#427 - You Are Not Crazy… That Was Trauma

Your past may be shaping your choices more than you think. In this episode, Dr. Tarryn MacCarthy reveals how trauma and old stress can shape the way high-achieving women in dentistry work, lead, and set boundaries. Even with a thriving practice and financial security, fear can make it hard to choose more time with family or accept support.

Dr. Tarryn explains why trauma is not a contest, how it can show up as overworking, perfectionism, hyper-independence, and financial fear, and why awareness matters. This honest conversation offers a new way to see the patterns that may be stealing your peace, freedom, and happiness. Press play, then stop calling survival a personality trait.

Show notes:
(1:56) How trauma affects dentists today
(3:26) Financial fear and work boundaries
(9:37) Childhood stress shapes adult choices
(13:44) A self-alignment framework to help dentists and healthcare professionals to reconnect with themselves beyond burnout and outside expectations. https://truetomemethod.com/
(16:36) What trauma means in daily life
(18:25) Four types of trauma explained
(22:51) Awareness begins the healing process
(28:12) 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, I'm Dr. Tarryn MacCarthy. (0:57) Hello and welcome back to the Business of Happiness podcast. (1:01) I'm so happy to have you here. (1:03) And today is going to be a phenomenal day.(1:05) And no, my friend, you're not making it up. (1:09) That was a traumatic event. (1:11) And today we're unpacking what is trauma?(1:15) Why does it matter? (1:16) And how does that impact you as a dentist? (1:20) Not just what is trauma to your patients and your team members and to your family members, but how has trauma informed and shaped you, your actions, your inactions, where you hold yourself back, where you self-suppress, where you don't take action on your dreams, or maybe where you don't ask for help, or where you step forward and you are hyper-independent.(1:48) You don't let anybody else support you. (1:50) Or maybe where reason why you're constantly feeling like you're not enough. (1:56) And, you know, I think one of the craziest things about trauma is we tell ourselves, I wasn't sexually abused as a child, or I didn't have intense trauma.(2:10) And we rank ourselves, you know, comparing ourselves to other people and their trauma. (2:16) And what we end up doing is we end up downplaying, or here's the word I want you to hear today, bypassing, I said it, bypassing the impact of events on our lives, and on our psyche, and on our happiness. (2:35) Because we tell ourselves, well, it wasn't as bad as somebody else's.(2:39) Today we're unpacking that so that you might have more insight into yourself. (2:45) Because that's what we do here at the Business of Happiness Podcast, all about how to support you living and experiencing the freedom and the joy and the happiness that you had expected to feel at this point in your career and in your life. (3:00) And no, it isn't about anything outside of you.(3:04) It is all within you. (3:06) And this is the podcast where you find out more about what that means and how to step into the power that you have not been giving yourself enough credit for. (3:16) Because you are so powerful over your lived experience.(3:24) So what do I mean? (3:26) I have a client who has really been struggling in her partnership with her business partners. (3:33) She's in a partnership with a couple of other people.(3:36) There are four docs in this partnership, and she is one of the four. (3:42) And she does not want to work that hard. (3:45) She is at a point in her life where she's realizing, I've got everything I need.(3:51) I have everything that I want. (3:54) But what I really want, in terms of material things, but what I really want is to pick my daughter up from school. (4:00) Her sister's children have graduated from high school and have left for college.(4:06) And they don't even come home in the summers anymore. (4:10) And she's looking at these precious nieces and nephews of hers and she's saying, Oh my gosh, I'm realizing I only have so much time with my children. (4:21) I do not want to spend these years, these precious years, while they're here in my home, missing them because I am taking care of other people's children in the dental chair.(4:34) And so she spoke to her partners and she said, Let's just agree to live our lives. (4:42) Let's not work five days a week. (4:45) Let's just work three and a half or maybe get out early in the afternoons.(4:49) Or can we look at shifts? (4:51) Maybe I do the morning and you do the afternoon and then we flip flop so that we can still have open hours. (4:57) I mean, she's very open to conversations.(5:00) And yet her partners are not. (5:04) They're in that place right now where they are very directed towards building. (5:11) They're in that phase of their careers where for them it really matters accumulating wealth and making hay while the sun shines.(5:20) And they're not open to slowing down their hours. (5:24) And so what she's looking at here is making a little less money than her partners. (5:31) And suddenly the you know what hits the fan and she goes into fight or flight.