Today, Sara talks with Dr Maureen Michele, physician, life coach, and author of the book Reclaiming Life: A Guide For Parents of Chronically Ill Children. We dive deep into the essential aspects of advocacy and emotional resilience, particularly in the context of parenting chronically ill children. We discussed the "4 C's" - consciousness, curiosity, commitment, and courage - and how these principles give us as caregivers and our children the tools we need to manage our thoughts and emotions. Plus, Dr. Maureen shares helpful advice for effectively disagreeing and handling emotions during doctors or IEP appointments focusing on the need for curiosity, fascination, and grace in approaching disagreements.
Key Moments:
[4:38] Noticing our own thoughts
[13:48] Wins and losses provide valuable growth
[17:16] Approach meetings with curiosity and a list.
[31:36] Caregivers have real feelings in front of our children, modeling vulnerability
Resources:
Website: https://maureenmichelemd.com
Instagram: @maureenmichelemd
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maureenmichelemd
Book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BNKXF3VQ
If you enjoyed the show:
Today, Sara talks with Dr Maureen Michele, physician, life coach, and author of the book Reclaiming Life: A Guide For Parents of Chronically Ill Children. We dive deep into the essential aspects of advocacy and emotional resilience, particularly in the context of parenting chronically ill children. We discussed the "4 C's" - consciousness, curiosity, commitment, and courage - and how these principles give us as caregivers and our children the tools we need to manage our thoughts and emotions. Plus, Dr. Maureen shares helpful advice for effectively disagreeing and handling emotions during doctors or IEP appointments focusing on the need for curiosity, fascination, and grace in approaching disagreements.
Key Moments:
[4:38] Noticing our own thoughts
[13:48] Wins and losses provide valuable growth
[17:16] Approach meetings with curiosity and a list.
[31:36] Caregivers have real feelings in front of our children, modeling vulnerability
Resources:
Website: https://maureenmichelemd.com
Instagram: @maureenmichelemd
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maureenmichelemd
Book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BNKXF3VQ
If you enjoyed the show:
Ep. 168: Reclaiming Life as a Caregiver: An Interview with Dr. Maureen Michele
Dr. Maureen (00:00.11)
Is it because you ate something? Is it because you didn't dose your insulin correctly? Is it because you're stressed? And she looked at me and said, I don't want to think about diabetes anymore. Like I want to be a teenager.
Sara Clime
Welcome to Take Heart, a podcast about creating space for connection, hope and joy as a mom to a child with disabilities. We want you to feel connected and encouraged as we navigate this messy, emotional, joy -filled life together.
Hi, I'm Sara Clime and you're listening to episode 168. I have with me today, Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson. Hi Maureen, thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Maureen
Thank you for having me. I appreciate you allowing me to share my stories and tips with your audience.
Sara Clime
Thank you. Well, I am so excited and I'm gonna tell our listeners a little bit about you. Maureen is an award -winning physician, life coach, author and mother. As a general pediatrician and allergist slash immunologist, she has spent her career caring for patients with a variety of acute and chronic health problems. She is an accomplished life coach who helps parents of chronically ill children regain control of their lives and thrive at fulfillment. Maureen is the mother of three amazing children and has firsthand experience with being a parent of a child with long -term health issues. Maureen's book, Reclaiming Life, a Guide for Parents of Chronically Ill Children, plunges into the minds of parents who become consumed with worry and fear when their children face medical challenges. Maureen Michele shows parents how to create the life of their dream despite their child's challenges. She uncovers the ultimate secrets for overwhelmed parents to thrive in life with a purpose. I love that. So Maureen, thank you again. Welcome to the show. And if you would allow me, I would like to read a pass, just a short passage from your book.
Dr. Maureen
Yeah. Absolutely.
