#177 The Fun Filter - Deciding What Lights You Up with Jessie Mahoney, MD

Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Melissa Parsons

Hello everyone and welcome back to Your Favorite You. I'm excited because you are going to get to listen to a conversation between myself and my fellow retired pediatrician turned life coach and retreat host Jessie Mahoney. Jessie and I were trying to figure out before we started recording, we were chatting a little bit before we hit record, and lucky for both of us, we really can't remember where we met. We know for sure that we saw each other at a life coach school event in Texas many moons ago now, but we think we met before then, both of us with our perimenopausal and menopausal brains. We're trying to figure it out and I don't know, we just have figured out through the years, and you can jump in at any point Jessie, that we have a lot in common. We both are very much coaches and coachees where we coach ourselves and we get coaching from other colleagues and people that we trust about our relationships with ourselves, our relationships with our very lucky husbands, and our relationships with our sons. So Jessie has three adult boys and or young men I should say, and of course you guys all know that I have two if you've been listening to the podcast for any share a love of yoga. Jessie has become a yoga instructor and she is frequently my yoga instructor through her coaching. Well, they are kind of coaching and yoga. They are both mixed together. Yeah. And so many of the questions that you asked us on our New Year's Eve practice, I immediately went and answered for myself and then wrote an email on the spot, and sent it out to my people. And Jessie told me to answer these questions for myself. Your invitation is to answer them for you too, and you get stuck. Come see her or me or both or whatever. And so tell us, I'm going to not let you get past my number one question that I ask everyone, which is tell us all about your favorite current version of you, Jessie.

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Jessie Mahoney

Oh, my favorite. This'll tie right into what we were going to talk about. My favorite version of me is someone who makes decisions through that lens of what would be fun. And that is a way of filtering out and deciding with much more ease. I used to be a terrible decision maker and I would second-guess and have so much judgment about it and trying to make the right decision. And I've done so much coaching and so much work on that through mindfulness and yoga and coaching, And I've over the years used a lot of different intention words and ways of moving through this, but my current favorite version of me is to make decisions from what would be fun, and I think we'll dive into that a little bit more, but even as what I do these days I do what's fun. And you mentioned I teach yoga on Zoom and YouTube, I’ve become a YouTube yoga star, I'm laughing, but anyway, because it's fun. And I think people join me because it's fun, and I have found that fun things are the things where I show up and shine the brightest is my favorite version of me. And I think that when you show up with fun for other people it's similar, and you mentioned that I offer retreats, and about a year and a half or a little more ago, I moved to a place where I could do retreats to the country, totally flipped my life upside down when my last child went to college and probably it was something I had been working on for many many years. And, uh, I have steadily increased the number of retreats that I have done. And some people say, I can't believe you're doing so many. And I'm like, well, it's fun. I'm having fun. People who are coming are having fun. I'm getting to teach yoga and go on hikes and do coaching. And I just love watching people transform and I'll use your words, find their favorite them, um, and figure out, you know, what's in there that's ready to bubble up or what they're ready to let go of, and that has been super fun. And all of my decisions, just about what kinds of things to offer. So I have a coaching business. I call it pause and presence. And I do a lot of mindful coaching and some around relationships and some around parenting and some around transitions and some around leaderships, and I just try to make it fun and people say, Oh, you know, why did you add that one in? Because it's fun. Why did you stop offering that one? Because it wasn't fun anymore. Um, stopped being fun. Yeah. And you know, uh, for me, I think that filter has really shifted my whole lens. And, um, I might actually, we've been this idea of the, I did a Ted talk last year, which is not out yet, but it's going to be really fun when it comes out. And I will say actually the process of doing it wasn't actually that much. Like I can't, and I know you're thinking about it was not that much fun because there were parts of it that were really uncomfortable and felt weird, but actually giving it was really fun. And picking the dress that I wore, that is actually that picture of me. And that dress is like my, one of my favorite versions of me, because it was just delightful. I don't dress up like that ever. And so that was really fun. Um, but having given it is really fun. And so I can also let that be the lens. Like it doesn't all have to be fun and life isn't always all fun, but my favorite version of me is, is that just digging into what is fun, what makes you feel alive and light up without all that other stuff, which still pops up no matter how much I coach, no matter how much mindfulness I do. Um, yes, it turns out.

