366. Coaching, Training Trauma, and Becoming with Dr. Smith

Summary

Podcast Summary: You Are Not Broken

Host: Dr. Kelly Casperson, MD
Episode 366: Coaching, Training Trauma, and Becoming with Dr. Smith
Guest: Dr. Sunny Smith
Date: April 12, 2026

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Episode Overview

This compelling episode explores the transformative power of coaching, the trauma of medical training, gender bias in healthcare, and the journey to agency and self-advocacy. Dr. Kelly Casperson and Dr. Sunny Smith share personal stories of overcoming adversity, discuss systemic issues in medicine (especially for women), and highlight how mindset tools can break the cycle of self-doubt and injustice. The tone is candid, empowering, and rich with actionable insights.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power of Coaching and Commitment

[01:18-05:55]

• Dr. Casperson recounts her first coaching session with Dr. Smith, noting how it sparked her journey from “dabbling” to full commitment in sexual medicine and podcasting.
• Sunny Smith challenges the notion of “dabbling”:
  • “Are you dabbling, or are you really committed to making a difference in this?” (02:35, Smith)
  • The contrast between ‘dabbling’ and ‘committing’ for women, and the cultural pressure to stay small.
• Owning your space as a woman:
  • “Look at what happens when one woman physician decides to own her space and own her expertise.” (04:54, Smith)

2. Agency, Hard Work, and Permission

[05:16-08:09]

• Debunking the myth of overnight success:
  • “There was no agent or stylist... This is hard work. Nobody else gave me my success. This was all me.” (05:16, Casperson)
  • “It’s not agent and agent, it’s agency.” (05:59, Smith)
• On waiting for external permission:
  • Casperson describes waiting for an outside authority before starting her podcast:
    • “The only permission you need is your own.” (06:42-06:43, Casperson/Smith)
  • Smith suggests writing yourself a ‘permission slip’ for anything you need or want (06:51, Smith).

3. Gender Disparities & Medical Gaslighting

[08:09-35:20]

• Highlighting entrenched gender disparities:
  • Questions about why men’s health is prioritized and women’s health lags behind (e.g., access to Viagra vs. vaginal estrogen) (08:09, Casperson).
  • Dr. Smith’s two harrowing personal medical stories reveal biases and dangerous systemic practices.

a. Medical Training Trauma

[09:15-18:32]

• As a young intern, Dr. Smith suffered multiple seizures and a week in a coma due to extreme overwork and sleep deprivation.
• Colleagues’ lack of empathy revealed the toxic medical culture:
  • “Everyone was actually kind of mad at me for being intubated in the ICU because they had to work harder and cover my shifts...” (13:22, Smith)
• Only in hindsight did Smith recognize the need to prioritize life over career obligations.

b. Healthcare Bias & Sepsis Story

[18:39-35:20]

• Years later, Dr. Smith experiences profound gender bias after collapsing with sepsis:
  • Paramedics and ER staff dismissed her critical symptoms as “anxiety” and repeatedly placed her in harm’s way.
  • Despite her expertise and advocacy, she was criminalized and neglected:
    • “I am a woman. Imagine my vitals if I was a man. If you have a pulse of 150 and you roll into the emergency department as a man, what are the chances they’re going to call you anxiety?” (29:12, Smith)
  • Eventually, only after laboratory proof did the ER acknowledge her seriousness.
  • The entire episode illustrates the embedded nature of gender bias and ‘anchor bias’—once labeled, future providers defaulted to the same misdiagnosis.

4. Medical Culture, Menopause, and Misogyny

[33:27-36:46]

• Even among OB GYNs, menopause and women’s health complaints are sometimes dismissed as “hysteria” or patient “neediness.”
• Language matters: Labels like “needy” perpetuate bias; “Would you label someone with a broken leg as needy?” (34:55, Smith)
• Coaching and the power of self-talk:
  • “The power of what we say is so profound, and we’re so oblivious to it.” (35:01, Casperson)

5. Coaching Tools: Thoughts, Feelings, and Agency

[38:09-51:44]

• Coaching 101 explained:
  • Thoughts create feelings; feelings drive actions and results (38:16, Casperson/Smith).
• The importance of examining and challenging limiting beliefs:
  • “Most of the limiting beliefs that we have...are inserted from someone else. We get so much from our upbringing…from what the patriarchy thinks of us.” (44:17, Smith)
• Distinction between thoughts (questionable) and feelings (always valid):
  • “Feelings are real. If you feel scared, you’re scared...your reasoning might be erroneous, but the feeling is real.” (44:17, Smith)
• Reframing stuck thoughts:
  • “If you’re thinking ‘I’m doing everything I can’…that is a paralyzing thought.” (45:31, Smith)
  • Practical demonstration on how to shift from paralyzing thoughts to thoughts that create agency.

6. Embracing Uncertainty, Humility, and Continuing Discovery

[51:01-51:44]

• The beauty of humility and questioning yourself:
  • “There’s a little bit of ego work there...try the opposite of that. See how it goes.” (51:01, Casperson)
  • Reference to Byron Katie’s “The Work”: “Is it true?” as a tool for challenging painful thoughts.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Commitment:

  • “Are you dabbling, or are you really committed...?” (02:35, Smith)

• On Agency:

  • “It’s not agent and agent, it’s agency. It’s your own internal agency.” (05:59, Smith)

• On Medical Culture:

  • “Everyone was actually kind of mad at me for being intubated in the ICU because they had to work harder and cover my shifts.” (13:22, Smith)

• On Gender Bias:

  • “I am a woman. Imagine my vitals if I was a man...what are the chances they’re going to call you anxiety?” (29:12, Smith)

• On Systemic Dismissal:

  • “So just...you’re not crazy if people don’t listen.” (31:31, Smith)

• On Mindset:

  • “Be careful what you think and what you say is the default because you’re going to keep proving it true.” (43:11, Smith)

• On Humility:

  • “I think there’s something so beautiful...about realizing you could be wrong…” (51:01, Casperson)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:18-05:55] – Coaching and the transition from “dabbling” to commitment
• [05:16-08:09] – Agency, success myths, and self-permission
• [08:09-18:32] – Trauma and gender bias in medical training; Dr. Smith’s seizure and system failure
• [18:39-35:20] – Sepsis story and the lived experience of gender/anchor bias in healthcare
• [35:01-36:42] – Language, labeling, and the impact on medical treatment
• [38:09-51:44] – Coaching basics: thoughts, feelings, actions; how to reframe limiting beliefs
• [51:01-51:44] – Humility and the value in questioning your own thoughts

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About Empowering Women Physicians

[49:12-50:46]

• Dr. Smith’s coaching company offers 1:1 and group coaching for women physicians, addressing any personal/professional issue. She also hosts the Empowering Women Physicians podcast.