(5:39) And suddenly that goal of ending earlier on the day becomes scary. (5:47) Just because her partners have chosen not to slow down or work fewer hours. (5:54) She's now making that mean something about herself.(5:56) And guess what? (5:58) She's not taking action on it. (6:00) And we were talking about this and she said, I don't understand why on one day I can be with my kids and I can be in that space of absolutely I do not want to work more.(6:13) This is silly. (6:14) I have enough money. (6:15) My financial planner said that I'm right on target for my retirement plan.(6:21) We have everything. (6:23) Yes, we still have student loan debt, but I'm paying it easily. (6:26) Even if I were to make 10, 20% less, we'd be fine.(6:32) And I would have those hours with my kids. (6:35) I'd have this precious time that I can't put money on, that I could never value with a dollar sign. (6:42) Why then when I'm in the office, does it seem impossible for me to put that boundary?(6:49) Now remember, she's an owner of the practice. (6:51) She has every right. (6:54) Her partners don't care.(6:55) They're fine with her ending at three in the afternoon in the summer to spend time with her kids. (7:00) And she said, Tara and I have such a hard time taking that action, setting that boundary. (7:05) Or something that happened was she did take off extra days during the year where they put in their calendar for the year.(7:14) And she went back in and filled them in. (7:17) She went back and she was like, Oh no, that's too much. (7:20) That was too generous to myself.(7:22) And I took too much time at Christmas. (7:25) Partners didn't care. (7:27) And she went back in and put more time in for herself.(7:31) Not because she needs the money. (7:33) She already knows that. (7:35) Theoretically, logically, her accountant, her financial advisor, everybody has said to her, no, you're fine.(7:43) And yet she has a really hard time actually taking action on setting those boundaries for herself. (7:49) So let's unpack this. (7:51) When we went back and talked about some of the limiting beliefs that she has and we uncovered them, and that's really where we start.(7:58) We understood that there is definitely this sense of at any moment now, everything could fall apart. (8:07) Now notice the language I'm using. (8:10) At any moment now, the other shoe could drop.(8:14) That's what she said to me. (8:16) She said, I feel like everything looks fine. (8:20) Everybody says it's fine.(8:22) But I feel like at any moment, something could fall apart or there could be a massive financial need all of a sudden or something big could happen in the economy or tomorrow people don't continue to come to the dentist and I just want to be sure that I have a cushion. (8:39) And I said to her, do you have a cushion? (8:41) She said, oh yeah, I have an emergency account in the bank.(8:45) I have a special savings account that's just for emergency funds. (8:48) We'd be fine for like six months. (8:51) I said, huh, isn't that interesting?(8:52) She said, I know, but I just feel like if I don't keep filling that account and contributing to all the retirement funds at the aggressive place that I have been, she said, I also don't want to, you know, sacrifice the lifestyle that I have. (9:10) I want to be able to go to our vacation house. (9:14) I want that vacation house.(9:15) I want to be able to buy clothes, the clothes that I wear whenever I want. (9:20) And the fear that if I were to make 20% less, which by the way is aggressive for just ending an hour earlier every day or two hours earlier every day in the summer, she said, I'm afraid everything will fall apart. (9:37) And when we unpacked, we realized that in her formative years, middle school and high school, she and her family actually really struggled financially.(9:51) And there were times when she had to convince debt collectors that her parents were not home. (9:58) This was pre cell phones. (10:00) So this people were still coming to the door and she had to actually tell people, no, my mom's not home even though she was.(10:08) And there were Christmases she remembers in her family where nobody got presents because they didn't have enough money. (10:15) There were in fact years she remembers working in high school at summer jobs and her parents coming to her at the end of the summer and saying, we need that money. (10:25) And she didn't anticipate that.(10:27) She thought she was going to take that money with her to college because she knew that her parents wouldn't be able to give her enough money to, you know, go out for Chinese food in college. (10:37) So she was working over the summer to have that little buffer. (10:40) And then at the end of the summer, boom, her parents dropped the bomb.(10:43) We need the money that you earned this summer. (10:45) Of course she handed it over because she knew they were struggling. (10:49) Right there we identified that at the time an event that had nothing to do with her, her parents' inability to navigate financial management, her parents' inability to have consistent financial stability impacted her to such an extent that she has remained hypervigilant and overprotecting her finances because, quote unquote, at any moment something could fall apart.