In this episode I am talking about what to do when the bad news don’t seem to end and you are getting tired and frustrated and don’t know how to be optimistic anymore.

I also talk about the phrase “everything happens for a reason” and how this phrase is misused.

00;00;00;01 – 00;00;21;24

Dr. Mona

If you’re listening to this and you have been handed a lot of lemons back to back. I am asking you to take those lemons and put it aside. You do not have to make the lemonade right away. When I talk about these things on this podcast, I talk about going through the motions that you can get to the phase where lemonade can be made, where you can see the positivity and hope.

 

00;00;21;27 – 00;00;50;06

Dr. Mona

But in the moment, that may not be a reality. Hey everyone. Welcome back to the PedsDocTalk Podcast, a podcast that keeps growing because of you and your reviews. So thank you so much for tuning in and being here. You are listening to my finding Joy series on this podcast, which I started at the end of 2021. It is a series where I share the real life parenting ups and downs, work life ups and downs, and some mindset tips on navigating these moments.

 

00;00;50;14 – 00;01;11;05

Dr. Mona

Your reviews mean so much to me, so I wanted to share a few of my favorites since the last time I’ve done a finding Joy episode. Puzzle holic, 85, wrote. Great, especially the finding Joy series. I’ve been loving Doctor Mona’s podcast, especially her finding Joy series. I appreciate her careful, positive approach to parenting. Great. Listen. Highly recommend. Thank you so much.

 

00;01;11;05 – 00;01;28;29

Dr. Mona

This is my joy. I get so much excitement and happiness from doing this podcast, so thank you. Lex Tate wrote if I could give ten stars, I would. I’m a new mother to an eight month old and a registered nurse. I find reliable information and education to be so difficult to find for the average person. Until I found Doctor Mona.

 

00;01;29;02 – 00;01;51;06

Dr. Mona

Her topics are so relevant and helpful for me, and I’ve been telling all of my friends and family with kids as well, so they can go to a more reliable place to get great information on all things parenting. I love her honesty and openness. I am so happy I found her. I am just so grateful to be here to share all of this honesty and openness, which is part of the finding Joy series.

 

00;01;51;08 – 00;02;15;10

Dr. Mona

This is just so wonderful because this podcast is for you and it grows because of you. And it means so much to me to share my passion and love for children and life with you. So keep on leaving those reviews, and I may read one of yours on a future episode. Today we are talking about life. Life. And when it hands you lemons and you’re just tired of making lemonade.

 

00;02;15;12 – 00;02;39;23

Dr. Mona

If you’re listening with a kid, I’m removing the de word. Okay, so the finding Joy series is all about how we reframe our mindset. But can I be honest with you? Sometimes there is not a motivational quote in the world or a mindset shift possible that’s going to get you out of a rough patch. And I want to normalize this and say it’s okay, that’s normal and expected.

 

00;02;39;23 – 00;03;05;10

Dr. Mona

And you should recognize that. I know when I’m having my hardest days, it’s harder to listen or read the motivational content, but you don’t understand that it’s actually really hard, and it’s normal for it to be hard in that moment. And you can handle it. I get it. I’ve been there. I was asked to discuss this. When, you know, you seem to get bad news after bad news, and it just seems never ending, right?

 

00;03;05;10 – 00;03;21;08

Dr. Mona

You’re just handed a lot of these lemons, and life keeps telling you, you got to make some lemonade out of lemons, and you’re just like, how the heck am I supposed to find happiness, joy, and get through this? You just can’t find yourself getting out of it. You go through the why me? Why are bad things happening to us?

 

00;03;21;08 – 00;03;41;18

Dr. Mona

Why, why, why, what did I do to deserve this? And honestly, we sometimes play the victim card that you know is okay in the moment. But we also have to remind ourselves that you are not alone in struggle and you are going to get through it like you always do. I’m sure if you can look back at all of the most difficult times in your life, you can say that you made it through.

 

00;03;41;21 – 00;04;04;13

Dr. Mona

How do I know that? Because you survived 100% of your hardest days. But sometimes. Can I be honest? I am also tired of making lemonade. I am tired of the constant barrage of bad news that just seems to happen in some phases of our life. But I also know that there are moments and periods that are full of great joy and things that are uplifting and good vibes after one, after the other.