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in resilience, medical and gender advocacy, and the transformative effects of coaching. Through wit, candor, and compassion, Dr. Casperson and Dr. Smith illuminate the challenges women face in all aspects of healthcare and offer a toolkit for reclaiming voice, agency, and well-being.

“Everything in my life right now is because of coaching.”
(50:27, Dr. Casperson)

You Are Not Broken—and it’s time for everyone, especially women, to believe and embody that truth.

Transcript

[Narrator]

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[Dr. Kelly Casperson]

Welcome to youo Are Not Broken, the podcast that challenges everything we've been taught about midlife, hormones and sexuality. I'm Dr. Kelly Casperson, board certified urologist, author, and a leading voice in women's sexual and hormone health. Enjoy the show, everybody.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Welcome back to the youe Are Not Broken podcast. I have the immense pleasure of having Dr. Sunny Smith on my podcast today because I've known Sunny since before the podcast. Bp. BP before podcast, bp. So, like, long, long story, very short. Sunny was probably my first time I was ever coached. I was on the weekend, I was headed to my office to go to the hospital to do rounds. But I knew this coaching hour with Sunny was, like, happening. And so I thought I would just log on and like, see what happens and basically look at me now. So let's start with that. Let's start with that story and like, how you remember it, Sunny, and when. And welcome to the podcast.

[Sunny Smith]

Yes, yes, yes. And look at me now. Well, I mean, I remember it very

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

similarly to how you do. And you came on and you know, like the leader and winner that you

[Sunny Smith]

are, you raised your hand right away.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

So you were the first person that

[Sunny Smith]

I got to coach. I don't have time to wait around.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

I got to go around.

[Sunny Smith]

Like, let's get this done. I know. So you came on and you told

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

me, okay, so I'm a urologist and

[Sunny Smith]

I have this idea.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

I want to talk about sexual medicine. I want to have a podcast. You know, I'm kind of like dabbling in this.

[Sunny Smith]

And I was like, hold up, hold up our language.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Because coaches tell you your thoughts matter, your narrative and your perspective, it really, really matters. And I said, are you dabbling, or are you really committed to making a difference in this? And you said, oh, I'm committed. I'm doing this.

[Sunny Smith]

And I said, okay, because it's a

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

decision to be made whether you're dabbling or not.

[Sunny Smith]

And then we spent the rest of

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

the coaching session talking about whether you were dabbling and what a dabbler would be doing and what someone who was really committed to this would be doing. And that contrast for you was so stark that you were just like, I'm decided. I am not a dabbler. I am doing this, and if I'm

[Sunny Smith]

going to not dabble. I said, okay, so what would someone who's not dabbling do? You're like, I would go make an llc, but now I have to come

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

up with a name for it.

[Sunny Smith]

And then you're like, well, should it be this or that or this?

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

And I was like, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you decide. And you're like, I've decided.

[Sunny Smith]

This is a real thing.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Now I have to go tell my

[Sunny Smith]

husband, like, I'm making a company. I was like, yes, you are. You're making a company. And so now every time that you achieve something amazing and impactful in the

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

world, you kind of tag me or reply to me.

[Sunny Smith]

Not dabbling or just over here dabbling. Like, over here dabbling with Oprah, over here dabbling with the fda, over here dabbling. And it's like, that is the difference between committing to something and really being

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

dedicated to going all in and taking it seriously. And I think a lot of women in particular are taught to sort of downplay and be humble and sort of, oh, I'm just dabbling in this.

[Sunny Smith]

It's like, no, I'm taking over the world.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

If you're dabbling, the critics won't hurt you as much because you're not out there announcing, right? Like, there's actually, I think, a lot of protection in being a dabbler to. You have to become the person who doesn't. Isn't dabbling, right?

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Because you're just minimizing. You're minimizing your accomplishments. You're minimizing your possibilities. And if you introduce yourself, hey, I'm Kelly Casperson, and I kind of dabble in podcasting and sex medicine.

[Sunny Smith]

And they're like, okay. As opposed to. You're like, hey, I'm Kelly Casperson, and here's my. Like, the level of achievements that I

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

have done in this world. It's just the way you present yourself to everybody and to yourself and even to your family. The first person you said you had to tell was your husband, that you were no longer dabbling. And then you go forth as if you're owning your space. And I think that's really beautiful for all women, including you.

[Sunny Smith]

Everybody listening.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Look at what happens when one woman physician decides to own her space and own her expertise. We all have expertise that we downplay and we're told not to brag. Right. And not to be too big for our britches. But here you go. Every one of us. Every one of us has expertise in our lives and in the world and speak your voice and take up space just as you did. It's an epic, epic story.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Yeah. It's such a good story. And, like, there's so much ownership that comes. Somebody asked. I was somewhere on the Internet and somebody was like, how did Kelly Casperson get so elevated? Agent stylist, wanting to have some sort of outside circumstance as the reason for my success? And I was like, fuck off. I was like, there was no agent or anybody that got. I'm like, this is hard work. Like, this is hard work. And that's the other thing, too. If, like, if you look at somebody's success, don't ever downplay it for one second, that it was an incredible hard work where, like, nobody was watching for a very long time. Nobody else gave me my success. Like, this was all me.

[Sunny Smith]

Yes.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

It's not agent and agent, it's agency. It's your own internal agency. You chose that agency that you were going to go out and make a difference. As you said, when no one was listening and no one was watching, and you said, this is important. People need to hear this. I need to speak. And why not me, right? Why not? You own the space.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

The other thing for me was I was waiting for permission because I was like, this guy that I. That my brain had picked was gonna call me on the phone and tell me I knew enough and why don't I start a podcast? Like, that was my brain's plan for, like, when I knew enough to do this, right? And I got outta the shower one day and, like, lightning struck and was like, the only permission you need is your own.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Absolutely.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

And I was like, that's it?

[Sunny Smith]

Yes. Yes. If women could, everybody listening, think, give

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

yourself a permission slip. What is that thing that you needed? Like a letter from the principal when

[Sunny Smith]

you were little, you know A permission

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

slip to go do something, write it for yourself. What is it? Saturdays off a babysitter.

[Sunny Smith]

Right.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Time to yourself.

[Sunny Smith]

Like, those are little things. But it's also speak your voice.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

It's what are the. To not let your mother in law bother you, to go for the promotion to what are the things that we need to buy the fancy thing? What is it that we're waiting for someone else to give us permission? And the truth is we are the only ones who can ever give ourselves permission. Because even if someone else does give you permission, you can still hold yourself back. Right.

[Sunny Smith]

Like, if that dude had said, hey, why don't you go make a podcast?

