Latest / Lean Out Podcast / Intuition with Orisa B. Water

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Intuition with Orisa B. Water · Lean Out Podcast

• 0:01
  =Welcome to the lean out podcast.
• 0:03
  I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:04
  Don baker.
• 0:05
  Are you looking for a new approach to finding authentic and sustainable work-life balance?
• 0:10
  You've come to the right.
• 0:11
  Place.
• 0:11
  For inspiration.
• 0:12
  information.
• 0:13
  and a community.
• 0:14
  community.
• 0:14
  of like-minded.
• 0:15
  Professionals.
• 0:16
  Let's get to the show.
• 0:24
  Hello, hello.
• 0:24
  Thanks for being here.
• 0:26
  As I'm recording this intro, it's International Women's Day, and I wanted to take this moment to say Happy International Women's Day to all the women listeners out there.
• 0:36
  I hope you're embracing all the roles and identities you want in this life with gratitude.
• 0:42
  At the same time, ignoring any outward expectations about what you should be doing with your life.
• 0:48
  The other day I was talking about podcasting with someone who wants to get into it, and one thing I noted was that podcasting is not necessarily a good money making side venture.
• 0:59
  Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely loved podcasting, and the person I was speaking with also is not necessarily by a monetary return.
• 1:07
  But the reason I bring this up is that I have purposefully stayed ad free and sponsor free to this point because I must admit that I tend to often fast forward through those when I'm listening to other people's podcasts and I find them to be somewhat distracting.
• 1:24
  But at the same time, because it is my platform, I will unapologetically announce things that I am offering, like coaching or a special or a course or joining my newsletter or something that I think you might benefit from.
• 1:38
  So today's ad of sorts is for my new Lean Out Confidence course.
• 1:44
  This course is a self paced video format with digestible lessons, which basically mean they're not too long or too wordy or too overwhelming.
• 1:54
  And there are frequent exercises for personal reflection and development.
• 1:58
  There are four modules.
• 2:00
  And they are self knowledge, mental fitness, doing hard things, which has been everyone's favorite so far, and the journey mindset.
• 2:09
  I would love for you to check this course out.
• 2:13
  I am currently running an introductory price break of 97.
• 2:17
  For the course itself, but there are some other options to obtain CME and to get a little coaching or a lot of coaching along the way.
• 2:26
  Now, the coaching options are actually quite discounted from my one on one rate.
• 2:31
  So if you have been thinking about getting some coaching, this is a good way to do it.
• 2:36
  And if you have a CME budget, you can wrap it all into one and get reimbursed for it.
• 2:42
  So go check it out at practicebalance.
• 2:44
  com slash courses.
• 2:46
  And if you have any questions about it, send me a message through my website or DM me on Instagram.
• 2:53
  My guest today is Orisa B.
• 2:55
  Water.
• 2:56
  Orisa is a physician, psychedelic medicine expert, coach, and spiritual guide.
• 3:02
  She helps high achieving women heal emotional wounds, set boundaries, and align with their highest purpose.
• 3:10
  After working as an anesthesiologist in traditional settings and doing advocacy work for psychedelic medicine, Orisa found herself in a place of values mismatch with her medical practice.
• 3:22
  She left medicine to live internationally and serve women in a remote coaching role.
• 3:27
  In this episode, we talk about Arisa's journey in and out of clinical medicine, her realization that she needed to leave an unfulfilling work environment, and what it's like to live and work outside the United States.
• 3:41
  I hope you enjoy this conversation with Arisa.
• 3:46
  OBW-Dawn: Orisa B.
• 3:47
  OBW-Dawn: Water, welcome to the Lean Out podcast.
• 3:49
  OBW-Dawn: How are you doing?
• 3:51
  OBW-Orisa: I'm great.
• 3:51
  OBW-Orisa: Thank you for having me here.
• 3:53
  OBW-Dawn: Oh, you're welcome.
• 3:54
  OBW-Dawn: I'm happy to talk with you today and I would love it if you would introduce yourself for us.
• 4:00
  OBW-Dawn: Tell us about your current work life balance and how it might be different from other people in your profession.
• 4:08
  OBW-Orisa: Okay.
• 4:09
  OBW-Orisa: So, uh, my name is Dr.
• 4:11
  OBW-Orisa: Narisa B.
• 4:12
  OBW-Orisa: Water.
• 4:12
  OBW-Orisa: I trained at, Harvard for college and in UCSF for medical school and an anesthesiology residency.
• 4:19
  OBW-Orisa: And I actually had a very interesting start at, as an anesthesiologist because I decided immediately after graduating to Work part-time as an anesthesiologist, so that I could do pretty dedicated work to psychedelic advocacy.