 

00;04;04;13 – 00;04;24;15

Dr. Mona

Things are happening and happening in a good way, but it’s much easier for our brain to remember the negative. It’s how we create from an evolutionary perspective. Create safety and create, you know, barriers to protect ourselves, right? We have these negative things happen and it programs our brain and adds anxiety and says, you know what? You know, you got to be careful so this can happen again.

 

00;04;24;21 – 00;04;45;04

Dr. Mona

It’s a protective mechanism. But sometimes that protective mechanism of anxiety can become overwhelming. So there’s two phases that I want to talk about this. I’m tired of making lemonade. I mean there’s happened a few times, but I want to talk about two. This happened to us during Ryan’s delivery. You know, we got bad news after bad news and, you know, he wasn’t breathing when he was born.

 

00;04;45;04 – 00;05;02;22

Dr. Mona

He went to the NICU. He had a seizure. He had a stroke. I got really sick. I kept getting sick. I mean, it just seemed never ending. Any time that I felt like there was progress, it just felt like we were taking two steps back. It was lemon after lemon. And at that point I wasn’t in the mindset to make lemonade.

 

00;05;02;24 – 00;05;24;14

Dr. Mona

And that is the point. The point in healing is not to try to get out of it faster or to say, okay, I need to go make the lemonade right now. No, it’s to feel the feelings grieve. Go through that process so that you can find the brighter days. Most recently in March of 2022, if you’re listening to this month, three years later, we went through it.

 

00;05;24;14 – 00;05;46;11

Dr. Mona

I mean, I’ll have to say that my husband and I talked. It was actually the hardest time of our lives after Ryan’s delivery. I mean, we had our IVF egg retrieval, which I’ve talked about in a podcast episode about secondary infertility and on my YouTube channel as well. So it’s about two weeks of hormone injections and the start of it, you know, the night before we went out to dinner and it was amazing.

 

00;05;46;11 – 00;06;03;07

Dr. Mona

And, you know, it was like a great start to this whole process that I’ve heard can be very stressful. And it was in many ways, the day of the start of my hormone injections, our entire family got norovirus. My son had had it three days prior and I got it. My husband got it and then my mom later got it as well.

 

00;06;03;10 – 00;06;22;23

Dr. Mona

The next day, my grandmother was admitted to the hospital for a fall. She had some rib fractures and she was admitted. And she’s older, obviously, so it wasn’t really some great news. And the afternoon of our egg retrieval, this is now two weeks after this all started. I’m laying in my bed, you know, on bedrest, doctor’s orders, and my husband comes in crying.

 

00;06;22;26 – 00;06;43;26

Dr. Mona

Mind you, I’ve only seen him cry twice before this. And once was during Ryan’s delivery. He comes in telling us that our landlord has sold our house and we have to move out in 90 days. Now, any other time, you know, we would have said, okay, this kind of bites, but, you know, we’ll move. Maybe this is a sign that we’ll move into something bigger or, you know, we’ve outgrown our space.

 

00;06;43;29 – 00;07;10;00

Dr. Mona

But this happened in the worst housing market ever in Florida. And actually nationally, no inventory rent is two times what we are currently paying for for houses that aren’t even nicer. It was a very difficult time, and so much of the difficulty was because of the uncertainty, right? We had illnesses, we had norovirus. And then my son got back to back illnesses from childcare, so we had to keep him home.

 

00;07;10;02 – 00;07;29;25

Dr. Mona

My grandma was admitted to the hospital housing. You know, all these things are just extremely stressful. I’ve always said that the hardest things to deal with are financial issues, health issues and housing issues, because those are the three essential things that we need, right? We need money to buy things that we need for our life. We need our health and we need somewhere to live.

 

00;07;30;02 – 00;07;54;01

Dr. Mona

And we were going through health issues and we were going through a housing crisis. So simultaneously, we are dealing with the lemons. And it was very hard for myself and my husband to get through this time. Whatever it is you are going through, some periods are going to seem more heavy than others. It’s going to seem that lemons are constantly being thrown at you, and you’re being asked to make lemonade.

