293. When Feedback Feels Threatening in Medicine: Nervous System Skills

We're continuing an annual tradition on the Healing Medicine Podcast: a Lunar New Year conversation that uses the Chinese zodiac (and the five elements) as a framework for reflection and intention-setting.  Even if this isn't part of your culture or your belief system, exploring how a different cultural lens can help you see your patterns around transitions and help you endwell, pause to integrate, and begin well.  We're moving from the Year of the Wood Snake (2025)—slower, observant, inward, "shedding what no longer serves"—into the Year of the Fire Horse (2026)—movement, visibility, courage, momentum, and a louder, more activating energy.  This episode covers: Why Lunar New Year is also called Spring Festival (Chunjie) The 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac (and why there's no cat) The five elements and how they "flavor" a year (wood → fire) Wood Snake themes: introspection, boundaries, shedding, somatic signals Fire Horse themes: courage, action, visibility, warmth—and the need for wisdom Transition practices: ending well → pausing → beginning well A journal prompt: What are you leaving behind from the Wood Snake year? Invitation: Connect in Nature Retreat (Green Gulch + Muir Woods) Mentioned Invitations: Connect in Nature Mindfulness Retreat (Green Gulch + Muir Woods): www.jessiemahoneymd.com/retreat-connect-in-nature Nothing shared in this episode is medical advice or a substitute for your own medical care. This is educational content and personal reflection.  

 In this episode, I share what has helped sustain my long-term relationship over the past four decades.  I was asked to share my secrets with a large group of physicians.  I preparing for that realized that I have no secrets. I have an approach. Since I started approaching my relationship with intention, it has gotten better than ever. Resentment grows from silent expectations. Shifting from expectation to intention makes more room for connection. What would love do now? guides me as a practical filter for tone, attention, listening, and repair. It's especially useful given our mismatched neurotypes and when our nervous systems are depleted. In this episode, I share The cost of silent expectations and resentment The value of replacing expectations with clear intentions "What would love do now?" as a moment-to-moment practice How nervous system depletion turns neutral moments into conflict Why friendship and fun matter Pearls of Wisdom Clear intentions open doors. Resentment keeps them shut. Love becomes steadier when we treat it as a verb Long-term relationships are built through practice. Protecting your health, and your partner's health protects the relationship Friendship sustains intimacy Reflection questions: What silent expectations are you holding? What intention do you want to bring to your relationship: connection, kindness, honesty, peace, love? When you are depleted, what could help you respond instead of react? How could you treat your partner more like a friend this week—lighter, more generous, more on the same team? Ways to work with me https://www.jessiemahoneymd.com/ https://www.jessiemahoneymd.com/retreats https://www.jessiemahoneymd.com/yoga https://www.jessiemahoneymd.com/jessies-blog Nothing shared in the Healing Medicine Podcast is medical advice.

What do you want to be known for?  One thing we want to be known for is this podcast. 300 episodes in, we are committed to offering fresh perspectives and value as healing medicine for our listeners as well as conversations that help to heal the culture of medicine. When we ask the question, "What do we want to be known for?" it becomes a decision-making filter, a boundary-setting tool, and a compass for alignment—helping us lead with love and live closer to our true selves. In this episode, we explore: How "default identities" form in medicine (often unintentionally) The cost of being known for something that no longer, or never fit How to use the question "what I want to be known for" as a values-based filter Pearls of Wisdom Default identities form through repetition, people-pleasing, and conditioning—not always conscious choice. Naming what you don't want to be known for helps refine what matters. Values like authenticity, compassion, and love support intentional leadership. There's no urgency for a perfect answer—clarity can emerge slowly. Reflection Questions What are you currently known for? Did you choose this, or did it just happen? Where does your current identity feel true? Where does it feel heavy or misaligned? What's one small step you can take toward being known for what really matters to you? Resources & Next Steps Read Jessie's blog on this same topic: https://www.jessiemahoneymd.com/jessies-blog/what-do-you-want-to-be-known-for-1?rq=known%20for I fyou want to work on this question, reach out 1:1 coaching or join Jessie for a mindful coaching retreat at Nicasio Creek Farm in 2026. Join Jessie and Ni-Cheng for Connect in Nature at Green Gulch Farm and Zen Center (the only retreat we offer together and an opportunity to bring friends, partners, and colleagues of all genders and professions. Speaking/Workshops: Dr. Mahoney: www.jessiemahoneymd.com/speaking Dr. Liang: www.awakenbreath.org Disclaimer Nothing shared in the Healing Medicine Podcast is medical advice.

