Dr. Cherie Buisson of A Happy Vet and Helping Hand Pet Hospice is on the podcast to discuss a popular article she wrote on why we should learn to forgive. In a time when so many of us seem to be living with a low-level of anger, forgiveness is more important than ever. But what about when the people we are angry at don’t care about or deserve our forgiveness? Let’s get into this episode.
LINKS
Why You Should Learn to Forgive (Original Article): drandyroark.com/?s=why+you+should+forgive
TEAM POWER: Adding Value to Your Visits: unchartedvet.com/product/adding-v…your-vet-visits/
Uncharted Culture Conference Oct 21-23: unchartedvet.com/uvc-culture/
Charming the Angry Client On-Demand Staff Training: drandyroark.com/on-demand-staff-training/
What’s on my Scrubs?! Card Game: drandyroark.com/training-tools/
Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop
All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark
ABOUT OUR GUEST
CHERIE BUISSON, DVM, CHPV
Dr. Cherie Buisson is a 2000 graduate of Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine. She is certified in Hospice and Palliative Care, Low-Stress Handling (TM), and QPR Suicide Prevention. She teaches her colleagues about hospice, euthanasia, compassion fatigue, burnout, and how to be happy in their chosen profession. She is the owner of Helping Hands Pet Hospice in Seminole, FL and the founder of A Happy Vet, a website promoting wellness in the veterinary community.
Editor: Dustin Bays
www.baysbrass.com
@Bays4Bays Twitter/Instagram
Show Transcript:
Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome. Welcome. Welcome, to the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andrew Roark. Guys, I got a great episode today. This is one that I needed. We posted an article from Dr. Cherie Buisson recently through our social media channels and the articles a couple of years old. And when I saw it on social, I was like, oh man, that’s amazing. That’s exactly what I need right now. And the article blew up being a repost from earlier on. It was like a 2017, 2018 article. It blew up and there were so many comments. Like I need this. The article is, oh, Why You Should Learn to Forgive. And so I bring on Dr. Buisson and we talk a bit about forgiveness and I don’t know, this has been a thing that I’ve been working on in the month of September.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I’m having my own sort of mindfulness month where I’m going, I need to take it down a notch. I think I need to relax a little bit and get in into a more positive head space. And I need to be more forgiving of other people. I think a lot of us feel that. I think a lot of people are carrying a lot of frustration around. And so, yeah, I think it’s time to try to let that go. And so anyway, that’s what we talk about today. Guys, I hope you really enjoy this episode. Let’s get into it.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter (Singer):
This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to Cone of Shame, with Dr. Andy Roark.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome Dr. Cherie Buisson. Thank you for being here.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
It’s my pleasure. I’m always happy to join you on the podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I know. I love it. And we always have the best stuff to talk about because you are writing wonderful things and making wonderful lectures and you make it really easy to find interesting things to talk about with you. So welcome back.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Well, thank you very much.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. So what I want to talk with you about today is, it’s interesting in that I have an article over on the doctor in your website that you wrote a couple years ago, and my team found it recently and pulled it and published it through social media again, just to say, “Hey, guys, you should see this.” And so I saw it with the audience and I saw it come out and I was like, “Man, what is this, Why You Should Learn to Forgive?”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I clicked on it again. I recognized it as being something that you’d written a while back. And then I was like, oh my God, this is so perfect for right now. I’m not kidding. I literally set out for September, and I try to make personal for myself every month, is kind of where I am right now. It’s a new habit I picked up. So far I really love it because it’s like just got to do this for 30 days. And then if I love it-
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Oh, that’s good.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… I’ll keep doing it. Or if it comes natural, I’ll say, and if I hate it, then it’s just 30 days and I’ll be out. But for September I had already decided, I was like, I need to, I need to forgive people. I need to get more forgiving about other people so that I can be more forgiving of myself. I just say that because boy, I just feel like there’s a lot of anger and there’s just a lot of frustration out there. I feel it in myself and I’m really actively working against it to find peace. And so this article really resonated. So with that preamble yeah, tell me a little bit about the article. Tell me about your premise and where you’re coming from.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Well, the article and I don’t remember what made me want to write it, I just, I always write and speak about things that I’m not good at. Everybody’s like, “You’re such an expert in it.” No, I’m bad at this and that’s why I work on it so hard. And forgiveness is one of the big ones, because I can hold a grudge like nobody’s business. I mean, I can hold a grudge for what am I? 46 now. So I mean probably 36 years maybe. And I tend to be really sensitive and take things personally, which I’m also trying not to do. I got divorced and I’ve had business deals go bad and there’s just a lot. I started seeing all this stuff online about forgiveness. And they had a little cartoon of a girl on the monkey bar.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