 

00;07;54;04 – 00;08;15;23

Dr. Mona

If you are listening to this and you have been handed a lot of lemons back to back, I am asking you to take those lemons and put it aside. You do not have to make the lemonade right away. When I talk about these things on this podcast, I talk about going through the motions so that you can get to the phase where lemonade can be made, where you can see the positivity and hope.

 

00;08;16;00 – 00;08;35;22

Dr. Mona

But in the moment, that may not be a reality. And I think this is the misconception behind the phrase when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. I actually do believe in this phrase. I do believe in this mantra. And I’ve lived it. I’ve seen the lemonade that I’ve been able to make, but people think that, well, I have to make the lemonade in that moment.

 

00;08;35;25 – 00;08;59;04

Dr. Mona

I’m telling you not to. You can’t make lemonade in the moment. You have to go through the motions to focus on all the things that I discuss in all of my finding Joy episodes vulnerability, honesty, gratitude. Humility. But to eventually get to making lemonade, to get to that clarity on your own time so that you can create resiliency for future hard times in your life.

 

00;08;59;07 – 00;09;19;10

Dr. Mona

So accept the lemons. It’s happening. Accept them. Say, okay, these are my lemons. You don’t have to love the situation. You don’t have to agree that this is something that should be happening in your life. You have to be okay with feeling that moment you’re here in this moment and take everything that’s happening and talking it out with a loved one, or journal it.

 

00;09;19;17 – 00;09;44;25

Dr. Mona

Say what you hate about it, vent, talk about it. Say what it makes you feel. Let it out of your mind and onto paper, or to a person that’s willing to listen. Remember, they have to be able to listen to the hard things that you’re going through. You must be able to process your feelings to be vulnerable and to say to yourself, wow, this really bites if you have any chance of moving through it to brighter days.

 

00;09;44;27 – 00;10;04;18

Dr. Mona

This is what we did when this happened, right? I literally sat there and I was like, well, this really sucks. Like, I love this house and there’s nothing there. What the heck are we going to do? For some people, this is going to take longer than others. For me, I was able to find the good in the situation while also recognizing the bad quicker quote unquote than my husband.

 

00;10;04;21 – 00;10;27;23

Dr. Mona

My husband slipped into actually a situational depression, losing our house and the uncertainty of growing our family with the IVF was very hard for him, and we are two people in the exact same situation handling it differently. And I also want to normalize that. It was actually hard for me to watch my husband go through what he did with the sadness of losing the home and the IVF, when I am also experiencing the same thing.

 

00;10;28;00 – 00;10;45;16

Dr. Mona

But I also had to understand that it’s okay for him to feel different. He values things a little bit differently than I do, but that doesn’t mean that it’s better or worse. It’s just different. And that’s how we look at grief, right? My husband was grieving. My husband was grieving the loss of a house and the loss of an ideal family that he had envisioned.

 

00;10;45;18 – 00;11;02;07

Dr. Mona

I had already made that processing in my head to understand that, you know what? I have a different timeline. It’s okay. But we handled it differently. And that is what I talk about on my Instagram, too, about grief comparison. We can’t expect people to say, well, why would you be upset about that? They’re upset about it for a reason.

 

00;11;02;09 – 00;11;24;13

Dr. Mona

We also can’t force someone to move through their grief quicker than we would. I think we often feel this rush to get to a certain point when life gives us a hard patch, but the point is that you can’t rush because you have to go through the process on your own time. It took my husband about 3 to 4 weeks to finally get to a place where he could say, I am accepting of this reality.

 

00;11;24;15 – 00;11;41;26

Dr. Mona

It doesn’t mean that the reality is okay, right? That’s another misconception. It doesn’t mean that when you finally have processed your grief that the event that happened is okay, not a big deal. It was a big deal. It still is a big deal in your life, but you’re growing around your grief, which is what we always talk about when we talk about moving through grief processing.

 

00;11;41;28 – 00;11;58;14

Dr. Mona

Sometimes you may do this alone. You know, you may be able to go through these motions and say, okay, I’m handling it. I have some coping skills. You know, I’m listening to this episode or, you know, I’m able to just on my own podcast, reframing can help. Other times you’re going to need the help of a loved one.