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Melissa Parsons

We're also human.

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Jessie Mahoney

I wish that it didn't. Uh, and that's just resisting reality. So here we are. That's actually probably the rationale for doing this sort of regular yoga and coaching, you know, I've been teaching yoga for free for almost six years now. But doing it almost every week and sometimes four times a week, like last week over the new years, it's just this constant sort of reset pausing and breathing and resetting your nervous system and coming up with different ways of questioning and, and training your nervous system to show up differently. And, so it just takes that constant practice from a place of kindness, not because I'm broken or you're broken, right? We just take that attention and practice.

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Melissa Parsons

Mm hmm. I think it's interesting because, you know, both of us being pediatricians, I mean, I don't know about you, but for me, most of the time, medicine, studying to become a doctor, all the long hours being on call, you know, there was so much of that that was not any fun whatsoever, right? So we both spent a lot of years, you know, not having a lot of fun having pretty high stress situations and, you know, helping people through some of their most stressful situations. And yet we chose pediatrics, at least I did, because it was sometimes really fun, like hearing the kids and like the stuff that comes out of their mouth and the shit that they get into and, you know, that type of thing. I'm just thinking about it now as we're talking about it. And then like, you know, if you would have told me was what I was doing fun before, I would say what I'm doing now is way more fun. And there were still pockets of fun, which I think is what made me go toward pediatrics in the beginning. And in my view, sorry to all my friends who are not pediatricians, but, you know, they were the nicest and the kindest and the most patient and that type of thing when I was training. So I was like, okay, I can do this.

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Jessie Mahoney

Well, I think it's interesting because I think what's fun for us changes also. Oh, for sure. And so pediatrics at one point for me was super fun. But I also graduated or outgrew that version of pediatrics. And is there another version? Probably I'm, I'm still practicing pediatrics. I have three grandchildren now, so I'm a, and you know, nieces and nephews. I'm practicing, um, in a different way. But, um, and I, and I also think once you're a pediatrician, you're always a pediatrician and you always get asked. And so while you're not seeing a patient every 15 minutes, you are still practicing. But I work with a lot of people who are surgeons, for example, and they find surgery fun. They find it. Yeah, this is true at different points in time. We find fun. And I think that's something I've been exploring around this idea. Um, I'm going to call it my favorite me. It's really funny. I was thinking your word was fabulous. And I actually like your most fabulous you. And then you said your favorite you. And I was like, Oh, well it's fabulous. And my favorite by the way, I'm going to go with us, but you know, we get to decide what's fun. And for each of us, it's so different. So the world outside us tells us what's fun, right? It's fun to go to a party or it's fun to go to the beach, but at different, like I find yoga fun. No, I find live music fun. I didn't use to go see any live music. Like, I mean, it was rare. And now I live in an area where there's tons of live music and random hipster things that are just fun. Right. And I just find it amusing. Um, I actually went to the New Year's Eve party in my town. My town has like 150 people right now. Um, but they have this being called the illegals, which is a cover band. And I'm looking at you would appreciate that. But the audience was, I am 56. I was probably one of the youngest people there. Wow. But what I loved and what was so fun was to watch these couples. There were many, many couples in their seventies and I'm going to say early eighties, sixties and seventies who loved the Eagles and were like dancing and just having this, like in this, you know, in the middle of a rainstorm, in the middle of the country, uh, it was really fun. And the band is all around our age also just fun. And I'm thinking like this wouldn't have been fun. And it wasn't about drinking. It wasn't really about a party at all. It was just about people enjoying themselves. And that wouldn't have been my idea of fun 10 years ago. And so I think just recognizing that what is fun for each of us and I'm betting what's fun for you is different than what's fun for me and what's for anyone listening. And so to recognize that we get to choose what that is, I also want to reflect that for me, this, this notion of fun has been a little edgy because when I was raised, it was like, you don't just get to have fun all the time. There's like work and there's fun. And you don't get to make a decision about what you're going to do with a business or what, even what profession you're going to pick because it's fun. You don't pick pediatrics because it's fun. You have to be serious sometimes in pediatrics. We do pick it because it's fun, but that's about the only one that you're allowed to say that about. And yet, so I come to this lens of fun. Like, is it okay to make a decision from a place of fun? I think my favorite version of me says yes, right? Yeah.

