Solving For Joy

Chrissie Ep 48 (Rashmi)
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[00:00:00]

Rashmi: It's been this whole journey of letting go and still allowing spaciousness for joy to arise when it does. And being joyful in that grief is also something that's been a very interesting invitation for me in

Chrissie: It really is a sweet place to exist and serve, which is why it's so painful that, healthcare, the megalith of the industry makes it so difficult to enjoy sharing that sacred space and honor, in a sustainable way

Rashmi: I'm doing things that I really want to do from a space of curiosity and a space of self-expression, and I think that wisdom, that idea of like, what do I want was so irrelevant for so long. It [00:01:00] can feel a little bit scary and I think getting comfortable in some of that growth edge areas of what else is here for me to learn.

Chrissie: You're listening to Solving for Joy. I'm your host, Dr. Chrissie Ott.

Hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode of the Solving for Joy podcast. I am here with my dear friend and fellow physician coach, Dr. Rashmi Schramm, If you've ever felt like the noise of life has been turned up too loud and the inner whisper of calm is getting harder to hear, this episode may be for you. Dr. Rashmi Sharam is a board certified family, physician turned meditation, teacher coach, retreat host, and radiant force of peace and possibility. She is the host of the Peace and Power Podcast and a delight to know. In real life. Rashmi brings [00:02:00] so much grounding energy to all the spaces that she enters, and she helps high achieving women like so many of us, slow down, tune in and rediscover their own power, and of course, joy. So welcome to my podcast, Rashmi. I'm so excited to have you here.

Rashmi: Chrissie it is such an honor. Thank you so much for having me.

Chrissie: Absolutely. I had the pleasure of meeting Rashmi at my very first physician coaching summit in the fall of 2022, I believe. Um, and it has been such a pleasure to stay in touch and just know what you're up to in the world serving and, um following your truth. So I'm excited to share some of that with our listeners today, um, and dive into solving for Joy, how you do it, and how you help others do it.

Rashmi: I can't wait.

Chrissie: So we often start our conversation by asking [00:03:00] about a recent example of a micro joy. So I think that's where I will meander with you today. What is, what is something that recently brought you a bit of unexpected joy? I,

Rashmi: Okay. I mean, there's so many. Chrissie this is a juicy question, uh, because that I'm always on the hunt for those micro joys, you know?

Chrissie: yes.

Rashmi: And so I would say, let's just take this morning. So this morning I was, um, walking my dog. She is, uh, an 85 pound, um, golden retriever. And we have just a few more of those. And as you know, I live in Florida. It's really hot and we gotta go really early in the morning. And we were out pretty early. Um, but she does this thing where once she's just overheated. She just like plops down and it doesn't matter where it's, how inappropriate it is, but she'll usually choose like a four-way stop sign in my neighborhood where like everyone sees and they wave and she rolls over. [00:04:00] Like I've harmed her in some way. And so, but, but this morning she wasn't doing that. She was not bringing shame to the family name as we sometimes joke about. She was just like doing her thing. And then we come upon another Golden who is doing that exact same thing and he is rolled over at the fourway stop sign and he is like, help me. I'm being traumatized. And it was just so ridiculous that sight. And I know his mom and I know that she wasn't torturing him.

So that little micro joy of them like interacting with my friend who is the owner of that dog or the mom of that dog, and then of watching that dog sort of finally like, you know, give like, be like, okay, fine, you know, I'm fine. This was all just a ruse just to get some attention. It was so joyful and like the silly little conversation that came out of that, whatever it was, neither one of us necessarily had a lot of time to chat, but it was just so lovely and it was this, I, I would describe [00:05:00] that as a micro joy because it was so silly. And so, um, usual, you wouldn't necessarily think that it was something, you know, big, but it was, it was, it was great. It was, it was joyful and delightful.

Chrissie: Thank you for sharing that. Anybody who has a golden in their life, uh, is aware of what kind of, what kind of, um, heaviness they can exert when they decide they will not be moved.

Rashmi: Exactly.

Chrissie: Um, I really appreciate too that you pointed out that you're always on the hunt for that because of course that is, um, a joy affirming practice. When we bring small joys into our awareness, we increase their, their value, their presence, their mass in our mind. Um, and so even though it sounds like such a small thing to name a micro joy at the top of our conversation, it's a practice worth repeating and highlighting that [00:06:00] we are doing it.

Rashmi: I love that. Absolutely.

