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Anne: Hi everybody. It is Anne Duffy and welcome to the Just DeW It podcast. I'm so happy you're here today.
I have a very special guest. I'm telling you, I'm smiling ear to ear. She is all about happiness. And I'm going to tell you a little bit about her before we get started. Dr. Tarryn MacCarthy is the happiness and prosperity coach of high achieving women and men in dentistry. She is the host of the Business of Happiness podcast, empowering leaders in healthcare to strive for inner fulfillment and true authentic success.
orthodontist, author, motivational speaker, founder of Embrace Orthodontics in Maine, and proud mom of three. Dr. MacCarthy coaches dental leaders, leaders of their families, and leaders of their own dreams on how to step into their unique power to redefine success and define happiness and freedom. She believes that within each of us lies the power to live a life of enormous abundance and joy And that when we feel good about ourselves, we have a greater power to do good in the world.
Please help me welcome the amazing, the lovely, the happiness coach, Dr. Tarryn MacCarthy.
Tarryn: Oh, thank you so much, Anne. Oh, and I just, thank you for that beautiful introduction. I just love hearing that. I believe that so deeply. I believe so deeply that when we take care of ourselves and we focus and create, make happiness a priority, we really can be better for others and, and live this extraordinary life.
I mean, none of us are getting out of here alive. We might as well live it to its fullest and enjoy every single day.
Anne: I totally agree with you. I, well, we were talking a little bit before we started and, you know, I'm, I, I love the fact that I'm into the strengths and I know one of my strengths, one of my talents, if you will, is positivity.
And I feel like it's such a gift because, you know, you give me a lemon and I'll turn lemonade in it. And, and it actually, we'll have to talk a little bit about that. Um, we'll get, let's dive in a little bit, but I mean, it's, it's, it just makes me think, oh, let's just. Forget the questions we have. We're just going to talk.
So, Tarryn, I got to tell you, I've always been very positive. And so, when the kids were growing up, they would, like, my one, like, our son would, like, lose a basketball game. And his number one strength is competition. So, he'd be crying in the backseat. I'm like, oh, Joey, don't worry about it, honey. There's a good game next time.
And it's nice for the other team to win sometimes, too, you know, hon. I love that. They're older, they're adults now, they got their own kids, they're probably looking back and saying, boy, mom had a lot of toxic positivity. All I wanted to do was be depressed for just a little bit of time and I would be like, snap out of it, honey, you know, it's, there's the, you know, the grass is, isn't always greener on the other side, you're doing just fine.
So, I think that's interesting that you, you know, we talk about Living life and being happy and fulfilled. And I think it's a choice. Do you think it's
Tarryn: a choice? 100 percent I think it's also like a muscle, right? That any muscle that you practice on a frequent basis, you're easier. It gets you can slip into that lane a little bit more comfortably.
You can find the positive perspective easy in an easier way when it's something that you're focusing on on a daily basis. And You know, that's not to say that we don't go through seasons of our lives where that feels really arduous and difficult to see the positive perspective. And You know, I think we tend to, especially in the dental profession, we tend to also find company in our misery, right?
Misery loves company. We tend to commiserate and find unity in finding something to blame or something to find frustration over. And then we all join forces. And sometimes that can perpetuate the Kind of a different kind of toxicity in my, in my perspective. We never talk, we hear this buzzword toxic positivity, but what about the other type of toxicity that we're perpetuating in focusing on the negative all the time, you know, and I think we get trained, don't you agree?
And we get trained in medicine and dentistry to look for the problem always, right? That's
Anne: part of what we do. There's a problem and we fix it.
Tarryn: Exactly. Please. So. It's not surprising that so many of us feel like we're always honing in on the negative. You know, so I want to just give a little grace to people out there who are thinking, well, I'm not the positive one.
Well, of course, you're really good at finding the problems, you know, and it's, and there's a certain amount of, reward that we get when we focus on the problems or even your son's competitive nature, that's very rewarding because that makes him want to try harder. And then he tries harder, and then he gets better.
