Trust yourself and the process

Hey friends,

This past week was mentally challenging for me, and again, self-inflicted of course with my desire to do so many things at once. But it was what I needed to go through to realise what was important to me. In short, I was

• juggling a full work week (work was the easiest to manage to be honest and I had all my lunch breaks 😁 so, a win ❤️ !)

• an essay deadline for a post graduate certification

• diving into an inner work course

• doing brand calls and organising podcast episodes (which I am so excited about)

As I was going through the motions of completing it all, sleep-deprived and hating past me, I realised I had inadvertently placed myself in this hamster wheel, running faster and faster but stuck in the same cycles. Doing all the other things really gave me energy and joy, but I think there was a deeper insecurity at hand. Perhaps I had a feeling of ‘being not enough’ so I had to prove my worth (not sure to who) by taking on all these things. I could easily burn out if I wasn’t careful with my intentions and how I was managing things. So, here are a few things & practical questions to check in with yourself, if you are feeling the same way:

1. Nothing changes if nothing changes. Ask yourself, how has the past 1, 3, 12 months been, are you happy with your work-life balance, relationships you are having, if yes, great! If not, why not, and what needs to change? Are you prepared to live a similar 12 months ahead in the similar routine?

2. You can say no, and you don’t have to give an explanation. When being asked to do something, take a pause and think, does this align with me? Am I saying yes to people-please, or do I genuinely want to do this? Saying a rushed ‘yes’ just to people-please in the moment is doing a disservice to yourself and others. And it is being manipulative to get others to like you.

3. Taking on too many things at once. If you thrive on multi-tasking, you go girl! That is completely fine. But if you take on more things as a coping mechanism 👀, perhaps taking a pause and think, ‘hang on, what am I trying to achieve here, is this opportunity either going to help me earn, or learn? To help me get closer to my over-arching goal? Or am I just doing this to ‘look’ busy? (no judgement here, you know you best)

4. Processing emotions. Emotions are made up of chemical signals in your brain, acting as literal signals as you interact with your environment, as you go through stress, work, happy moments, sad moments etc. Listen to them, let the emotion flow through without judgement, its mostly your body trying to tell you something.

New knowledge at work

Refresher on CRP & SDMA testing on blood profiles

• CRP (c-reactive protein) in dogs, produced by the liver is most useful to test as a serial measurement of systemic inflammation, and can change much quicker (in 4-6 hours) compared to an increase in neutrophils (your white blood cells) that take 3-5 days to increase. So worth considering in your pancreatitis, sepsis, other systemic inflammation cases where values of CRP can help inform the response to medication.

• SDMA (symmetric dimethylarginine) is an amino acid that is an earlier marker (compared to creatinine) for reduction in glomerular filtration rate (GFR) which can inform us of kidney issues earlier (increases in levels when patient has 25% loss of nephrons, compared to creatinine which only shows at 75% loss of nephrons 🙃). One thing that surprised me was the Idexx person who gave us the info session mentioned that actually, the gold standard test is a direct measuerment of GFR rate by injecting a chemical and complicated measurements (not commonly performed in practice for practical reasons).

New video this week (🐾 Singapore Vet Show discount codes 💵 )

Ok, last thing to say if you’ve made it this far.. I am so proud of you for showing up today, if its vet school, vet work, looking after your furkid and yourself.. Reminder that every challenge and failure only makes you stronger and gets you closer to where you want to be 😌 !

Big hugs and have a great week,

May xx