted very early in her life through a blonde? family trauma and just growing deep personal conviction that has compelled her too. Not just the care of those in need, but also a champion their humanity along the way so excited to share this conversation. With you on Jonathan fields- and this is a good life project-

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So the ten percent happier podcast has one guiding philosophy. Happiness is a skill that you can learn, so why not embrace it? It's hosted by dan Harris a journalist who had a panic attack on national television and then set out on this journey of transformation and he's now on a quest to help. Others also achieve peace and happiness, and every week Dan talked to top scientists meditation teachers. Even the odd celebrity in wide ranging conversations that explore topics like productivity, anxiety and lightness, psychedelics and relationships. The interviews cover everyone from brene brown to sara burrell us to SAM Harrison more. I love learning from his questions and experiences, an incredible guests. Think of listening to ten percent happier as a workout for your mind, find ten percent happier wherever you listen to podcasts, you publish is peace, I think was it was in April, like late April. Called when this war is over many

will lead medicine and, as such, compelling moving emotional piece of writing, but also reflect in, and it was well stunning was this was your personal experience. It was your personal story also a devastatingly powerful commentary on really this state of medicine in general, the state of our collective value set about new patients, health care providers to humanity. Taught me more about where they came from its. What I've been seeing in medicine, the time momentum, I'm still not so senior. But I've been at this as tending physician for over ten years and the focus moving from health care and or towards the business of medicine, which is really about profits and its its devastating and now being through corona virus

time when we need health care more than ever during a pandemic this pandemic. There's so much devastation death suffering. If there's anything optimistic about it, if there's anything, purposeful about it? I I hope we are learning from because it's really laid bare issues that have been there for for so long, the fact that during a time of a pandemic the time of unprecedented and play meant people, and have access to care when they most the fact that our help care workers, whether there tat nurses. Doctors are not valid we don't have the equipment we need so that we can safely take care of patients. We don't have the acquit men we need so that we can live quite frankly still to this day. That is a problem. We don't have the testing. We need

to keep people in this country safe with these ongoing problems, has not been a solution, there has not been a coordinated effort. My hope is that moving forward it, we will determine and collectively agree that health care is a right and not just a privilege in this country. It's interesting to me, that that point was being really clear, made not by you said here here and lay standing so boxing. This is what I believe in this is which really important, but simply by sharing your experience of being in the er doc in like what was then of the hottest like areas of the country. Through this time where your personal experience you lived experience of essentially like movie through every mode of every day was

Is this the one is this, the interaction is, is the patient is at the moment where things then for me, and it is so powerful to me that Simply sharing your own experience from the inside out said so much beyond your own experience. Yeah still for me You know emergency medicine position as we have discussed and. It has been important for me to be an apart as of medicine, where I have to take care of anyone who comes through the door I can't imagine being in a position, I have to turn someone away because they don't have funds, the idea of that. For me, is unbearable. So I made a decision to stay rina above and beyond the fact in have to pay my bells and live. I would Still stay to be there for people in their time of need

and seeing people come in, desperate and and seeing so many of the day. Spirit is really in the city, patients. I was seeing our people, who are. On the front lines, people have always on the front lines, but we're just starting to value them, for it like store works and mail delivery people there. This thickest putting their lives on the line so that weak still have some semblance of a life we knew in get our gross using get our male sir. older people from nursing homes who are Higher risk and then vessel his people, I'm seeing, were The people who are working on the front lines? Yes, and then people in prisons as well, people who don't have any autonomy who can't socially distant. You don't even have access to stop in water too, in practice the hygiene we need so that they can be healthy minutes

It was really then we do not. We can talk about the curse or state in this country, and why certain people course rate in certain people are now it's it's we're taking away their liberty, but also their their lives by incarcerating them. At this rate, during a pandemic, were they getting hail from a disease, so I was I was it and to stay and to do what is right people, who need it most and also did and to speak about it so that we can do what's right for them. king structural changes yeah any minute- see that we find for you. You were talking about in the context of really the last nine months- blood, that's just the most recent manifestation of something that has been compelling you for decades. You know this. This is not like. This is not a new thing where you care so much about certain communities of people and about a pair