• 4:32
  OBW-Orisa: I had a really bad episode of depression when I was in residency, and I took time off at that time, and I experienced psychedelics, psilocybin mushrooms, and from that.
• 4:43
  OBW-Orisa: I was just, very much dedicated to the idea that we need to bring additional mental health treatments to America.
• 4:52
  OBW-Orisa: And so after graduating, instead of working full time as an anesthesiologist, and I knew that if I made that money, I was not going to ever pull back in terms of doing, you know, social justice advocacy or advocacy in this way.
• 5:04
  OBW-Orisa: And I became, uh, an advocate for psychedelics and was speaking a lot about the social justice implications of having psychedelics being decriminalized for treatment of PTSD, trauma, and also for inner life care.
• 5:16
  OBW-Orisa: And there was, uh, you know, because of health disparities and access to psychiatry, um, and really it seemed that decriminalization was a really viable option.
• 5:28
  OBW-Orisa: To bring health care, you know, mental health care to so many more Americans who cannot even get access to, you know, therapy and psychiatric care, there's such a shortage, let alone the idea of rolling out this psychedelic therapy, which is a very resource intensive type of therapy or type of intervention.
• 5:47
  OBW-Orisa: And so I work part time as an anesthesiologist in addition to, flying all over the country, doing presentations at South by Southwest, being interviewed on, you know, large podcasts like Goop, etc.
• 5:57
  OBW-Orisa: Talking about the importance of psychedelic medicines and also talking about my desire for improved health outcomes in a nation.
• 6:04
  OBW-Orisa: I had articles published in Scientific America, um, with me talking about psychedelics.
• 6:09
  OBW-Orisa: I was a part of MAPS, the organization who's been doing the research for MDMA therapy.
• 6:15
  OBW-Orisa: I trained with them and I was really all out for psychedelic medicines.
• 6:21
  OBW-Orisa: And then I had a I guess we would call it just a little bit of an alignment experience where I learned more about some of the research flaws and also about really seriously unethical behaviors within the psychedelic community.
• 6:36
  OBW-Orisa: After that happened, I I decided to leave my position of advocacy and I just went back to the or, working full time and I'm like, okay, I did that for a couple of years and now it's just time for me to start making money.
• 6:48
  OBW-Orisa: I had been doing local tenants for a while, which I really loved because I kind of have a personality that I think I need a lot of freedom.
• 6:55
  OBW-Orisa: But there was a practice, in San Francisco where I lived, where I was going to join.
• 6:59
  OBW-Orisa: I loved, I loved the group, very, very small group, like four, four men or something like that, very small group.
• 7:05
  OBW-Orisa: And I was, you know, invited to be partner and the nurses loved me and I love the work and I love the patient population.
• 7:14
  OBW-Orisa: But instead of offering me partnership as they promised, they kind of went back on their word and they offered the role to a friend of theirs.
• 7:21
  OBW-Orisa: And I felt profoundly betrayed.
• 7:24
  OBW-Orisa: Because I am a team player, you know, I was really dedicated to my patient care and also just really kind of, I think from maybe a spiritual, spiritual idealism.
• 7:35
  OBW-Orisa: I wouldn't imagine that physicians would treat each other with such a sense of disrespect, but then I resigned from that job, because they didn't offer me partnership, but they offered me the opportunity to take the overnight shifts.
• 7:51
  OBW-Orisa: And I'm like, no, I'm not, you know, going from.
• 7:55
  OBW-Dawn: exciting.
• 7:56
  OBW-Dawn: Yeah.
• 7:58
  OBW-Orisa: partnership to being the person who's going to take the shifts that are inconvenient and which I really thought was ridiculous, and so at that point, I did a lean back because I realized that I knew they weren't, I felt in my system something was off and they were kind of dragging out this offer of partnership saying, you know, there was renegotiating contracts with the hospital, et cetera, but I feel red flags.
• 8:24
  OBW-Orisa: It's like, I realized I should have known, I really should have known, or I didn't know, but I did not allow myself to know.
• 8:31
  OBW-Orisa: And I went deeper and I realized you don't have the proper map of reality because you keep experiencing these betrayal experiences.
• 8:39
  OBW-Orisa: Kind of interacting with people in good faith and not really understanding, like, that is not their intention.
• 8:45
  OBW-Orisa: And when I spoke to a colleague about this, a woman who also is an anesthesiologist, when I said, you know, I'm stepping away, she was so incredibly proud of me because she had been And as a physiologist, working in these practices or, doing locums and really being taken advantage of in terms of her scheduling because she is a mother and she didn't have the freedom that I had to say, Hey, I'm out, this feels disrespectful.