 

00;11;58;17 – 00;12;22;27

Dr. Mona

You’re going to need to talk to them, you’re going to let it out, and other times you’re going to need the help of a professional and all is okay. Normalize the different ways that we grieve, the different time frame that we grieve, and the different things that we grieve about. All is different. Some things that I have found unhelpful when life is throwing you lemons is to, number one, think that you’re the only one who suffers, that you are alone in your feelings.

 

00;12;22;27 – 00;12;42;00

Dr. Mona

You are never alone. Although people go through different struggles at different times, you are never alone in the difficult patches. I feel it is on social media and our friends we spoke more about these ups and downs. We would normalize the rough patches. You know, if you’re in a struggle a moment like you’re going through a lot and things are happening and you’re like, wow, I just feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders.

 

00;12;42;07 – 00;12;57;24

Dr. Mona

And then you go on social media and you’re seeing a highlight reel. Remember that you’re seeing about 90% of good things happening, kids that are well-behaved, kids that are eating their meals, kids that are doing this that are posing for pictures and well curated feeds. It’s a reality. So your brain is going to tell you, well, am I the only one that’s struggling?

 

00;12;57;26 – 00;13;16;09

Dr. Mona

Why am I the one going through rough patches? But I can tell you that everybody goes through rough patches. Not everyone speaks about it. They don’t have to go on social media or, you know, they don’t have to with their friends. But everyone goes through rough patches in some way, and everybody deals with those rough patches differently. But that doesn’t mean that you’re the only one struggling.

 

00;13;16;09 – 00;13;34;00

Dr. Mona

I want you to normalize and say, hey, look, I’m struggling. It’s okay. I’m just going through a rough patch right now. I find that when you feel you’re the only one struggling, it can make you feel isolated. And although people may not be struggling with the same exact things as you know that you’re not alone in the hard times life can bring.

 

00;13;34;02 – 00;13;49;28

Dr. Mona

You’re just in it right now, when maybe your best friend may be having an up at that time. And that’s okay, right? Like, we can be happy for others when we’re being sad. We can create distance if we’re not able to be happy for others just for the moment, so we can process and then be ready to be there for someone else.

 

00;13;50;01 – 00;14;07;23

Dr. Mona

I remember when I went to Ryan’s delivery, I had a really hard time seeing pictures of my friends or relatives, healthy kids, or FaceTiming. I didn’t want to see other children when I didn’t know if my child would survive. I didn’t know what my child’s outcome would be, and I would just be very clear on my boundaries and tell my friends and family, I love you.

 

00;14;07;23 – 00;14;24;11

Dr. Mona

But right now, if you can just not send pictures of your children, I will be in a place where I’ll be able to receive that. But right now, it’s not something I can do. And that was really helpful for me. So number one, don’t think that you’re the only one who suffers. Number two, don’t blame yourself at all or for too long.

 

00;14;24;11 – 00;14;39;23

Dr. Mona

If you’re going to blame yourself, please just don’t blame yourself. But if you’re going to do it, just be very minimal with how long you do it for. Blaming yourself can be part of the grieving process. So that’s why I say don’t just eliminate altogether, but I don’t want you to sit there forever with our housing situation. My husband blamed himself.

 

00;14;39;23 – 00;14;57;08

Dr. Mona

You know, we should have bought. Why didn’t we think, you know, we didn’t know this would happen. And I told him, like, two years ago, we were in a place where we thought that we would want to rent because we wanted the flexibility. We may move. So we wanted to rent. We didn’t know that a pandemic would be still here, and the housing market would be the worst it’s ever been.

 

00;14;57;08 – 00;15;15;20

Dr. Mona

How would we have known that we made the best decision we could at that time? When we moved into a rental, it made the most sense for us. And, you know, it’s really hard to accept that. But my husband had to make that understanding on his own. He couldn’t have me say that to him. He couldn’t have someone else say that to him.

