#421 - Victor or Victim? It Starts with the Lens You Choose

Change begins softer. In this episode, Dr. Tarryn MacCarthy offers a powerful reminder for high-achieving healthcare professionals and women in dentistry carrying stress, pressure, and constant change. When something no longer feels right in your practice, body, relationships, team, or life, it is easy to meet that moment with shame, fear, or self-judgment. But what if that same moment could become the start of something better?

Through honest stories from hiking, coaching, family life, and dental practice leadership, Dr. Tarryn shows how the lens you choose can shape what happens next. This episode brings a fresh look at burnout, leadership stress, work-life balance, and personal growth with more compassion, courage, and self-trust. Choose the lens that does not just move you forward, but makes you lighter as you rise.

Show notes:
(2:19) Choosing how you want to feel
(6:16) Empowered versus disempowered thinking
(8:09) The Vermont hike lesson
(12:14) Change as a real opportunity
(16:03) Team stress in dental practices
(18:18) Courage to leave what no longer fits
(26:14) Outro

_______________________

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Transcript

Dr. Tarryn MacCarthy

(0:01) Welcome to the Business of Happiness podcast. (0:05) It's your host, Dr. Tarryn MacCarthy. (0:08) And this is the podcast where we put happiness first.(0:14) I help high achieving, deeply passionate healthcare professionals like you rediscover their happiness and their freedom. (0:23) Join me in conversations with experts to uncover our unique definition of happiness and answer the question, is there really such a thing as work-life balance? (0:35) If you've heard yourself saying, you know, I'll be happy when?(0:41) Well, my friend, the time is now. (0:44) Time to step out of the busyness of your life and time to step into the business of happiness. (0:54) Hello, welcome to the Business of Happiness podcast.(0:59) Hello, I'm your host, Dr. Tarryn MacCarthy. (1:01) And today is going to be such a great day. (1:08) So often when we find ourselves at a place, at an impasse, at a fork in the road where we realize something needs to change, usually it's at a point where things have gotten pretty uncomfortable.(1:23) Maybe it's a team member and you realize, oh my gosh, this person can no longer be on this team. (1:30) Or the way that we're doing this can no longer keep going. (1:34) Or maybe it's a relationship and you realize, wow, this relationship is not functioning the way that I need it to, I deserve it to, I feel good in, and something needs to change.(1:47) Or maybe it's your body and you're realizing, oh my gosh, I can't keep going like this anymore. (1:54) Something needs to change in my behavior pattern, in the job that I'm in right now, in the way that this person's speaking to me. (2:03) And when we get to that point, things can feel so uncomfortable.(2:11) And right at that moment, that awareness moment, we have a choice. (2:19) That choice point is what we're talking about today. (2:21) And this choice point is all in how you want to feel.(2:29) See, this is a really interesting moment because we don't realize that we get to choose what we think and how we feel and subsequently even our behavior pattern. (2:42) And today I'm telling you why that choice of how you see that pivotal moment informs everything that comes after that, informs the successes or the continued lessons. (2:58) Notice I didn't call them mistakes or failures.(3:00) I mean, continued lessons until you get to the point of celebrating and getting to that higher vibrational energy place where you can really appreciate those crux moments, those moments that shift your life. (3:18) I love this movie. (3:20) I don't know if you remember this movie.(3:22) Was it from the 80s, the 90s? (3:23) I think it was the 90s. (3:25) It's called Sliding Doors.(3:27) And I remember it was Gwyneth Paltrow in the Sliding Doors movie. (3:31) And she was running. (3:33) She got up in the morning.(3:35) She was running to work. (3:36) And there was a subway. (3:38) I forget where she lives.(3:40) And she had to, I think it's in London, and she had to take the tube to work. (3:46) And as she got to the tube, the doors shut, and she just missed it. (3:53) And so she went back home.(3:57) But there's another version where she just makes it. (4:01) And the whole movie is about following her in these two lives, right? (4:06) What if she made it and what if she didn't?(4:10) And we get to evaluate these pivotal moments of awareness in the very same way. (4:17) This weekend, I was hiking with my husband. (4:20) We went to this beautiful hike up a mountain in Vermont.(4:25) Oh, it was so spectacular. (4:28) Immersed in the woods. (4:29) Yes, there were a lot of bugs, but there's something about nature.