So it serves him in a way. Yes. But I think there's a point In our lives, where maybe we get to where we've achieved a lot of our goals. We are living a comfortable life financially, you know, kind of the kids are okay. Yeah, everything seems pretty copacetic. And we think, man, why am I not able to be happy?
I was able to achieve all these great things, but what's wrong with me that I can't feel happiness? You know, and I think that's when we start. Laying these monikers like toxic positivity and and I think that there's a lot to be said for feeling our feelings Which is another thing dentistry doesn't teach us when you're feeling sad allowing yourself to feel
Anne: sad Oh my gosh, you can't be sad in front of a patient I mean who wants somebody to do that's working on you or going to to you know Prepare a crown a crown for you and they're just all sad and mopey and they you think oh my gosh, you know That is This is a facade that they, that a dental professional I think has to wear.
There's got to be like the key component for inner fulfillment and happiness in the dental profession. Like how do you find that? What is that? Because we're set up to, um, uh, hide behind.
Tarryn: Absolutely. Leave your emotions at the door, leave the drama at the door. I mean, can you think about how that impacts these incredible men and women, mostly women that we're asking to work with us?
And we say, Leave the drama, leave the, the emotions at the door, but what if she has a mom who's dying of cancer? How hard, how inhumane is that to ask ourselves to leave our emotions at the door? And I think that that's one of the key components of happiness is allowing ourselves to feel our feelings.
Absolutely. There's a time and place for everything. We're not going to cry in our patient's lap. We want our patients to feel safe. With us. That's a very important part of the treatment we're delivering. Asking our team members to be something other than human also creates an expectation inside of us. I can't be human either.
And human emotions span a huge range of beautiful emotions. We have to feel them all. And sometimes when we can't feel happiness, it's because we haven't allowed ourself to feel those other modes. You can't just turn off some. You can't say, I'm never going to feel angry, I'm never going to feel frustrated, I'm never going to feel sad, because when you numb one emotion, you actually numb all of those beautiful ones as well.
Anne: And there are a lot of emotions, right? I mean, you can't just bundle them all up and like, you're either happy or you're sad or you're mad. I mean, like, you know, there's, there's, I think there's. More to it to actually understand what the different emotions are. I mean, I don't know. You probably know. I mean, how many emotions are there?
I mean, if we had to, you know, add them all up, there are a lot of emotions.
Tarryn: There are and they're the emotions themselves have many different names and because of our own history, we have a different language. So for me, love means something different from what it means to you or disappointment, right? So our Past colors, our language and our emotions, and they bring up memories for us, right?
So they each have different colors for us, but really the emotions fall in two categories. So if you imagine there's only two emotional states, disempowered emotions and empowered emotions. So bear with me for a moment. In other words, feelings like. Depression, anxiety, worry, frustration, comparison, rejection.
You can imagine those are disempowering emotions, right? Empowering emotions are love, joy, passion, excitement, right? So imagine they fall into kind of these two states. And along the, imagine now for me, um, a ladder of emotions. We can imagine the very lowest level energetic vibration emotions that would be depression and complete disempowerment, kind of a victimized state, right, where you just have no agency.
And as you climb up that rung, that emotional vibrational scale, you actually get, as you go a little higher to a place like anger, but recognize that anger feels a little bit more empowered than disempowerment. Thank you. Anger, frustration, and then a little bit better than that is disappointment. So what's interesting is we sometimes expect people to jump all the way from disillusionment, disempowerment, all the way up to happiness.
And that's really not a very human. trait. We don't really have the ability to fly up there so easily. Some of us, like you and I, have a lot of practice at it. So we can find joy, passion, and love in a heartbeat. I live in these upper echelon emotions. So for me, I can fly up there pretty quickly. But some people just getting to anger, Is a big step up from complete depression from disempowerment.
And sometimes we judge those emotions as being negative when really they're giving us a little more agency. And if you can just get to angry, then maybe you can get to disappointment. And if you can just get to disappointment, maybe you can get to a place of neutrality or acceptance. And that's the beginning of climbing up that emotional vibrational scale so that you can allow yourself an opportunity to climb higher into those wonderful high vibration emotions like love and joy and passion.
