Gunila Life Coach

She’s gone really lethargic and they’re worried now”

I froze drawing up the pre meds and looked over at the nurse who was holding the phone up.

We were about to go into surgery on a dog who’d already been waiting 8 hours for someone to whip out the stone that was lodged in her small intestine.

“We HAVE to go into surgery now. If they’re worried … Refer them to the next nearest hospital”

We had been rushed off our feet all week (what IS it with this time of year?!?!), and I’d been coping with just one nurse but suddenly I realised there was no way I could safely take care of that patient AND do an enterotomy. For the first time since I remember, I sent pets elsewhere, as opposed to grinding through and keeping letting people come in with sick pets.

This was extra hard, because I’d seen this dog for sudden onset of coughing the night before. I was aware of the case, it was one of our clients … And I just couldn’t safely tell them to come in after 2 hours of surgery because we had more inpatients to deal with, and if the owners were worried about her now, we just couldn’t know how bad it could get.

There’s always this drive in vets to do everything. To keep going, take on more cases, try to help everyone and their dog/cat/rabbit/rat/pick your species.

It just suddenly hit me that I was falling into the same pit every burnt out vet falls into, which is the failure to:

- say no

- delegate

- accept our limitations

- let go of what we can’t control

- know we don’t HAVE to prove we can do it

And someone would have suffered for it, and then I’d feel guilty anyway.

I am so glad I made that decision; they went somewhere else to be seen and were super happy we referred them, I got the stone out of the other dog, and we had the capacity to take well care of the remaining inpatients.

So often we push ourselves to and past our limits without having to, out of some sense of duty, not realising it was never the best option for everyone involved in the first place.

Instead of just mindlessly keep pushing until we’re burnt to crisps, and end up saying no to the whole of the veterinary profession, how about we start saying no BEFORE that, to the cases we just don’t have capacity for, to that extra shift we don’t want, to that abusive client, to staying longer and longer every day?

Start doing this is by recognising when you likely SHOULD have said no, in the aftermath, make a note of it, and then practice recognising it happening in real time. Notice that saying “no” is very likely to feel wrong and uncomfortable, simply because you’re not used to it, like trying on a new pair of shoes. It doesn’t mean you’re doing the wrong thing!

If you’d like help with this, recognising where you’re struggling and learn to create more peace for yourself in the veterinary profession, then come to a free consult with me and I’ll show you how to do it, and KEEP doing it!

https://calendly.com/gunila-lifecoach/50-minute-free-coaching-consultation

I made a mistake driving on the Isle of Skye on our Scotland road trip and almost crashed into another car.

If you’ve ever been to Isle of Skye, you’ll know that

- Sheep 🐑 and cattle 🐄 walk freely around on and off the roads
- Said roads are JUST wide enough for one car
- You’re supposed to stop at a “passing place” to let approaching cars pass - whoever is closest to one of these places stops first.

I was doing FINE, and then this song came on the radio. Bruce (my husband) got really excited, bobbing along, while I’d never heard it before, and said so. It must have been from his youth or something, and I … really didn’t like it! So I was concentrating, listening intently trying to find out why he jammed so much with it, when he suddenly shouted “STOP!”.

I was SO concentrated on the song that I completely oversaw an approaching car and had failed to pull into “my” passing place, that was indeed a lot closer to me than the other car. The other driver was NOT impressed, and red cheeked I awkwardly reversed back into the place. There was NO thank you wave from the other driver, and you know what, he probably thought I was a complete idiot (which I kinda was, in that moment).

So we drove on, thank god the terrible song had ended, and I noticed I felt absolutely awful, and started spinning out in I shouldn’t be driving, what’s wrong with me, what must the other driver think of me, blah blah.

Basically, I had made a mistake, it affected someone else, and my brain wanted to go to town on me; analysing all the ways I was wrong as a driver and a human being, what would Bruce think of me as a driver now (tough sh*t, the car was rented with me as the sole driver), and basically make me feel ashamed the rest of the day.

And it really hit me, that I had the choice to just let it go. Not come up with excuses around why it had happened, not try to prove now I AM a good driver, not analyse all the ins and outs of it. Apart from getting less involved in the music choices, there wasn’t much else to learn from it, so absolutely no point in beating myself up.

This may seem trivial, but as a veterinarian who burnt out to the ground years ago, being able to stop the inner critic in its tracks feels like the greatest victory of all times. Having that awareness, knowing I have a choice in how I want to think and feel about it, and consciously decide to let it go, feels like having supernatural powers.

Can you relate?