The Worthy Physician Podcast
Reigniting your humanity and passion for medicine.
The Worthy Physician Podcast
Embracing Authenticity and Rejecting Societal Expectations: A Journey to Self-Worth with Jillian Rigert
Have you ever felt the weight of societal expectations pressing down on you, urging you to chase a version of success that never truly resonates with your core? This is a reality many of us grapple with, including our guest Jillian Rigert, who sheds light on her transformative journey of breaking free from the constraints of titles and the arrival fallacy. As your guide, Dr. Sapna Shah-Haque, I too share my personal evolution from dental student to someone deeply immersed in existential questions and spiritual wellness. Together, we dissect the nuances of self-confidence, the art of setting boundaries, and the profound moments that compel us to live in alignment with our true selves.
The path to authentic living often requires us to reconnect with what matters most. In the high-stakes world of medicine, where personal neglect can be a troubling norm, we examine the stark reality of ignoring our basic human needs for the sake of career demands. This episode is an impassioned call to my fellow medical professionals, and anyone feeling the crunch of their profession, to honor our bodies, minds, and spirits. You'll hear candid discussions on the necessity of checking in with our happiness, reevaluating life choices, and the daring act of reshaping our work environments to nurture our well-being.
In the spirit of authenticity, we also brave the complex terrain of eating disorder recovery and the cultivation of self-worth. By sharing my collegiate running experience and the lessons learned from facing an eating disorder, we shine a light on the power of community support and the reclaiming of personal agency. The episode culminates with an exploration of self-worth, self-compassion, and the societal forces that mold our perceptions of success. We address the double standards women face in professional settings and the courage it takes to stand firm in our power. So, join us as we embrace the strength that comes from vulnerability and the quest for a life that truly reflects who we are.
Connect with Jillian:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillian-rigert
Watch our video cast together!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVylZOaEaiY
Though I am a physician, this is not medical advice. This is only a tool that physicians can use to get ideas on how to deal with burnout and/or know they are not alone. If you are in need of medical assistance talk to your physician.
Learn more about female physicians' journey through burnout to thriving!
https://www.theworthyphysician.com/books
Let's connect for speaking opportunities!
https://www.theworthyphysician.com/dr-shahhaque-md-as-a-speaker
Check out the free resources from The Worthy Physician:
https://www.theworthyphysician.com/freebie-downloads
Battle of the Boxes
21 Day Self Focus Journal
core values. How are those developed, and is it wrong if they are different than what society wants us to believe? Welcome to another episode of the Worthy Physician. I'm your host, dr Sapna Shah Haque, reigniting your humanity and passion for medicine, and today I have Jillian Riggert. And Jillian, I've been really excited to talk to you. I know we've talked before and even before the recording. I think that you have a lot of powerful points and a very powerful story to share today, so thank you.
Jillian Rigert:Well, I am honored to be on your podcast and I'm thrilled that you also sat in the hot seat on my YouTube channel and shared your wisdom and insight in your glorious self with my world, and can't wait to share that as well.
Sapna Shah-Haque:Thank, you and the link will be in the show notes to that interview where we swapped positions. Yeah, it was awesome. It was. It was, and to me, what the awesome part is that we have two people coming together to have, I think, a conversation. This is another conversation that we're having that I don't think we talk enough about lot of us go.
Jillian Rigert:when you were saying core values, how often do people sit back and really assess where they got their goals and their mission, and especially a lot of the high achievers? We just check off all the boxes and keep going, put our head down and we briefly were talking about the arrival fallacy and we always think that something feels unfinished. So rather than take a step back and evaluate and say, am I living in alignment with my core values and what I actually find fulfilling in my life, we just put our heads down some more and think maybe it's I just have to obtain one more credential or one more tier in the income, real, or buy the big house or get married and have the kids and get the dog. And then at what point do we say I feel like I have enough.
Sapna Shah-Haque:I am enough. I think that's very powerful what you're saying. I have enough, but especially, I am enough, and I think that's one thing that society paints exactly what you said right Like. The epitome of success is having X amount of titles, this type of car, this type of house, this many square feet, this amount in savings and retirement, this number of kids, this number of pets and this number of this much of debt. But we forget that truly being yourself is enough yourself is enough, yeah.
