This was a thought that I recently caught my brain telling me. My youngest child experienced difficult times through high school. The isolation of COVID added a layer of challenges to an introvert who isn’t comfortable in her own skin. I have tried to help her develop autonomy and confidence throughout high school years by offering support, arranging therapy appointments, refilling anti-depressants, and communicating with the school. She started senior year and her self-confidence still needs work.

As a mother, I will be throwing my child into the world after high school. I’m running out of time to help. She plans to attend college, but I’m nervous that her anxiety isn’t controlled and she won’t be able overcome the obstacles thrown at her. Here comes the thought again…I’m running out of time to help. She wants to pursue a degree in environmental sciences, but I’m concerned her confidence isn’t strong enough for success in the next phase of life. And yet again…I’m running out of time to help.

Our thoughts create our emotions and feelings are what drive our actions. The recurring thought about time makes me feel panicked and desperate. I found myself questioning the therapist and investigating other therapy opportunities. I noticed myself agreeing with a psychiatrist who was offering to make FOUR changes to a medication plan. I was not enjoying the milestones of my child’s senior year and I realized that this was the last time I would experience these joys as a parent. This created even more panic and less joy. I was in a vicious cycle.

Actions taken out of panic and desperation are much different than actions taken from feelings of love and abundance. I am lucky enough to know this to be true and to have the tools to help catch myself to guide my ship back on course. My love for my child is unquestionable, but I needed to change my thought about time to provide me the comfort of abundance. I needed a new thought that I believed.

“A lot can happen in a year.”

This was my new thought that created a sense of calmness. I absolutely believe it and it allows me to feel the abundance of time rather than the scarcity of it. I can take a breath and realize that aggressive medication changes aren’t necessary, but instead I can pause and begin brainstorming with my child about less desperate solutions.

I noticed that when my thought changed, my brain was telling me other ideas to further support my feelings of love and abundance. I know that my child will constantly grow and evolve just like every human. The growth during senior year does not stop after graduation. There is plenty of time. Enjoying the events of senior year with the love and support of her mother will help to build confidence. I have the perfect amount of time.

What actions are you taking out of desperation rather than love and abundance?

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I would wake up each morning trying to muster the strength to meet the challenges that I knew would face me that day. My first thought was always, “I wonder what fires I am going to put out today.”. Each day ended with reflecting on each headache that I had endured that day. I would think:

This was another bad day.

My days are crazy.

I can’t get everything done.

There is too much on my plate.

I am stuck in this life.

My brain would spend the night reflecting on these thoughts. Sleep was restless and I would wake up stressed and unmotivated to get out of bed. I had no personal goals and I felt defeated before the day had even started.

Our work works to find evidence to support the thoughts it is producing. If we think, “This was another bad day” then our brain is focused on every bad thing that happened during the day. Our brain becomes blinded to the good things because that would not support the thought. This is knowledge is exciting and provides parents with the possibility to improve their life. If our brain’s thought is “This was a great day” then our brain is focused on every good thing and it changes how we feel. The way we act during the day is the result of how we feel.

Learning to change my thoughts significantly changed my life. My first thought when I wake up in the morning is, “Today is going to be a great day.”. I spend quiet time in the morning meditating, journaling and reading. I start my day with feeling energized and calm. Each day now ends with thoughts such as:

This was a good day.

I can successfully manage my days.

Everything that needs to get done will be done.

My plate is full of the things I enjoy.

I love my life.

Fulfilling. That is the word that best describes my current life still as the mother of children with chronic medical problems. I have goals that I have achieved and continue to work to achieve including professional and personal goals. I have meaningful relationships with my children, significant other, friends, and colleagues. I am grateful for the life I was given. The things I have been able to achieve have been the direct result of redirecting my brain and working to collect evidence to support my new and improved thoughts.

What are your thoughts about your current life?

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Each time the response was the same, “I don’t know. Let’s just see how her blood sugars do.”.

There were criteria that needed to be met to transition to a pump, but an exact date and time that it would be safe to transition remained uncertain. Each unanswered question from Kyleigh’s doctor led to discomfort and disappointment and we could have easily given up asking or trying for the pump.

