Ep 125: Shifting from Pissed Off to Poised with Dr. Arpita DePalma

I am thrilled to have my friend and fellow pediatrician-turned-life-coach, Arpita Gupta DePalma, as a guest today. We’re taking a trip down memory lane—you’ll hear stories from the beginning of my coaching journey and what eventually drove Arpita to seek coaching herself.

When you’re wrapped up in balancing a career, family, and home, you might find joy at the bottom of your list of priorities. This can cause resentment and anger to build. In this episode, Arpita shares how shifting her anger helped her heal strained relationships and reclaim her sense of peace. She also provides a few strategies that will help you maintain control over the way you show up and welcome a calmer, more centered favorite version of yourself.

Arpita Gupta DePalma, MD, TIPC founded Thought Work, MD to help physicians and professional women learn how to identify, manage, and then let go of what is not serving them through transformational mindset coaching. In her one-to-one and group coaching programs, she provides clients the unique tools they need to optimize how they show up each day in order to accomplish more, while being happier doing so. She shares nuggets of wisdom with her audience on her podcasts, From Pissed Off to Poised and Doctors Living Deliberately, while reminding others to live intentionally while remembering their “Why”.

Click HERE to get the full show notes.

Transcript

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 

Hello, Your Favorite You listeners. Welcome back once again to the podcast. Today, you are in for a treat because we are talking to my best friend from residency circa 1999 to 2002, another reformed pediatrician turned life coach, none other than the fabulous Arpita Gupta DePalma. So as a way of introducing yourself to my podcast listeners, please tell us all about your favorite you as of 2025. 

Arpita 

Oh wow, my favorite you– my favorite me, not you, my favorite me. 

Melissa 

Well get it to my favorite you. That's the next question. You're just jumping ahead you overachiever you.

Arpita 

Doesn't go away ever. My favorite me of 2025 is letting things come with ease and go with ease, like living in ease. And if I'm noticing that I'm feeling the tension or the push pull or having to work harder than I really feel like I want to, I'm just gonna let that shit go. 

Melissa 

Hmm, I love that. I can't wait to see what you create with that. What does that look like on a random Tuesday like today?

Arpita 

On a random  Tuesday, it is just really enjoying each day. Like this morning, I woke up and had teeth cleaned. It was lovely. I needed it. And I made my way home. I went to the office for a little bit. I had boundaries for how long I was going to stay there because I very much so can always get sucked in with all the things that I could do. And I had a lovely interaction with our DOO, who is amazing, who is on a mindful, happy journey. She's reading the book Let Them by Mel Robbins. Yeah. And so she was sharing with me about that. And so just also noticing that I'm surrounding myself as much as possible with people who have that same mindset has been, quite frankly, a game changer. It makes life so much more pleasant. And not that you have to have that in order to hang out with me or be around it, but it's just, it's so much, it's so useful to be around people who have coached brains, who have the ability to consider other perspectives, to not be judgmental, to be authentically yourself with other people. And if you feel a little push, pull tension with somebody or just doesn't feel good anymore, you just saying, Okay, maybe this wasn't meant to be and just gonna maybe shift my energy elsewhere. 

Melissa 

I love that. Okay. Very good answer. Okay. Harken back to 2018. Phoenix, Arizona, some god-awful CME conference you dragged me to and tell our loyal listeners about what you thought about me when I first started receiving coaching. 

Arpita 

I thought, I've said this so openly to the people who asked, but I thought you were bad shit crazy. And then they're like, yeah, I really did. I was like, what the hell is this woman doing? She is a doc. She is a mama. She is killing it. And I don't really understand how somebody needs a person to live life, like to help them live their life. What the fuck is that? Who needs that? Like when we're performing at the level that we're already performing at, right? Um, not to be like by any means, like arrogant about that. I don't mean it like that. I just…

Melissa

Yeah. Oh no, we were successful people. 

Arpita

Yeah. High functioning badass women physicians. And like, why would you need a coach? Like, why do you need somebody to tell you how to do life? And so I did think you were a little bit crazy. And then I paused and I stepped back and I was like, I remember– you're laughing. I remember you had, you know, the challenges and you were on your weight loss journey. And then you were also, you know, I didn't know if you were worried about people's perceptions of you or what, but I remember that it made sense why. Because I think in the Arizona conference, I remember we went out to dinner to a Thai restaurant and I had ordered these crab wantons. And you were like, I can't have that. Cause it's not on my food plan or whatever. And I was like, okay, wow. She's like really committed to this. She's doing this. And so it made sense from that perspective that maybe you were doing it to help with the weight loss. But other than that, I understand. Yeah. Your health benefits, but otherwise I wasn't quite into it. And I think I was so, I remember being so kind of like not open to hearing about it, that you were actually, I know now you were starting your journey with Maggie at that point. You'd already been doing the, um, other stuff with Katrina. And so that's where I wasn't even aware of what was going on. I just saw you journaling in there and you had a candle and all this other stuff. And I'm like, okay, I don't know what she's doing, but whatever if she's happy. 

