Episode 2 - Where are You now?

Hello, and thank you for joining us for the second episode of The Imperfect Clinician.
My name is Mike Grudzinski.
And it's Yuen.
So this episode, we're going to talk about where we are now.
We're going to share our own reflection on our personal and professional journey.
And you can see they will be linked to one way or another.
And then we'll talk about the why and how we got here,
and perhaps link this into the third episode.
Thank you for your time.
Yeah, so we're going to start...
Maybe let's explain why is it important to look at both personal and professional growth
or assessment of where we are.
Why is it important?
I think from my own personal perspective, I can reflect on my journey as a clinician,
because I have always interacted with other clinicians and everyone in the team.
But at the start, I felt that I've always keep people at arm length.
Perhaps I wasn't very ready to delve into being vulnerable, being open.
We still have a good relationship, but I want to say not a deep, entrenching, opening up fears,
sharing hardest, deepest experience that way.
And now I feel that once I've reflected on how I am as a person,
how I've led or how I'm leading now as a clinician has changed.
Well, I've noticed that I have always appeared to be quite open with others
and quite happy engaging with people on the professional level, definitely.
But when it comes to a more meaningful, trusted relationship or approach,
that was something that I probably have been lacking in the past.
And I noticed that through starting to realize that you get much better results,
is a bad way of calling it really.
Dynamic?
Dynamic between the other clinicians or staff you're working with.
And that leads to a happier unit of a team.
Hmm.
I want to share a few things that I've read which strongly reflect how I felt.
It's a few books, but one, the more recent one by Dr. Sean Ginwright about the four pivots.
And he mentioned about the importance of mirror work.
So essentially, when you look at the mirror, you look in at reflection and the learning
and how it's so important as a leader that you need to reflect inwards
so that you don't take your own personal trauma or your own experience
and project it to other people or your team.
And there is another book by Killian Noe.
She runs a recovery cafe that serves people with mental health issues.
And she says in her book, Descent Into Love, paraphrasing here,
but the feel that I got is she said we have to open up to other people.
We have to give up the need to become separate, and then we can help.
So working on ourselves while working for others, they're both inner and outer work.
So we can't do one without the other because it's a bridge that links both together.
And I think it really allowed me to look at my way of leading as a clinician and the team
around me and how can I identify my strengths because that took a while to get to.
I think perhaps for myself and perhaps for a lot of people who just started, when you
just started, you want to prove yourself, you want to show others that you're good enough.
And so I am trying to avoid situations where I can be deemed as not good enough, so keeping
people arm length, so then they don't have to know about my fears, they don't have to
know about my flaws.
And once I've proven myself, I feel that then perhaps I'm more ready to open myself up.
So you create like a shield around you of the things that you don't know.
Yes.
Okay.
And then, but I want to go back to when you were talking about this mirror and to put
away when you're thinking about work to stay away from your personal trauma, don't bring
it into work.
So how, in that respect, we are supposed to link our own personal experience growth with
a professional one?
I think because the thought of talking about my fears feels like a weakness from both the
personal and professional perspective, and especially when I don't feel there is a psychological
safety at work to talk about it.
And it's hard to be courageous enough to be the first one that modelled this behaviour
because you don't know how other people are going to react.
So now after realising that for my team, I'm modelling that behaviour and creating a group
or a safe space.
And so what I would say to my team is, you're in a safe space, you can hang up your armour
today and I'm here for you.
And I will share my own fears, my own insecurities, so they feel that they're able to share it
as well.
And this is the way to, you can only get to this position where you are able to encourage
your team to be open with you after doing some work on it for a longer period of time.
Yes, within myself.
It's not something that, so when you are starting working with the team or the team changes
dramatically or people come and go or whatever, you are put in a new position and it feels
like the trust and the need for the new, I don't know, for a new start or for a new opening,
like in cards, do you have to start doing it from the scratch every time something major
happens or is it something that is a transferable skill that you can carry with you?
I'm talking about the initial period of before you get people to open themselves.
