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Cali Chica.
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April 23, 2019 at 12:42 pm #290267
AnonymousGuestDear Cali Chica:
Regarding being abusive to others, In an earlier post, yesterday, you wrote: “do you believe that I am still loyal to my mother, the mother voice? And that many of my actions, annoyances, and attacks on my husband- .. has to do with this loyalty?”-
I remember your example of coming home from yoga and your husband suggested ordering food in because he thought you were tired and that will suit you, and you got annoyed with him for thinking about ordering food while there was health food in the frig that you prepared earlier- this is an example of an annoyance that led to a verbal attack of some sort, correct?
Maybe, I am thinking, it will help you to make a list of annoyances that you experience with your husband, many perhaps that you manage to not react to angrily, but some you do attack-
Maybe a list of annoyances with other people, what annoys you, what do you think?
anita
April 25, 2019 at 10:32 am #291243
Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
Sorry for the delay in reply. I thought about our last post, but have been extremely overwhelmed recently. the reason is because I started thinking again – and brainstorming – about the idea of my wellness practice.
Due to this, I rejoined social media – after a several month hiatus – to understand what is out there, what the need is, what kind of doctors are doing what, where there is a need, who is successful doing what etc. in short, getting a gauge of the NYC market
I will be honest and say over the last few days I have been very anxious, feeling on edge throughout the day, and having poor sleep. It feels like large step back – in the sense that I recall feeling like this a year ago – and of note, especially during the time that I had first started thinking about how I want to pursue an entrepreneurial aspect of medicine. I have the itch to create and utilize my skills, personality, and talent – but I feel extremely discouraged and overwhelmed. So many thoughts about:
everyone out there who is doing it, half of them got lucky – or don’t even have the talent
where do I even begin?
i dont have a business background, my husband has said start with a business plan first, and everytime i try – nothing, so I just avoid it, and then instead dwell on how I don’t know what direction to go in
seeing how so many people have “made it” yet how did they? a lot of them are phonies, some not – but wow
April 25, 2019 at 10:39 am #291245AnonymousGuestDear Cali Chica:
You sound like your mother: “everyone out there who is doing it, half of them got lucky- or don’t even have the talent… a lot of them are phonies”- like your mother saying you can do a better job than the child actresses on TV, how you have the talent, but others have the connections, the luck and so forth.
I wonder if there are still services to new business owners, or want-to-be business owners by the SBA, Small Business Administration in NYC?
anita
April 25, 2019 at 10:45 am #291247Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
I feel exactly like my mother, or sound like her:
I think, oh man I wish someone could guide me – alas I feel so lost in this process on my own
INstead of thinking about it strategicially I get overwhelmed and discouraged, and fixate on those who “made it” and how some of them are phony/not good doctors/not even appropriate providers
I feel so overwhelmed by it , that I want to put it to rest – without even have tried, and just focus on going to work and being an employee and NOT developing my own thing.
But then I know that itch will not just disappear – and so it will come back, leading me more disappointed that I ‘never did anything with it”
I know this is all very unreasonable and leads to nothing productive at all – just stress frenzy – and most importantly if it continues, I will be unable to focus on my husband, his healing – and being a good listener
April 25, 2019 at 11:13 am #291249AnonymousGuestDear Cali Chica:
WCC, SCC needs to take in some humility, so that she can proceed reasonably, and not get overwhelmed. It is the gap between having no business experience in any area and the plan to have your own successful business in this highly specialized business area, that overwhelms you
Humility, in practical terms is this:
– contact a clinic in NYC that carries some resemblance to your Wellness business idea and offer your input and services as a medical doctor consultant, or a part time MD independent contractor working with their business. Do that and when you receive a response, think about it further and take it to the next step.
anita
April 25, 2019 at 11:24 am #291255Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
Amazing advice, and start small be humble – don’t compare to others, and don’t focus on the glitter – but the substance.
Focus on reality.
Right…
April 25, 2019 at 11:42 am #291265AnonymousGuestDear Cali Chica;
As humans we have the ability to imagine, so you imagine starting a business and succeeding and all that imagining takes a few minutes of glory and glitter. The overwhelm factor is the slowing down of reality, how so different reality is from fantasy, how much slower and … all the problems in the way that we didn’t imagine. The gap between the pleasure of imagining and the despair in trying to materialize the fantasy.