Anne: Oh my God, that's so great. It makes me, uh, appreciate. People where they are and and I I have expected. I mean, I'm not going to lie as a mom, you know, I mean, you know, we look back. I met my kids are great. I think we kind of lucked out, but I can remember going back to certain times when I they were probably What Lower on the, uh, or disempowered.
And I wanted them to jump to happiness immediately because I only want the happy stuff. Just, I don't want to hear all the, the negative things. And you know, as a mom, you know, you're only as happy as you're unhappy as child. Yes. It can pull you down. And That's not allowing them to, to do it naturally for who they are.
Everybody does it a little differently. And you said something about practice, practice is good, but we're, you and I, I think we both probably agree are innately more on the empowerment and the, uh, positivity scale than, than other people are born, born with that trait. I mean, you know, yes,
Tarryn: I think so. Yeah.
Yeah. And I, and you know, it also helps us recognize our patients where they are. You know, because as most of our patients in the dental chair, very vulnerable place, most of our patients come with a certain amount of dental trauma, right? We're imposing on them. And when we get angry patients, We tend to think that it's a reflection on us, or we dismiss them very quickly, like, oh, that's the angry woman.
But when we see it from that lens of, oh, she's doing a little bit better than being so vulnerable and victimized in this chair, I mean, that's scary place. Actually, her anger is giving her a little bit more empowerment. And is there a way that I can maybe help her climb up that ladder, maybe to the next little step where she's just really frustrated with us?
Okay. Now I, now we're at a place where we're just frustrated. That's much better than anger and blame and resentment. Now, maybe we're up to a little bit of just disillusioned. Wow. Now we're, now we're getting somewhere. So knowing and understanding people's psychology helps us to communicate and support one another in a better way.
And as you mentioned with your son, I had the same realization with my son. I wanted him up here high in these high vibrational levels, but he, his, What I call emotional homeostasis. And I have a great practice for figuring out where yours is, but his emotional homeostasis was really low. And every time I was trying to force him up high too quickly, he was feeling more and more disempowered because his body couldn't do it.
And when I learned this, I was, I was able to give him some support and let it just be okay. You're angry right now. Let that be okay. Feel that anger, allow yourself to express that anger. In a place that's not hurting anyone, that it's not coming out sideways, but let yourself feel it because then you gain a little more agency over your own
Anne: emotions.
And you give them grace. I mean, it's just like, you know, we give, we have to give ourselves grace and we have to give others grace. And I, and this is such, so key. I am so excited to have you on here, Tarryn, because I think if you're listening and you're in a dental practice, you know, it can give you grace for the patients that are in your chair.
Because I think so often you have somebody that you, you talk in the morning huddle, like, Oh, that person, they're just a jerk. They're not very nice. And we're not giving them any grace. And you understand the emotional ladder. And, and meet them where they are. Yes. You know, the, the end result is a great experience, is what we're all hoping for, the patient and, you know, and the team.
Tarryn: And I love what you were just talking about at the morning huddle, because it goes back to what we were mentioning earlier. where our focus is. You know, I, I've been in so many morning huddles myself where it's like, where are the pain in the neck patients? What should we be aware of today? Who, you know, not it, everyone's putting their finger on their nose, you know, and who's going to be the problem.
But what if we changed our perspective at our morning huddle and had Where are the opportunities to see this human? Where are the opportunities? You know, last time she was really negative. Maybe there's an opportunity to make her feel a little bit better today. We just give it a different lens instead of always looking for the problem, looking for an opportunity, not just to have a greater impact on their lives.
But to feel good, where are the opportunities in my day to feel great about myself as the practitioner, you know, as the person who's here to help and serve and heal, how, how can we look at our morning huddles as an opportunity to turn our focus from the problem onto the area that's going to bring us joy and positivity, because we know when we live in those higher vibrational states, we can access.
Creativity, we can access presence, we can access ingenuity, all that brilliance that we learned, all the money we poured into our education, it's in there. But when we're living in a place of negativity, you can't access it. It's like a brick wall, you know, that fear, resentment, anger, frustration. It doesn't allow you to access your brilliance and your compassion and your humanness.