The future of our child regardless of their health issue is never in our control. Sometimes it is expected that questions are left unanswered. We ask questions such as “What’s the next treatment?” or “What happens if this class intervention doesn’t work?” or “When will we be able to sleep through the night?” and we don’t gain clarity because of the unpredictability of chronic illnesses. As parents, living with uncertainty is uncomfortable, but it is a necessary part of life.

The twists and turns of a child’s medical journey can sometimes be out of our control. We need to be cautious, though, that the known lack of control doesn’t turn into defeat. I was recently discussing a classic psychology study by Dr. Seligman in which dogs were put in different circumstances and given an electric shock. The group of dogs who inferred that they did not have control of the shock, gave up and didn’t try to escape. The conversation about this study reminded me that as parents, we, too, can experience this behavior of learned helplessness. I could have easily become one of Seligman’s dogs who gave up when things seemed out of my control.

Becoming defeated by uncertainty can destroy our confidence. The job of advocacy is an important task when we are parenting a child with chronic needs. Advocacy can only be successfully accomplished with confidence. If I allowed myself to be defeated by the unanswered timing of Kyleigh’s pump, I would have stopped asking and lost my confidence in advocating for Kyleigh in the physician’s office and in other areas like school accommodations.

We maintain self-confidence when we maintain awareness and acceptance. Since our emotions are created by our thoughts, the first step is awareness of the ideas leading to feeling defeated. Thoughts such as “That was a stupid question” or “I should have never asked because I knew the answer” need to be recognized so we can intentionally work on halting and changing our thinking.

Acceptance of an uncertain path forward also works to maintain our confidence. I didn’t know when Kyleigh would get a pump, but I knowing it would eventually happen gave me the confidence to continue to ask about it at each visit. Focusing on things that are in our control and accepting the uncertain things that we cannot control is the key to finding peace and confidence.

What are the unanswered questions about your child’s health that you need to accept?

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Imagine you were standing on a hill overlooking a very busy highway. The speed limit is 70 and you are watching as the cars whiz by. The stream of cars looks like a blur because they are going so fast and you don’t have time to focus on the details of the passing vehicles. This is thinking. Now imagine that you are standing on the hill and waving a flag to make the cars slow down. The cars slow to a crawl and you notice some cars are blue and others are red with stripes. This is awareness.

Kyleigh was scheduled for the SATs when I received a panicked call from her while I was at work. Through a voice of panic, she asked, “Mom, did you apply for accommodations for me?”. My heart sank. Kyleigh had been diagnosed with diabetes 4 years prior and required accommodations for standardized tests because high and low blood sugars made her loopy. The task of applying for accommodations did not even cross my mind. I immediately felt like I had let my daughter down, but I didn’t want Kyleigh know that I had failed. Feigning confidence, I said, “Let me call them, Kyleigh. It will be fine.”.

I did call and it wasn’t fine. I couldn’t focus at work. I cried when I was home. During the days following, I didn’t spend time with my kids and I ignored the items on my calendar. I was sabotaging my life and I didn’t really understand why. I just felt like I was worthless.

Getting out of this funk didn’t need time, it needed awareness. My brain was busy giving me plenty of thoughts about my subpar parenting skills, but I wasn’t aware of them. The thoughts were making me feel terrible which was causing me to sabotage life. I needed to become aware of my thoughts. I needed to wave the flag on the hill and pause to pay attention to ideas that my mind was creating. This is the critical first step in being able to create the desired results in your life. Negative thoughts can be halted and changed, but only if awareness occurs.

Awareness of your mind is a skill that needs to be practiced. It is helpful to write thoughts down to be able to visualize them without judgment. This practice takes time, but it is ultimately time well invested into being the best version of ourselves.

When was the last time you slowed the traffic of your mind to bring awareness to your thoughts?

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I didn’t want to live in a constant state of being overwhelmed and worried so in an attempt to dig myself out of these emotions, I had decided to attend a personal growth conference. During the conference, we were asked to close our eyes and imagine our future. The speaker was asking questions as the audience had their eyes closed: What does your future house look like? What does your future neighborhood look like? What is your future-self wearing? And on and on.