A conversation about living through a "fun filter." What does it looks like to let joy, ease, and alignment guide our decisions instead of obligation, striving, or outdated beliefs? A special co-released episode with Dr. Melissa Parsons, fellow retired pediatrician, coach, and kindred spirit.  Together, we reflect on our own transitions out of pediatrics, how we've redefined success, and the freedom that comes when we allow ourselves to change, grow, and choose what lights us up. We also share honest moments about parenting adult children, reimagining purpose, and how sometimes the most meaningful transformations begin when we stop pushing and start listening. If you've been wondering what gets to be "enough," this episode offers a gentler compass. In this episode, we explore: What a "fun filter" is (and what it isn't) Redefining success after leaving a long-held identity Why we don't have to earn rest, joy, or white space How change can be a sign of being fully alive Letting alignment and impact coexist Pearls of Wisdom Choosing what's fun is not frivolous and can be freeing. You don't have to earn rest, white space, or joy. Change doesn't make you flighty because it means you're alive. Fun and impact can coexist. "Enough" isn't a milestone; it's a mindset. Reflection Questions: What currently feels fun, easy, or light in your life? Where might you be holding onto old definitions of "success" or "productivity"? What might open up if you trusted fun as a valid reason to say yes—or no? Resources & Links: Enjoy these Mindful Yoga Classes about Fun Playfulness + Connection + Flow = Fun Mindful Yoga with Jessie Mahoney Breathe in Fun, Lightness, and Love. Exhale Stress and Anxiety. Mindful Yoga to Explore Ease. Coaching: www.jessiemahoneymd.com/coaching Retreats: www.jessiemahoneymd.com/retreats Speaking/Workshops: www.jessiemahoneymd.com/speaking Dr. Melissa Parsons: melissaparsonscoaching.com Listen to Melissa's podcast, Your Favorite You: www.melissaparsonscoaching.com/podcast Melissa Parsons, MD, is a board-certified pediatrician, who practiced in Columbus, Ohio for 22 years, retiring in 2021. She became interested in coaching in 2017, recognizing that she liked her life, but she did not love it, and could not figure out why. Coaching helped her create a life she never dreamed possible. Melissa started her business, Melissa Parsons Coaching, in May 2020, and she has not looked back since, except to help other amazing women learn to love themselves and their lives, too! Melissa hosts a popular podcast called Your Favorite You,. She runs a group coaching program by the same name for small groups of women looking to become their favorite versions of themselves, often by treating themselves as they would a best friend.  Disclaimer: Nothing shared on the Healing Medicine Podcast is medical advice.  