Chrissie: Yeah. So I imagine that you know, your path from medicine to today is full of twists and bends and loops and um, all the things, and that at the root of that, there is some solving for joy. Would you just share with our listeners a little bit about, you know, how you arrived here, what motivated you and how does Joy figure into it?

Rashmi: Yeah, and by the way, I meant to start off at the top of the hour talking about how much I love. Your podcast, number one. Number two, the idea of solving for joy itself is just so brilliant and so you and I just love it so much. So, and I love this question.

Chrissie: Thank you so much.

Rashmi: So I was actually born in India. I'm an immigrant. Um, and I moved here with my parents and my brother when I was 12. So I was in sixth grade and rounding out sixth grade. And we [00:07:00] moved from a very large extended family. You know, we could have anywhere from 25 to 45 people at a Tuesday night dinner, um, to a rural, uh coal mining town in Southwestern Virginia when I was 12 and I got to start sixth grade or, or whatever it was, it was March of, of that year, of finishing out March until June. That was sixth grade.

And so that was a, that was a, a shock and a separation of many ways. Which at that time, right? I mean, 12 is a delicate age no matter what. And at that time I had to shed, I think a lot of what my identity had been or whatever I thought my identity was, or my Indianness, the assimilation needed to happen very quickly. Um, for safety. I mean, you know, and at that point you don't really have that many resources. You're not well resourced as an [00:08:00] immigrant who's both parents are working two jobs to make ends meet. And that separation then I think started to form in a bunch of different ways where I was able to hold onto this general knowing this sense of, and by the way, like when I was in India, there was, you know, we weren't refugees, we didn't have to come here. It was a choice for a green card and a better life for, you know, my parents' kids.

And in that life it was, it was a very rich life in that there were so many, um, sort of yogic lessons that were already being instilled in my brother and me. Whether I knew it or not, but a lot of the kind of this, the sacredness of silence, the, the understanding of service, all of those things, they were already in us or in certainly me. I see it in him too. And to, to sort of come into this, me, me, me culture was really interesting at that age. Assimilating into it and [00:09:00] getting good at assimilating into it because again, you can get good at something like that was. Was I think the first part of my bigger growth. Right. As it as it would be. And then went into medicine, well went, went off to college because I knew I needed to get out of that little town. And then medicine for a whole bunch of other reasons that I'm still unraveling now, but it was the exact thing that I needed to do.

And at the same time, I was able to express a lot of who I was or had left behind in college. I call myself a closet meditator and I was in, in these groups where we learned how to teach meditation. We taught meditation. I was with just a really cool group of people that I didn't feel safe enough to talk about with my friends and even my suite mates really, when we were going out drinking every Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, you know, the whole college culture thing. And I carried [00:10:00] a lot of that thread with me into medicine. So it was parts of my practice that I think every time I forgot the sacredness of it is when, uh, my suffering was the highest.

And it's not to say suffering doesn't have value. It does. But I came back to that as, uh, you know, a family physician, a mom of two young girls with you know, a bustling business, a business that was like, you know, had like a six month waiting list and it was, there was nothing wrong per se. Like my husband and I, we had the cars, we had the kids, the kids had the activities, like we had the friends and all of that. And internally that thread had been lost and I just did not understand how to get that back from an external sense, which is of course, what we're primed to look at from the outside.

And so I actually signed up for my first meditation teacher training about 14 years ago, 15 years ago. Not because I thought I would ever teach. No, it was for me to solve something for [00:11:00] myself. It was for me to solve, like, can I find that piece? Like I, you know, without external, without my external circumstance, do I need to have those two drinks to get to that place, or can I find it for myself? And I knew what the right answer. I knew the answer was, of course, I could find it for myself. So I signed onto this teacher training, not because again, that I thought I'd ever teach, but because I needed it for myself, I wanted the deep dive and I wanted actually external someone to hold me to it because part of the things that we signed were, you know, you're in this 18 month program and if you sign here, you're saying you're gonna meditate twice a day, every day for that period of time. I'm like, yes, please hold me accountable.

And that's how it all started. And part of that process was also that we had to teach and it wasn't negotiable. Um, and so when I started to just go out into the local Y and teach or, you know, just get my office crew together to huddle to [00:12:00] teach, they were having some profound shifts and they were noticing profound shifts within myself as well, in the way in which I either didn't react or responded to certain stimuli that hadn't changed at all or had gotten, um, more severe in those periods of time.