• 9:11
  OBW-Orisa: I'm better trained, you know, um, I had such a strong sense of my value and just like, it's incongruous to me for me to reconcile myself to stay in a position where I'm being treated with disrespect.
• 9:25
  OBW-Orisa: And so.
• 9:25
  OBW-Orisa: The friend of mine who has said, wow, I'm so proud of you because she had had years of being given horrible, being underpaid, being given horrible shifts and being really leveraged because she's a mother, right?
• 9:39
  OBW-Orisa: And I was kind of a recent graduate.
• 9:40
  OBW-Orisa: I hadn't gotten really used to that, you know, that great anesthesiology pay, and I wanted to go deeper in this, uh, kind of Consciousness exploration of why was I getting tripped up in terms of relational things, because I had had a history of, uh, of childhood trauma, and there were still some blind spots, even though I had gone through the experiences of psychedelic medicine, and it did help with the experience of PTSD, of complex post traumatic stress disorder.
• 10:07
  OBW-Orisa: post traumatic trauma, uh, complex developmental trauma, rather.
• 10:11
  OBW-Orisa: Um, even though it had helped with those experiences, I still, there were still some places that were stuck.
• 10:18
  OBW-Orisa: And through a few synchronicities within a month of leaving that job, I was vaccinated and on my way to Africa.
• 10:25
  OBW-Orisa: So I spent about six months in Ghana.
• 10:27
  OBW-Orisa: Then I went on to Senegal, uh, Cape Verde, uh, and then I traveled on to Thailand and Malaysia.
• 10:35
  OBW-Orisa: And eventually decided to settle in Thailand, and that's where I am now.
• 10:39
  OBW-Orisa: I'm just going to pause so you can ask some questions from that point.
• 10:44
  OBW-Orisa: Yeah.
• 10:45
  OBW-Dawn: Yeah.
• 10:45
  OBW-Dawn: Thank you.
• 10:46
  OBW-Dawn: So many questions and thank you for sharing your journey so far.
• 10:49
  OBW-Dawn: So you, uh, spent some time traveling around to far off lands and you ended up settling in Thailand.
• 10:58
  OBW-Dawn: So what are you currently doing in Thailand work wise or non work wise?
• 11:06
  OBW-Orisa: So I had already always had a gift for working with women in terms of coaching.
• 11:11
  OBW-Orisa: And I had almost had a clientele, an accident, of women who would come to me for inspiration and encouragement.
• 11:20
  OBW-Orisa: questions about how to, you know, increase their confidence and assert themselves and how to present themselves in ways where they would not, uh, get in the way of their own, the outcomes that they wanted in their lives.
• 11:33
  OBW-Orisa: And so now I work with women, coaching them, executive women, professionals, uh, physicians, lawyers, coaching them, um, so that they can find their alignment.
• 11:42
  OBW-Orisa: And working with things like imposter syndrome, um, and emotional intelligence, I think really the, the piece that I was missing as a, when I was in that job position is that I didn't know how to listen to my feelings.
• 11:55
  OBW-Orisa: And that's the emotional intelligence work of listening to your feelings and then having a conversation, you know, with those embodied feelings so that you can actually come up with a story and interpret your reality.
• 12:09
  OBW-Orisa: And, you know, I've done a lot of teaching on communication and also on, uh, emotional intelligence and really what I call embodied emotional intelligence, because there is more than feelings.
• 12:21
  OBW-Orisa: There's information coming up from your body.
• 12:23
  OBW-Orisa: And that is so essential for your walking this road as a woman.
• 12:28
  OBW-Orisa: And I think that a lot of women who have worked with me, they're coming with these feelings of insecurity and uncertainty.
• 12:37
  OBW-Orisa: And one, they may not have situational awareness, they may not be power aware.
• 12:43
  OBW-Orisa: They're really not as aware of the double talk of some of our workplaces.
• 12:49
  OBW-Orisa: You're welcome, but you're not welcome.
• 12:51
  OBW-Orisa: You know, we build off, we build office buildings, but we don't automatically build spaces for nursing or child care.
• 12:59
  OBW-Orisa: Because these places are not designed.
• 13:02
  OBW-Orisa: For women in mind, and so women have been retrofitted into these careers that were not designed to center, you know, our needs and come into these environments.
• 13:16
  OBW-Orisa: And it's like, as though we're all empaths, right?
• 13:19
  OBW-Orisa: We're not really understanding what we're feeling.
• 13:22
  OBW-Orisa: And then we internalize it and say that we have imposter syndrome or in reality, Okay.
