The Juggleverse - Moms Balance It All

Speaking Human in Parenting// Episode #8

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The pressure to “do it all” can be loud. We invited Dr. Damini Chawla - dentist, keynote speaker, communication coach, and mom of two - to turn down the noise with one skill that changes everything: speaking human. From a whirlwind day that jumps from school crafts to emceeing a stadium crowd, to the quiet inner work that makes it possible, Damini shows how clarity, presence, and vulnerability can steady the juggle.

We dive into her HUMΑN framework - hearing deeply, understanding context, moderating self-talk and responses, authenticity, and needs recognition - and put it to work in the places that matter most. In the dental chair, it means building psychological safety for anxious patients with active listening, clear plans, and genuine care. At home, it becomes validation before correction, calm repair after conflict, and boundaries kids understand. At work, it’s leadership that trades posturing for trust, reduces friction, and turns conflict into growth.

Damini opens up about the pivot from a traditional career path to a communication-focused mission rooted in lived experience across India, Beijing, Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. We unpack millennial perfectionism and people pleasing, the art of saying no without burning bridges, the role of strong support systems, and why “done is good enough” can be a life-giving mantra. Expect practical scripts, honest reflections about guilt and tradeoffs, and humane strategies for self-care that don’t require a personality transplant - just better boundaries and a clearer purpose.

If you’re ready to soften the inner critic, lead with more empathy, and teach your kids how to repair and reconnect, this conversation is for you. Listen, share with a friend who needs it, and subscribe so you never miss a moment that helps you speak a little more human.

www.speakinghumanbook.com

www.drdamini.com

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Host: Edit Kerekes, former diplomat, senior strategic advisor, mom of two.

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Perfectionism And Millennial Self-Talk

Damini

Millennials are a generation of people pleasers and perfectionists, right? It's a very wide statement, but I feel like most people that I hang out with that applies to. And so we hold ourselves to this inhuman standard, frankly. And then we hold other people to that standard. But there are things that we would never ever say to our best friend, to our colleague, to our children that we feel is okay to say to ourselves.

Edit

Welcome to the Jagoverse, Moms Who Balance It All. I'm Edith. Today's guest is Dr. Domini Chavla, a dentist, turned keynote speaker, communication guru, and multitasking mom of two. Domini's journey is like a perfectly brewed cup of coffee, a little bit of structure, a dash of spontaneity, and plenty of heart. She's on a mission to help us all speak human, starting with how we talk to ourselves as parents, leaders, and people juggling a million roles. Get ready for candid stories, relatable mishaps, and practical tips you can use whether you're in a boardroom, a playground, or somewhere in between. Hello, Domini, welcome to the podcast. Hello, thank you so much for having me. You've had so many roles, right? As I introduced you, dentist, entrepreneur, award-winning speaker, coach, and last but not least, mom. Mom of two beautiful girls. How do you personally navigate this complex juggle day to day?

Juggling Roles Through Priorities

Quick Story Setup

Damini

You know, it's a great question. Obviously, this there's a reason that this podcast exists because it is the eternal question. And I think it's really about owning the fact that I don't do it all every day, right? Um, there's some days where I am mummy 100%, and there's some days where work has to take precedence and I have to really shift my focus. And so I would say I don't juggle it all, I just have to prioritize. And that's the only way that I get through doing what I have to do.

Edit

Can you shift uh actually gears very quickly? Because uh, before uh this podcast recording, uh we met and you told me uh a story, an interesting story. Uh, would you please share that?