Sara Clime
All right, you all, this is from the forward. I got exactly a page and a half in before I was teary-eyed and I was highlighting and I thought, well, this is going to be a book that I'm going to need several highlighters for. So we here at Take Heart, we talk about emotions and how to navigate them. And this I think is just such a beautiful passage. So it says,
Sara Clime (02:22.158)
“The club of parents with chronically ill children,was not a club I asked to join. It was a club that was forced upon me. It is not a popular club and it doesn't have a wait list, but it does have an initiation fee, which requires payment in the form of tiers. I paid the fee and now I'm a lifelong member of the club. I have paid the annual dues of tiers over and over again. Through the years, I learned that I can survive in this club while also being able to thrive. It no longer defines me, but instead it has made me into the strong, compassionate person I am today. I hope that you too can learn to thrive by incorporating the lessons of my journey.”
So I wanted to start with that. See, and I'm already getting emotional because I think so often we can just focus on the hard and it's so easy to focus on the hard because it's so encompassing, but thank you for letting me read that. And so for our listeners, if you can already relate and get teary-eyed two pages into the book, this is definitely something that you want on your shelves.
We're going to have links to everything in the show notes. So as we talk, if you hear anything, we'll have notes to the book, we'll have notes to all of her, where you can find her. I just, when I read it, I felt seen and I feel someone gets me as a caregiver and a mom where most of my life, most people in my life, they just can't understand. They try, they can sympathize, but they just don't get those nuances of how that club feels. And all of us were like, we didn't want to be in this club. So I just, I love that.
And I appreciated that each chapter, you guys, they have actionable steps, ways to categorize, simplify your emotions or tasks or acronyms to help you process your thoughts and feelings. It really is just such a good, it was emotional, but then I was like, ooh.
I can work through something and it helped me get everything on paper. So thank you. Now with all of that out of the way, so I'm going to actually let you talk. I'd love to just dive in.
So early in your book, you use the phrase, the foundation of resilience. And you were talking about that. I believe it was consciousness or awareness of thought. So, so consciousness is one is it's one of what you call the four C's.
Sara Clime (04:43.95)
Can you talk more about that and how it relates to us?
Dr. Maureen
Yeah, absolutely. And so I appreciate everything you just said. And I'm sitting here thinking like, who in the world is she talking about with all of these wonderful things? But you know, it is true. Like in my career that I have met lots of people who have kids with medical issues and they don't feel seen. Being a mom of a kid with health challenges that I too didn't feel seen, which is part of the reason why I do the work that I do. And through the years have really learned about resiliency and how important it is for us as parents to really understand it and work to build resiliency for ourselves because the act of doing that teaches our kids how to be resilient. So the foundation of resiliency that you're talking about with the four C's, the very first C is consciousness. And you are correct. It's an awareness of thoughts. So in our lives, thoughts that our brain gives us drive emotions and our emotions drive our action. Now, sometimes our action is inaction, but the emotions are driving what we do. And then our actions are giving us the result in our lives. And that happens for everything. Whether it be a health challenge with our kid or a career situation or a financial difficulty, everything starts at our thoughts. And so if we can really be aware of what our brain is telling us, that is the very first step to building resiliency.
Sara Clime (07:05.838)
I think it empowers us too, because I think so often we think, especially at the very beginning of the journey, I thought, I'm not prepared for this. I have no idea how to do this. And those thoughts are what sets the stage for feeling completely overwhelmed and ill equipped. But what your book, you were talking about the consciousness was it is, it's a process and it is something that we have to work at. And I think what I really appreciated was you being a pediatrician that was not, and you said, how did you put that in your book? It was not your magic card. You thought being a pediatrician was going to give you a magic card and you're like, wait a minute, wait, I'm a pediatrician. I know what to look, I know all of this. How is it? But I think you letting us know that the consciousness and the awareness, that's the foundation, not that you have a nursing degree or that you know how to handle insurance, none of that. All of that will come. But you have to start with your own awareness. And I love that part of it.
Dr. Maureen
And you know, people think that, that when I talk about this consciousness that I'm an expert at it, and that I can do it in in a split second. And I am better at being aware of what my brain is offering as a thought now than I was years ago before I started this work. But I'm still working to get better at it each day. And the reason I say this is because it is a practice. You're not going to go from never really being aware of thoughts that go on and your brain to magically like being aware of everything that crosses your mind, that it's really taking that first step in learning how to do it and practicing it because that is the very first step in the foundational rock of where resiliency builds upon.
