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 do believe this is a great site. I stumbledupon it 😉 I
will revisit once again since i have bookmarked it.
Money and freedom is the best way to change, may you be rich and continue to help others.
It’s difficult to find well-informed people in this particular topic, but
you seem like you know what you’re talking about! Thanks
I could not refrain from commenting. Exceptionally well
written!
Normally I do not learn article on blogs, but I would like to say that this write-up very forced me to try and do it!
Your writing taste has been amazed me. Thank you, very great article.
This is awesome
I think that everything said was very logical. However, what about this?
suppose you were to write a killer post title?
I ain’t saying your information is not good, but suppose you added a post title that makes people
desire more? I mean Book Rounds: Well-being is a little boring.
You ought to look at Yahoo’s home page and note how they write news titles to get people to click.
You might try adding a video or a related picture or two to get
people excited about what you’ve got to say. Just my opinion, it would bring your
blog a little livelier.
I do not even know how I ended up here, but I thought
this post was good. I do not know who you are but definitely you are going to a
famous blogger if you aren’t already 😉 Cheers!
Thanks for the marvelous posting! I really enjoyed reading it, you are
a great author.I will remember to bookmark your
blog and will come back at some point. I want to encourage
yourself to continue your great writing, have a nice morning!
We are a group of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community.
Your website provided us with valuable info to work on. You’ve
done a formidable job and our entire community will be grateful to you.
Very good blog! Do you have any hints for aspiring writers?
I’m planning to start my own blog soon but I’m a
little lost on everything. Would you suggest 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 suggestions? Thank you!
Undeniably imagine that that you said. Your favorite reason seemed
to be at the web the easiest thing to take note of. I say to you, I certainly
get annoyed even as people think about concerns that they just
do not realize about. You managed to hit the nail upon the highest and defined out the entire thing without having side-effects , folks can take a
signal. Will probably be back to get more. Thank you
Wow! This blog looks just like my old one! It’s on a
completely different topic but it has pretty much the same page layout and design. Excellent choice
of colors!
What’s up to all, it’s actually a fastidious for me to pay a visit this web page, it contains helpful Information.
I enjoy what you guys are up too. This type of clever work and exposure!
Keep up the superb works guys I’ve included you guys to
my personal blogroll.
Wow that was strange. I just wrote an very long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t appear.
Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Anyhow, just wanted
to say wonderful blog!
It’s a pity you don’t have a donate button! I’d most certainly
donate to this brilliant blog! I suppose for now i’ll settle for book-marking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account.
I look forward to fresh updates and will share this website with my
Facebook group. Chat soon!
Amazing! Its really awesome post, I have got much clear idea regarding from this piece of writing.
Hi! Quick question that’s entirely off topic. Do you know
how to make your site mobile friendly? My web
site looks weird when browsing from my apple iphone. I’m trying
to find a template or plugin that might be able to fix this problem.
If you have any suggestions, please share.
With thanks!
Do you have a spam issue on this site; 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 solutions with other folks, please shoot me an email if
interested.
After checking out a handful of the blog posts on your site, I honestly appreciate your technique of blogging.
I bookmarked it to my bookmark site list and will be
checking back in the near future. Please check out my
website as well and tell me your opinion.