One Day, Ten Lives: The Stadium Tale

Damini

Yeah, absolutely. So it's funny because my husband, he laughs, he tells me I have a beautiful mind because I'm constantly, you know, I'm constantly mapping and thinking of lots of different things. So even if I'm focused on one thing, I know that there's like a web of other things that I'm dealing with. And this story that you're talking about, it I was thinking about it this morning because I'm coming here to the studio from school from helping with decorating for the Christmas fair. And this was about two years ago now. I was at the Christmas fair and I was like actually running the entire craft corner for a bunch of kids, right? So there's about, I don't know, hundreds of kids coming through, and we're making baubles and we're making snowflakes and all of this. I finished, I was there from nine till 12. I went straight from there for a meeting at the Singapore Indoor Stadium because the night before, an event organizer had called me and asked if I could MC this massive concert that was happening at the indoor stadium. And I couldn't say no. So I went straight from school after running this craft corner for this meeting, had this meeting with them. And up until the point that I got there, they were telling me that I was just gonna be doing a voiceover backstage. So now I get there and then they tell me, oh, actually, you know, you're just gonna go on stage and you just have to keep the crowd entertained for 20 minutes. Nothing special. Yeah, nothing special. And 20 minutes, I'll tell you, is a very long time to keep 15,000 people entertained. So all I'm thinking in my head at this point is actually, I don't even have an outfit. And it's my daughter's class Christmas party that afternoon, which I'm hosting, like co-hosting with another mum because we're the parent reps. And so I finish this meeting. I go to the class party, I help with the setup. I feel really, really guilty that I have to leave and like leave it to the other mums to run and manage. I then go home, I pull out an outfit from my like dry cleaning pile because at this point I'm like, well, I need something that's formal enough. I'm ironing there because I've left my helper with the kids to help with the class party. And then at 6 p.m., I was on stage in front of 15,000 people at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, and it was all in one day. And it's wild. I think it's I live like 10 lives in a day.

Edit

Um, actually, you're a founder of um of speaking human. It's a concept, it's a philosophy. But before we are talking about that uh concept, uh, would you share something about your background, your family background, and your childhood, how you ended up here actually with a book writing a book?

Damini

Yeah, of course. So um I was born in India and I lost my dad when I was one in a car crash. So my mom was a single parent for many years, and then she so we lived in India, we were in New Delhi till I was about 13, just shy of 14. And then my mum got remarried, and my stepdad was living and working in Beijing at the time. So when they got married, we moved to Beijing, and then from Beijing, we moved to Australia, which was home base for him. So I was in Australia around the time I was 15, and I finished high school there, and I met my now husband um while I was at university in Australia. So he actually left Australia to go to university in the UK, and he'd come back for the holidays and we met. And eventually, when he graduated from uni in London, he moved to Singapore. And I ended up moving here in 2011 to be with him. Eventually we got married and we had the kids, and um, and so in all of this, you know, I guess if I so that's kind of the personal journey, but on the professional side, I guess because I had the upbringing that I had, because when I was younger, like money was really tight, mum made a lot of sacrifices along the way to raise me. It was really important that I do well in the traditional sense, you know, in like you had to be a lawyer, doctor, engineer of some kind. And anything short of that was just not good enough or not sustainable enough. And what I really wanted was to go to acting school actually in Australia. I ended up at dental school instead. And so then when I moved to Singapore, I was working here. We then actually ended up moving to Hong Kong for a while, and I took some time off because they don't recognize the Australian degree there. And we moved back to Singapore in 2015, and I went straight back into dentistry and I was working full-time, sort of six days a week. And when I had my kids, so I had my first one in 2017 and then the younger one in 2019, I think that was really when something shifted for me. Where when I was 15, I sort of had this idea of where I wanted my life to go by the time I was 30, right? I had decided since I wasn't gonna go to acting school, I wanted to be a doctor of some kind. I wanted to be married, I wanted to have two kids. And so by the time that I was I was about 31, I had hit all of those metrics that, you know, society had kind of conditioned me to want for myself. And I think by that point, I was like, okay, well, now is this the rest of my life? Like, am I gonna do this forevermore? Or is there something more to life? And I think that turning point combined with how do I want to show up for my children and how do I want to like parent them? And what's the role model I want to set for them? It was all of that that sort of landed us here.

Edit

But is is it something learned that you used in your book, or uh or was it really intentional from your from your background based on instincts rather than learning? I think I think it's a combination.

