AME: Do Something

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[00:01:30] This is a production of the Very Dental Podcast Network. Alan Mead is a dentist with too much time on his hands and too much recording equipment in his basement. Armed with an obsession to bring entertaining and informative content to the dental world in a way that's never been done before, I give you the Alan Mead Experience.

[00:01:58] Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Alan Mead Experience. I'm your host, Dr. Alan Mead. I'm a dentist, a podcaster, and a roiling bag of emotions. And actually, I'm not roiling at the moment. But I've come to realize, I've thought a lot about lately the fact that as a human being, I am a constant roiling bag of emotions.

[00:02:24] And it's funny because I've had kind of a couple days that I struggled with a little bit. And, you know, I'm going to talk a little bit about that. First thing, though, I was trying to decide what I was going to call this episode. And you'll see that the title is Do Something. And earlier on in my career, I don't know if I did a podcast on this. I probably did. But I definitely did a blog post on it when I made it before I was podcasting.

[00:02:53] And basically, it was called Don't Just Do Something, Sit There. And it was about diagnosis. It was about it's about those patients that come in with a toothache, except when you actually talk to them, it's not really hurting that bad. They were more just something was different and they wanted to check it out. And you've taken radiographs and you've done pulp testing and you've done you've done imaging and you can't really find anything. You can't you can't consistently elicit the pain that they're having.

[00:03:20] You can't consistently you have an idea. You might have a differential diagnosis. But the reality is you're not really sure and they're not really in that tough a shape. And so the question is, I know dentists. I know dentists who want when patients come in, they need to start something. They need to have done something. They don't feel like they did their job unless they started a procedure. They don't feel like they've made the appointment worthwhile unless there's something they can charge. They don't.

[00:03:48] And that's maybe a little coarse, but it's kind of true on some level. They feel like their value is in that they can do something to help the problem. And I think sometimes the problems with humans and teeth don't necessarily allow for that. And so I wrote a post about that. And basically, the moral of that story was and sometimes I'm wrong about this. The moral of that story is if it's not that bad, if they're not, you know, if you can't elicit, it's OK to wait. It's OK to wait and see because either it's going to get better, it's going to get worse.

[00:04:18] Right. Or it'll stay the same, I guess. But but something's going to happen. And since you're not exactly sure what's going on right now, not a horrible thing to just wait on it. But what I've been feeling lately is how important it is to do something has but nothing to do with patients. Doing something when it comes to emotional health. Is is very helpful to me.

[00:04:43] So I'm going to just tell you a little story yesterday was my son, Sean, who I've talked about a million times. He's 17. He's a junior in high school. He didn't love school, but he likes going to school. He likes the people at school. Some subjects he really struggles with. No, one subject he started. He hates math. And I'm at a point where now he's he's in a he's a special ed kid. So in a lot of cases, he's taken courses that might be a little watered down or he has extra help or whatever. And and he does really well.

[00:05:13] This year, he's had very few of those. The classes that were offered at the time he was able to take them. There really weren't any. So he's really been struggling with having to take like regular coursework and geometry in particular is his is his biggest bugaboo. Kids really struggling with it. And unfortunately, dad is struggling with it, too, because even when I go back and look at it and kind of remember how things work, I don't have the skill set to teach him. And by the time we're working on it in the evening.

[00:05:42] He's not interested. He's he's he's tuned out. He's been in school all day. He's so it's it's tough. It's been tough. And it's honestly it's getting tougher work. We're hoping to get through this year with a passing grade so he can put math to bed because he does really well. The other subjects he's taking, he does just fine. And in particular band, he's as I know, he's as I've told you before, he's an excellent musician. He plays the tuba and the tuba.

[00:06:09] I've never I never knew I would know so much about the tuba when I was when I was younger. But he's he's a really good brass musician. He gets to play in lots of different places. He's this afternoon. I'm announcing a concert of the mid Michigan brass band. It's their winter concert. And they've been working. And so every Monday night he goes for two hours, two and a half hours for rehearsal. And this is not with high school kids. This is with just people from the community. He loves all of it.