How would you encourage people to do it if you're in a new team or is it just a function
of time?
It's a function of time and effort because to build that trust you have to show action
and behaviours with time because trust has to be earned and not forced.
So the relationship that I build with my team is built with time and with mindfulness
and with effort and so it takes some time, I'm trying to say it's not immediate, before
we can get to the psychological safety because I also have to build relationship with them
before I feel safe to talk about my own fears.
Feels like the process of it is a bit like in a relationship where you need to test somebody
and the test of time is something that is probably unavoidable to gain and to build
trust between people to create their open space.
So this is where you can learn, you can transfer and I think there must be some ways of shortening
the distance between you and the other person or other people in the team.
I think difficult moments that you share together, some problems, that is something that puts
people closer, especially in the initial phase because that just shortens the distance.
If everything is super great all the time, you don't feel the need to be safe, really.
Yeah, so back to two points you said there about the transferable skills, which is why
I think you can't just look at being a courageous leader.
You have to be a courageous person at home, in relationship, as a parent, in the family
and I think that all interlink.
So yes, when you show a front that is without cracks, it makes people feel that you're quite
hard to approach.
So I've had, I've probably come across like that before, I've come across people like
that before and it makes me feel that they're quite cold as a person.
Perhaps I was also having my armour on them.
That's the armour, that's sort of the first barrier that you have to break to invest time
or effort and or effort to open up and to, I don't know, warm up to the person.
But is it going back to the relationship or beginning of the relationship where you're
trying to present yourself as better than you are, because in most relationships people
want to, you know, if you're going on a first date, you do make a little bit of effort.
If you don't dress as best suit that you have, then you sort of think about, oh, what am
I going to talk about?
There is always some sort of element of preparation and it's the same, I believe, at work in that
respect.
If you are joining a team, you want to present yourself as knowledgeable and you try to avoid
those issues that might not present you in the best light.
Yes, definitely.
And yes, the part about relationship, I get it.
I think looking back, the younger I was, the more I feel the need to prove myself because
my confidence about myself wasn't as well as me getting older and having more self-awareness.
And you talked about shortening the distance at work, so showing vulnerability, sharing
your experience and insecurity, not as deep as personal trauma straight away, but sharing
day-to-day struggles, that makes me feel relatable if I hear that from somebody to
say that we have similar struggles, you're not on your own, I can understand some part
of how you're feeling, makes me feel safe in opening up about struggles at work.
And then with time, it builds onto something deeper and a better connection.
And it is important, this initial period is, I think, very important in establishing confidence
with how you present your professional skills.
I mean, we could go back to the title, where are you now?
And think about if we compare our professional life and relationships with others at work,
we can start with thinking, where are we now?
Or how open, how trusting can we be in the relationship with the partner, with children,
with our parents?
I mean, we're going to delve into the journey from when we were very young, because this
is very important in the future episodes, but I think it's worth for all of us to have
a little thing to say, am I in a relationship that I can be fully open, trusting, and that
I can be vulnerable?
Because it will be difficult to transfer those skills onto your workplace to become a successful
leader or a clinician without having this experience from elsewhere.
Would you agree?
Yes, to some extent.
So I feel that the most, for me, the most important step for me is to have some time
for introspection, what I reflect inwards into why.
If I'm in a relationship where I don't feel I can be completely myself, or I can't communicate
as well as I can, or we're having arguments, why?
What is causing it?
And from that, why delve deeper into a fear.
So I wanted to, when we talk about fears, I think sometimes we don't think about it
because it comes so naturally to us.
Would you agree that with your relationship, it is a bit the same if you're in your relationship
with other people in the private life, you are not close, then you're not going to be
close with your staff, with your team members.
Do you mean private life as in family?
Yeah.
Okay.
Or partner, you know, whatever.
I think they'll be vastly different how people see family and professional life.
And people tend to separate the both because you feel that you belong in a family.
And so when I get this...
But what is stopping you from belonging in a workplace?
This is, I think, very important.