(11:24) Can't we just see that pattern in her life, in her younger years (11:28) when she was forming these belief systems about herself, (11:32) when she was forming her belief systems about what was happening out in the world (11:37) and how she was impacted by the events outside of her control (11:43) and look at how you can see the pattern in her life of (11:47) she thought she was okay, she was making money, (11:51) and then boom, at the end of the summer, (11:53) it got all taken out from under her without any warning. (11:59) And now as a grown adult, she has everything she needs and yet that same insecurity keeps persisting.(12:08) Once she went to dental school and started working as a dentist, she never, even with big student loans, had a single day that she didn't have enough money. (12:17) Not one day, even through COVID. (12:19) And yet that same hypervigilance is keeping her from taking action on the things she actually wants.(12:28) She actually wants to spend time with her children in the summer at the end of the day. (12:35) She actually wants to work fewer days a week. (12:38) She actually wants, now hear this, to own a business, to be a dentist, to be able to make these decisions about her lifestyle, about how she spends the hours of her day, to have the autonomy to choose.(12:55) That is why she chose to own a business and not be an associate. (13:00) And yet what holds her back is this limiting belief. (13:03) And it all comes from this trauma that she experienced as a teenager.(13:11) So now I want to talk to you a little bit about trauma. (13:15) Because you might be listening to this and saying, Tarryn, I don't know what you're talking about. (13:18) That's her story.(13:19) It's very obvious that that's what she experienced. (13:21) And no, she wasn't sexually abused. (13:24) She wasn't physically abused.(13:25) By the way, if you were, please know, yes, that is trauma. (13:30) And I'm going to help you identify what type of trauma it is in a moment. (13:35) What I want you to hear is, it's very easy to see from our perspective as we're listening to this.(13:40) It's very easy for us to see, yeah, that impacted her. (13:45) All right, my friends, I am interrupting your episode to bring to you some extremely exciting news. (13:52) Because at The Business of Happiness, we are doing something we have never done before.(13:57) Because we know that you are doing such amazing things every single day. (14:03) We know you are literally putting smiles on children's faces on a daily basis. (14:08) And you have spent so many years giving and taking care of and serving and holding space for everyone else.(14:17) Not just your patients, but your team and your family. (14:20) And it is exhausting. (14:22) And it is time to come back to what is true to you.(14:28) And that is why we are offering the True2Me method. (14:33) We've never done this before. (14:35) And this is the core, the foundational method, the framework that is at the core of everything we offer, is the True2Me method.(14:46) And we're putting it in a beautiful little package, a self-led course for you, a mini four-step course that you can listen to on the way to work. (14:57) It is going to change the way you see yourself. (15:01) It is going to put you back in touch with what is true to you.(15:05) Because what I know is, up until this point, what we've been taught in dentistry is to outsource our choices and our decisions to the expectations of everyone around us. (15:18) What do my patients need? (15:20) What does my accountant say I need to do?(15:23) What does my family think? (15:24) What do my colleagues expect of me? (15:26) And this four-step method brings you back to you.(15:31) This is the core of finding fulfillment and freedom and satisfaction and enjoyment and living your life to the fullest. (15:41) So check out True2MeMethod.com. (15:45) Easy to remember, True2MeMethod.com.(15:48) And use the code POD10, P-O-D 10, to get a 10% discount as a podcast listener. (15:56) Let me tell you, this is amazing. (15:59) We have already put in enormous savings.(16:02) It's usually $9.97. We're bringing it down to $4.97. And with the POD 10% savings, you get another 10% off. (16:10) This is a no-brainer. (16:11) There are CE credits.(16:13) There's community. (16:13) There's a downloadable companion guide. (16:16) There are monthly check-ins.(16:18) This is amazing. (16:20) You cannot afford to miss it. (16:22) Check out the True2MeMethod.com and use the code POD10. (16:26) I am sending you so much love. (16:28) You deserve to remember what is true for you. (16:33) Now, back to the episode.(16:36) And here's the thing. (16:39) It doesn't mean that it has to impact her for the rest of her life. (16:44) It doesn't.(16:46) This is something that we actually get to work through. (16:50) This is actually something that we can heal. (16:54) Uh-huh.