Melissa 

Yeah, I was– Maggie when I first started working with her, gave me this whole pre-work packet with all these questions just to kind of, you know, see where I was and open up and that type of thing. And because I am a straight A student, high achiever, type A perfectionistic control enthusiastic people pleaser, I was like, I am going to like fill out this homework like the badass that I am. And I like made a date with myself and I had, you know, that hotel was nice. It had those really cozy blankets and I had gone to the spa gift shop and bought myself a candle and like I made a date with myself and I was taking myself and my relationship with myself. And then at that point, starting to take my relationship with my hubby much more seriously and, you know, being really intentional about it and dreaming up our future and that type of thing. So that's kind of where you came in. And then I mean, I think that was a little bit extreme because that is the time that I was like, I want to go hang gliding.

Arpita

Oh my God, I totally forgot about that. So you just said like she has totally lost her freaking marbles. Like what the hell is this shit? 

Melissa

So we Uber'd out to the desert, like 45 minutes and the Uber driver was…

Arpita 

Like the movie Seven, right? Wasn't it Seven? Oh my gosh. They're taking us out in the middle of nowhere. They're going to murder us and chop up our bodies and sell our parts, but whatever. 

Melissa 

Oh, the Uber driver was so nice. He was like, I think I ought to stay here because you're never going to get an Uber to come out here to pick you back up. So I ended up paying him to stay while I went hang gliding and you watched me. But that was just something that I was like, I want to challenge myself. I hadn't really challenged myself that much in terms of being fearful of things and trying to get past that. So yeah, I mean, to your credit, that was a bit of an extreme, extreme weekend. I just want to go visit my childhood home. 

Arpita 

I just want to go visit my childhood home down the street, can we do that? And Melissa's like, sure, let's go hang gliding too. I'm like, okay, you can go hang gliding and I will watch you. 

Melissa 

That's right. I forgot we went and drove past your old house. So fun. Oh my gosh. 

Okay. So you thought I was crazy, which is totally fine and like couldn't understand why somebody like me would need somebody to help them figure out their life and that type of thing. So now kind of take us to the time and what you were thinking when you started to see the light or drink the Kool-Aid yourself, as they say. 

Arpita 

Yes. So I think the best way to just to sum it up is that I was on my own life journey. I’m married to a physician as well. We own our own medical practice in Virginia. We shifted from being employees as physicians to medical practice owners. And obviously with that, it comes with a lot more stress and headache and challenges than we were ever anticipating, much less trained to do. And so this is what was consuming our life from 2011 on through current day, quite frankly, but there's a complete shift thanks to coaching with how we view it and how we handle it.

But so what happened was, I had gotten more and more after I left pediatrics with an ultimatum to go full time, I said, I'll go find something part time, but in the meantime, I'll fill in and help in an administrative role at the practice, which I did. And it just became all consuming. And we've done, we've actually done a talk on this, how it really related to I need to work in some fashion because that's how I prove my worth to my family. Like what am I contributing to the family if I'm no longer practicing and doing what I was trained to do? And so that is I think where some of the unhappiness and the discontentment started to seep in and really become heated, but I didn't notice it. I didn't have the awareness around it that I had so much of my worth tied to being a physician, practicing as a physician. And so more and more enmeshed in the practice, working initially, like when I was part time peds, I was 16 to 20 hours a week. And in the practice as an administrator, I was gone to almost 80 hours a week. But after hours, like getting to make sure things were done, that's the control freak, perfectionistic, everything has to be my way. It's our reputation on the line, people don't care, it's not their bottom line, blah, blah, blah. So all these things were definitely seeping in. And unbeknownst to me were really the source of my unhappiness, discontentment, like why I was so frustrated and angry. And it was showing up in how I would be with everybody at home, with people that I interacted with on a day-to-day basis. And that's just how life was. And I just, I remember Michael, my husband asking me or saying to me a couple of times, like, you're just not happy anymore. And I literally just kind of pushed it off and was like, it's not a big deal. This is what happens when you have life. Like, this is, doesn't everybody get like this? We all start working, we have kids, we have family, we have home responsibilities, and we just don't get to have the joy anymore. I didn't really think much more about it. Just said, okay, it's gonna suck for a little while and kept going. And then COVID happened. And that's when we had to shut the practice down for it was eight weeks. And that's our only source of income. So if you can imagine two physician household with no income all of a sudden, like when the F did we ever think that would happen to physicians, right? 

And so we were pulling money out of our investments. We were paying for staff to stay on payroll, blah, blah, blah. And just the golden handcuffs, this like resentment and fury and anger around what we had created and what we had kind of inflicted upon ourselves was so high. And one of my thoughts, I remember my repeated thought was, I'm so sick of my dependability being dependent on that of other people. Like that was always like a undercurrent constantly there that I can't do anything independently because we have to have these people to run this office and these people don't show up. And so when they don't show up, it impacts me and my reputation. So I remember calling you, it was right after, I think it was right after COVID. And just was like, I need to bitch to you. And you always would be my person that I would bitch to about random crazy batshit things that would happen with the office. And so I called you and you're like, okay, well, so do you want me to coach you or do you want me to be your friend? And I'm like, I don't really fucking care what you do. Just fix this, like help me. 