Jillian Rigert:And when we have been chasing titles for so long and put our worth into those careers and I asked when we were talking about, how do we introduce ourselves? And I asked to be introduced by my name because I'm stripping myself of that attachment to titles that wants to find me, because at one point for people that don't know my story I fast-tracked my way to become an Air Force oral maxillofacial surgeon, thinking that when I reached that residency and that part of my career I would feel a sense of worthiness and strength that would deter people who would oppress me from messing with me. Thought I would be the ultimate badass, they would not touch me. But then in residency, I was thinking this doesn't feel like it's the right path for me, something I didn't know if it was self-doubt People are talking about the imposter syndrome, which is a questionable terminology but I had high levels of self-doubt. I brought the low self-esteem with me and then, during the long sleepless periods which I thought along, sleeplessness and showing that you didn't need sleep and that you're superhuman was part of that worthiness factor.
Jillian Rigert:But I became suicidal. No matter how hard I tried to rethink and reframe and take a step back, it's like I could not function well at all and maintain rational thought process when I had long periods of sleep deprivation and I thought, oh, this is just me, I can't hack it, but how dare I consider quitting? Because if I quit, I wouldn't be able to handle these are my thoughts at the time I wouldn't be able to handle the guilt and shame of being a quitter, the ultimate failure and this is in my mid to late 20s. So for so long I had just put my self-esteem in all of my grades and that's where I gained that perception that if I were to quit, I'm better off no longer being alive, which is that was 2014, 17. We're here in 2024. I think so much differently back then than I did back then, but it's a newer permission for myself to think differently, because I held on to the belief that when I left surgery, I was a failure and worthless for five years after I left which was 2017, 2022, because I thought it was just me.
Jillian Rigert:Which is why these conversations that you have in your podcast, that I have on my YouTube channel, are essential, so that people can hear their story in someone else and be like yes, our brain is offering ourself an illusion, a fallacy which is ingrained in a lot of the core beliefs that we developed early on. That society provides to us. We can reclaim those narratives. We can lead fulfilling lives, and you shared on my channel we talked about this is that the life that we thought we needed to have in our 20s even in 30s, whenever we are doesn't have to be the life that we thought we needed to have in our 20s. Even in 30s, whenever we are, doesn't have to be the life that we claim at this stage. Like it may have served us in a season. It doesn't necessarily mean it has to serve us now, but we often force ourselves that once we commit to something, we have to stay that path.
Sapna Shah-Haque:Now I thank you for bringing that up, because that's so true, it's okay, and I think part of it is everything that we have to go through to get to through medicine or through residency. It's I have to stick to the path. I have to stick to the path. And one thing that we forget is the scenic route is okay.
Jillian Rigert:Absolutely. It's more than okay. And it's also there's the whole cost fallacy as well. And I got my dental degree in 2013.
Jillian Rigert:I never felt it was the right fit for me, but then again I couldn't differentiate if it was self-confidence or if it was just I needed more experience, so I kept at it. I'm really into helping people to ground themselves on that spiritual wellness, the psychological wellness. What's the meaning and purpose of life? Like existential questions. But when I was an undergrad that wasn't supported by my family and my father was supporting my undergrad college tuition but also learning through dentistry, I wouldn't have been too far off with the finances, compared to having my college choices determined by my want to please somebody who didn't want me to go into psychology or the mental health space because it didn't resonate with them. So it's fascinating when I think about the pivotal points in my life and when I decided to go against my intuition, what was the leading factor? It was usually to please somebody else and allowed someone else's opinion to overtake my own on a decision that impacted my life. The most impacted my life, the most that's.
Sapna Shah-Haque:I think that's more common than what we think, isn't it? Like psychologists, why would you want to do that? There's a dime, a dozen, but the truth is going back to answering that call to being truthful. The existential questions, those are my favorite questions, yeah, but I think it's because. Why are they? Why are you drawn to those questions? Let me ask you that.
Jillian Rigert:Since I was a kid, I was always trying to determine who am I, what is this all about? I remember looking I have a picture from when I was maybe six or so, maybe a little bit younger. I remember what house I lived in. I lived in there till I was six I was six or younger in this little dancing bear costume for Halloween looking in the mirror, and in that mirror I was exploring, looking into my eyes, assessing who are you, what is this, what is this life? And there was so much suffering and I developed a pretty severe eating disorder that almost claimed my life, and during that time it was very isolating. So I wrote a lot of poetry. I was very into spirituality and it's with the isolation that came with it. I spent a lot of time with introspection and saying this is so much suffering. In order to hold on to some sort of hope, it had to find a meaning in this human existence.