And that's how it all started. It opened the doors to then Ayurveda, and then to coaching and yoga nidra, and then yoga therapy and all the other things that followed since then that all just build on top of each other. But ultimately, it has definitely not been a linear path that you alluded to, and it has been, I, I think of this. As like a bit of a spiral where we do revisit the same things over and over again, don't we? To relearn the lessons from a different perspective. And I think that's what this whole journey has been is, uh, relearning or remembering of certain things about ourselves and our wholeness and life and other people's wholeness that we sometimes forget.[00:13:00]

Chrissie: Wow. Thank you for that. I'm, I'm just holding so much of that. I didn't know the details of your arrival. At age 12 and I, um, I think it's so, so important to highlight. Um, this is a choice, people immigrate here for many reasons, and we should not ever make assumptions about what their pre-migration stories were. Hello. Um, I love that you called that in. Um. Yesterday I was sitting with my 11-year-old daughter and she was working in a reverse coloring book that was gifted to her by a dear friend, and it looks like a page of watercolor, perhaps you're familiar. And the idea is that you use a pin or whatever you wanna use, but in this case it was a pin to fill in the lines wherever you want them.

And that is what I [00:14:00] was actually feeling, that imagery and that sort of, um, we're filling in lines. We have an, we have a background that we know we are going to interact with in this life. We have a sense of the quality or the color that we're going for, but the spirals and the loops and the lines and how they relate to one another gets to be our surprise.

Rashmi: Beautiful. I love that analogy.

Chrissie: It is just, it's delightful to unwrap a life year by year and find ourselves going, oh, I did not know I was gonna do that next. Fascinating and yet aligned, you know, fascinating and yet meaningful, fascinating delight, you know.

Rashmi: It really is.

Chrissie: to hear you like coming home to those yogic teachings that were already waiting for you. Um, it's [00:15:00] also evoking for me a memory of Liz Gilbert's, uh, letters from Love series. I don't know if you are following her on Substack, but

Rashmi: I love Liz Gilbert, but I'd love for you to tell me about this.

Chrissie: the, the Letters from Love is a column where she does a beautiful introduction every week and then has a guest write, um, about their what, what would love say, you know, what is their letter from love? And this week's guest, um, I apologize, I can't remember their name, but they're an intuitive and their letter from love is echoing what you just shared about really none of this is learning, all of it is remembering, and that embodiment practice are somatic practices that of course are gaining traction in the zeitgeist right now are a way to feel when something is true. You know, when they click, when it clicks in, you're like, oh, yeah. It's almost like I remembered that, even though I'm also learning it or hearing it for what [00:16:00] might be the first actual time with this brain and these ears.

Rashmi: Yeah, right. What we call sometimes those aha moments.

Chrissie: Mm-hmm.

Rashmi: Beautiful.

Chrissie: Yes. Are those feelings of like, ah, yes, I'm in the right place at the right time.

Rashmi: That's it.

Chrissie: Hmm. And are you still practicing medicine?

Rashmi: I am not, which is an interesting thing because I haven't let go of any of my board certification business, none of that. It's probably, uh, I shouldn't say it's probably, it's, it has been two years and there was a point where, you know, there's kind of this idea of 80% of what we do gives us 20% of our results, and 20% of what we do gives us our 80% of our results. And it was clearly in the coaching realm. That was my 20% where I was, you know, like seemingly the way that I looked at it, creating the biggest impact and was giving back to me, the ROI was huge.

And so I had to make a decision on [00:17:00] how I was spending my time and that is what I chose to do. And I had already left my big, big bustling practice back in late in, in December of 2019. And so, and I had started, um, kind of a smaller dPC type of practice in the meantime and was doing some other clinical things here and there. And they started to become very obvious to me that the way in which I could serve or at least be the conduit, um, for this type of work was in the coaching and teaching space rather than in the clinical space. So, no, I haven't done it.

Chrissie: It's a big decision. I mean, as you know, from shedding identities in multiple, um, chapters of your life, shedding the identity of practicing physician is, uh, an enormous step for many of us.

Rashmi: It really is. That's right. That's exactly right. Yeah.

Chrissie: it often feels [00:18:00] irreversible, but I'm, it's not, it's not irreversible.

Rashmi: It's. Definitely not,

Chrissie: You can make it and unmake it at will.

Rashmi: that's right.

Chrissie: Yes.

Rashmi: right. It will always be there.