Why Communication Became The Calling

Defining Speaking Human

Damini

I don't think, you know, I mean, I get paid to do what I do, and I don't think it's fair for me to expect people to pay me if I don't invest in myself and invest in sort of learning and growing my knowledge base. So I would say a lot of it is to do with having learned about patient psychology and how you communicate with people and toxic sort of communication points, right? People laugh when I say this, but 99%, maybe 95% of patients when they first come in to see the dentist, the first thing they say is, I hate the dentist, don't take it personally. And you're like, well, how do I not take this personally? Actually, I am the dentist. So, you know, how do you get people from that point to a point where they are sitting down in your dental chair, willingly opening their mouths and letting you poke them with really sharp things and making them bleed? And all of this has to happen within moments to create enough psychological safety for this person to allow for that. So, a lot of the work that I've done over the years and where I get a lot of referrals uh clinically is adults with very high dental anxiety or young children. So that's the kind of core work that I do as a dentist. And so building on that then, you know, when I had to stop and think about, okay, what more do I want to do? It was either going into public health and policy making or it was building on a skill set that I already had, which was this communication. I realized that the part of dentistry that I love most is the human aspect. The social aspect. It's the social, yeah, it's it's that communication and it's building those relationships with people and creating that psychologically safe space for people. So then I went ahead and trained, like I did my coaching training and hours and lots of hours of it. So building on that and building on the communication and how to create those spaces for people. It's so it's a combination, I would say.

Edit

Okay, let's uh turn to the to the book now. What is this about speaking human? This is the title of the book.

Book Structure And HUMΑN Framework

Reader Reactions And Who It Helps

Damini

So yeah, so this is the book. Um it's called Speaking Human: The Hardest Conversations You'll Have With Yourself. And this is my it's my first book that I've uh written by myself. So I've co-authored previously, but this is the first piece of my solo work. And the whole concept with speaking human, so speaking human itself is much more than just the book, right? It's a global platform and it's reframing how voices rooted in Asia connect with the world. So it's not necessarily just Asian voices, but it's voices that are based here, that do business here, that lead here. And the idea behind speaking human is that this authentic, vulnerable communication should be aspirational in this part of the world. You know, often in Asia we're very, very sort of steeped in what will people think and appearances and hierarchies, and you know, there's just so many divides in how we communicate and how we show up. And so this book specifically is almost the pre-work to that. And the focus is on how do you speak human to yourself, right? How do you apply this framework to yourself before you can communicate effectively with anybody else? And so it's about creating enough self-awareness on the patterns, the stories, and your own background that has led you to where you are today and to how you communicate today, how you live, how you love, how you lead. All of those things are shaped by the stories that have led you to speak and communicate the way that you do. So what the book is, is it's basically it's part memoir. So it's my story, and it's broken down into really bite-sized pieces. And then each chapter basically has a reflection on. So it's got this little gray speech bubble, and it's got a reflection on how that part of my life shaped how I communicate and show up. But I think the most important thing in the book is this section here at the end of each chapter, which breaks it into H-U-M-A-N for the reader and how they can apply this to themselves and sort of take apart their own story and give themselves enough grace by speaking human to themselves.

Edit

Have you received any feedback about the book? Okay, and what are these feedbacks?

Damini

It's been incredible actually to see it in action in the world. So, you know, there's two layers because it's obviously a very personal story, and close family are mentioned in it. So there's been some big reactions from family about the way people are portrayed, or what they thought should have been in the book but wasn't in the book, or what is in the book, that people weren't happy about the way that they come across. So there's that element of it. And so I've had to have a lot of speaking human conversations around that. But more importantly, as much as I love my family and it's really important to me how they feel about it, they're not my target audience necessarily. And so, for the people that this book was written for, to see those people come back and give feedback has been incredible. So, what a lot of people have said is it opened up conversations for them around things that they've been sitting with that they just haven't processed. A lot of millennial women saying that they are in that transition phase where they have done, you know, very similar to that turning point for me, where they've done XYZ thing that society has told them to want for themselves, and they've been raising the kids, and you know, now their kids are just that little bit older, and they're at an inflection point in their careers where they're saying, okay, hang on a second, but who am I really? And what do I really want? And so, really, this book is written for those people, and it's not just women, it's women and men. I had I had some men give me feedback that for them it was in road to having conversations with their partners and with their teams around certain aspects of their personality and the way that they lead and love. So it is for those people who are in flux, it is for those people who are in that phase of their lives where they're stopping to think, who am I really? And what do I want to show up as? And how do I want to communicate and what is the legacy I want to leave, and how do I want to raise my children, and what do I want to pass on here?

