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
There’s certainly a great deal to find out about this subject.
I really like all of the points you’ve made.
What a data of un-ambiguity and preserveness of precious experience concerning unpredicted emotions.
For newest information you have to go to see world wide web and
on the web I found this web site as a best web site for newest updates.
I know this web page provides quality dependent posts and other material, is there any other web page which offers these kinds of data in quality?
I absolutely love your blog and find nearly all of your post’s to
be precisely what I’m looking for. Does one offer guest writers to
write content for you personally? I wouldn’t mind composing
a post or elaborating on most of the subjects
you write regarding here. Again, awesome weblog!
obviously like your web-site but you need to take a look at the spelling on quite a few of
your posts. Several of them are rife with spelling issues and I in finding it very bothersome to tell the truth nevertheless I will certainly come back again.
Sweet blog! I found it while surfing around on Yahoo News.
Do you have any tips on how to get listed in Yahoo News?
I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to get there!
Appreciate it
Hi, I think your site might be having browser compatibility issues.
When I look at your blog in Opera, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping.
I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, fantastic blog!
Way cool! Some very valid points! I appreciate you penning this write-up plus the
rest of the site is very good.
Good information. Lucky me I came across your site by chance
(stumbleupon). I have bookmarked it for later!
Thanks very interesting blog!
Thanks for finally talking about >Book Rounds: Well-being <Loved it!
I am sure this post has touched all the internet viewers, its really really nice article
on building up new blog.
I simply could not leave your website before suggesting
that I extremely enjoyed the usual information a person supply on your guests?
Is gonna be back ceaselessly in order to check up on new posts
Hi to every single one, it’s in fact a fastidious for me to go to see this site,
it contains important Information.
whoah this blog is excellent i really like reading your articles.
Stay up the good work! You know, a lot of people are searching round
for this info, you could help them greatly.
Howdy! Quick question that’s completely off topic.
Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly?
My weblog looks weird when browsing from my iphone.
I’m trying to find a theme or plugin that might be able to fix this problem.
If you have any recommendations, please share. Cheers!
If you desire to improve your familiarity simply keep visiting this site and be updated with
the hottest news update posted here.
Do you have a spam problem on this blog; I also am a blogger, and I was wanting to know your situation; many of us have created some nice procedures and we are looking to swap strategies with others, be sure
to shoot me an email if interested.
Very good blog! Do you have any tips and hints for aspiring writers?
I’m planning to start my own blog soon but I’m a little lost on everything.
Would you advise starting with a free platform like WordPress or go for a paid option? There are so many
choices out there that I’m completely confused .. Any tips?
Bless you!