Brain Power with Dr. Eko

EP. 27 | Mastering Your Mind: Parenting and Emotional Challenges with Dr. Samara Potter.

• Dr. Hokehe Eko • Season 1 • Episode 27

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Can changing a single word in your vocabulary transform your stress levels and parenting experience? Join us as we welcome Dr. Samara Potter, a pediatric oncologist and certified life coach, to discuss the profound impact of negative self-talk on parents, especially those caring for children with cancer. Dr. Potter offers transformative advice on shifting from "should" to "can" or "want to," empowering parents to reclaim control and alleviate stress.

Dive deep into the emotional landscape of parenting a child with severe illness. We explore the delicate balance between feeling emotions fully and fostering a positive mindset. Dr. Potter explains the critical difference between genuine gratitude and toxic positivity, sharing practical strategies to address automatic negative thoughts and emphasizing the importance of self-compassion. Challenging societal norms that pressure parents to put others first, we underline the necessity of prioritizing one's own mental health.

The journey of processing grief and practicing self-care takes center stage as we share personal experiences of mothers navigating their children's illnesses. Dr. Potter highlights the importance of allowing oneself to grieve authentically and the therapeutic benefits of hobbies like art. Creativity and self-care become powerful tools for mental well-being, with techniques to interrupt negative thought patterns and elevate personal happiness. Tune in to discover how these strategies can support you in your caregiving journey and enhance your overall mental health.

Connect with Dr. Samara Potter!
Website: www.motheringthrough.com
Instagram: kidscancercoach
Podcast: Mothering through Childhood Cancer

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Dr. Hokehe Eko:

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Brain P Brainpower with Dr Eko. It's my pleasure to introduce you to the guest I have today. She's an amazing physician, Dr. Samara Potter, and I'm so glad she's here with us. So, without further ado, welcome Samara to our podcast. Thank you so much, chandelaine, to be here, so would you please introduce yourself to our listeners.

Dr. Samara Potter:

Sure, so, as mentioned, my name is Samara Potter. I am a pediatric oncologist, which means that I take care of kids with cancer as my day job. I am also a researcher, so I spend a lot of time doing scientific research and trying to figure out why it is that kids get cancer and how we can better treat them. And then I also have a couple of other hats that I wear. So I am a certified life coach and I'm a life coach for women physicians and also for moms of children with cancer and otherwise. I'm one of those serial entrepreneurs always into something, real estate investor and a mom of two kids and part of a two-position household. So that's the craziness that is my life, wow that's wonderful.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

So, first of all, thank you for the work that you do taking care of kids and the parents, which is so critical I mean parents of kids with cancer, because that's such a heartbreaking thing for parents to go through and so thank you for doing that.

Dr. Samara Potter:

Well, thank you for all that you're doing, and I know the parents who are listening to your podcast are getting so much benefit out of all the wisdom that you're sharing.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

My pleasure, thank you. And so before we came on, we were chatting about how negative self-talk affects us as parents, and so I wanted to talk more about that, because that's something that's I mean for anybody that's alive. I think everybody has negative self-talk at some point in life, so can you walk us through how you approach it and how you help parents get on the other side of the negative self-talk that they have?

Dr. Samara Potter:

Yeah. So I try to let the parent lead. But what I find is a common thing that people will say, without necessarily coming out right and saying it, is that they have these ideas of what they should or should not be doing right. So this idea of you know to be a good mom means that I should be going to all the PTA meetings or whatever it is, or that my child should always be taking their medication on time, or you know it really doesn't matter what it is, or that my child should always be taking their medication on time, or you know it really doesn't matter what it is. But these ideas, these kind of shoulds, which I try to ask my clients and myself when I'm coaching myself, to take that word should out of the equation. I think that's the quickest way to remind your brain that you have choice, you have an agency.

Dr. Samara Potter:

Should to me sounds like it's coming from an external source.

Dr. Samara Potter:

It's like somebody else is looking at me and judging me and saying you are not doing the right thing and, of course, anytime someone says that to you or you say that to yourself, you aren't able to function, I think, at your highest level.

Dr. Samara Potter:

So, and I so I always encourage people to take should and insert another word.