Sapna Shah-Haque:I'm sorry you went through that and I'm glad you're here. Thank you, it's interesting that even at a young age you were asking those questions, because typically it's not until an older age that we start asking those questions, maybe even middle age or at periods of transition, maybe at the decade mark 20s, 30s, 40s. How do you define your core values?
Jillian Rigert:I would definitely want people to know that your core values shift we talked about that in our discussion when you were the guest and the core values. Often I figure out what my core values are when I'm feeling frustrated or resentful to a situation that's not in alignment, like why is this causing you so much distress? I'm like, oh, because it's encroaching on a core value of mine. So when I was in oral surgery, some of the deciding factors that helped me to decide to transition were I was on so sleep deprived that my ex-boyfriend, who I was very much in love with, called me and I looked at the phone. It was like eight o'clock. I just taken a melatonin because I was so sleep dysregulated and I was like you know what? We're gonna talk a long time. I just can't right now. I'm gonna call him tomorrow and I put the phone down. I texted him first thing in the morning and a couple days later the text back I got was from his sister that he passed away unexpectedly and I had gone up to that point with suicidal ideation. But my life wasn't as valuable as his life was. So when he passed away and I had the pain of regret of not being there for him. And then I saw how I had been doing that over and over again to the people that I love. I was like, oh my gosh, like the purpose in my life is connect with the people that you love and human connection and shared community. And here I am in this surgical residency. I was feeling so isolated, but fortunately, like the medical side of it, when I was in medical school I really connected a lot of the medical students and I felt that sense of community.
Jillian Rigert:But I translated that moment to surgical life, like going from people say, oh, you're halfway through residency, you're almost at the end. I'm like, no, you're almost the beginning of your career, right, you're not almost the end. So it's like how does this look after I graduate? Is that in alignment with my core values?
Jillian Rigert:And what I realized is that image was ego driven and letting that go was hard. But at the core, if I could define what would be joy for me is living in like a small town, really having a good idea of who the people are, hiking through the forest, living a very simple life. And what I realized when I defined that for myself is that I was having this belief that I needed this external persona, the surgeon, to hide the sensitive parts of myself, because I thought my sensitivity was a weakness. Had I gone into psychology it would have been a strength, right, and then I would have had to develop emotional boundaries so that didn't become too much. But I'm like, the gift I was given is my capacity to observe human emotions, hold space for people. But I muted that and thought I needed to harden up and grow thicker skin based off of what I was hearing and the messages I was provided from societal values.
Sapna Shah-Haque:Yeah, that's what the messages in medical school and residency is that if you quit or if you fail, somebody is going to be here to fill your seat. It's almost like the movie the Expendables, right? Yes, everybody's expendable. We're still going to have a, we're still going to turn out doctors, we're still going to have our job, we're still going to have this ivory tower. Same with corporatization of medicine. To someone listening, maybe, who has come to a crossroads of this is what I signed up for, and having the biggest bank account isn't the the most important but I'm afraid to maybe say I don't want to do this, or I want to cut back, or I want to look at maybe not doing so much. What would you tell them? Because that's a that's, I know it's an external dialogue or internal dialogue. Sorry, an internal dialogue I've had. Yeah, at some point it was just like screw it, I need to do this for my own sanity yeah, a lot of us do hit a breaking point, which makes it easier.
Jillian Rigert:but before breaking point, if people can offer themselves permission when they're feeling well, that's actually optimal right. Because if we hit a breaking point, it's really hard to reestablish and have the energy to bounce into something else. Feeling like I'm not where I want to be, but having a fear of making a change, I would ask what's coming up for you? What meaning are you attaching to this consideration? So in surgery, for example, if I were to say doing applying to surgery, they say don't say you're interested in anything else, even if you are, because you have to show 100% commitment or you won't get in. So oftentimes people who are considering leaving surgery don't want to talk to another surgeon who is gung ho about surgery.
Jillian Rigert:I become a safe space because I love surgery, so I realize that it's like oh, people are having a hard time speaking their truth, people who you feel will listen and not project their own insecurities and cause you to or contribute to you not being able to hear yourself.
Jillian Rigert:So for people who have listened to a lot of people's opinions for so long, take a step back, sit on your own. I would highly encourage sitting if you have a friend that's there to listen and doesn't offer advice, that's fantastic. A therapist is fantastic. A coach should not be offering you advice. They should be helping you to really cultivate the answers within yourself. But a therapist can help you really trace back if you're having some trauma coming up or things that define you that need a little bit more support therapeutically. And for many of us in medicine and healthcare it's not only mental trauma but there's trauma stored in the body. So there's so many feelings that can come up that can make it overwhelming to consider a change. So for me personally, I've really invested in therapeutic modalities that both help with the mental side of things, but also the somatic, when you're feeling high overwhelm or just like you want to jump out of your skin, when you're considering making any sort of pivot or going to work wherever you are and whatever your experience is in this human body.