Edit

It's really interesting, and I'm really interested in that. How has um practicing speaking human uh changed your self-talk?

The Hard Art Of Saying No

Damini

Oh, massively. So let me break it down for you a little bit. Yeah, so so speaking human, that's H-U-M-A-N. And so the H is for hearing deeply, U is for understanding context, M is for moderating when you apply it to yourself, it's moderating self-talk. When you apply it to others, it's moderating responses. A is for authenticity, and N is for needs recognition and expression. So when I break that down and how I apply it to myself, it's the H part is really creating space to hear myself think. Often we're so busy just running on that hamster wheel of life. We're just going and going and going, and we don't create enough pause in our lives to stop and actually reflect and think, what do I really want? Right. So the first piece is just really hearing yourself and creating that time and rituals around the space to hear yourself think. You is understanding, you know.

Edit

I'm sorry, but it's so hard to say no for for certain things, right? Absolutely. Wow. How can you decide when you say no? When you say the decision point.

Support Systems And Purpose

Damini

To say no for social things or either social or even personal or you have to do the work to know who you are and where you want to go, right? And what your priorities are. And I think figuring out what are the things that really tie into what are our priorities and is this serving me or is it not, right? I think five years ago, even, or 10 years ago, I would say yes to everything, right? And there was a lot of this, oh, if I don't say yes, so-and-so's feelings will be hurt, or I should do this because so-and-so invited me. You know, so there's a lot of that conflict. And I think the clearer you get on what your purpose is and and what's driving you and what's important to you, it becomes a little bit easier to get past your FOMO and get past your fear of judgment and get past like the fear of disappointing others. And it becomes easier to say no. You know, there was, I'll give you a story. Um, a few weeks ago when Step Bartlett was in town doing the diary of a CEO thing. I really wanted to go watch him, but we do. Yeah, couldn't manage. So I didn't have to do that. I managed to do manage. Well, but it was a decision that I had to make, and it was a really hard decision because I had committed to being and sort of not co-hosting, but because I'm the parent rep for my daughter's class. We had the parents social that night. Um, and it was just it was just a bunch of parents from the class getting together, uh, playing table tennis and having a few drinks. And I felt like I needed to be there because I'm committed to this role as parent rep. And my husband, he just he called me in the afternoon and he said, Listen, I'll represent you. You just need to go because you're being at that event and someone. Someone time vacation, probably someone. Exactly. You can see these parents, you, you know, we've been parents in the same class for three years. You can catch up with them anytime, but you're about to start your own podcast. You're stepping like you're in this whole new space, and this is really important to you. And what you're gonna get out of being there is far more. And so in that moment, I had to just thank him and be like, okay, well, somebody else is stepping in and standing up for me and and pushing me in the direction I need to be able to do.

Edit

Yeah, but you had a very strong support in this decision-making idea.

