Healing Medicine: Mindfulness, Mindset & Physician Well-Being

We are not here to pretend this is fine. We are here to help you get steady enough to choose how we respond. When fear narrows your thinking, you can come back to the body first.  Regulate first. Respond second. In this conversation, Ni-Cheng and I name the collective fear, grief, exhaustion, moral distress, minority stress, and racial trauma. These are real, lived experiences that shape safety in...

Practicing peace is an intentional choice. It's not something we wait for once circumstances improve. It's something we practice in our breath, our bodies, and our awareness—even while uncertainty and grief remain present. In this episode, we explore peace as a regulated presence with what is real (not denial, not bypassing). When the world feels overwhelming, we often notice it first in our bodie...

Giving a TEDx talk taught me a lot about nervous system regulation, self-trust, and choosing love over control. In a medical culture that rewards certainty and discourages vulnerability, visibility is a nervous system challenge. Standing on a red circle requires staying present when every instinct says to hide. Through the question "What would love do?", this episode offers a grounded framework fo...

Feedback can be a nervous system event—especially for women physicians navigating leadership, visibility, and the pressure to perform. In this episode, we reflect in real time on what happens in us when criticism lands unexpectedly: the body activation, the urgency to fix or explain, and the shame that can follow. We explore how medical culture and perfectionism shape these patterns, and how we ca...

Physicians are trained to believe that skepticism keeps us safe and belief is generally risky. Over time, this quietly erodes trust in ourselves and what might be possible. What once felt protective can slowly narrow our lives and choices.  Stuckness, disconnection, and a subtle loss of feeling alive grows.   PEARLS OF WISDOM Medical culture often rewards certainty while sidelining imagination, ho...

Have you ever considered how a few carefully chosen words could shape your year, your energy, your decisions, and the way you experience life? In this annual tradition, we share our personal practice of choosing intention words for the year ahead. This isn't about goals or resolutions. It's about choosing how you want to be, move through, and live your life. This year's process was deeper, slower,...

What if the very things you're hard on yourself about are actually strengths that are simply overused?  In this solo episode, I invite you to step into a new understanding of your patterns without judgment or shame. Explore the "overs" and the "toxics" which are the subtle (and not so subtle) ways our best traits become burdens when they're overdone. If you've ever been told you're too much, felt...

As we celebrate five years of the Healing Medicine podcast, this episode is a reflection on what has truly sustained us—intention, alignment, and choosing with awareness.  Together, we explore how consistency rooted in love, not obligation, leads to energy, creativity, and sustainability. We share personal stories about letting go, taking pauses, and returning to what feels alive.  This conversati...

Many of us want to support children through big emotions but feel unsure how. We may notice anger, overwhelm, or shutdown and struggle to respond calmly. This episode reminds us that regulation begins with presence, not correction. Sometimes the most powerful tools are simple, creative, and shared together. This conversation offers a gentle path back to breath, connection, and play. PEARLS OF WISD...

Loving our families while holding medical expertise is profoundly complicated. We are trained to assess risk, give guidance, and prevent harm. When family health decisions differ from our training, our physician role collides with love and can lead to fear, grief, frustration, and/or an urge to intervene. In this episode, we explore how mindfulness can help us stay grounded and connected when lett...

What if the holidays could feel spacious, nourishing, and connected? This episode offers a strengths-based perspective on holiday dynamics—focusing less on what goes wrong and more on the mindful choices that cultivate ease, joy, and connection, even amidst grief, change, and complexity. We share what helped us experience Thanksgiving with ease this year.  Our experiences were quite different, and...

Many of us carry shame and anxiety around money and stories we've inherited, absorbed, or unconsciously lived into. Mindfully acknowledging our stories is the first step toward freedom. Money is emotional, relational, and often a mirror of what matters most in life. Awareness of your money "story" creates spaciousness for something more compassionate. This week, Jessie is joined by Helena Rosentha...

Misguided ideas surface in healthcare settings all the time.  With warmth and loving amusement, we reflect on how these initiatives—often wrapped in corporate optimism—miss the mark.  yet don't have to steal our peace.  Brilliantly bad ideas aren't about you and tehy don't have to steal your peace. They're structural, impersonal, and often just disconnected from the day-to-day reality of clinical...