• 13:28
  OBW-Orisa: We're feeling some degree, the welcome, but not welcome.
• 13:33
  OBW-Orisa: And so I've been working with women very effectively, helping them come into more awareness, just like I did coming to their own awakening and in standing their power and their worth.
• 13:43
  OBW-Dawn: So how have you found that clients respond to you or potential clients?
• 13:49
  OBW-Dawn: Given the fact that you are living in a different country and living this really unconventional life, is it something that they find to be helpful or inspiring, or do you get some you know, strange looks or anything like that?
• 14:06
  OBW-Orisa: Um, no'cause I've walked that path.
• 14:07
  OBW-Orisa: I mean, you know, whole professional career.
• 14:10
  OBW-Orisa: I've walked that path and so I understand their own stresses and I, and I think that, you know, this.
• 14:20
  OBW-Orisa: Knowing, my talents, but the gap in terms of actually awakening to my worth.
• 14:27
  OBW-Orisa: And I think that when I share my own story, women, you know, regardless of my geography, understand my experience and how it resonates with their own.
• 14:36
  OBW-Orisa: And likewise, I think that there's a.
• 14:39
  OBW-Orisa: I've always had a kind of a gift for intuition, and there's an intuitiveness that I have, and because of how deeply I can understand them, I think that closes the gap if there was any.
• 14:51
  OBW-Orisa: In terms of where my life is and in theirs,
• 14:55
  OBW-Dawn: Do you ever miss doing clinical anesthesiology or and or, um, psychedelic medicine now that you have made this transition to doing something completely different?
• 15:07
  OBW-Orisa: I still consider myself a physician.
• 15:09
  OBW-Orisa: I am a physician because I'm always thinking about public wellness and public well being.
• 15:15
  OBW-Orisa: I miss, uh, patient care.
• 15:18
  OBW-Orisa: But the interesting thing about being an anesthesiologist is the challenges of that role for me.
• 15:24
  OBW-Orisa: I wasn't able to do anything else, like meaning I could go to work and I could, you know, show up at work and be great, but it took so much kind of like cognitive or mental space that I wasn't able to be expressed any of the other aspects of myself.
• 15:39
  OBW-Orisa: For example, I love to read.
• 15:41
  OBW-Orisa: I love to write.
• 15:42
  OBW-Orisa: Like last week, I finished like three books by Toni Morrison, and I couldn't even read literature or poetry while I was, operating as an anesthesiologist because that part of my brain was like, I didn't, I was not in the frequency to slow my mind down enough to read poetry or to read prose.
• 16:00
  OBW-Orisa: I really like, I can read non, I can read nonfiction, but that artistic just flow of just being with prose.
• 16:09
  OBW-Orisa: I couldn't slow myself down enough because I was just in this rev place of, you know.
• 16:15
  OBW-Orisa: Taking call and, you know, doing patient care and, you know, all of these things.
• 16:19
  OBW-Orisa: And so, although I do miss direct patient care, I don't necessarily miss being an anesthesiologist because the parts of myself that that role pushed out and I really do feel the work that I do with clients is still care work and the work.
• 16:43
  OBW-Orisa: The reason, one of the ways in which I, I kind of had to surrender to this gift is because I was on my palliative care rotation and I, there were times where the team meeting or the family meetings have been blocked for like a week, you know, these really difficult family meetings.
• 17:03
  OBW-Orisa: And I saw over and over again, I could come in and I could see something that the team who have been having conversations with them for, you know, several weeks, couldn't see.
• 17:12
  OBW-Orisa: For example.
• 17:13
  OBW-Orisa: There was a Chinese family whose, uh, father was on, you know, life support, was brain dead and the Chinese family and the surgical team was just like, you know, how can we communicate to them that we've done all we can.
• 17:26
  OBW-Orisa: We've given him all, you know, he's in the ICU, whatever, like we've done all we can, you know, they're not hearing us.
• 17:33
  OBW-Orisa: And in that one meeting I had with them, and I speak Mandarin, so they were saying things like, you know, look, we're, we're massaging his, his feet, you know, and the family was doing so much care for the patient and no one on the team.
• 17:49
  OBW-Orisa: Was acknowledging how much the family was good caring.
• 17:53
  OBW-Orisa: And when I acknowledge, like, I see how much you care, I see how you are caring for your father, and it was the kids and the wife and they needed to be seen in their care.
• 18:07
  OBW-Orisa: And once they could be seen in their care.
• 18:10
  OBW-Orisa: The conversation could shift because the surgical team was only talking about, Hey, we've done all we can, right?
• 18:16
  OBW-Orisa: But they need to be seen in their love and their care.