I am of healthcare in the sea, the sounds it was really planted. When you were a kid yet some it has been there forever? And it is interesting with this book. For example, people speak about the case where the police brought in a patient. And they wanted to for me to force an exam on him, and people are saying typically, when various, oh, my gosh. How could you The timing of the book came out now and black lives matters are anonymous, we're seeing the problems and policing and I'm glad we're having these discussions. It is important for us to talk about it, but I did start writing this book like six years ago and part of the reason. One of the reasons included. That case was because, these are issues. We see up all the time that has been concerning me over the decades yeah I mean I guess he you and you write about new talk.

do you as young kid also growing up in a household with larger mile, where physical abuse and serve on living in a state of hyper- ones, but also dissociation- yes touch our this yeah. So a grub, ben and abusive with a father who was about her, so it was always unstable. Anything could happen at any time, those generally bad and felt dangerous. It was one event that always stayed with me when I was young teenager, my boy, there is trying to restrain my father to prevent him from. continuing his attack on my mother and my father bit my brothers causing significant injury to his hand. and I just remember, being clarified ammunition, one of many events but being horrified

that, someone whose family, somebody supposed to take care of me and my family. Could do that savage act to someone else in the family. Someone I care about and my brother turns out, was my protector. and I remember feeling in that moment that. This home was not safe, it wasn't going to be safe and also since by that point I had more of an axis the language being a teenager and yes in your old anymore also, knowing that I was going to have to do what I needed to save myself and those around me I think in many ways it it was that child had that groomed me to be an air doktor, because like in the EU are all I had was a snapshot. And time is. Is this event? That's happening right now, going to be immediately life threatening glitter blow over to have to make an intervention now or religious, run its course,

so those girls were immediately answerable later, and it was experiences like that. And then also when I went to the yard, took my brother to the year to get care I saw. So many people suffering from all manner of life like little girl who came in with a kite or a homeless man who just needed a place to sleep for a couple hours in the waiting room, pre pandemic, when people could do things like that, and that just all of them, looking for some kind of healing And seeing many of them walking out here whether it was an an asthmatic who now huh occasions and had been treated in, can breathe either the little girl whose cut was fixed and. I knew that I wanted to be that for people for people who In a position to heal, who want it

healing who wanted change. I wanted to offer that support system for them. You I mean it in effect. Also, I wonder If you seeing that and then think yourself, I wanna be that for other p, was also an acknowledgement of the fact that that existed for all people- and you are one of those people absolute. when I saw the potential in that, and it was. In it because it was in that trauma, and my home was there that I was breathing. It was my environment. It is hard for me to imagine something different so when I saw him in and real, life in real time in the EU. Are. I could see and I did know how. But I knew that As long as I survived that

is that there was that a way out and another side yeah, I mean VM, knowing that there's this thing that exists and that, then you get to say, okay, honestly, how do I, how do I reverse engineer, the path to be that to do that, to offer that I guess that was that really was kind of inciting incident for then what would become your pursuit in education? You end up in harvard you end up in stony, brook and med school and coming out, and I'm curious about this underlying state, though, because when I've talked to a lot of people over the years and sadly, who have been through really hard

Is often with danger, often with violence, and they have shared this description of hyper vigilance constantly that there's never time where the vigilance goes away, it in you make it out down slightly at such moments, but has never gone, and then this weird dual state of both lucy aiding so that you can survive but also being deeply invested so that, if you have to step into place of agency into action, you can occurs to me that the field that you, chose training in those things, his real, probably really powerful foundation for surviving in the yard But at the same time, I wonder how. Sustaining that in your life answer like a driving ethos, after you're out of the home environment, where it keeps you alive, both prepares you for your career, but I'm wondering if it then wreaks havoc in the rest of the

if in some measure before why dont think its it sir not sustainable, and there is a certain amount of hyper village vigilance that I had to have at that time, but then that breaks down as well, This is gonna, be a layer responsible because it a certain amount of hyper vigilance that I also have to have as a black woman in america, so where there is a compelling, to this by but the trauma of my childhood and certainly the dissociation I had. I was really focused on my schoolwork because for me school was, was away out. Education and achievement was away out. So I would add that there might be violence in my house and then turn later I'm sitting at the kitchen table finishing up a report because I just have to