Yes.
Yeah, the sense of belonging.
Yes.
Because I think, okay, so for me, I am Chinese.
So that sense of belonging has always been something that I try to hide in terms of my
authentic self.
So every time when I go to, especially when I start a new job, I wouldn't go, oh, it's
Chinese New Year.
Let's celebrate about it.
I'll go, oh, are you celebrating Christmas?
Yeah.
I'm going to join in because I want to blend in and not stand out.
Okay.
So are you fitting in?
You're trying to fit in?
Yes, I'm trying to fit in.
I'm trying not to stand out.
So then that sense of belonging is not really there because I feel that I can't have my
whole self, my authentic self in it.
So now, looking back at how I was, so Chinese New Year, in February, I was able to tell
everyone it's Chinese New Year, say to everyone in Chinese New Year, decorate, bring decorations
to work.
There've been some colleagues who've been really accepting of who I am, or a lot of
colleagues have been really accepting who I am as a person and my culture.
They provide me with that sense of belonging.
Okay.
So there is a homework for everybody to think, do they try to fit in or do they feel that
they belong in the team they're working in?
Yeah.
I think it's a good starting point in deciding what am I doing and how am I trying to achieve
that?
There is a pressure on people to just be team players and making sure that people fulfil
the tasks that are assigned to the team.
But what does team playing actually mean?
What is team playing for you?
I've been asked that question before in a similar sense.
I've been asked, you know, how do you create a team that is highly performing because we
would like to replicate your team, we would like you to do something similar in our workplace.
And I tell them, I don't look at the numbers, so I don't look at their workload.
I look at the relationship.
So I look at the trust.
I look at the sense of belonging because I believe if there is trust cultivated in
the team, and this is ongoing effort, and if they feel listened to, if they feel appreciated,
then they will do their best to put their best foot forward without you asking.
You just have to get out of the way.
So my role, I feel as a leader, as a clinician, is to provide an environment for everyone
in the team to grow.
It might be different people will need different environment, but I'm building on the sense
of belonging.
So I tell them that strong relationships are really for me the foundation of any cohesive,
high performing team.
And strong relationship has to start with trust.
So my work is to build on that.
And I believe everything else would come with.
I've seen examples of it in my team, and I can see how much people appreciate the effort
of being listened to.
But that's not always the case.
A lot of clinicians work in teams that do not focus on the productivity achieved by
the relationships.
They are put in a position of productivity based on targets.
Yes.
So that brings us to Simon Sinek's book, The Infinite Game.
And he talks about finite and infinite mindset.
And I fully agree with it because with the finite mindset, you approach it in a productivity
measurable standards.
But in doing that, you lose the humanity.
So you're looking at the numbers and you don't really care about the people.
So you care about the job, getting the job done.
You're caring about getting the job done, regardless of how.
So what are the risks of it?
The risks of it are that your job satisfaction is going to be poor because you are not going
to contribute to the division of the team because you can't work towards a number.
You have to work towards a common goal.
And so when you have a common goal, even when times are hard, you have something to
work towards.
Whereas if you just look at the numbers, just look at the productivity and don't care and
don't listen to people, then what you get is very poor job retention.
People don't care because you're modelling that behaviour, aren't you?
If you don't care about the people that you work with, why should they care?
So we're trying to say that finite idea of work would fit into what we were talking about
in the first episode with the digital and analogue skills.
So the finite and something that's measurable would not fulfil the criteria of having broader
discussion about how the teams interact with each other or people interact within the team.
We're just looking at the numbers that allow us to complete the task.
Yeah, I'll give you an example.
So finite is you look at the scarcity mindset or a zero sum.
It's either you win, I lose, or the other way around.
Yeah, it's digital.
It's either there's a win or a lose, either achieved or not achieved.
Yeah.
And when you look at infinite mindset, you're looking at a continuous journey.
You're continuously improving and you're looking at skill sets like trust, like a sense of belonging.
Like commitment.
Like commitment, working towards a vision, a goal.