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

You're like, well, I don't know. It really comes from giving ourselves. What do we want to give ourselves permission for? The big things, the little things. To let ourselves off the hook. To say no to things, to say yes to big things and just begin again. And the compound effect of doing that over time is basically the results that you're seeing. The compound effect of doing that over time is unimaginable.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Yeah. So for anybody who's like, they're just lucky. No, that is the story society wants you to believe for, like hard work of like. No, you work very hard.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Yeah.

[Sunny Smith]

Isn't it like luck favors the prepared

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

or something like that?

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Luck finds people who are working. There's something like that. It's like, yeah, good fortune finds the person who's already putting in the time. You have two, I mean, you probably have seven, God bless us all, two pretty powerful health stories. And I want to share them with people because. For multiple reasons. But I think there's something that's happening in 2026, started in 2025. Women and people are realizing the gender disparities in health care. And it's something that I think female physicians have been talking about for a while, but the general population, I see it a lot on my Instagram now. How come we have six different types of Viagra? How come we have over a dozen different types of testosterone? How come we had an incorrect box warning on vaginal estrogen for 25 years? Right. Like the gender disparities in healthcare. And I think that the normalization of that and people really wanting to feel validated by hearing these stories. So I wanted to. If you would like to start with your story about you in residency training and what happened the documentary and fill me in because I don't know this whole story.

[Sunny Smith]

Yes.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

So I was an intern in family medicine at Santa Monica, ucla before there was work hour restrictions so that meant that they could work you as much as they wanted. And so we would take 36 hours. I'm sure I don't know when you train, but if you did train when I did, then you. Everybody took 36 hours of call, work

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

hour restrictions, came in halfway through residency for me.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Yes, yes, beautiful. So exactly. I came In a healthy 20 something year old, you know, no problems at all in the world. Start taking call. Started on those hard call months that I had, like obstetrics or we did pediatrics at a very busy place where there wasn't anyone to like push people to the MRIs or draw the neonatal blood in the middle of the night

[Sunny Smith]

or any of these things. Like all these things that now they're support people for. We were those people.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

And so during those times I would get these focal neurologic symptoms which were bizarre and very real. So I would take call, be up, start feeling a little bit off, and then suddenly, like one time I was in obstetrics at Cedar Sinai taking out someone's staples from their C section. And all of a sudden I was like. And the patient was trying to talk to me and I was like, I couldn't talk. I had aphasia, which for those who don't know the word aphasia, it means you can't speak. But I knew what I wanted to say and I knew what was going on, but I couldn't speak at all. Like, it just made no sense to me. And so the patient got out of the bed, she gave her husband a

[Sunny Smith]

little baby, she put me in the

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

bed, she went and got the nurse,

[Sunny Smith]

they wheeled me down to the emergency department.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

And over time it improved and got better. And my studies were normal. And they're like, well, you know, we'll have you go see a neurologist. And various things kind of like this kept happening, strange things. And the neurologist was like, well, you know, it's very stressful being an intern. And you know, it could just be migraines. We don't know what it is. And you know, don't worry. And I was like, I'm $100,000 in debt. I worked my whole life to become a physician, and I'm having things where suddenly parts of my body don't work at all. I'm worried. And then I happened to be. Since I was in Los Angeles, I was being filmed for this documentary. I didn't sign up for it. It was right before reality tv, but it was documentary and it later showed on Discovery Health and the Learning Channel dlc. So they cut from that scene where he's like, don't worry. And I'm like, I worry. To me going in an ambulance because. To the hospital, because I had been. I drove down to the sort of Hollywood, you know, where the stars are on the ground. It's the man Chinese Theater. You put your hands and feet in the ground. So I had just driven with my grandparents there, and thank goodness I had just pulled over the car and gotten out and walked there. And I told my grandparents, I said, oh, I don't feel well. And so I squatted down to the ground. I'm like, I don't feel well. This kind of thing happens sometimes. I don't know what it is. My arms started shaking. I'm like, this happens. Don't worry. And then, of course, I fell over. And it turned out that I had status epilepticus, which is a very prolonged seizure. And so all those things I've been having were focal seizures. But no one thought I had a focal seizure. They just thought I was kind of a stressed out, anxious young woman, maybe with some headaches. And so I didn't. I didn't stop seizing for a long time. They put me on a lot of medications, intubated me, and so I went into the icu and I didn't wake up for a week. And they didn't know why I wasn't waking up and if I'd ever wake up and if I'd ever be the same or if I'd be okay or if I'd be sunny. And certainly no one thought that I could be a doctor. And so finally, once I did wake up, they gave me like a month of some kind of, like, behavioral science slash vacation slash something so that I could recover. I was pretty out of it and needed to go to PT and relearn a whole bunch of stuff and was overdosed on Dilantin, so was, like, really out of it for a while. And then when I went back to work, all I ever wanted was to

[Sunny Smith]

just go back to 36 hours of call every three to four days like everyone else, right?

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Because everyone was actually kind of mad at me for being intubated in the ICU because they had to work harder and they had to cover my shifts. And so it's just that speaks to the state of burnout and the culture of medicine, of how hard we are working people. That obviously they had some sympathy for me or cared for me, but they're like, but I have to take her call. This is bullshit.

[Sunny Smith]

I'M like, how much more sick can

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

you be than intubated, unconscious, comatose in the icu. And people are talking about how unfair it is to them.

[Narrator]

Right?

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Okay. And actually, three people at my internship in my residency seized that year because we were all working so much. Mine was just the worst. Another person in my class and another person in a senior class who was like an Olympian. I mean, these are healthy people. And I found out during my follow up that across the country, intern sees this is something that happens, and sleep deprivation causes seizures. And so I stayed on the medication and I just wanted to go back to Call. And now in hindsight, now after having this second episode, you know, that I'll talk about in a second, knowing how fragile and precious life is, this version of me that's now 50 years old, when I look back, I would be like, to take radical responsibility for what happened to me, right?

[Sunny Smith]

Like, to just be like, okay, what

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

could I have done differently? I'm definitely not blaming myself or gaslighting

[Sunny Smith]

myself, but looking back, I'd be like, hell no. I just had a seizure and almost died. I'm not going back to 36 hours of call. Are you joking? What, are you trying to kill me? No.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

I get to have, like, ADA accommodations.