Dr. Maureen (09:21.838)
The second C is curiosity. And so this is kind of the next level of what to do with your thoughts once you become aware of it. It's getting curious as to if you should believe that those thoughts or where did that thought come from. Is it helpful? Is it serving me? Just, you know, your example of, I don't know how to do this. That thought does not help you as you pointed out. Like that thought makes someone super overwhelmed. And so why should we spend our time believing a thought that doesn't help us, but really getting curious and from that thought of that, I don't know how to do this. Why do I think I don't know how to do this? Is there something that I can believe instead to be able to reframe it so that thought is really helping me and providing me with the emotions that are, again, driving the actions that are getting me better results in my life.
The third and fourth C, I kind of put together and it's commitment and courage. And I put them together because I think they both kind of go hand in hand that to make a change in what you are thinking, you really need courage to take that step and be committed to the process of practicing it so that you get better at it. So by doing that, then you're eventually making change, but change doesn't come quickly, like I said before. So that commitment to really being better, leading a better life or really thriving in the life that you were given, is important in resiliency.
Sara Clime (11:47.502)
You know, and I think courage is what resonated with me the most. And I like how you put commitment and courage together because you have to be committed to be courageous. And I encourage it resonated with me the most, but it's not because I have it in abundance. That's not it at all. It's not like I am really courageous person, but it's because you put it so well when you talked about courage being an intentional choice and it's a practice. You have to do it. And when you practice, you will fail occasionally. You will succeed occasionally. Some days are just kind of, it is what it is. But you, I, there was a quote in your book that said, “The courage to advocate is intentionally deciding not to be held back.” and I love that because I think so many times advocacy, it's not about winning. It's just about making an intentional choice to do what you feel is correct, no matter the outcome, but advocating.
I also appreciated how you told stories about how you advocated for your child. You had a story about how you advocated, no one listened, or you didn't feel that anybody listened, and that she had to go back in for a surgery even though you had asked them to put that line in. That was a great story. You also used one about how you didn't advocate for your child. When you realized in retrospect, I should have done that. Not, I hate the should word. I hate that. But, and I think all of us caregivers can relate to the spectrum of advocacy outcomes, the good, the bad, the indifferent. You know, again, I hate the word should, but we should have done that. We could have done it better. And that goes back to your consciousness or your awareness of thoughts. And so advocacy is something that takes courage and intentionality and it takes practice. So what are some tips you can share with us to help, like you said, build that courage, build your courage specifically for advocacy, but anything else you want to share?
Dr. Maureen
The very first thing that I want to say is that, and you just mentioned this, that sometimes it's going to go good, sometimes it's not going to go good. Well, all of that is OK. That the wins are just as important as the failures.
Dr. Maureen (14:12.334)
You know, we, when we say failure, we think of it like it's an F word. And so it needs to be out of our vocabulary. But really failure is just another piece of data to tell us how to do things well and the same next time, or to do it a little bit differently and to change our course to get to where we want to be. So wins and losses, it doesn't matter. It's the act of doing something that is really giving us information on how to grow and be better. And that, again, goes with anything. It goes with advocacy. It goes with doing something for a career. It goes with recording a podcast that you just take that step and do it. And whether it's a win or a failure is okay. It's just information. So it shouldn't be a word that is out of our vocabulary.
So the other big thing that I often teach about with advocacy is when you advocate for your child, you have to go into an appointment or a meeting with understanding everybody in that room is human. And that means that nobody is better than anybody else in that room. Because we get into trouble when we think that somebody we're advocating to, be it a medical professional or a school official, if we think they are up on a pedestal, we go in thinking that they are better than us and we shrink. We don't want to speak up for our kid. We don't want to ask a question.
Dr. Maureen (16:39.502)
We don't want to get clarity because we think we're less than, but going into it with understanding that our thoughts about everyone in that room is super important and that we're all on an even playing field. Another kind of pre -work that needs to be done with advocacy is understanding that advocacy isn't a bad word either. That when people hear the word advocate, they think I need to argue for my child.