We have been taught to wait as a measure of professionalism. We delay rest, joy, and alignment because medicine taught us that patience equals commitment. Many of us are still waiting long after training ends, hoping the system will change. This waiting can feel loyal, responsible, even virtuous. Over time, it quietly costs us our presence, our health, and our lives. PEARLS OF WISDOM • Waiting is not neutral. It often preserves systems that rely on our overfunctioning and silence. • Many of us are not waiting because it is right, but because we were trained to believe it is required. • The system is not always broken; sometimes it is functioning exactly as designed. • Agency begins when we stop waiting for permission and choose alignment, even in small ways. • Fear often shows up when we stop waiting, and fear does not mean we are wrong. Reflection Questions: Where in our lives have we normalized waiting that no longer feels aligned? What are we postponing because we believe now is not the right time? What might become possible if we stopped waiting for permission? Who benefits from our waiting, and who bears the cost? CLOSING INVITATION This conversation is not about leaving medicine. It is about staying in medicine without disappearing ourselves in the process. Many of us were trained to endure quietly and trust that relief would come later. What we are exploring instead is the possibility of choosing ourselves now, even gently and imperfectly. Coaching and retreat spaces are one way we practice this shift together.  Not to fix ourselves, but to remember that our lives matter now, not someday. We are allowed to live full lives alongside meaningful work. If coaching, a retreat, or an intentional pause feels supportive, notice what comes up when you consider not waiting. Often, the only thing standing between us and alignment is the permission we can give ourselves. Find out about 1:1 coaching with Dr. Jessie Mahoney: Learn about Jessie's small group coaching programs: www.jessiemahoneymd.com/group-coaching Join Jessie at Nicaiso Creek Farm CME Wellness Retreats for Women Physicians  or   Jessie & Ni-Cheng at the COED Connect in Nature Mindfulness Retreat at Green Gulch Farm and Zen Center. www.jessiemahoneymd.com/retreats *Nothing shared in the Healing Medicine Podcast is medical advice. Other useful links to explore: • National Academy of Medicine – Clinician Well-Being https://nam.edu/initiatives/clinician-resilience-and-well-being/ • University of Arizona Integrative Medicine https://integrativemedicine.arizona.edu  

In honor of National Women Physicians Day 2026, this episode, Why Women Physicians Overfunction (and How to Start Doing Less Without Guilt) is an invitation to notice overfunctioning with compassion. Overfunctioning may have helped you succeed in medicine—but it often costs intimacy, energy, and connection. We explore overfunctioning and underfunctioning as relational dynamics, not personality flaw. When one person consistently does more, the system adapts: others do less, resentment grows, and "holding it all together" becomes a role that feels hard to step out of. We talk about why doing less can be an act of love—creating space for relationships and systems to reorganize—especially when you start by tending to your own nervous system instead of stabilizing everything around you. If you've been asking, "Why am I always the one who handles it?" this conversation offers a grounded place to begin. In this episode, we cover Why overfunctioning isn't a flaw—it's a role shaped by training, culture, and context How overfunctioning/underfunctioning patterns form in relationships and teams Resentment as information (often pointing to over-capacity) "Doing less" as a path to clarity, growth, and alignment Why change begins with your nervous system Pearls of Wisdom Overfunctioning is a relational role developed in response to internal and external expectations. When one person consistently does more, others often do less; systems adapt that way over time. Resentment is information. It often signals over-capacity. Doing less can be an act of love that allows relationships to reorganize. When we stop stabilizing what's falling around us and tend to our nervous systems first, change begins. Reflection Questions Where in your life are you doing more than your share simply because you are capable? What feels most uncomfortable about stepping back? What might happen if you rest or stop managing? What would love do this week in your relationships or at work?   Work with Jessie Mahoney Coaching + retreats: www.jessiemahoneymd.com Speaking: www.jessiemahoneymd.com/speaking or [email protected] Mindful Love Small Group Coaching (intimate relationships) Leading from the Heart + Transition Well Small Group Coaching (career/life pivots, leadership) Retreats + advanced coaching (moving beyond overfunctioning across your life) Work with Ni-Cheng Liang Dr. Ni-Cheng Liang: www.awakenbreath.com The Healing Medicine Podcast was formerly known as the Mindful Healers Podcast. Nothing shared on this podcast is medical advice.   Other Healing Medicine Podcast episodes specifically relevant to Women Physicians you may want to explore: These episodes explore the inner experience of women physicians—without pathologizing it. 293. When Feedback Feels Threatening: Nervous System Wisdom for Women Physicians 292. When Physicians Stop Believing in Themselves: Burnout, Skepticism, and the Hidden Cost  290. The Overs, the Toxics, and Why Awareness Alone Isn't Enough  269. You Were Never Meant to Carry It All: Healing the Eldest Daughter Effect 259. What Are You Proud Of? A Conversation About Worth, Identity, and Redefining Success  154. Move Beyond Imposter Syndrome These episodes highlight connection, culture shift, and the idea that "you don't have to carry this alone." 275. The Power of an Introduction: How Women in Medicine Can Change Lives and Culture Through Connection  281. Be Radiantly You: The Antidote to Exhaustion and Judgment  263. It's Okay to Have Fun: The Evolution of a Happy Doctor (with Dr. Beni Seballos) 262. Standing Tall in Surgery: Finding Fulfillment Outside the Mold (with Dr. Jenny Kang)  261. From ER Burnout to Soulful Living: Enia Oaks on Poetry, Pause, and Healing  These episodes give practical frameworks for agency, boundaries, and sustainability. 289. How to Take Intentional Action So You Don't Burn Out  280. From Powerless to Purposeful: Reclaiming Choice and Agency in Medicine  279. Victimhood in Healthcare: Naming the Problem with Empathy and Truth  282. The Art of Not Fixing People  278. Finding Peace by Letting Go of Fixing, Managing, and Controlling  285. Mindfulness + Money: Rewriting Financial Stories for Physicians 239. Breaking the Over Helping Habit: Valuing Your Expertise as a Woman Physician