(4:32) We talk a lot about that here on the podcast, about just resorbing all the stress and recycling it and giving you just a renewed perspective and getting to the top of the mountain. (4:46) For me, it's always representative of fresh perspective over space and time, and I love the way I feel moving my body, the breathing, the biambulatory movement. (4:57) It's just all so good for releasing and working through stress.(5:03) And just being in nature amongst trees and the water. (5:07) There were several waterfalls. (5:08) Oh, it was so, so good, so healing.(5:13) And I was loving the hike. (5:16) And I was noticing, gosh, I really could be a little stronger. (5:21) I really could, you know, I'd love to just launch myself up.(5:25) There were some places where you had to scramble hand over foot, and I noticed, wow, my legs used to feel a little stronger than this, and man, I want to just strengthen them again so that this feels even more fun. (5:37) I mean, it was really, really fun, but I remembered that feeling of even stronger legs. (5:43) And I turned at one point, and I was watching my husband, and he was miserable, absolutely miserable.(5:50) And I said to him, what is going on? (5:52) He was like, I am so out of shape. (5:54) Now, he's been swimming a lot using very different muscles, and so every morning has been his swimming routine in the summer.(6:02) That's what he loves to do. (6:04) I said, babe, you've just been swimming using different muscles, and he got so down about himself. (6:10) And I realized that I've done that to myself in the past as well.(6:16) The moment you have an awareness that something needs to shift, let's even say you want something to shift, you come to a point in your life where you realize, this job no longer serves me, or this relationship no longer serves me. (6:37) And we have a choice in that moment of one of two perspectives, probably one of a million perspectives, but let's just put it into two very broad categories, empowering and disempowering. (6:52) Two lenses that we can see this moment, this shift happening.(7:00) Look, the awareness is there. (7:02) You can't unsee what you've seen. (7:05) There's a very clear awareness, and maybe you have been going a really long time being unaware.(7:13) We know this has happened with team members, right? (7:15) For a long time, you're unaware, unaware, unaware, and then there comes a moment where you realize, oh my gosh, something needs to change. (7:23) Same thing in parenting.(7:24) Same thing in business. (7:26) Same thing in our society right now, where whatever that is for you, you realize, wow, I've really been either denying this in the past or completely naive to it, and now it's being brought to my attention for some reason. (7:46) Sometimes it's about the health of your body, right?(7:48) You've been ignoring, ignoring, ignoring, and then all of a sudden you can't ignore it anymore. (7:52) Something speaks loud enough, whether it's in your environment or in your bank account or in your body, and you realize, wow, I can't just unsee what I just saw, and now I'm aware that something needs to shift. (8:09) On that mountain, Killian and I had two very different perspectives.(8:15) We both realized, wow, something needs to shift, and I got excited. (8:20) I chose the empowered option, the empowered lens. (8:26) I chose, oh my gosh, this is amazing.(8:30) I can't believe I just had this realization. (8:32) Yeah, now I know what I need to do. (8:36) I need to do more lunges, more Bulgarian split squats, more sumo squats.(8:43) I need to strengthen these legs because I love the way it feels when I can just bound up that mountain, when I can just launch myself up those rocks. (8:53) I know what I got to do, and I literally celebrated myself because I've been practicing this, because I'm aware, because I know that when I do that, it empowers me, gives me more enthusiasm for the change. (9:09) So when I came home, I was chatting with my son, and I said, oh my gosh, I really am excited to start strengthening my legs more.(9:19) He said, mom, let's pull up. (9:21) He chose ChatGPT, or Claude, I'm not sure which one. (9:24) He said, I'm going to bring up a training schedule for you before our next hiking trip in the Rocky Mountains in a couple months.(9:30) I thought, oh my God, this is exciting. (9:32) I started planning, what are my playlists that I'm going to play when I'm working out in this different way? (9:38) I've just been running.(9:39) I haven't been doing the strength training of my legs. (9:41) I thought, okay, cool. (9:43) Killian, who was beating himself up all day on that hike, judging himself, telling himself that he wasn't good enough, that he was weak, feeling sad and depressed about his workout routine, when we came home, didn't even want to talk about it, didn't even want to look at my training schedule, just wanted to ignore it all.