You Don’t Have to Disappear to Be Good at This Work: Reclaiming Yourself in Veterinary Medicine

[00:00] – [02:09] Adeesha:
You kept showing up. You stayed late, you said yes, you tried harder, you held it together for the team, the clients, the patients, everyone. And somewhere along the way, you started disappearing from yourself.

Welcome to the Veterinary Business Podcast, where practice owners get the strategies that build stronger teams and stronger businesses. I’m your host, Adeesha. It’s great to have you here.

For a lot of veterinarians listening in, burnout isn’t just about being tired. It’s about years of perfectionism, people-pleasing, self-suppression, and living in survival mode until you barely recognize who you are outside of the work.

Today, I’m joined by Joelle Flynn. She’s a mindset, nervous system regulation, somatic, and human design coach, and the founder of Joyful Journeys with Jo. Before becoming a coach, Joelle spent more than 20 years in veterinary medicine as a registered veterinary technician. After experiencing burnout and career disruption herself, she now helps veterinary technicians, veterinarians, and support staff move out of overwhelm and reconnect with who they really are.

We’re going to get into why perfectionism and people-pleasing are so common in vet med, what survival mode actually does to the nervous system, how self-suppression fuels burnout, and what it takes to rebuild safety, self-trust, and confidence in this profession.

This episode is sponsored by Ekwa Marketing, the team helping veterinary practice owners elevate their online presence and grow with clarity. Joelle, it’s great to have you on the podcast.

[02:10] – [02:16] Joelle Flynn:
I am so honored and excited to be here with you, Adeesha. Thank you so much for having me.

[02:17] – [02:32] Adeesha:
Absolutely. So, let’s get into the conversation here, Joelle. Many veterinary professionals struggle with perfectionism and people-pleasing. Why do you think these patterns are so common in veterinary medicine?

[02:34] – [06:04] Joelle Flynn:
I believe that, and I’m also gauging from my own personal experience, when I was young, I felt as though I needed to uphold other people’s expectations. I was also in a dynamic within my family where I felt like I had to be the perfect kid.

So we talk a lot about perfectionism and people-pleasing in veterinary medicine, but what I’ve found personally is that we don’t talk about the root causes of those behaviors. Until we start to address those root causes, we’re going to see those tendencies continue to rear their ugly heads.

For me personally, in vet med specifically, I went through almost 22 years of veterinary medicine, being in small animal internal medicine, and I experienced burnout three times. I was in and out of the industry three times. That third time, I officially hung up my stethoscope, never thinking that I would be drawn back to veterinary medicine.

But I know now that this is why I was drawn to veterinary medicine to begin with: to be here for my colleagues in this facet. I’m grateful for it now, but it wasn’t until I went through that healing process that I really discovered where those people-pleasing and perfectionism tendencies were coming from.

Now I’m so passionate about bringing that to the veterinary medical field because we get so caught up in that. We totally and completely lose our identity, because every single time we choose to make sure someone else is happy and neglect ourselves, it makes us eliminate any boundaries that we might have had at one point in time. It makes us self-suppress even further, and that ultimately sends a message to our subconscious mind and our physical body that we are unworthy of our desires, that we’re unworthy of what we want out of life.

I think it’s so incredibly important to start addressing those core issues, those issues that are part of our identity, that we have actually been suppressing. For some of us, and for me, it was decades. I almost feel like I woke up one morning and I just said, “I don’t even know who I am anymore. I don’t know what I love. I don’t know what lights me up. I don’t know what my path or my purpose is on this earth.” I had just fallen so deeply into those people-pleasing and perfectionism tendencies that my identity was totally lost.

[06:05] – [06:28] Adeesha:
There’s a lot to unpack there, but I’m really curious about the first two times that you left because of burnout. What was different about those first two times? Did you not address these root causes? Did you think this was temporary, go on a vacation, and then come back?

[06:29] – [09:06] Joelle Flynn:
I love this question so much, and I appreciate you asking it because it’s not really something that I’ve thought much about, but it ties into this topic so well.

