๐ฃ You Run Everything. Who Is Looking After You?
Aug 07, 2026National Wellness Month · August
There is a particular high achieving professional woman I think about often. She is the one everyone leans on. She runs everything. But she was quietly last on her own list.
After a failed attempt at co-owning her own private medical practice, she spent the next 10 years on and off on the road working in small town community hospitals, as she put her daughter through school.
She'd arrive back home for a brief reprieve in between hospital shifts before she went at it again. She became an avid runner, running several half and full marathons. She remembers everyone's birthday and even on her days off was available to provide unpaid medical advise for her friends or loved ones. She was constantly on the move that she found it hard to truly relax, always in planning mode.
Yet she planned to take on a few hobbies that she felt would bring her joy like photography, but she never got round to it.
She was passionate about walking her talk and did her best to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Fortunately for her, on the two occasions that she thought about postponing her scheduled medical appointments, were the two occasions she was diagnosed with cancer. I recall when she told me after she underwent surgery for cervical cancer that she asked her gyne-oncologist what would have happened if she had postponed her PAP smear to the following year? After all the recent preventive health guidelines were that PAP smears could be performed every 3-5 years. "We would be having a different kind of conversation" was his calm response.
That woman is me and if you recognize yourself in her, I wrote this for you. ๐
๐ August is National Wellness Month
A whole month set aside to build small, sustainable habits that care for your body and mind. I know firsthand how that can sound to a woman who already has a full plate. Like one more thing to add to a list that is already too long.
So let me be clear about what I am not asking. I am not asking you to overhaul your life, join a bootcamp, or wake up at five. I am asking for something much smaller, and much harder: I am asking you to put yourself on your own list.
๐ฉบ The weight you have been carrying, quietly
Women carry most of the caregiving in this country — for children, for aging parents, for partners, for whole communities. If you are over 50, there is a good chance you have been the one holding it all together for decades.
With caregiving can role is a gift and a weight at the same time. Caregivers have long term needs also. And the body keeps a quiet ledger of the weight of caregiving which shows up as chronic stress. This can show up in your blood pressure, your sleep, your blood sugar, and your heart and some of these signs may go unnoticed for a long time.
The warning signs you would catch in a heartbeat for someone you love, may be so subtle that you may overlook in yourself. Nothing dramatic, just a small signal your body has been sending.
You make a mental note to call for an medical appointment. Then a deadline moved, a parent needed a ride, a grandchild had a recital, and the note quietly slipped to the bottom of a very long list.
Yet if a friend described that same symptom to you, you would have had her scheduling an appointment before she finished the sentence.
That gap — between the care you give and the care you accept — is the thing I want us to close this month.
๐ฟ What three cancer diagnoses taught me about “later”
I can say all of this because I have lived it. As a three-time cancer survivor, I have sat on both sides of the exam table — the doctor and the patient, the one giving the news and the one receiving it.
What those three diagnoses taught me is simple, and I want to hand it to you gently: “later” is a promise our bodies do not always keep.
I am not telling you that to frighten you. I am telling you this because I got lucky. I am lucky that on three occasions that I had cancer, that fate had me keep those appointments and I was diagnosed at an early enough stage so that I am still here to share this with you. It is the reason I do this work now, walking alongside women like you.
So stop waiting for things to calm down before you schedule that appointment. Stop ignoring those subtle symptoms.
โจ Putting yourself on the back burner was never a discipline problem
Here's the thing, the fact that you put yourself last is not a character flaw. It is not a lack of discipline. It is as a result of conditioning.
You were praised for being the strong one, the reliable one, the one who never dropped the ball. Of course your own care slipped down the list. The system around you rewarded exactly that. This became the pattern. And a pattern can be changed.
So here is the reframe I want you to try on. Taking care of yourself is not the reward you earn once everything else is finished. It is the strategy that lets you keep doing everything else. The same intentionality you bring to a boardroom, a budget, or a family — that is exactly what your own wellness has been waiting for.
โ๐พ Pick one thing. Not ten.
So let's take on something new this month. ONE THING. My CLEAR™๏ธ navigation approach is built on one belief: clarity comes from one honest step at a time, not from an overnight transformation.
Overwhelm is the enemy of action. So this month, I want you to choose one thing — small enough that you will actually keep it.
Here are some starters:
- Call and schedule your long overdue appointment. Put it on the calendar the way you would book a work flight — with a real date, not a someday.
- Choose one daily anchor, like a short walk, a glass of water in the morning, or ten quiet minutes, and let that be your whole assignment.
- Write down the one health question that keeps circling in your mind, and bring it to your next visit so it does not get lost in a rushed fifteen minutes.
- Tell one person what you are doing, because accountability helps — and because you deserve to be witnessed, too.
That is it. One choice, kept consistently, will do more for you this month than ten resolutions you abandon by the second week.
๐ You are not alone
If you have ever felt dismissed, overwhelmed, or unheard in a healthcare encounter, I want you to hear this from a physician who means it: you are not alone. You have spent a lifetime making sure everyone else was seen. Let this be the month someone sees you.
If this resonates with you — or if you know a woman who has been running on empty while holding everyone else up — share it with her. And if you'd like a partner in this, I offer a free discovery call — no obligation, just a conversation to see if we're a fit to work together. Because you have looked after everyone else long enough. It is your turn. ๐
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