[Sunny Smith]

Like, it was very clear that I had something very real.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

And I just went back to work. I mean, I had. I had to not take call past 10pm for a little while, but I stayed on seizure medicines the whole residency just to be able to stay up in inhumane ways. And so this, there's actually clips of this. This was pre YouTube right before then, but there's clips of it in a documentary right now called do no Harm, the Hippocratic Hoax, where people can see me literally intubated and unconscious. And it's like, how is this okay? And we're like, all okay, just go back to work. Good luck to you. And so there's a whole conversation to be had about the medical culture that normalizes all that. But then there's also when we talked about agency and autonomy, like, I was so young and naive, I didn't know to say my life is way too precious, right? To be my own best advocate and be like this. This is not happening. This has happened to others. We need to stop this right now. And even if you don't stop it, I'm not going to be complicit in this. I only came to that realization, like, I've thought the medical culture caused this this whole time, and that's a tragedy. But only this past year was I like, wow, life is the most precious thing there is. It doesn't matter that medical degree, that practice, that, a hundred thousand dollar loans, I could have been dead. So that's what matters most, is if any of us are here and alive. You have breath, you have everything you need. And then you just get your agency and try to figure out how you can advocate for yourself in whatever way that is. And if where you're advocating isn't working, go somewhere else and advocate where someone's going to listen.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Yes, totally. And as much as you can. I mean, what would you have done if a senior physician was like, hey, maybe don't do this, Or a parent was like, hey, maybe don't do this? Like, what if there was that grounding outside voice? Do you think you were too indoctrinated to be like, I gotta keep doing this? I don't see this could be any job, right? But they don't see that there are any other options, right?

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Negativity or any kind of bias, whatever narrows your vision and narrows your focus. You can only see what you can see. And their brain also has confirmation bias, right? So reticular activating system activates and goes to look for what you tell it to look for. So like when you get engaged, you notice everyone's engagement ring. When you're pregnant, you notice everybody is pregnant around you.

[Sunny Smith]

When you buy a red car, you

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

notice the same car. So I was like surrounded by people who everyone's like, you have to do it this way, you have to do it this way.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Furthermore, we're disappointed in you because I had to take more call.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

So I'm like, I better get back to work and relieve everybody. And I worked my whole life for this. And plus, don't forget the whole determined, you know, physician is like, don't tell me what I can't do, right? I'm going to do it. I'm not disabled, I'm not a problem, I'm strong, I can do this. I'm gonna achieved everything I set my mind to. But that's the wrong frame, right? The frame is this is bad for your health. You had a completely life threatening illness that could have changed your brain forever. I mean, my brain was never really quite the same after that. Why go back to something? I just, I couldn't even imagine anything else I could have done.

[Sunny Smith]

Like, what would I do?

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Yeah, this happens to lots of doctors, lots of professionals, but in particular doctors who are thinking of stepping back, they're like, what else could I do? Like, I Know, to the general public, people think that, oh, we're smart and we have options, and they don't think that physicians do not think they have any option because we're trained to do one thing. And how does that transfer? People don't feel like a transfer.

[Sunny Smith]

And I was like, what am I

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

going to do with my $100,000 in

[Sunny Smith]

debt and no job?

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

And you're like, I'm actually very good at this one thing that's killing me. Fast or slow?

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Yeah. Wild. So then fast forward. You lived an exceptional life. I'm skipping many. I'm skipping many, many years.

[Sunny Smith]

Oh, my God.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

And then the new run in with the American health system was. Remind me, I'm trying to remember, was it after Covid, you went into the emergency room?

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Okay, so this is a story about. I mean, if the last one had a little bit of medical gaslighting, not listening to someone. This one is like that, on steroids.

[Dr. Kelly Casperson]

Yeah.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

If anybody was wondering, have things gotten better since we were in training? Let's tell. Let's tell you this story.

[Sunny Smith]

Yeah.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

So I think a lot of women will see themselves in this. Perhaps not to this extreme, but that people aren't listening. So I was going with my son, who was 11 at the time, and our dog to the grocery store two days before Thanksgiving to buy a bunch of stuff. And I drove there, and I was fine. And as I was walking down the aisles, I started feeling really lightheaded and really weak. So I made it back out front. I sat on the curb, and I was like, oh, my God, there's something wrong with me. I say to my son, like, go get me a soda or something. Maybe my sugar is low. Like, something. I just felt really, really off all of a sudden. And I was like, I can't get up. I can't drive. I can't stand. I literally couldn't stand. And so I was like, okay, I'm gonna try and crawl to the stop sign so I can, like, maybe get up and we can get an Uber home. I couldn't even crawl. Nothing. I just suddenly was incredibly weak. And so I had My son call 911. The ambulance comes, they pick me up off the ground, put me in the ambulance on the gurney, and my vitals are tachycardia, and I'm feeling terrible, and I'm kind of panicked, and, you know, like, what's going on? I'm shaking all over the place. And they call into the hospital. When I finally get to the hospital, they're really busy, and so they leave me there with the ambulance for half an hour since they didn't have a room for me. They then decide they're going to put me in the lobby. And I don't know this is exactly going on because I'm so out of it. And so they put me in this chair and they're like, sit up straight. And I'm like, I literally can't sit at all. They put me in the chair and my head is touching the ground and they're like, sit up. I'm like, I can't. Literally can't. So they push my head back up so that I'm trying to sit. It falls back forward to the ground. Meanwhile, my little boy still there holding

[Sunny Smith]

our little fuzzy shih tzu dog, witnessing the whole thing.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

And I'm like. When I see that they're trying to take me not into a room, I say, you know, this is gender bias. I'm a woman. You think I have anxiety. I have a critical illness. I'm a physician. I need to see a physician immediately. And I didn't know what I had, but I knew there's sick and not sick when you're a physician, right? When lay people say they're sick, they

[Sunny Smith]

mean like, I have a cold. When a physician says, this patient is

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

sick, it's the same exact word. But what we mean is, this patient could die. That's literally what we mean. This patient could die soon. This is a sick patient. So I was trying to use that

[Sunny Smith]

language and communicate, but they thought I was using the layperson language, right?

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

And so they changed my chief complaint because they can't put me with the vitals I have in the diagnosis that I have in the lobby, but they want me in the lobby. So they change my chief complaint to anxiety, and they put me in the lobby and I don't really know I'm in the lobby.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

For people who don't know, that puts you at the back of the line because that's not. That's not life threatening.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

That's not life threatening at all. Even though I came in by ambulance and had abnormal vitals, they thought my abnormal vitals. They were telling me, stop breathing so fast. Your heart's going fast because you're breathing so fast. I'm like, or I'm dying. Because dying people get breathing fast and heart rate right fast. So I'm out in the lobby and I sort of come to enough to realize I lift up my head and

[Sunny Smith]

I'm like, oh, my God, I'm in

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

the lobby all by Myself, it's just me and my kid and my dog in the lobby. So I start screaming that I need help, and so they call security on me. So they.

[Sunny Smith]

What happened right before that is that I have to go to the bathroom

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

because it ends up that I have Euro sepsis is like the end to the story. Which, by the way, I had not been put on vaginal estrogen to prevent urosepsis. It's a preventable diagnosis with vaginal estrogen that you always talk about. But I wasn't taking it, so I had to go to the bathroom and they wouldn't help me go to the bathroom. So I fell completely onto the floor. Laying flat on the floor in the hospital, and they said, get up, get up, get up. You're causing a scene. I was like, I'm sick. And so then they called, they said,

[Sunny Smith]

we're going to call security.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

I was like, good, please call security. Call someone.