Sara Clime
Confrontation.
Dr. Maureen
Confrontation. Like it doesn't need to be a confrontation. When we think that it's going to be, we go into it with armor, ready for battle. And that's not a good way of really listening and actively listening and learning during those appointments and meetings. Going into it thinking it's a conversation is a much better way to reframe the thought about advocacy because it lets down our armor and allows us to bring in that curiosity piece again into the room where we can listen to what the other person is saying, ask questions, and stay very curious about what is being said, because I firmly believe that no one is 100 % wrong. And if you have that belief, you will listen with a different perspective and you will listen to try to find that percentage of right things that the person is telling you. And it refocuses your brain to where you're a better listener during those conversations.
Dr. Maureen (19:04.622)
The final thing is I always tell folks, go into an appointment or meeting with a list. The list becomes a great tool for being able to be objective during those moments when you don't feel courageous. You can just look at a sheet of paper and go back to your next question or topic that you wanted to discuss. It also is a great tool to make sure that you don't leave without all of your questions answered because we all have been there and know that our mind is in a thousand different places. So staying organized about it is really important for having the outcomes that we want.
Sara Clime
I love that. I love lists. My lists have lists, so it's okay. But I think that that is such a good important thing too, because when you don't have that list, it's very easy to get flustered if something doesn't go your way. And if it's on the first topic that you wanted to discuss, the other five that were on the list can go by the wayside and it goes downhill really quickly. And I like with advocacy, as you were talking, it's almost like every time I go into an appointment, I can see myself going through your four C's now. So it's because I always go in thinking, okay, assume best intentions. I do that whether it's a doctor's office, it's an IEP meeting, whatever it is, assume best intentions. And then I've always been like, okay, hear them out and ask them questions. And that's the curiosity part. So if you're, you go into an IEP meeting or you go into a doctor's appointment and they don't say what you thought you wanted to hear, ask questions, a good physician, a good nurse, a good teacher, a good facilitator, they're going to say, “Here's why I think that,” and they will explain more to you. And that's where you, like you said, the conversation opens up. And that's what advocacy is. I loved when you said that because whenever I first received my son's diagnosis, I heard so many times, you're going to have to fight for everything. I remember hearing that phrase and I thought, I don't shy away from confrontation. I don't like them, but I've never shied away from them.
Sara Clime (21:23.726)
But I don't want to be confrontational for the rest of my life. And if you go in, like you said, just with that open posture, I think is what it's just like, okay. And I always ask myself too, if somebody, if I start to get frustrated, I'm like, okay, to what end? Why are you frustrated? But that also goes back to that consciousness of thought. And for those of us who aren't doctors, we're not educators, the first time somebody said, do you have an IEP? I'm like, what's an IEP? I don't even know. And for those who are thinking that right now, if you're at the beginning, it's an individualized education plan. But you know, there's so many acronyms when you're in this journey, everybody's throwing acronyms at you left and right. You're like, slow down, just explain. And that's the curiosity part. And if you have a good educator, if you have a good team, if you have a good doctor, they're going to welcome you walking…I have a notebook, I have a three ring binder that I bring in with me and I'm like, okay. And I have my little checklist and I'm like, can you repeat that? I want to write that down verbatim. And the ones that I really, I know I feel comfortable with will allow that. So thank you.
Dr. Maureen
Yeah. And this conversation about, you know, advocacy and being in an office and getting flustered and not remembering, it all goes back to what we were saying at the beginning that thoughts, lead to emotions that lead to actions that lead to results. And if our thought is like, we're going in fighting, then our emotions are such that they create these defensive actions, which then leads our results to potentially some outcome that we didn't really want in the first place. So it just illustrates that kind of flow and how important it is to do the work with managing our mind and getting organized about thoughts that we have. Our brain is there to protect us and help us.
Dr. Maureen (23:48.846)
But its role in protection sometimes hurts us because it wants us to be prepared if we need to be in battle with somebody. So of course, it's going to give us this thought that I need to be on the defensive, the defense for this meeting. And that protection thought, doesn't help us at all, but we're smarter than that and can really practice on being able to manage and accept the thoughts that serve us rather than these thoughts that our brain is giving us that we don't really need to believe because they're not protecting us. They're actually keeping us stuck.