But when you can live in a place of these higher vibrational emotions, Now you can see her for who she is and recognize, oh, she had maybe some really traumatic experiences. This is scary for her. And see, have a little bit more compassion and then really love on yourself for being able to see that. I mean, walk, imagine walking away from that patient.
How good you feel.
Anne: Over that day, look back on your day. I mean, talk about a fulfilling day. Like what, what problems are going to have not just teeth, right? This is emotion. Totally. That person sitting in the chair. Well, how am I going to be able to, you know, turn that person's experience just by the way I handle that person, the way I speak to that person, the way I love on that person, um, you know, love is different for everybody, but it is the kindness that.
That I believe we went into dentistry to begin with, um, we're all caring people. And I mean, I, I, I don't know how to, you know, they don't teach this
Tarryn: in dental school. No, they don't. And I think it's one of the most important aspects, honestly, is learning not just how to recognize the humanity in another person and understand the psychology, you know, I mean, especially when you're talking about.
You've mentioned people who feel like they live in the lower level vibrations. They have a superpower too because they can recognize those patients. I see you. I, I'm in there. I'm in that place too, you know, so it doesn't matter where you are, recognizing that humanity in one another and being able to feel seen.
That's all we all want, right? We just want to feel seen. But then I think another thing I wish they taught us in dental school. Is how to regulate our own nervous system because there will be the patient that triggers you, there will be the event outside of your control that triggers you and throws you for a loop, right?
And how to regulate our nervous system so that we don't go to that place of fight or flight, so that we don't go to that place of. You know, acting outside of alignment with our higher selves, because as you mentioned, we're all human beings and we came into this profession with enormous love, with enormous purpose, but what's stepped in the way is.
Anxiety, overwhelm, stress, just that fight or flight, bypassing that amygdala bypass, not allowing us to be who we really are. And I, I think one of the big foundations of the overwhelm and burnout that we're seeing in our profession is feeling like almost shameful. Of acting outside of who you really know you are, true to yourself.
I know that was my experiences. I was not even acting the way that the person that I loved, who I was. You know, I was making decisions and actions in my day that were out of alignment with who I was. And I actually didn't like myself. I started not liking the person I was seeing in the mirror. I didn't even know who she was anymore.
Because I felt like I was being forced into certain decisions during the day from this place of anxiety and stress and cortisol washing over my body. So learning how to regulate our own nervous system so that we can find peace and have that resilience when something goes wrong is such an important skill for our dental students and for our dentists.
Anne: Oh my gosh. And for, for, for life in practice, even when you can have this every day, you know, it's, we, it's not an exact science. And I believe that, you know, I'm so happy that you're working With the dental profession, Tara, because it is a profession of perfectionism, and that, you know, and that will kill you because it's hard to come back from, it wasn't perfect.
And I mean, and you, eight hour day, and you're seeing how many people a day, there is not, you're not going to have perfection in your day, and you have to be able to, Bounce back from it. Have the res, I guess it's resilience, is it they need to teach them resilience and how, how to, to realize that tomorrow's a new day.
You just, you have to do your best. I mean, take that, that home with you is, is really tough. You've gotta, I don't know. Tell us about that. How do you, how, I mean, you're working with a lot of dental professionals that I'm sure they leave the office and they're. You just burnt and don't want to go back the next day.
How do you, um, coach them on, or what tools do you, do you pull out of your toolbox? I'm sure everyone's different, but you know, um, what can you give us to, to get through, uh, tomorrow, um, feeling better?
Tarryn: Then we did today. Great question. I think a lot of it is very personal as you mentioned, but I think a lot of it is taking care of yourself in the moment and in the day.
So not waiting till the vacation, not waiting till the weekend, even, you know, I think so many of us push through lunch, push through any time you feel yourself say, Oh, I don't Or you hear yourself say, I'm just going to push through. That should be a red flag. Pushing through is a red flag because what pushing through means is your nervous system has gotten to the end.
You've drained yourself. You've reached the end of what you're capable of, and now you're going to push beyond it. And anytime we do that, we set ourselves up for failure. And when I say set yourself up for failure, I mean, putting yourself in a place where you're going to have a really hard time coming back to yourself.