[00:06:32] So yesterday he was competing in or participating in the Michigan State Solo and Ensemble Festival, which is actually it's pretty cool because he qualified with a really good score at his district level, which was a few weeks back. So he was allowed to go to the state and the state was really cool. The states are at Midland High. They're the crosstown high school there. So it was very close. It was we didn't have to go like in the past.

[00:07:00] Sometimes for these things, you have to haul away. You have to drive a ways. Last year it was last year was actually Midland High, too. But we've had to drive a couple hours for these things. It was really nice that it was close. And Sean did both a solo and he also participated in a brass quintet. And his solo is very technical. He works with a professor from the Central Michigan University, professor of tuba and euphonium. He's taking private lessons. He's really clicked with this guy.

[00:07:25] If there's any chance Sean goes to college, it's going to be probably in music at Central Michigan working with this guy who's an amazing guy. And they've really clicked. This solo was hard. It's hard. I've heard him practice it a bunch. It's really technical. And also kind of dissonant, kind of not off key, but kind of minor key. And it also really helped by the fact that it had a piano accompaniment.

[00:07:51] And, of course, when I was listening to him practice it, the piano accompaniment wasn't there. So I didn't know quite what to expect it was going to sound like. So at Districts, when I heard him play with his accompanies for the first time, I was like, wow, what a great, what a cool piece this was. And I also realized how well he executed this thing. Like when you're hearing him practice the part without the piano, you couldn't really tell how good and how excellent he was doing with it. So he performed it a few weeks back at Districts and crushed it, did great.

[00:08:21] Actually, I was a little worried because I thought the judge was going to give him a two because the judge had all these things to say about it. And he got a one because a one is the high score that lets you go to states. Anyhow, he did very well with the solo. It was a weird piece of music, to be perfectly honest. And I think maybe the judge was like, wow, I can't really see a high school kid playing this, but whatever. In any case. So we went to states yesterday. And states is a little different because states requires that you play your solo.

[00:08:51] But you also play a selection of scales that the judge asks. You're required to, you know, rehearse these scales. So, you know, and then he's going to pick five scales for you to do. And then you also do a sight reading piece where they give you a piece of music you've never seen before. You get a minute to look it over and then you play it. So Sean, I mean, he played his solo well at Districts. I think he played it even better yesterday. It was really good. Like, I just closed my eyes.

[00:09:21] I'm like, wow, this is my kid playing this music. It was really amazing. And then he did the scales. And the scales last year, too. He went to states last year as well. And he got like a 96 overall. He nailed the scales. And I knew he was going to nail the scales. He did the same thing. So then the sight reading piece comes up. And he really flubbed the sight reading. He did not do well with the sight reading. We've come to realize, of course, last year, I don't quite know how we missed this part of it.

[00:09:49] But last year, he had rehearsed a bunch of sight reading stuff with his instructor. And each time he was practicing, we would have a new sight reading piece for him to look. So he guided practice of the actual method of sight reading. Sight reading, if you're not a musician, if you've never, sight reading is a different animal than performance. You know, when you've had a chance to perform and practice and rehearse lots and lots of times, it becomes almost a reflection of your muscle memory. Versus sight reading is like, okay, this is the first time I'm taking this in.

[00:10:16] So in sight reading, it's generally not nearly as polished as once you've had a chance to perform it, of course. But it is a different skill set in music. And it is a skill set that you can prepare for and be better. And we really didn't. We didn't have him sight read very much. So he was out of practice in sight reading. He did not do very well. He ended up getting kind of a poor score overall. He got a two. It was basically the score. He got like a 79 out of 100. And last year, he got like a 96 out of 100.

[00:10:45] But we're pretty sure that that 79 came mostly from the sight reading score because he really had a hard time with it. So I came home. And I couldn't put my finger on why I was so sore and so upset. I felt really bad for Sean because his performance wasn't up to what he had hoped for. But here's the thing. Sean was fine. Sean didn't care. It was just one more box he was checking. He went to States and he didn't do as well as he did last year. And no big deal.