(10:11) And I realized I've been there too. (10:13) And by the way, this is zero judgment of my amazing husband. (10:15) He is amazing.(10:17) He's got his own journey and he will be amazing in the Rocky Mountains. (10:22) I have no doubt about it. (10:24) However, it made me very aware of the choice point we have in that moment because I've been exactly where he's been, where he was yesterday.(10:32) I've been in that same place, where you have a realization about something that needs to change or shift, and you feel so awful about it that the shift, the change, becomes more laborious, more difficult. (10:51) We turn this molehill into a mountain. (10:56) By choosing the empowered perspective, we take the mountain and we make it a molehill.(11:02) My problem solved. (11:03) I have an awesome workout routine already planned out for me. (11:07) I have a playlist going.(11:09) I have a cheerleader in my son. (11:11) I have this visceral, embodied feeling in my legs that I already feel. (11:18) I already feel stronger in my legs because I'm so excited to feel that strength in my legs.(11:25) But I could have chosen the other perspective and beat myself up about how I wasn't in good enough shape. (11:32) How did I let myself get this far? (11:34) I used to be stronger.(11:36) Why am I not stronger now? (11:38) What's going on? (11:39) Why is the running not working?(11:41) I could have had a million judgmental thoughts. (11:46) And what does that do? (11:47) That just brings you lower down on that energetic vibrational scale.(11:52) It makes you feel worse. (11:54) And here's the really important moment. (11:57) When we feel worse emotionally, mentally, energetically, it becomes really difficult to make a positive change.(12:14) Now, change is not the enemy here. (12:17) In fact, change is the one truth. (12:20) It is constant, constant, constant.(12:24) Change is inevitable. (12:26) And when we look at a moment of change as a moment of opportunity, possibility, when we can get excited, even just a little bit, even just 1%, it's like pushing a snowball down a mountainside. (12:44) It starts picking up momentum and picking up momentum, not just within ourselves, but we start attracting resources around us.(12:54) Look at that. (12:55) I barely did anything and my son came up with an entire 60-day training plan for me in a moment. (13:03) I was already on my way.(13:06) I'm already so far into this training. (13:08) I'm already going. (13:09) I'm already excited about it.(13:10) I have the music ready. (13:12) And notice, just for example here, if I had chosen to feel bad about myself, first of all, I know what I would have done. (13:22) I am a emotional eater.(13:24) I would have last night been diving into True Fruit. (13:28) Trust me, those delicious strawberries dipped in chocolate, frozen. (13:32) Oh, they're amazing.(13:34) That would have been my solace last night. (13:36) But instead, I was creating a training program for me that I kicked off this morning because I was feeling so excited about it. (13:46) And the only difference in the moment of change is the choice of loving and celebrating myself or beating myself up.(13:57) That's it. (13:58) That's the only difference. (14:00) And notice how both of them are those little snowballs that begin rolling down the hill because every choice, every thought, every emotion subsequent to the one I chose creates a bigger and bigger outcome.(14:20) So now, what happens? (14:21) If I had gone to the place of, oh, I feel so awful about myself. (14:25) This hasn't been good enough.(14:26) What's wrong with my body? (14:28) Maybe it's my hormones. (14:30) Notice something I call the rabbit hole of hell.(14:33) It's this thought process that becomes spiraling downward into more and more disempowered states. (14:39) Notice how that thought process could easily have progressed. (14:43) Now I'm eating more chocolate right before I go to bed.(14:46) Now I go to bed and I'm not sleeping well because I've been feeding myself these self-berating thoughts before bed. (14:54) Now I wake up in the morning and I'm feeling so lethargic because I didn't get a good enough sleep because I went to bed subconsciously beating myself up. (15:02) Now I lay in bed a little bit longer because I just feel so tired and I don't get up and work out.(15:08) As opposed to, I'm so excited. (15:12) I've got this great plan. (15:13) I put my shoes out in the morning.(15:15) They're ready to go. (15:16) I get out of bed. (15:17) I put on the music, got the playlist.(15:19) I'm so excited to get going. (15:20) And here I am doing Bulgarian split squats in the gym. (15:25) Did I call them squat splits?