She was hanging and it said, in order to move forward, you have to let go. And it just, it hit me like a ton of bricks. And I was like, okay, I’ve got to start letting go of some of this stuff. And I’m like, and if I need to let go, I bet a bunch of the veterinary profession needs to let some things go. People outside the profession too, because I’ve heard from them about the article. It’s just, every time I say that we should be forgiving people are like, “But that’s condoning the behavior.” And I’m like, no, because I’m not good at that. I can’t condone bad behavior. And that’s the thing we all need to get past, is I felt the same way. If I forgive somebody that means what they did was okay.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And it doesn’t at all because you can forgive them without them ever knowing about it, which is the awesome thing. Because I’m not super confrontational. And I don’t like intimate conversations like that unless I really care about the person, which if I’m forgiving them, I probably don’t care about them that much. If I’m happy to go to that much effort to forgive them. So it was just more how it’s not about condoning behavior, it’s about not holding onto it and letting it eat you alive. We all do it and it’s just awful, that we’ll sit and Harbor this rage and anger and meanness for so long. And the other person isn’t even thinking about you.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That’s the worst part.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
That was so hard. That’s the worst part. They’re just sitting there eating apple pie with their family and you’re like, and I have this rage deep in my heart and my children’s children’s children will hate you. And it’s like, they’re like “Cherie who?” I’m like, okay, we just got to let that go.
Dr. Andy Roark:
There are a couple of things here I want to unpack. We’ll jump back to the beginning. It’s amazing. That’s the secret to writing success that people don’t know, is you write the book that you need. That’s 100% my career, is me just wrestling with something that’s bothering me or something that I’m seeing. And I go, how do I feel about this and what do I do about it? And I’m with you. I found again and again in my career that the things that I just wrestle with and I have to sit with, and I’ll research and I’ll read and I’ll go, and I will do the legwork because I enjoy it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Because I have to know, I can’t just not do anything, I have to do something. And so I will go and figure out what I think is a good thing to do. And then I write about it and people are like, “That’s great. I needed that.” I’m like, “Oh, thank God. It’s not just me.” But I’m always wondering, when is the time I’m going to write an article that I need and everyone else is like, “What is this?”
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I’m going to go with never because I’m always like, oh, Andy has been, he’s got cameras in my house or something because he just knows what I’m going through right now. And yeah, it’s so helpful to know we’re not alone. And especially in this perfectionist environment, people lose a patient and they act like no one’s ever lost a patient in the history of veterinary medicine. And I’m like, if you haven’t you may not have been doing this long enough. Because it happens to everybody, but you just feel so isolated and alone and what do we do? We tell the young veterinarian or the young technician, “Hey, this happened to me and here’s what I did. And here’s how it helps.” So I think just letting everybody know. And I think right now, I mean, globally as much as we’re divided, we’re all together in that everyone is in rage.
Dr. Andy Roark:
[crosstalk 00:07:43] rage.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
There’s just so much. We are so bound by our complete rage. Like the flaming sort of justice is just in everyone’s and the whole world is lit up with it. So yeah, in fact, the article came out and I didn’t know you guys were publishing it. And I was like, oh yeah, that’s probably what I need to read again, because I’m not feeling. Well, I’m failing in this.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Do you do the thing where you read your own stuff years later and you’re like, “Man, that’s good.” [inaudible 00:08:15]. I had really had it figured out in 2016. I’ll totally do that.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
[crosstalk 00:08:20] say, oh, do you ever read it and go, “Oh, that really needs work.” And I’m like, no, I usually am like, “Wow, I can’t believe I wrote that. That was all right.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
I’ve had some stuff that hasn’t aged as well as I wished it had, but for the most part, and when I say age as well, I tend to make jokes about things that are topical. I was like, wow, I was you really into I don’t know, into Seinfeld at the time. And Seinfeld. Like oh, the Star Wars, The Phantom Menace was all in this article. I really wish I could strip that back out now.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah, you’re you’re just like oh, yeah. It’s like, I’m 46 now, and I’m starting to almost put references in, that I know no one’s going to get, just so I can hurt a little more. I don’t know what that’s about, but the other night on Ted Lasso, one of the British people said cheers to him and he went, “Night court.” And I cracked up and I know like half the world was like, what heck was that?