Dr. Samara Potter:

So I say, can get to choose to want to right and just putting in another word and just stopping yourself whenever you're reminding you're going oh, I should do this, I should do that. You know I can do that if I want. But suddenly it just honestly even just feel, just saying that in the moment in my body it goes from a feeling of heaviness in my shoulders to suddenly feeling a lot lighter, to suddenly feeling a lot lighter. And that's what I want for all parents, because there's no playbook, right, we are all blessed with a child and we bring them home and we go oh my gosh, someone's allowed me to have this responsibility and it's real, you know, and we're all just figuring it out, and you know we have a lot of expectations from society and from our parents, from other people that we picked up along the way, and I think just reminding ourselves that that's a choice whether or not we want to hold on to some of those expectations or not it just makes everything a little bit easier and feeling a little bit lower stakes.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

Right, and I think it's important to realize that the realization that we have the choice is actually most of the issue, right? A lot of times we go through life not realizing we have a choice and we just feel like we're stuck. So we're giving you permission to realize that you have a choice.

Dr. Samara Potter:

Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

Exactly so. When you're thinking, have you found any way that helps you? When the thoughts fly into your mind and then you, before you, slide down the rabbit hole of ruminating on it, how do you stop yourself?

Dr. Samara Potter:

Yeah, you know, I think that there's a couple of different, there's a couple of different ways to go about things, to go about things. I think that that, first of all, sometimes, when I'm you know, if I'm upset about something I think that there's a lot of in coaching there's a lot of people who are who will think, okay, well, this is a negative feeling that someone's happening and I want, and I want them to stop that negative feeling. So I'm trying to cut that off immediately, whereas I sometimes will actually lean into it and just say you know what I feel? I'm feeling crummy, I'm feeling angry, I'm feeling whatever, and I just, I just need to express that in one way or another, whether that, you know, just talking to your friend and just saying you know, all this stuff happened and I'm just really not not happy about it, and getting that out first, before I kind of go and try to change the mindset.

Dr. Samara Potter:

I don't know that's how I deal with it, because what I find is that when I just try to switch and say, okay, well, I'm in this cycle and I just want to, you know, stop having the cycle, then it's almost like I'm blaming myself for even having the feeling to begin with, and it's you know the judgment on top of the problem makes just a An extra shame sandwich that we don't need, because it's you know you're already feeling a negative emotion, right.

Dr. Samara Potter:

And then you're upset because you're feeling a negative emotion, and then you know and you should know better, right, there's the shitting again, and so you know. Sometimes I just say you know what Life's 50-50. Sometimes I feel good, sometimes I don't, and it's important to acknowledge the Sometimes I don't and it's important to acknowledge the times that I don't and that's okay. And once you know, take a set amount of time to kind of get that out of your system and then say okay, so now we're moving on right, and I find that just acknowledging that helps me a lot in moving forward. When I try to repress it, that's when I find myself just kind of ruminating, coming back to that idea over and over again, when I don't just let it out.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

Yeah that helps, I'm sure. And I was reading a book, miracle Morning by Hal Elrod and he mentioned that he gives himself five minutes to feel the feels, to do all the jumping up and down and the screaming and the yelling, and then after that, okay, it's happened. Now what do we do? We have to, how do we move forward from here? But, yes, he gives himself the time to feel it yeah, that's a great, that's a great book.

Dr. Samara Potter:

But you know, it's really interesting when you, when you said that, kind of reminding me of that, this it's the difference between you know gratitude and toxic positivity. Right, you can. Is the acknowledgement part first. Right, like that acknowledgement that it's okay to feel. However, that you feel right, right. The toxic positivity is when you're saying I feel crummy, but then you know someone saying, well, you know, you shouldn't feel that way. Look at all the stuff you should be grateful for. You know again, should, should, should, right, versus. You know you're not really able to get to gratitude unless you say you know what I feel crummy and.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

I found that things don't always, things never last.

Dr. Samara Potter:

They get better after some time, yeah, and sometimes things are just are. Found that things don't always things never lack. They get better after some time, yeah, and sometimes things are just are just for me and that's okay.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

You know, yeah, and I learned from one of my mentors, dr Amen of the Amen Clinics. He talks about automatic negative thoughts and he says when you have a negative thought jump in your head, you should stop your learn to stop yourself and ask the question is this true? And then usually your first answer will be yeah, because you're still in that state. And then if you ask yourself again is this really true? And at that point you're, you're the. The questions are breaking that thought up, right, and so it doesn't continue the the cycle. So then when you ask yourself the second time, it's really true? At that point hopefully you've gotten enough. You felt enough of your build and since that thought has been broken, now you can actually realize that it's actually not true, right, and then you can tell yourself what the truth is.