[00:11:14] And I'm thinking to myself, for me, I think I'm a little wrapped up in his ability to play the tuba. I mean, you guys have heard me talk about it a lot. So probably I am. Probably it's one of those things where it's something that I have invested myself in his ability to do well at this stuff. And maybe because he's a special needs kid, I feel like there's a little bit, you know, kind of want to prove something with him. Because of his disability, because of autism, because of whatever. And that's probably me hung up in my emotions.

[00:11:43] In any case, I was in a funk all day. I was a mess. Like I was, I don't, I'm not the guy who normally takes a nap because they're depressed about something. But I did that yesterday for a while. I went back to bed. You know, the other thing is, we went in, he played at 8 o'clock in the morning. He was like the second person to go. 8.08 was his time. So we had to be there at 7.30 on a Saturday morning. And he was done by 8.30. You know, so we came home. But he didn't have his quintet until 3 something.

[00:12:12] So we had this big gap in the day where he wasn't hanging around there the whole time. So I came home and I was, honestly, I was pretty depressed about the whole thing. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe I was just disappointed for him. He wasn't all that disappointed. So I don't know what that was about. But I came to realize that human beings are, we can only live in the moment as much as we like to plan for the future or reflect on the past.

[00:12:40] I know everyone says this and everyone, you know, this is like, this is common when you see one of those, you know, posts on Facebook where someone is saying you only can live in the moment. But the reality is it's true. Our emotional state can only reflect the moment. And like our emotions, fear is, you know, fear of the future perhaps. But the reality is our emotions are typically, we can only like kind of live, right?

[00:13:05] What is emotions essentially our representation of biochemistry, what's going on in your brain and your nervous system. So you can really only live right now. There's the future in the past. Great. But the reality is, is what you are experiencing in your own nervous system, in your own meat sack, in your own bag of nerves and hormones and just biology. You can only experience what you're experiencing right this second.

[00:13:32] And so I think there's a lot of people that are really good at not feeling their emotions. That's maybe a negative way to put it on some level or have a real discipline about their reaction to their emotions, which of course is the way people should be. You should literally strive to be disciplined about how you react to your emotions because we don't have anything but our reaction to emotions. Yesterday, my reaction to emotions wasn't great.

[00:14:02] It was my mood was bad. I was sad. I was hung up. I was depressed. And I was just like, and all I was doing was kind of rolling around in it and feeling bad. And like I slept. I got up. I didn't feel that much better. But I mean, this goes along with lots of things. Like I was talking with my wife and one of the things that she gets really hung up and depressed about is the giant list of to-dos that she has to do.

[00:14:30] And she oftentimes will struggle with, I've got so much to do that I just sit down and watch TV or whatever, watch or screen time or YouTube or whatever, because I just, I'm, I, so the idea of doing it is so big. It's such an insurmountable task or whatever, or more than anything, it's trying to look at the entire list instead of an individual task, maybe, or something like that. And you're just overwhelmed.

[00:14:57] And so you just kind of freeze out and just avoid it completely and do something. And then the best part about that is after you've watched TV for, for a while, you just feel bad because I just burned a bunch of time I could have been using to do some of these things. I think everyone probably runs into this. And, and I'm coming to realize that I was doing it differently. I was, I was napping and moping mostly. Do I have a list of things that I should spend time on doing? Yes, I always do. I always do.

[00:15:26] Uh, this podcast is one of those things. I tend to, it's really funny that the weeks that I actually get ahead of it because I'm trying to travel or whatever, I feel great about it because I've like knocked it out. It's done this. Even, even knowing what I have to do here hanging over me is sometimes a problem. It's, it's one of the things that gets on my to-do list, accounting for the office, you know, lots of different dumb things that I can avoid as well. This is also an emotion, a reaction to your emotions, your emotions of fear or being overwhelmed or whatever. But here's the thing.

