I’d originally gone to medical school to be a psychiatrist because from a very young age, my favorite thing to do was sit with other people and hear about their lives, the good stuff and the hard stuff. After my parents divorced when I was four, I traveled cross-country several times a year between them. Each time I deboarded a plane, I’d be animated with enchanting stories of the new BFF I’d sat next to on the flight. (Never thought to ask if they felt like talking but…). In school, I was the one who wanted to be friends with EVERYONE. I was popular, but not in an obnoxious way, by my interpretation. People are fascinating.  Every person has something to offer the world, their own version of reality, their own lived experiences that shape them. I always befriended the “wounded bird”, wanting to help them feel better. Really knowing people lets me understand them, their dreams and struggles. Connections enriched my life. I’ll never know whether I was subconsciously seeking love from others because my parents had split, but it didn’t feel that way. It felt good to be seen and heard. I wanted others to have that feeling too.


Newly married, I went through my third year of medical training, trying on potential career options, like surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics-gynecology. Nothing felt right. My husband and I went to see the movie Philadelphia where Tom Hanks plays a young lawyer diagnosed with AIDS. I’d just turned in a term paper about HIV and had been so focused on making the right diagnosis, I hadn’t connected the signs and symptoms with an actual person. Seeing this innocent, youthful man on screen, afflicted with the disease I’d been studying, cracked through the armor I’d bolted around my heart. In the dark theater, I started sobbing. Gasping, choking sobs. With no tissues to catch my running tears or dripping nose, the other theater patrons and my husband didn’t know what to do. At that moment, I knew I didn’t have the emotional fortitude to care for the sick. How could I help others if I couldn’t hold my own feelings in? How could I be a doctor? Deeply distraught, I kept telling myself, Hold out for the psychiatry rotation at the end of the year. Everything will be fine.

However, my psychiatry experience proved to be just as difficult. The patients were severely mentally ill, institutionalized, often restrained so as not to hurt themselves or others. I couldn’t connect with them. The year was 1995 and the internet didn’t exist. I didn’t have exposure to psychiatrists practicing out in the community with people “going through a hard time.” I thought, Even if this patient population is the most severe of the mentally ill, and even if things get better out in the real world, I can’t do this. I can’t bear witness to all of this suffering. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I was lost. I sunk into a deep depression. During this time, on our first wedding anniversary, my husband said, “I love you. I’m not leaving you. But you need help, and I can’t help you.” Another connection, lost.


Scared and scarred from my six weeks of psychiatry, I convinced myself I needed to get as far away from suffering as possible. A time-sensitive decision, I had to declare radiology my specialty before I’d even had the class, which felt like a huge risk, but the only viable option at the time. As a radiologist, looking at images of the insides of people rather than into their eyes and faces, I thought I could protect myself from hard emotions, my own and others. For more than two decades, I sat in a dark room, by myself, staring at thousands of images for 9-12 hours a day on a computer screen, describing what I was looking at into a dictation machine, with little to no interaction with others. I was physically cut off from other humans. Many people go into radiology because they don’t like people, but that wasn’t the case for me. I thought I’d thrive in community with other radiologists and referrers in my role as a consultant in patient care, but I couldn’t connect with my peers. You know that feeling when you tell a joke and no one laughs? That’s what it was like for me, for 25 years. My efforts to connect were rejected. I was convinced that I was deeply flawed, unworthy of love or belonging.


The way I got through the loneliness and disconnection was to invest in therapy, medication, and lots of self-help books. In constantly trying to improve myself, I thought, at the very least, I could look back at the end of my life and know that I’d tried, that I’d done everything I could to be a better person, doctor, parent, and partner. Though deeply grateful to all who helped me, I still felt numb. In trying so desperately to be worthy in the eyes of others, I’d lost the most important connection of all: my connection to myself.


It’s been said that what we most regret points to what we value most. As I approached 40, my best friend died of cancer, my psychiatrist of 15 years closed her practice, and two of my kids were diagnosed with celiac disease. I felt despondent and lost. I found a diary in my nightstand I’d kept from 10 years prior. Looking at my own words, I was horrified to see that nothing about my internal dialogue had changed. I still had the same fears and complaints, the same sense of being in survival mode. It was discouraging to have worked so diligently to grow and evolve, and feel stuck in the same damn place. I spent weeks simply going through the motions of daily life without engaging. Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now shifted my focus to life right in front of me: plants, sunshine, raindrops. I also made a conscious commitment to doing the opposite of what I’d usually do at any moment. Much to my surprise, I began to make progress.