Quieting The Inner Critic

Damini

I did, and I think you know, that support is underplayed. Yeah, and I think people don't talk about it enough, right? I couldn't do what I do if I didn't have a husband supporting me, and he works full time and his job is very stressful. So, yes, granted, there's a lot of things that I pick up a lot of the time. But again, I think it comes back to purpose. And I think when he sees me. Doing what I do today. You know, I just had a pre-launch book event, or when he sees me on stage, there is a spark in me that he sees that makes him want to come through for me and support me, you know? And so I think the clearer we get about our purpose and about asking for what we want, the more important it becomes to ask for that help. But people want to step in and see you succeed. To answer your question before, like, you know, how is how has speaking human shaped my communication, my inner talk? I think it's so as I was saying, it's so here, H is hearing, you is understanding context, M is for moderating that inner voice. And so I think when you when you hear yourself speak and you understand your context and you really understand what your drivers are, what your purpose is, what are you trying to achieve and what are you trying to do? Moderating that inner talk really comes with practice. I've always held myself to a ridiculous standard. And I laugh about this, and I say this openly, but I feel like as a generation, millennials are a generation of people pleasers and perfectionists, right? It's a very wide statement, but I feel like most people that I hang out with that applies to. And so we hold ourselves to this inhuman standard, frankly. And then we hold other people to that standard. But there are things that we would never ever say to our best friend, to our colleague, to our children that we feel is okay to say to ourselves, you know? And and in that, like, oh yeah, but I should be able to do this and I can do this and I can handle this. Well, at some point, no, you actually can't. And you're setting yourself up for failure if you're constantly holding yourself to this standard and having this negative inner talk where you end up just being so consumed with the guilt and the imposter syndrome and the you know, this desire to be everywhere and this feeling of constant failure if everything you're doing is not done perfectly. But to what what end? Right? Where is it getting you other than burnout? Nowhere. So I think for me, a lot of that moderation piece and and learning to manage my own inner talk is is this serving me? Is this serving the bigger purpose? And if it's not, then actually done is good enough. You know, like there are certain things in my life that I'm not willing to drop the ball on, you know, where when it comes to parenting, there are there are certain things that are non-negotiable, and those are the things that I will do to a standard that probably leads me to burnout. But there's a lot of things out there that done is good enough, right? Or saying no is actually good enough because actually it doesn't align with me, it doesn't align with my values, it doesn't align with my personal brand. That's it.

Edit

Can this um methodology and the concept be taught bit with kids as well? Can you teach your children how to apply this concept in their everyday life? Of course, in their own language, I mean not as an adult.

Damini

No, absolutely. You know, it's it's interesting because we obviously talk about it at home a lot. And it's not that I'm sitting my kids down and saying this is what you have to do. But I think it's it's a philosophy and it's a way of life, right? So they do absorb it just by being around it, but you can absolutely teach them how to manage this, and their brains are still developing, and but within what they can manage, to tell them that before you jump in to speak, hear yourself and hear the other person, right? Really know what your feelings are. And I think a lot of that comes with us as parents validating their need for space and their need for processing what's going on in their minds, right? So for themselves, hearing themselves speak, right? Understanding, okay, you acted up, you hit your sister, or you screamed at somebody, or you know, you threw your water bottle on the stairs, or whatever it was. Understand the context of why you did that, right? Like, what was it that made you want to do that?

Edit

Okay, let's imagine a situation that which is impossible because I think your uh daughters never quarrel. Oh, I'm just kidding. Let's not level up.

Damini

Okay, all about authenticity.

Sibling Conflict And Repair

Edit

Yeah, let's uh imagine this situation that your daughters are uh quarreling. What do you do? When what's the right time when you step in? Is the right time and do you step in?

Keeping Communication Open At Home

Damini

So it's interesting because we we established a pretty early system that if we hear them fighting, they start to lose. So their currency is TV time. They get TV once a week on Sundays. Um, and if we hear them fighting, they start to lose TV time. Okay. Fair enough. So yeah, so because they value that, um the minute they start fighting, and it doesn't, to be fair, it doesn't happen often. Okay, they have like small, little, like they'll annoy each other more often than not. It's because one wants a hug and the other one doesn't want to be hugged in that moment. So I can't really complain. But often it they'll start to fight and I'll just say, can I hear you girls fighting? And they'll be like, no. And they have this thing where they sing together and they go, We're just two little happy hamsters on a sunny day. Um, and that's the end of their fight because then they know that they're gonna get into trouble with me after. Where it's really, I think with them, where it really becomes important for me to break things down and and have conversations with them is if I see one of them being hurtful to the other, right? And often there's a reason, often there's a driver. And I think to expect people to be perfect or never be hurtful or never say something that they didn't mean is also not, it's not normal. And it's not, you know, it's unnatural, really. But I think when those things happen, how you deal with it after and how you, when they're calm, have that conversation and just say, okay, well, let's take this apart, right? What happened in that moment? What were you feeling? Why did you say that? What else could you have said? How you apologize. Exactly. And and how do you make up for it? And how do you apologize? And how do you repair the damage, right? And then how do you manage yourself better the next time this situation arises? What are tools that you can have in your arsenal? So we laugh because our little one, you know, ever since she was three and a half or four, she would just walk away and be like, I just I need to go calm down. And she can't even say the word right, but she knows that she needs to go calm down and she'll just go and she'll sit down with a book by herself and flip through the pages, not reading a word of what's in the book, but that's her way to calm down. And so, you know, if you if that's your strategy and you just need to walk away, that's fine. And you've built that doesn't mean the conflict's gone away, right? Doesn't mean that what you did to instigate the fight before you walked away to calm down has gone away. So we're still gonna come back and address it, but it's how we manage that.