Dr. Samara Potter:

Yeah, yeah, we. I was trained at the life coach school and we have something called the model, and one of the first things that we do when you're having a thought or something that's upsetting you is, the first step in the model is to find what they call the circumstance, which they mean as just the facts. Right, you're in a court of law, just the facts. Right, you're in a court of law, just the facts. And it is that's, I think, one of the hardest steps for people is really figuring out what is an actual fact, what is the true part of this right Versus, what is all the feeling and all the stress and the emotions that we're injecting into it. Yeah, no, absolutely.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

That's wonderful. So how do you for any parents that might be listening and their children have cancer or have had cancer and they're walking through the journey and the process, what are some ways that you help support them?

Dr. Samara Potter:

Yeah, I think the first thing that that I tried to do is to just to to remind them to have compassion for themselves, right?

Dr. Samara Potter:

So so many people and you know parent mothers who are going through this we think so much about our children and about all the other people that we're taking care of, and I think that has a lot to do with our society and what our society defines as a good mother. Right is the person who puts other people first and herself last. Right, although we know that that doesn't work. Right, because you can't pour from an empty cup, but that's a societal norm that a lot of us have become ingrained with. And so, just having compassion for yourself and reminding yourself, you know, it's okay. It's okay that I am stressed out, it's normal that I don't know what to do, it's normal to feel scared I you know and to have that compassion that you don't have to feel so overwhelmed with caring, trying to be the person who's strong, I should say.

Dr. Samara Potter:

And you know, I think that happens to mothers, no matter whether their children have cancer or any sort of any sort of illness, and it doesn't have to be a severe illness, it can be transient.

Dr. Samara Potter:

Right? You know, I recently had a situation where my son was ended up choking in a restaurant, which was very stressful for all of us, and I had a lot of the same thoughts and feelings of well, I have to be strong and I have to be calm because I'm holding it together for everyone else. It was really interesting kind of being on the other end of it and reminding myself that, no, I needed to give myself permission to have time to be sad and be scared and be frustrated, and maybe not in the emergent moment, right when I'm with my son in the ambulance, but when he's safe and I have time, you know, to take that time for myself, and so that's one of the things I also ask people to do is to maybe is to try to schedule time, and, especially if you're going through something where you're having a change, a life change you know whether it's a new diagnosis or whatever it is that is is upsetting. Yeah, scheduling time to grieve for what?

Dr. Samara Potter:

For whatever reason, whether it were the life that you thought you were going to have, that you don't think that you're going to be able to have anymore, or for whatever sadness you are, you have about your child or your family, or whatever it is that you scheduling that time for yourself to grieve right and not just you take a walk or do yoga or whatever those things, but really just to have time to just be sad, and that that is an okay and necessary part of dealing with whatever it is that you're going through.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

Yeah, you're absolutely right. I like that and I think I'm going to start sharing that with my parents, because I give a diagnosis of ADHD or autism and the parents are often a lot of them are maybe they eager, but they didn't really want to accept it. And now they hear it from my mouth and I try to say it as gently as I can, but they grieve the life that they thought they would have, right, when we all have the babies and we're like, oh, and then they grow up and this thing you weren't expecting happens. So, yeah, I'm gonna use that, because I think it's important for them to schedule and to feel all the feel that they need because, yeah, right, they're about to go on and so it it will help equip them for the journey ahead.

Dr. Samara Potter:

Yeah, and reminding them that there's no scheduled timeline for that right, because I was just talking with I have a Facebook group for mothers and children with cancer and I was talking to them on one of our scheduled calls and some of them were saying, well, you know, it's been a couple of years since my, my child's diagnosis and they're doing better now and everything's happening, and, and you know, and, but I don't, I don't feel better, right, and I'm not better yet. And I feel, and why am I not over this? Right? And it goes back to that, that I should be over this, right, that there's an expected timeline on your grief and your processing. And you know, and I point, it's totally different for everyone and sometimes people don't have the capacity to process in the moment, right, sometimes you are dealing, you know you're dealing with whatever it is that you're dealing with, and you're just trying to get your kid to a place and you don't actually have time to process it and you don't start to process it until later and it might be years later yeah and that's okay because you did what you needed to do, right.

Dr. Samara Potter:

So I think, just again having compassion for yourself and and reminding yourself there's not, there's not a timeline. Everybody takes the time that they need absolutely, and that you're worth it.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

You're valuable enough to take that time for yourself, and it doesn't mean you love anybody else less because you're taking the time for yourself.

Dr. Samara Potter:

Yeah, and I see that there's a lot of guilt for moms for that, but I just try to remind them, especially, you know, those with daughters, and it's just that you know, is this how you want your daughter to treat, yourself, to treat herself, when she gets older?

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

right, because we're teaching them. They, they suck up all that we all.