 

00;15;15;20 – 00;15;34;29

Dr. Mona

He just needed to come there to that realization on his own. Number three don’t go down the spiral that you are failing at everything and that nothing is good. Even when I sat in the hospital bed with Ryan when he was born and he was in the NICU and I was in the ICU, I found little things that brought me some joy and peace.

 

00;15;35;02 – 00;15;52;18

Dr. Mona

So in the grand scheme of the lemons being thrown at me, I really was not happy. I mean, let’s be clear, it was not an easy time, and I’m never going to take away that moment that it was very difficult at all. But I did celebrate the first meal that I got to eat. After not being able to eat for like 11 days, I did celebrate getting a real bath or shower.

 

00;15;52;18 – 00;16;12;00

Dr. Mona

You know, not having someone shower me. I did remember, you know, walking and going outside in the rain, like all those little moments. Yes. I would rather have not been in the situation at all. But I was in this reality and I had to find small ways to cope, to get through to brighter times. So if you are getting lemons handed to you, right.

 

00;16;12;02 – 00;16;37;13

Dr. Mona

I’m not asking you to make lemonade, but I’m maybe asking you to squeeze a little bit of juice, right? And just get a little bit of juice out there and look for some positives in the moment. It may not be related to the things that are causing you grief or sorrow, but look for other things. When we were going through all of this and you know, Ryan was finally better from his norovirus and, you know, my was finally out of the hospital, but we were still dealing with the housing crisis and not finding a home and struggling.

 

00;16;37;16 – 00;16;54;28

Dr. Mona

I would look to Ryan and say, you know what? This is so great. Look at how much he’s developing. You know, his words were exploding. So little moments, little celebrations. But we were still in a grieving process of trying to figure out, well, what are we going to do from here? And why is life saving so difficult? Number four is don’t spend too much time on social media.

 

00;16;55;01 – 00;17;11;29

Dr. Mona

If you’re getting a lot of lemons thrown at you. Social media, like I mentioned, is 100% a highlight reel. Okay, maybe like 80 to 90%. Some people do share some of the ups and downs and but our brain is still programed to remember the negative things that are happening in our life. And remember the positive things that are happening and others.

 

00;17;12;01 – 00;17;31;06

Dr. Mona

It’s really hard for us to reframe, and it’s really important to remember that all of us go through ups and downs. If you’re emotionally able to be there, great. But when life is really throwing you a lot of lemons, you may need to just take some mental space away from all that noise, right? You may need to mute, block some people, or spend time off of social media while you process.

 

00;17;31;09 – 00;17;52;12

Dr. Mona

I found this to be very healthy when I was going through Ryan’s delivery the first few weeks I actually went dark on social media, and for some people they will stay active because it helps their grief. But for me, it’s something that wasn’t helping for constant updating and commentary and oh, what’s going on? What’s going on? I needed my own time to process the difficult.

 

00;17;52;14 – 00;18;13;20

Dr. Mona

I needed my own time to figure out how I’m going to grow through this process. I didn’t want anybody else to tell me how I should feel, that anything else? I just needed a moment. And then when I felt like I could be there and process it, that’s when I shared my story. So it sometimes means not sharing everything or anything until you’ve gone through the process.

 

00;18;13;20 – 00;18;29;26

Dr. Mona

And this is on like a big social media scale. It is important, however, to go through the motions and talk to you need to talk to you while you are grieving the lemons that are being thrown at you because sometimes what happens, like I said earlier, is that we go through the grief comparison, right? You have this stuff happening.

 

00;18;29;26 – 00;18;47;11

Dr. Mona

Like you could look at our housing situation and you could say, okay, that’s not that big of a deal. Like at least you have a home. No, no, no, I’m telling you that it was hard for us, right? For so many reasons that I don’t know anyone. An explanation for. Same thing that you could be going through something that your best friend or me could say, oh, I’ve been there, I’ve done that.

 

00;18;47;11 – 00;19;04;07

Dr. Mona

It’s not that big of a deal. No, it’s a big deal for you. It’s important to recognize that so that you can process it. If you keep saying it’s not a big deal, it’s not a big deal. I should be grateful. I should be grateful. But you’re not allowing your mind to do is say, hey, look, this is actually really hard.