Sapna Shah-Haque:Thank you for that, and I think that states enough how a life coach or how helpful therapy is. It's this maybe life coaches are not as a red flag. I know that many states are moving toward not penalizing physicians for seeking help, particularly because a lot of these things that we that you've discussed are first-line treatment. Yeah, they're human conditions. They're human conditions yeah and we are not.
Sapna Shah-Haque:It's like the condition says oh, you're a physician, so I can't bother you. These are medical conditions. Yeah, no, I'll edit this out, but I've, I've, even I've done emdr. Yeah, it's, I'm doing right now. I love, I loved it yeah I know it sounds crazy, but I enjoyed it because I really got to the root of the problem I am, yeah, I am, I've just started EMDR and also was referred to equine therapy and I'm really into different modalities of therapeutic expression, expressive writing, things, that we have all this stigma when it comes to doing things outside of Western medicine or even EMDR, is it's standard.
Jillian Rigert:It's an evidence-based protocol, from what I know, but so I did Martha Beck's Wayfinder Life Coach training, and a lot of people will give this kind of disclaimer. I'm not Wu, quote unquote. I'm like you know what? We need a little bit more woo, because to me, woo equates to spirituality for different people. And what was missing for me? That I kept writing down, I kept coming to it. I found my journals from back in 2014, 17.
Sapna Shah-Haque:I've been following those posts on social media.
Jillian Rigert:Yeah, thank you. I kept writing. I think I'm having a spiritual crisis, but I would consistently end my journal entries as I'm not sure this therapy is what I need. I think I'm having a spiritual crisis and in that now I have terms for it, is the moral injury right that we face in medicine and I didn't know those terms at the time. I actually learned that term when I was the VA looking at a billboard for PTSD, going down the symptom checklist, and it described moral injury and like that they finally put a name like going against your core values and your moral beliefs. When you think you're going to be practicing medicine, it looks a lot different than the corporate medicine does and if you're not able to serve the human just like your podcast serves it rebrings the human into our discussions. You're not able to really cater to the human. We start to depersonalize both the patient and our cell.
Sapna Shah-Haque:That makes no sense, does it?
Jillian Rigert:No, because one of the biggest healer factors is going to be human connection.
Sapna Shah-Haque:So it's interesting. It's interesting how we don't bring the spirituality and I think it's different than faith-based or even religious-based but just the fact of there's this we're a spirit living a human experience, we're energy, and it's like we completely strip that away from the person in front of us who's a patient. We try to separate the mental from the physical. We try to say, okay, this is mental health, this is physical health.
Jillian Rigert:This is oral health Right, this is oral health. And you got to go to the optometrist for your glasses, right? This is a human. We don't have to. We're not there to tell the patient what to believe. We're there to ask with curiosity what is your support right now? What beliefs are helping you through this right now? And then you get a better idea and learn about the patient.
Jillian Rigert:And I think, because in our culture we don't talk up, we're not supposed to talk about religion, right, religion or politics, even though we do talk a lot about politics. But I'm wondering if that contributes to why we suppress those discussions and that curiosity. And then with mental health right, there's so many medical conditions that impact our mind, even like GI conditions impact my mind. We talked about eating disorder impacts it comes from the mind, impacts the body, but also we pathologize so much that I feel is a normal human reaction to the circumstances.
Jillian Rigert:On my channel, you said you are a human, not a robot, which I loved. It's a tagline I use for social media as well, because I think we're all treated like robots and we need to bring the humans back into the system. But let's consider our human basic needs that aren't being met during practicing medicine. Right, it's like you can't go pee on time, you can't eat, you're not sleeping, you're not connecting with people you love, you may not have time for the fitness that you desire, and are you really leaning into the spiritual beliefs that you find grounding and meaningful to you? We are able to convey this is important to the patients, but are we able to practice it, or are we charting in our pajamas? That's a very common theme that comes up when we think about our limited time outside of the clinic.
Sapna Shah-Haque:It's become like a silent expectation, hasn't it?
Jillian Rigert:That with unpaid labor, which is a whole discussion on its own.