Well, imagine just this small thing: contacting an existing business and offering your contribution. Not much glory and glitter if they do respond positively to you. If they do, visit the place, it is not your business, not much fear there, get interested, see what they do right, what they do wrong, learn. Maybe in ten years you will have that glory and glitter, but that will be a long time from now. And from now to then, ten years from now, you will be too busy to fantasize, being too busy with the grinding reality of making it happen.
anita
April 25, 2019 at 12:48 pm #291277Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita, I will do that, I will find one small tangible goal, and stick to that. In fact, you read my mind, I reached out to a small business that is doing something along the lines of what I like, I may go in there and just meet a few people nothing official just yet. Keeping myself humble that this all takes time. Sometimes I see other people that are closer to my age, 35 or so, new doctors, who seem to have already built an empire. This makes me often doubt myself a question myself or put myself down. Of course this is deep rooted and the mother voice as well. Why can’t I do what they do even though I have the talent, maybe I need to figure that out. Anyway, I forgot to add that my husband job here in nyc Is pretty rough. I mention that he has been recently opening up to me more. I have noticed the effect of the stress of his job on him considerably. This combined it with all the trauma he went through with myself and family he is severely approaching burn out. He is not one to complain. But I noticed that this job is quite toxic in the sense that the environment is not very positive, and it is difficult for him to do his job as a good surgeon because the infrastructure and administration is quite an organized and frenzied., As is often, and in big New York City hospitals., He is at a point where he doesn’t really believe it could get better. However I do have some hope that he can find a career path, as in an opportunity and what she doesn’t have to suffer so much. It is a shame because he is such a “qualified surgeon with great talent, but is unable to utilize the skills often because he doesn’t have a great set up I have talk to him about this more recently, and there are days were he is very frustrated, and days were he is very optimistic and feels that overtime a lot of it will get better. I noticed that this has increased my stress level tremendously. I noticed that I want to do something to help him, and perhaps a lot of the reason why I want to jump on the business bandwagon is so that we can both find an out. Not financially, but more so to have freedom. Perhaps I believe that if at least one of us finds a way to not be controlled by the system will you can have more freedom at least mentally. If that makes sense, I am by no means blaming him for this increased motivation, because as you know this is something I have been wanting to do for a long time, but I think that I am even more frustrated and disgruntled recently. Seeing my husband, talented young physician, Being in a non-ideal environment, and seeing many other people finding such good opportunities. I hope for him that he could find something great like them too, but the negativity and we often takes over feeling that those who have the connections make it – even though we may try and try – he may not find such a situation so then what? Makes me feel does more and feel frustrated, and so I sometimes find myself thinking that there has to be another way, perhaps I can carve out the path for both of us. I spent a great deal of time looking for opportunities for him, and seeing if there is a market for him to also become more entrepreneurial. However he is so burnt out mentally from the trauma that my parents and family put him through that he doesn’t have much energy in his tank to go that route given that his field is so difficult and his mind is maxed out
April 25, 2019 at 1:11 pm #291281Cali ChicaParticipantSorry to add more. I want to rephrase, I don’t want my husband to find a good opportunity just because it seems like other people have, I am well aware that things are not always what they seem. I want him to find a good opportunity because especially after all he has been through, I want him to find a job that is not toxic. He deserves to do his job in a pleasant environment, at the very least, I am not asking for much. And neither is he. I just wish that he could catch a break, he does need to heal and this job and the stress related to it and the environment is making things even more difficult. He is quite patient and is hopeful at times, but at times I feel like staying at a place like this will only lead to more burn out and frustration. There are other times where I know that I can’t do anything just now, and to constantly seeking I’m doing isn’t going to get anywhere, sometimes you do have to sit back and see what happens. But as you can see, a part of me is motivated to find an out so to speak for us, so that we are more free, and not just owned by the system as employees
April 25, 2019 at 1:38 pm #291283AnonymousGuestDear Cali Chica:
“Sometimes I see other people that are closer to my age, 35 or so, new doctors who seem to have already built an empire. This makes me often doubt myself and question myself or put myself down… Why can’t I do what they do even though I have the talent.. it is difficult for (husband) to do his job as a good surgeon because of the infrastructure and administration is quite unorganized and frenzied… It is a shame because he is such a ‘qualified surgeon with a great talent, but is unable to utilize the skills often because he doesn’t have a great set up”-
One’s talent and skill in a subject area, such as in surgery is only part of what is required to succeed in a career as a surgeon. Clearly it takes the ability to perform well over time in an unorganized and frenzied hospital setting.