 

00;19;04;09 – 00;19;22;04

Dr. Mona

And the more you resist something, the more it’s going to persist. Remember that the more you resist, the more it’s going to persist, the more you say, okay, it’s not that big of a deal. Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. It’s going to fester. It’s going to sit there and you’re not going to be able to move through the emotions, to get through to a point where you can start making lemonade.

 

00;19;22;07 – 00;19;39;06

Dr. Mona

And that is why I need you to protect your mental peace. If you are getting lemons thrown at you and I am very strategic in doing this. My life has had a lot of ups and downs, and I go through periods where I’m being dealt a lot of lemons and I take a step back from social media. I always record my podcast because I love it.

 

00;19;39;12 – 00;20;01;25

Dr. Mona

I record other things, you know? But sometimes social media can not be a healthy place when you’re dealing with a lot. And it’s very important to recognize that if that’s how it’s affecting you. There’s a saying that everything happens for a reason. And I know many people may not believe in it, but I want to offer a perspective here that may help you if you’re a nonbeliever, because I actually do believe in this phrase.

 

00;20;01;27 – 00;20;22;04

Dr. Mona

Everything happens for a reason is a horrible thing to say to someone when they’re acutely hurting or going through a hard time. This, you know, everything happens for a reason. Common is something that the person needs to realize in their own time and through their own healing. When I was with Ryan in the hospital and everyone’s like, look, we’ll look at this, look at this.

 

00;20;22;07 – 00;20;39;07

Dr. Mona

In the back of my mind, I knew all of those things were true. I knew that Ryan was lucky to be in our home, you know, with a pediatrician mom who was into development, who would guide him. We had the resources. I knew that, you know, I was alive. But being told when you’re grieving will be grateful for being alive.

 

00;20;39;07 – 00;20;57;08

Dr. Mona

Be grateful to have a child that’s alive that oh, at least he was born into a family. That is two doctors that didn’t help in the moment. I needed to come to that realization on my own. And when you hear this, you know everything happens for a reason. It can also make you feel that the thing that happened is fair.

 

00;20;57;09 – 00;21;20;12

Dr. Mona

Okay? Not grief. It’s not hard. No, the thing that did cause you sadness or stress or grief, it absolutely is important. It absolutely is hard. The everything happens for a reason is not something that should be told to you when you’re acutely grieving, but it’s something that will happen as you process the emotions and get through to the other side.

 

00;21;20;15 – 00;21;46;03

Dr. Mona

Like I said, you survived 100% of your hardest days, even when it seemed that it was impossible. Even those moments that you were really grieving and it was really hard. You are now here. You have learned and grown around the grief. The grief has remained. And I remember when Ryan was born and I finally got to the place where I could share my story and feel that I had, you know, now can make lemonade, that I saw the reason why all of this happened, that everything happens for a reason.

 

00;21;46;03 – 00;22;04;17

Dr. Mona

Frey’s part of me felt like, well, if I’m in this spot, well, people forget how hard that grief was for me. Well, people forget that I actually do hurt from time to time, and I want to normalize and say no. For someone who really understands grief. And I’m sitting here understanding grief, you’re never going to forget that grief.

 

00;22;04;17 – 00;22;27;06

Dr. Mona

That grief is not something that was should have happened or that is fair or any of that, but it happened. And now we are saying to ourselves, how am I going to change? What did that situation teach me? Or how can I help others? I want to give the example of losing a child. Now this is an immense loss and I think everyone can say that this is something that I don’t want any parent to ever go through.

 

00;22;27;12 – 00;22;50;29

Dr. Mona

I have been fortunate to speak to a lot of families who’ve lost children along the years in my pediatric training, and I don’t want to get into details on how they lost a child. But it’s hard having those conversations. You know, I sit across the parent, whether it’s acutely, you know, they either invited me to their child service, if they passed away or it’s months later or it’s years later.

 

00;22;51;01 – 00;23;13;01

Dr. Mona

And from the conversations I’ve had, you know, whether the child was lost via a miscarriage at birth, younger children, older children, traumas, health issues, whatever it is, I learn a lot from these parents and I learn how they were able to make lemonade out of lemons. And I know you’re thinking, how in the world could we ever say that a death.