As I reflected on my life and my misery, it became apparent that the source of my unhappiness was that I’d been living outside of my integrity. I valued authenticity (connection to self) and belonging (connection to others) but I wasn’t living in alignment with these values in my choices and behaviors. It took the absence of authenticity and belonging for me to recognize how important connection was to me. Yes, I had regrets around my career choice, but my job didn’t have to define me. Yes, I’d lost my way, but I could find myself again. I could let go of the “identity” I’d created through conformity. I could walk away from the social capital and hefty paycheck that come from being a high-earning physician, and reroute. Intellectually, I understood this, but it was still terrifying. What made the decision easier was an unspoken confidence I felt that no matter what the future brought, it had to be better. At least, it would be different. Paradoxically, as I arrived at these insights, a sudden, somewhat hostile takeover occurred in my work environment. My gut instincts transformed into laser-focused action: it was the perfect time for me to leave.


Once I’d made the decision to live in my integrity, dramatic shifts began to take place. My friend, Nicole, kept telling me, “This is going to be the best thing that’s ever happened to you. Seek the opportunities. Seek the gifts. Follow your curiosity. Cultivate trust in yourself.” I had no idea what she was talking about, but I have deep respect for her so I went along with it.


I spent 6 months writing to my Future Self daily, with pen and paper. Writing long-hand has been shown by neuroscience studies to tap into a part of the brain that’s not accessible any other way, not by speaking, typing, texting or thinking. Ultimately, writing to oneself allows us to answer the questions, “Who am I? What do I think? What’s true for me?” All those years in therapy, trying to silence my anxiety and depression, I’d been ignoring my own body’s messages trying to alert me that the way I was spending my time wasn’t the right way for me.


I started listening to the messengers, giving them credibility rather than scorn, allowing them to speak on the page. I discovered what self-trust felt like: lighter, relaxed. Feelings I hadn’t had since college. Opportunities began presenting themselves without the sheer grit and desperation I was used to. Once I stopped trying to control everything and play by the rules of others, life seemed to unfold with ease and flow.


I discovered that I hadn’t changed. I was still the same person. I’d just lost connection to the parts of myself that felt natural and right. I’d covered up my true essence in an attempt to “fit in” into a culture that wasn’t right for me. It wasn’t a “mistake,” just a chapter in my own hero’s journey. As my friend, Melissa, says, “There’s no fail, only win or learn.” Regret is a process that helps us shift from if only to what can I learn from this experience in order to do things differently next time?  As I began to feel safe inside myself, I could remove the layers of mud and not only shine again, but be able to shine on others, help them process their own regrets, and rewrite their own life scripts.


Almost 5 years have passed since leaving that job. Some friends and family still can’t believe I made such a bold move to pivot in such a drastic, risky way. My parents still introduce me to their friends as “the radiologist” rather than “the coach that builds healthy mindsets and emotional intelligence with teens, adults, couples, families, and LGBTQ+.” They struggle to believe my mantra that we can “have more joy in life by strengthening connection with self and others.” I’m grateful I came to embody a new philosophy of success just as my own children are becoming adults. I no longer ask them, or anyone, “What’re you going to do with your life?” Instead, I ask, “What’re you going to do next?”


As a culture confronting epidemic loneliness, a killer worse than COVID, we’d do well to heed Ashley C. Ford’s words she shared with Oprah Winfrey in an interview: “We can’t heal unless we talk about what hurts.” That conversation starts first with cultivating meaningful, trustworthy connection to ourselves and others.


Proximity is not what connects us to others. It’s trust. Those in your circle may not be in your corner. Take inventory of the people in your life. Bodily sensations tell the truth about something important: whether you’re actually connected to yourself or those around you. Pay attention. If you feel contracted, there may be issues around trust.


Whenever you think about or spend time with others, check in with your body and ask yourself, Do I feel at ease? Open? Free? Expanded? Or do I feel anxious? Closed? Contracted?