And it's constantly changing so you have to be adaptable to the people that you've got
and the vision that you have and how to get there.
So it's not an end goal.
It's not to be the best at something.
It's how to be better than how you are yesterday.
So you're continuously growing and you're continuously adapting with everything that's
ever changing around you.
Okay.
So in that respect, how do you recruit for a team like that?
Anybody who fulfills the vision, if the leadership is supportive of those analog skills development,
so people being committed, people understanding the vision, understanding the road to take
you to the vision, how do you recruit?
Can anybody join the team and be directed?
Is it a function of time?
Is it the function of special characteristics you're looking for when you're recruiting?
I want to say yes, everyone can, but I would be looking at people who are open minded,
who are willing to be courageous or to do things differently.
So the feedback that I've got from students, from people that I work with is, I've never
had a manager like you, I've never had a leader like you, or we've never spoken to anybody
like you before, because it's a new way of doing things in my circle, at least.
I don't know why there probably you will have, but it's because it's such a new thing.
You always go into it, myself included, with some, I don't know how it's going to work,
I know where I want it to go, and I will communicate that very clearly to everyone that's involved
in the team, and we'll work towards that.
And it's a constant, sometimes I get feedback saying, this doesn't work, that's good, now
I know, let's discuss what works for you, for me and for the team.
Well, I'm currently in a position where I work across many different teams, and I also
affect teams of units that I visit in terms of their compliance and safety of the patients.
And you can quite quickly notice what sort of environment people are working in.
When I travel across different teams, I can see people being open to a different degree,
and I'm basing my advice that I provide to those teams on how open they are, how ready
they are to receive that.
And I notice that sometimes you have to try to get through many, many times, and going
heavy-handed is almost never a good option.
So you have to find the connection to let people understand why you want to introduce
certain change, because it has an impact on patient safety, because it has an impact on
operating workflow, and this is important for me to get the buy-in.
So let people understand how it's going to benefit them, or people they care for or look
after or see.
Yeah, no, I agree, because I've been asked how to create trust in a team.
Because I think in your case, when you see so many different people in a short amount
of time, it's harder with you not seeing them regularly.
So then it's harder to build that connection.
And I see trust like you almost need to build a bridge, and it's a bridge of connection.
And what are the ingredients to build that connection?
For me, it's vulnerability and safety.
So these are the two crucial ingredients.
In a function of time.
In a function of time, yes.
I find that when I have a nucleus group or unit that is doing it, with the addition of
people, the culture has already been set up.
So people come in accepting the culture that is already in the work group.
Setting up the culture takes time, but once the unit is set up, then any newcomers will
then automatically adapt to it because, as all newcomers, you're trying to fit in.
So then in the process of fitting in, if they're able to find their sense of belonging, then
we can slowly build that connection.
So as clinicians, we work amongst a group of people that have been repeatedly and by
many different instances, and people saying that we're working in inefficient environments,
that our roles need to change, our teams need to change to embrace the new challenges and
the new future.
Why is it so, why is it acceptable still just to get new team members just to fit in?
Why leaders prevent people from changing this culture?
Because if you want to introduce a change or if you want to, if the goal of the team
is to change in a way, you need to encourage newcomers to be themselves.
Yeah, but the problem is, first of all, a few problems really.
Leaders are not modelling that behaviour, so they're not aware of it themselves.
Yes, it's easy to ask for change, but if you need to model it, you need to hold people
accountable and those are hard things that a lot of people struggle with.
What do you keep people accountable to?
The vision, the targets, the change, what do you keep people accountable to?
It depends on what is your expectation that's clearly set up.
So based on my experience, I've never had that conversation ever with anyone that has
employed me in terms of the expectation from the connection, sense of belonging, the vision
perspective.
So yeah, the expectation is usually quite...
Would you like it?
Would you like people to get you to understand the whys of the organisation or the unit?
Definitely, yeah.