no matter what, I had to do. Well, I have to do, is get aids I had to get out. I was We're going to be co dependent on anyone. The way I saw my mother become dependent, I was wanting to have agency so that I could help myself and other people then it got to a plane later in life and an eye did sustain, that through medical school through residency, and I remember that after residency when I was starting over when I was divorce. In a new city in a new job and expand. in this area and in my own home. And I never really fly that. I, I did a lot of in our work like I was reading, teak, not hon. I was always very spiritual and and meditating. I didn't yet do yoga the physical practice of yoga, But there was more that I haven't yet accessed and

remembered the true story. May remember it's me. Included it. But I remember: taking care of a family really got a notification. A newborn had stop breathing, so we were supposed to repair for this patient coming in and them at the baby role. Then we need the baby was dead. We need them. It's gone, there was nothing to do we worked. This event far longer than was necessary, far longer than was reasonable, but we did it because we want. to prove to the family that everything was done for this Newborn child that passed away with no warning no explanation, and we did it because one of the hardest things to go through further Staff as well, so we needed to know for our own hearts and minds that we did everything possible. and that evening, when I went home I remembered just weeping

and weeping for the first time ever for that law Ass. I am not lost a child but I'm amber standing with those parents and and the them grandmother family in the waiting room the preceding the fact that they lost so much of their story for what they thought? What happened for everything they planned for what they counted on for this life and their family and what was to come for their future and I know what that sense of loss it is at the core of it. I know what it's like to not have the childhood you wanted or like them, I urge you wanted her the story for the family that was to come, and I just tried- and I felt like- That was one of the main moments in my life. That the dissociation that now now

could be out of the survival mode in that respect, and in the living and thriving mode and so it began, and then I started the physical practice of yoga and this journey radical honesty I feel like it was the next part of my personal and spiritual evolution, so that was very critical okay, so and the other parties being a black woman in america in there's always is a certain amount of I provisions you have to have and a certain amount of dissociation you have to have navigating the structures, which is another conversation yeah Neither is it enough conversations. It's really are part of the same fabric re enough. it is you're right it is. I just well, you allow united, she said, which is another part of the question

because because it's also I mean an anarchist alaska and like and assume yet it. It occurs to me like okay, so there's there's the layer of being a black woman in america and the hypermiling vigilance that comes with that, which is. to per cent necessary, and then there is the level of being black in the practice of medicine, in being a black woman in the practice of medicine in the us. Each one of those is it's own layer, and it's only answer to sort of figure out how to navigate. I mean it just is and it s right here it land as true it is so wrong. But that is but it's trevor, it's true its exhausting. You know this. Statistics, roughly two percent, physicians are black women and it is a constant Who's gonna, say navigating and in some ways is navigating and in other ways it's it's bad allaying, truly,

I don't know which example to give just because there are so many but and the example that people speak about often where for white police officers then a black man saying they said they saw him, swallow drugs. They want to get them out. The patient, who was competent and has right, An american didn't wanna, be examined. He said it wasn't true, and he did. Wanna be exam, didn't want to be in the air. my resident the person training. Is the young white woman went over and said what to do? person under arrest. You just have to do it, and this is what we're going to do to you, and so I went over now hearing this unfold in a terrible, unacceptable way ended explained, then that is unprofessional on ethical and legal

and so I you know, I proceeded to start you. I finish my examined history on him. He said it was. It was ok. If I did that and then I went discharge short from the department. She proceeded to invoke what she felt would be a higher authority by calling hospital ethics and the department to see if she could just override my plan and they told her. I actually know because that was what I said was correct. And it was important for me to discuss that example. for example- what it means and what I have to do every day we to remind people to remain The police, terminus staff to remain the person that I was charged with training there. this. Man has personal sovereignty. That is is right, but having how

having to remind her that when we see all all kinds of patients, so disturbing and unsettling to me that she couldn't recognise his huge Kennedy and then in a position where I am thought I have the knowledge the authority to make those kinds of decisions. and having to remind her and the department of that and that is something I have to do on a daily basis. In my line of work and also to protect patients. that would otherwise routinely abused, and that's why I'm there, I'm there to work for justice and willingness and health but justice. can depend on one person being decent and kind, and the moment the system. Be designed for that, and each person as well bond symbol for that so on a person's