[Sunny Smith]

Call the police. Call anyone.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

I need someone. Please call me someone. So the security people come over and they put me up in the chair, and I was like, please call doctor. Please, please, please. And he says, I can't, ma'.

[Sunny Smith]

Am.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

He was like, so nice looking me right in the eye with the other security all around me. He's like, I don't have the authority to call a doctor. So then I realized at this point that my whole body is shaking so hard. I was like, oh, my God. I have rigors. Rigors means a type of shaking that people get, uncontrollable shaking that you get when you have a blood infection called sepsis.

[Sunny Smith]

So I was like, it just came

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

to me after I'd been there for like an hour on the ground, being yelled at and being called disgusting and despicable and all this stuff for being. Stop causing this scene. And I'm like, begging for care.

[Sunny Smith]

And I'm like, I'm not okay.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

And then I tell my boy, I'm like, mommy's gonna be okay.

[Sunny Smith]

I'm gonna die.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Mommy's gonna be okay.

[Sunny Smith]

You know, what do I do? There's no one's tending to my son this whole time.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

So finally, you know, like an hour or two in, I start telling people, I think I have sepsis. Call a code.

[Sunny Smith]

Sepsis.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

It's 50 fatal. I'm like, I'm a doctor. You can Google me the sepsis.

[Sunny Smith]

50 fatal. Really? Like, there's.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

There's stroke code, there's heart attack for chest pain, and then there's code sepsis. Like, there's not that many codes. You just don't call that many.

[Sunny Smith]

So I'm like, yelling these things out

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

to them so that the people behind the thing can hear me, the nurse close to me can hear me, the security can hear me. I'm like, get me a doctor.

[Sunny Smith]

Call a code. Sepsis. I have riggers. I can't sit up.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

I am critically ill. And they just kept telling me I had anxiety and to stop it, and they were gonna if I didn't. So then eventually, finally, once I get taken, they call security on me several times. Eventually, once I get into the triage room after hours, then they put on my ekg, and they're like, stop moving.

[Sunny Smith]

Your EKG looks terrible. It's moving all over the place. I was like, that's because I'm sick. That's why my EKG looks terrible. And they're like, well, we want you to do some breathing exercises. And I was like, oh, my God, Call a doctor. Breathing exercises.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

And they're all the while documenting in my chart how terribly sick I am and saying the things that I'm saying. And they're saying, like, patient is lying on the bedroom floor saying she's. I mean, not bedroom, bathroom, floor, saying she's unable to get out. Patient is sitting with her head touching the floor in the wheelchair. Patient is saying, I need a doctor. Patient. Like, they thought they were helping their case because they thought that I was just being obnoxious. So they thought that they were trying to document my obnoxiousness. And then so finally, I'm like, even if I am a psych case, because I'm just saying everything I possibly can.

[Sunny Smith]

Any data I know, any advocacy I can do. Like, even if I'm a psych case, I deserve medical care. You could give me, like, anything that you need to give me. You could give me Ativan. You could give me whatever.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Just get me to see a doctor. Everyone deserves care. I need care. And I was like, I'm gonna code, right? So then, anyway, I started. Then at that point when they had the EKG on me and I was all curled up in a ball, my hands were curled, my elbows were curled up, my knees were curled up, my jaws clenched. I couldn't.

[Sunny Smith]

I was like, jaw cleansing door. If hypocalcemia, like, I'm going through all

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

this differential out loud with them, trying to.

[Sunny Smith]

And they're like, you have anxiety.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

I'm like, ah. So finally I get this feeling suddenly of impending doom, which doctors hear about. But it's this idea that the patients get that, oh, my God, I'm gonna die right now.

[Sunny Smith]

Like inside your body. You're like, oh my God, I'm gonna die. Like, this is it.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

I'm really gonna die. And I'm surrounded by security with my little boy holding our dog. And the nurses aren't even close to me and like, nobody is helping me medically. And I'm just like, I am gonna die. I'm gonna code, I'm gonna. And so finally they're like, well, if we can't make your EKG normal, we're gonna put you back out in the waiting room.

[Sunny Smith]

So. But they. Which I was like, you're threatening me.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

You're threat.

[Sunny Smith]

You're literally threatening me to put me back in the waiting room because I

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

have an abnormal ekg.

[Sunny Smith]

This is not normal. And they're like, well, you need to

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

stop shaking because we can't. So then when they brought the doctor in to see the ekg, he just told everyone immediately, clear out. And he's like, I. His first words, I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I am so sorry. Because I had such tachycardia and st. Segment changes and I was clearly critically ill. And so he took care of me right away. So that is the story of the. I'm an English speaking, white educated, full professor who worked in an emergency department who knows how to communicate very clearly about my exact diagnosis and communicate very clearly repeatedly that it's 50% fatal. And they kept telling me I had anxiety and kept calling security.

[Sunny Smith]

So anyway, anyone who's a doctor who's

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

listening, my lactic acid came back at 5.6, which is very ill for like

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

critically intensive care ill incompatible with functioning physiology.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

So no wonder I couldn't sit, no wonder I couldn't stand, no wonder I couldn't even get up from laying on the ground at all. And no wonder I was a little bit altered in my mental status. Trying so hard to communicate but not able to. And my whole body all clenched up. 5.6 is really terrible. And so the minute that the labs came back, then they started treating me and I was like, and this is a standard of care just for the listeners who don't know. Every doctor would know, but this is a standard of care that every hospital in the whole country must meet. It's door to IV antibiotics less than an hour, because people die from this. And if you don't meet that standard of care and have screening criteria for it, you're in trouble with the hospital systems and the nursing systems and the overseeing governing bodies. And this was a huge Miss Where I truly think, if I had been, because I'm in San Diego, California, so, like, if I had been a minority, non English speaking person, I think I would be dead.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Yeah. You advocated the best you could and nobody could have done it better than you.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Right.

[Sunny Smith]

And I was telling him, this is gender bias.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

I am a woman. Imagine my vitals if I was a man.

[Sunny Smith]

Right.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

If you have a pulse of like 150 and you roll into the emergency department as a man, what are the chances they're going to call you anxiety?

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

00.

[Sunny Smith]

They're gonna get an EKG on you. And even if he said he's anxious,

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

if his pulse is that fast, they're gonna get an EKG on him.

[Sunny Smith]

Right.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

I'm 50 years old. A 50 year old man comes into the emergency department with tachycardia. What are they going to do right away?

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Heart attack until proven otherwise.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Exactly. Exactly. All it was was my gender. And I just kept saying.