Chrissie: Yeah. Yes. Have you missed it?

Rashmi: Definitely. Yes. Absolutely. I miss so many aspects of it. I miss the, you know, just the absolutely not knowing what's coming at me kind of thing. You know, in family medicine you really do not know at all, regardless of what the chief complaint is on your chart. No, you just don't know. And it's like crazy exciting and also just crazy in general. Um, and it's, it's a crazy juggling act that you're doing with time and how to be fully present in this short amount of time and to make these really high level cognitive decisions in such a short amount of time, it's a bit of an adrenaline rush, and I do miss that part of it.[00:19:00]

Chrissie: Thank you for that. Um, thanks for sharing that so honestly,

Rashmi: Well, and I miss the people. I miss the people I work with. I miss, you know, the four generations of, of families that I had for, you know, 20 years. I, I miss them a lot.

Chrissie: You know, that is what I miss the most from primary care as well, um, is those precious long built relationships. When I went from primary care to, uh, being a hospital nocturnists, I joked that I traded in all my long-term relationships for one night stands.

Rashmi: I love that. I love that. You know, and I think I love this question, and I love this way of you saying this because I think we forget that like I was so ready to go when I left that I just did not realize that I, grief would come with me of what I had lost, even though I was so excited of what was there. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think just talking about, yeah, I do miss, I definitely miss [00:20:00] aspects of it. It's magical. You can't really recreate that

Chrissie: yeah. Yeah. It is a sweet place to exist and to serve. It really is a sweet place to exist and serve, for sure. for sure. which is why it's so painful that, um, you know, healthcare, the, the mega megalith of the industry makes it so difficult to enjoy sharing that sacred space and honor, uh, in a sustainable way for many.

Rashmi: It is. Yeah, no, I, I agree. I have those conversations. Um, with, with my husband. We have, we just had that conversation the other day about, gosh, we would've stayed so much longer 'cause he's sort of also left that his busy practice as well, if, if we could have made it a little bit more sustainable. And right now, as you, as you said, I mean the [00:21:00] systems are not built for sustainability for physicians certainly.

Chrissie: I want to invite you to share what is the, the one thought, and I'm sure there's not just one, so feel free to riff, but what is the one thought that made it possible for you to make such, um, powerful changes?

Rashmi: Oof. What a great question. So I think often what stops us and what might even be stopping me right now is this idea of like a self-image or the egoic. Not to make it bad, not to make it bad, but we all have those protector parts that will say, well, what will other people think of you? What will, what will happen if you can't provide for your family? All of the what ifs and all of the should haves and things like that. And I think allowing that to be present without it leading the way, like me creating. Uh, sort of, I suppose, [00:22:00] and we just listened to the sanctuary song, A sanctuary within my being where I wouldn't shun those parts of me that wanted to keep me safe and small.

And I would also then allow an open for an expansiveness for the sheer joy of self-expression as, as freakish as that sounds. That that idea of like this, it is not about me. This has never been about me. It is still not about me. This is about how can I fine tune myself as the conduit for this work? And I think when I can come back to that, I can take the next step and the next step when I feel paralyzed about the, the re rejections I might get or the, all the, all the, all the challenges that come with entrepreneurship and pivoting and doing something that you don't see a lot of other people [00:23:00] doing.

Chrissie: So at the heart of that, would you say it was about being willing to make peace with multiple perspectives around self and identity while moving forward.

Rashmi: That's it. That's it, exactly. And reckoning with just the paradox of life and even the paradox of joy and the paradox of solving for joy and allowing that to be as it is without the need for it to be binary, black or white. Like I either am fearless or I'm courageous. No fear comes along and I can do the next courageous thing.

Chrissie: Something that's coming to mind as I interpret your words is accepting the unacceptable, and that could be parts, it could be circumstances, it could be many [00:24:00] different things, but. Not only accepting the unacceptable, but renaming, you know, reconfiguring, reframing the unacceptable into including all of reality in your experience. And then moving forward with that.

Rashmi: That's it. Yeah, that's a beautiful way to say that, Chrissy. Yes.

Chrissie: I mean, it kind of takes me back to the, um. I don't know if you had this poster somewhere in your 12-year-old life, but you know, there's a ballerina For me it was, there was a ballerina on a poster and it was like, if you can dream it, you can achieve it. And it's very cheesy and, um, you know, trite. But there is a part of it that like is actually hinting at some deep truth, like if you cannot actually conceive of it, it might not be likely to happen. If you can conceive of it and make a pathway with multiple steps towards it, it may happen.[00:25:00]

Rashmi: That's exactly right. And it's the idea of putting forth your best effort without being attached to that outcome, just like you said, right? Like, and it may happen.