Sapna Shah-Haque:Yeah, don't even get me started. It's yeah. No, that's for me, that'd be a breach of contract. And that would be a breach of contract Like I'm not getting paid. No, unfortunately that's not an uncommon narrative.
Jillian Rigert:Yeah, and we're taught to expect it. So when we were trying to establish our core values after years of playing by the rules as we talked to us in order to get to a place, that was very important to us. So it's what are we going to compromise in order to get to where we think we want to go? And a lot of stories I heard when people are pursuing medicine is I pursued medicine because the expectation in my family was I become a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer, and I never got the opportunity to really step back and see if I want to do this.
Jillian Rigert:So I think that's the first step really is do you want to do medicine? Is this where you want to be? And if not, what would it take for you to give yourself permission to consider? You don't even have to give a whole bunch of action just yet to consider where you would be happier and if you want to stay in medicine but you're feeling something's not going well, before you leave your job. Unless it's a really toxic situation, you don't have to leave your job. It can actually be more fulfilling if you take a step back and say what values aren't being met. Can I create a situation in this current job where I change that and that I can meet my values and create boundaries and unlearn some of the things I learned to get here, and if not, then what's the next step for me?
Sapna Shah-Haque:No, thank you for that, because this is not a field that anybody should do unless they absolutely love it. Hindsight, right, hindsight's 2020. I don't know if that's actually a thing, but it's a saying. They're not just societal expectations, but also cultural and family expectations that go into the decisions we make, how we we come across, how we talk to ourselves. Now you've met my two of my knuckleheads and I just hope that they don't think that there are those expectations for them. Hopefully, our generation has it a little bit better, a little bit more insight, than to not force that upon those that come after us.
Jillian Rigert:Yeah, we have the consequences of overvaluing a sense of perfectionism and of being a good girl. For me, good girl, rule follower, obedient, disciplined all those things I personally took too far. And I took too far where they were clearly detrimental to my overall health and mental health. Because perfectionism for me, I held that like a badge of honor. Perfectionism, overwork, sleep deprivation, sacrificing myself, being overly busy Like when I was holding two pagers and going days without sleep and was at the hospital, barely ever home it's like wow, I've really made it and I'm miserable. Why am I miserable?
Jillian Rigert:And then fast forward I, after I left oral surgery, I did another residency called oral medicine and then I was in my first attending job and it's okay. Now here's I finally made it right. Here's another arrival fallacy residency. I can't wait to get out. I'm going to go to be an attending and I can't wait to go back into fellowship because, hell, I hate this attending hood. It's a lot of responsibility and you have no oversight for many positions, depending on your environment.
Jillian Rigert:But what I realized at the time is OK. I felt if I just kept putting my head down, I would at least find myself closer to being content and proud of myself and I was getting further and further. It was more and more empty and more empty. And then COVID hit and I had sold everything I owned due to some instability in the job front and I felt so free and I reminded myself of how I felt in undergrad, which is the time I felt most in alignment with my true self, which was I went to a small undergrad.
Jillian Rigert:We were really into philosophy. It was a Lutheran college, so we took religion and we took gender studies and liberal arts classes and very well-rounded curriculum like depending on what you chose and I wore a t-shirt and like sweatpants every day. It was like very much in my comfort and I really leaned into a lot of spiritual beliefs from all different backgrounds at that time and I loved exploring those. I really gravitated towards the Buddhist and Eastern philosophies and I loved nature at that time and I just felt so light and I did a lot of poetry.
Jillian Rigert:I was in a poetry class. So light and I did a lot of poetry. I was in a poetry class and then after that I played by everyone else's rules and lost myself and it just felt so drastically different. I was just always nauseous in the gut, which is what I think, when you're living out of alignment, like your body knows, but we ignore it and we've been conditioned to dissociate from our bodies to do the jobs that we do. And so everyone, depending on where they're at and what they've done to get to where they're at, takes a lot of different steps to reintegrate your mind, your body, your spirit, to be able to really hear yourself and tune in to what your body's saying.
Sapna Shah-Haque:Now your undergrad experience sounds a lot like mine Little Liberage Catholic College in Wichita, kansas, newman University and why would I mention that? Is because it is a well-rounded curriculum, even though with undergrad, yeah, there was a sense of you can be who you are, because you can still get a good experience. It's what you make of it, yeah, but there's no, let's say, it's just a nice laid back vibe and you get to take all these different courses that allow you to look through different lenses. So does Jillian now resonate with Jillian from undergrad?
