D-Coming

[Diane]

Contrasting messages

I keep receiving contrasting messages from my boyfriend. The last one in date was that after we had agreed to talk about issues as soon as they came out, he postponed two days something “unimportant” (but still causing him difficulty sleeping). So, I spent two days guessing what this issue could be. He now affirms he prefers to talk about issues when we are together. At the same time,  from now on we will see each other only once per week.

This morning I told him I felt there were unfinished stuff regarding what we had discussed yesterday and he told me I complicate things that are very simple in origin as for him the matter was already closed. This coming from the same person always pushing me to tell him what’s on my mind.

I feel our relationship is very centered in him.. I put a lot of effort, time, money, and emotions but in the end it’s never enough and even when I think I’m doing something good I’m actually not.

The question is: what do I want? I want to be able to live my life and do the things that I like to do.

And regarding this relationship honesty idk anymore, it’s a bit of a rollercoaster, sometimes faster sometimes slower but it never seems to really settle.

I’ll live my life and see how it goes, I’m tired of spending so much time, energy and emotions trying to figure this relationship out. I’ll adapt as possible and if it’s not enough so be it.

[Diane]

I’m back

It’s officially over with my now ex-boyfriend.

Thanks to the relationship with him I learnt that I still have work to do in the self confidence department. I let the little trust in myself I had developed get crushed by his confidence and the firm belief he has in his own views.

Now I feel weakened by the fear that it will happen again. Challenges will come again, that’s the nature of reality, but the next time I will be armed with more wisdom.

I spent almost the whole day in bed today. Idk if to re-activate myself it would be better to take it easy (for example by going for walks first instead of going straight back to running again) or diving deep 80% (for the 80-20 rule).

I’ll sleep on it.

[Diane]

Overthinking

I think I am an overthinker.

A few days ago I downloaded the idea that overthinking may be a good thing actually, as it helps me get clear and stay clear. Still, I find myself in a state of constant indecision and insecurity about the right thing to do.

The most recent example is the offer to upgrade my subscription to the mindset coaching I’m doing. This summer I was very clear about the fact that I wanted to dedicate the remaining of this year and 2023 to improving myself at work by using the free time I had to study and improve my competence (and by that also my confidence at work). For that reason, I refused to start a Movement Therapy course I REEEALLY wanted to do. Then in September, during a weekend retreat with my mindset coach I received the idea that if I wanted to level up in my work and be of better service to my patients, I needed to keep up and even better upgrade the work I was doing on myself. I got a confirmation during the one-on-one call I had with my coach, where she helped me face the truth about the relationship with my ex-boyfriend. They offered me much more than what I was expecting to a price that for them is ridiculously low given what they are offering. For the first time in two years, I took the time to reflect without answering right away and then I came back to my first decision of focusing more on work the upcoming year. Now they are offering me the same package with the possibility of starting in one year. I am tempted to say yes, even if it would mean going in debt for a while or paying in instalments. At the same time anything can happen in one year, so what if I don’t want to do it anymore next year? And there is also the other program that I wanted to join that is expensive too.

Anyway, I love my problems!! 

I think I’m going to say yes, with the condition that if for any reason I don’t want/can’t do the program anymore when the moment comes, I can have my money back. Voilà!! 

There are no wrong decisions anyway, the worst thing that can happen is that I learn a new lesson!!

Coming back to overthinking, I watched a video from Mel Robbins on the subject. She reminded that the only way to get results and change my life is through action. No amount of thinking will ever get me there!!

 

So now the question is : what do I want to create?

I have an amazing Decade Vision.pdf  that I dusted off. It was a great surprise for me to find that I put that I will be childfree!! I can proudly say that every item on that list still holds true!! ? ?

I decided to do now the year review and the vision board for 2023, knowing that the next two months will mostly be dedicated to work and learning as much as I can about Emergency Medicine.

 

I’m already excellent in my job

My coach said that to me during the negotiation call.

It really warmed my heart, he cannot know of course but it is true that I underestimate a lot my value at work..