(15:28) Bulgarian split squats. (15:29) They're my least favorite, but I am excited about turning them into my most favorite. (15:35) Notice what I just did.(15:37) Notice again the moment I chose an empowered perspective. (15:43) I am not emotionally bypassing. (15:45) I am not toxic positivity.(15:48) This is not what I'm talking about. (15:50) I am talking about intentionally choosing a lens through which I see my own experience around this moment of change. (16:02) That is it.(16:03) The same pattern works in every part of life. (16:08) Let's talk about team members giving their two weeks notice. (16:11) I hear all the time women in dentistry, business owners who say to me the biggest stress in their lives, in their practices, is the worry about losing team members, around needing to train new team members, about hiring new staff.(16:30) And I hear this narrative, there are not enough people out there. (16:36) There's not enough good people to hire. (16:38) There's a dearth of women in dentistry who want to work as assistants or hygienists or front desk staff.(16:46) And this narrative creates a disempowered emotion. (16:52) And the moment we find ourselves in that victimized mentality of poor me, I'm in a place where the cards are against me, the odds are against me, now we start this energetic snowball effect again. (17:10) And what happens?(17:11) We go down the direction of feeling worse and worse and worse. (17:15) And when you feel worse and worse and worse, what happens? (17:18) You show up energetically low.(17:22) You don't write that indeed job description from a place of excitement and attraction. (17:32) Now you're writing it from a place of feeling depressed, already defeated. (17:39) And that reads very differently.(17:41) Or maybe you just choose AI to write that for you and you don't read it through and notice that there's a lack of humanity. (17:52) We want to draw human beings to our practices. (17:56) We want it to be infused with excitement and attraction.(18:01) But I don't really feel like infusing anything with excitement and attraction when I'm feeling like a victim or I'm beating myself up. (18:08) So in that moment of change, we have a choice. (18:16) We have a choice.(18:18) I have a client who is an orthodontist. (18:23) She's amazing. (18:24) She's so talented.(18:26) She was working for another orthodontist for a long time. (18:30) She has been feeling like it is not a good fit. (18:34) And she finally gave her two weeks notice.(18:36) Actually, I don't think she gave two weeks notice. (18:39) I think she gave like two months. (18:41) She just let her know that she was no longer going to be working there.(18:44) She was actually moving to a different state. (18:47) And that moment of change, there is going to be a shift here. (18:51) There's going to be a change.(18:54) She needed to get there from a place of empowerment in order to have the courage to speak to her boss who thought she was going to be there forever. (19:05) She probably thought she was going to buy the practice from her one day. (19:08) There was a lot of emotional investment there.(19:12) In order for my client to actually speak to her boss and say this does not feel aligned, she needed to get to a place of empowerment. (19:21) She needed to feel good about herself. (19:24) She needed to cheer herself on.(19:27) This is research proven. (19:30) You know, when we live in a place of chronic stress, all the physical results in our body, we know of already. (19:42) This is not new.(19:45) In 2023, the Mayo Clinic put out a study that looked at studies from over the past 10 years. (19:56) Accumulative analysis. (19:59) And they wrote, the statement they wrote in this article, published from the Mayo Clinic, August 1st, 2023, and I quote, chronic stress wreaks havoc on your mind and body.(20:19) When stressors are always present and you always feel under attack, that fight or flight reaction stays turned on. (20:28) End of quote. (20:30) This is not new.(20:32) We have known this for decades. (20:35) You probably studied this in dental school. (20:37) And yet we choose in that moment thoughts that are more stressful than they are empowering.(20:45) Because we're not aware. (20:48) It's the awareness that changes everything. (20:52) So I'm inviting you today to become aware of the thoughts you think in that moment of change.(20:58) When you have the awareness, something needs to change. (21:02) I have a dog. (21:04) A third dog.(21:05) Yes, we now have three dogs. (21:07) It was not planned. (21:08) He is a delight.(21:10) We inherited him from my cousin. (21:12) I love my cousin so dearly. (21:15) She needed to move to Australia and couldn't take him with her.