• 18:19
  OBW-Orisa: And I had another meeting also that was like, it was just going to be a difficult meeting.
• 18:26
  OBW-Orisa: And in that meeting up through my intuition and do my ability to really identify with the patient.
• 18:33
  OBW-Orisa: I was able to help that conversation become what I needed to be, really acknowledging who that patient was.
• 18:43
  OBW-Orisa: And again, this is my first time meeting this patient.
• 18:46
  OBW-Orisa: And as I walked out of that meeting, the attending said, like, grabbed my hand and said, You don't need to be with asleep patients.
• 18:54
  OBW-Orisa: You need to be with awake patients, talking to people.
• 18:58
  OBW-Dawn: Yeah.
• 19:00
  OBW-Orisa: And I kept getting that message that I was fighting it.
• 19:02
  OBW-Orisa: I just, I, in all honesty, I didn't want to be a counselor or a therapist.
• 19:08
  OBW-Orisa: I kind of wanted to avoid this emotional world because my mother had suffered from so much depression.
• 19:15
  OBW-Orisa: And I didn't really, I wanted to kind of just be able to be in my own world.
• 19:20
  OBW-Orisa: But people kept seeking out this quality of compassion, of intuition.
• 19:27
  OBW-Orisa: Of encouragement and of love and operating from those skill sets.
• 19:36
  OBW-Orisa: I think going back to your, question about the, the geographical gap or what I'm doing professionally now, I think being seen and understood and actually having the ability to really kind of pinpoint some things in the woman's professional environment that she may not be seen as affecting her.
• 19:55
  OBW-Orisa: I think those things help me be very effective.
• 19:58
  OBW-Dawn: Yeah, definitely.
• 20:02
  OBW-Dawn: How has it been to Move to a different country where you don't know anyone and you don't have I know personally how difficult it is to be an entrepreneur in the coaching space and to, you know, find the clients and how have you navigated that uncertainty?
• 20:23
  OBW-Orisa: Well, it has been when I was when I was making the transition.
• 20:27
  OBW-Orisa: I think it was an identity transition.
• 20:30
  OBW-Orisa: That was really hard I didn't want to be a coach.
• 20:35
  OBW-Orisa: I thought that word wasn't something that was appealing to me in the sense of I didn't go through.
• 20:45
  OBW-Orisa: I didn't go through all these years of training to become a coach.
• 20:48
  OBW-Orisa: You know, it just it was an identity transition.
• 20:50
  OBW-Orisa: It was an identity shift that I had to make and also a little bit of surrender, meaning I have these gifts or talents and they're not best used by, working with an anesthetized patient.
• 21:05
  OBW-Orisa: Like, they really aren't.
• 21:08
  OBW-Orisa: So, um, kind of a little bit surrendering to this, this calling in, leaning in and really leaning in when I had to do one of the ways in which I was first seeking out calling clients was actually cold calling and really hard to do, to find leads, via LinkedIn and to lean in, but I know there's so many women out there who, given the right support, won't experience burnout You know, given the right support, we'll be able to, you know, be courageous and event take those steps to advance in their career or ask for that raise and know that they're worthy of it.
• 21:50
  OBW-Orisa: I really think that.
• 21:52
  OBW-Orisa: Women are so under resourced, you know, and we're still thinking it's a personal problem, but really, we are so profoundly under resourced and to give women more emotion skills with emotional intelligence, communication, really learning to listen, to what their embodiment, what their body is telling them, improving skills in terms of situational awareness, I think that gives women a lot of leverage and communication.
• 22:20
  OBW-Orisa: Just self respect for the challenges that we're facing in our workplaces and being parents, you know, I don't have kids, but I have a lot of respect for women who are, really doing an amazing job, you know, still we're, we're doing more work in the, in the home than even when women have partners.
• 22:40
  OBW-Orisa: And so, you know, We're doing an amazing job, but we're not getting the credit and the support invisibly that we really deserve.
• 22:49
  OBW-Dawn: Yeah, I think it's interesting when you talk about resources, too, and women don't have resources.
• 22:54
  OBW-Dawn: But to me, it, uh, the way that I look at it is that there are internal resources that you have to be able to awaken and cultivate, and a lot of women just don't know how to do that.
• 23:06
  OBW-Orisa: Exactly.
• 23:06
  OBW-Orisa: When I say under resourced, I mean emotionally,
• 23:10
  OBW-Dawn: Mm hmm.
• 23:11
  OBW-Orisa: community.
• 23:12
  OBW-Dawn: Yeah.
• 23:14
  OBW-Orisa: God, how many of us are individualized and operating from this, like, this is a me problem versus The woman right next to me, the woman right next to me, and how many of us are operating outside of community?