(16:54) This is something she doesn't have to live with. (16:58) And I think that's the other thing is we get very nervous when it comes to trauma because we think, if I assign this the label of trauma, I've pigeonholed myself. (17:08) And what's so interesting about trauma is no matter what it was, whether it was sexual abuse or it was a little girl pulling your ponytail in fourth grade or it was years of financial insecurity and deceit and instability in your formative years, it doesn't matter which one of those, they all impact your life on a daily basis.(17:36) Unless we face and overcome because trauma is not what happened to you. (17:44) Okay, Tarryn, what are you talking about? (17:46) You just told me she had a traumatic event and that's what happened to her.(17:49) No, no, no. (17:50) Trauma is not what happened to you. (17:55) Trauma is what your mind made it mean.(17:58) And the unprocessed emotion that still lives in your body today. (18:05) What happened back then is over. (18:09) Trauma is what you are making it mean and re-experiencing on a daily basis.(18:16) That is the definition of trauma. (18:18) So let's just go back and talk about, there are four types of trauma, by the way, just so that you have awareness about this. (18:25) There is acute trauma and acute trauma is like a singular event that happened to you at a hurricane, an earthquake, a car accident, something, you know, a board complaint.(18:38) Here's a traumatic event that happened to me in residency. (18:43) I had a patient swallow a key. (18:47) Now you all know those expanders, right?(18:50) That we use in orthodontics. (18:51) And now we have some great keys that have long handles, but back then it was this, is that an inch and a half long metal, little piece of wire. (19:02) It looks like a paperclip built, bent for something you can hold on to.(19:06) And then this pointy sticky up part. (19:09) And we were taught in our residency program, you always loop some floss around that little handle because it's only an inch, inch and a half long metal paperclip bent. (19:22) And that's what you use.(19:24) You put it in the back of the patient's palate and turn the key, right? (19:29) In order to, you put it in the hole and you push all the way back towards their throat, all the way in the back. (19:36) And the risk of them swallowing it is big because we're literally putting it back there and you're activating that reflex to swallow.(19:43) So you're supposed to tie a little piece of thread around it and floss around it rather, and then hold onto it with your hands so that they can't swallow it. (19:50) Well, wouldn't you know, this was the one day I didn't, the floss was too short. (19:54) I didn't have it in my hand and my patient swallowed it.(19:59) She ended up needing to go for a chest x-ray because we don't know, did she swallow it or inhale it? (20:06) That became such a stressful thing for me that every time I had a patient that I even treatment planned for an expansion, I would get sweaty palms. (20:17) I would get panicky and I actually avoided treatment planning expanders for that reason.(20:23) And when I noticed it, I realized, Oh my God, that was a traumatic event. (20:27) Now that very same traumatic event could have happened to someone else and it not been traumatizing. (20:34) That's why trauma is not what happened to you.(20:36) It's what you made it mean. (20:38) And it is how your body is responding to it now. (20:42) That is trauma.(20:44) When we remember, we studied this in dental school, ACE, adverse childhood events. (20:50) These are events that were likely possibly traumatic, but not every child responds to it in the same way. (21:00) It is not traumatic for every child.(21:02) We looked at studies, remember these in dental school, we looked at studies of twins who lived in the same household, experienced the same thing, but one came away completely unscathed. (21:12) And the other one, it created a deep psychological ongoing problem. (21:17) So just because the event happened to you, and this is an acute traumatic event, doesn't mean that it was traumatizing.(21:24) It doesn't make it trauma. (21:25) Let's talk about chronic trauma. (21:28) Chronic trauma, this is the second type of trauma, is an ongoing stress that happens either in childhood or early adulthood.(21:36) Yeah, that includes dental school. (21:40) That was traumatizing, domestic violence, illness, traumatic experience in dental school that was ongoing, abusive residency programs. (21:52) Ongoing, high stress work environments could be chronic trauma.(21:59) Complex trauma, the third part, is ongoing trauma perpetuated by a caregiver. (22:05) And this is complex because in those early childhood times, the person who is supposed to be giving you safety, regulating your nervous system, is the source of your abuse. (22:18) That's why it's called complex trauma.(22:20) And then systemic trauma, the fourth type of trauma, is institutional trauma, like systems that perpetuate things like racism or sexism, other systemic biases, right, that many of us have been subjected to. (22:35) Notice there's no hierarchy of trauma. (22:39) Notice there's no rules of she gets to call it trauma and she doesn't because this didn't happen to her.