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
Hi! I’m at work browsing your blog from my new iphone 4!
Just wanted to say I love reading through your blog and look forward
to all your posts! Carry on the superb work!
continuously i used to read smaller articles or reviews
which as well clear their motive, and that is also happening with this article which I
am reading now.
Hey very nice blog!
My relatives every time say that I am wasting my time here at web, but I know I am getting knowledge
daily by reading thes pleasant articles.
Having read this I thought it was extremely informative.
I appreciate you finding the time and effort to put this short article together.
I once again find myself personally spending a significant amount
of time both reading and leaving comments. But so what, it was still
worth it!
I pay a quick visit each day a few blogs and information sites to read articles or reviews, but
this webpage offers quality based content.
Hello, i believe that i noticed you visited my weblog so i came to go back the choose?.I am trying to find issues to improve my website!I suppose its
good enough to make use of some of your concepts!!
What a information of un-ambiguity and preserveness of precious familiarity regarding unpredicted
feelings.
What i do not realize is in reality how you are not really much more well-preferred
than you may be now. You are very intelligent. You know therefore considerably when it comes to this subject, made me in my
view imagine it from so many various angles.
Its like men and women don’t seem to be involved except
it is something to do with Woman gaga! Your personal stuffs great.
At all times deal with it up!
bookmarked!!, I really like your blog!
Highly descriptive blog, I enjoyed that a lot.
Will there be a part 2?
I do not even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post
was great. I do not know who you are but definitely you are going to a famous blogger if you are not already 😉 Cheers!
This site was… how do I say it? Relevant!! Finally I’ve found something which helped me.
Thanks!
When I initially left a comment I appear to have clicked on the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now every
time a comment is added I recieve four emails with the same
comment. Perhaps there is a means you can remove me from that
service? Thanks!
With havin so much content do you ever run into any problems of plagorism or copyright infringement?
My site has a lot of completely unique content I’ve either written myself or outsourced but it appears a lot of it is popping
it up all over the internet without my authorization. Do
you know any techniques to help stop content from being stolen?
I’d truly appreciate it.
Yes! Finally something about wall instagram.
I am truly grateful to the holder of this site who has shared
this great post at at this time.
Ꮋi! I know this is кinda off topic nevertheless I’d figured I’d аsk.
Would you be interested in excһanging links оr maybe guest writing a blog post or vice-versa?
My site discusses ɑ lot of the sɑme subjects as ｙours and I think we could grеatly benefit from each other.
If you are іnterested feel free to shoot me an e-mail.
I look forward to hearing from you! Wonderful blog by the way!
I know this web site offers quality depending content and other information, is there any other web site which provides these
information in quality?
Please let me know if you’re looking for a article author for your weblog.
You have some really good posts and I feel I would be a good asset.
If you ever want to take some of the load off, I’d
absolutely love to write some content for your blog in exchange for a link back to mine.
Please send me an email if interested. Cheers!