You Can't Do Everything | Wellness Wednesdays

Have you ever searched for wellness resources that truly understand what it means to be a Certified Anesthesiologist Assistant? You're not alone. Wellness Wednesday are candid conversations about the unique challenges and opportunities facing CAAs in their pursuit of sustainable wellbeing.

In this episode, we discuss the quiet tug-of-war between boundless ambition and a life that actually feels good (especially for high-achieving CAAs, SAAs, and pre-AAs trained to do more, faster, and better). We unpack the core idea, “you can do anything, but you can’t do everything”, and sit with the grief inside it. Every 'yes' creates a cascade of invisible no’s, and pretending that doesn’t hurt keeps us stuck. Naming seasons changes the game. 

Whether you're a practicing CAA, AA student, or prospective applicant, this episode marks the beginning of a community-centered approach to wellness that finally names and validates your experience. Welcome in. 

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 1:22

This Wellness Wednesday is brought to you by CAA Matters, the first comprehensive wellness and professionalism curriculum designed to truly support the AA student experience. We all know AA education is streamlined to produce competent providers in a fast-paced program. Meanwhile, wellness and professionalism often get overlooked, lumped in with medical students, or addressed too late to help. CAA Matters fills this gap, centering student anesthesiologist assistance and equipping them with the tools, resources, and mindset shifts to succeed in school and build long, fulfilling careers. It's a turnkey curriculum, fully prepared, facilitated, and supported from planning to delivery. Program leaders and AA educators can learn more, read reviews from early adopters, and explore piloting CAA Matters at awakenedanesthetist.com or by clicking the link in the show notes. Welcome, Awakened Anesthetist community. Welcome to my little meditation space. This is the same room that we were in last wellness Wednesday. It's just turned around a little bit. I'm looking at my podcast studio, like over that way, and there's a guest bed behind me. This is not a big space. I'm like always in this room. I just like turn my focus and then I'm doing something different. So welcome in to my little meditation nook. It's not fancy. And for so long, I had this idea that everything had to be aesthetic. And of course, I had hopes and dreams of everything being aesthetic. But the reality is doing something every day or creating a habit is such a huge hurdle that if I had to have it be perfect every single time, I just would never have done it. And so this is part of that just raw authenticity of showing you all exactly what my own wellness journey has been like and sort of taking you along in real time. And part of that was just taking you on my afternoon meditation. It's afternoon here. It's a Tuesday.

Welcoming You Into My Space

SPEAKER_00 3:31

I had a wonderful day. Actually, got up, walked my kids to school. Um, my husband and I walked back then on our own and kind of had a nice chat. I went to yoga. I made myself a delicious breakfast sandwich on these croissants from Costco that we got, which were amazing. What else did I do? I got a coffee from my local favorite coffee spot. It is a large iced oat milk latte with double shot of decaf and then add an extra shot of regular espresso. Um, and then half sweet of their homemade pumpkin spice um sauce or sweetener, which was very, very yummy. So I had that. And I wanted to have another wellness Wednesday. I'm really trying to, again, just show my absolute realist self in these videos. And if you're watching on YouTube, then you saw that the first half of this video was actually a real-time meditation and it kind of walks you through my routine and and what I'm doing. Um, so if you are listening to me right now on a podcast, you can go over to YouTube and see the first like 20 minutes of the video is a meditation, and then just follow along the rest of the way from there. But yeah, welcome. I think I've said that, but I'm so happy you're here. Today I wanted to talk about this concept that really took me many, many years to understand. And I had people from different areas of my life sort of saying this concept. And so this is what I wanted to talk to you all about today, um, in hopes that maybe having a CAA share this concept with you is like lands maybe a little deeper, and maybe you can kind of pick this up and run with it faster than I was able to. Um, but the concept is that as a CAA, as an SAA, as a pre-AA, you can do anything,

A Real-Time Meditation Invitation

SPEAKER_00 5:32

but you cannot do everything. So as a member of this CAA community, I know you and I know that you can do anything, but you cannot do everything. And this idea, this concept, this sort of almost negative belief, or it feels negative, especially in the

The Core Idea: "You Can Do Anything, But Not Everything"