The first time I stepped away from veterinary medicine, I had just had my son, my firstborn. My second child was on the way, so I was experiencing all the hormonal stuff, the pressures of, “Now you’re a mom, and this is what’s important, and we have to sacrifice in order to show our love for our children.” That’s what love looks like: sacrifice. So I felt as though I had to sacrifice my career in order to now be a mom.

The second time, my children were a little bit older. I stepped away from the industry primarily due to burnout. It was my own mother who pressured me, saying, “You’re so good at this job. You love it so much. You went through and got all this education. You have all this tremendous experience. Why aren’t you going back?”

So it was this transition from, “Now your kids are older, and they don’t necessarily need you,” even though we always need our mothers, right? It was this pressure to go back to the career, and that’s what ultimately led me back.

To answer your question about whether I went through the healing process then, I absolutely did not, because I didn’t recognize at the time what it was that was causing the burnout. I just attributed it to other things. The first time, it was the hormonal aspects of being pregnant and being a mother to a young one. The second time, it was, “I was overwhelmed with everything, plus being a mom, and not really having any kind of balance.”

So I love that question. Thank you so much for asking it. It’s brought a new thought process to me now.

[09:07] – [09:47] Adeesha:
That’s great to hear. As you were mentioning those two things, the reason I asked that question is because I wanted our listeners to understand what they might also be doing themselves. They’re also in the same position, and they may also be misdiagnosing it, as you did the first two times around.

So what I took away from that, Joelle, is making someone else happy while neglecting ourselves. That seems to inevitably lead us on the path to burnout.

[09:48] – [11:52] Joelle Flynn:
One hundred percent. Ultimately, our purpose on this earth is to just be ourselves. From the moment we’re born, we start having all of these other influences on us. Our belief systems are created through cultural, societal, religious, and many other influences, as well as our upbringing.

Everything from “You’re not good enough,” “You’re not smart enough,” “You’re not pretty enough,” “You’re not courageous enough,” “You’re not strong enough,” “You talk too much,” “You’re too opinionated,” or “You’re too boisterous.” Whether it’s that you’re too much of something or not enough of something, all of those influences impact our subconscious mind so much that we start to believe our natural and authentic self isn’t worthy of showing.

Then all of these additional fears start to get created around those belief systems: fear of judgment, fear of rejection, fear of humiliation, and shame. Oh my goodness, humiliation and shame are so huge in this industry. God forbid we should make any mistakes. God forbid we shouldn’t know everything at the drop of a hat. God forbid we shouldn’t have the answer at every second and every moment, or show the right level of compassion and care. Don’t even get me started on addressing money things with clients, because that’s always a bone of contention as well.

So yes, it has an incredible impact on our lives right from the time we’re in childhood.

[11:53] – [12:34] Adeesha:
I think we are authentically human, and authentically human means we are guaranteed to make mistakes. And that’s fine.

What I’m understanding here is that it’s okay to make someone else happy, but not at the expense of your own happiness. Let’s talk a little bit more about that.

You describe nervous system regulation as the foundation for change. What does it look like when a veterinary professional is operating from survival mode, and how can they begin to shift out of it?

[12:34] – [18:51] Joelle Flynn:
This is such a great question because I really feel that most of us don’t even recognize it within ourselves. Most often, it’s going to be someone else in your direct circle who starts to recognize that you’re dysregulated.

Let’s face it: almost everyone who will be watching this podcast will be dysregulated. We are operating in survival mode almost all the time, and most of us don’t even know it.

So what is it going to look like? It can manifest in physical ways: chronic inflammation, GI disturbances, sleep disruption, decreased energy, brain fog, and all of those sorts of things can be physical indications that you’re operating from survival mode. Anxiety and depression as well.

From a mental and emotional perspective, we are unable to cope appropriately with our emotions. It’s so funny, anytime I think about this, I think about how so many of us haven’t got a clue what we’re supposed to do with our emotions. The word itself indicates what we’re supposed to do: emote. Emotions are meant to be felt, realized, acknowledged, learned from, and moved through.