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Melissa Parsons

Yeah, yeah.

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Jessie Mahoney

But I think recognizing how much judgment and layers and heaviness we might have about that, like weighing us down, is can be really helpful to see that. And I just try to consciously notice it and move on. But when I make decisions that way, they work out. And that doesn't mean it's not hard work, or it's not, I wouldn't describe it. It's not work. And it's not challenging yourself or putting yourself in an uncomfortable situation, i.e. the TED Talk or, you know, standing up on some. Last year, I did a lot more public speaking. And I actually do find it super fun. Yeah, that's first part when you get up there, or when you're like writing the talk or tweaking it, or even when I'm talking to someone about coming to give the talk, that part is not fun.

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Melissa Parsons

Don't vomit and do sing, you should say.

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Jessie Mahoney

But the end of giving the talk and having people tell me how eye-opening it was or reaching back out to me later and sharing what shifted or when they ask you to come back and give another talk like that part's really fun. And so I think it's this notion of like it doesn't mean it's easy. It just is like I like to think about what lights you up.

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Melissa Parsons

Yeah, that's so fun. I have a couple things to say about what you were saying. I'm thinking about being at the concert in your community. Yeah, you know, like 10 years ago, and I would have been like, okay, this might be a little bit cringe as my children would say. And then I think as we get older, if people who are listening are a lot younger than us, I'm about to be 53. Jessie already stated she's 56. Like, once you hit a certain age, I think we just have far fewer fucks to give about what anybody else thinks about us about, you know, like, if if I'm not having fun somewhere, I don't give a fuck and I leave like I'm like, I'm out of here. If I do something and I do have fun, I scheduled to do it as soon as possible again, right? So I think it's partially that and I do think I agree with you completely that we are socialized or many of us are socialized to think that something has to be hard, or you can't just have fun, because it's not worthy if it's not hard, or if you're having too much fun, like, there's some like worthiness bullshit around it. You know, I think one of my things my TED Talk is going to be about compassionate unlearning. And just, it's, it's just on learning and unwinding all these old beliefs that made sense for you to have at a certain time in your life. And you've decided, this is no longer fun. And it doesn't make sense for me to have these beliefs. Like, if I get to choose, which I think we all have far more choice than we recognize, like, I am going to choose something. And I am going to choose to unlearn those old things and replace them with things that I think are going to be fun. And then if I find out after a while that actually it's not fun, then I can change my mind again. And it doesn't make me flaky or flighty, or any of those things like we're supposed to change over time. And what was fun 20 years ago certainly would not be fun for me right now.

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Jessie Mahoney

Yeah. And as we're recording this right around New Year's, I'm thinking what was fun last year, might not be fun this year. And that's okay. Whatever your focus was last year, you might want to choose something different this year.

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Melissa Parsons

Yeah.

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Jessie Mahoney

I think that, yeah, for people in medicine in particular and kind of high achievers, we're like, you can't just change all the time. And when you use that word flighty, I'm like, yeah, we think it's flighty to change all the time. But what if it's intentional, or what if it's growth? What if it's actually moving in a specific direction, not even sure where it is, but just towards something that feels more aligned for you.