I will for me it is exhausting. its exhausting minutes. It's work that I will never. I'm doing and I am I do have to say that I tell these stories there staring their upsetting item, I'm too to amplify to create to create space, for the discussions, I'm hoping that it will support people who are willing and ready to act because it yet it because it is exhausting, and so I feel that speaking about it. It does give some sense of community and Naxian for people who can feel alone in this work, but I do have to say actually. energy by this particular moment in our society, because because people are girls, and in a way that I do feel I don't I don't think it's just empty words. I think that critical mass

is forming too Dress racism too ass violence against women to address. Miss Annie Goes on in meaningful ways, so so I am hopeful in that respect. That was a great dinner, so great great where to park the car, although one I just sold a carvana. What, when did you do that when you were still looking at the menu I went on, Carvana dot com and all I had to do was enter the license plate or vin answer a few questions and got a real offer in seconds he picked up the car already know I parked around the corner, but they are picking it up tomorrow and paying me right on the spot. Oh no wonder you picked up the check about that. We're going to have these sell your car to Carvana visit, Carvana dot com or download the app to get a real offer in second.

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You think shared a statistic: unease at somewhere around two percent, our physicians are black women. I think it's something like five percent for all black people within the profession and, besides, all of the the sort of structural and systemic and cultural things that you deal with every day in that paradigm. I'm curious also whether you have a sense of how that effects. The nature of interactions between doctors and patients and also outcomes. I remember you I'll. Back back, we had doctor joy harden bradford on the show whose lap woman who psychotherapist, just as an amazing part, tesco therapy for black girls, and she really she focus

is on the therapy for black women and she sneered we're sharing some of the research, but also her own experience. In that you know her experience was at the quality of that, so much of the outcome was reliant on a feeling of safety between the therapist and the patient or the client, and that A lot of black women have felt more comfortable or were were more open to going to that place of feeling safe and be more vulnerable and and when, when that happens, you share more and then you can process more and the outcomes and improve and am wondering if that, if that dynamic rings, should you serve in the broader context of medicine and also the what if it? If it does what the lack of that, with only five percent rapidly,

asian means towards actual outcomes. Tat. The outcomes are worse and independent risk factor for illness and morbidity and mortality is racism. That's an independent risk actor, so we're seeing I mean and sexism women are more likely to have worse outcomes with heart disease. Black people having higher infant mortality. Maternal mortality. It goes on and on and yet There is partly. feeling safe. but then largely not feeling safe, because we do not as safe That's why you don't feel ass if patients are listen to taken as seriously. their symptoms are felt to be real, so there,

not, Evaluated in ways that will reveal If there is an underlying man, disease, and then evaluate in such a way that would reveal underline disease. Then it's not treated these are. These- are real problems in medicine. We we have to address, to address the implicit and really explicit. buyers that exists, yeah I had on a page recently, who she is a young black woman All I know is that I saw she had just come into the yard and she's put on a cardiac, monitor, I always measures in a place where I can see all the monitors and she was pretty young and healthy from when I saw the chart, but her hurry was fast. We see young people with fast

It's all the time. It's usually not that big of a deal because you're, young and healthy, but I was just some just concerned me. I just felt it my god and another problem. middle provider nurse practice a month ago, see her and I walked by the rome. It's because is concerned just to listen and I heard him he was an older white man, kind of, say: oh you're, not taking your medicine on me to see your medicine and I went into the rum and set out you know what's happening. Is everything I was like. Oh no, you know, I know her and she kind of just you know doesn't take her medicine away whenever I was like wow concerned about her heart rate. Long story short. I end up just taking the case because I was concerned. I did. Feel he was treating treating with urgency, and I thought we need to look deeper into it- so then I started speaking to her and she told me