But instead, what do we do? We suppress them, push them down, and try to ignore them for the sake of being stoic and strong. Back when I went through my learning, we were told, “Never cry in front of a client. Don’t show your emotion in front of a client. You have to be strong for them.” As women especially, we get told the same kind of thing with our kids: we have to be strong for our kids. Men experience similar mindsets too, with messages about having to “be a man.”

These belief systems are passed along to us about not showing our emotions, and then we wonder why we’re so dysregulated. If you’ve had a day where you need to go home and punch pillows, scream into the pillows, or lay on the floor and have a temper tantrum like a two-year-old, do it. It’s so freeing, and immediately after it passes, you feel like a different human being.

When we continually suppress all of our feelings and emotions, we end up becoming short-tempered. We can become very sad or depressed in certain situations, or we have panic attacks. From a mental and emotional perspective, those are the sorts of things that we’ll see.

It’s not until those sorts of things kick in that most of us become internally aware. It’s all about awareness. We might start to notice, “I have acid reflux,” and I know for me, I had it for seven years. I now attribute it to being dysregulated with my nervous system.

Sometimes we don’t notice those physical things because we think it’s our normal, but it’s not normal. When it really starts to become apparent is when it’s so far gone that we start to experience panic attacks. For me, I didn’t even call those particular moments panic attacks until I was sharing them with my daughter. She said, “Mom, you’re having panic attacks. This is what this is.”

For me, they manifested as uncontrollable crying. I was at work one day, and out of nowhere, I think maybe I was placing an IV catheter, and this uncontrollable crying came up. I thought, “What is happening to my body right now?” It was in complete shutdown mode. No prefrontal cortex. Gone.

It took me sharing that experience with my daughter and her saying, “That’s a panic attack,” for me to realize, “Oh. Then what is happening?” That began the journey to learning how to be more aware.

[18:54] – [19:40] Adeesha:
A journey to really learning how to be more aware of your own emotions. We really don’t take them seriously until the point where, in your situation, you’re uncontrollably crying in the middle of the day out of nowhere.

Then you might think, “Something is wrong with my body. Let me get some medicine to fix the symptom,” but not the problem. So how can we really begin to shift out of this? How does this journey start?

[19:41] – [26:25] Joelle Flynn:
I believe the best place to start, and one of the things that’s really missing with mindset and mental health in our industry, is talking about central nervous system regulation. I think that it is absolutely foundational.

For myself, I am certified in a multitude of modalities, from somatic therapy to polyvagal theory, EMDR, EFT, and other things. The reason I’m so passionate about all of those modalities is because I base all of my coaching on everyone’s individual human design, which we’ll talk about shortly.

It’s really important to create habits that help us regulate. One of the things I find absolutely fascinating about veterinary medicine is that we know so much about the physical body and the physiology and neuroscience behind it, and yet we don’t recognize within ourselves that we’re not even breathing the way our bodies are intended to breathe.

That diaphragmatic breathing, those nice deep sighs, fully inflating our lungs. We often only utilize the upper quadrants of our lungs throughout the day. That affects oxygenation, blood flow, lymphatic drainage, and all of these different aspects that simply breathing appropriately can change.

Breathwork is huge. We call it breathwork, but ultimately, it’s just learning how to breathe the way our bodies were created to breathe. That sends the message to our central nervous system that we are safe in that moment.

One of the biggest misconceptions I find with mindset work is that we focus on mindset, mindset, mindset, believing the cure is within our mind. But we have to work backwards. It was our mindset that got our physical bodies to where they are right now, but in order to heal, we’ve got to work backwards.

Anyone listening might be thinking, “I’ve tried fixing my mindset. I’ve tried changing the way I think.” But the moment our conscious mind tries to convince our subconscious mind of something that our subconscious mind believes is unsafe, it causes that neurological trigger in our body, and our bodies instinctively react.

Many people don’t know that when a trigger happens, before you even recognize that there’s a thought associated with that anger, your body has already reacted first. It happens so quickly, but our nervous system is highly tuned and trained to respond to triggers. We have that body response before we have the thought occur in our subconscious mind, and then our conscious mind recognizes it.