Edit

And can you see um all the quarrels, for example, and all these behind the scenes uh fightings? Uh, because sometimes these quarrels, and I'm not talking about your daughters, but in family, in families, these things uh might happen behind the scenes as well. How do you notice this?

Psychological Safety In The Dental Chair

Damini

I think we keep communication open, right? So the the good thing is that the girls will always, at least for now, I don't have teenagers yet. So at least for now, they will always come and tell me about it, you know, or they'll snitch on each other, basically, right? They're they're getting the other one into trouble. But you do see it in the undertone of their relationship, right? They really love each other and they really depend on each other for emotional fulfillment and support. I mean, we obviously we're lucky that in Singapore we have help. So I have a helper who, if I'm not there, she's physically present. You know, the girls are never really alone to fend for themselves. So there's not much that goes unseen from that perspective as well. But also just seeing that they're just well-adjusted, happy kids that talk about their feelings, that when they're unhappy about something, they will voice it with the family and they will voice it with each other. There is no real behind the scenes yet. And I'm sure it'll come in the teenage years, which is why I'm very cautious to say yet.

Edit

So, in your work as a dentist, because you also work uh once or twice a week, you mentioned, right? Uh, as a dentist, how do you build a psychological safety and trust? And um, what perils do you see with building connections uh within families as well?

Bringing The Same Care Into Family Life

Damini

Okay, so I'll talk about the dentistry first. So actually, I mean, speaking human is really you can apply that to your patients, right? So, number one is when someone comes into the dentist or to the doctor, they're coming in with a problem, or they're coming in with anxiety, or they're coming in with preconceived notions. So the first thing you do is hear them out, right? Let them know that you're listening and you're there and you're present. If a patient's telling me their problem and I'm off sort of looking at my nurse, looking at my computer, putting my gloves on, and I'm not sitting there being present with them, that's number one. So hearing them out and really when I hear them, I will rephrase to them what I've heard, right? So I'll say, okay, so if I've got this correctly, this is what you're in for today. This is the problem. This is the history that they've given, right? And when you're really actively listening, you can ask sensible questions that will give you a lot of clues and cues on where, why they're here. So that's number one. Then understanding their context, right? What is their past dental history? Where are they coming from? Are they anxious? Are they not anxious? Do they love going to the dentist? Um, have they seen somebody before? Have they had a bad experience? So all of those things come into that context piece. Then you moderate how you speak to them, right? When I have patients who I've been seeing for years, they're confident, they know what to expect when they come in. Even for them, the context on the day could be different, right? It could be that they've had a fall and broken a tooth, right? And that completely flips the context for a person. So once you've understood that, you can moderate. So for someone who's confident, coming in very comfortable, just in for a clean, it's much more sort of chatty, casual, calm, you know, and then I'll say, okay, are you happy for me to just get on with it? And they'll say yes. For someone who's coming in for the first time, who's potentially had a bad experience, who's coming in with high hopes because they've been referred to me by a friend or by a specialist, it's a very different narrative, right? And and that narrative is even if the person needs a lot of dental work done, it's breaking it down into bite-sized pieces of information for them. It's building trust and saying, look, these are the things that need to be done. This is what I think needs to happen first to get you out of pain. Or this is what I think needs to happen first so that everything else we do can be successful. Right. Allowing them to truly believe that you have their best interest at heart is key. And I think you really do have to have their best interest at heart. Because if you're being inauthentic, patients can get that. Right. There's so many people that I speak to that think, oh, the dentist just wants to scam me for money. Right. And that's one thing I can say about the practice that I work at. I've been there since 2015. You will never meet a patient who comes to that practice and walks away feeling like, oh, they were scamming me. And I can say that confidently about all the dentists who work there because there is just an underlying sense of, are you doing what is best for the patient? Right. And for me personally, I practice with this philosophy of would I do it for myself or my mum or my family? Right. If I wouldn't, then I'm not going to do it for my patient. So it's moderating that how you come across, being authentic and really caring for them. Right. And then that end piece, which is the needs recognition and expression. So what does the patient need, right? And put their needs first. And then what do you need to be able to help them? And verbalizing that with your patient and saying, okay, this is what I need in terms of time, money, effort, you trusting me, right? So really you see how that applies. And so then if you if you take that relationship with the patient in a dental clinic and you talk about family, then, which was the second part of your question, I think it's very much the same thing. It is just, it is a very replicable way of being, right? Where I leave my preconceived notions and my biases and my preoccupation with what I want at the door when I show up for you.