Dr. Andy Roark:
My wife makes Zoolander jokes to her college students and they do not get it. Zoolander came out when they were born. So yeah, it’s funny I do wonder sometimes like, if I am destined to figure things out and write them down and then forget them only to rediscover the article years later and go, ah, I wish I remember that. I had it figured out back then. I love your point about the little girl on the monkey bars. And you talk about that in the article, that feeling of dangling in place, it really resonates. And I think it’s a beautiful image of just, I think that’s one of the things that’s bothered me a lot recently, is I’ll be frustrated or I’ll be angry. And I don’t feel like I’m moving forward through it. I feel like I’m just hanging out here. And part of it is, say, COVID frustrations and things like that. And I go, we have a vaccine. I don’t know what’s going to change in the future that is going to be radically different.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think in the past, I was like, oh, we’re going to get a vaccine, and this will be a thing in the past. And now I’m like, I don’t think that’s true anymore. I think we’re just living here. And so that stasis is really heavy. And so I thought that that metaphor was really good, is to move forward, you have to let go. And so let’s talk a bit about actual forgiveness. I completely agree, the pushback that I get when I talk about forgiveness and the pushback that I feel myself is, I shouldn’t have to forgive someone one who is not sorry for what they did.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Oh my God. Yes. Why? Why should I do that? Because suffering is all about you. I think that’s why we have so much trouble because vet professionals tend to be about everything else and everyone else. And we rarely turn that spotlight on ourselves. And it’s like, yeah, this isn’t about me. Or this totally is about me. Forgiveness is all about whether I forgive or not has nothing to do with the other person. And that’s what’s so hard for people to get is that, the other person doesn’t ever have to know. In fact, in a lot of cases I mean, when you think about people who’ve lost a parent that they had a difficult relationship with, if you forgive them and they’re deceased, they really don’t. I mean, maybe they know in some ways, but they’re not here to be forgiven and asking for forgiveness it’s just one of those things I don’t have control over anybody, but me and that’s been a lesson.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
If I could learn that lesson 100% of the time, I’d be the happiest person on the planet. But I forget it all the time. It’s like I have control over me. What can I do to make myself more comfortable and make this situation better and holding onto anger is never it. That is a great recipe for getting reflux in your esophagus. It’s going to give you heartburn. Don’t eat that. Don’t eat that anger, get rid of it. Let it go.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s super hard though. Yeah. It’s super hard. It’s like, I’m going to continue to drink this poison myself and hope that the other person suffers for it. It doesn’t work that way. But it’s so easy, especially if you have an interaction with a client, you have a dentistry and it doesn’t go the right way that you want, or the bill comes out higher than you thought it would be. And say that there was a quoting error made to the client and they say the most awful things to you. And then every time you do a dentistry after that for the rest of your career, you get angry.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Oh my God. That’s so true.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It is so true. I mean, so many of us live like that and I go, this is not helpful. This is no good. The text [crosstalk 00:13:09].
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
You’re cleaning teeth and you’re going Mrs. Fredrick said.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, you’re redoing it. And that’s why you are the one who needs to step back, sir.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
You’re doing the conversation in your head where you’re just like, you’re having that, what did I wish I had said? And I think that gets a lot of us too, is that we don’t necessarily think on our feet, so somebody will tear us down and we get the greatest comebacks, like in the shower later that night. And it’s like, “That’s what I should have said.” So then I have that conversation where that’s what I said, like a thousand times, and it just eats you up. It’s just awful.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Do you have tricks for actually doing it, for actually letting go?