• 23:27
  OBW-Orisa: Like, really?
• 23:28
  OBW-Orisa: And building that community is such an essential part, you know?
• 23:34
  OBW-Dawn: Yeah.
• 23:34
  OBW-Dawn: Absolutely.
• 23:36
  OBW-Dawn: Well, is there anything that you now know that you wish you knew when you were a young woman pursuing medicine or maybe even that woman that was trying to fit into a practice group that did not really align with your personal values?
• 23:56
  OBW-Orisa: I think part of coming into a practice as a very small group like Foreman, is, it's not just being a clinical fit, a culture fit, right?
• 24:07
  OBW-Orisa: And I remember they were kind of making fun of one of the surgeons and saying, oh, how slow this surgeon is and how, how it would take her just so long to come to a case.
• 24:20
  OBW-Orisa: If there was an emergency surgery or overnight surgery, you know, we would just be waiting for her for such a long time to start the case.
• 24:27
  OBW-Orisa: And they were just like, you know, razzing her and going back and forth on the chat group.
• 24:31
  OBW-Orisa: And I had nothing to say because this woman was a 70 year old surgeon in her seventies and being a surgeon.
• 24:35
  OBW-Orisa: And I just was like, I just have all respect for her, meaning I didn't even care.
• 24:40
  OBW-Orisa: It did not matter to me.
• 24:42
  OBW-Orisa: As she came late, I just had such respect for an elder woman in medicine, meaning I know what it means for you to have gone through surgery, become a surgeon, you know, for your generation.
• 24:54
  OBW-Orisa: I don't have anything but respect for you.
• 24:56
  OBW-Orisa: I can't really join in, in this like kind of little criticizing of you.
• 25:00
  OBW-Orisa: And I think that was a moment where in retrospect, I'm like, you don't see the world.
• 25:08
  OBW-Orisa: The way this, this group of men do and my kind of allegiance with this woman who, I mean, seriously, like the challenges that, you know, my generation has going to clinical medicine, man, she was in her seventies and she was still a great surgeon.
• 25:27
  OBW-Orisa: I have nothing but esteem and that quality, whatever that is in me, that set me apart, you know, like meaning like.
• 25:37
  OBW-Orisa: You really have to fit in, in all the ways.
• 25:42
  OBW-Orisa: And I think that was just one moment where I'm like, Yeah, my values don't align.
• 25:47
  OBW-Orisa: And there was a department in that hospital that really needed a lot of improvement in their pain, management.
• 25:55
  OBW-Orisa: And it was grievous, a bit grievous to me.
• 25:57
  OBW-Orisa: But I'm kind of like right out of residency, like, you know, a few years out of residency, so I have like, you know, eager beaver energy.
• 26:04
  OBW-Orisa: And they are kind of like, Let's Let's move toward retirement, like, let's just chill.
• 26:09
  OBW-Orisa: This is a chill practice.
• 26:10
  OBW-Orisa: It's, you know, the surgical caseload is nice.
• 26:13
  OBW-Orisa: There's not really, you know, huge complicated surgeries and my desire to lean into, hey, how can we elevate the level of care here?
• 26:22
  OBW-Orisa: Also set me a little bit, out of alignment with that group.
• 26:25
  OBW-Orisa: And I, I think, you know, thinking about myself in medical training and also thinking to myself kind of in that group.
• 26:33
  OBW-Orisa: I think it's about understanding that.
• 26:37
  OBW-Orisa: I really needed to learn to use this gift for compassion or intuition or an align with that, right?
• 26:46
  OBW-Orisa: To align with my greater strengths or whatever, to make sure that I was finding a path, maybe a practice.
• 26:54
  OBW-Orisa: That really centered the values that I have.
• 26:57
  OBW-Orisa: When I, I didn't, when I wanted to, you know, This path of clinical medicine, I didn't know how much it would kind of beat to wear down my ability to have the presence to do writing or to even read fiction for pleasure.
• 27:15
  OBW-Orisa: And so really deeper listening and deeper self appreciation for those things that just make me, me.
• 27:22
  OBW-Orisa: I think I wish that was, I think in reflection, I think that's something I wish I had or wish I could have seen.
• 27:27
  OBW-Orisa: God
• 27:29
  OBW-Dawn: a really good point because when your values are not in alignment, with those of whatever organization you're working with, that is when the slow decay occurs to the point where you end up getting burned out.
• 27:44
  OBW-Dawn: I've seen it time and time again, and what you're describing is like the starting of feeling burnout, which is that I have these things that I want to be doing that give me joy in my free time when I'm not at work, and I don't have the energy to do them when I'm not at work.
