198. How to Grow Courage and Start Living the Life You WANT to Be Living with Dr. April Wazeka

The Mindful Healers Podcast with Dr. Jessie Mahoney and Dr. Ni-Cheng Liang

When you decide to make a pivot as big as leaving your medical practice after 20 years expect scary. It takes time and courage.

And, it just might turn out better than you expect. Even if your husband has an unexpected cancer diagnosis right in the middle of your transition.

Coaching, mindfulness, and taking a pause helped Dr. Wazeka leave her employed pediatric pulmonary job, navigate her husband’s cancer diagnosis, and send her oldest daughter off to college with grace and equanimity.

In this episode, April shares how patience, curiosity, and kindness steadied her while she made big changes.

She shares the tools she found most helpful to allow her to let go of her previously narrow and inflexible medical mindset, gift herself permission to pause, and ultimately to live an aligned life.

Giving herself permission to take a pause was hard. April has previously never taken any time off except for maternity leave. She went straight through from high school to college to residency to fellowship to being an attending for twenty years.

If you are worried that it’s too dangerous or too hard to take a break and/or leave clinical medicine, you are not alone.

Our tendencies towards a scarcity mindset, catastrophizing, and focusing on the negative, make this change even harder even when we know our journey with our current role is complete.

With regular coaching and a regular mindfulness practice, Dr. Wazeka is now on the other side.

She is living a life she wants to be living rather than moving through her life like she thought she should be living. She now enjoys a more expansive identity as a connected and available mom and wife, a new mindfulness teacher, and a happier and healthier human.

April was also a guest on the Mindful Healers Podcast in 2022. In Episode 91, she shares how mindfulness and coaching helped her move through the pandemic as a physician, mom, wife, and daughter with more grace and equanimity.

Listen to that episode here:

https://themindfulhealerspodcast.libsyn.com/91-bettertogether-finding-alignment-with-mindfulness-and-coaching

If you want to start living the life you WANT to be living, reach out for mindful coaching. You will be so glad you did. www.jessiemahoneymd.com

If you want to support yourself well through a big change, move beyond consuming this podcast and dreaming.

April is a steadfast podcast listener. In this episode, she points out, true change only happened for her when she committed to doing the work and invested in herself, her happiness, and the life she wanted. April has been supporting herself with virtual coaching for three years. It is currently preventive care that helps continue to grow, evolve, and live in alignment ongoing.

You can also join us in person for a retreat www.jessiemahoneymd.com/retreats. Or hire one or both of us to speak or lead a wellness workshop. We also can create team wellness retreats, teach yoga, and/or offer experiential mindfulness for teams, groups, grand rounds, institutions, and conferences.

www.jessiemahoneymd.com/mindful-healers-podcast

www.awakenbreath.org

www.jessiemahoneymd.com/speaking

*Nothing shared in the Mindful Healers Podcast is medical advice.

#physicianwellness #mindfulnesscoach #pauseandpresence #physiciancoach #transformationcoach