In order to really address mindset, we have to start within the body, getting the body to feel safe. Otherwise, the moment we start to talk about rooting in our authenticity, all of those subconscious beliefs that have been running on repeat in our subconscious mind for our entire life automatically kick in, and our bodies instantly go into survival mode.

Our bodies have to feel safe in order for us to start believing new, uplifting, and empowering thoughts, changing our thought processes, and working with the neuroplasticity of our brain in order to reprogram those thoughts. It all starts with feeling safe within ourselves first. Otherwise, we have this battlefield between our conscious and subconscious mind.

Our conscious mind is going to say, “Of course you’re safe. Look around. There’s no saber-toothed tiger in the building.” But then, the moment you speak to yourself and say, “I really feel like I need to express my anger in this moment,” your body has to feel safe to do that.

You don’t want to do that in front of clients, of course, but you can go to the back, go to your safe place, and express the anger. If you go to the back with your coworkers and start to utilize what you know about the vagus nerve and polyvagal theory, you might get some dirty looks. If you have that fear of judgment and rejection, what are you going to do? You’re going to continue suppressing those feelings and emotions, and therefore not process them or emote them, because ultimately your body feels unsafe to do it.

[26:27] – [27:20] Adeesha:
What a wonderful answer. Getting the body to feel safe — I was wondering about that. What does it mean? You mean physically being in a safe space, as well as emotionally. That’s also key. You must feel safe, and then you emote.

Now I’m wondering, Joelle, I don’t want to be doing this when I’m angry. I don’t want to get there. So what does getting the body to feel safe look like when I’m at a more neutral state of mind, where I just want to acknowledge, “I have come down a wrong path, and I would like to go in a better direction”?

[27:21] – [31:08] Joelle Flynn:
Once we become aware of our reactions or our triggers, that awareness is where we can really start to tap into learning how to regulate in those moments. But the more we practice regulation, and I say practice because it’s a simple concept, awareness is what brings us to a place where we start to actually utilize it.

What I often recommend my clients do is use those three minutes when you’ve just crawled into bed and you’re not quite asleep yet. Just focus on the activity, whatever it might be. It might just be simple breathing. Breathe from the belly, one hand on the belly, one hand on the heart, feel that elevation in your abdomen, and completely fill.

In doing that, it’s going to create a habit. It’s a habit that we can institute at any point of the day. We can start to implement it all the time, and then it becomes an unconscious effort. It becomes something that we just do without even knowing that we’re doing it.

The more we are aware in the beginning of our central nervous system dysregulation and how to change that, the more it can become a daily thing at any time. That is what ultimately really starts to change things for us: spending the majority of our day in regulation as opposed to dysregulation.

Being regulated doesn’t mean we’re never going to experience sadness. It doesn’t mean we’re never going to experience frustration or anger. It just means that our recovery from it is going to be quicker. We’re going to move from those fight, flight, freeze, and fawn states back to rest and digest more quickly. That is the key.

Obviously, we’re never going to move through our human experience without having some level of fears. That’s normal and healthy for us to experience certain fears and have those moments where we feel as though we need to protect ourselves. But we will recover more quickly from those situations by adopting new habits and daily rituals that become things we do unconsciously.

[31:09] – [32:16] Adeesha:
Amazing. What I take away from that is, if we usually go from zero to one hundred, we might go from zero to thirty because we have been regulated. We can catch on a little bit quicker. You know the signs.

Personally, when I have reached that limit and gone beyond that threshold, it feels like a bad hangover. It just feels draining. You’re drained of emotion. You’ve gone beyond what you’re capable of, and it feels like a horrible hangover, except you didn’t even have a great night out. You just had a few moments of frustration.

It would be amazing to catch that earlier and acknowledge, “Okay, I might be getting mad here. Let’s not go all the way.”

[32:16] – [33:13] Joelle Flynn:
Take a beat, have some introspection, take those nice deep breaths.

One of the other pillars in my coaching is human design, and I know we’re going to get there, but it plays a huge role in our nervous system as well. It also helps us have grace.