[00:15:56] Yesterday, uh, I kind of solved my problem by doing something. And I'm going to suggest that the something that you do is not as important as that you're doing it. Like the something that you do. It's great. If, if, if I know that I've got a list of podcast tasks a mile long, it's great when I jump in and start doing that.

[00:16:23] The reality is this task is not hard and actually I enjoy it. It's the, it's the anticipation of having to do the task that I struggle with the most. Okay. So like once I start doing it, I, this recording this, this morning has bothered me. I've, I had to go out and feed and I'm trying to think about what do I want to say about this? I know I've got in, when I'm struggling for, for content specifically for this, a lot of times I just have to lean on to what's going on in my life. The reality is this was kind of a perfect thing.

[00:16:52] What happened yesterday with the solo ensemble and all that stuff. Um, I just feel better when I jump in and do something. If it's, you know, starting a podcast editing that I need to do or starting something on your to-do list, that's great. Yeah. To-do lists kind of suck sometimes. Sometimes the job you have to do kind of suck. But a lot of times, a lot of times like this, the task is actually quite fun and enjoyable for me. I just, I just, I struggle to get started. I struggle to do it. I don't know.

[00:17:22] I think, I think that's a human thing. I'm not exactly sure. But I know that when I'm struggling with my feelings and all humans do struggle with feelings because that's all we have all the time is feelings. Basically, our feelings at the exact moment is, is basically how we experience the world in life. Uh, your bank account doesn't matter how awesome your practice is. It doesn't matter. You're, you know, how amazing your, your physique. It doesn't matter how, how amazing you're doing in the stock market.

[00:17:50] Probably not very amazing right at the moment, but how you're doing it. None of that matters. The reality is, is right now, instantaneously, all you have is your emotional state, the feelings you're feeling right now. And if you're not feeling any feelings, that's actually okay too. Like if you don't have, if the feelings are strong enough and just feeling normal enough, that's pretty great too. But the reality is, our in the moment is actually whatever our biochemistry is doing.

[00:18:18] In one way I've found that I can change when that biochemistry is not suiting me well, is to do something. And it's so, and literally when I mean do something, I, I, I kind of physically mean do something. Like, uh, the problem that doesn't fix it for me is thinking about it a lot. Like if I think a lot about how bad I'm feeling and how my emotions are, that actually makes it worse. I tend to then start this rumination cycle where I just go over and over again and start thinking.

[00:18:46] So the reality is, is I got to find something to do. And like, you know, it's easy for everyone to say, I'm so busy. I have so much to do. That's great that you're busy and have so much to do. Maybe that's a way that you can keep from feeling your emotions. And frankly, maybe that's good. Maybe that's bad. But, you know, someone who's always very busy, great. Good for you. But I do think at some point we all have those moments where we're feeling bad, feeling down. Struggling with our emotions. And if you don't, God bless you. But also you might be a sociopath. I'm not sure.

[00:19:16] If you don't have those emotional moments that are, that are really, or if you're just really good at stuffing them down, they may come back someday in sort of a convoluted way. I don't know how that works. You got to feel your feelings and let them go, folks. That's how it works. But anyhow. So yesterday I was feeling bad. What I find, honestly, doing work around the farm is one really great way to at least take me out of myself if I'm doing something that feels productive. Even if it's not wildly productive, a little bit.

[00:19:45] But, I mean, there's always something to be. At this place, God almighty. Like we're so far behind on everything. There's always stuff to do. But also now that the weather is starting to break, I'm finding any excuse to go ride my bike, which is also a very good thing for my mental health. It's great for my physical health too. You know, burning the calories, building muscles, cardio, all that is fantastic. But the reality is it's much better for my mental health. Because honestly, the January and February of 2025 has been the toughest one emotionally for me yet.

[00:20:15] And it's just been the darkness and the lack of exercise. I'm convinced of it. Because there are times when cycling, winter cycling is fantastic. This year has really, I've struggled. Because the weather, like it's not been, the snow, it's never been cold enough to really freeze the snow down for a good point. So when the snow is smushy and bad, it's hard to ride. When the roads aren't very clear, it's hard to ride. It's been really tough to ride.