 

I want an easy life

I know I want an easy life outside of my work. I want to be able to rest, study and do the things that I like.

Clarity is everything and this is something I am certain about.

 

I am easily led

As I tend to lack self-confidence, I can easily be led by the people around me exuding self-confidence. I learned to take the time before making decisions.

Leo says that low self esteem is a lack of love for yourself. I know what to do then!!

Thank you, Leo!!

[Diane]

2023 Mode On!! 

I did the review of 2022 and prepared my 2023, here it is: 2022-2023.pdf

Clarity is everything: it was the easiest preparation ever!! I know I want to focus on work and studying and the rest will go on standby mode, as in all the other areas of my life I'll be only doing basic and maintenance stuff.

So even the vision board consists just of a picture of me at the hospital with the text "Live. LOVE. EXCEL!".

Time to go and get s**t done!! 

[Diane]

Gratitude and happiness

 

Thy say gratitude is the fastest way to happiness. I’ve been doing my gratitude journal for two days in a row now and I feel the happiest I’ve been in a long while!! I think I’ll keep doing it.. 

Seriously, I feel so happy right now it almost seems strange.

So, I want to celebrate that.

The thing I feel most grateful about in this moment is having a second chance to really learn medical stuff. I have my medical degree but there are many things I don’t feel comfortable in and with the turn I took coming from Italy to Switzerland I have the opportunity to hone my skills in plenty of ways. There is a challenge in the challenge posed by the language, as French is not my first language but, in the end, I still consider myself very fortunate!!
I really do live in a friendly Universe that is designed to support me!!

[Diane]

Things are getting better

 

I’ve been doing psychotherapy since almost three years now and at the same time I continued doing quite a bit of personal growth work. It’s a journey that will never end by definition but I can see more and more how far I’ve come, and I want to acknowledge it.

• I globally feel a lot less anxious, and I can be vulnerable and show myself as I am without the constant need to correspond to an impossible ideal.
• I’ve learned the importance of delaying my response when an opportunity opens, or I have an urgent desire to do or have something.
• I notice the good things that I do and the good that is in me and not only my shortcomings.
• The place where I felt the most in lack was work but I now can see that if I can only see excellence around me, it’s because I am excellent too!!

I would love to be able to go back to the me of January 2020 and give her the warmest hug, tell her that if she doesn’t feel good it’s ok to take a day off and things will get better as soon as she will start to treat herself as the divine creature she is!!

I’m grateful I learnt all this, even if it took a lot of suffering.

Now the problems that I have look like this:

Should I go out on Tuesday and/or Wednesday even if I work from 7am to 7pm? In my plan for 2023 I wrote that I want to study every free moment that I have. Based on that, the problem doesn’t even exist. At the same time, I wonder what the 20% of maintenance mode of the rest of my life looks like relationshipswise and regarding going out. The same for cooking, running and anything else that is not studying. Like: was it a good thing that last night in the end I spent my time cooking and watching a documentary instead of studying something? It made me feel better so in a way it was a good thing. But at the same time if I only study when all the planets are aligned, I won’t progress that much. Yep, I need to eat this frog and become a little hermit for a while. It is the most self-loving thing I can do in this moment (and for the year to come).

Nothing changes if nothing changes. I can’t expect to get better if I don’t do anything differently!!

The next step for me is to continue being less and less anxious, knowing and embodying the fact that I live in a friendly Universe that was designed to support me and anyway it’s going to be over sooner than I can imagine so I’d rather make the most of it!

[Diane]

Self-Love is everything

 

I am very easily influenced by the opinions of others and when in doubt I always start by looking for other people’s opinion.

Right now, I am struggling with discipline and the first reflex for me is to look for a video from someone I trust on YouTube instead of going inwards.

For once I decided to disrupt the pattern. So here I am.

I spent the whole week mostly binge watching The Crown during my already limited free time.

I had decided I wanted to dedicate every free moment I had to studying from now on.

I did it a little bit and then I started feeling overwhelmed by the number of things I have to do and know so I stopped everything.

