Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.
Dr. Meenal Agarwal 0:00
Guilt has consumed so many of us so much of our lives, and ultimately can hurt our mental health. This is Dr. Meenal and welcome to Uncover Your Eyes, where we uncover reality. As a mom and eye doctor, I want to know it all. Guilt. Guilt is one of the biggest things that hits us as healthcare professionals, providers, and of course, as parents. Guilt consumes our life. It has definitely consumed mine, you know, it starts off in the day with guilt for rushing out the door, maybe not even, you know, feeding your children breakfast properly, or getting them ready, rushing them in the morning, not having a good exit to school. There’s guilt right there. Not to mention the guilt waking them up early in the morning, right. And then guilt starts again, you may get to work five minutes late. So guilt of being late for your first patient who’s standing there tapping their toes, you know, waiting for you. Then there’s the guilt of obviously not being on time for your next patient and your patient after because you were helping a previous patient talk about their newly diagnosed disease. Guilt consumes us with our team members were guilty when we feel like they’re doing too much work. Or we feel like they’re being you know, abused by verbally abused by a patient. And we know we need to come out there and help them but we feel guilty that they had to go through that. Guilt consumes us as even an entrepreneur, if you are a business owner or a clinic owner, you feel guilty every day doing things that you feel may not be right for everybody in your team, then you feel guilty rushing out the door at the end of the day, to get home, to go get your kids pick them up on time from school, or be home on time to make them dinner, or be home on time to get them to their next extracurricular activities. Then there’s that guilt of oops, I forgot to write out a prescription for a patient who requested it earlier. Then there’s the guilt when you get home, you log onto your computer to be able to help that patient and do it remotely. But then you’re not spending enough time with your kids, then there’s that guilt that you take the phone call for the emergency. And again, you’re not spending enough time with your kids, then there’s the guilt, that after a whole week of work and you’re dead tired, you just don’t have energy to take your kids to the park on a Friday evening. Guilt consumes us. Guilt has consumed me, what do we do with guilt? First of all, we need to realize that we are one person. We can’t do all the things that we’re told to do, or that we think we need to do, because maybe we don’t need to do them. Maybe my children won’t be as upset if I don’t take them to the park on Friday evening. Maybe my children will be okay getting up early in the morning. Maybe they’re okay just eating a granola bar in the car going to school. Maybe my patients are okay getting that prescription the next day sent to their pharmacy. Maybe my patients are okay waiting five minutes and they’re just tapping because they have some anxiety. Maybe my staff are actually happy. And okay, that I support them when patients are not as nice to them. And happy working with me. Why am I feeling guilty for all the things that are maybes? Have I made this guilt up in my head? Are these guilty thoughts up in my head? Maybe I have. I think again, recognition is huge. Recognizing that this is what I think this is why I feel guilty is huge. I’m going to tell you a story about my son. So, he went to a birthday party recently and it was a soccer-themed birthday party. Every child had to wear a soccer Jersey coming into the birthday party. I didn’t have time to buy one and we didn’t have one at home. So I put him in a soccer t-shirt. He didn’t care. He didn’t know. We get there. And he didn’t want to play soccer. He felt out of place. I felt guilty. I thought he felt out of place and didn’t want to play soccer because he wasn’t wearing a jersey. I felt guilty for days after. He wouldn’t tell me why he didn’t want to play soccer. And I felt guilty thinking, why didn’t he play. I ruined his birthday party. That was his friend’s birthday party. He was looking forward to it. If I had just taken those, you know, a couple hours to go to the mall and get him a soccer jersey, I wouldn’t have ruined his day. Weeks later, I brought it up again to him. I said, “Now, can you tell me why you didn’t play?” And he said, “My tummy was hurting.” Guilt. Why did I feel guilty all that time? Children don’t always recognize these things. I feel sometimes as parents, we look into things a little more. Patients don’t always recognize things. I think as entrepreneurs, business owners, clinicians, we look deeper into things than they do. And we worry about things way too much. So it’s time we start recognizing why we’re feeling guilty and letting go of the guilt. Recognize it, think about it, let it go, the other person may not care. And here you are sitting for hours, days, months feeling guilty. And if you really do feel guilty about something, address it. Address it right away, because there’s no point holding on to it. Guilt has consumed so many of us so much of our lives, and ultimately can hurt our mental health. It can lead to anxiety, depression, and just stress overall. So, if we can remove that from our lives, I think we can be happier. Thank you, listeners and viewers, for tuning in. If you want to catch more episodes of Uncover Your Eyes, make sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and on YouTube. To learn more about me, follow me on Instagram @Dr.MeenalAgarwal. Until next time, keep those eyes uncovered!