Dr. Cherie Buisson: Repetition, just like everything else that you become good at and people are like you just say, “I forgive you.” It doesn’t work that way. When I had people that have hurt me, I mean, I got divorced and it was a messy, ugly divorce. And it was eight years before I really felt like, you know what? That relationship was good for me, even though it turned out badly. That was what I needed to take the next step. And to actually, it tasted like vinegar, but you’re like, thank you for leaving me so that I could grow more of a
backbone. That was a hard, hard place to get to and saying it out loud, which is weird. So don’t do it in public.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
But if you drive by the exit on the highway where that person lives just go in peace, you’re forgiven, I’m letting this go. And the more you say it, your mind hears it and believes it. I’m big on that all the time. You need to say things out loud so that your ears hear it and your brain hears it. And eventually, if you tell yourself enough, you’ll believe it. And you slip up. I mean, there are times where I’m still mad at someone that I thought I had forgiven. I have to go back and I’m like, okay, what are we going to do now? We’re going to forgive them again.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And it’s a work in progress. I mean, it’s like someone saying you got married and now you’ve got, marriage is done. No, it’s work every day. And you just have to keep at it, and you have to forgive yourself for not being good at it. I mean, that’s the other thing is that we’re all like I can’t let this go. Why can’t I let this go? It’s okay, well, forgive yourself too. It’s okay. You’re human. But we’re not good at being human in veterinary medicine.
Dr. Andy Roark:
No, we’re supposed to be better than human. We’re supposed to have it already. So there’s a lot there. I picked up a book a while back and it’s called something like What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, and it’s very much about the-
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I need this book.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. It’s What to Say When You Talk to Yourself. And so as someone who has a continuously running inner monologue, I thought it was interesting. And I picked it up and basically sort of said that thing that we’re sort of saying, is your mind acts on the thoughts that you have. And if you think this person wronged me, this person was awful. I was mistreated. You’re going to feel those emotions and you are going to convince yourself, even whether or not it was true.
Dr. Andy Roark:
If you tell your mind again and again, I was mistreated, I was treated unfairly, your brain will come to believe that that’s what happened. And it will act that way. And you’ll get those cortisol level increases and you’ll get that rage and you’ll get the anger and the guilt and everything that comes with it. Sort of skimming through it, I thought the book was pretty good, but it was real big on self-talk. It was like, saying things out loud is good. And so you should say it to yourself when you’re not around. And then it went farther and it was sort of like, you should listen to audio cassettes of positive self-talk and I was like, I’m out.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
That’s too much. That’s too much for me.
Dr. Andy Roark:
My wife, if she came into the bathroom in the morning and I was listening to you are a good person and you have a lot of friends. I would have one less friend and it would be my wife.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yes. Absolutely. Let me tell you, because you just reminded me about the talk, when I was a kid I hated green peas and of course my parents-
Dr. Andy Roark:
Green peas?
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Green peas, hated them, hate with a passion. No, not green peas. Green peas, the vegetable.
Dr. Andy Roark:
[crosstalk 00:17:11].
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
No, no, no. Vegetables. We’re on vegetables. Hated green peas. And my dad said, “You don’t hate green peas. You’ve just convinced yourself that you do.” He said, “What’s your favorite thing to eat?” I said, “Sweet potatoes.” And he said, “Every time you take a mouth full of green peas, you need to say this taste likes sweet potatoes.” I mean, I was like 10, and I’m like, this is BS. I’m not doing this. But we did. And I started gagging on green peas because they were so disgusting. And eventually, it worked. Eventually, and I love green peas now, and green peas but I love green peas and I will eat them. And all we did was I told myself out loud, these taste like sweet potatoes.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
It is, it’s like it’s mind over matter in a lot of these cases and you’ve just got to keep repeating it till you believe it. Just like if you tell somebody that they suck enough, they’re going to believe that they do. You are no exception. You live in your head all the time. So if you’re constantly telling yourself you suck or you’re angry or whatever it is you’re telling yourself, you’re going to believe it. Because you’re in there all the time.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Most of us have an inner critic I think that is absolutely ruthless. I would fire my inner critic. If anyone said something to me that I say to myself, I would throw down. No one talks to me like that, but me. You know what I mean? I would quit my job if I had a boss who talked to me the way that my brain talks to me sometimes. And that’s again, it’s the types of things that we have to be better to ourselves. What we say to ourselves matters as much as what other people say to us. I think that’s important.