(22:47) It's how it impacts you now. (22:51) And this is important because how it impacts you now is where we get to pay attention. (22:58) Where in your life are you desiring something that for some unknown reason, even though you're getting permission from your spouse, from your kids, from your parents, from your friends, from your association, from your partners in your practice, from your boss, you cannot take action on because of something you don't understand or a limiting belief that you have identified?(23:26) And how is that possibly linked to trauma? (23:33) The key is to recognize that to be human is to have experienced trauma. (23:40) And this is a moment I need you to pay attention to because that means every human that puts their butts in your dental chair has experienced trauma, every single one.(23:52) Every team member on your team has experienced trauma. (23:57) Some of it might come to light in your office and some of it won't. (24:03) Some of it comes to light when we give them a bill, whatever you did for them for the treatment.(24:08) Some of that trauma comes to light when we say, no, you can't go on vacation during that week to our team members. (24:16) Some of it comes to light just by the tone of your voice or by the weather. (24:24) Things that are completely out of sight of your control and unpredictable, yeah, even smells and scents can trigger a traumatic response to something completely unrelated.(24:38) And this is important to realize because many of the things that you experience from your patients, from your team members, has nothing to do with you. (24:51) And many of the things that you're holding yourself back from experiencing has everything to do with a traumatic experience or an interpretation of something in your life that is now living as a trauma in your body. (25:06) And what I want you to hear from me today is that awareness is the first step towards healing it.(25:13) You do not have to be a slave to your past experiences. (25:17) You do not have to be a slave to your past identity or choices. (25:22) You get to heal from them.(25:26) Uh-huh. (25:28) Every single one of them. (25:30) And what's so interesting is sometimes the bigger the trauma, the more avoidant we are and resistant we are to actually going and exploring it.(25:39) And it's like that proverbial monster under the bed. (25:42) It's so much worse when we don't look it in the eye and realize, oh, my God, there's no monster anyway. (25:50) Because the truth is, if you're listening to this podcast, you are a grown woman who has overcome incredible odds.(26:00) I know every single woman in this who is listening to this, yes, you. (26:06) You have overcome incredible odds to be where you are today. (26:10) You are so capable.(26:12) And because you listen to this podcast, you also are very aware that money isn't all it's made out to be. (26:20) All the material things, there is a limitation to the amount of happiness you can experience from them. (26:25) Yeah, they're good.(26:26) Yeah, they can buy experiences like a trip to Greece and maybe a safari. (26:31) I mean, yeah, that's incredible. (26:34) And there is a limit.(26:36) I'll never forget a prosthodontist in our community. (26:39) He used to always say, the amount of stress in your life is directly proportional to the number of toilets you have. (26:46) Meaning like if you have a second house or a boat with a toilet on it or a condo, every time you add a toilet in your life, your stress increases.(26:58) And, you know, it's funny and it's a silly little thing to say, but it's actually true. (27:04) Sometimes more money buys us more stress. (27:07) And it doesn't mean you have to give up your lifestyle.(27:12) It doesn't mean you have to say goodbye to all the things that actually make you feel comfortable and help you enjoy your life. (27:19) But when you're noticing that something is preventing you from experiencing the joy and comfort in your life, that is when you get to take a look at it and go, oh my gosh, what trauma am I not addressing? (27:32) So I hope that this episode has given you a little bit of light and you've given yourself permission to realize, wow, that first associateship that I had was actually traumatic.(27:45) There's actually something there to heal from. (27:48) And give yourself permission to seek support or to at least look into a little bit more for yourself and understand what are the limiting beliefs that I developed subsequent to that event? (28:01) What is the trauma that I am experiencing in my body today because the event is over?(28:07) How is that impacting me now? (28:09) And then that little gleam of hope that says, oh my gosh, this doesn't have to be my story. (28:15) Because when you feel good, that's when you can do good.(28:19) Bye-bye. (28:22) Thank you for listening to the Business of Happiness podcast. (28:26) 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.(28:36) And if you know of a friend or colleague who could benefit from this perspective, share this episode with them and empower their day. (28:44) For more information about the Business of Happiness and the Radical Happiness for Practitioners course, find me on www.thebizofhappiness.com. (28:55) See you there.