Often we don't put ourselves first because we think that it's not meek. Being meek doesn't mean you don't take self-care seriously. We put this purposely as the first seed because it's what all the others will build on. If you don't have self-care, it's very hard to do the rest of them.

Welcome to Becoming Virtuosa, the podcast that encourages you to become your best virtuosa self. Each week Dr. Susan Crockett goes where the scalpel can't reach, exploring conversations about how to be, heal, love, give, grow, pray, and attune. For the first time ever, she's bringing the personal one on one teaching that she shares with individual patients to you on this broader platform. A weekly source of inspiration and encouragement designed to empower you.

By evolving ourselves as individuals. We influence and transform the world around us. Please help me welcome board certified OB-GYN specializing in minimally invasive GYN surgery, internationally in the top 1% of all GYN robotic surgeons, a certified life coach, and US News top doctor, your host Susan A. Crockett, MD.

Hey, welcome to The Dr. Crockett Show. I'm your host Dr. Susan Crockett. I'm a board certified OB-GYN practicing minimally invasive GYN surgery, that's robotic surgery here in San Antonio, Texas. Thanks for joining us today. This is The Dr. Crockett Show. This is where we go where the scalpel doesn't reach.

So in my practice, we do all kinds of amazing surgery for women, mostly fibroids and endometriosis, a little prolapse surgery, ovarian stuff, all that complicated, benign, non-cancerous type of surgery. But in my office what you don't get to see and what I'm bringing you today is a look at behind the scenes.

So we are doing a series called The Seven Seeds of the Soul, which is turning into a book that I'm releasing at the end of this month. Today we were talking about the first seed called be. So the seeds are represented in my logo. Those of you who have been with me for a while recognize them. So they go from left to right, be, heal, love, give, grow, pray, and attune.

If you didn't catch my prior video that we posted last month on the overview of the seven seeds of the soul, we're going to link it here. Please be sure to go back and take a look at that. It kind of gives you an overview of the book and our teaching and why we're doing all this. I'll tell you why we're doing all this.

We're doing all of this because of the years and years of conversations that I've had privately with patients, one on one in my office where we talk about all the things that matter about our wellness and health that have nothing to do with the scalpel. They're the 70% of the behavioral or wellness things that we can do to keep you out of my operating room. I know you all want that.

So today we're going to start with the first seed be, and be doesn't mean should. That's the most important thing that you can get from this. This is not a video to teach you how you should be. This is a video to teach you how to become what you want to be. In fact, our sister podcast is called Becoming Virtuosa. Virtuosa is what we call the best version of ourselves. We feminized the word virtuoso to virtuosa. Becoming virtuosa means that we're always seeking to become the best feminine version of ourselves.

So if you'd rather listen to this instead of watch it on video on YouTube, be sure to check out on Apple podcasts and everywhere else where podcasts or Spotify, et cetera, under the name Becoming Virtuosa. In fact, the first eight podcasts that I did on Becoming Virtuosa back like four years ago way before the show, they actually were a series on personal transformation.

Later in the show at the end, I'm going to give you some tools to help you on your own personal journey in how you want to be in life. So stay tuned to the end, and I'll tell you how to download those links for free.

But let's start with talking about the fact that you do have some choice in this. You do have self-determination. Now we all have circumstances around us. But one of the really cool things about my patients when I start talking with them about this idea is they're coming to me a lot of times with problems and circumstances that aren't so great. they're looking for me to help them heal those circumstances which we do together.

But then we also talk a lot about how they have autonomy and choices no matter what their circumstances around them in how they want to be. In fact, one of the most powerful things that you can do about being is think about how you want your attitude to be.

So you guys know if you've been with me for a bit that we are not a show that's religious. We welcome all comers, all religions, all races, shapes, and sizes. Since today is the day before Easter, and we're in the Passover season and we're talking about be, I thought it would be kind of fun to review the Beatitudes.

If you haven't heard about what the Beatitudes are, Jesus when he was doing his teaching, in those three years that he was doing his teaching on earth, he did a sermon called the Sermon on the Mount. They didn't have microphones like this and cameras to talk with people in those days. So he went up on a mountain where he could have a way of speaking to people with his voice to be amplified. This is only a short part of the sermon.

But the Beatitudes may give you a couple thoughts about the choices you make about how you want to be and maybe give you some ideas about how you want to form your own self-care. So I'm going to read out of Luke Chapter Six, Verses 20 to 23. It's pretty short, but it's kind of a fun thing to read back and review every once in a while. So.

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek because they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness because they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they should be called children of God. Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Now, there's a lot to unpack in there. I'm not a preacher. We're not going to start preaching about teaching all of this. But some of the things that you might want to think about in this list of how to be or the attitudes to be our which one spoke to you. Which ones did you have that you thought maybe weaknesses and that you want to think about as being your strengths? What are other ways of being that you've thought of that you might want to be?

Along with that being isn't just about your attitude. It's also about your self-care, your routines, and also your goals in life. So think about how you are taking care of yourself on a daily basis. Until we take care of ourselves in a good way, it's really hard for us to have enough energy to take care of everybody else.

Often, we don't put ourselves first because we think that it's not meek. Being meek doesn't mean you don't take self-care seriously. We put this purposely as the first seed because it's what all the others will build on. If you don't have self-care, it's very hard to do the rest of them.

So I want you to think a little bit about some other ways of being. How do you want to show up in the world? How do you physically want to look? What kind of food do you want to eat? Do you want to be known as somebody who is a carnivore? Do you want to be known as somebody who's a vegan? We have a little saying on the show paleo, Oreo, what are you eating today? How do you want to be? Keto, that’s the other one. Paleo, keto, Oreo.