Jillian Rigert:Yes, yeah, in undergrad I really feel that experience keeps coming top of mind because I've been through so many healing modalities. I feel like I'm reintegrating with that part of myself. It was really fun, I should say. I went to a D3 college so we really prioritized our studies and our runs. He was so goofy that it just created this really lighthearted enjoyment of running.
Jillian Rigert:Thinking through highly disciplined eating disorder lens how much I would have just been trapped in that mindset and my the lessons I've heard from other D1 athletes is if you have an addictive, compulsive running issue, they're not going to really try to help you through that because it sometimes supports your achievement in running until you wear down and break down.
Jillian Rigert:Achievement in running until you wear down and break down right up to a point and then it doesn't. But my coach in undergrad was there's just created no expectation of. We had a very abundant lunch smorgasbord that he would bring. That was like a whole bunch of foods that wouldn't fit the whole food type of a spectrum, all these processed foods and whatever. It was what it was, and I just remember that was so much fun and he still runs this day with I think he has got two hip replacements and just thinking back to the experiences, I was trying to heal my own relationship with myself and running has been a grounding opportunity. So I'm really grateful I've had that experience where I have that memory and I can say you know what my life has been really great at times and felt so true to me and what were the ingredients, what were the values that were standing out from that time.
Sapna Shah-Haque:I think it's so important that you're saying those ingredients, and it's a lot of those times that we need to reverse engineer life, that we do have the autonomy over our life and we forget that that learned helplessness where it doesn't feel like they have any autonomy, and then, if you're really burnt out and you hear you have autonomy, you might feel triggered by that.
Jillian Rigert:This is not my fault, which is true. There's a lot of systemic components to your distrust and what aspects of this are in your agency. And it's important to know that there are aspects that are in your agency because when we feel that we are hopeless and helpless and trapped, that will increase the risk that we will want to take our own life for many people that are at risk.
Sapna Shah-Haque:Yeah, I know. Thank you for pointing that out. And again, this is not to trigger anybody, but it is to remember that we have the power in how we respond and so, if somebody needs to hear that, even though hopeless and helpless, that is a real thing and I've never been down that road it's something that we forget we have control over what we're gonna do tomorrow, whether that is to show up at work or whether it's to resign, or whether it's to say you know what, this is what I need, to be happy. One of the biggest things is, when you are down in that deep hole of despair, of hopelessness, of helplessness, how does one take a step back and say this is what I need, or how do they start to define that? Because it seems like it'd be very easy and for everything to run together and to be very difficult to tease out what they need yeah, I had a very limited capacity to identify what I needed.
Jillian Rigert:So for me and for people, I feel that it's important to have a support system around you and some people can hold on to hope.
Jillian Rigert:I had an internal medicine physician who specialized in eating disorders that would consistently tell me I was going to die and I could tell that she wanted my treatment for me more than I did. I could tell that I cared more about her. So I put I'm going to try harder for her. I'm going to hold on to hopes at some point, like I'm going to borrow her hope with the expectation that at some point in my life, shall I keep trying, this will go away, this will get better. So I did borrow other people's hope but I leaned on them because I could not think clearly, had I made my own decisions, I wouldn't be here. I ended up going inpatient for a psychiatry unit for my eating disorder, and one of them, one of the treatment centers, couldn't keep me because I was too sick from a heart rate standpoint, and so I coped with that by going back to work. And then a year later I was impatient and I was so concerned that I would go fly across the country to a treatment center that couldn't keep me that. I accepted admission into my home institution, which was a very vulnerable action on my part and it was hard because I had just worked with the residents that then took care of me and I knew more about my condition than they're taught in their own residency With the dinosaurs. They're very scarcely discussed and the education is highly deficient. But I was in there feeling so vulnerable and they ended up putting somebody from my residency who's a year behind me on the floor to rotate. I felt so exposed. You know what. I just have to own this as part of my story. This is part of my journey and I was medically stabilized and I needed to be there. So I accepted admission and I wanted to sign. I did sign a 72-hour form.
Jillian Rigert:The moment I realized I was in a locked unit after I'm so independent. But I was like I know that if I leave here there's a good chance I'm gonna die and I'm not sure that's the fate I want right now. And I had friends come up and visit me that were from med school and some of the anesthesia resident and my outpatient psychiatrist, who I did trust with eating disorders, came and was like you need to stay here, please. So I stayed for a month and then I got discharged from the military.