You will see, or you probably have seen more now, people are talking about their whys instead
of just, we are the best in A, we are the best in B. Just like when Apple launched their
product in the past, they're talking about a lifestyle, they're talking about a wine,
they're talking about a culture, they're not talking about the product, this is what they're
trying to say, but they're looking at the why as a way of marketing their product.
So usually when you have job interviews, they will say, we want you to do A, B, C, D, E,
which is all digital things, but nothing about the vision.
So for you to be part of the team, I need you to be, I don't know, vulnerable.
I need you to have a sense of belonging.
Not that this is something that is a yes or no in terms of the job interview.
When they come into the role, it's a culture.
So when you talk about newcomers coming in, it's going to be really hard if there is not
already existing work putting into the existing team either to change the culture that has
been all this time away and now they would like it to change it for the better or change
it for a better connection.
That requires a lot of work already, because as we know with change, there's a lot of resistance.
And without changing that almost nucleus unit, any newcomers will then just fall into the
system that is already in place, which is not a great system.
Pressure on the leaders.
And this is why the idea of promoting people within the same team to become leaders is
hardly ever a good idea because you need a very strong individual to take over the
team and set the new vision because they're usually entrenched in the workflow that's
been going and there is no, I think it works often better to have somebody that wasn't
part of the immediate team to lead the team if there is a change in the leader.
And perhaps some of it, it's because you don't have existing fears.
You go in into it, if you're a new leader, almost with the fresh coat of paint or you
go in...
But with your barriers?
Yeah, with your own barriers, yes.
And I think the hardest thing is because, myself included, before I did the inner work,
I wasn't able to do that to an extent that I can influence people around me significantly.
And that comes from a lot, a lot of work, reading, writing, reflection that got me to
this point.
And I'm still learning.
I'm not getting it right yet.
I'm still trying to get there or get to the point of growth that I want to learn about
everyone in the team.
I want to, what you said about taking over.
My thought is I want to empower every single person in my team to be a leader using their
own strength, because I can't be a leader in everything.
I can be a leader in some things, but I want to use this as an opportunity to allow people
to work on their personal leadership and then transfer that skill across to organizational
leadership.
I completely agree.
I think it's very important to employ people who know better than you about certain things.
If you are to delegate somebody to do a certain job, it's good to find somebody that is better
than you.
I'm talking about professional knowledge.
If you are trying to, you don't have to have ultimate knowledge of everything, but if they
can lead their agenda, I don't need to be an engineer to design the idea of a product.
I don't need to be an experienced clinician to give the direction to the whole unit.
There might be much more experienced clinicians that we're able in a team to empower to let
them shine, because otherwise you're risking that they're going to be subdued and not happy
with their growth, development, however you want to describe it, and you're going to end
up with problems of poor retention and disappointment.
So in your terms of experience clinician, I think we have to be quite clear in experience,
in reflecting on yourself, doing the work on yourself, because this is what you're asking
the team to do.
Not experiencing the clinical perspective, yes that will help because people might be
inclined to listen to you more because you know about more clinical things and that's
a start.
Only that though, if you have clinical knowledge, and this means nothing if you're not sharing
it, if you're not making others better, that just means nothing.
It's art for artists only, you know.
If you want to be a useful part of the team or work for your patients or people in a team,
you need to find a way to use this knowledge for others' benefit.
I personally have never been a guardian of my clinical knowledge and I think it comes
from initial openness.
I want people to learn more, I want people to understand why amongst clinicians empathy
is important.
Everybody seems to know why empathy is important.
Why is it really?
What does it mean for each individual?
I want some examples from people to tell me what have they done to embrace empathy?
What have they done to embrace those analog skills we were talking about in the first
episode?
And mainly to have empathy for yourself.
That's very important because if you don't love yourself, how are you going to love others?
Yeah and this is like a cringey one-liner that a lot of people do say, but how often
do they reflect on how they speak to themselves and how often do they see how they speak to
others and turn it the other way around and say, do I speak that way to myself or am I
actually more critical to myself compared to others?