It’s all a matter of self-love in the end: taking the time to breathe and reflect on the most self-loving thing I could do in any given moment.

A few days ago, I realized that the habit I was starting to build of bringing work at home was not self-loving at all: I need to find a way to finish work at work and not at home.

Same thing when I deviate towards binge watching: the most self-loving thing to do in that moment is to stop and sleep as the day after I’ll be less productive if I don’t.

About discipline in general I guess the only way is through.

I get better every time I fail so I’ll fail until I succeed!!

The same applies for confidence and sticking up to myself and my opinions: just because I failed this time (the reference being to how I let myself be profoundly influenced by the opinions of my ex-boyfriend), it doesn’t mean I will never succeed, it’s just one more lesson I had to learn on my way to becoming me!!

This is a collage I had done last year titled “My space, my voice, my opinion”.

It almost hurts to see it now.

There were moments during my last relationship where I thought I had to discard it and replace it with one with a picture of the couple in the middle instead.

Fortunately, I kept it, but I feel so far away from what this canvas represents.

Yet again, the first step is self-love.

So now I’ll allow myself to sleep a little more and then I’ll re-start this beautiful Sunday in self-love and appreciation for the amazingness I am surrounded with!! 

Edited November 27, 2022 by Diane

[Diane]

A life well lived

I have this tendency of needing to reward myself when I do good things.

I guess a life well lived should be a reward in itself.

And also, in the bigger picture frame of life, I am free to do what I want. There will be different consequences depending on what I choose to do but a life where every good action needs a little something as a reward is a golden torture, beautiful and shiny from the outside but as painful as any other one.

My personal reward these days is watching series that I end up binge watching.

The last one is Wednesday. Fortunately, it only has one season.

As Gabor Mate says, “don’t ask why the addiction, rather why the pain”.

My pain right now comes from the fear I have of not being good enough for the challenges ahead, specifically if I ever find myself to be alone at the Emergency having to manage a situation I am not used to.

The only way is preparing myself as best as I can, no amount of fear or pre-suffering will ever help me solve what’s ahead.

I decided to let go of Netflix etc and instead reach for a book I like when I want to relax and clear my head. The alternative is meditating or just napping.

Will I make it? Yes, one day at a time and one act of self-love at a time. <3

 

 

Clarity

I noticed I don’t have a structure for my days off.

I know I want to be studying every free moment I have but that’s a bit too vague.

I’ll work on that.

[Diane]

LIMO

I’m somewhat disoriented in time and sometimes in space too.

Las week I didn’t notice that my third night shift was in a different site and until a few minutes ago I thought I wasn’t working tomorrow but I actually am.

At the same time, even if I’m very happy about not being with my ex-boyfriend anymore, I think about him often.

For both of them awareness is the key.

Regarding him, as I notice I’m thinking about him I do my best to focus on the present moment and what I appreciate about it.

There is a deeper layer I could go in forgiveness, as that will be the ultimate cure.

It’s something I’m doing right now with my therapist. She told me he was sending me entire bouquets of red flags and asked me why I didn’t ask for help when things were going badly. Every time we had a session in general the very bad moments had passed, and I portrayed a lighter version of facts when describing what had happened. I felt ashamed of finding myself in a similar situation with all the knowledge I had and all the personal growth I have done. She lovingly reminded me that it’s something that can happen to anyone, no matter the sex, education, culture or whatever category one might be in or not.

I forgave myself for what happened, it was exactly what I needed to grow.

The next step is to extend the same grace to him, knowing  he has his own issues. That’s what will mark the true end of the relationship, physical separation is only one part of the process.

Regarding my planning it’s all about clarity.

I didn’t do a program for December so that’s the next step.

Clarity first, then action.

I’ll never be in the moment if I always act on impulse: thoughts are most of the time in the past or in the future and if I act on every one of them, I’ll never get anything done. I thought it concerned only things like shopping or drinking but it’s all-embracing. Things like not acting on the impulse to ask now at my colleague about a shift change we had discussed and delaying that to after I have done my plan for December. Same thing for the anxiety that discovering I work tomorrow gave me: I had the impulse to go all in and study now all the things I wanted to study by the next shift but no: clarity first and then action.