I sat in the audience with my eyes closed hoping that this would be the time that I could vividly see how I wanted my life. I had paid money to attend the conference so this time it had to work. Sadly, all I saw was darkness. After the list of questions, the speaker then told everyone to open their eyes and spend the next 10 minutes writing in detail everything they saw. I opened my eyes and at the top of my paper I wrote the word, “Nothing”. For 10 minutes, I stared at a full sheet of paper with 7 letters written at the top. It was at that moment that I committed to doing the work to once again start dreaming.

Dreaming about the future can bring hope, excitement, and motivation. Our focus on the future keeps us moving forward. We would never expect a runner to run a new trail with their eyes closed. We would never expect a runner to run that trail while looking backwards. We would expect them to stay focused on the path ahead moving quickly and staying out of danger. I, though, was trying to navigate the trail of life with my eyes closed.

Managing thoughts and emotions helps us dream. My eyes were closed because I was wallowing in emotions created from the thoughts about being the parent of chronically ill children. As I worked on the thoughts that my brain was telling me and changed how I was feeling, I started thinking about the future. At first, like an occasional black and white TV show, the thoughts were not frequent or vivid. The vivid movie reels come when you begin to choose what you think and how you feel.

Dreaming for a young child is easy. Their imagination about the future is extraordinary at times. We were once like this, but at some point along the way, we become consumed with the difficult part of life. We become stuck and stop looking ahead. It is never too late to revisit that childhood imagination and once again learn to focus on the future. It may feel safer to keep your eyes closed, but in reality, we are alive and well when our eyes are open and we are choosing our journey.

Are your eyes open to your future?

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Everything is a choice. How we dress is a choice, who we associate with is a choice, our chosen profession is a choice. Everything. We are faced with an endless number of decisions that we need to make every day. Sometimes we don’t even stop to give the decision much thought such as deciding what to eat for breakfast. Other times decisions are more complex and require lots of thought before we select an option such as should we take a new job. There are times in our life, though, that decisions are not obvious to us. We feel stuck and unaware that we are being faced with a choice.

My daughter was diagnosed with neuroblastoma (cancer of the adrenal gland) when I was a pediatric resident. She had surgery followed by chemotherapy and then countless radiology studies and physician visits to ensure the cancer remained in remission. This was certainly a challenging time, but returning to my role as a pediatrician after caring for my daughter proved to be an unanticipated challenge.

I always had a passion to care for children and I worked hard in my residency to be great pediatrician. Even though the hours were long, I loved going to work because I knew that I had the skills to make a child’s life better. When I returned to work after the birth of my children, I still felt joy. I found myself missing my new child, but I kept their photos in my white coat pocket and I carried out my day with confidence because I knew they would be fine. I was making a difference in the world and being a strong role model for them. When I returned to work, though, after Kyleigh recovered from her last dose of chemotherapy, my joy felt extinguished.

Mothers would bring in their child for a new rash or a fever that had been present for one day. Fathers would bring in their children for diarrhea or spend an appointment slot asking me how tall I thought their toddler would be when fully grown. I found myself becoming bitter and angry after each patient left my exam room. I was resentful towards my patients because they hadn’t been through the intense medical journey that I had been through. By taking an objective look at my mind, it became clear that I was stuck in a world of resentment because I had a decision: stay in medicine or stay home with my daughter? If I decided to stay in medicine, I needed to decide how could I rekindle my joy.

Tony Robbins once said, “It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.” I feel fortunate that I had the gift of self-awareness during this early point in my career and could see that a decision could propel my life forward. I intentionally chose to stay in medicine because I realized that Kyleigh medical problems were a gift that could make me a better doctor. I worked to understand my patients rather than resent them. Parents were coming to see me because they were worried about their child just like I worried about my daughter. This understanding allowed me to regenerate my passion and focus. I have had a remarkable medical career because I was able to intentionally decide to get unstuck.

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