So what we discussed about our personal areas of improvement, I've done quite a few things
to measure it to some extent, but there is one I find really helpful and we'll put the
link below, but it's the Brené Brown wholehearted inventory.
So we did that for the both of us and we'll share our two areas of improvement and we
go into delve more in the next episode.
So what's yours Mike?
Just before I share it, I think that part of the topic of our episode is to understand
where we are and using external tools, which are many and the world is plentiful, it's
important to at least have a go at it because this will allow you to sit down and reflect.
That's what it did to me.
I think it's important to find time to look at it and discuss it with yourself or with
others.
I mean, we've been discussing ours quite extensively and this is always a benefit for us in the
future because you are effectively dissecting your current self.
Yes.
And I think for me, when we were discussing it together, it was really interesting for
me to understand, not just about myself, but to understand each other from your perspective.
How does it come across for you?
So I'll share mine too.
Mine is exhaustion as a status symbol and perfectionism.
What about yours?
Let's talk about the inventory that we did with help of Brené Brown, which big love
to her.
Yes.
So this is the, the inventory is on her website.
It's on brenébrown.com, we'll copy the link in our episode page.
So why don't you share with us, what were your two things that you should let go of?
So things that I need to improve.
Mine is exhaustion as a status symbol.
That's one and perfectionism as two.
What are yours?
Mine was numbing and powerlessness as the thing I should let go of and anxiety as a
lifestyle.
Okay.
Okay.
So these are two things that I scored least.
It wasn't awfully terrible scores, but these are definitely areas that I think I would
benefit from improving, but what's on the opposite scale?
So what do you want to work towards with those?
Wait, why do you feel like you have to explain that you're not too low on the score?
Is it because your armour is coming?
Well, potentially, yeah.
I'm looking at this course and say, well, actually, it's not all that bad, but this
is a form of showing, yeah, well, actually in comparison, but then I realized that I
don't really have comparison with what?
Comparison is a thief of joy.
Comparison is a thief of joy.
That's very true.
Yes.
So the numbing and powerlessness would be contrapposed with resilient spirits.
Okay.
So what does numbing means to you?
What do you understand from the word numbing?
Numbing is where facing the problem, you decide to, rather than reflect on it, to become stronger
and more resilient in the future.
You try to scroll the screen, do something that has got little to do with reflection,
that you don't close that chapter, that it sits in you and it gets you all built up for
the future.
Can I expand a bit more on numbing behavior just for our listeners?
So numbing is class S, an avoidance.
So we're trying to cut off that feeling.
So it can be done like what Mike said about scrolling on your phone, going through the
internet.
It can be eating, it can be shopping, it can be alcohol, it can be drugs.
Numbing can come in a lot of forms.
And I think it's essentially avoiding of the reflection.
Would you say?
I would say avoidance of how you're feeling because you felt stress, you had a difficult
day.
You don't want to face the feeling or feelings.
What you would then do is you would numb by doing something else to distract, watch the
TV and not think about the day and yeah, you're running away from the problem.
Okay.
So let's go to the other one.
The anxiety is a lifestyle and Brené transposes it with calm and stillness, but anxiety in
my case is there are the little things in my life that can, cause we all have some level
of anxiety and everybody has got slightly different ones.
I, for example, like to make sure that all the things that I set up in my little brain
to have completed that they're done such as, for example, I, before I go to sleep, I need
to make sure that all the doors locked.
Yeah.
Um, that if I have a weekly routine to fulfill that I'm doing things in a certain order.
So it is a little bit of planned routine that guarantees me peace of mind and the predictability
of it puts me in the more defensive mode in terms of right, I am safe here because I've
done this, that and the other.
So sticking to the routine allows me to have peace of mind in a way.
And I also wanted to clarify, you can't remove anxiety completely.
Oh yeah, that's very true.
It's a very good mechanism for our body to, to respond to things.
Yes, you, our, I feel that our role is first of all, be mindful of it.
And second of all, to avoid it becoming something that is chronic and debilitating like patients
with anxiety.