• 28:01
  OBW-Dawn: It's like you're missing out on some things that you really want to be doing, such as reading was one of your examples.
• 28:07
  OBW-Dawn: And you are feeling like, I cannot slow down in order to have the brain space to do that.
• 28:12
  OBW-Dawn: And so I think that's a really important Lesson that we can bring to other people is to notice when those kind of things are happening and make some adjustments or changes or maybe make a transition to a different culture.
• 28:29
  OBW-Orisa: Yeah.
• 28:29
  OBW-Orisa: And that's why the work of emotional intelligence is so important.
• 28:32
  OBW-Orisa: One of my teachings is that, you know, you have the, one of the most fundamental forms of self respect is to respect your feelings.
• 28:42
  OBW-Orisa: Right.
• 28:43
  OBW-Orisa: To know what you feel actually allows you to know what you think.
• 28:49
  OBW-Orisa: And if you're not respecting your feelings, that's a very primary level of invalidation, so you can't actually get too much further or higher levels of cognitive clarity.
• 29:01
  OBW-Orisa: If your emotions haven't been acknowledged and validated so you can go from the emotional level awareness to the actually the executive function and cognitive level of awareness, right?
• 29:10
  OBW-Orisa: A lot of this practice is about returning to centering and prioritizing pleasure and to validate or honor myself would have been to really know my pleasure.
• 29:24
  OBW-Orisa: And never being willing to violate those things that, or give up or surrender those things that are essential to my life bliss, you know, I had a friend who she was moving to start her pediatric anesthesiology residency and she was packing up the car and her partner had some things in the car, like he had this, like, you know, he had, gone to Russian River and they had gotten us some, you know, homemade brew or beer.
• 29:53
  OBW-Orisa: And as the car was fully packed, she said, I can't fit in everything.
• 29:56
  OBW-Orisa: So she pulled out her yoga mat.
• 29:59
  OBW-Orisa: And she was gonna throw that out and she put in her, she put in her partner's like, you know, beer or whatever, however much space that was taking up.
• 30:07
  OBW-Orisa: I stayed her hand and I was like, you can't, you can't not take this.
• 30:12
  OBW-Orisa: You can't not pack this.
• 30:13
  OBW-Orisa: You know, she had had some episodes of depression.
• 30:16
  OBW-Orisa: So I'm like, I knew how much yoga was important to her, but she was willing to jettison.
• 30:21
  OBW-Orisa: This part, that was a part of her well being, that was a part of her joy.
• 30:26
  OBW-Orisa: And I think that a lot of physicians have done that, uh, women physicians have done that in our training, in our assimilation.
• 30:35
  OBW-Orisa: I mean, man, I, I was upset at having to even give up wearing nail polish.
• 30:40
  OBW-Orisa: I mean, it's a small thing.
• 30:42
  OBW-Orisa: Small things, these things that we, we leave behind and being able to take care of patients is totally worth giving up nail polish, but I think the reading that was just a signal that I should have been aware of that.
• 30:56
  OBW-Orisa: Oh, I can't even read at the stress level or at this level of functioning.
• 31:01
  OBW-Orisa: My brain frequency just wasn't the same frequency.
• 31:04
  OBW-Orisa: Um, that poetry happens that, you know,
• 31:08
  OBW-Dawn: Yeah, right.
• 31:09
  OBW-Dawn: I love that answer.
• 31:11
  OBW-Dawn: And I think that it's wonderful that you.
• 31:15
  OBW-Dawn: We're able to figure out, based on something that you really cared about a lot, it was an example of, you know, your life slipping into a direction that you don't want to go.
• 31:29
  OBW-Dawn: Arisa, I'm wondering if there's any other advice that you would like to give women physicians or other professionals who are listening now, or really any professional, because we do have some men that listen to the podcast, and I'm grateful that they're here, so thank you Um, that anybody that's feeling burned out, overwhelmed, or feeling like they are stuck in that achievement treadmill that you found yourself on early in your career and have been able to break free from.
• 32:02
  OBW-Orisa: For women and men who are still full time physicians, I would say there's ways to find alignment and pleasure in your career, but you have to listen in and kind of figure out what got lost.
• 32:18
  OBW-Orisa: Or how can you increase the parts of your practice that really still align with who you are and or bring back those aspects of your life that seems small and you didn't even notice you gave it up for me, it's arts, I don't know for someone else, it could be a running habit.
• 32:39
  OBW-Orisa: But for me, it's artistic expression.
• 32:41
  OBW-Orisa: And we, when we can bring those parts that are precious and not urgent, they're totally not urgent.