One of the things that we've been taught is to ignore our bodies. So we living up inside of our heads and. You know, very brilliant, smart people come into the dental profession. So our brains are so good and it's a place that we really honor, we're proud of, but we forget to listen to those very important messages that our body's sending us during the day.
I mean, I'm sure, you know, at the end of the day, you're popping to go to the bathroom because you've been ignoring needing to pee. And that's just, One of the, I mean, that's crazy that we're not even allowing ourselves to listen to that very human need to urinate, let alone those little signals that you're getting to a place of anxiety and overwhelm.
You know, what's so interesting is anxiety and overwhelm isn't on or off. There's a scale. And when we can start to begin to notice that, if you imagine a ruler with zero to 10, we don't just go zero to 10. We somehow, somewhere along the way, you were at four, then you were at five in terms of anxiety, stress, overwhelm.
And if we can start listening to our bodies and catch ourselves somewhere at four or five, we can bring ourselves back down to calm before we get to 10, because once we get to 10, even if it's the end of the work day, now we're getting in the car, going home to kids who need us. It's very difficult to bring us back down.
So what I love to do coach my clients on is getting to know those signals in our body. Sometimes that's difficult because we've been ignoring our bodies for decades. So what sometimes helps is ask the people around you. Your kids will, the kids are the, the, the most, uh, honest. So if you have kids do so, but do so with a little, um, grace for yourself, cause they'll be brutally honest.
What does it look like when mom gets angry? What does it, what do, what do you notice when mom gets frustrated? They'll tell you mom, your voice gets high. You start running around the room. You start telling people what they did wrong. Even that is such good information because one of the things that we tend to do when things feel out of control, we start to control more.
We become hyper controlling, we become micro managers, we become more and more fiercely dedicated to the outcome, the perfectionism in you starts coming out, right? So that's a really good indicator. When you start noticing, I'm beginning to control, I'm beginning to control the outcome. Let that be a warning sign.
If you can't yet feel that in your body, let the thought be the trigger. Oh, I must be at about a four or five. And then having a practice to calm. My favorite practice is breathing, breath work, it's my favorite. And so actually I can do one for you right now if you'd like. Let's do it. Let's do one. So, this one is one that works so well to bring you right calm.
It's not one that's great to do in front of a patient. But it's a great one to do if you really just need to calm down. Or if you wake up in the middle of the night and you have racing thoughts. Another great time to do it. It's called alternate nostril breathing. Thanks. So you take your right thumb and you put it against your right nostril.
So great. We have video now for all of those of you watching the video, go to the YouTube version of this episode and you'll see. So put your thumb on your right nostril and take a deep breath in through your left nostril and use your ring finger on your right hand to pinch your left nostril, release the right and exhale.
Now take a deep breath in through your right. Pinch your right, release your left, and exhale. Maybe close your eyes. Take a deep breath in through your left nostril.
Pinch the left, release the right, and exhale. Fully exhale. Take a deep breath in through the right.
Pinch the right, release the left, and exhale Your shoulders just soften, take a deep breath in.
Pinch the left, release the right, and exhale. Relax your muscles, and let's do it one more time. Deep breath in,
Pinch the right, release the left, and exhale.
Well, I feel better.
Anne: How do you feel? I feel more relaxed, because when I got on our call earlier, it was like I was racing, right? Yeah. It was really
Tarryn: great. Isn't that amazing how it just relaxes you instantly? So, even allowing yourself during the workday, I mean, listen to my voice, it's slowed down, you know.
Even allowing yourself during the workday. three or four moments when you sit down at your desk to just drop back into your body. And what you're actually doing is you're asking your body to step out of your sympathetic nervous system into your parasympathetic nervous system. So out of fight or flight and into this rest, digest, reconnect.
That's where we access Our intelligence, our ingenuity, our creativity, our compassion, allowing ourselves to do that throughout the day is key, not just meditating in the morning and maybe meditating at night, but being present for those other 10, 15 hours a day and giving ourselves little moments of rest.
It's, it's practicing that muscle, right? It's giving ourselves, uh, teaching our body how to return. For that resilience you were talking about, it's called Vegas vagal tone. It's called Vegas system resilience. We're allowing our Vegas nerve to calm us down so that we can step back out there with our full presence and not this kind of shadow of fight or flight.