(21:18) We inherited Wiley. (21:21) Wiley came with a lot of anxiety. (21:25) And recently, he was so anxious at the groomers that he snapped at them and they said, Tarryn, we will no longer see this dog.(21:34) And he is a golden doodle. (21:35) And if you have a golden doodle, I didn't know this about them. (21:38) But man, they need a lot of grooming.(21:40) So not having a groomer is not an option. (21:42) So I started working with a behavioral therapist for this dog. (21:47) A trainer who's teaching me all kinds of things.(21:51) And I'm loving it. (21:53) And he's doing so well. (21:55) But when I got that news from the groomer, I could choose one of two lenses.(22:03) A disempowered victimized mentality or an empowered cheerleader mentality. (22:11) I could look at this as one through one of two lenses. (22:15) Poor me.(22:16) I don't have enough time. (22:18) This is so frustrating. (22:20) Why did I ever say yes to taking on this dog?(22:24) Or, oh my gosh, I am so grateful that I live in a part of Maine where there's a behavioral therapist for dogs in the town over. (22:34) Who would have guessed? (22:35) Oh my gosh, this is informing the work that I do.(22:39) I'm learning about training this dog, but it's identical to some of the work that I'm doing with humans around their stress, around their nervous system. (22:50) It's so fascinating. (22:51) It's another facet of what I love to study.(22:56) And I just adore this dog. (22:59) Notice the two lenses. (23:01) Notice how they put me in two very different mindsets and create two very different outcomes in my lived experience.(23:10) Mine. (23:12) I either live a life of victimhood or a life of empowered creation. (23:20) And I say creation with intention because you are either living your life from a place of disempowered, where other people are impacting you, events outside of you are doing things to you, or you are actively creating the life you experience.(23:42) That is it. (23:44) And it all comes down to in that moment when you become aware of a change, not if, when. (23:53) Because change is ever present.(23:56) We are growing human beings. (23:58) We are evolving human beings. (24:00) There's not a cell in your body that is the same cell as it was seven years ago.(24:06) You are a different human today. (24:09) Change is inevitable. (24:11) So when you recognize that moment of change, you have a choice.(24:15) Which lens am I going to see it through? (24:17) And let it be okay if up until now you've been seeing it through a lens of, oh my gosh, it's poor me. (24:24) I'm so frustrated.(24:25) I have such big debt. (24:27) They lied to me. (24:28) I was duped by this profession and patients keep telling me how miserable they are.(24:34) Don't worry. (24:36) There's a moment of change. (24:38) You had just had a realization.(24:41) Oh my God. (24:43) Up until now, I have been looking at the world through a lens of victimization, through a disempowered lens. (24:52) And right now in this podcast, this hit me at such a great moment because I get to choose differently what will happen today if I start looking at things through an empowered lens.(25:06) What will shift? (25:08) And it's that small of a choice. (25:10) But it's that big of an outcome because either way, we're talking about a snowball effect.(25:15) Either way, this snowball, the one you choose, the disempowered snowball or the empowered snowball is going to pick up steam and momentum and more snow. (25:26) And it's going to roll down that mountain. (25:28) It's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.(25:30) And you get to choose the one you most want to feed. (25:37) Isn't that fascinating? (25:39) That is how powerful you are.(25:40) My friends, we don't even realize the power we hold within us. (25:44) This is just the tip of the iceberg. (25:46) But you are so powerful that you get to choose the lens through which you see your moment of change.(25:56) Ha. (25:58) I'm excited for you because I know that if you stayed with me throughout this podcast, there is something in your world that you are beginning to look at differently. (26:06) And I'm so excited for you.(26:10) And here's what I know at the core of my being. (26:14) When you feel good, that is when you can do good. (26:21) Bye-bye.(26:24) Thank you for listening to the Business of Happiness podcast. (26:28) If this episode brought you new perspective and value, I invite you to subscribe so that you catch all upcoming episodes and leave us a review. (26:38) And if you know of a friend or colleague who could benefit from this perspective, share this episode with them and empower their day.(26:46) For more information about the Business of Happiness and the Radical Happiness for Practitioners course, find me on www.thebizofhappiness.com. (26:57) See you there.