Dr. Andy Roark: The vocalization just saying, I forgive you. Just saying, I’ve moved past this to yourself. I mean, it actually is beneficial. Again, I’m not advocating for the self-help audio, self-talk things necessarily. But having that clear when you start to feel that anger about the client and you say, “I’ve moved past this.” Or I said
my piece and I am done with this. And you can say it out loud or you say it in your mind, but that type of repetition to yourself, it is how we actually do move past these things. We convince our mind that we’re over and then we are actually over it. But it takes time.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey, guys. I just want to jump in real quick with a couple quick announcements this week over on the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast, we are talking about what it means to be a rad relief vet, how to set yourself up as a rad relief vet and how to set relief vets up to be rad at your practice. So it’s all about relief vets on the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast. Get it wherever you got this podcast, it’ll be there. Uncharted Veterinary Podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Gang, on the uncharted side of the house, we have got some great workshops coming up. My friend Dr. Mary Ann Vande Linde is doing Team Power: Adding Value to Your Visits on September 22nd. This is all about communicating value to pet owners. It is a two-hour workshop. It is from 7:00 to 9:00 PM Eastern Time that night. It is very much about building your exam room plan so that at see value in what we do. And I know with a lot of us wearing masks, with a lot of us still doing some curbside sort of limited contact and just seeing patients in different ways. I think a lot of us are asking, do our clients see the value in what we do?
Dr. Andy Roark:
There’s never been a better time for this workshop. It is free to uncharted members. It is $99 to the public. On October the 9th, Dr. Tracy Sands is doing Empowering Your Team to Get Positive and Stay that Way. This is a team culture positivity workshop, it is all about getting your practice to be a nicer, happier place to work. It is a two-hour workshop as well, 3:00 to 5:00 PM Eastern Time on October the 9th, it is free to uncharted members and $99 to the public. I’ll put links to both of those things. The last thing I’m going to say is the Uncharted Culture Conference, October 21st through the 23rd is a virtual conference. We have been doing buy two get one free, because we really think that you should bring your whole leadership team, your medical director, and your practice manager could come together.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Your practice owner and manager can come together with the head technician. And it’s really about getting people together to have this experience and see culture training and do culture training and do workshops, and have these shared experiences to take back into your practice so that you’re not trying to take this into your practice by yourself. It’s buy two get one free, but that deal is ending and it’s ending this week. So you need to immediately bust it over to Uncharted, get registered for the Uncharted Culture Conference and get your extra, buy two get one free deal hooked up. Guys, that’s enough about that. Anyway, links in the show notes for all of these things. All right, let’s get back into this episode.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I have a hack for you out the listening to the self-help tapes. Listen to your own podcasts.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Listen to my own podcast.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I will occasionally, especially if I’m having a rough day and I know I’ve done a podcast on that particular subject, I’ll go back and listen to it with somebody interviewing me and that’s I think a legitimate way that you can talk to yourself without being too weird. But I will, I’ll be like, I had that forgiveness podcast with Andy. I’m going to go listen to myself talk about what I should do. And maybe I’ll actually listen to myself, if I say it enough. But I swear our inner critic, is it literally the flaming raging sort of justice that is our inner critic? Because I feel like that’s all it is. It’s not even really a person. It’s just the sword.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So yeah. So I came up with the flaming raging sort of justice a while back in that I feel like so often what we do in vet medicine is unfair. It’s just unfair. Life is unfair. But I feel like in vet medicine, we get a big dose of unfair, and we see a big dose of unfair. It’s not fair that this aggressive dog who was abused is now going to be put down because people can’t handle him and he is not safe to be around other people. That’s wildly unfair, and it really sucks and it really makes me mad. And so that sort of feeling of unfairness. I think a lot of us have a feeling of justice. It sort of goes back to the idea why I think it’s so hard for a lot of us to say, I forgive you.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And especially when the person doesn’t ask for it and they don’t seem to care. The idea of me forgiving them for this thing that they did and got away with, with no negative repercussions, and they don’t even remember, that feels so wrong. And that feeling, I kind of summed up as like, I want the sword of justice. I want to smite that person. I want to strike them down. I want to tell the pet owner, do not show up 25 minutes late for your appointment and pitch a fit to be seen because you are ruining my day and you’re going to make everyone else wait and pets are going to be waiting all day because of you and it’s your fault and you’re going to be rescheduled. And if you don’t, I’ll smite you with this raging sword.