What if there isn't one right way to do things, but many? Letting go of being right can open the door to creativity, flexibility, and even liberation. This episode offers a mindful and compassionate reframe: seeing our approaches as preferences—shaped by our experiences, values, and identities.  Pearls of Wisdom: • Softening into the idea of preferences fosters collaboration, both in medicine and...

Peace and joy await when you allow others to make their own decisions, even if you think they are bad decisions.  It is deeply freeing and surprisingly energizing when you stop trying to fix other people.  Pearls of Wisdom: Letting go of trying to fix others not giving up—it's trusting others to be on their own journey. Trying to manage, fix, or protect everyone is a hidden source of burnout and e...

Exhaustion and disconnection don't always stem from doing too much, often they stem from pretending too much. In today's episode, we explore surprising truths about energy, authenticity, and what it really means to show up as yourself in medicine and in life.  What if the path to healing, for ourselves and for others, comes from standing out, not blending in? Conformity has a significant cost. Dee...

Empowerment isn't about pretending everything is fine; it's about remembering that we always can choose our response. Today, Dr. Jessie Mahoney and Dr. Ni-Cheng Liang explore the healing power of choice. We share how we can shift from complaining into creativity and how we can move from victimhood to agency, mindfully. We invite you to stop waiting for permission or for the system to fix itself, a...

A mindful, honest, and hopeful exploration of victimhood in medicine—what it is, how it shows up, and why so many of us feel trapped, powerless, and unseen within a deeply flawed system. We invite you to listen with curiosity and self-compassion, knowing that if you've found yourself here—tired, discouraged, or resigned—you are not alone, and nothing is wrong with you. Rather than shaming or simpl...

What if love doesn't look like fixing, managing, and controlling?  What if letting go is the most loving thing you could do? Today's episode shares the story of what becomes possible when we choose peace over control.  Our guest is Carol Howe, a school psychologist whom I met through a virtual Women of Dartmouth event in 2023. Her story is a testament to how the tools and wisdom of coaching are he...

Whether you're in perimenopause, menopause, or postmenopause—or supporting someone who is—this episode is full of gentle truths and nourishing permission to live this season with intention, softness, and spaciousness. Dr. Susan Baumgaertel is a profoundly thoughtful and creative physician who passionately reframes menopause around nourishment, pleasure, and presence at its center. With decades of...

Parenting doesn't end when our children turn 18—it simply changes. Parenting young adult children encompasses a full spectrum of emotions such as joy, pride, longing, and grief. It requires a reevaluation of what it means to be a mother. In this heartfelt solo episode, I share truths about parenting grown children, a role that is rarely talked about. I share the joys, grief, and surprising lessons...

What if one introduction could change the entire trajectory of your career or someone else's? This week's episode is an invitation to reflect on the ripple effect of referrals, recommendations, and authentic support, especially among women in medicine. As women in medicine, we haven't always supported one another well.  In honor of Women in Medicine Month, this episode is an encouragement to chang...

Have you ever stayed in something longer than you knew was right—because it wasn't terrible, and it seemed like the "responsible" thing to do?  This week, we invite you into a mindful conversation about the powerful concept of graduating and outgrowing roles rather than quitting. What if moving on didn't mean giving up—but meant you've outgrown, evolved, and are ready for what's next? Listen to le...

Whether you're a physician, a parent of young athletes, or someone exploring your own healing journey, this episode is a reminder that healing isn't always found in a prescription pad, it might be found in motion. Episode Summary: Have you ever felt there had to be more to practicing medicine? That healing could happen beyond prescriptions and procedures? In this powerful and heartwarming episode,...

What can gardening teach us about life, medicine, and mindful living?  In this conversation, we explore the parallels between tending plants and tending ourselves. From planting seeds to harvesting fruit, every stage in the garden offers lessons about patience, presence, letting go of control, and trusting the natural rhythm of growth. Whether you're an experienced gardener, a houseplant enthusias...