So, I’ll do the plan first.

Not so funny or sexy but intentional and ultimately much more fulfilling. <3

[Diane]

Clarity

There are so many things I want to do.

But for once, I know that the way is not feeling overwhelmed and rushing into the first thing monkey mind stumbles into. Clarity first and then action.

There are plenty of things I’d like to study so I need to prioritize.

I’ll finish first reviewing the ACLS and then tackle orthopedics.

When I have a few minutes free I need to remember to seize the opportunity to read the articles I have on google drive.

For the nonprofessional/student life I’d like to run at least once per week, be outside at least 15 minutes per day, do my nails, and I have an appointment to re-braid my hair on Wednesday.

Also, I’d like to go watch The Woman King, but I think I’ll let it go for now.

Seen like this it’s all much easier to digest.

Thank you, Universe, and thank you to the me who remembered to pause get clarity first and then act.

[Diane]

It's ok to be me

This afternoon I was buying some sweaters and I was marveled at the realization that it’s ok to wear whatever I want. I bought the same knitted sweater in three different colors and deeply felt the risk of disapproving my ex-boyfriend as he had said he liked variety in how to dress.

Somewhere out there, there is someone who will love me even if I wear the same sweater all year long.

The secret is that I need to be that person first.

I’m getting there!!

I can proudly say I’m living my best life right now. I accept missing out on many things so that I can give time and energy to my number one focus of the year: excellence in my work.

What I love about it is the peace I have missing out on the many other things I could be doing, whereas in the past this consciousness would have made me sad and frenzied trying to do everything everyone else was doing.

LIMO is definitely the cure for FOMO!! 

[Diane]

The year I got past my obsession for finding love

I’ve already done my review for 2022 but I don’t think I mentioned something I’m noticing more and more right now: thanks to the experiences I had this year (accumulated with all the other adventures I lived the past few years), I can proudly say I am cured from my obsession for finding love. Maybe I will eventually find it or maybe not but I don’t feel the rush anymore and I look to all the past experiences with a smile and a lot of gratitude, even the ones that made me suffer because I got ghosted or I let them took away my power. I learned so much, most of all about my value: there is no man who is "out of my league" and it's ok to have boundaries and not settle for less than what I'm looking for. And most of all, I can't expect from someone else a love I am not willing to give to myself first.

Just for the sake of clarity, dear Universe, I’m wide open to receiving love in any way or form, I’m just confident enough now to know that I deserve the love I want, beginning from my non negotiables, which, if you’re still listening, are:

• Same level of consciousness or higher (working on himself)
• No kids and doesn't want kids for the next 5-10 years
• Deep communication and intimacy
• Respect
• Exclusivity
• Financial stability (same level as me or more)
• Open to travel

Voilà, I’ll continue do my job and let you do yours.

Thank you in advance for what’s already mine, I feel so much love and joy right now!!

It’s just incredible!!!

So actually, do what you want: I’ll just keep falling more and more in love with me, anything else is just a topping on the gorgeous cake that I am already!! 

[Diane]

It’s about helping the patients

It’s always useful to review the basics.

Today made me remember how it’s NEVER about me in my work, it’s not about showing off how great of a doctor/person I am. So, it's better for everybody that I show things as they are and stop trying to portray them in the most convenient way for me. And it’s ok to say out loud that I did a mistake or forgot something.

I’m human, I’m imperfect by nature and there’s nothing wrong in that.

Hopefully I’ll remember it next time, otherwise I’ll learn it again.

Thank you, Universe, for your relentless commitment to help me learn things!! <3

[Diane]

Giving gratitude

It’s the only thing I can do, really!!

Ok, I could do many other things to but that’s the one that feels the more compelling right now.

I’m here, in the comfort of my couch, listening to Estas Tonne and enjoying the beautiful life I get to live!!

This morning I went for a run and almost effortlessly ran 7km in 38 minutes, not the best time ever but still a success!!