Jillian Rigert:Unfortunately for me which I think it's unfortunately, fortunately, I think it was probably the best decision at the time, but it left me without that insurance and care, and so I really had to reclaim agency over my life at that point, and that's when I actually got into coaching for my own healing and a whole bunch of different therapeutic modalities, because I knew I had tried all that Western medicine had to offer me and there was something missing and I just kept it coming up. I think I'm having a spiritual crisis. I think I'm out of alignment with my true nature, and I didn't have the answers, but I had just enough in me to say I'm going to keep trying something different. I'm going to keep holding on to hope, and if I don't have it for myself, I'm going to borrow the hope from those around me who still want me to be here.
Sapna Shah-Haque:That is so powerful? Because that just goes back to the connection of human beings and the energy. You can tell when somebody genuinely cares about you because of the energy they put out, yeah, the tone that they use in their voice the actions that they show those.
Jillian Rigert:Definitely, they walk the walk and they talk the talk. Thank you for your service. And I'm still. Again, I'm happy that you're here, thank you. And I speak about it because I want other people who are in the same situation different circumstances, similar experiences to know that we want them to be here too, that they're worthy, that they're loved, that they have so much to offer the world just by being themselves, that their worth is not tied to their career, to their income, to their relationships. If you have eating disorder, it's not tied to your body size or your weights or your calorie expenditure or your calorie intake. Once we can just accept that we are worthy as humans just for being here, and that there's a community that loves you and that you are unique.
Jillian Rigert:Like we keep comparing ourselves to people, but what we often do is we compare our perceived weaknesses to people's strengths, right? If I see, oh my gosh, you are an amazing podcaster, and then I'm going to compare. If I want to start a podcast, I'm looking at somebody that's already been doing it for a while. They're doing it really well and I think I suck at it, but I'm going to compare myself to somebody who's doing a really good job with it, just to create that gap within myself, just to prove to myself that I'm unworthy. And it's the self-fulfilling prophecy that our brain offers us and it's common, so I'm not saying it to judge us, but just accept.
Jillian Rigert:Oh yeah, I heard that this is what our brain often offers. This is comparison trap to validate my beliefs, and we can validate both ways, right. If we want to feel that we are strong, empowering, capable people who can conquer anything, we're more likely to take the actions and accept and adopt the beliefs that get us to succeed and not always or get us to try and navigate things that don't work out the way we expected, versus if we feel that we're worthless. For me personally, I was learning about being a highly sensitive person and in a book I just read, it talked about if I perceive that as a weakness my whole life and that I was a problem. The book talks about that highly sensitive people are more likely to stay in abusive situations, whether it be work or relationships, because their whole life they thought they were unworthy, something was wrong with them. So those relationships validate that. Because if I thought I was valuable, then I wouldn't accept this treatment that made me feel less than and devalued me.
Sapna Shah-Haque:We are worthy, the fact that we're living, breathing, human beings. We're worthy just with that. And it's so easy to say and sometimes it can be hard to believe, but by being alive, by getting up today, we're worthy because we have air in our lungs, our heart is beating, we're human beings, we're human beings and you're right. It's very easy to say x, y and z, but it's more. It takes a lot of training, it takes a lot of retraining and those are the behaviors like to retrain our thoughts because it can come out sideways and then we start believing and going back to it served us well, like in medical school and residency and so on and so forth, but it's maladaptive. Now, as a 41 year old adult, like it would be a maladaptive behavior.
Jillian Rigert:Yeah, yeah, and it takes. How many times we can say you're worthy and we often see it for other people Right, like, I think, 100 percent, you can succeed and create the life that you truly desire, as defined by you. Then apply to my own life, and I noticed this when actually a lot of people were pivoting careers and I was champing them during the time where I was shaming myself and I was like, oh, isn't that fascinating. It's this dichotomy of expectation and I think that was a deficit of self-compassion and also a lot of practice and self-deprecation and self-criticism, which just needed more practice in the contrary of doing self-compassion meditations, being kind.
Jillian Rigert:Even when our nervous system is so used to being at a high level of anxiety and overwhelm, it's very uncomfortable when you start to sit in the calm and it feels wrong, and so there's this period of time where you really need to reset the nervous system and it's uncomfortable and it will feel wrong.