about her underlines ira disease and how hurry was going faster and faster and how now she was shorter breath and she just didn't feel well and how she called her endocrinologist. Who said, I don't think that you are in at an hour talk to your primary care doctor she called her primary care doctor? for a new blood pressure, medicine and said I don't know it's like you're gonna be fine and she call them back again. Meanwhile, no one had examined her. No one said will have the feeling that I go to the e r they just sad you're gonna, be fine, we'll talk later she was feeling desperate and on her And unseen and sick so came to the e r where I intercepted and she was sick and she couldn't breathe. to give her medicines as she did breathe better for her asthma her blood sugar without a control, retired disease was out of control indefinitely. Was an issue that her endocrinologist should have taken care of, and I had to admit her to the end

of care unit that day, and this is what I see all the time and swim in june She probably didn't feel safe for their doctors because she wasn't safe with her doctors. And no one heard her or took her seriously and she was critically ill yeah. I mean when you notes. When I hear this story, I sit here and unless endless am horrified and then the next in the drops in my head is I'm hearing one story rang living this every day over and over and over and over answers, It's not and unsure of what you're sharing is not an isolated incident. This is just a repeated pattern and you have said- and you have written, that more than identifying as a doctor, you identify as a healer, but what when I'm hearing it in an even maybe not stronger, but ass. Strong way is not just here, but advocate

You know that is such a huge part of your heart yeah, and I so braided this ass. I Morning I was looking at your website and I saw you your personality type quizzes. You can take this yeah. So, like forty minutes before we spoke, I took it and my type was advocate Warrior, oh yeah totally lands is to raise the gas, and I was so happy because because I their yes identify as an advocate, which I feel for me is hand in hand with being a healer, and I am I see no way of being a healer. If I am not going to advocate for my patients and these principles and justice? that requires courage. So-

have to be a warrior. So I yeah that's how I live in That is what I feel is required for me to do this work. Yeah! It's it's just such a part of your dna. It sounds like so interesting that you are haven't. You came up, I love it. Isn't This relates to a piece of this is pure validation, yeah distance. This is me My curiosity in a minute turn it back to you, because one of the questions that we get we ve had closed to. Five hundred thousand people are to complete an assassin once we have some pretty stunning data and one of the questions that we get often well is what. Where does this impulse come from? Where existing compromise in nature,

Is it nurture and and of course, there's no definitive way to figure that out with which to kind of know, it is by a certain point, but I'm curious, because when you look back at your history, there could be an argument that says well for you. You know it's it's more nurture than nature, it's more the environment and the women had to be, but my my deeper belief is that it's more nature for me speak on it, there's something inside of us from the earliest days. That says, I need to stand up when I see something I cannot just in like. I have to actually do something or say so yeah I agree with that. I mean. That being said, I feel the need The components can ruin a person. I the major component: can limited and then take them off track. So I dont want to listen. Minimize that piece of it, but then I happened to agree that

then the nature is is critical, because and have to be this way and when there are many people who come from a business, households where they go on to replicate that abuse they wanted to just live it, pass it down, three generations over and over again cs. It is it's. It's part of. Who I am- and I always am not logis. But I am spiritual- and I feel, owes it's part of my path and destiny, I. people, as there are many pivotal moment in my life, but one Like everybody is life. One of them when I was young, seven years old when I was. playing alone, knowing real so much pain and suffering.

In my life being and in that household with their family, and I received a message at that time, and this is so true in it, but when you're that young, you can you can What make up a messenger boy sat, but when I heard this mess that sad, you Going to be ok, you're you're, going to survive, and when I heard that the people I cared about- and I heard the people. you heard about it. My family would survive too that I would survive the people. Cared about would survive and then their part of that message was, and you have to, because you are going to go on to help many people. So I was a child, a young child. I was- happy deep,

happy in a way that I can't remember being because all ever wanted was to feel safe, and then that moment I felt we save and held by this Message from this voice that I had seen the tv shows with angels I had assumed it was an angel. I was happy about that part I didn't really. I knew was good to help people. I didn't really understand it, but I never forgot it and when things were difficult mean either in college. I remember that message which I think it's back to your the nature part Even destiny, our life pass. The test was revealed to me early and I committed to it while this is my destiny and I'm going to fulfil it yet it's me in that you just like seven years old and to this day sitting here in this compensation,