Chrissie: Yes. Yes, there is no negotiation, um, about I will only effort if I have guaranteed results. That is a lesson that I have learned on the spiral. Plenty of times I was discussing it with our beloved mutual friend Erica Bove on her podcast, um, a couple weeks back. Like I, I thought there would be a negotiation at some point that if I did all the things then, you know, my infertility journey would be for shortened, or I had an infertility journey. Therefore, my parenting journey should be simple and straightforward, like, ha ha ha.

Rashmi: I, I love, I love those negotiations.

Chrissie: Yes, the universe laughs, [00:26:00] laughs, and laughs and laughs,

Rashmi: That's right. That's right.

Chrissie: Rashmi. I would love to know what is bringing you the most fulfillment in your own coaching and teaching adventure right now?

Rashmi: Wow I have a retreat that I'll be going to host in two days time. And I have, I have one actually every month until we see each other in November that I'm hosting, and they are. Really, really powerful and magical and super fulfilling.

And I sometimes will joke that they're a little bit addictive because it is just a high that you get when you can get, you know, really a, a safe container with high achieving women who pause long enough for a deep breath and some yoga and some meditation and some wild dancing and whatever else that we choose to do [00:27:00] that is incredibly fulfilling. And you know, I'll, I'll finish this out by saying that because I so love and am in am in love with what I get to do for a living, I still can't believe it sometimes. I can have what my coach calls a relapsing remitting issue with burnout. And, um, and I, and right now I don't, you know, like my kids aren't little.

They're both in college, they're home here and there in the summertime, which is so amazing. And my husband is pretty self-sufficient and he's pretty busy. And we spend time, you know, intentionally on purpose. And at the same time, all of those reasons why I couldn't do a retreat every month. Like, uh, I don't wanna miss, you know, this particular game or that competition or this thing or all the things. They're gone and so I can full blown keep, keep on this thing. So it's a matter of, of, um, of, of keeping [00:28:00] the pace sustainable and at the same time remembering how fulfilling it is, if that helps.

Chrissie: So you love one-on-one a lot. I totally relate. And with the retreats it can be sometimes a lot because you love it so much and then you kind of overdo, is that what I am understanding, is that right?

Rashmi: I, I definitely overdo them all the time.

Chrissie: Mm-hmm.

Rashmi: you know, I'm, I'm learning to understand how I can set better energetic and time boundaries when I am at the retreat, when I am hosting the retreats, because by nature I'm just a flagrant extrovert. Like I will, you know, I will spend 20 out of 24 hours just yapping with somebody, and yet it turns out that is not a great way to be the container

Chrissie: Right.

Rashmi: that I'm trying to be. And so it's [00:29:00] just a, it's a fun little, um, it's a fun little thing to notice and play with rather than make it mean something. But the fulfillment is so high that I can chase it, if you will. And just noticing that tendency that, that keeps us so successful, if you will, um, in, in the hedonic world.

Chrissie: Right. Bringing some balance even to that, which is joyful. Yeah. So it stays connected, grounded. Um, I had a early morning, coaching session this morning and I was just reveling in that same feeling of like, I get to do this creative process that is helpful and meaningful and a surprise every time. And it's so beautiful. I'm with you. Um, in celebrating that joy.

This morning, we played a game and I think in our community call, we'll, we'll play this game too, but [00:30:00] it's a what if prompt and, um, I asked my beloved client to just basically Mad Libs with me to just fill in blanks. So the first one was what if? And she filled something in and I just was like, then I could feel, do be blank, you know? And that aligns with my larger goal of blank. And what that would open up for me is blank, and I'm just totally reveling in this creative process right now.

Rashmi: It's beautiful. I love it. I love that game.

Chrissie: It was one of those times where, you know, somebody is in a long-term coaching, uh, you know, engagement and you don't always have something right on top when you sit down, you have, you know, days. Just like if you've ever been to therapy, you're like, what in the world am I gonna talk about [00:31:00] with my therapist today? Like, and then something occurs. Something will always

Rashmi: yeah. Yeah. That's right.