To be a successful business owner of a Wellness Center, it takes more than skill and talent in the area of medicine and wellness, it takes the ability and willingness to start small and persist, month after month, year after year, to keep going and going while learning and adjusting, not only in the subject area but in interpersonal relationships with people you come across throughout the business endeavor.
Your mother’s idea that all it takes is talent to be this and that is idiotic. Of course lots of people with lots of talent fail while less talented people succeed- it is because it takes a whole lot more than talent to succeed, and people who don’t have- and will not get- what is needed to succeed- will not succeed!
Let’s use this definition of stupidity: stupid is as stupid does (and smart: smart is as smart does). Now, let’s look at your husband- I imagine he is a very intelligent man, clearly very educated, and clearly, very skillful, being a surgeon. But let’s see what he did (see italicized definition): he married a woman who looked down at him and who verbally mistreated him, a woman with a mother and who tortured him and his parents long before the wedding. A smart man wouldn’t have married you, it was a stupid move on his part to marry you having the information true to the time. If he was stupid in making such a significant potentially lifetime decision, how else is he being … stupid?
Let’s look at you, a very intelligent woman, very educated and talented and yet, you have mistreated the man with whom you teamed up for life. How stupid is that? I mean, you damage the man who brings money to your shared bank account, who pay into your mutual bills, and you glorify strangers-
How else are you being… stupid?
So you look at others, their luck (everyone who is lucky this minute will be unlucky soon enough, as is the nature of luck), their connections (how many people with connections didn’t take advantage of such and if they did, they ruined those connections..) and you complain- this is why I don’t succeed, I don’t have their luck and connections. Not so much, not likely in the case of medical doctors in the USA. Way more likely, the reason is stupidity.
So get smarter, un-stupefy yourself and work together with your husband to un-stupefy yourselves and each other.
“those who have the connections make it- even though we may try and try”- try smarter, not harder. Every smarter thing you do today is progress, get smarter and smarter.
One more thing: to lessen your husband stress, you starting a business for this purpose of lowering his stress is not a good idea, I don’t think. Starting a business is a very stressful prospect, risky, unpredictable, not congruent with you being a calmer support for him, not before the ten years or so that it will take the business to run by itself.
anita
April 25, 2019 at 4:11 pm #291299Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita, I read exactly what you said and I appreciate your feedback especially about the stupidity. I will respond to you in detail about that tomorrow. I wanted to give you a quick update what are you read it tomorrow or today. My friend called me and told me that my mother called her 2 days ago. She called her to ask how I was doing, because she stated that she is worried about me. My friend gave her some updates such as I am doing a lot of yoga and that I’m doing well and taking good care of myself. She said my mother said “her sister doesn’t tell me anything anymore so I just wanted to call and ask you – just want to make sure she’s doing okay. “She also asked her if I still talked to 2 friends of mine that I no longer speak with. One of which is that glitter girl I mentioned a few months ago. My friend replied no – perhaps my mother had reached out to those girls too who knows.Anyway perhaps this was random coincidence or perhaps it was me getting back on my social media profile. I have all family members blocked but perhaps she saw an update about me on it from someone.Regardless the conversation was not stressful for my friend and my mother did not say anything such as – please let her know I called or that we care or blah blah.April 25, 2019 at 6:21 pm #291307AnonymousGuestDear Cali Chica:
It gives me .. virtual and unpleasant goosebumps to think of your mother inquiring about you, do not like it, not at all. I will read tomorrow morning these two recent posts and anything you may add when I am back.
anita
April 25, 2019 at 9:50 pm #291335Cali ChicaParticipantSame. Interestingly I was getting ready to meet a friend I hadn’t seen in 2 years (prior to the meltdown of wedding and thereafter and no contact). While I was getting ready I was leisurely talking to my friend and I heard her get serious to tell me. I initially felt strange like a small twinge of strangeness and then it immediately passed. In the way that it goes right through me as I have become expertly shielded at feeling truly sad or angry about any of this stuff anymore. (I wanted to at some level feel sad or shed some emotion but I felt instead agitated versus emotional). I went onto the subway. Onto my plans. Feeling agitated and feeling tense. Familiar feelings – feeling not present feeling right. Feeling frenzied. Feeling UNABLE to process and feel good about what’s in front of me. Feeling controlled. But also feeling disassociate disconnected. Feeling as though I am telling a story versus experiencing and feeling and suffering in real life. Removed.
April 26, 2019 at 5:58 am #291357Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
I felt it – I felt some pain this morning. I felt some sadness for the sweet young Cali Chica who had a bad parent. A bad mother.
