The Unspoken Life
Recognize Your Passion, Embrace Imperfection, and Stay Connected
Kimberly Pope-Robinson, DVM, CCFP
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35021125-the-unspoken-life?from_search=true
An excellent read for all veterinary staff and students. Veterinary well-being is something I believe we all need to be proactive over, developing better skills for helping ourselves and each other. This is an efficient read, and easy to absorb the details.
A very recent CDC study (Tomasi, S. et al, Suicide among veterinarians in the United States from 1979 through 2015, JAVMA Vol 254:1, 104-112) determined that veterinarians have up to a 3.5 time higher chance of death by suicide, compared to the general population. And the rate of suicide has been steadily rising over the last several years. If the CDC has taken the time and financial investment to investigate this, alarm bells should be screaming at us. This author, a veterinarian, speaks from experience regarding the critical concept that veterinary well-being should be a priority.
The main take-away that Dr. Pope-Robinson communicates, is the vitalness of connection. Without connection, feelings of isolation can overwhelm us, perpetuating negative and destructive thought patterns and behaviors. Learning to replace these negative habits with thoughts and actions of connection is her strategy for developing a robust life of well-being.
Fighting the negative components of our life (“sinkers”) intentionally and proactively with positive and up-lifting components (“balloons”) help us build and maintain connection.
Four different components of connection are discussed:
- Physical connection
- Mental connection
- Emotional connection
- Spiritual connection
While most of us expect life to balance itself out, negativity bias (the subconscious tendency to dwell on, or give greater weight to the negative) favors energy drains, rather than balanced or positive states of being. Therefore, proactively managing and connecting with positive components is a critical skill to develop!
Given the uniqueness we each carry, our sense of connection for each component will be extremely varied from each other. To establish a resilient sense of well-being, understanding things that give you a sense of connection (running, one on one time with a loved one, reading a book, spending time in nature), having strategies in place to recognize when they are needed, and engaging these positives is a skillset of incredible value.
The only moment of sun in the day, between hail storms and sunset.
A helium weather sized balloon, for me.
Dr. Pope-Robinson also discusses other vital components to remaining connected, including self-worth, conviction, acceptance, courage, vision, empathy, and resilience.
This book is an excellent starting point to start considering, developing and sustaining your sense of well-being. I recommend reading it- even if you feel well equipped, it may be a skillset that could save your life, or help you recognize another life that needs to feel connected. It will not be a burden to take the time to read it.
In addition to this book, Dr. Pope-Robinson has developed 1 Life Connected, a business dedicated to coaching individuals towards connecting your passions and your career.
Another resource on well-being, developed by the American Veterinary Medical association provides help line information, and a kit of articles and topics to help you understand and develop well-being.
While you are working through this book, what are your strategies for filling your “balloons”? What are your strategies for recognizing when your “sinkers” are tipping the scale? Share below, and help us build our tool-kits!
Further Reading/Resources:
I Need Help Please
Slaying the Savior
I’ve been exploring for a bit for any high quality articles or weblog posts
in this sort of house . Exploring in Yahoo I at last stumbled upon this website.
Reading this info So i’m glad to convey that I’ve an incredibly excellent uncanny feeling
I came upon just what I needed. I so much without a doubt will make certain to do
not fail to remember this website and give it a glance regularly.
I’ve been surfing online more than three hours today, yet I
by no means found any interesting article like yours.
It’s lovely value enough for me. In my opinion, if all
website owners and bloggers made good content as you did,
the net shall be much more helpful than ever before.
Hi! I could have sworn I’ve been to this website before but after
reading through some of the post I realized it’s new to me.
Anyways, I’m definitely glad I found it and I’ll be bookmarking
and checking back frequently!
I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I absolutely enjoyed every little bit of it.
I have you book-marked to look at new things you post…
fantastic submit, very informative. I ponder why the other specialists
of this sector don’t notice this. You should proceed your writing.
I’m sure, you’ve a huge readers’ base already!
Wow! At last I got a web site from where I be able
to in fact get helpful data regarding my study and knowledge.
I’m no longer sure the place you’re getting your
information, but good topic. I needs to spend some time learning more or figuring out more.
Thank you for great information I was in search of
this information for my mission.
you’re really a excellent webmaster. The website
loading velocity is amazing. It seems that you’re doing any
distinctive trick. In addition, The contents are masterwork.
you have done a excellent job on this topic!
Thankfulness to my father who stated to me on the topic of this
weblog, this weblog is truly amazing.
Very quickly this site will be famous amid all blog
viewers, due to it’s nice articles
An outstanding share! I have just forwarded this onto a colleague who had been doing a little homework on this.
And he in fact bought me lunch simply because I discovered it for him…
lol. So let me reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!!
But yeah, thanks for spending the time to talk about this subject here on your internet site.
I don’t even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was great.
I don’t know who you are but certainly you are going to a famous blogger if you aren’t already
😉 Cheers!
Good post. I learn something new and challenging on blogs I stumbleupon everyday.
It’s always exciting to read through content from
other authors and practice a little something from other sites.
Today, I went to the beachfront with my kids.
I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She put the shell to her
ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear.
She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is totally off topic but I
had to tell someone!
A person essentially lend a hand to make critically posts I’d state.
This is the very first time I frequented your web page and thus far?
I amazed with the analysis you made to make this particular submit extraordinary.
Great job!
I am extremely impressed with your writing skills
and also with the layout on your blog. Is this
a paid theme or did you modify it yourself? Either way keep up the
nice quality writing, it’s rare to see a nice blog like
this one these days.
An impressive share! I have just forwarded this onto a colleague who
was doing a little research on this. And he actually bought me breakfast
because I stumbled upon it for him… lol. So let
me reword this…. Thanks for the meal!! But yeah, thanx for spending some time
to talk about this topic here on your internet site.
The Sun-Instances is counting down the 50 higher college basketball applications with the most wins through the decade.
Hey! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be okay.
I’m absolutely enjoying your blog and look forward
to new updates.
Today, I went to the beachfront with my children. I found a sea shell
and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She placed
the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and
it pinched her ear. She never wants to go
back! LoL I know this is entirely off topic but I had
to tell someone!