[00:20:43] And maybe it's been part of me going, you know, avoiding it. I don't know. But I will say this, the last few days, conditions have been pretty darn good. And I've been out there. So I guess I don't know that I've been avoiding it that bad. I'm very excited. Instead of the fat tire bike, I've gotten the mountain bike out. Boy, it's been great. And anyhow, so yesterday afternoon, the way I picked myself up out of the emotional funk, there's two things that happened.

[00:21:08] The second thing that happened was I went ahead, fed the horses, fed my family, made dinner for my family. And then I said, look, I'm out. It was like 73 degrees and it wasn't raining at the time. On March 14th, 15th. March 15th. Which is not normal in the state of Michigan to have that good a weather. And the trails were dry and great.

[00:21:33] I took my bike over to Midland City Forest, which is just a great place to mountain bike. And I rode until I burned about 1,000 calories. I was gone for close to an hour and a half. It was awesome. And actually the day before, I went for even a longer ride. And one of my favorite places is just great. I've gotten some riding in and definitely emotionally I'm good that way. The other thing was is we went back because Sean had to do his quintet, his brass quintet. And they were exceptionally good.

[00:22:01] And honestly, the judge was practically in tears. He was very kind. Gave great reviews. They got a great score. It's a lot of good feelings. And of course, Sean wasn't even bent out of shape about his performance in the morning. It was me that was bent out of shape. But just going there and seeing how well it turned around really pulled me out of it too. But I do think that my emotional and personal well-being is more hung up in the idea of me being able to get out there and ride and do stuff.

[00:22:29] And the reality is I don't think of it when I'm in the middle of the struggle with emotion. But doing something is the way to pull myself out of that. Whether that's, okay, I got to work on my accounting stuff, get it over to the accountant. I got to write chart notes. I got to record podcasts. Whatever the stuff is. Something that – and it doesn't have to be the most important performative like getting the thing done.

[00:22:57] It's more that you can immerse yourself in something that requires you to be engaged mentally with it so you're not rolling around in the emotions and you kind of can move past the emotions. It's not do something so you don't feel the emotions. But doing something feels like you're in control of something. Feels like you can make a change and make things different. And I have to say this weekend has really – I mean I've known this forever. I don't know that I've put in these words on the podcast before but it's very helpful.

[00:23:26] So if you're struggling with emotional stuff, know that doing something and the something is less important than the doing is very helpful to me. Whether that's taking a walk. Whether that's inviting a friend to coffee. Whatever that something is, doing something can pull you out of yourself because that's the problem. When I get in my head about stuff, particularly about this emotional kind of stuff, it's not a great place for me to be. I need to take some action to change the way that I'm feeling and it makes a ton of difference.

[00:23:57] Some of you are probably thinking that's the most elementary dumb thing. I know that, of course. But here's the thing. For whatever reason, I'm a slow learner and a fast forgetter and so I have to remember these things. So maybe just having talked about it, I will remember more. I hope this was helpful for you. If you have any questions, comments, or if you think I'm nuts, go to the Very Dental Facebook group if you're not a member yet. Ask for an invite. Go to Very Dental on Facebook. It'll be the Very Dental Facebook group. I require one of five passwords.

[00:24:25] You can use Lipscomb, Papa Randy, McQuethy, Hornbrook, or Timmerman. Any of those five. I don't care if you spell it wrong. You can use a combination. Maybe perhaps two. I don't know. Whatever. Give me one of those. I'll get you in the Facebook group and we can talk about it. It's a good Facebook group. It's not a shit show like a lot of dental Facebook groups, which I have to admit. I participate in very few dental Facebook groups nowadays. I think it's better for my mental health. This one is not bad for your mental health. So go join us at the Very Dental Facebook group.

[00:24:54] Go join Very Clinical as well, which is for the Very Clinical podcast, but also it's where we post a lot more clinical stuff. So I hope you enjoyed this and I hope it was helpful and I can't wait to hear from you guys and we'll catch you next week.