The Unexpected Journey That Became My Path to Freedom

Saying yes to your dreams isn’t just about becoming the person who can hold them— It’s also about letting go of who you no longer need to be.

There’s a part of the path no one prepares you for: the unbecoming.
The quiet release of old identities, outdated coping strategies, and ways of being that once kept you safe—but now keep you small.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why your next level of growth might not be about doing more—but letting go
• The healing experiences that cracked me open and made space for deeper alignment
• How surrendering control helped me trust life, move with it, and finally feel free

Press play to hear the unexpected part of the journey that changed everything—and what might be waiting for you on the other side of release.

Join the Life After Medicine Telegram Community

Life After Medicine explores doctors' journey of finding purpose beyond their medical careers, addressing physician burnout, career changes, opportunities in non-clinical jobs for physicians and remote jobs within the healthcare system without being burned out, using medical training.

Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

In today's podcast, I am sharing with you a free masterclass that I did last Thursday all about how I built my life of freedom by following my unrealistic dreams. If you're listening to this in real time as the episode is coming out, so Memorial Day weekend, essentially, that means there's still time for you to jump into Pathway to Purpose. So enrollment is closing this weekend. We start Monday, May 26th. If these podcast episodes resonate with you, If you're feeling lost or like you're unsure, what's next? Pathway to purpose is absolutely the program for you.