Jillian Rigert:So often when it feels wrong or uncomfortable, we dive back into the familiar, even if it's not in our best interest. So just expecting that there's going to be a period of time I like for the military days, embrace the suck. Once I started therapy, things got a lot worse before they got better, and when things were getting worse I wanted to retreat, but I knew that's the way I needed to go. I'm like these are the things I haven't leaned into before, and my capacity to create a fulfilling life is on the other side of feeling these emotions. So you came on and helped me have a discussion about the importance of feeling our emotions, and we've numbed ourselves for so long and suppressed so many emotions for so long that once we start to feel them, we're like what do I do?
Sapna Shah-Haque:with this.
Jillian Rigert:What do I actually do with this? And if you don't surround yourself with support who can help you process, you usually will go back to what you're doing either numbing, distracting, overworking and so that's why it's important to really pause and to check in with yourself.
Sapna Shah-Haque:Yeah, you're absolutely right. As King Kong roars, I think we've forgotten how to be human. Being human is messy. Being an adult is messy. I don't have everything figured out and I'm not going to sit here and say that I do what I want at 41 might be different at 45, might be different at 50, and that's okay.
Jillian Rigert:We change change and there are so many things that we didn't really question. Who created this definition of success or expectations for what females should show up like? Who is actually benefiting? I think about this for diet culture in particular, when it comes to what they were selling, and for me, I always just wanted to be smaller, not just physically, but just cowered down and be invisible, and I think that was a safety thing. I felt safe and I wasn't as vulnerable, so I wasn't as exposed, and I think the key thing was I just was craving safety, creating safety, and so when we challenge what we've been taught for me, being more able to use my voice and saying things and feeling more confident, taking up space and no longer accepting times where I'm oppressed, and sticking up and advocating for people who are in situations where they're being oppressed or talked over or not seen that creates a lot of friction with some people and the people who's who are benefiting off of us not setting boundaries, out of people pleasing, out of being quiet, of making ourselves smaller in every aspect of the way by not using our voice or not applying for roles that we want. The people who are benefiting off of those actions are going to get mad when you take a step up and we always hear like the difference between somebody who is assertive or aggressive is the gender.
Jillian Rigert:And that comes up for me in coaching situations where a woman was told that she is too blunt, just too forthcoming, and even if she's mindfully direct and packages up her directness in a way that is professional, she's still get the feedback of she's too blunt, this is too direct, it's unprofessional. But why is? Because I live in the South and so it's a cultural thing, because this a lot of the clients. I'm from the Midwest and so a lot of us are just honest, right, like just say what we're thinking.
Jillian Rigert:And some people I talk to that are having this experience acclimating to expectations in a different state as they were used to people really valuing their directness, and directness doesn't have to be abrasive or aggressive, it's just clear and it can be respectful. I am transparent and direct with you because that's my love language, so there's no mistaking, I value clear communication. But people are having problems with you. Rather than thinking, oh, I am the problem, it's thinking how is that person viewing me and what social expectations and values are they perceiving me through and what is it bringing up for me when they tell me they don't like something about me, and do I want to change it or not?
Sapna Shah-Haque:No, absolutely. That's interesting, isn't it About the cultural differences even in the same country. I can say that I think that they would be welcomed here in the Midwest, for sure.
Jillian Rigert:Yeah, I agree, it would be the people who speak around. They beat around the bush. That would be the ones who are like you're driving me nuts. Tell me what you're really thinking. Right For somebody to have me guessing. It makes me just. I do not appreciate it. Just tell me what you're really thinking.
Sapna Shah-Haque:What is one last pearl of wisdom that you would leave with our listeners?
Jillian Rigert:I would say take a step back, really sit with yourself, feel. If you can write down your top five core values and if you can't consider situations in your life where you're feeling light and and like in flow and where you're feeling a lot of resistance, maybe like you're having reactions in your gut or you're having a headache, or you notice yourself getting short fuse, and notice if that is suggesting where your values may be frost or you where you may be out of alignment or where your needs aren't being met or where you may be out of alignment or where your needs aren't being met, and just really do an inventory. I think the awareness is a first step that many of us haven't taken the opportunity to take.
Sapna Shah-Haque:Thank you for that. King Kong roared again, and where could people connect with you virtually on?
Jillian Rigert:YouTube yes, youtube. They can come hang out on AliveTrueToYou. So it's under my name, jillian Riggert. Dmdmd. A Life True to you. They will see your amazing interview there. Make sure to comment, share the love. They can also connect with me on LinkedIn. It's my name, jillian Riggert.
Sapna Shah-Haque:Thank you very much for your time, jillian.
Jillian Rigert:It's as always, it's been a it's been a great conversation. No-transcript.