 

00;23;13;03 – 00;23;41;26

Dr. Mona

You can make lemonade out of that. Remember, we’re not taking away the fact that this child lost their life, that this family had to grieve the loss of a child, which is so terrible. But many of these parents that I talk to turned their grief into advocacy, whether it’s education to other families about safety issues that took the life of their child, or whether it’s starting a foundation or whether it’s donating, or whether whatever it is, this event, the loss of the child is not okay.

 

00;23;41;28 – 00;24;03;23

Dr. Mona

It’s not fair. I don’t want that any family goes through that. It’s not okay. And that person will hold immense grief for a long time and will grow around their grief. But they did turn the lemons into lemonade by helping others. Many became public speakers fighting for legislation, fighting for advocacy. And that is what this means by making lemonade out of lemons.

 

00;24;03;25 – 00;24;25;09

Dr. Mona

And that is what it means by everything happens for a reason. The reason may look different. The reason may be that you grew closer to your partner, or the reason may be that you created a foundation to help other children, or that you promoted an advocacy project. Making lemonade out of lemons will look different for so many of us, and the goal is not for it to happen immediately.

 

00;24;25;11 – 00;24;45;18

Dr. Mona

The goal is for you to feel the difficulty and navigate it without noise, and with so much support that you can get to the other side where you see the reason where you can make lemonade. I want to take the example of Ryan’s delivery. You know, it took me a while to find out why that happened. You know, everything happens for a reason.

 

00;24;45;21 – 00;25;05;26

Dr. Mona

And again, I couldn’t let anyone else tell me the reason I had to find it on my own. What did it teach me? It learned me to let go of expectation and let go of all the things that I was trying to control in my life up until that point. It actually created more freedom, more. I’m controlling what I can, and I have to leave the rest up to the universe into life.

 

00;25;05;26 – 00;25;22;01

Dr. Mona

I can’t control everything. Number two, it allowed me to be more humble as a pediatrician and see the struggles that moms go through, not only, as you know, having a kid with a medical issue, but also postpartum struggles. You know, when I have moms come into my office, rarely they ever tell me about all the struggles that happen.

 

00;25;22;01 – 00;25;38;01

Dr. Mona

I hear that they had a traumatic delivery, or maybe they never really were documented, that they had a traumatic delivery, but they were struggling. And now I’m more empathetic to that. I understand that, hey, how are you doing? Because sometimes grief and trauma may not always be documented from a note from the hospital. Sometimes it may be internal.

 

00;25;38;03 – 00;25;52;29

Dr. Mona

I didn’t have it easy. I didn’t have an easy delivery. I didn’t have an easy time breastfeeding. I didn’t have it easy at all. And I think that’s actually helped me connect with so many moms on a personal level. Number three, it allowed me to reflect on life and meaning. You know, what is the meaning of life and learning to let go?

 

00;25;53;01 – 00;26;16;16

Dr. Mona

And number four, it allowed me to help others in their grief through sharing my birth trauma story, through sharing our secondary infertility story that has caused me so much joy. That is the lemonade. That is the reason it doesn’t make it okay. I will always hold a place in my heart for the trauma that happened with Ryan’s delivery, but now I’m turning my lemons at that time into lemonade.

 

00;26;16;19 – 00;26;35;13

Dr. Mona

When we went through the illness and IVF and housing, you know, the illnesses, I looked at it and I finally realized, you know, my son is in school. He loves school. He’s building his immune system. I’m learning how to manage things with no help, that when and if I get help, I’m going to feel gratitude and a weight lifted off my shoulder because I was lamenting and so upset with the lack of help.

 

00;26;35;19 – 00;26;52;11

Dr. Mona

And I’m like, I did it. And when I do get the help, I’m going to be grateful and excited about it. With IVF, I’m learning how to handle stress and I’m also helping others. I’m helping others through their IVF trauma and through their grief that they may experience with infertility and with the housing I looked at. Maybe this is happening because it needs to be.