And I had the opportunity to receive in my apartment my “uncles” in the city I live in. They’re not my direct uncles but they helped me a lot when I first arrived in Switzerland!! <3

Moment by moment of amazement, that's how I live now.

Thank you Universe and thank you to the me(s) who brought me here!!  

[Diane]

I love my problems

I've been thinking pretty often about my ex boyfriend and it's been mostly positive or at least neutral thoughts. I also felt that he would write me for Christmas and he did. We had a nice conversation and greed to keep communicating, this time with a rule of radical honesty. 

At the same time old feelings and fears came back about what happened and how bad I felt during that relationship.

The question is : do I want to stay in communication with him or not? Because in the long run I don't see us coming back together as a couple, it would be just a new friends with benefit thing.

The other "problem" I have is that I'm not studying  right now, as I feel overwhelmed by all the things I wish I knew already and don't.

Let's make it easy: I can only go little by little for studying, no amount of worrying will ever help me know more than what reading even one line of  book will.

Concerning my ex boyfriend I'll follow the radical honesty rule and we'll see how it goes.

I do love my first world first class problems!! 

[Diane]

Dear 2022

 

Inspired by the one and only Eddie Pinero , I want to write something to you too, dear 2002.

Thank you for all the lessons you thought me.

I am a completely different person today from the one I was 365 days ago.

I am at peace with myself, I know I have qualities and at the same time I accept my imperfections.

There is still work to do of course but it will be done from a much more peaceful place, without the frantic restlessness of needing to be perfect to be worthy of my own love and care.

Thank you for bringing back my ex-boyfriend in my life in the end.

We met a few days ago and decided to have a new label-free relationship based on radical honesty. So far it’s been incredibly good: I was able to tell him all the suffering I experienced while we were together and it was very liberating, whereas if we hadn’t have the opportunity to speak again I would have had to continue working through it for who knows how long.

I am immensely grateful for having had the idea of re-listening to the book “Radical Honesty”. I hadn’t really got the memo the first time, but this time I’m implementing what Brad Blanton says and it makes life so much lighter!! It’s uncomfortable at times but, with the consciousness I have now, I’d rather be uncomfortable than live in a web of comfortable but incessantly distressing lies. <3

 

I’ve just downloaded the idea that 2023 will be the year of disruption!!

And it starts today: for the first time since I have salary, this year I won’t adhere to the Italian tradition of wearing new red lingerie on New Year’s Eve. It’s a bit of a superstition and a waste of money, a little bit as with a lot of other things, its origins do not come from a consumer society… I will probably wear red lingerie anyway, but it won’t be a new set.

 

Cheers to my wallet and welcome 2023!! 

[Diane]

Self-love is action

 

This is one of the main mantras of one of my coaches.

I haven’t been embodying this truth so much lately.

I was a lot into the flow of doing what I felt like doing and relaxing a lot.

That’s good but at the same time I stopped doing the little exercise I was doing and right now my pussy has a funky smell because I left a cup for too long.

I’m very dedicated to my work and I out of my way in great amounts for the well being of my patients yet I don’t do relatively easy thing for my own wellbeing.

Self-care is work apparently and I am worthy putting the same amount of effort I put towards helping my patients into helping myself be at my best!!

I decided to write a D-Love Manifesto.

The first step will be to define what self-love is.

So, Self-Love is:

• Sleeping 8 hour per day
• Working out (doing burpees, walking, running or in the best-case scenario, doing CrossFit)
• Brushing my teeth at least 2 times per day
• Taking a shower when I come back from work
• Planning my days and clarifying in advance what I want to do in my non-working time
• Planning chores and things like manicure and pedicure
• Doing my morning and evening routines
• Drinking enough water
• Dancing!!
• Changing a menstrual cup frequently enough and little efforts like this

 

So, here is the D-Love Manifesto

I, Diane, herein declare my commitment to putting all the effort I am capable of into taking care and fortify my body, my mind and my spirit.

I can only help and love others to the level that I am and do de same towards myself.

As I do to myself so shall be done to others.

[Diane]

Why

 

That’s the most important thing, right?