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It feels so natural in your hand to be like, I’m going to smite her good. But the thing with the flaming raging sword of justice is it’s always a bad idea. It’s double-bladed and there’s always collateral damage, but man, putting that thing down of going, this is wrong. This is unjust. This is unfair. I think that that’s a real skill that a lot of us have to pick and it’s a very humbling skill. So yeah, it is a very humbling skill. I think there’s a lot of Buddhism in it of saying, I’m going to let this go. I’m going to find peace with this. I’m going to put this down.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And trading it for empathy. So you put that down to trade it for empathy. That is a skill. Because it takes a lot. I hold a lot of resentment because I have trouble telling people how I feel when I’m not hot about it. If I’m furious, oh, I can just lay into somebody. But if I have to say, when you did this, it made me feel this is way too vulnerable for me. I need the sword, but it’s the same with pet owners and being a hospice veterinarian. I’ve had to learn that people are going to say crappy things when they’re grieving. And I just put on my empathy hat and it’s like as long as I’m not in danger and no one’s screaming at me or hurting me, I’m going to let this go because this person is not at their best. And I have been at that point and I get it.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
We do, we trade it and I will say, I have like 99.9% awesome clients. And I know a lot of those people are some veterinarian’s nightmare client, but we hit them with empathy from the minute they contact us and everything is empathy and understanding and calmness and coolness. And I think that’s why we have such great clients. It’s not the clients necessarily. It’s how we approach it. And the sort of justice it’s buried, and we don’t get to use it. I’ll rise to the defense of my team if somebody is giving them a hard time. But even then I throttle it down and it’s like, how can I approach this? So it’s a win for everybody. And the only way to do that is with empathy and that’s hard. It’s so hard.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s super hard. One of the things I say to myself that has been helpful over the years is everyone’s fighting a battle we don’t know anything about. I keep telling myself that. And so I use that example, about the flaming raging sort of justice. I had a client a couple of days ago come in. And she was 20 minutes late for her appointment and she called ahead and she said, I’m going to be 20 minutes late. And the front desk was like, do you still want to see her? And I didn’t really, but you know what I mean? I could 100% see how this could blow up my day. And so everyone whose’ worked appointments knows if this… I wanted to ask her if you promised this cat is 100% healthy and fine, and there’s no concerns, then you can come in, otherwise, the answer is no.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I should have just said that, but I didn’t. But I folded, and I was just like, “Just tell her to come in. We’ll make it work.” And so she comes in and she’s like, “I’m so sorry. My chemotherapy is making me feel terrible. I couldn’t get my cat into the carrier.” And I was like, “I’m so glad you came in.” I’m so glad you came in. And it was fine. And it went great. I felt really good about accommodating this person. And she was wonderful and she was lovely. I’ve been thinking about it ever since, because I don’t think that I was wrong when they said, “Hey, do you want to see this person who’s 20 minutes late,” to feel like, no, we’ve done this. And it tends to go badly. And there’s a lot of ways this [inaudible 00:28:20] wrong. And we have a policy that says that we don’t do this.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So I still feel, probably shouldn’t do it. At the same time when she comes in and you go, oh, you’re not just a pompous jerk who stopped for lunch at the coffee shop and had a good conversation and didn’t come over, you’ve got real issues and you’re doing your best, and I got to help you. So I don’t know. I’ve just been kind of rolling that around, back and forth. I don’t that it means anything, I don’t know that there’s any sort of policy changes I would make to this, but I do think it was a really good reminder that sometimes it’s good just to assume the best about people, even just for our own sake.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yes, absolutely. One of the exercises that you can do for that is if you have somebody that blows up your day if you do rounds with everybody, or you’re just talking with a team, ask them to tell a story, what is the story that this client could tell you that would make what happened okay. Did they lose their wife last week? Are they recovering from COVID and they have brain fog and they’re scared won’t be able to resume their very important job. What is it that would make you okay with this? Because we tell ourselves, he’s a pompous ass. He did this, he did that. But why can’t we tell the other story, maybe this is what’s happening. Oh my gosh, wouldn’t that be horrible? And again, you’re hearing that, it doesn’t have to be real. You’re just hearing it, and you’re like, well maybe I should be a little more understanding.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I am never one to abuse, is a hard line in the sand for me. If you have to come in and take out your pain and rage on other people, I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to learn a lesson from that. And that lesson is, we don’t put up with that crap here. It’s very sad to me that a lot of vet clinics don’t feel that way, but if somebody is having a fit, but you’re like, this isn’t the whole story. Something else is going on. I’ll pull them in and be like, “Hey, this isn’t like you, what’s going on? Tell me what’s on so we can help.”