Dr. Samara Potter:

I'm doing actually more than what we say for but, yeah, for better for worse, kids learn by watching.

Dr. Samara Potter:

They I mean, I think every mom knows that there's there's some part of kids that don't actually listen, which is why we had to tell them to put on their socks five times but they do watch, right and so and they watch and they learn from you with how you treat yourself, but that that's how they think that a mom should be right and that's how they think that you know that they want to model themselves later and you know, and so I think that just taking the time for yourself, doing whatever it is that you love we were talking a little earlier, before we started recording, about the fact that I recently started a new creative hobby.

Dr. Samara Potter:

Right, I had been very creative before medical school. I was an art history major and I used to love photography and stuff, but I had never really done much drawing or painting and I decided a couple of months I guess two months ago that I was going to start painting and I just did it and it's been the best thing, incredible for my mental health. It's been also, I think, a really nice way to show my kids that, yeah, I'm going to take time for myself to do something that I enjoy, and there's nothing wrong with that yeah, so wonderful.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

Yes, I know I saw your painting on Facebook. I was like, oh my goodness, it looks good and I like what you were saying before we started recording about how this is like a form of meditation for you and and it gives you such calm and peace and that you couldn't meditate in the traditional sense of the word before, but now you found a way to do that gives you the same effect right and it's important so that we are not boxing ourselves into again what we should, how we should meditate yeah absolutely, I've always liked the idea of meditating right and, and you know, it's one of those things that people who, who love it, they get so much value from it.

Dr. Samara Potter:

And I always thought, you know, I would love to be someone who does that. But much like my aspirations to be an early riser, just it's just not my thing, right, and people can accept that about myself. But I can meditate through, you know, I, through doing art or doing doing other things where I get into a state of flow, and that's what works for me and that's perfectly fine. It's a great outlet for me. I like it because not only do I get to do my art, but now my daughter comes and still sits down next to me and she'll do an art project too, and then we're also spending time together, which is fun.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

You're bonding for sure. That's wonderful. Wow. We've talked about so many important things, and so parents listening. I would just pick one thing that you can start working on, even if it's the self-compassion have compassion on yourself. Or schedule time for you to feel all the feels that you need to feel, or find a way to meditate. That doesn't fit the box right. If it's going for a walk, go for the walk, talk to yourself. That's meditation, because really, we have to define it for ourselves and not to. It's not one shoe fit, though, or one size fit. Do you have one last? I ask all my guests what's a brain health? What's your last brain health tip? Because everything you've said here is going to help the parents and us listening and talking to you, and it's going to help with our brain health and helping our brains function better. So what's one last tip you have?

Dr. Samara Potter:

Okay, I'll give you a tip because there's a lot of parents who are listening that they can use for themselves, but also that they can use with their kids, which is kind of a way of interrupting. You know, you kind of asked before well, what happens when you're spiraling right and you're just kind of going over and over the same sort of negative thoughts? And there's something that you can do and I learned this from Melissa Teers, who's a hypnotist in New York and very, very well published. But it's actually a neuroscience technique where you actually take an object and I use my phone, because that's what I always have on me and you just kind of swing your arm out to the side and cross the midline and out to the other side and what happens is because you're switching the sides of your brain, right, that you are crossing midline.

Dr. Samara Potter:

It ends up being that whatever pattern that you had of thought or anxiety, you end up kind of interrupting that by doing the switching. And I just do it until I feel kind of more calm and in a more neutral state. And I like it because you can teach kids to do it. So kids can do it in the hospital, right, they're getting really anxious, they're going to get a poke or something, something that they're worried about and you can. They can always grab, you know, a little bean bag or or a hacky sack or something and just pass it back and forth and it can just be a nice way of soothing themselves and just interrupting that pattern.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

I'm going to teach that to my parents of my kids with ADHD. Oh, my goodness, yeah, because there's a lot of anxiety associated with our children that have those diagnoses. So, thank you, I'm going to use that one. So please tell our listeners where they can find out more about you and coaching services that you have.

Dr. Samara Potter:

So I have a website called, and it's www. motheringthrough. com, and you can also find me on Instagram. I'm at Kids Cancer Coach, and then also I have a podcast also called Mothering Through Childhood Cancer is what it's actually called, the full name and so you can find me through any of those rooms.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

Wow, wonderful. So we're going to post all of that in the show notes and thank you again for what you do. Thank you for coming on and sharing this nuggets with us Really grateful, absolutely. Thanks for having me and parents listening. Please share this episode with your friends, your family and people you know that need to hear this, and we'll see you on the next episode. Thank you.