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Melissa Parsons

Yeah, I agree with you a wholeheartedly and 100%. So I think that, you know, I think it's changing and I think the younger generations, you know, we both have children in the same generation. I don't think they're so tied to, I have to pick this one thing and continue to do it for my entirety of my life. And I think I of course have a bias because I have children who have known me before coaching and who know me after and I think I told you when we chatted last time, you know, a couple years ago, Jack, my older one, who's now 23 said to me, like, Mom, how are we supposed to know what we're going to do for the rest of our lives at age 20? And I was like, Oh, fuck, I'm like, I totally gave you that idea at some point. And that was what I thought. And because I was, you know, knew when I was nine years old, that I wanted to be a doctor. And then I became a doctor with a lot of, you know, intention and purpose and all that. And now I'm, you know, not practicing medicine anymore. So I think for the majority of his life and Owens too, you know, I would have been more aligned with you pick something and you, if you want it, you go for it and you keep going and that type of thing. And now I'm like, whatever, like you're going to figure it out and, you know, I'm going to be here. Your dad will be here. You know, if you need us for any reason, like come home, we'll figure it out together. You don't have to like hold on to something just because you said it was something that you were going to do. So I think my hope, I guess, is that it's changing and that the people who are coming up today will have much more freedom, I guess, and recognize that they have choice way more than our generation did.

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Jessie Mahoney

And I see that in my three boys. In fact, um, you know, they don't consider that they showed or would stay at a job for a long time. Um, now I have one who's in sort of the startup world. Um, and the other who one had done something that I would have said was you sort of ended up in a long-term job, but he continues to change and continues to change fields. And that's literally, they, they have no drama about it whatsoever. It's like, well, I think I'll try this now. And well, I think I'll try this now. And I'm like, huh, but one of the things that my kids told me, and I bet your kids think this too, it, which is that if I, my mom could change anybody, and that my changing in front of them was incredibly powerful. They were like, yeah, if you think you can't change, like just look at her. Right. And, but I think that that we can model this. I often tell people like what we tell our kids is very different than what we model. And so we'll tell them, oh, you can have lots of different jobs, but then we do the same thing and we stick to sort of old beliefs and we don't unlearn and we don't transform, they're not going to believe us, but when you actually change in front of them, that's where you're, you're modeling it. And I think, you know, as a pediatrician, it's something we talk about a lot, right? You have to model, you can't be eating chips until your kids have chips, right? Like it just doesn't work. Um, and so, but thinking bigger about that as to how you live your life or how you approach your relationships or whatever it is you find that lights you up. And if we allow ourselves to change, then they can continue to evolve. I think there's some, you know, in, in Peds, we're so fine with kids developing and changing every year. Um, I used to say it's like every three months that they go, yeah, nice phases and then the not nice phases. And that's when they're changing and they love you. They hate you as adults. Somehow this stops. It actually doesn't, by the way. Right. And when we're changing, we're a little crankier. That's just how it, how it works. Like it's part of that evolution.

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Melissa Parsons

Yeah. Yeah. The footing feels a little bit more unstable when you're changing and that type of thing. So, and I think it's natural to continue to question like, am I doing the right thing or, you know, am I not? And speaking to you earlier saying like, what is the right decision? You know, it's like, I think another thing that I try to tell my people and I know I've said it before on the podcast is, you know, the worst thing that can happen if you make the wrong quote unquote decision is how you treat yourself after you realize that it's not the path that you actually want to be on. And if you can make a tacit or even a verbal agreement to yourself, like, I'm going to not do that anymore. Like that is something I'm going to intentionally choose. And of course it will happen. And then you're going to have to say, oh, I'm noticing that I'm doing this thing that I said I wasn't going to do anymore. And then you have the choice right there to start being more compassionate and kind and empathetic to yourself. And so, yeah, I mean, I hear you everything that you're saying. And of course my boys have been like, you know, this is not how you would have handled whatever the situation is in the past. And I've even gotten that one of the things that still is a sticking point, I think with Jack is, you know, John and I are both very type a high achieving personalities and Jack is too. He's, you know, in my estimation, a typical older child. And, you know, you could look at him cross-eyed and he like straighten up and then Owens like comes out and we basically flip in the bird to us and see what's able to extend his middle finger. And so, but Jack, you know, remembers us more pre-me getting coaching and more John, pretty John getting coaching. And he's like, what the hell? Like, why did I get this version of you for most of my childhood? And Owen gets this, you know, more favorite version of yourself, you know, so there's been, and, you know, of course we talked to him and Owen about the idea that no two children even living in the same house have the same parents and, you know, because we evolve and, you know, we get ideas of how to do things. And then we actually have the child and I don't know about you, but did you have kids before you started practicing, Jessie?