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And then they’re like, “I’m the worst person ever.” We’re like, “Yeah, we know, but we’re going to help you anyway.” Now that you’ve down a peg, okay, now that we’ve calmed everybody down, or just come in and be like, Anne is crying. What happened in here? Usually, you come in and we have a great visit. What’s going on? And the minute you turn from defensive to tell me what’s happening, it just makes all the difference in the world. I say that super easily, because I’m sitting in my office and it’s 8:30 and it’s quiet and nothing bad is happening. But it’s something that I’ve had to work on really, really hard because of how personally I take things, and every tip and trick I can get for how to throttle back that instant rise to anger that happens because I have anxiety and I get that fight or flight thing going on if I can just take a breath and go, how do I make this a win for everybody? It totally changes the game 100%.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. That pause between receiving the information, getting the emotional impact and then responding man, it’s all make or break right there. If I take that as a slight, as something negative, if it feeds into some of the frustrations I’m feeling about the world, it’s really hard to turn it into a positive or get my head into a good space. It’s heavy lifting. I think that’s where I am these days. I generally am a very positive person. I think that I’ve been worn down over the last couple of years to where, and it just becomes sort of aware of it recently of like how often my very first thought is a negative thought when I run into a point of frustration. When I hear from the front, oh, this person’s going to be, they called, they’re just going to be a couple minutes late. I go, “Oh, sure they’re going to be a couple minutes late.” [inaudible 00:32:15].
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Of course, they are.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Of course, they are.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Mrs. Smith called and she needs this. Of course, she does. That was always my response in private practice, which is why I’m not there anymore, but I totally get it.
Dr. Andy Roark: It’s such an easy response. And usually, it will make the text laugh. If I say it in front of them, they’ll be like, oh, you know? I’m not going to say it in front of them, but you’ll get pats on the back. You’ll get people who’ll go, yeah. I know, I know. But ultimately, it’s a destructive response. It’s not healthy, it’s not a good response. And it just puts me in a bad headspace to do my job, which I’m ultimately going to do anyway. And so it’s just been an interesting exercise recently, as I try to commit to getting back on the positive track or on a more positive track, just taking that pause and checking myself and going, okay, what am I thinking here?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Are my thoughts in a good place? Am I being fair to this person? Am I being empathetic to this person? The default is just no, be a jerk. Just tell him to shut up. But because it’s super easy, it takes some effort to empathize. You know what I mean? To catch and be like, I’m going to be generous to this person. I’m going to show some love and kindness to this person. It’s a muscle that we build, but man, if you get out of the habit of using it, it takes some activation energy to get it back.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
It does. And it’s like low-stress handling for people. And it’s the same thing. We can wrestle the cat to the table and we can get done what we need to get done. But if we just take that beat and calm down and think what would make this cat more comfortable so that I can work on it easier, it helps so much. And the other cool thing about the moment of silence is that half the time, if you’re silent long enough, the client’s like, “I am so sorry.” Because people hate silence and they want to fill it in. So if somebody’s like, “I need you to explain to me right now why you did this,” and I don’t answer they’re like, or maybe we could just talk about it.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Because I had a boss that all he would do is tip his glasses down and look at me over the tops of them. And I was like, “Shit, what did I say?” I better rethink that. And so that moment of silence gives you a second to think about a response, but also them a second to hear themselves and go, that might not have been my best move. That’s a dual thing there, but yeah, I try to a look at it like I do the low-stress handling because I’ve gotten so into that with my patients because I’m in their house, giving them a shot, their parents are crying and it’s all my fault. I’ve had to really get around like what is this pet feeling and how can I make it better?
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And so I’ve tried to bleed that into how I handle humans. Because humans are not my favorite species. And it really, all that same principle of go slow, be quiet, be calm, find out what they need and give it to them, really makes a difference. And some people are just hopeless and that’s okay. But yeah, and I also find when I am not taking care of myself, my ability to be empathetic is crap. When I burned myself out last year, because I was just, I’m going to work. And then when I catch COVID I’ll take a break and then everything will be fine.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s a terrible plan.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I know. And I never caught COVID so I just worked the whole year without stopping, and then into-
Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s a horrible backfire.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I know, and then in January, I was like, God, if I don’t take a break, I’m going to die. And then we planned a vacation, but it wasn’t until May. So by May of this year, I had nothing left and people would want something and I would just grind my teeth. Thank God I had a mask on, but grind my teeth at every little request and I was like, this is not how I handle people. And I went on vacation and I came back and magically, it was better. And then a month later it got bad again. And I was like time for another break. And I took some more time off and I was like, I didn’t take any time off last year, this year I’m taking breaks whenever I need to, because I’m not recovered yet from all the abuse I gave myself in 2020.