Chrissie: Um, one of the things we're looking forward to this year is that you are coming to the Physician Coaching Summit as a speaker, and you are actually gonna open up things on the evening of everyone's arrival with a yoga nidra on a full moon, which hopefully we will get to do outside. Well, that remains to be seen, but a full moon yoga nidra just sounds so exciting and I, um. You know, just associate this memory so strongly with my first physician coaching summit experience, laying all on the floor of this conference room together, finding our places, and having, um, just deep transformative relaxation together.

Rashmi: I can't wait. I love the idea of an outdoor full moon yoga nidra, and I think, [00:32:00] I think it's gonna happen, Chrissie.

Chrissie: It feels like it's gonna happen. It sure does.

Rashmi: Yeah, it's gonna be magical. It's not gonna rain.

Chrissie: No, it's definitely not gonna rain in the desert. No, no. Not on our watch, please, and thank you.

Rashmi: Nope. Exactly.

Chrissie: Yes. What is it like to solve for joy as the parent of two college aged daughters? Rashmi, how is, how is Joy intersecting with that role in your life right now?

Rashmi: Yeah, I would say if you had asked me. Um, four years ago I was a bit of a, more of a terrified version of what it might look like. Not terrified, but also just I am the kind of parent that, um, you know, well your kid is still young, but like, when you start going to high school things and they're like, in ninth grade or 10th grade, they're doing all these [00:33:00] senior ceremonies and you're seeing like, you know, um, the senior walk down, the big thing, big field with their parents and whatnot.

Oh my gosh. Like starting from when my now 20-year-old was in, you know, in ninth grade, I would just cry and cry and cry uncontrollably at the thought of like, not having them, you know, at arms sort of like just close by at any moment. And so, you know, and I just said, they're both in college and you know, they, they go away. That's if you did your job right. They get to go away and find their own way. And that is a really. Challenging part of parenting that does still require us to grow and expand within our, um, understanding of how we deliver love or how we think we need to deliver love.

And so it has been, I would say, one of the most transformative things. So my kids are 20 [00:34:00] months apart, but they're uh, one year apart in school. And so we had two back to back high school graduations and they both went off, um, to college, back to back. And I felt like it was just going too fast. I mean, we all feel like that anyway. Um, but it just felt like these mega moments just kept happening over and over again, you know? Um, because by the time they get to be juniors and seniors, they're really in these big leadership roles and they're doing these big things and you just can't imagine missing a single one of those things. Um, and, and it's, it brings so much joy. And at the same time, you also have to let them do the separation bit that they have to do for their own wellbeing.

And, and, and finding joy in other ways, I think has been a really, really interesting journey of, okay, the biggest role, forget doctor, forget teacher, forget coach, like it was mom. Mom is like my biggest identity [00:35:00] as a human being and we know that all identities are, they're all, you know, we, we make them up of course, but that, so, not that I'm no longer their mom, they need me totally differently. At the same time, I think creating space for joy that doesn't involve for them to, to be the cause of that joy, if you will. Right. Because they are so inadvertently, so much of that as we are parenting. We just holy smokes, it's such a big part of our lives.

And, and now, so it's summer when we're recording and my older one is here for the summer and my younger one is not, but she was here for like three weeks and just having the four of us under one roof, like I was like, oh my God, I sleep so much better. I did not know this about myself. Um, it, so it's been this whole journey of letting go and [00:36:00] still allowing spaciousness for joy to arise when it does. And the paradox is, I think that's what I really meant, was it is such a paradox that if you do a good enough job as a parent, whatever the heck that means if you give them the tools, then they will leave you. That's how it's supposed to work. And being joyful in that grief is also something that's been a very interesting invitation for me in the last couple of years, at least,

Chrissie: Yes, the arrival of both grief and joy in the same instant. Such an incredible experience to behold. Um, what wisdom is arising for you around becoming, uh, an empty nester? And I say that knowing that I've just invited yet another identity, um, which is a temporary construct. Uh, but I think that we have a, we have a shared [00:37:00] concept of empty nester. And I think many people in our, you know, age neighborhood, are experiencing it or anticipating it. And I think, you know, with your mindfulness meditation practice and coaching skills, you will have some wisdom arising to share.

Rashmi: Yes, and I, and I think I, I think there is definitely wisdom to be had. I think also at the same time, certain, you know, like I'm in my fifties and I love it and there's also like, just don't have any more fucks to give, if you will. I just don't have any more fucks to give. I'm done. I gave them all out.