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Jessie Mahoney

I did. I had one in med school, one in residency and one afterwards, but they all got a very different version of me. Um, although I think my oldest who was the one I had in med school, right? He actually probably got the more flexible version of me because you had to be. Um, and when you're younger, you're more flexible, right? And you have to be if you're a med student and a, a resident. So he was six by the time I finished my training, right? Or cause I took an extra year and I did a year, a chief year, um, in part cause I had two kids. Uh, so I think that my youngest who is quite a bit younger, um, I actually had a medical thing that happened between my second and my third. So I have kind of a gap there are six years apart. Okay. So he got left at home for left at home for six years after everyone else had left home alone. He talks about the stories of like, this wasn't the way it was here. And this, I'm just like, it's, there are a lot of things that are much better and a lot of things that you don't like as well, apparently, but like that's always their brain is to sort of think that, you know, which is better. All of us have that brain, right? We do.

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Melissa Parsons

Yeah, oh, for sure comparing.

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Jessie Mahoney

I'm just like, it just is.

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Melissa Parsons

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to say like, I didn't have kids. So Jack was born actually at the very end of my residency. And after I had him, I was like, Oh my God. Like, and then as he was growing up, I was like, Oh, I gave these parents like such terrible advice. Like they definitely were like, this woman has no idea what she's talking about. We're him or her alive, but we're going to do whatever we want because this ain't it. But I mean, I just think about that. And, but I mean, honestly, that's even true. I have a whole podcast episode about once I went through a lot of the coaching and a lot of the trauma training and that type of thing that I've done. Um, I wrote a podcast about all the shitty advice I gave you as your pediatrician. Yes. Like, you know, and it's like, Oh, like I would go back and take out, take back so many of those words. And then because a lot of my parents contacted me after they listened to that episode, they were like, no, well, now you got to do the all the advice that you would double down on that you gave us because you gave us great advice too. So, so that's another like a compassionate way to treat myself like, Oh yeah, I'm going to point out all the things that I wish I wouldn't have told you, but yeah, it's possible that I will do an episode telling you also how amazing I was because I was.

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Jessie Mahoney

Well, and I think it's, it's always you did the best you could in the moment. Some of it was good. Some of it was not, you know, I think if we think about medicine too, things change. So like things we recommended early on in our career are no longer recommended and whether it was good advice or bad advice, it was, you know, the standard national practice guidelines and we gave them advice, even though they've changed their mind, they know more. So they can know more and change things. We can know more and change things. It's that, that non-judgment. So I'm wondering for, for you, we were going to talk a bit about how you changed your last year. And I'm thinking like, you know more and this is more of your favorite current version. Yes.

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Melissa Parsons

Because she's always evolving.

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Jessie Mahoney

Do you want to share a little bit? I don't know if you shared on your own podcast about this, but I labeled it non-striving, but that's because I come from a mindfulness background where we actually have a term for this idea of slowing down and being in the moment and enjoying what is. But when we connected a couple of weeks ago and hadn't spoken in, I don't know, maybe two years, we had a conversation and that's what struck me was so different about you in this current iteration. Do you want to share a little bit about your last year and what?