you remember it and it sounds like you remember it like it was yesterday. I really do I remember how I felt I remembered the the site. Coming through the windows, how it felt on my skin, I remembered, how the message fell, eminent and it felt like a glow there. Did you did you share with anyone back then? What mother ass, she was home the whole house, quiet, but she was home and in her rum and I darted. the stairs nausicaa, you listen to me. This is why I was told that to this day Do she remember that chicken validated g so yeah? I told her at moment, because I was so happy and I I thought she did you know we're going to survive, that's amazing! So even it in a really interesting way. At seven years old, then.

You also can have had this sensitive like out. He said the smith had, but also are you telling your mother that that's almost like day, one of you stepping into the role of being a healer yeah? I can see that and- and that is how it played out, which is which is alive. It's it's. It's not fair for a child to be in that role, but. That is how it was there, and I know once you headed out into medicine, also you're really building on this. This same thing, you know you, don't you are you very intentionally choose places to practice where they're under resourced and generally communities of color, one who's where the hospital is in its during the atlanta. Your link in south bronx in places where like this, is where needed,

I worked. Another settings- and you know, for example, those larger academic hospitals and I'll have multiple sites, but my I'm, I'm always brought back to and my heart is always most contented clinically when I'm working in predominantly black and brown communities, grant under financially resource communities. that's where I need to be clinically in my what I call my work, here? In my hearing mission. do I feel like their needs. Another communities, of course, do I feel that I want to be there in congo. station, with and community with in connection with really anyone doing this work of of justice.

Ass and those are, I feel, I feel those are under resource communities as well. No matter the collar gender or sexual orientation, and that One thing I love about writing and this literary path because opened up communities as well, but clinically clinically that's ago. Writing it brought her yet itching. Is he shared earlier that you're you're, not you you're, not a religious person, but the way you speak about justice feels like justice as your religion. Ah yeah I got, I guess it. I guess it could be I feel like, Many paths led to it many faith, lead to so I guess in that way it's an open the Jim, the one better. It in the sense that it sort of when I think about religion jagged, she does have it all sorts of different ways. I think fundamentally, most people think about it as well.

You know it's a set of beliefs, and very often the rules by which I live and- and it feels like for you justice is- is that it provides the ceta believes the frame near the context within which you decide you like, where do investor energies in your voice in and what to say and when yeah? Well, that's a little, but I go along with it

It's my religion, see. We have now decided enter a highly religious for that. That's that's fantastic yeah, and you mentioned the book, also answer the role that it plays. So we've been talking mostly about medicine and your medical practice and your choices, but also you know you- and you came up with this book and earlier in our conversation, and she called the beauty and breaking you shared that the timing. Wasn't you know like hey it's that feels right now that this is actually something you've been working on for some six years or so, where does being any er doc and then taking care of herself on a level that allows you to be okay, being a er doc? Is his full time Times to already so, where does writing drop into your surly zone of a viable existence

along with all of this, is right. I mean technically speaking, the logistics of the time to write. Well, I feel, like I, just anyone makes tie for what's important to them. So I just made time for it between shifts my feet time I mean true enough. I was writing a lot pretty much everything else apart from that, the left to bear the earth to iron out just gonna, be honest and that if we are honest and real what people do now, my condo everything just messy. So let's have it But but again it was in service of. my mission to be part of healing work. And when I felt like. In writing these stories and in an amplifying these voices. Whether or not it was this story of the man who spoke here,

where the with the police wanted me to force an exam or, A woman in the military who I met and the emerging department, brutalized in the military and was looking for healing what the story I want to amplify these voices created spain, for discussion to work for justice you know in the EU? Are I can help one person at a time maybe one family at a time- maybe one community at a time. But when I speak about miss honor, raped by her colleagues in the military and then has to and her own way to heal as the military then try to take away after committing this These crimes against her body then try and take away her livelihood by ruining her record for the crimes committed against

Her and now she has put herself back together, shore I'm there to say they are wrong to be one of the people, to not be complicit in silence and speed, Loud that they are wrong. she deserves more. You know: that's that's good! That helps her healing. Then I want to talk about it because as the people who do this to her wrong, the structure that that can down that by not do Anything about it is wrong, and so we, to address that, and because, because my really my religion is justice, I had to write this to serve that mission. So I made the time.