• 32:47
  OBW-Orisa: That's why we let them fall apart.
• 32:49
  OBW-Orisa: Um, then we can help support ourselves.
• 32:51
  OBW-Orisa: I just think that it's all about being resourced.
• 32:54
  OBW-Orisa: Some resources are External, you know, but most of the resources that we need to be persistent in our career are internal.
• 33:03
  OBW-Orisa: And that means, you know, give me yourself the energetic and spiritual and emotional supports, artistic supports or community supports that can help you thrive in your career.
• 33:14
  OBW-Dawn: Absolutely.
• 33:15
  OBW-Dawn: Thank you Orisa so much for coming on the podcast and tell everyone where they can find you if they want to connect with you or learn more about the work that you do.
• 33:25
  OBW-Orisa: Wonderful.
• 33:26
  OBW-Orisa: They can find me at Orisa B Water, and they can also look forward to my upcoming book called Own Your Story, and you can find out more information at Orisa B Water dot com.
• 33:36
  OBW-Orisa: That's my website, Orisa B Water dot com.
• 33:39
  OBW-Dawn: Ooh, awesome.
• 33:40
  OBW-Dawn: When does your book come out?
• 33:42
  OBW-Orisa: It is coming out in about two months.
• 33:45
  OBW-Dawn: Okay, excellent.
• 33:46
  OBW-Dawn: So spring of 2025, we should expect to see that.
• 33:49
  OBW-Dawn: I'm excited to read that.
• 33:51
  OBW-Orisa: Yes.
• 33:52
  OBW-Orisa: I'm looking forward to it.
• 33:53
  OBW-Orisa: I'm looking forward to coming out.
• 33:55
  OBW-Dawn: Well, thank you so much for being on the show.
• 33:57
  OBW-Dawn: I appreciate your wisdom and hearing your story today.
• 34:02
  OBW-Orisa: Thank you so much for having me.
• 34:03
  OBW-Orisa: I really do appreciate it.
• 34:05
  Arisa is leading a unique life in an exotic location that reminds me of another podcast episode I did with Christine Goines, who calls herself the Nomad MD.
• 34:16
  I'll link that one in the show notes in case you missed it.
• 34:19
  Here are my takeaways from today's conversation.
• 34:23
  Number one, you have resources all around you.
• 34:27
  It's easy to get into a trap of thinking you're stuck because you have no options, or any external help, mentors, or people at work that you can turn to.
• 34:36
  But you do have internal resources, as Arisa called them.
• 34:40
  You can exercise mindfulness, self awareness, emotional intelligence, innate skills or talents.
• 34:47
  And you also have access to communities of like minded people.
• 34:50
  With the internet and the podcasting world, there are so many of these here for you, including this one.
• 34:57
  Number two.
• 34:59
  Navigating uncertainty is one thing we often discuss on this podcast, but navigating uncertainty of identity is a whole other beast.
• 35:07
  Identity changes take time, and there's often a mourning period involved.
• 35:12
  But one thing to remember is what Arisa said in our conversation.
• 35:15
  She said your values inform your value, not your titles, your possessions, or other outward forms of identity.
• 35:23
  Remember that you have inherent value as a person with your own unique gifts and skills.
• 35:29
  If you haven't heard the episode where I read chapter six of lean out, I highly recommend going back to that one and listening.
• 35:36
  And I will also link that in the show notes.
• 35:38
  It's called human being versus human doing.
• 35:43
  Number three, listen to your intuition.
• 35:46
  Do you fit in with the culture and values of your current workplace?
• 35:51
  If there is a big mismatch, this might create a problem.
• 35:54
  To find symptoms of a budding problem, think about what your gifts and passions are.
• 35:59
  Are you using those gifts and are you still able to exercise those passions?
• 36:04
  If not, it might be time for a change.
• 36:06
  Either a change in the schedule or a bigger change of job or location.
• 36:13
  My parting question for you today is, is there an aspect of yourself that needs expressing but you feel you can't express it at your workplace?
• 36:22
  And if so, how could you change your situation to allow for its expression?
• 36:28
  Thanks for listening to the lean out podcast.
• 36:31
  If you find these conversations inspiring and useful, please forward them to a friend and also leave a review on iTunes or Spotify so that other people can find them easier.
• 36:43
  If you want to get in touch with me, you can find me at my website, practice balanced.com, where you can subscribe to my newsletter and get updates regularly about new podcast episodes, blog posts, speaking, engagements, and coaching services.
• 37:00
  You can also support my work by buying my book, lean out a professional woman's guide to finding authentic work-life balance for yourself, a friend, family member, or coworker.
• 37:12
  Have a great day and we'll see you next time