Also thinking about your future a little bit. Now, I don't know how old you are. We are probably talking to a very wide range of audience members. Some of you may be considering having children or retiring or getting married or getting divorced. You might want to think about like how you want to be, how do you want to carry yourself? How do you want to be as you go through these life changes?

What life changes do you want to do? How about thinking about them from a different perspective? How about turning them on their head? How about you standing on your head? No, not literally. I'm kidding. But you know sometimes it's helpful for us to look at things from somebody else's point of view. Even in our own lives to sometimes look at the choices that we're making and the things that we're doing and see if there's a different perspective that we can gain that will help inform our choices and how we want to be in those circumstances.

The other thing I want you to think about or just your life goals. Do you want to retire? How do you want to handle your money? What are your financial goals? What does money mean to you? How do you want to be with money? How about your politics? How do you want to be when you think about how we should govern ourselves and how we interact with others on a broader scale, both locally and globally? How do you want to be when you show up on social media? That's a big one.

The point of all of this is to give you some ideas about your intention and then to give you some tools to start thinking about how you want to change. Change is a really difficult thing. It's kind of hard to do sometimes. So I've got three tools for you.

The first one is really fun because it's that downloadable that I talked about at the beginning of the show. When I was starting my Becoming Virtuosa podcast, the first eight episodes are actually about the process or a process for helping you transform. So once you make a decision about something you want to change, a habit you want to change, like say you want to go from being someone who goes to bed at 11:00 to somebody who goes to bed at 8:00. The 11:00 person is where you're beginning and then we have a seven step little fun worksheet. We say seven steps in seven minutes that helps you work out the steps to practice getting towards your goal of being a person who is different than that, who is a different way of being. It's a person who goes to bed at 8:00.

So this can be little things. You can do it with bigger things, bigger habits. If you have bad habits you want to change or if you just want to tweak your little daily habits, all the little things add up in very big ways to produce the change in our life. So we'll put a link down below. If you go to our main website, Dr.Crockett.com, we'll list that with the instructions as a freebie. You can always go to the Becoming Virtuosa podcast and check out the first eight episodes. We'll also put those links there too for you.

So the second tool or suggestion I have is data tracking. I am a little bit of a data geek, data nut. I kind of put those two words together. It came out as a data gut when we were talking about gut biome earlier today. So that's kind of funny. No subliminal there at all.

So no, I'm a little bit of a geek when it comes to data. So usually, I have on my Garmin watch. I'm not wearing it today. There are lots of metabolic trackers, Apple watches, and what have you. Whatever you're using to track your data is really cool. Sometimes you'll see me wearing a continuous glucose monitor, watching to see what my blood glucose levels do depending on what I'm putting into my body for fuel. Those are really fun too.

So one thing that I did when I was making a big transformation from eating the Standard American Diet, the S-A-D or the SAD diet, to being mostly whole food plant based is I made an Excel spreadsheet and had a list of about 35 things that I was tracking. What I did just kind of made a game of it. I gave each one a point. It helped me with myself integrity.

What I mean by that is I'm not always the best at keeping my word to myself about the changes that I want to make myself integrity to myself, keeping the promises that I make, going to the gym when I say I'm going to, or not eating this or that. Those little things I really struggle with a lot of the times. I have a lot of integrity when it comes to everybody else. But with myself, I really struggle like I think a lot of you do.

So I did this Excel spreadsheet, and I had a list of like 35 things. It was like taking my meds and my vitamins every day. Because sometimes I don't do that. Or taking my makeup off or exercising for 15 minutes or reading, what have you. So you can think of your own list of things that you want to keep track of or your habits that you want to do every day.

Sometimes it's helpful to think about this in terms of your routine when you wake up, things you want to take care of or make sure you do during the day, like checking your emails or getting your text messages answered or something like that. Then you can have your bedtime routines too.

Then I just kept those points every day. It was a way of keeping accountability to myself and seeing my progress as I was tracking my weight, which was a big deal at that time. So that's my second suggestion. First one is go download the seven steps transformation tool. The second is keep track of your data, however you like to do that.

Then the third idea is journaling. That's may seem like not very much. But I'm not always somebody who likes to journal that much either. I kind of have this thing about not liking to keep a diary. I don't really like to go back and read my own writing kind of like I don't really like to watch myself on video or listen to my own voice sometimes. I know a lot of you have that like judgment voice in your head too.

So I was pretty resistant to journaling at first. But when I was working with my coach on transformation, it was really helpful because it allowed me to process things differently when I put things on paper. It gave me that intentional time just to think about what I was doing and to put down on paper with thoughts that were organized to help me move forward with the ideas that I wanted to create and put together. It also helped me integrate prior ideas that I had because I could flip back in the pages and just take a look at what I had thought about in prior days.

So I don't journal consistently. But during times when I'm going through transformation, I find it especially helpful. So maybe that's something you can try to, and that's almost free to pick up a journal in the H-E-B or your grocery store pretty cheap. Just pick up any old notebook and a pen, and just that's a powerful tool for you to integrate the thoughts that you have during the day.

Well, that's all I have for you today. I hope you enjoyed this video on how to be and look forward to future talks. The next one that we do from the seven seeds is going to be the second one which is heal, which is what I do a lot of in my clinic. We fix things that are broken. We're going to talk about not just fixing things surgically, but also about healing the other things in your life that may be broken. So please join me then.

Until next week, I hope you'd like and subscribe. Share this with your friends if you find it helpful. Give me a comment down below, and I look forward to seeing you next week. Have a wonderful week. Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Becoming Virtuosa. To learn more, come visit us at DrCrockett.com, or find us on YouTube for the Dr. Crockett Show. If you found this episode helpful or think it might help someone else, please like, subscribe, and share. This is how we grow together. Thanks, and I'll see you next week. Love always, Sue.