Speaker 2: 0:38

We're going through the four things We have to trust, if we wanna take this exquisite risk, if we wanna say yes to our unrealistic dreams. The final one is trusting life, whatever entity is out there that you believe in, that's bigger than you, but it's like trusting in a friendly entity out there that it's taking care of you. Albert Einstein who has a quote that the most important decision we ever make is whether we live in a friendly or hostile universe. So it's like we have to decide is the universe hostile? Is it trying to attack us? If so, we're gonna try to control it and keep our life really small so we can protect ourselves. Or do we believe that there's some kind of benevolent friendly something in the universe that's moving us towards our good? Doesn't mean we believe that nothing bad happens, it just means that we believe that the bad thing that happens is not the last thing that happens. It's not the end, we have to trust and believe that we live in a friendly universe because if you're not believing that you are not taking a risk, if you're not believing, there's some kind of benevolent force out there, whatever that looks like for you, you are gonna control, protect, safe, small. Like that is what's gonna happen. Three is sort of like the becoming right? You have to trust your becoming. You have to trust like who you can become. This one is more like the unbecoming. This is where you're shedding, you're letting go. You're freeing yourself from the shoulds and the shame and the layer like this. And I would say, this is the thing that surprised me the most about this whole path. I, this is not something I expected. I wasn't like, I'm gonna leave residency and go on a healing journey. Like absolutely not part of my vocabulary, part of my language. Like not anything I thought I needed to do or wanted to do, had any conception of. But what happened is, as I am on this path of growth, right, and I have this desire and I'm like, I wanna build a six figure business and I wanna help people in this way and, and I'm working on my growth and like putting myself out there, what starts to happen is I'm presented with these sort of healing opportunities that start to crack me open. I'm in Vietnam and I actually get invited to this like breath work and cacao ceremony. And I'm like, I don't know what that is. For sure. I'll go to it. I go to it and I just have this like incredible experience of like feeling in my heart, feeling like connected to my body. We did like this soul gazing thing and I was just like, what? Like, I just cried, released a lot of stuff, like stuff happened. I was in Columbia and I was on my sober journey of like letting go of alcohol. And so it was New Year's and I'm in managing Columbia and everyone like wants to go party and like there's a big nightlife scene and I was like, I need something to do for New Year's that's not this. I was like DMing all of these yoga studios on Instagram, being like, do you guys have a retreat? I just need something to do for New Year's. And this one yoga studio was like, well, we are affiliated with this asam. It's like three hours away, but they have a New Year's program and you can go and an ashram is like, um, eat, pray, love. It's where she goes in India where it's like, I guess it's like a temple it's sort of a spiritual home a peaceful sanctuary kind of a place. So I went to this ashram and I have this experience where we do ecstatic dancing on New Year's Eve, and it was like the most freeing experience I was like in my body. Like again, releasing stuff, being like, I don't know what's happening, but I'm, I'm just here. And I, I'm feeling like I, every time I do something like this, I'm like releasing more and more. I go to Brazil and I end up at this Airbnb that is right across the street from this yoga studio, my host was like, oh, did you come here for yoga? Because people come here for the studio. It's like a famous studio in Brazil. And I was like, no, what I, I did not even know it was there. And he was like, oh, you should check it out. So I go to the studio and it's this style of yoga called Ash Tonga Yoga. And I didn't know what that was. I it's a really specific style of yoga where it's a very internal practice. Like you're not following along as the teacher is telling you the movements you like, they're teach, they teach you the sequences and then you just do the same sequence every single time. And what that does is it facilitates you getting into your body in this really deep way and you're like really connected to your body. And each, you do five breaths in each pose. And as you're doing those breaths, you're like just getting further into your body. And so as I was doing that, I was, I. Learning how to actually be in my body in a way that I hadn't before every single class. I'm like in Shavasana at the end, and I'm like sobbing. Why am I crying? I don't even know why I'm crying and I'm just releasing like years of trauma and like doing all of these releases. And there's just so many of these things that happen that I wasn't planning on, I wasn't trying to do, but the more I just kind of surrendered to this and surrendered to the healing, it's like I let each experience just crack me open and release something else, release something I didn't know that I needed to let go of, and it's just like buckets of tears, learning about somatic work, inner child, like all of this stuff just starts to find me and I'm just like surrendering to it. And I realize all of these things that happen, they're happening for me. They're bringing me towards my growth path. Right? It's all working. For me and I just started to trust like the flow of life. I was like, I'm just like meeting the right people. I am in the right experience. Like it's all just happening for me. And as I'm doing this, it's like I'm letting go. I'm surrendering and I'm just trusting the flow of life. And at through all of this, I'm starting to realize like every time I had one of those experiences of like this deep healing thing that happened and it happened for me and I like was so much better on the other side, it came about'cause I was just trusting this impulse of something I wanted to do. And so I started to trust that, right? I started to realize like I can just trust these little impulses. I can trust these like desires. I can trust these nudges. It's like this intelligence, there's an intelligence to it. It's not random. It's not selfish. It's not superficial. It's like I understand there's an intelligence to it and the more I learn how to trust these things. But even before they make logical sense, the more I'm being led on my path. When you learn how to trust in these four areas and you learn how to trust your inner knowing before it makes sense, right? That's you taking your exquisite risk. When you can do this, you get out of this limbo. You get out of having all of these scattered ideas and not knowing which one to pick, like you're gonna move, instead of staying stuck in this limbo, you're gonna make decisions that give you more freedom and you feel more free instead of more pressure, right? Every decision you make brings you to more freedom. You're not gonna be waiting around for permission from other people. You don't need someone else to validate your ideas. You're not waiting for the right answer, the right timing. You are just moving and creating. The thing that you're here to create and you're moving towards the life that you're here to live, right? The reason you guys all came in here is you have something that is like whispering at you, right? You have some big dream, you have some wild idea. Maybe you have lots of different ones,, there's something in you that's like craving more than where you currently are. Maybe you want more purpose, you wanna hear cancer, you want to to have just more aliveness. You want to feel inspired by your work. You want to wake