We are not here to pretend this is fine. We are here to help you get steady enough to choose how we respond. When fear narrows your thinking, you can come back to the body first.  Regulate first. Respond second. In this conversation, Ni-Cheng and I name the collective fear, grief, exhaustion, moral distress, minority stress, and racial trauma. These are real, lived experiences that shape safety in our bodies. When we are activated, our wise brain is harder to access. That is when we send the text, make the decision, or take the action from urgency instead of intention. This episode offers practical micro-tools that work in real life. The breath, a longer exhale, box breathing, 4-7-8,  orienting to safety by feeling the ground under our feet, and hand to heart are ways to physiologically downshift. Yoga is too. Read more about this topic in Jessie Mahoney's blog:  What would love do when the world feels usnsteady. https://www.jessiemahoneymd.com/jessies-blog/what-would-love-do-when-the-world-feels-unsteady PEARLS OF WISDOM • A dysregulated nervous system makes urgency feel like truth. Regulation gives us back clarity, choice, and values-based action. • Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are adaptive responses. We can name our defaults without judging, then choose the next step. • Moral distress, grief, anger, numbness, and exhaustion are normal human responses to instability. Nothing is wrong with you. • Trauma and minority stress live in the body. When safety feels threatened, hypervigilance and shutdown make sense. • We do not have to do everything. We choose a lane of helping that matches our capacity and sustains us over time. Reflection Questions: When you feel activated, what is your default—urgency, over-functioning, numbness, shutdown, or fawn? What helps you return to the green zone —long exhale, feet on the ground, hand to heart, movement, nature? Which lane of helping feels like desire and alignment, and which lane feels like guilt or over-responsibility? If your future self looks back five years from now, what do you hope you feel proud of in how you showed up? If we want to practice these tools in community, especially in nature, explore our offerings here: www.jessiemahoneymd.com/retreats www.jessiemahoneymd.com/coaching www.jessiemahoneymd.com/speaking The Healing Medicine Podcast was formerly known as the Mindful Healers Podcast Nothing shared in the Healing Medicine Podcast is medical advice.