I do it cause. My project is supported by noon, so it's that time of the year, where a lot of folks start to think about their fitness goals, getting their bodies moving myself included. I actually recently started paying a lot more attention to how I was fueling, my body and also really came to realize that I was carrying a lot of inflammation in my body and potential disease risk in the form of weight. So I wanted an intelligent and sustainable and supportive way to increase my health, lose the weight and inflammation and just feel better and noom is just a great solution for this one that I have turned to numerous times over the years to help me accomplish wellness and when it makes sense, weight management goals as well. So noom uses science and personalization, so you cannot just intelligently manage weight for the long term, but also really learn from their psychology based approach that helps you build better habits and behaviors that are easier to maintain and the best part you decide how noon fits into your life, not the other way around, based on a sample of four thousand. Two hundred and seventy two numerous ninety eight percent say noom, helps change their habits and behaviors for good, and that is because noone actually helps you understand the science behind your choices and why you have certain cravings. So if you feel like you've been lacking the knowledge to make the changes, you want to see, try out noom, so you can start making informed choices and start to really change the way that you think about weight, loss and weight management and wellbeing. Take the first step and sign up for your trial today at noon: dot: com, that's n, o o m dot com to sign up for your trial today or just click. The link in the show notes.

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our ability to shine a light and serve at scale where'd. You can work on an individual level it and as a physician, but this, let you tell stories at scale and shine a light on injustice and also the need for change and but at the same time, It is a memoir and then all of these stories are interwoven with your personal reflection and evolution and early path towards awakening to omens much about yourself. You know if it was fascinating to meet us or how you This really really hard line to dance, which is to tell your own story and then, at the same time, to tell other people start to make a bigger societal point there and I'm wondering how you grappled with them. As you are working on it, it's interesting because I feel. I truly believe that, as you beings, we are connected.

And I truly believe that. my decision to Your myself to work on myself to evolve is good for me, it's good for me and my life path to be fulfilled, contented human being But then it also enables me to support other people, and on process of growth. And then, if we do that, if we support other people and their process, then we can uplift society and for me, that's the whole point so because I believe that so strongly. I couldn't write a different matter. For it just wasn't an option. because for me Breathing is about our interconnect the nice and I don't mean the silly

little dramas that people like to have I actually have no interest in those mean at our core in the deepest level like this, the channel, and is that we have as human beings and the opportunity therein, that's what I believe So actually the hardest part for this book, me putting more of myself and aunt I wanted to be in a go at work. Tat was the hardest. art. I mean my editor had to drive me kicking and screaming, and I love my added and I thank him and the book is wonderful. there are many times. I cursed him in my head but now he's right at me when it was like I do now. You're gonna talk more about college. And our how you're gonna talk more about your divorce, but you have you just figured out and get back to me. and that was the hard now a benefit of that that I didn't anticipate was I got to do. Do you

where work I myself when it was, I thought Had when I was writing this. I thought I had fully worked through my divorce. I was good, no hard feelings, no no issues, but when I had to edit that chapter again. I had to step away. I had to step away with burma. a candle and ride, their wishes more. There really little nook and crannies that I haven't gotten to yet so there. Is more a shilling to be done, so he was right for that reason, but Also you know I'm going to serve my mission of working on myself and being courageous enough to be vulnerable to do that, to help other people on it in a deeper way than he was I had to do the work, so I could put were myself in there.