Dr. Andy Roark:
No, I’m right there with you. It’s a whole lot easier to be forgiving, to be kind, to be patient to ourselves and to our coworkers and to our clients when you’re well maintained. And so things for me recently, I get good sleep. I have been really good about going to bed and getting a good night’s sleep. I’ve been eating better. And then by that, I mean, I’m more intentional about kind of what I’m eating and what I take to the clinic so I have some calories and things like that throughout the day. I just, I don’t want to get hangry and I’m trying not to get tired. That may sound ridiculous, but I tell you, man, that’s an investment that pays dividends.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah. And the exercise, I have to be able to exercise, but my husband and I in this last year we usually get up really early because we’re in Florida and it’s hot. We get up and we’re exercising before it gets too hot. And I’ve needed more sleep, I just have, and it was like, you know what, if we don’t get to bed by 9:00 or 9:15 when the alarm goes off at 5:30, I’m not getting up. And I’ll get up when I’m ready and then we’ll go out. And if we have to, like you always say, choose how you suffer. I’m going to suffer in the heat as opposed to suffering because I have lack of sleep. He’s been right there with me because it’s been exhausting.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And how we haven’t figured out how to forgive ourselves for not being perfect in this life last year. Like this has just been a dumpster fire and everybody’s like, I don’t understand why I’m struggling. What? I do. Let me give you the list of why we’re struggling. Like it’s everything, everything is a wreck. And so we’re trying to be forgiving. We totally blew our diets out of the water last year and it was ugly. And I was like, you know what? I just don’t care. I’m going to eat what I want to eat. And we were exercising like crazy. So that was good. And now we’re kind of toning it down, getting that high cholesterol diagnosis from your doctor will do that to a girl.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
So I was like, “Oh, God, really?” High cholesterol. Okay, fine. Will do better. But yeah, I’ve been much more forgiving of myself and also much more like treating myself like I would a kid who’s having a temper tantrum. It’s like, why don’t you just go lay down for a minute, sweetie, like go push your feet up and take a deep breath. And we’ll try again in 10 minutes. I put myself in timeout, put me in the crate. I don’t care. I need a timeout in the crate with a con and some peanut butter and I need to breathe until I can handle this like a grownup.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I look at vet med and how hard it’s been for everybody and how unforgiving we have been with ourselves and each other. And I hope we can start making that better, and stop hurting ourselves and each other the way that we have been. Because it just, it’s heartbreaking how bad things have been.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I think it’s time. I really do. I hope that there’s a cultural shift going on. I think I don’t know, maybe I’m hopelessly optimistic, but I do think there are. I think that kids going back to in-person schools is a big step towards normalcy for a lot of people. For whatever reason, just this fall, I think the schools were part of it, but I just feel like a lot of us have kind of said, you know what? We’re kind of going back to work. I feel more normal now than I have in a long time, even as COVID numbers stay high, but it’s just, we’re going to work and we’re doing our job and the kids are going to school and we’re making it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think that that normalcy has helped me get my head back straight and being like, you know what, I’m going to treat myself better. I’m going to treat other people better. I’m going to enjoy my job again. I think that’s been a good reset. Well, Cherie, thanks for being here so much. Where can people find you online? Where can they read more of your stuff?
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
They can find me at happyvet.com. And then for my more hospice stuff, that’s geared toward clients at helpinghandspethospice.com.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Awesome. Thanks a lot for being here. Guys have a wonderful week. Thanks, everybody.
Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Thank you, bye.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And that is our episode. That’s what we got for you. Guys, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. If you did, you can make my day by writing an honest review, wherever you get our podcast and just saying, “Hey, I got a lot out of this episode. This was really great.” It helps me to know what you guys like. And then also it helps people find the podcast and spread the word. So anyway, because that’s always a nice thing that you guys can do to help us out. Because my team works really hard on the show. We really do. So anyway, thank you for considering. Gang, take care of yourself. Be well. Forgive yourself and forgive others. And I will talk to you next week.