I think I lost it somewhere and my job became more of an endless series of nonsense chores than working towards “using integrative medicine to help people own their healing” or the original “to do plenty of research and public speaking to make people healthier through consciousness”.

The plot twist on the question right now is “why is it so hard for me to extend to myself the same grace I show to my patients?”.

I can be very hard on myself: I create unrealistic goals and then get disappointed if I don’t attain them..

I will definitely change that!!

I’m so glad I started therapy: personal growth is good but the foundation therapy gives me is peerless: it’s my therapist who made me realize today this unrealistic goal making thing. Creating a realistic schedule has been a challenge my whole adult life, to the point that at a certain point I stopped doing them altogether. But apparently, they are useful.

I’ll use the next week to finish the tidying up campaign I started and create a realistic schedule.

 

So, why do I do what I do?

I chose to study medicine for three main reasons.

• I wanted to help people;
• Somebody told me it would be good for the prestige of my family;
• I didn’t want to get married or have kids and I guessed it was such an engaging career that coming back home I wouldn’t have had the energies to reflect on how empty my life really was.

I guessed well in a certain sense.

But right now I do want to get married and I even have moments where I flirt with the idea of becoming a parent and it makes the long hours I work a lot less appealing.

Regarding the prestige part, I have definitively uncovered the Pandora box on its shallowness.

What remains is helping people.

Sometimes I don’t really feel like I’m helping them.

But in at least 80% of cases I think I do indeed, even if not yet in the way that I would like.

Wouldn’t it be funny to be able to discuss with a patient who comes for a leg fracture why they think it happened and what the Universe want to tell them through that accident?

Here’s another why: I love studying, understanding things and then explaining to people.

In the end it’s not even about helping people, I just love doing it!!

 

Does it mean I should become a researcher instead of doing more clinical work?

I do enjoy interacting with patients too, even if sometimes it can be hard depending on their stories.

 

In summary here’s why I am a doctor:

I love studying, understanding and explaining things to people.

 

Beautiful!! 

[Diane]

Clarity first, then action

 

Maybe I’m just procrastinating on the I don’t even know how many overdue reports I have for work but I felt like pausing for a moment.

The last two days I was forced to physically pause as I had a bad cold and slept almost the whole two days.

Now I have a little more energy but, as always, so many things to do.

And to clarify too.

The most unclear one is the renewed relationship I’m in with my ex-boyfriend.

I feel like I’m stuck in the “friends with benefit phase”: since we started reconnecting, we are more “friends” in the sense that I feel like I can be myself around him and I trust him. And, apart from this weekend when I was sick, sex is getting better and better as I am able to tell him things I used to be too ashamed to share.

 As superficial as it may be, I don’t like his looks. What a good problem to have!! 

With my accountability partner we came to the resolve that 3-6 months is a good time to gauge a relationship. We’ve now been re-dating for two months. I’ll give myself six months in total. The interesting thing is that we plan on going on vacation together in the end of June, so it will either be a confirmation vacation or a goodbye one.

The other area I need crystal clarity in is my goals and plans.

I seem to always overschedule myself and then get overwhelmed, disappointed, or sick.

The new rule to overcome this planning fallacy is to double the time I think every task will take me.

Starting from the reports I have for work: I now know I need 8 hours to do all of them.

I’ll start now and do the rest tomorrow morning. I should be able to finish or at least do a significant chunk of them!!

 

What is measured is managed!! 

[Diane]

Why

I think that’s the most important question for everything I do.

This week I started working in an Internal Medicine ward and it was very stressful and hard for me.

I’ll be there for the next four months and I may stay there longer and/or come back sometime in the future.

Why do I torture myself then?

I want to become a general practitioner and be able to practice integrative medicine.

My guiding principle is “helping people get healthier through consciousness”.

To get my Internal Medicine specialization I need to get through this Residency.

I am fortunate enough to live in the Youtube era so I found a lot of how to, tips and tricks to survive Residency and stay healthy all along.

I’ll apply the tips and find out what works best for me.

It’s hard but it’s possible!!