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Melissa Parsons

Yeah. I mean, I think that I intentionally decided that if I never did another thing for another person, but for me, for the rest of my life, that I have given enough, I have, you know, provided people with what they need. One of my parts to speak in IFS terms, you know, thinks that in order to be liked by other people, in order to be loved by other people, I have to be somebody who is available to you at a moment's notice and will drop everything. And there is a part of me that still loves to do that. And there are people that I will do that for. And I think I've realized that I don't have to have that relationship with everybody that I know. And it's safe for me to not abandon myself in order to help someone else. So I think that that was kind of like the thinking about it and that type of thing. And then I just have so much white space on my calendar right now. I only have one group of women that I'm coaching and I only have a handful of one-on-one clients. So there's tons of white space. And I think that we talked, I was at the Physician Coaching Summit back in November, and we talked about, you know, what does it mean to have your own back? And I said, you know, it means that I open my calendar and I see all the white space where it used to be just jam-packed with coaching or working at Emerald or, you know, doing things with and for the kids and that type of thing. And I decided, I was like, okay, I am going to not berate myself for this. Like I have intentionally chosen this. And it's hard to remember, I think, when, you know, for 50 years, probably not 50, 40 years, you know, a lot of my worth came from how can I help other people? So, and I mean, of course, I still want to help other people. Of course, I want every woman who is struggling in her life or is stuck in her life to have a friend send them this podcast and hear them talking, us talking rather, and think, oh, like, there's a different way. Maybe I should get help to try to see what my way is, right? So it's not that I am like, fuck all of y'all. I don't, you know, I don't need you. It's this intentional, like, okay, do I need to drop everything? Do I need to abandon myself in order to put something on my calendar? So interestingly, I will tell you our puppy, Barney, who was almost 13 passed away on December 23rd. And, you know, John and I were like, we're going to wait. You know, we're not going to get another dog right now. You see where this is going.

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Jessie Mahoney

I do.

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Melissa Parsons

And so, I was just thinking the other day, because the little guy that we're bringing home in a couple weeks is going to be five months old and he's had some training, but I really want to keep training him up and I know it's a lifelong thing. And I was chatting with Claude, who was my favorite AI, about helping me pick my word and my phrase for the year and telling him, like, we're getting this puppy. And he said, basically, like, oh, you're going to be busy. And I was like, oh, man, like, there went a lot of my white space and it's like the perfect time to train this puppy because I have way more than enough white space than I actually need.

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Jessie Mahoney

And what if training the puppy is not busy? What if it's fun?

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Melissa Parsons

Yeah. Oh, it's going to be so much fun, right?

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Jessie Mahoney

The labeling, maybe Claude isn't as smart as you think, because I'm like, what if that's just fun? Like, white space could be time with your puppy, which someone might label as like tasks, the tasks that are in us, but it could also just be connecting with the puppy and, you know, handing out treats and going to a class. Could be like yoga, which could be like your white space, right? Like, it doesn't have to be,

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Melissa Parsons

Yeah, that's interesting. I never think of yoga as taking up space on my calendar. It is something that's just for me and I love it. And I travel to all the different studios in town and based on the instructor or based on the type of class that it is. And I never think about it as like, this is going to take up time or... To do, right? Or it's like taking up...

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Jessie Mahoney

Your white space. So yeah, it's that framing.

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Melissa Parsons

Mm-hmm.

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Jessie Mahoney

And I was thinking as you said that like you had done enough and there's like again that judgment of like, well, have I done enough? And is it okay? It reminded me of the fun conversation. It's kind of the ongoing thread, right? If it could be just fun to do or not do whatever you're doing, like you're going to continue to help people when it's fun and how it works. And immediately when I say that, I'm like, there's a little judgment there, right? Do you get to do that? And yet what if that's like each of us just that's our purpose is to show up when it works and when we have stuff to give and giving beyond what we have to give isn't actually better. It's that more is not better, harder is not better.

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Melissa Parsons

Mm-hmm.

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Jessie Mahoney

You know, and it could be that smaller and less people actually has more impact. Like if you can show up in a space where you are healthier and have the right energy and the right, you know, not the right, I shouldn't say that, have capacity.

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Melissa Parsons

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Jessie Mahoney

There's also a trust in there. And I think it's hard to have fun if you're not trusting yourself. And I just heard this like extreme level of trust, like I'm good. And it's funny because when you first told me this story, I didn't resonate with like this idea of like, because I was hearing it as like a slowing down and more of like a boundary white space. And when you're sharing it today, I was like, oh, well, actually that's where my fun thing comes from. Like there's nothing that I need to do. And yes, like I actually said, when I pivoted from Peds to full-time coaching in 2019, I said, you know, I have done enough. I've seen enough children in clinic, not that I'm not gonna ever help another child, but I have, I'm complete with this journey. You're a child, I'm sorry, I can't help you. Right, but I have, you know, as my husband said, like I think you could sit on the couch and eat bonbons. And you would have contributed enough. And I remember that vividly pretty regularly. And I feel that way in coaching too. Like I've clearly done enough, whatever enough is. I don't like that word that makes me anxious because I'm like, that's not enough and who's judging? But I feel sufficient in my sharing. And therefore what comes now is the real authentic, honest, like amazingness, right? That's just open-hearted. It's why you can teach yoga for six years just for fun. But the same idea that the retreats come that way or the groups come that way or the one-on-one or giving talks, I'm like, does it sound fun to go work with this group of people or work with this institution? If it doesn't sound fun or it doesn't feel aligned, then you can opt out. And I think that's where you end up with more white space. Although interestingly, it sounds like you ended up with a lot of white space. And last year I ended up with very little white space. And yet I felt energized at the end.