Take a moment of introspection. Take that nice, deep belly breath, and also recognize that every other person thinks differently. They have different qualities about themselves. They have different gifts, talents, attributes, personalities, and all of these things. It gives us that awareness to take a moment to give grace to other people as well.

[33:14] – [36:11] Adeesha:
That’s a really interesting point: give grace to other people, and perhaps then you can begin giving grace to yourself too.

Now, we’ve been talking about what happens when veterinary professionals stay in survival mode for too long: always reacting, always bracing, always trying to keep everything from falling apart. Your practice can end up in survival mode too.

It may not look like burnout at first. It may look like inconsistent new client flow, an online presence that no longer reflects the quality of your care, marketing that feels scattered, or a team that is doing great work but not being seen by the right people. Just like personal burnout, practice growth challenges rarely fix themselves by pushing harder.

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If your practice has been doing excellent work, but your marketing does not fully show that, this is a great opportunity to get expert guidance at no cost. Book your complimentary marketing strategy meeting through https://www.veterinarybusinessinstitute.com/msm. Ekwa only takes a limited number each month, so if this resonates with you, grab a spot while it’s open.

Alright, let’s get back to the conversation, because the next question takes it even further. Joelle, your coaching framework includes the concept of I-BAG. Am I correct?

[35:55] – [36:00] Joelle Flynn:
Yes. Exactly the way you said it: I-BAG.

[36:00] – [36:11] Adeesha:
Thank you. The I-BAG. So: balanced, boundless, and genuine. What does each of those qualities mean in real life for someone working in vet med?

[36:13] – [42:06] Joelle Flynn:
I really love this question, number one, because I feel as though my coaching is very unique in this regard. I think there are very few of us who are approaching mindset and mental health in the same way I am with these three pillars.

I operate on the idea that central nervous system regulation is key. That’s the balanced portion of the I-BAG. Then, we are absolutely boundless. To approach our belief systems and fears and really get down to the core of what created those belief systems and fears, we need to work with the neuroplasticity of our brains to change those thought patterns.

It’s key to get right to the events that created those belief systems to begin with. I use a very unique hypnotherapeutic method called Clear the Fear. I’m one of only about 50 practitioners worldwide certified to utilize that modality, and that’s exactly what it does. It takes us directly to the exact event that created that belief system and fear so we can change the story behind the event and make that event from a negative experience into a positive experience.

Then we use reprogramming techniques to change our thought processes surrounding those events and beliefs. That is an incredibly transformational experience.

The last portion of it is being genuine. Like I mentioned earlier, so many of us get caught up in, “What is my purpose on this planet? What am I supposed to be doing here? I’ve lost my path.” We look for it out there and try to find our answer externally, when the truth is that it’s within us. Our purpose is simply to be our genuine and authentic self.

The tool I use to help guide us, or reunite us, with that true and authentic self is human design. Many people don’t know what human design is, and it’s absolutely fascinating. For me personally, it was a huge part of my transformation.

It’s becoming more and more popular in the corporate world as well because the corporate world is understanding the value that it brings. It helps us recognize ourselves as unique individuals. It helps identify our strengths, talents, how we’re meant to communicate with other people, how we’re meant to utilize our energy, replenish our energy, and protect our energy.

It is so incredibly fascinating, and I think it’s one of the key aspects we’re missing in veterinary medicine because we are such highly empathic individuals. We really tend to suppress ourselves and lose ourselves, so we need this guideline or roadmap to help guide us back to who we are at our core.

It helps us remember the things we loved in childhood and even bring us back to our why in veterinary medicine. Why did we make the decision to enter veterinary medicine? What was it that lit us on fire about veterinary medicine when we were kids? We can really tap into that authentic feeling and knowing that this is where we’re meant to be, that it is something we love to do, and embrace the authenticity behind those feelings we had when we were young.

It’s so important to recognize that our passions and joy are our purpose. I could go on and on about human design specifically. I’m also very passionate about ensuring that people have a good understanding of central nervous system regulation too. It all comes together so perfectly, and my clients have had massive transformation by combining these three pillars.