Chrissie: Yes. Zero fuck, fifties. Welcome

Rashmi: sure what it was supposed to look like. Zero Fucks fifties. I'm here, I'm here, I'm squarely here. And you know, at the [00:38:00] same time, like bringing in a playful quality for like, yeah, I don't really know what all I truly love because I've, you know, invested so much in this, in this investment that is now flown off, um, to, to, you know, to greater heights and wonderful things.

And at the same time, like what do I now have the spaciousness to explore? And so, you know, for me it's been a whole bunch of different things. I get to just play more. I create space for play. My husband and I create a lot of space for play and for, you know, just being outdoors and without necessarily even an agenda a lot of times. Um, I'm in improv now, not because I think I'm gonna be, you know, some sort of improv superstar, but because of the, just the comradery and the fun and the unexpected nature of it. Um, and so like I'm doing things that I really want to do from a space of [00:39:00] curiosity and a space of self-expression, and I think that wisdom, that idea of like, what do I want was so irrelevant for so long of opening up to that idea even I think can be, it can feel a little bit scary and I think getting comfortable in some of that growth edge areas of what else is here for me to learn. Maybe the wisdom. Um, you know, again, I am, I, I feel like what people say is, you know, college goes by so quickly and they are in state right now.

Thank goodness for me at least. It's not that I see them a lot, but I just kind of like know they're in the same state and like the next, so my oldest will graduate college in two years, and she's, who knows where she's gonna land, and the same for the next one. And so, um, I think like the idea of like not getting attached to any one idea of how my life should look, either as an empty nester or as, as, as, as life [00:40:00] is lifeing just the non-attachment, but the enjoyment of what's there. Is that wise? I don't know.

Chrissie: I think it is and, and the non-attachment to what their lives should look like. Also to hold space for them to unfold in their own direction. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think that I will be pondering that for a long while and receiving that medicine and probably revisiting this conversation as my child grows into those ages. Yes, may it continue to unfold beautifully. For you and for all of our all of our friends with children leaving the proverbial nest. Um, may it, may it unfold beautifully for everyone.

Rashmi: That's it. Yeah.

Chrissie: I would love for you to share, uh, where folks can find and follow you, [00:41:00] Rashmi.

Rashmi: Yeah, so my website is really simple. It's just rashmi schramm.com. I'm also go by the same name on YouTube. I have, um, several free meditations if anybody's interested in that. I have a podcast that's called Inner Peace and Power. It's available on a all major platforms and Chrissie we're gonna get you on there one of these days. And, um, same for Instagram, Facebook, all of those, uh, you can find me in any of those places just with my name.

Chrissie: Awesome. I will look forward to that. Thank you for being here, sharing your light and your love, and your joy and your wisdom. It has been such a pleasure to spend this time together and share it with others. I appreciate you and your work in the world so much.

Rashmi: Thank you so much for having me, Chrissie. Thank you for this conversation. Thank you for the work you're putting out there. I can't wait till the Physician Coaching Summit and I just am so thrilled [00:42:00] to be in this energy and I'm grateful for just this space. Thank you.

Chrissie: Hugs, my friend.

Speaker: Thank you once more to Dr. Rashmi Schramm for this gorgeous, expansive conversation about consciousness and healing. Rashmi's presence softens me, slows me down, and reminds me of what really matters and I hope it does for you too. I'm still sitting with her words about self-trust, consciousness, and the truth that we don't have to hustle for healing.

Next week I'm joined by Dr. Becca Kennedy, a family physician who stepped away from conventional medicine to help patients heal from chronic, unexplained symptoms using a mind body approach. Her story is bold, honest, and full of insight and hope you won't wanna miss it.

And if you are a physician coach or a physician who is coaching curious, and you are looking for deeper connection, creative community, and a [00:43:00] meaningful gathering, I would love to see you at the 2025 Physician Coaching Summit in November. Early pricing ends August 1st, and the summit information is at the physician coaching summit.com.

As a reminder, this podcast is for educational and inspirational purposes only, and is not intended to be medical advice. I'm a physician, but not your physician. Solving for Joy is produced by Kelsey Vaughn with editing and post-production by Alyssa Wilkes. Our theme music is by Denys Kyschuk and Cover Photography is by Shelby Brakken. And special love always to my sweet wife, Sue, thank you for being my steadying place. And our listeners, thank you for listening, for showing up. We'll see you next time. Have a beautiful week.