up and look forward to your days. You wanna have the freedom to enjoy your life outside of work, that your work is not so all consuming. And all of this is very possible for you. It's possible for anyone. None of this has to be unrealistic. The only thing that makes a dream unrealistic is if you are unwilling to show up for it, right? I used to say this when I was in maybe college, but like someone would say something and be like, oh, well that's never gonna happen. And I would say, well, not with that attitude. It won't. I was coaching before I even knew I was gonna be a coach it's not just, I'm gonna believe in it and it can happen. That's absolutely not what I'm saying, it's not believing in it, it's showing up for it. So dreams are only unrealistic if you're not willing to show up for them. If you're not willing to take your exquisite risks. Risks only just one. But many of us don't realize the power that we have to create our own reality. cause you guys are so powerful. Your words create worlds. So today what I walked you through was really the process that changed my life. You learned how important it is to trust your own knowing and move on that before it makes logical sense. We talked about areas we have to build trust in so that we can take our exquisite risk and it doesn't feel like this massive blind leap into the unknown. So when we build trust in our desires, and that means understanding what they are. When we build trust in ourselves, which means taking action. When we start trusting our growth, our capacity to become the person who can hold our dreams, and we're trusting life itself. And when we build trust in those areas, we have what it takes to say yes to our dreams. And you also get now that nothing has to be unrealistic unless you don't wanna show up for it. You know that your desires are not silly little fantasies. There's intelligence to them. They're directions. They're leading you towards who you're meant to be, and you learn that there's gonna be something along the way that is gonna feel like a leap, right? Maybe you're at the edge of the leap right now. There's gonna be something that feels scary, something you're gonna have to overcome, something you're gonna have to do until you do you say suck? It's like everything you want's. On the other side of fear, Everything you want is gonna be on the other side of what you've been avoiding. The risk, the uncertainty, the unknown. There's something we're avoiding and we can't avoid it. Like we have to just face it head on to actually get the life we want. There's a Rumi poem I love that sort of reminds me of all of this, and it's run from what's comfortable. Forget safety, live where you fear to live, destroy your reputation, be notorious. I have tried prudent planning long enough from now on, I'll be mad. Right? So who of you have tried prudent planning most of your life? Have you had a life based on prudent planning? Has that been the game so far? It's not to say be reckless, right? It's not to say throw caution to the wind, but it's like there's some level of a risk we have to take, and that's probably why you haven't done it yet. Like that's just the real truth of it. There's some sort of risk that has to be taken. But the thing is, there's a quote my sister would always say, you have to risk it to get the biscuit right? But the thing is, if we don't know what the biscuit is, we don't know if it's gonna be worth the risk, right? None of this is gonna feel worth it. Taking that risk. What? Like that's not gonna feel worth it if you don't know what you're moving towards, right? It's not like you gotta risk it to get the ambiguous prize, I promise it's there. Like no. The more we understand what it is we're moving towards, right? The more we take those scattered ideas and put them into focus, the more we understand what we're here to do, who we're here to be, how we're here to live. That's what actually solidifies it. All right? You don't wanna take your leap for something vague. You're not gonna like risk your comfort zone or your image or anything. Like if it's something you can't fully name, like, it's kind of wild. I took a risk for a blurry laptop, but that's, it felt clear enough. But you guys don't have to do that, right? That's what I help you with in pathway to purpose. It's, you don't have to take this big giant leap for nothing. When you understand like what you're moving towards, it all feels worth it. This thing I'm moving towards is so juicy and so like exciting that I want to take a risk that it's worth it for me, right? Until we really clarify these desires and we get it clear and specific and like undeniable and just like juicy and vivid, like we want it to be so good. You can't not move on it. Like your yes is so enticing that you're like, what am I doing here? Gimme outta here. Like you want to just move towards it. It's like the carrot versus the stick. We just make the carrot so juicy that like, obviously you're gonna go for it when you know exactly what you're here to do, who you're here to be, how you're here to live. When you know those things, you feel anchored in that the risk doesn't feel reckless. It just feels like this obvious step that like it's a must. You just gotta take it. What I have noticed is like the clearer your vision is the braver you become because you're moving towards something that feels real. And so if you're here right now and you're like, I don't actually know what my biscuit is, or it's not a juicy enough of a biscuit, we gotta up the ante, then like that means pathway to purpose is the place for you because that's where we're gonna help you very much. Answer that first question. Trust your desires. You really can't trust your desires until you understand them more, until you know what they are. You wanna understand what, what you're trying to do. And so that's what we do in Pathway to Purpose. Pathway to Purpose is open now for enrollment we start on May 26th. We start Memorial Day, and I know some of you have been in my world for a while and have been thinking on this or hesitating on this for a while, and so I. The invitation is there. If you're feeling this pull, trust it. Um, this is for you. I'm really not here to convince you that you need to take your risk or need to take your leap. But I'm just here to show you that when you do, I can help you. Like when you do, I'm here for that process. So I know for a lot of you, it's been building for a while now, and yeah, only you can tell yourself to be ready. That's not something I can do. But when you are, I'm here I know that even just by coming here today, you just have this better sense of what this whole thing takes and not from a way that's intimidating. It's just like, from a way that's like real, and it's like, it makes sense if you've been stuck up until now. You're trying to approach this new domain you're going into with the old rule book the old rule, and like that's, we can't, it doesn't work. Like there's gonna be a level of risk we gotta take and it's beautiful. And I'm so excited for all of you guys who are gonna take this risk and take your leave, like, I'm here for you. Like, it doesn't have to be this ambiguous. Scary thing. It's like you get to, and you don't have to do it alone either, right? You can do it in a community. You can be with other people who are in this space. So my loves, if you're feeling the call to pathway to purpose, you are welcome to take it. Would love to have you in there. And don't, sleep on the momentum either. Don't just like, feel inspired for a minute and then go back to your same stuff. Like do something that's gonna bring you into your next chapter. You're done. You stayed there long enough. All of you told me. No more safety trap, right? No one else can bring you out of the safety trap. You have to do that, and I know you can. All right, my love sending you all so much love, and I'll see you next time.