[42:07] – [42:36] Adeesha:
That’s great. I love the passion here. A question I wasn’t really clear on is: how does human design play into a veterinary office?

You mentioned that even corporate is taking an interest and understanding the unique individuality each person has. How does this help in day-to-day vet med?

[42:36] – [46:39] Joelle Flynn:
I love that question. When all of us are following our unique human design, I like to equate it to puzzle pieces. When we’re working within a team atmosphere and working together with others, sometimes we can have friction when there’s a level of understanding that isn’t there.

We are not meant to all think the same. We’re not meant to all have strengths in the same areas. We are meant to fit together like puzzle pieces.

Where I might be really good at communicating because I have a defined throat, I might really love educating clients, getting into the rooms, and being a mentor on the other side of the wall to other technicians or veterinarians. Perhaps I’m meant to be the teacher. Others may be better at all of the technical work and be a little more uncomfortable with communication.

As long as we understand everyone’s individual strengths, talents, and what lights them up, it brings joy to the workplace. It brings fulfillment, and it increases team cohesiveness. It becomes, “Okay, you love to communicate. Do you want to be the one who communicates and educates the client? You love technical work? Perhaps you’re the one who prefers to be in the lab running the testing. You love the tactile things with patients? You’re the one who loves more of the physical aspect.”

Understanding everyone’s individual strengths and what they really love to do, and then bringing those puzzle pieces together, creates that cohesive, joyful team that comes together to provide the best level of service to clients.

A team that works together and communicates well is also more productive and efficient. They have better client retention. Maybe they can even see more clients throughout the day because they are more efficient and joyful.

From a corporate perspective, or from the individual practice owner’s perspective, it significantly impacts the bottom line. You avoid the extra expenses of recruiting and having open positions available. Even protecting one veterinary technician or veterinarian from going on leave for burnout can create significant savings on a yearly basis. So it is very impactful to the bottom line as well.

[46:40] – [48:17] Adeesha:
That ties back into the ROI. When you find the right people for the right places, you allow them to have more of what they want to do. When they want to do it willingly, instead of being forced into it, they have more bandwidth to excel in their role.

At the end of the day, burnout stems from making other people happy at the expense of our own happiness. But if we are happy while making other people happy for a longer time, guess who is going to feel that ROI?

So that’s what I’m understanding from this wonderful framework. Did I understand that correctly, Joelle?

[47:51] – [47:56] Joelle Flynn:
Yes, one hundred percent. Absolutely.

[47:56] – [48:17] Adeesha:
Amazing. Many professionals carry limiting beliefs like, “I’m not good enough,” or “I have to do everything perfectly.” What is one first step someone can take to begin clearing those beliefs and reconnecting with confidence?

[48:19] – [51:54] Joelle Flynn:
Our limiting beliefs have an impact on every aspect of our life. It isn’t just our professional life that our limiting beliefs impact.

We also have what are called soul wounds, and every single human being on the planet has these. Every human being has limiting beliefs, every human being has fears, and every human being has these soul wounds. The soul wounds are where the limiting beliefs and fears initially take root.

It goes all the way back to the ages between zero and seven years old, when we’re stuck in the theta frequency in our brain and absorb suggestive thought processes that enter our brains.

Most of us see these things as negative, but they’re really not. We are meant to learn from them and move through them. When we have our nervous system regulated, which is that key foundational thing we have to start with, we are then able to choose the next highest thought without our bodies contradicting what our brains are trying to tell them.

We can actually start to believe something new and different because of the neuroplasticity we have in our brains. This modality I’m certified in, called Clear the Fear, is a hypnotherapeutic therapy, and it’s very similar to EMDR. Many people are becoming more familiar with EMDR, and this is quite similar.

We’re able to go back to the very specific event in our memory, address the event for what it is, and then work to change the story. In changing the story, it’s an instant shift in what we feel within our body. It’s also tied into that feeling of safety.

We change the event from something negative that causes us to go into survival mode when we experience a similar trigger, into something positive so that the trigger keeps us neutral moving forward. It’s fascinating when it comes to the neuroscience behind it.

The moment we can choose these higher thoughts and new belief systems, it changes the dynamics of everything in our thought processes moving forward.