SPEAKER_00 5:58

moment when you have so many good ideas, you have so many big plans, there are so many beautiful things that you know you can do as a highly capable, highly productive, focused, um, intentional, super smart person. You have been able to do so many amazing things. And our culture has uh rewarded that. And often it's that exact attribute that has gotten you into AA school, has gotten you landed your, you know, most amazing career as a CAA, um, taken you wherever you wanted to go as a CAA. And so when you start thinking, like I did, gee, you know, if I pull back a little bit on being a CAA, what's left? And I kind of got quiet and started to get all these ideas. I'm like, oh my gosh, wow, this CAA profession has created this sense of stability and safety that I could really expand and do a million other things. And doesn't this sound fun? And like, oh, now I want to do this and do that. And at one point I thought I was gonna be the hot fudge queen of the universe. So before I was able to leave my full-time job for my dream initial part-time job, I really, really wanted to have some other passion in my life besides just giving anesthesia. And so I ended up creating an FDA-approved version, like a bottled version of my family's hot fudge sauce that I grew up eating, which is freaking phenomenal. Like it absolutely is the best hot fudge you'll ever have in your life. And I did all the steps, created the business, the LLC, got it FDA approved, and like was about to put it on store shelves. I was in a commercial kitchen for like six hours every week making hundreds of jars of hot fudge by myself, labeling it, filling it, making the hot fudge, sterilizing all the jars, like the whole nine yards. Um, and then I ended up getting my dream part-time job at the time. And I was like, well, I did this. I wanted to work part-time so that I could find other aspects of myself. And I thought I would need the money from selling this hot fudge in order to do it. And then my part-time job ended up giving me enough money where I didn't have to sell the hot fudge in addition. And so I was like, well, this is sort of taking up a lot of my life, and it's like taking up a lot of my bandwidth. And so I sort of let the hot fudge dream go. But that whole that was like two years of my life. That was like 2017 to 2019 when I finally left my full-time job. And really understanding if I can go back and tell myself that 2017 self, like, hey, you can do anything. You're so capable. I know that you can be the hot fudge queen of the universe if you want to be. But stop, pause. Do you really want to be? Like, what is at the root of what you're really wanting? Um, I had always had success by pushing and going and harder and faster, and you know, and I had reward from that. I got an FDA approval for this hot fudge. But then at the end of the day, I realized, like, oh, that takes so much from me. That's not actually what I was chasing. I just was able to do that. It was like, um, if anyone's familiar with like the zone of geniuses, it was like my zone of excellence, but it wasn't my zone of genius. And so I wanted to just introduce this concept that kind of can lay over the grief, truly the grief that is there when you think, well, how do I let these dreams die? Like, how do I walk away from all these possibilities? Um, and maybe you're facing this right now as an AA student. So like maybe you're having to walk away from relationships and friendships in a way that feels really awful, like really full of grief. And you're like, why can't I be in AA school? And also cultivate, you know, really connected, dense friendships. Um, and I would say something that's really helped me cope with that level of grief that comes in the statement, you know, Mary, you can do anything, but you can't do everything. You have to pick. And to know that when I say yes to something, it closes a bunch of other doors. There's a bunch of other no's that follow that yes. Because when I say yes, and I only have so much time in the day and so much energy and bandwidth, other things that come up, and I would also want to say yes to those, I now have to say no. And that sucks. Like that is a really hard life lesson. But this concept that there are seasons to life has really eased some of that grief for me that um I can more appreciate that I'm in a really beautiful season. Like, let's use my life right now. I'm in a really beautiful season where I'm able to live very slowly. It's like a Tuesday at 1 p.m., I think right now. And I told you what I did this morning, and that has been such a dream experience. And being able to record this YouTube, you know, and like showing a meditation and then having this chitty chat with you all has been what I want. Like, I want this level of connectedness by just showing my truest realist self. Um, but this is not a season for me to be aesthetically pleasing. Like, if I want to show up as I truly am, I couldn't have spent two hours getting the room ready and putting on makeup and like wearing something cute and like getting a background and all the things because then I wouldn't have been able to go to yoga and I would have been stressed when I was walking my kids in school, or I would have just been like, oh, I don't have time to do that, take the bus. Um, and so there had to be things that I say no to because I want to say yes to this right here. Like I want to say yes to this community and to this level of bringing you into my world because this is what I was craving when I was going through my own transitions, when I was in the heat of I can do

Grief, Tradeoffs, and Seasons

SPEAKER_00 12:21

anything, why can't I do everything? And it was just so hard for me to accept the grief. I just thought, well, I can find a way around it. There can be, there's just something I'm missing, there's something I'm not thinking about. Oh, I could, you know, maybe hire some more help, or, you know, that there has to be a way that I can hold all this big dream. Um and the truth is I can have a big dream. I just have to have it in seasons. And that has eased the carrying the amount of grief that that um reality entails. That, like, okay, this is the season right now for building awakened anesthes in a really authentic way. And my kids are little, they're all still in grade school. And, you know, having that time with them in the morning is so precious to me and just fills me up so deeply that I don't want to give it up for more money. Or, you know, by working in the operating room when I'm gone before they wake up, or knowing that me being home and not being in the operating room and pouring into wake anesthesia means that I've also lost skills as a CAA. Like I could not at this moment walk into a cardiac case and feel comfortable. Um, I also at this moment, like, you know, again, have a home that's not super aesthetically pleasing. Like there, there are cray marks on the walls, there are door dings, there are this is a lived-in family home. This is not the home of my dreams. Like when I was 10 years old thinking, oh, I'm gonna have this big, beautiful house and everything's gonna be white and aesthetic. Like that's not my reality right now. And there was grief to that, to knowing that I can't have it all right now. But this idea of seasons has really allowed me to feel, you know, see the beauty, feel the gratitude in the present, and then just be like, hey, that's future. We're we can have a big, huge home remodel when the kids are out of school, and uh, you know, I'm a decade and a half into a wake anaesthetist and it's shifted, and I have more time to focus on like, you know, making my home be this dream home. And like, won't that be great too? Like, that will be great then. I just can't have that now. So I wanted to share a few more things. I was, I actually worked yesterday. So today's Tuesday. I usually work in the operating room on Thursdays, PRN, at a large academic hospital in Kansas City. But they sent out an X SOS text the other day, like on Sunday, I think, and or maybe a Saturday, like, hey, can anyone work Monday? And I actually was able to, so I decided to say yes to that opportunity. And um the one good thing about waking up at 5 a.m. is that the house is completely quiet. And I knew I wanted