[Sunny Smith]

And they even documented in my medical

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

chart, patient is saying, this is gender bias. And we're calling this anxiety because she's a woman. It literally says that.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Holy shit.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

I know. Yeah. So I'm working to get the. My goal this year has been to get the footage from the hospital because at first they were saying that they wanted me to speak to their department. The head of the hospital called me and asked me if I wanted to speak at Grand Rounds. The next time on Anchor Bias. I was like, I think it's gender bias. He's like, I think it's also Anchor Bias because once one person calls you anxiety, everybody signs you out as anxiety.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Oh, interesting. I had not heard that term before. You're validating the people on your team. Basically.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Yeah. So just like any of your listeners who have some kind of issue, if they're getting labeled in the chart a certain way, then the next provider and the next provider that sees them is more likely to continue this chart lore or this bias that you have, what someone before you said that you had. And so he wanted me to come talk about that. But then as I was continuing to ask for the video, because again, I look like a scene from Cops. Anyone who's old enough to remember Cops

[Sunny Smith]

is like all the, all the security people, all the police around, and there's

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

like scuffles and all this stuff, I was like, I would have been better off like on the street than in this hospital because every time I asked for help, I was criminalized, basically. And they called like a code green

[Sunny Smith]

because I was like a threat to others. I'm like, I can't get off the floor. I can't even move. How am I doing to others?

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

For people to realize it's not just these, like, outpatient things. It's not just hormonal things. It's the whole entire system. We have been taught, like, hysteria is a woman with a meandering uterus that's making her crazy. So that's what I was assumed to have was hysteria at that time.

[Sunny Smith]

Right.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

And so just. You're not crazy if people don't listen. Right?

[Sunny Smith]

They just. And also, if you want to give

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

them any kind of, like, understanding, people sometimes don't know what you have. Like, for all the women who listen to your podcast and go in with all these symptoms, and I had been going in with random symptoms before I got on hormones, and I had asked for hormones, and people had told me, you're still having a period. You don't need hormones yet.

[Sunny Smith]

I'm like, have you listened to Kelly Ca. Please, my friend. My friend, the dabbler, she's doing some work. Literally, the first time I was prescribed hormone therapy, I told her. I told the person. When she told me that, she's like,

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

you do not need hormones. You are still having period.

[Sunny Smith]

I was like, please look up my friend Kelly Casperson. Please, please look her up. And then I'm gonna go somewhere else and get my medical care right now.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

And then, anyway, we finally did that. So, yes, people often, they just don't know. Sometimes they really, truly are not.

[Sunny Smith]

Like, those people didn't think they were gaslighting me.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

They thought they were right. They thought I was a crazy, obnoxious woman. And the people who are writing off your audience, the doctors really don't know. And so I used to teach on hypertension at the medical school, and it's called benign essential hypertension because it was thought to be benign and essential. And it took a long time. That's what it does with aging, is what we used to say. And so I would teach things about, like, former presidents who. The trajectory of history and the world wars would be different if we had treated their hypertension, but we didn't. So they would die of a stroke with a blood pressure of, like, 300 because we didn't know to treat it. And it takes years. It's like, how do you take these years and decades of transitioning from where everyone used to think hypertension was benign and essential to getting people treated, and this was something that would kill people. And so to look at how we. How can we do this now with something that is. With symptoms that seem much more vague to many.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Yeah, well. And I think the belief. And I just saw this in a physician Facebook group. They're like, is menopause the new hysteria? And there were several OB GYNs who said, I'm an OB GYN. Yeah, this is. People just need to deal with aging better from the words from the physicians. And so I. I rarely write in groups anymore. I'm like, I see what the zeitgeist says, and I. I move on. But I was like, hysteria was real. Menopause is real. It's time to start believing women. And then multiple physicians were like, thank you very much. I agree. Blah, blah, blah. But it's the culture of replacing ovarian function. Like, even the belief. Are ovaries worth replacing? We are not there yet. That is not a universal. Yes. That is a 5% of the population. Yes.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

No.

[Sunny Smith]

I just saw something recently, too.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

You and I are in similar groups, many of us women physicians are, where they said, you know, what do we do with the needy perimenopausal person and these needy patients?

[Sunny Smith]

And they had, like, they were really trying.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

They were like, I have these things and these things and these things. I do. And I was just like, so needy. But calling us needy, it's like, that's pejorative. I see that you're like, I commend you for trying to want to treat these people better. That was the request. How do I treat these needy people better? I'm like, and please look at your bias. Would you label someone with a broken leg as needy or not?

[Sunny Smith]

Or would you be like, this person has a broken leg. Let's give them a cast. This is what we do. Bones can heal.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Thank you for tying this so nicely into coaching. Because we aren't aware of the power of our thoughts. Maybe I'm not aware of why we shouldn't call these people needy. The power of what we say is so profound, and we're so oblivious to it.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

It. Yes. We think we're just reporting the news.

[Sunny Smith]

These are facts.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

There's. These are facts.

[Sunny Smith]

These are all facts. It's a fact.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

My doctor won't listen to me. Like, I get in your audience. That probably feels very true. I would say that thought probably doesn't serve you, because how does that thought make you feel? It makes you feel frustrated. And then. So what is your action? You give up victimy? Yes. We are no victims. We have even those people on the other side who wouldn't listen to me. I was like, Listen to me, right?

[Sunny Smith]

But if I'm like, they're not listening to me.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

That's disempowering. If I can be like, agency, you're going to listen to me. Here's some facts I know. Here's some facts I know.

[Sunny Smith]

Here's some facts I know.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Somebody start listening.

[Sunny Smith]

Hey, will you help me? Will you help me?

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Will you help me? So if you're thinking your doctor's not listening to you, or all the doctors aren't listening to you, right? These sort of, like, broad, sweeping statements can be very disempowering. And so it could also be a fact. You can narrow it to the specific scenario, which is, this doctor isn't prescribing hormones for me today. That is true. If you look at this doctor isn't prescribing hormones for me today. That's a very different thing to doctors won't listen to me. And so, okay, this doctor, it's today. So maybe we just bail on today, or maybe we bail on this doctor maybe, because you could still say, there's lots of experts out there and I'm going to find one, and it's up

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

to me to find one. But nobody's going to be like, here's the one for you, right?

[Sunny Smith]

And it's both.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

And it's not like we're saying, like, you're the bad person for not finding someone, right? We're saying the medical culture is what it is, misogyny is what it is, and the patriarchy is what it is, and medical history is what it is. We acknowledge all those things and we say, what you think about this matters and how you feel about this matters and what you do about this matters. So we all have agency, even when you have, like, so little ability to do anything. I remember, for some reason, this just came to my mind when my brother was really sick and he was intubated in the ICU and they had to do a trach. He couldn't talk and he still would use his eyes. And we were, like, trying to figure out. We were like, should we get letters? Should we do? And I was like, this guy has so much agency, he cannot move out of this hospital bed at all. But he knows what he wants and he is communicating it to people. And so I feel if we can just always remind ourselves that no matter the situation, there's some place that we have control. And there's so many things that are outside of our control, especially in the types of things that you talk about. There's so much that is out of your control. But there is. There's always something that's in your control and that's how you're going to choose to see it. And again, you don't want it to seem gaslighting to say that to someone. So it's acknowledging that there's challenges out there. And what do you control? Whenever you're ready for that part.