Practicing peace is an intentional choice. It's not something we wait for once circumstances improve. It's something we practice in our breath, our bodies, and our awareness—even while uncertainty and grief remain present. In this episode, we explore peace as a regulated presence with what is real (not denial, not bypassing). When the world feels overwhelming, we often notice it first in our bodies: urgency, vigilance, reactivity. Nervous system regulation is a skill for sustainable medicine and a sustainable life—and small, consistent embodied practices can interrupt spinning and bring us back to ourselves. We also talk about why community matters: coaching, yoga, mindfulness, and retreats can offer structure, support, and repetition—so these tools become lived practices. In this episode, we cover: What "practicing peace" actually means (and what it's not) How uncertainty shows up in the body Simple embodied tools that support regulation Why small practices ripple outward into relationships and culture How community supports steadiness and agency Pearls of Wisdom Peace begins with you. Regulation is a skill for sustainable medicine and life. Small, consistent embodied practices interrupt reactivity. Internal peace ripples outward into our families, workplaces, and communities. Reflection Questions What does your body need to feel even a little more settled today? What is within your control right now, even if it is very small? If "peace" doesn't resonate, what word feels supportive right now: peace, kindness, love, connection, or something else? Practices mentioned "Peace Begins With Me" finger-tapping mantra Grounding through the feet Restorative yoga Sound healing Mindful time in nature Links Individual + group coaching: www.jessiemahoneymd.com/physician-coaching Nicasio Creek Farm retreats: www.jessiemahoneymd.com/retreat-nicasio-creek-farm July 2026 Connect in Nature Mindfulness Retreats: www.jessiemahoneymd.com/retreat-connect-in-nature Disclaimer Nothing shared on the Healing Medicine Podcast is medical advice. The Healing Medicine Podcast was formerly known as the Mindful Healers Podcast.

Giving a TEDx talk taught me a lot about nervous system regulation, self-trust, and choosing love over control. In a medical culture that rewards certainty and discourages vulnerability, visibility is a nervous system challenge. Standing on a red circle requires staying present when every instinct says to hide. Through the question "What would love do?", this episode offers a grounded framework for decision-making, leadership, and communication that integrates data, values, and human emotion.  It is an invitation to choose integrity and presence when outcomes are uncertain and what we carry matters. PEARLS OF WISDOM • The questions we ask shape the answers we receive. Fear-based questions rarely lead us where we want to go. • "What would love do?" is not sentimental or self-sacrificing; it is grounded, honest, and committed to doing no harm, including to ourselves. • Physicians are trained to equate control with safety. • Visibility and vulnerability are nervous system challenges, not character flaws, and they can be practiced with intention. • Choosing love often means choosing discomfort in service of what matters most. Reflection Questions: Where in your life are you trying to manage or control when a different question might bring clarity? What decisions feel heavy right now, and how might they shift if you asked, "What would love do?" Where are you being invited to tolerate discomfort so something meaningful can grow? How might your work, relationships, or leadership change if you asked what love would do? CLOSING INVITATION Giving this TEDx talk deepened my trust in the question that has quietly guided my life and work for years. It reminded me that love stays present even when outcomes are uncertain, and that choosing reach over ease is often part of meaningful contribution. Please listen to the full TEDx talk here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRQwr8-ITBQ Please share it and spread love-based decision-making far and wide. It is more needed than ever right now. You sharing the talk is the way it will reach those who really need to hear it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.  If you want to learn how to use this tool in your own life, join me for coaching or a retreat. www.jessiemahoneymd.com *Nothing shared in the Healing Medicine Podcast is medical advice.  

Feedback can be a nervous system event—especially for women physicians navigating leadership, visibility, and the pressure to perform. In this episode, we reflect in real time on what happens in us when criticism lands unexpectedly: the body activation, the urgency to fix or explain, and the shame that can follow. We explore how medical culture and perfectionism shape these patterns, and how we can build the capacity to pause, process, and respond with more compassion and presence. This is not about "getting it right" in the moment. It's about practicing a different relationship with feedback—one that makes room for our humanity. Learn more about coaching and small group programs: https://www.jessiemahoneymd.com/coaching *Nothing shared in the Healing Medicine Podcast is medical advice.