Choosing Authenticity Over Aesthetics

SPEAKER_00 15:08

to talk on this idea of seasons and accepting the grief of not being able to do everything I want right now. And so I made a little list of all the things I also can't do right now in my planner. So let me find it. Okay, this is this is what I can't do, and maybe um I want to revise this and say, like, this is a season that does not include. So this is a season that does not include international family vacations, um, which we also are wanting to take one to Hawaii, which is about as hard to get to as an international trip. And this is just not the season for that. There are a lot of reasons that this is not that season. This is not the season to be able to put out uh one podcast episode a week. I know that's the sort of gold standard in the algorithm of podcasting, and this is not the season for that for me. This is also not the season where I can save to the max in my 401k. I saved to the max from like 24 years old when I started as a CAA to oh, probably 34, so maybe a decade before I started pulling some of that money back to um save it to begin to transition into going part-time. And I have not yet been able to go back to putting my maximum in a 401, which I would eventually like to do, but this is not the season. I don't have the money to do that right now. Um, I already said this is not the season for a perfectly designed aesthetic home, or to have a clean home all the time, or decluttered, or scratch-free, or crayon-free home. This is not the season when we can have made-for-scratch meals every day. We food is probably the thing we spend the most money on. It's very important to my husband and I that we eat really yummy, nourishing food. And if we could have a home-cooked vegan meal every single night, that would be what we want. But this is not the season for that. Um, I already told you this is not the season for me to be the hot fudge queen of the world. And maybe it will be one day because I'm telling you this hot fudge is legit. If you know, you know, but this is not that season. Um and I also put this is not the season for me to be able to do everything I want to do within the CAA wellness world. There are so many things, including starting a wellness subcommittee, which is something I'm I am trying to do right now, but has not started yet. But I have like submitted the initial proposal to the quad A. Um, but there are just so many other things in this CAA wellness space that I really want to give to us. And this is not the season to do all of them. Like I have chosen Awaken Anesthetist, I have chosen CAA Matters, which is that um wellness and professionalism curriculum that is currently for AA students and pre-AAs. And that's the way I can contribute right now. But I had to let the 40 other things that would are would be great ideas and I could do go because this is not the season for them. Because again, I can do anything, but I can't do everything. So I hope this little chat helps you on your own journey. If you are trying to get into A school, this is very, very relevant to you picking a career and like feeling really confident that okay, I'm gonna want to be a CAA forever. Like there's this huge upfront investment. And then how do you ensure yourself that you're gonna love it forever? And um while I do tell every pre-AA like it's totally worth it, this profession is the bomb. Like there is grief in knowing that you could do all this work and not get in, or you could do all this work and not love it the way that I love it, or the way that you think you're gonna love it, and that's okay. Like you have to choose something and move forward and let the all the other options go. And at the end, you're gonna know, or you'll have a great career for 20 years and then pivot, like I've been doing, you know, out of the OR full time. Um, and it's just that acceptance of the grief, I think, that really tripped me up for years and years. And knowing that life has seasons for everything has really helped me move forward, even though that grief is still there, but it moved forward in a way that I can still feel good. So, all right, thank you so much for being here again. Tune in on Wednesdays for these shorter wellness Wednesdays. I loved this little setup. I loved kind of feeling really good and comfortable with you all. So let me know how you like these Wellness Wednesday episodes and if you there's another topic that you want to talk about. Um, also, these are really close to the type of connection and sharing that we do in Mindful Connections, which is a free 60-minute virtual community gathering for anyone in the CAA community. So pre-AAs, SAAs, and CAAs. We in season five, so they run alongside the podcast, like every season of the podcast. And in season five, our big, big theme is getting into the driver's seat of your life. We've already discussed topics like jealousy and finances. And so I really encourage you to sign up. You'll see me like kind of blasting them on my website and Instagram, but they're a really great way to just have really honest, authentic conversations just like this inside the CAA community where people get you and understand what you're going through. And you can just show up as you are and have a great conversation and then just kind of go about your way. So, anyways, these episodes are my heart, and I hope you all are enjoying them. So, all right, I'll talk soon. Thanks for listening to Awakened Anesthetist. If this episode resonated with you, share it with a CAA friend, an AA student in your life, or a perspective, and let them know why you loved it. It's the most important thing you can do to support this podcast and its mission. You can always find more ways to connect with me and this CAA community at awakenedanesthetist.com, including an invitation to join season five Mindful Connections. These are free virtual gatherings open to anyone in our Awakened Anesthetist community. And while you're scrolling the website, check out my trusted CAA partners who make this podcast possible with a special thank you to my season five sponsor, Harmony Anesthesia Staffing. Talk soon.