[Narrator]

Let's go.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Let's go to like, somebody who's never heard of coaching, has never been coached, but, you know, blank slate, right?

[Sunny Smith]

Okay. This is like you. This is like you when you first came to me. Exactly.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

It's like, it's like, how do you work the magic of how do you, like, crack the door? Is it like you repeat the thought back and start like, how do you like. What's the intro coaching 101 thoughts. Create your feelings, create your actions, create your results. Thoughts are optional. They're powerful and you can pick them. Where is this intro book? Cause I'm like, oh, God, is this book three? Like, but I want basic. I want intro baby step, third grade reading level, basic coaching stuff.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Well, what I would say, if you're looking for a book, one that is not bad, is Carl Lowenthal's un, fuck your brain book. Is that the name of the book itself?

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Yeah, that's a good book.

[Sunny Smith]

It's the name of the podcast.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

I'm just making sure that's a the name of the book too. Anyway, Carl Londyl.

[Sunny Smith]

I have a copy of my in the closet, but it's good.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

I've read it. Thank you for reminding me of that book.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

For a book that talks about how your thoughts create your feelings. And it's a. And it's from a gender specific way. So I think it could be really powerful introduction if people want to look at that. For me, there's your thoughts you can look at and then there's your feelings. And I think both can be super helpful. So one thing I could do say is like, if you're telling me your doctor won't listen to you, I'd be like, well, how do you feel? Frustrated. Okay. And I'll say you feel frustrated because. And then whatever they insert there is a thought. They think it's a fact, but it's a thought I could have said when I was on the hospital floor. I'm feeling frustrated. I was very, very, very frustrated. And you could say, why? I would say because no one is listening to me. And that's what my thought was. No one is listening to me. And is it true? Yes, there's truth to it. But is the thought, no one is listening to me going to help me? No, it's going to make me feel frustrated. So I can say, like, your feelings. I think one thing that's important about coaching, we tend to focus a lot on the thoughts. And so, like, if you were talking to me, I would just mirror back a thought. What we did, the example we gave, is dabbling. You're like, well, I'm dabbling. And so I just mirror and I say, back your thought. And a lot of our thoughts are really limiting beliefs. So if someone said, no one will listen to me, I would say, no one. So there's that mirroring back your thought. Because when you hear your thought back at you, you're like, oh, and say we say something that's derogatory about ourselves. Like, I look terrible in these jeans.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Putting on muscle is hard.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

So I could also say we could do the thought. How does that make you feel?

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Stuck. Challenged. Yes.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Yes. So when you feel stuck, what do you do?

[Dr. Kelly Casperson]

Nothing.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Nothing. So then the thought proves itself because then it stays hard, Right? And then. So sometimes I'll do. I'm learning, right? Because you don't believe something else. You don't believe that putting on muscle is easy, but I'm learning. Or maybe, or it's possible that maybe, just maybe, it's not as hard as I think it is or something. And we ask them to come up with something that makes them feel a little bit stuck. I say, well, what would make you feel a little bit less stuck? I think the feeling. We have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, millions of years, whatever, with feelings for a reason. Feelings guide us. Even before we had language, our animals don't have the same kind of language we do, but they all have feelings, and those feelings guide them. And so if we're feeling frustrated or stuck or sad or angry, those feelings are there for a reason. They're trying to tell us something. They're trying to get our attention. So it's like, okay, I feel angry. You feel angry because what? So feel. Name the emotion. What do you feel? And then say, because. And whatever that thing is, that's the limiting belief.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

I credit coaching for, like, validating feelings. My big joke is surgeons have one feeling. It's tight,

[Sunny Smith]

right? Surgeons have feelings, right?

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Yeah.

[Sunny Smith]

Yeah.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Well, we have one. It's tight. Especially if you grew up in a household where feelings were not safe or welcome. And then you go through medical training where any sort of body sensation is ignored. And so it's like you come very honestly to the point of like, feelings are bullshitty. So you kind of have to learn like, no, no, like when you learn like the wheel of feelings, right, you're like, whoa, there's a lot of words to describe these things.

[Sunny Smith]

Exactly. And maybe this is like a little bit more advantage than the 101, because

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

the 101 might start with just the thoughts. And some people can sometimes come into the thoughts a little bit more easily. And so I could pick any one thought and say, how does that make you feel? And if we know that our thoughts sort of always are proving themselves, then be careful what you think and what you say is the default because you're going to keep proving it. True. Like those people who think the COVID vaccine is not real, they're going to keep finding evidence for the COVID vaccine not being real.

[Sunny Smith]

And me, I think COVID vaccine is real. And so I'm going to keep finding the evidence.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

So if you find whatever you're believing, you're putting on these rose colored glasses or these dark colored glasses, whatever it is, and it's not like toxic positivity or some kind of whatever BS type of thing, it's real. It's neuroscience confirmation bias.

[Sunny Smith]

Right.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

As we said, is real. So you can start with the thoughts and look at what kind of results are your thoughts creating in your life. And if you look at any of your results, you can be like, how did I create this? Or which part did I contribute to this? Just like me taking those 36 hour calls, I contributed to that in some way because I went back and I chose it. Like, how could I have chosen different results? How can I create different results? And I think the sort of, if that's like 101, 201 is really. And I think it's even more powerful. As you said, how do you feel? Name an emotion and as you said, validating the emotion. Because not all thoughts are valid.

[Sunny Smith]

Right.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

There are thoughts that are lies, that are flat out lies.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Yeah. And society might have put it in your brain. It might not actually be your thought, you might actually disagree with it. But it's. But it's just a thought.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Most of the limiting beliefs that we have about ourselves and the world around us are inserted from someone else. We get so much from our upbringing, from our family of origin, from what they thought of us, from what culture thinks of us, from what the patriarchy thinks of us. And so they get inserted in your head and then it sounds like your own voice, but it's not you got that from somewhere else. So thoughts can be questioned and should be questioned. Feelings are all valid, just like you said. Feelings are real. If you feel scared, you're scared. If you feel happy, you're happy. It's not like you're lying that you feel scared. No. Your reasoning might be erroneous, but the feeling is real. So it's like, what is the feeling? Why is it there? And do you really believe what that thing is that you're scared of or feel? Especially when people feel stuck?