Anne: So many things I love about this, Tarryn. First of all, it reminds me of what we talked about earlier. You can learn. Yes. You can learn these things. You can, um, work, flex that muscle and strengthen that muscle. So now we have something to do. And the other thing I love, and this is why I love that you're working with dental offices and dental teams, Is the fact that how great would it be for a leader and if you're a dentist and you're listening to this and you're a leader in the practice or you have some say into what you're going to do as a team meeting or, or as a, um, um, a workshop for the team, bring someone in like you to like, talk about this so that if you're, you're working on a patient and you can feel you're getting to a five or a Six somebody can say, you know, let's just take a little break here.
And, um, let's just take a little break. And go breathe and, and give each other that grace, give each other that opportunity. Oh, I love that support, by the way, that's really cool. It's just that way, you know, you're not gonna, everybody knows where you're going or where you're coming from. And you all understand that this is just, this is just how the day is going.
And I might need a little bit more help today. I think it just gives everybody grace. Because not only And it's also being self aware, self aware of, you know, how you're behaving, how you're acting and knowing that you have a tool that you can calm yourself down. I mean, I'm, my voice is calmer right now.
I'm just like, I'm okay. This has been amazing. I, I would, Tarryn. Oh my goodness. Yes. I feel like. I'll call you every morning. Okay. There you go. We'll do a breathing exercise and, and, um, you're just, you're such a delight and you're so, um, you're so needed for, for our profession. You really are. I mean, happiness is something.
That we cannot take for granted. We're only on this, on this earth for a, you know, a finite amount of time. Yeah. And like you said, let's make the best of it. Let's make the world a better place because we're in it. And we're the only ones that can, we can control. As we both know, we've both raised kids and you know what, uh, that we really are in charge of ourselves.
Tarryn, how do we get in touch with you? How do we learn more? Tell us all about where we can find you.
Tarryn: Absolutely. Thank you. So I'm on www. thebizofhappiness. com. Welcome to come and check me out there. Or you could find me on the podcast, the business of happiness podcast. And, um, yeah, I'm always available for open conversation.
So if there's anything I, you can also find me on Instagram and WhatsApp and all those places. So, um, the biz of happiness and, um, I was trying to find here, it's going to offer your, your, um, listeners. an opportunity to kind of test their own happiness. I created this beautiful, I'm just trying to find it now for you.
Sorry about that, Anne. I should have had it at my fingertips, but, um, oh, here it is. If you, you, I created this beautiful happiness quiz, and it's a quiz that you can take and figure out kind of where you fall on the happiness scale. And, In the medical and dental profession. So, and then at the end of it, depending on your score, there's some great suggestions of how to incorporate these in your day, daily practice.
So, if you text the word happiness to 207 600 7000. 2699, so that's 207, main area code, 6002699, just the word happiness. And then you'll get this quiz, and um, it's for free, no strings attached, you're welcome to take it. I love it.
Anne: And we'll put that in the show notes as well. Wonderful. I'm going to do it as soon as I get off.
Oh good. I can't wait to see. I don't have to give my husband that, I'm going to give it to the kids, and then we'll have a little family discussion. Yeah, and see where everyone landed. I'm happy to see where everybody lands. I just love it. Any parting words for our audience
Tarryn: today? You know, I think one of the things I would just remind your beautiful listeners that you're doing amazing.
Thank you. Thank you for all that you're doing. I just want to reflect that because I think we don't hear that enough. You are amazing. are holding everything together. You are literally putting smiles on children's faces on a daily basis. And I just wish that you would honor yourself and see yourself in that light of the incredible things that you are doing in this world.
And I just want to say, thank you. You deserve to feel that beauty with inside of you because you're doing amazing things in this world.
Anne: Well, thank you for saying that. And I say you're welcome. And I say to everyone listening, and thank you for that, Tarryn, that was just beautiful. And everyone that's listening today, remember to keep doing you.
Thanks, everyone. Thank you, Tarryn. Have a great day, everyone. See you next time.
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