It is more reliable, I mean so as a block has a work of art. I think it's it made for a better product because it gives me more insight into me into the. stories, which I think then can You are here all the time you so courageous to be vulnerable in that way, and here from people who are saying, and I. Is what I'm doing, I'm actually going through a really hard time. Also, and your book is help made a look at the difficulties I have in my marriage or I really don't like my career and I'm gonna take. Leap and do something else, so Samantha was right. That was the hardest part for needed to change about the book and done it was worth it yeah I mean I, I also one

if you sharing the stories and and making the pies and share the point of view that you had in the larger context of your own personal, penetrate the phrase. healing journey, but I'm not sure how else to sort of describe it? Let's fight, but in the context of that it allows your point of view and allows stories to land differently rather than relate justice, really just outright indictment. It gives them a frame of like I'm on along this journey with everyone. Now ass. You like I am there, there's injustice that I see and am also human. I make my own mistakes and I it gets screwed up in my life I screw up and I have to work through them and work were kind of all in this together. and I'm going to share some things. Had I see the cool but it must ensure that about me

I mean there's it, you share a story about a patient who comes into the yard and I may get the facts wrong where you look at the chart and you see that the patient had previously assaulted transition, any kind of like decide you know he can wait a little bit before I get to him finally get to him up. Oh uh, you know So it's like you're, not excluding yourself from your own ones, on let's look at everything and I think that's what makes it which will make mix all of it so so powerful unreliable. Thank you I I do agree and it was important for me too Speak about that, in that case, in particular Was my disgust with his previous behaviour of him assaulting sexually,

holding a physician who was trying to help him yeah, I was right to be outraged That was an outrage that emanate. I didn't know for sure. but there is no indication in the documentation that the hospital had the dress that anyway. dressed in any reasonable way for the physician or holding that patient accountable yeah I was I was. I was right to be outraged by that. To also I didn't know him. I didn't know if, if he had grown if he had change, but it it didn't matter and the moment, most importantly, because I'm there to take care of a patient who was not behaving in any assaultive or violent way that I didn't have to address that then wasn't my job and yet he waited for a couple. minutes while I got coffee, but he was set, and so we took care

him an eye. It was me he needed to go to the operating room urgently. it's. The surgeon you came on was a woman than that change of shift various studies done on him, so the next when I was all done the next session, who's gonna be the one to operate on. Him would also be a woman, and I thought that. I didn't know anything about him, but maybe If he was going, if he was going to heal and get better, may, I would have to take care of him in the best way possible so that he could survive, which I did and so with these other women, and I wondered was any of it lost on him that the people to take air of him to literally save his life were all women and so by

us doing our own work. Maybe he would be healed as well and, most importantly,. Whatever he decided or did moving forward about his Now, hearing journey. Didn't matter funding and to me, because I had to live by my code of ethics and we have to decide what our own code will be for ourselves. So so. I learned a lot from that case and I'm glad I told that story because I did want to expose how how I am in this with everyone else and not perfect. The dedicated to constant self inquiry and growth it was really powerful hearing that story, and I think, when you zoom the lens out on everything that you wrote in all the stories that usually didn't really serve this will conversation? What we're really talking about is how

simply revisiting our ability to recognise shared humanity. You know, and people who looked like lesson, people who have given the innocent people who we may perceive has as having done you're, like quote bad things, Sidney I like angelic things hum is, is certainly taking people as they common understanding, like I'm human, have my foibles, and yet, even though it may be devoted to today. Good work and everybody else's is along their own path. You know that same person yearly where'd, you you look at it That patient that you're just argument and say: well, we don't know what his childhood was.

We don't know what shaped the behaviors that led you to that action which was highly offensive and when we don't forgive it, but you know the whole think the conversation around your book this conversation, the conversation we're in now is all. How do we constantly remind ourselves to step back and see if we can see the shared humanity in every person that we meet and if I feel like your work of art, your work of advocacy work of healing was a powerful contribution to that kind of mission. Sir feels like a a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation as well. So, in the context of This contains good life project. If I offer out the phrase to live a good life, what comes up for me living a good life is at your answer to my purpose in life truthfully

as long as I am here to my life mission. Almost doesn't matter how it unfolds I feel like there is beauty and me being open to that it's gonna, sound cheesy. But it's really how it's coming out. I feel it there beauty and may being open to the magic and mystery of the details of how that unfolds Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. It was wonderful spending time with you today. My pleasure

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