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Melissa Parsons

And, yeah.

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Jessie Mahoney

Part of me says that there are different years that where you have like the year before I had more white space.

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Melissa Parsons

Mm-hmm.

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Jessie Mahoney

Well, it's funny, I label it that way. See, there's kind of a judgment in the white space. I had more white space because I picked up my whole life and moved houses and, you know, changed everything. So there really wasn't more white space, but more white space on my calendar, per se, as that's kind of like dog training. You do it on your own schedule. Um, so it's just really interesting to sort of figure out how we, to weave all these stories about things that suit us. I love that we're actually currently weaving stories that suit us. I used to weave a lot of stories that didn't suit me and weren't so kind or compassionate, and now the ones I tell are really strategically kind. I'm very proud of that progress.

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Melissa Parsons

Yeah, same, same, same. I'm proud of you too and proud of me.

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Jessie Mahoney

you. Yeah. And, you know, I just want to reflect on this puppy. I've been thinking about getting another puppy. Our puppy died almost two years ago. She wasn't a puppy. She was very old. And it's that that just sort of pull and like, is that something that is going to be fun or not? I haven't made a final decision. I'll know. I'll know when I know. But I love the framing of it also not being busy. It just means.

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Melissa Parsons

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so interesting because I'm thinking about you having a puppy at Nicasio for your retreats and that type of thing and how fun that would be for the people who come.

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Jessie Mahoney

Yeah, well, and that's the dilemma, because would it be fun? And is there a space like if I mean, there's plenty of space here that you could separate things out, but.

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Melissa Parsons

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Jessie Mahoney

It would have to have some boundaries and thought, but I'm really looking for a walking partner. That's really why. I mean, it's not the only reason. A petting partner too. I think that dogs are fantastic for your nervous system and so much of the work that I do in yoga is around nervous system and I think that one of the ways that we get ourselves into trouble with coaching is by not addressing our nervous system. We just try to push ourselves forward. So dogs are like a magical, fun way to work on your nervous system.

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Melissa Parsons

Mm-hmm.

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Jessie Mahoney

And so that's part of it. But I also really want a walking partner. One of the things I lost when I moved were my favorite, my favorite walking partners. And my husband, as it turns out, doesn't like to walk as much as I do. He doesn't find it fun. And he really doesn't like to talk while he walks, but I think the dog will be okay.

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Melissa Parsons

You could have some amazing two-way conversations. That's amazing. Yeah, we're naming our puppy Frank Costanza Parsons. And so he is definitely, I want him to be a walking partner. And he's already learning to loosely walk. So that's a good thing. And one of the things that I would love to be able to do with him is train him to be a therapy dog and then take him back to Nationwide Children's and be with the kids and like, kind of bring it back to my first love, right? And, but in a totally different way, just to be there to, you know, provide, you know, nose boops and furry pets and smiles to the families and all that kind of good stuff.

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Jessie Mahoney

That sounds fun as we live back and spacious white space. Yes.

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Melissa Parsons

I love it, I love it, I love it.

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Jessie Mahoney

This has been super fun.

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Melissa Parsons

So it's been amazing. I agree. And I'm so glad that we decided to do this together. And I'm so glad that you're going to be sharing it on your podcast too, because then it will reach many, many more people. So that makes me so happy.