 

00;26;52;18 – 00;27;09;10

Dr. Mona

Maybe this space isn’t serving us well anymore. Maybe, you know, the internet is sucks because it does. We don’t get service in most of our house and I can’t do my job, you know, working from home. So maybe we need to do this. So you see, the reason it can be so little, it can be so big or can be comical like the internet.

 

00;27;09;10 – 00;27;41;24

Dr. Mona

But it’s a reason. It’s a reason that you need to find out on your own time. I’m sure everyone of you can actually look back at the hard times in your life and think of one thing you gained or grew from that experience, even from the most horrible of experiences. Take a moment. You hear that that’s growth. The fact that you learned something from an experience, that’s learning that we are not in control of anything in our lives, but we are in control of how we will overcome and continue on this wild journey that sometimes seems to be too much.

 

00;27;41;26 – 00;28;00;21

Dr. Mona

So when life is handing you lemons, remember this it’s okay to be upset. You have to be upset, and you have to feel your feelings in order to grow. Listen to episode 116 on how to find more peace as a mom. Even if you’re not a mom, it’s going to be helpful because it can really help in being more humble and letting in that vulnerability.

 

00;28;00;24 – 00;28;17;07

Dr. Mona

Number two, confide in the people who are able to listen to you. I don’t want you to feel minimized because that really doesn’t help healing, but you have to be ready and understand that that person has to be able to receive the stuff that’s going in your life, the mental load. So you have to ask, hey, I’m going through a really hard time.

 

00;28;17;09 – 00;28;40;09

Dr. Mona

Are you able to listen to me? If it means hiring a therapist, you hire a therapist, but you have to be willing to talk about it. Number three, block out the noise of social media people who are blocking your growth. Number four, find the reason whether it’s in that moment. But I don’t expect you to do that one month, two months, a year later, I know you will find the reason, but nobody else can tell you the reason.

 

00;28;40;16 – 00;28;57;15

Dr. Mona

Not your partner, not your therapist. Nobody. It’s going to come on your own and it’s going to be that moment. It’s going to be that moment. You say, wow, this happened and I am really sad. But look at what I’m getting to do with that. Now look at what I’m getting to do with those lemons. And number five, remember that you are not alone in the hard times.

 

00;28;57;15 – 00;29;23;13

Dr. Mona

Although it may not be the same as your neighbor or friend. We are all dealing with something difficult in some way and embrace it to find peace. When we can look at life and the lemons it throws at us as an opportunity to grow, we can create room for change and accept it versus resist it. We can handle the rocky moments because we know that we will get through it, because we have survived all the other difficult days and times.

 

00;29;23;15 – 00;29;58;22

Dr. Mona

Never resist the hard times. Never tell yourself it doesn’t matter if it matters to you. It matters in that moment. But do remember that you will get through it and you will thrive from it. When you can look at how that difficult time has changed you in any situation, whether you are parenting in a pandemic or struggling in a relationship or a job, or dealing with a housing crisis or a health issue, whatever it is and it’s happening all at once, there will be a point that you can say in your life, number one, what did I learn from this?

 

00;29;58;24 – 00;30;28;08

Dr. Mona

Number two, how did it change me for the better? Number three, how can I impact somebody else’s life with what happened to me, even in the most tragic of circumstances, at some point in the journey we will change for the better. Create a legacy and or do good for others. When you’ve reached this point where one or all of those things are happening, that is how you are making lemons out of lemonade.

 

00;30;28;10 – 00;30;48;04

Dr. Mona

Thank you so much for tuning in. Remember, if you love this episode, you have to leave a review and a rating. Share it on Instagram. Tag me so that others can discover this finding Joy episode. I am so grateful for this community and the finding Joy series, and I will be coming back more regularly with finding Joy episodes because you all love them.

 

00;30;48;04 – 00;31;06;28

Dr. Mona

So thank you! Can’t wait to talk to you again and have a great rest of your week. Thank you for tuning in for this week’s episode. As always, please leave a review. Share this episode with a friend. Share it on your social media. Make sure to follow me at PedsDocTalk on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel, PedsDocTalk TV.

 

00;31;07;00 – 00;31;08;00

Dr. Mona

We’ll talk to you soon.