Edit

But I think it's the same situation if you create an environment and such a trustworthy environment, not only in the dentist, but also at family and on stage, and actually every part of life.

Self-Care, Downtime, And Boundaries

Damini

That's exactly it. And I think you know, if you can allow people to feel that you are present, that you aren't trying to get something out of it, that you are genuinely interested in them and what they need, and you're showing up with that wholeness, it changes the dynamic and it changes the tone of every conversation. But I think to be able to get to that point, yeah, because there are too many distractions every day, all right. Exactly. I think to get to that point, and this is, I guess, where that distraction piece comes in, right? This book, this pre-work that we're talking about, right? How do you speak human to yourself first? So once you've done that work and you are conscious of who you are and you have accepted. And it's not about like healing everything and fixing everything and you know, fixing all the broken parts of you. It isn't because there's things that either don't need to be fixed or can't be fixed, or it's really just about self-awareness. So when I show up to a conversation with you, I know where I'm coming from. I know what my stance is on something. I don't have to treat my this conversation as an opportunity to either impose or defend my own views. And that's the same. So, you know, conflict most often than not happens when two people or two entities or two companies or two governments enter into a conversation where they feel like they have to either impose or defend their own view rather than creating that space for saying, okay, what is it that you want? Right? Let me hear you out first before I come in with what I want. And so you're right that things are so busy, but if I'm already comfortable in my skin because I've done the background work of speaking human to myself, then I can actually, in a very short span of time, create the space for you. Maybe with less effort. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, because there's not a tension in me to feel like I have to impose this thing or I have to defend this thing, right? I can truly be inquisitive and treat this conversation as an opportunity for growth rather than a battlefield.

Edit

Uh, what does self-care and personal growth look like for you while managing your many responsibilities? And how do you see yourself? Do you want the real answer or the podcast answer? Let's have both.