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Jessie Mahoney

Well, thank you for having me on yours. Thank you for coming on, on mine. And I think actually we maybe didn't mention that at the beginning, but we decided to be easy about it and just have the conversation in the spirit of fun and white space and share it on both of our podcasts. So we, all of you, whoever's listening, wherever you might be, and to those of you who listen to both, you can just listen to one. Um, it will be the same podcast, but we, we're so grateful and appreciative. To have you out there listening to us. And hopefully you all find the conversation as fun and inspiring as we did.

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Melissa Parsons

Yeah, amazing. Yeah, so maybe we should tell people where they can find us so that your people listening to me can listen more and my people listening to you can find you.

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Jessie Mahoney

So why don't you go first and also put in the info about your podcast so that because yeah, they'll be listening to it potentially on the other.

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Melissa Parsons

Yeah, perfect. So I am Melissa Parsons. You can find me most on Instagram at Coach Melissa Parsons MD. I'm also on Facebook Melissa Parsons Coaching. My podcast is called Your Favorite You, and I'm getting close to like 200 episodes, which is really fun.

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Jessie Mahoney

Awesome. And I am Jessie Mahoney and you can find me actually on Facebook as Jessie Mahoney and on Instagram as Jessie Mahoney MD, but most people find me through my website, which is also Jessie Mahoney MD and it's Jessie with an IE and or pause and presence. You can find it through either. And I also have a podcast which you may be listening to right now or you may be listening to Melissa's. It's called Healing Medicine with Dr. Jessie Mahoney and Dr. Ni Cheng Liang. If you type in one of our names, you seem to get it instantly. And so we would love it if you listen to that. And just to throw out, if you want to practice yoga with me and or Melissa and I, when she joins I teach yoga most weekends on Saturdays or Sundays at nine Pacific, sometimes both. And so you can find links to that on my website or if you sign up for my emails, then you get the actual schedule because I keep it fun. I don't teach every Saturday at night because sometimes there's something else fun going on. So I leave myself the flexibility. And sometimes like recently I will teach four days in a row to have a new series and all of my yoga classes end up on YouTube. So you can also just do them there whenever it works for you. And it's called mindful yoga for healers with Jessie Mahoney.

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Melissa Parsons

Okay, awesome, awesome. Is it still limited to people in medicine, Jessie?

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Jessie Mahoney

Honestly, everybody comes. I don't care. So there are a lot of people who are not in medicine who come. It's just that I often refer in that language, kind of like we did in the podcast about where you're coming from. But I think that it pretty much applies to any I achieving woman in the United States. And I don't think that too many men come. I've seen men maybe once, but generally it's all women, but you do not have to be in healthcare to come. I like to be inclusive and yoga is good for everybody.

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Melissa Parsons

For sure, for sure. And then real quickly about your retreats, are those open to non-medical people or what happens there?

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Jessie Mahoney

Yeah, no, is the answer. Well, the retreats in the Casio, the women's retreats are for women physicians. Okay, got it. I do have one retreat called Connect in Nature, which I do with my podcast co-host that's actually open to people not in medicine. And you can bring your husbands, men, friends, sisters, whoever. And that one we do at Green Gulch Farm and Zen Center, which is actually pretty close to where I am. And we go to Muir Woods and Muir Beach, and you can learn to meditate and we do yoga and we do a little bit of coaching. The retreats in the Casio are heavy coaching. Also, tons of mindfulness, we do sound healing, we do lots of yoga, and we do all the things and eat amazing food. But those ones are at the moment just for women physicians. The one way you can do it if you're not women physicians is if you have your own group of six or seven people and you just want to come like six or seven friends, then you would have one that doesn't have to be that way. And I have had once or twice people want to do that. And so that is a way to do it. But generally, they're all for women physicians.

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Melissa Parsons

Perfect, I love it, I love it. Thank you so much for sharing. My pleasure. Appreciate you. I appreciate you. You're right. We have become close friends, even though we see each other on a very irregular basis, which is the power of the internet, which I love.

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Jessie Mahoney

Well, we'll make a plan to get together in person because it would be fun. It would be so fun. I agree. I'll give us white space sometime in 2026 and 2027.

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Melissa Parsons

I love it. I accept. All right. All right, folks, we'll see you next week.

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