Sara Clime
Yeah. And one thing I really appreciated about your book is that you have every chapter is something about how you can help navigate everything on your own, your thoughts, your goals. I remember you had three steps to making any goal happen. And I thought this book is there's a lot of practicality, but I think it's going to you'll feel justified. You'll feel seen. You'll feel heard that, okay, I'm not the only one that feels this way. I'm 12 years into this journey and I think before we joined the call, I told you, I ordered two more because I have two friends, one who has just received a diagnosis just like last week. And then I have one that is about as far into it as me. So that's, I think when you, when you're talking about starting with the consciousness of your thoughts, that's the foundation of real resiliency. Those are all things that we can do no matter our background, no matter our education, no matter the diagnosis; those are doable. And it's a constant practice, but you will see yourself getting better at it.
Dr. Maureen
Yeah, it's funny that you say that about the book and about how there's tips in this. When I wrote the book, one of my very close friends does not have children and is not married, but knew that he was going to have to read this book because his good friend was the author of this.
Dr. Maureen (26:08.494)
So he kind of dragged his feet on reading it. And after he read it, he calls me up and he's like, Maureen, I have to apologize to you that I didn't think any of this was going to apply to me because not only do I not have chronically ill kids, I don't have kids. So I did not think that anything in your book was really going to apply to my life. He's like, your book has tips in there that I can make applicable to my own life because it's so universal across any challenges that we face in our lives.
Sara Clime
Yes, absolutely. And you know, the tagline of your book, again, it's Reclaiming Life: A Guide for Parents of Chronically Ill Children. It struck me. So when we first were looking at the book, I jumped at it because my co -host Amy, her children have behavioral issues. So that's the disability that they have. Carrie has a child with spina bifida that was diagnosed in utero. And so I really was like, I want this book. I want to read it. I want to interview for it.
And there was a part of me that's like, well, this isn't going to, this might not be applicable to everybody. Let me read the book. And we have listeners that are grandparents. We have quite a few grandparents on here. We have educators, we have ministry leaders, we have neighbors. This is something that you can read and not only apply to yourself, but maybe help those that are on this journey, no matter where they are.
Going back to advocacy, you also mentioned that advocacy requires the courage to disagree and negotiate as needed. We talked about that a little bit, but how do you effectively disagree?
Dr. Maureen
You know, the biggest thing to effectively disagree is to be curious. And we have talked about that a couple of times now, but it is, you know, people think that, when I disagree, if I say it louder, they're going to listen.
Dr. Maureen (28:21.71)
But it goes back to get curious about what they're saying and keep asking questions to get a very good understanding of what the individual is saying. And then you can very politely say, I understand what you are saying. I get it. That's not quite exactly my point of view. And so doing it with a little bit more grace on top of curiosity is helpful to get to the outcome that we want.
Sara Clime
Absolutely. And you have three steps in your book. It is three rules to effectively disagree. And your first one said, be fascinated or try, be fascinated. Yeah. And, first, when I read that, I'm like, fascinated about disagreeing?!, because that's the last thing I would think. But it is so true. If you go, it's that curiosity, be fascinated with what they're talking about. And that is also the consciousness, the awareness of your thoughts. If you go in being like, I am going to have to fight for every single thing. And there are times, yes, there are times when you will have to fight for something. Because like you said, everybody in that room is human. Everybody in that room could be having a bad, somebody could be having a bad day, somebody could not want to be a teacher. There's just those things. But I have noticed going from, my son was diagnosed in first grade and he just graduated from high school this last year. I only had one major issue where I thought we were going to go to the mat and that was a good thing that it was over the phone. But one out of what, 11 years, that's not a bad record.
Dr. Maureen
So yeah, it goes back to what I was saying about like, everyone in that room is human, which means they all have human brains, whether that be in the doctor's office or in the school office. And so just like what we've been talking about for ourselves with thoughts leading to emotions, leading to actions, leading to results, they have their own flow of that going on in their brain. So you are absolutely correct that, teachers, doctors, therapists can have good days and bad days.