[Sunny Smith]

When people.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Because you mentioned something where lifting weights is hard. I feel stuck. Feeling stuck is. There's something that you need to learn. None of us are ever really stuck. Are we in cement up to our eyeballs? No. Like, we're clearly not stuck. So it's always something that's very coachable every time somebody feels stuck.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Yeah. I had a patient recently that the thought was, I'm doing everything I can.

[Sunny Smith]

Right. Right.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

That is a paralyzing thought.

[Sunny Smith]

I mean, you think it feels powerful

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

because you're doing so much.

[Sunny Smith]

But. But.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Right.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

This was a very. A very, like, leading to the feeling of disempowerment. Right. Like, I'm doing everything I can.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Yes.

[Sunny Smith]

Yes.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

And so I think that revealing. When I say, how do you feel when you think that?

[Sunny Smith]

And they'll be like, well, I feel like this person is a jerk.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

I'm like, that's not a feeling. What's the emotion that you feel?

[Sunny Smith]

Well, they are a jerk.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

I'm like, okay, but what's the emotion that you feel? Right. I'm doing everything I can. And so if I ask enough, and then sometimes I have to put out feelings like frustrated or sad or whatever, and then they'll be like, oh, okay. And they say what it is? And I go, okay. So that makes you feel sad. Is there any other way that you want to look at it? So just if we just look at what the feeling is, because it's not. Whatever. If you haven't lost weight, if you haven't gotten the prescription you need, if your hot flashes haven't stopped, if you. What? A lot of people, you know, believe they have a contraindication to hrt. For instance, the people who listen to your podcasts probably will be less so than others. And so they feel stuck and they feel frustrated. And we say, why? Right. So how do you feel when you think, I can't take these. I feel whatever. And we go, okay, well, do you want to explore something different? Because if we just look at the feelings that come from our language we think it's the circumstance. So the circumstance in that situation would be like, say you've had a pulmonary ambulance, a blood caught in your lungs. That's the fact I can't take hormones because I had a pulmonary embolus is a thought that is evolving over science because we think that science is. I mean, obviously we made a mistake for the past 20 some years, but we think that it's accurate. And the thing is, it's the best that we know right now. And when I would give talks at the medical school, we'd say, the thing is, half of what we taught you in medical school is correct. We've been saying this for, I don't

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

know, I told this in med school and it stuck with me.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

It's half of what we've been taught is correct. The problem is we don't know which half. We really don't know which half. And data will keep choosing. So the whole thing about that I have a pulmonary embolus, I can't take hormones, so I feel frustrated. Okay. The fact is you had a pulmonary embolus. We have a lot of thoughts. Different doctors are going to tell you about this and pick. It doesn't have to be pulmonary embolus. Could be whatever scenario, you know. Okay, so your thought could be, I'm going to speak to three different experts about the risks and benefits for my scenario. That's a more empowering thought. And then you'll come up with, okay, three different opinions about what to do and you could come up with a thought. And I am going to make an informed choice based on what I want to do with my hrt, based on my mom had breast cancer, I had endometrial cancer. I had like whatever the circumstances are. Saying to yourself, I'm going to make an informed choice. I have decided not to take hormone therapy. Right, that makes sense because you could go to a country where hormones are over the counter and buy whatever you

[Sunny Smith]

want if you really wanted to.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

You can get testosterone in the airport in Mexico. My friends, next to your cheeseburger and cerveza.

[Sunny Smith]

I'm in San Diego, so people got a lot of things here that they were not prescribed. So just saying we're not as powerless.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Yeah, totally. Thank you so much for joining me. This hour flew by. Tell everybody about empowering women physicians. I know it's not for everybody. You haven't have a niche coaching business. There's a million physicians, a few hundred thousand women. Few hundred thousand women physicians. Tell us real quick about that because not everybody knows the amazing help you offer.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Yeah. So I now full time run a coaching company called Empowering Women Physicians. And we help people are always like, what do you coach on? I'm like, any issue a woman physician has, that's how coaching works. So any issue that women physicians have, they come to us. And physicians, like, I've podcast with the same name, Empowering women Physicians. And people who aren't physicians listen to it. And they're like, so physicians are just people too. And like, they have issues too. They have insecurities too. And they have issues with their spouse too.

[Sunny Smith]

And they are worried about money too. And they want to quit their jobs too. And they write everything that a human

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

being listening to this has. Women physicians have those same issues too. We are people just like everyone else and have the same psychology as everyone else. So that's what we do. We do it in one on one and group coaching. And it's been an incredibly meaningful thing to be able to do in the world. And you are one example of the types of differences that it can make when you help someone shift one thought just a little bit and then the compound effect of them doing that over time changes the trajectory of their lives. So it's incredible to be able to spend time with people and do that with them.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

It's a thought. I'm choosing to believe everything in my life right now is because of coaching.

[Sunny Smith]

Oh, I love this. I love that thought. And you know what? I have the same thought because my

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

life has changed so much because of coaching. So much in the most beautiful way. So I couldn't agree with you more.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

Yeah, it's super powerful. It's like eight fruits and vegetables, a liter of water, eight hours of sleep, some exercise and coaching.

[Sunny Smith]

Exactly. Because reframing your thoughts, it changes the

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

power to know you can.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

I love the humility of it. I think there's something very. Whether this is spiritual or not, I'm gonna choose to say it's spiritual to realize the humility in, like, you could be wrong, right? Like, maybe not. You know, I just think there's something so beautiful. Like, I think there's a little bit of ego work there. Right. Of like, if you think you're so right the time and you're never wrong and you should never question anything that you think. Like, try the opposite of that. See how it goes.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Yes. Oh, like Byron, Katie, the work. Anybody here who wants to Google and look up Byron, Katie, the work. Whether you pick one thought that's causing you a lot of pain and you just ask yourself Is it true? Is it true? Yeah, and you can always find that it's not true.

[Host (likely Kelly Casperson)]

It becomes a playful trick at some point. Oh my friend Sunny Smith, it's been a long time coming to have you on the podcast and like episode in the mid-3002 at this point and this is a perfect a perfect place for you to come in. So thank you so much.

[Co-host or Coach (possibly a coaching expert)]

Thank you so much for having me. It was so much fun.

[Dr. Kelly Casperson]

If you found this episode funny, helpful, insightful, please take a moment to follow rate and share the youe Are Not Broken podcast with someone who might need this conversation too. That support is how this information reaches more people and thank you for courses, books and my monthly membership and the Caspersen clinic information. Visit KellyCaspersonMD.com this podcast and all content from Dr. Kelly Casperson is intended for educational and informational purposes only and this is not a substitute for individual medical coaching or psychological advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the guidance of your qualified healthcare professional with any questions you may have regarding yourself. Health Never disregard or delay medical advice because of something you've heard on this or other podcasts. Thanks for being here. And remember, you are Not Broken.