I felt a little, on the subway on the way to work, some tears welling up. I saw a young boy 8-10 or so sitting with his mother, on the way to school. She was reading out loud to him, and he was looking at her – not the book. It reminded me that this boy, would rather/naturally look at his mother and not the book. It is innate perhaps. She is his world – she is his everything. He values her every word and opinion. She is it.
My feeling of discomfort hardly more than a few seconds, of course subway stopping – my going off to work – but I noted it. To myself and here. That I felt SOMETHING and this was triggered by my mother. It was triggered, and I responded with some emotion. cause and effect. it felt good for this sequence to occur.
unlike this boy on the subway, when my mom “read to me” she was just reading to herself. it was always to herself. and now at the age of 33, she wants to reach out to my friend and ask about my well being – at this age really mom, after all these years of nonsense – of not nonsense of nothing motherly – you care about nothing. but yourself
April 26, 2019 at 7:03 am #291363AnonymousGuestDear Cali Chica:
I will respond to an earlier post I missed, and then to the rest.
“a part of me is motivated to find an out so to speak for us, so that we are more free, and not just owned by the system as employees”- I got more of an understanding about this when I talked to my husband last evening- he worked with hospitals and has an understanding of how they function, interestingly he worked with NY hospitals. He said that all hospitals are motivated by profit and run by accountants and lawyers. If a doctor is in management then it is a doctor who hasn’t had patients for many years. The focus of management is to cut costs and limit liabilities. If I understand correctly, those in management get bonuses according to the profit made. He said that doctors are small cogs in the big machine.
I think I understand better why you want him not to be owned by management. Your work environment is not that great either, with this woman part-owner you shared about. It is a good idea for the two of you to work elsewhere, I hope it happens soon enough.
Regarding your friend calling you about your mother calling her, you can ask that friend to not tell you if your mother calls her again. You can tell this to anyone who your mother may call, to not tell you anything about it.
“just want to make sure she’s doing okay”, she said. Well, she shouldn’t have hurt her two girls as badly as she did, repeatedly, again and again, to never correct, or even acknowledge that she did.
“I wanted to at some level feel sad or shed some emotion but I felt instead agitated versus emotional”- I think that agitation is the brain/ body resisting and rejecting the experience of painful emotions: hurt, sad, shame, even hope and love. Hope and love can be painful. This agitation is a rush of activity in the brain and through the body which distracts us from the emotions we don’t want to relax into. We don’t want to relax into them because we fear these emotions, they feel threatening.
“I went into the subway… Feeling agitated and feeling tense.. Feeling frenzied”- that is the resisting, the escaping of the emotions that insist of reaching our awareness and will not go away.
“Feeling frenzied. Feeling UNABLE to process and feel good about what’s in front of me. Feeling controlled.. disassociated disconnected… as though I am telling a story versus experiencing the feeling and suffering in real life. Removed”- this is what the brain/body does as we run away from our emotions, trying to escape awareness of them, escape the experience of them, we disconnect from them but we also disconnect and disassociate from everything. The removal you mentioned is the removing our focus from the emotions that we fear. With our focus removed from our emotions we think and think, we don’t feel anything but that agitation.
And then, you felt “some sadness for the sweet young Cali Chica who had a bad parent. A bad mother.. some tears welling up”- there’s much more of that sadness in there.
The boy you witnessed on the subway, his mother reading to him out loud, “he was looking at her- not the book… It is innate… She is his world- she is his everything. He values her every word”- this is why no emotional pain is more intense than what happens when a child is betrayed by his mother. It is not just anyone who betrays her complete trust, it is her Mother, her Everything. The trust of a young child in her mother is 100%, the vulnerability therefore is 100% and so is the pain when that trust betrayed is also 100%.
We don’t want to feel that pain anymore, that 100% pain of betrayal, so we resist and reject any feeling that will make us that vulnerable again.
From this point on, if you trust yourself (title of this thread) to not reconnect with your mother and father, if you trust yourself to not connect with anyone who harms you or is likely to harm you, if you trust yourself to take good care of yourself, to know what is best to do in the future, under various circumstances, then you will feel that you can endure the emotions you are resisting. You will be able to feel soft toward yourself, your husband… and even toward your mother, which is what happened to me.
I resisted feeling any love for my mother, until recently, I felt safe enough to feel that love. I really didn’t want to, but I had to, because it was always there, innate (your word, innate). I felt it but only after I promised myself to never have her in my life again. These very days I am practicing relaxing into emotions that have puzzled me for so long.
anita
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Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 