Dr. Maureen (30:48.75)
You have no idea what thoughts are going on in their head in the moment.
Sara Clime
Yes, absolutely. And that doesn't mean that if somebody is out of line that you don't do that. But the three rules to effectively disagree, I just love this. And so I'm camping here for a bit, if you don't mind.
Dr. Maureen
Go for it.
Sara Clime
The one was be fascinated. Two, stay engaged. Because in that one, I that one struck me because I thought there are so many times where I'm like, Nope, want to stick my head in the sand. I'm done. They're not saying anything that what I want to I think they're rude. And then I'm like, “Wait a minute,” but staying engaged and realizing why am I here? There's there's a point it's not to fight with this person. And then the third was be aware of how you feel. And I think too often we feel as caregivers, as advocates for our children or those we care for, or even our grandchildren, because there's a lot of grandparents that do some of these visits to help with respite care. You are allowed to feel uncomfortable. You are allowed to feel a little overwhelmed. You're allowed to even feel fearful or angry, but just to be aware of how you feel. And I love that you said, but don't, and I don't think it was here, but it was not to camp there, not to camp out. I'm putting words in your mouth.
Dr. Maureen
Yeah, not to stay stuck in in the emotion because, you know, emotions really are a signal to us that it is kind of like the idea of putting your hand on a stove on a hot stove, right? That you feel pain and that pain is there. So you pull your hand away.
What you don't want to do is keep your hand on the stove and continue to feel pain. That you want pain to be your kind of signal that you need to take action to remove your hand from the stove. Emotions do the same thing sometimes. Is paying attention to how we feel in a moment can be a signal of kind of a way to reframe our thought so that we end up taking the actions that we want in the visit.
Sara Clime (33:12.974)
Okay, absolutely. I love that analogy about the hot stove. You don't want to keep going and putting your hand back there either. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, there was, I think it also takes some vulnerability to sit in that space of being uncomfortable and to say, okay, these are the pains, this is the feeling, these are the feelings that I'm having, what's it telling me and to move past that. But you were also very vulnerable in this book, which I appreciated. But you also talked about being vulnerable with your child. And I think being vulnerable, again, in the doctor's office or in an IEP meeting, I can't begin to tell you how many educators saw me cry. It just, and it I'm not a crier, I don't think, or at least I wasn't, but I would just get so overwhelmed and then I would be like, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” Most people are like, “No, you care, it's okay.” But it's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to just feel what you're feeling. And I'd love for you to talk more about, just to talk about the importance of being vulnerable in front of your child as well.
Dr. Maureen
Yeah. So, you know, when we were talking about how being resilient and building resiliency is really modeling for your child. So I am someone who really believes that when you're advocating for your kid, that don't be afraid to have them be present during that meeting or appointment because eventually they're gonna have to advocate for themselves if developmentally they're able to. And they can learn a lot from our successes and learn a lot from our failures. But the biggest thing that I would say is being vulnerable with your feelings with your child is important.
Dr. Maureen (35:32.334)
And the reason it's important is one of the things as parents that we need to teach our kids is emotions are okay. And we need to teach them how to manage emotions and not repress them and push them down to where they're not processing emotions. So, as a kind of example, my daughter has type 1 diabetes and there were times during her diabetes journey that I have been stressed and overwhelmed with what's going on with her blood sugar. And I have been vulnerable with her and had discussions about it not to create fear or stress in her, which is one of the reasons why we as parents sometimes don't act in a vulnerable way with our kids. But I had the discussions with her because she too was feeling similar emotions. And if I don't normalize them as a parent, she's going to think that her emotions are abnormal and won't understand how to process them, which then gets her into trouble down the line.
Sara Clime
And yeah, and then she won't be able to develop that consciousness or awareness of her own thoughts. Right. Is that?
Dr. Maureen
Yeah.