Guilt, Presence, And Parenting Priorities

Damini

Yeah. No, it's it's it's all it's one and the same, right? It's self-care, I think, is one of those things that, and you'll probably identify with this, drops off first, right? Even though I like to say that it's a priority for me and it's really important, and I know that when I'm practicing self-care, I'm showing up better in all aspects of my life, right? The reality is that there are certain aspects of self-care that I do neglect and deprioritize. What are these? Exercise for one, right? I just I don't, I haven't grown up enjoying it, right? So it's just not built into who I am. And I'm very lucky that I surround myself with friends who will encourage me. And I, you know, I go to these group classes with my friend, and she'll message me on a Sunday, be like, don't forget to book the class. And, you know, there's that part of me that's like, oh, I really don't want to go this week, or, you know, oh, I have early mornings every morning this week, so I can't make it to the gym. Oh, oops, oh no, you know, but I I'm aware that I'm avoiding something that I find hard to do, or not hard, but unenjoyable. You know, I show up when I can and I give myself the grace of actually I did it, you know, or I showed up and I only put in 60% effort, but at least I showed up, right? So that's one of the things. Um, I think the other thing is just creating downtime. So this is something that my husband and I have talked about recently, where I'm just constantly on the go, doing something, right? And with every minute that I have in the day, I'm filling it with something. And I think as an entrepreneur, this is just the reality that the work just never stops. And so I feel like I've never worked this hard in my life. I'm loving it, but I've never worked this hard in my life. As a dentist, you go to the clinic, you see your patients, you do your notes, you know, you might do a little bit of treatment planning outside hours, but you leave the clinic and you're done for the day, right? And then you go home and then you're present with the kids and the family and the home and all of that. And I think for me, the last few months have really seen a great uptick in, you know, touch wood, but in the work. And so I I'm constantly juggling between the kids and the work and the home and the family and just everything. And so the thing that gives is my downtime for me. And so this past weekend, for example, I just decided that I wasn't going to do any work. I just had to make that decision. And I had the best weekend. And it's not that we did anything wild or crazy or but just switching off from it completely, being present with the kids. My daughter, my older one had a netboard tournament on Saturday morning, being there and not having my laptop with me. Like normally Saturday mornings, both girls have sport. We'll go to school. We're at school for three hours on a Saturday morning, and I'll have my laptop with me and I'll be doing things in between and on my phone. And to be able to just put it away, and actually, I would say being present in the moment in whatever I'm doing is also a version of self-care for me.

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Can you do it without guilt?

Damini

I think it depends on what I'm doing it for. Yeah, I think it depends on what I'm doing it for, right? Like being here today, I had to. So like last week, they started doing all the Christmas decoration at school for the Christmas fair last week. Normally every year I've been there on all of the days that they do the decoration, and I'll put in three, four hours of my morning into doing that. This year I haven't been able to do it, right? I went for an hour this morning because I think there was that level of guilt of, oh, I just, I haven't done it. And I always do this thing. And actually, I love doing it, right? And it it's meaningful to me. So I went, but I had to leave early, and I did feel guilty leaving early, but I had to be here, right? And and this is important. And this conversation that we're having is important and hopefully will do a lot more for a lot more people than me decorating the walls in the school hall, right? So it's that guilt, I think, I think I feel the guilt maximum when I have to take time away from my kids to do something else. I think that is there's that, and then there's the piece that nobody speaks about, which is your relationship with your partner, right? How does that relationship suffer when you're prioritizing absolutely everything else? What is your partner having to give up with you to allow for everything else to take that space? And so I think the guilt for me is am I being present and being there for my kids? And I try really hard. Like I've created a space and a work environment where most days between 4 and 7, 7:30 p.m., I'm home. I'm there. Most bed times, either myself or my husband are there. Right. That's just part of how I've designed my life. But then again, for the average household, the average family, if both parents are working, you know, the kids turn out fine. It's not, it's not that, it's just what mine are used to and what I'm used to. And I think if, you know, to kind of come full circle to the start of our conversation of what is my background and and where do I come from and what drives me and what's brought me here. I think that whole piece of losing my father when I was really young and my mom having to struggle to raise me. And, you know, she she had to work really hard and make a lot of sacrifices and maybe at times not be as present as she would have liked to be because she was worrying about something or another. I think that really drives how I want to show up as a parent for my kids and be there and be involved. And sometimes, you know, I'll have a conversation with friends or with my mom, and she'll be like, you know, why are you volunteering at the school again? Like, you know, don't you have enough going on in your life? And so I think for me, I do prioritize that. And it is very much steeped in the way that I grew up and what is important to me. So if I take time away from work, I don't feel as guilty. If I take time away from family, I do feel guilty. But I think again, recognizing the impact of speaking human, recognizing what I'm building and the purpose behind it, and hopefully what it will do for other people gives me that little bit of it's okay, you can afford to shift your priorities around as you need to.

Edit

Dr. Domini, I think this was the key message of our conversation. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you for having me. Thanks for joining me and Dr. Domini on this episode of the Juggleverse. If her fresh take on parenting, communication, and finding calm in this world spoke to you, don't forget to hit subscribe. And if you know someone who could use a little more humanity in their day, share this episode and keep the good vibes going. Remember, juggling might be an art, but it's also a superpower. So keep juggling, keep shining.