[51:55] – [52:07] Adeesha:
Amazing. I’m curious if it’s possible for you to share a quick story or a real case. Of course, we don’t need the details.

[52:07] – [55:40] Joelle Flynn:
Of course. I had a client once who came to me experiencing repeat patterns. By repeat patterns, I mean we often go through life and say, “Oh my gosh, this again? Why does this keep happening?”

Those things keep happening because we haven’t taken the learning from the thing yet. We have to take moments of introspection and start to really question ourselves about what needs to be learned from these repeating events so we can elevate beyond them.

She came to me saying she was experiencing this repeat issue and wanted help identifying why it was happening. Throughout the process, without going into details, I was able to get her back to an event when she was approximately four years old. She had witnessed her father having an argument with her mother about a money situation. They were fighting about spending and scarcity.

She immediately adopted the belief that money was bad, that money causes arguments, and that money causes disruption in relationships. The repeat pattern she was seeing in her life was exactly that. Her relationships with her spouse were constantly in turmoil surrounding money because of that particular belief system.

When it comes to veterinary medicine, one of the experiences I had being on the receiving side of this modality brought me back to being very young. The issue I was having was that because I was adopted from birth, I had this rejection issue and these fears of judgment that kept rearing their head. When we have fears of judgment and rejection, one of the things we’re instinctively going to do is not show our natural self.

That experience was incredibly transformational for me too. It was one of the things that helped me realize I had fallen very deeply into those people-pleasing and perfectionism tendencies.

[55:41] – [57:08] Adeesha:
Wow. It’s belief systems. I really appreciate that example, and I appreciate you sharing your own experience there, Joelle.

This is deeper than what we usually think about. Usually it’s, “Burnout? Okay, take a vacation. Take a few days off. Rest.” You rest, but then you come back and you’re burned out yet again, perhaps even worse. There’s an exodus out of the veterinary industry happening because of this reason as well.

I really appreciate you taking the time and breaking it down to the most granular level we could get to, and where it stems from. I hope our listeners are able to take away something from this conversation.

Speaking of which, if they could only take away one thing, what would it be to wrap things up?

[57:09] – [59:17] Joelle Flynn:
If you can really tap into the benefits of breathing the way our bodies are intended to breathe, that can be absolutely life-transformational.

The best way to start creating a new habit is, number one, to choose something that’s going to fit into your lifestyle easily and effortlessly. Something quick and easy to do anytime, anywhere. From my perspective, that would be a breathing exercise.

There’s a fantastic exercise that I teach many of my clients, if not all of them, and that is box breathing. You want to take that nice, big, deep belly breath in. Sit up nice and tall. Take the breath in for four seconds, then hold it for four seconds. Exhale through the mouth for four seconds. Hold at the end of the exhale for four seconds again. Inhale for four seconds through the nose. Hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, and keep repeating that cycle at least three times.

If you start to do that right before bed, or first thing in the morning before you get out of bed, or both ideally, you’re going to start instinctively training your body to do that when you’re starting to feel anxious. You might notice your breath rate goes up, your heart rate goes up, your shoulders come to your ears, and your solar plexus clenches. Then you’re instinctively going to tell yourself subconsciously, “Just breathe, and all will be well.”

[59:19] – [1:00:29] Adeesha:
And we’ll end it at that. Joelle, thank you so much for joining us.

What a wonderful conversation it has been. What I really appreciate about this conversation is that it went deeper than “take a break” or “set better boundaries,” because for so many people in veterinary medicine, the real issue is not that they don’t care enough. It’s that they have cared so much, for so long, while slowly pushing themselves further and further aside.

For everyone listening in, if you want to continue the conversation with Joelle, we’ve attached her socials in the show notes so that you can connect with her and learn more about her work at Joyful Journeys with Jo.

And a quick reminder: you can book the complimentary marketing strategy meeting through veterinarybusinessinstitute.com/msm if growth is on your radar for 2026 and beyond.

With that being said, I’m Adeesha. This has been the Veterinary Business Podcast. Until next time, take care.