Sara Clime
And you know, we've also extensively talked about how to navigate feelings of being overwhelmed. So you're talking, and I'm sure you had said your daughter had felt overwhelmed at times. I believe there was even one time you had said, I think it was in the guilt you were about guilt over not recognizing that kids shouldn't be, I think you said, expected to be good diabetics. And I think so often, my son's almost 20. There are times where I'm like, you see how many times I do therapy or stretch you or your medications and how important that is. Why aren't you feeling like this is important? And you had said that your daughter just wanted to have teen thoughts, that she thinks about it all the time.
Sara Clime (37:56.782)
And when you said your daughter's like, I think about diabetes all the time, every snack, every, and I'm again, paraphrasing, but that really hit me where it's like, they think about this a lot more than what we think that they do. And we're not sheltering them. We're sheltering them. We're not helping them. And they will eventually, like you said, if they're able, be able to take care of their own care. And I love the fact that, being vulnerable and just being human around your child will help get them there.
Dr. Maureen
That story of what you're referring to when my daughter said, when I was telling her like, “Hey, you need to like think more about why is your blood sugar high? Like, is it because you ate something? Is it because you didn't dose your insulin correctly? Is it because you're stressed?” And she looked at me and said, “I don't want to think about diabetes anymore. Like I want to be a teenager.” And it was in that moment, I really realized that I needed to be able to give her space to discuss her feelings and be able to express without any judgment on how she was feeling about her having diabetes because it can at times be scary and stressful and overwhelming. And just giving her the opportunity to express that is so valuable and will help them, our kids in the future, by allowing them the space to be able to verbalize and process their emotions.
Sara Clime
And I remember when you were talking about that, you had said you were very cognizant of how you were talking to her, too. In your story, you were like, okay, I don't want to come down harder than her. I'm going to cheer. I'm going to be your cheerleader. And you were very positive. And, you know, I just said, I, you know, my son's like, why don't you see, I never say those things to him, but that's what in my mind, but I will be like, “Oh, you know what? Good job this morning on doing your meds, blah, blah, blah.” And then I will lead into something. But to just be aware that I often, now that my son's 20, I realize now this is his diagnosis.
Dr. Maureen (40:16.718)
Yeah.
Sara Clime
And I'm there to help care for him. And I'm not there to take it from him. I can't, I would, if I could, I think most parents use that's just something that's settled. I would take it from him if I could. but we can't. So we have to care for them. And sometimes that is letting them set and that those emotions and those uncomfortableness and that their own vulnerability.
Dr. Maureen
Yeah. Absolutely, because they too have human brains. So they're expected to have thoughts that are generating emotions that are uncomfortable to them. But it's our job as parent teachers to be able to teach them how their emotions can interfere with their actions sometimes. And if they truly want to, you know, live a great life despite their medical condition, that being able to understand how their thoughts and emotions are playing into their actions of being able to take care of themselves is so important and valuable.
Sara Clime
Yeah, we have to help them build their own foundation of resiliency because they're going to need it.
Dr. Maureen
Yeah.
Sara Clime
Well, I could, I could probably sit here and talk to you for hours, but we are, we're getting short on time, but I just wanted to thank you so much again for being here and how can our listeners find you?
Dr. Maureen
Yeah, absolutely. It's been awesome to be here. Great conversation.
listeners can find me on my website, which is www.MaureenMicheleMD.com. Michelle is spelled with one L.
Sara Clime
Again, thank you so much for being here. I think that before we even started, I thanked you for your book. And I truly mean that it's been a blessing for me to read it. It's going to be something that stays on my shelf. And like I said, I'm giving it to other people.
So my question to you guys right now is how are you going to reclaim your life today?
Sara Clime (42:35.63)
What is one thing that you can do in the near future to help build that foundation of resiliency. What is one C that you can start with? And is it consciousness? Is it curiosity? Is it commitment? Is it courage? Or is it all of them? I believe that we need all of them, but there's just one step that you can do. And if you ever have any questions, I know that Maureen would love your questions.
And of course you can always find us on Instagram and Facebook @takeheartspecialmoms. You can email or leave us a comment or on our website at www.takeheartspecialmoms.com. Thank you again for being here and we will talk to you in a couple of weeks.