Yeah, that's very true.
Then when we're talking about the true anxiety in a clinical form as such, yeah.
So how about your two?
Tell me more about them.
So mine was, um, exhaustion as a status symbol and I have to let go of that.
What is it?
Tell me more about what is it and what does Brené transposes it with?
So I need to cultivate, play and rest.
So exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self worth is almost as if, if I don't
do anything productive, I'm wasting my time.
And for me, you find playing a challenge of doing something numbing.
Um, I, I now have more mindfulness about numbing and I've done a tremendous amount
of effort to let that become a crutch for me now is learning how to play.
So it's a work in progress.
I've got a few books that I'm reading about play.
One of it is Dr. Stuart Brown, I believe.
I'm learning about play and how it can be and how it can't be.
You just have to play.
Yeah.
And I think for you, it's very easy to say that because it comes naturally to you.
I think in the next episode, when we delve a little bit deeper into where we come from
and what led us to where we are now, I think it would be good to say about the strong points
as well.
And because from those strong points, we can learn from each other.
How do we overcome those poorly scored?
Can I just say, I wouldn't use the word overcome.
I would use the word ongoing progress that the areas that I have perhaps scored better
are the areas that I've put more effort in.
So this is, well, we're not doing it for score in terms of like, yeah, it's
more as a tool to allow me to reflect on where I am now, because I feel that if I do it in
a month's time, it might change again, depending on what effort I've put in in the past month.
We want to do it in the infinite mindset rather than finite.
Yes, exactly.
And my other one that you've mentioned is letting go of perfectionism and cultivating self-compassion.
So some of it is linked to what we discussed earlier on about being critical to yourself.
And I think when we dig deep into our next episode, you will see why you might be able to identify,
not the situation, but perhaps the feelings that we are going to be sharing deep and raw ones.
How do you feel?
Deep and raw.
Scary.
Scary, scary.
No, not scared.
I wouldn't say that I feel scared.
I feel conscious of the fact that you might be talking about things that you wouldn't normally,
especially with the wider public.
And how would you feel about that?
I think it's worth doing.
I think on the whole, it's worth doing to see how we can be better.
I think it's impossible to...
So it feels that what you're saying to me is your vision to grow from this and to help others grow
overcomes the fear of talking about it.
Because I think it's going to be very hard for anyone to say,
I'm not scared about talking about my past.
Because if you haven't, you would have talked about it easily ages ago to a lot of people.
That is true.
And I think the first step of acknowledging your fears and knowing that, yes, it is hard.
Yes, I'm being very courageous to do it.
It's the step.
I think that I am in general quite an open person and I talk about a lot of things.
I don't have a lot of secrets, but I think that makes probably much easier to discuss.
And those that are harder to discuss are still hiding somewhere in there, in yourself, in myself.
Yes, and what's stopping you from talking about things that are hiding within yourself?
Because you are open to some extent, not completely.
So because we all have that to some extent, we have things that we're happy to share.
And there are things that we don't talk about at all or things that we talk about it to one or two people or even less.
What do you think is stopping you?
Most of it is really uninteresting.
So is it the fear of being perceived as uninteresting?
It's not even there.
I think there are some things that you probably have not come to terms with yourself yet,
or you might be still working on, or you choose not to.
The feelings are too raw?
I think the feelings might be too raw and still not completed.
I mean, you can't complete the feelings, but there are certain events potentially that might be still an open chapter.
And it's difficult to discuss as it goes along.
It would be otherwise, you would be running commentary.
And there are certain things that I think that it might be better to resolve on my own.
It doesn't necessarily always have to be true or the best course of action, but that's what the brain is saying.
Right, I'm not going to talk about things.
It's your armour.
It is the armour.
Yeah, it must be.
Okay.
So get ready for our next episode when we dig deep.
So I hope you are able to relate to what we're saying, reflect and rise.
See you next time.
See you next time.
It's been Yuen and Mike, and you have been listening to the Imperfect Clinician podcast.
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