Melissa 

Tell me how to do life. I know I used to know, but now I don't. 

Arpita 

And so that was like the first taste of it where you kind of, you did, you coached me through it and you helped me really see indirectly that I was showing up in a way that was completely not dependable for my children. Like they didn't know what type of mama they were coming home to each day. I was going to be an angry, raging monster versus mama that I can talk to because I need some support and help. And so very much so how, what we're thinking in our mind about our environment is how we create and manifest in our world. So I was like, okay, you might be right. 

Melissa 

You might be onto something. 

Arpita 

And so then I just, you, I think you had suggested listening to the podcast, life coach school podcast, and I binged it like crazy, like 300, 400 episodes in two months. It was out of control. Granted we were in COVID too, but… and that was it. That's where I decided like I, again, being the control freak, hypervigilant physician, I want to learn to the most perfect T how this works so I can implement it for my life. And that was the intent was to do it to understand the back end of how it works and very quickly realize that this is something, this is a way that I can actually help other people and heal other people. And that was the void that I was having in my life that I was still doing this admin stuff, but I didn't really have that one-on-one contact with clients or patients myself. And that's what I really found so fulfilling. So I was able to kind of shift it and create something that, and no, no ever life would I have thought I would have done something like this. So it's been amazing. Absolutely amazing. 

Melissa 

So good. So basically what you're saying is that your favorite person got you interested in coaching and you're so grateful to her for everything forever. 

Arpita 

Of course. You know that right? 

Melissa 

I know. Yeah, you've told me that with wild abandon in front of– I have witnesses. 

Arpita 

Yes, you're on my, actually you're on my other podcast with your hubby talking about it and we just like everybody cry and cry and cry about how it trickled down to everybody. 

Melissa 

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so good. Okay, so why are you focused on anger in your coaching? Tell me more about that. 

Arpita 

I think it's because obviously this was me, right? I feel like from one aspect, I love to help women who are struggling with what I'm struggling with, because particularly with anger, there's so much shame around it. And for me, especially, I was a pediatrician, so I felt like I really am so hypocritical for how I'm showing up with my kids, and what I teach and preach to families is not what I'm upholding for myself. So there's so much shame around it from that reason. And then also just the shame of, why is this how I handle things? Like, I don't think everybody does this. I don't think anybody else does this. So what's wrong with me? Why am I handling it this way? And so first being able to even speak about it was a huge step that required a lot of vulnerability and courage to make the acknowledgement that this is something I don't like, that I feel like I can change, but until I got to that point, nothing was ever gonna change. And so part of why I wanted to do this is because I started to realize very quickly that this is not just me. Like, everybody has some form of anger. And I will say, when I help clients, majority of them come to me saying, I'm not really angry, but I wanna do this. And we're all angry. Like if you say I'm not angry, that's like, you don't even know what's going on because we all have anger. We just don't know or necessarily recognize how we manifested, how it shows up for us. Some people involute, some people have major reactionary outbursts, whatever. But that was kind of the incentive that I want to help people kind of get through this emotion that really causes or is surrounded by a lot of shame. And so that's why I started doing a lot of work and reading about anger itself. And then from there, I started to recognize that a lot of times we know anger is a secondary emotion, that it's typically covering up a more painful underlying emotion that we don't wanna feel. So it's our mind and our body's way of protecting us from feeling that other yucky emotion. Because anger just feels a little better. It feels like we still have some sort of control in the situation or we might have a little bit of power in a situation where we really ultimately underneath feel like we don't. And so from there, my curiosity was, but still why? Like, why is it so hard to just acknowledge and feel the underlying emotions that we have? You know, a lot of it is shame, you know, disappointment. There's so many different negative… Fear, right? Fear of uncertainty, you know, for me, it was urgency. I didn't like having the time scarcity feeling that led me to urgency, low self-worth, you know, anything that came up regarding why aren't you practicing? I would be kind of bitchy in my response or when are you gonna go back? So really kind of diving into why, that what's the underlying emotion? But then from there, why we have so much trouble processing that underlying emotion. 

And that's where I kind of got into some of the trauma work, the trauma related work. And I think you had also mentioned, I did some training with Lodestar with Dr. Kemia Sarraf about, you know, trauma informed coaching, but also with Bonnie Badenoch is somebody who we both have trained with that you were mentioning to me about earlier and learned so much from her about how our past traumas, not just in our own lifetime, but within 14 plus generations get passed out in our cell lines and how that impacts the way we show up. And so this started really to make more sense to me as to why we are the way we are. And then from there, I think the cherry on top was Bev. And I think we both know Bev Aron, she's amazing. She's also a guru. And she taught me a lot about how we can process these emotions in a healthy manner so that we are actually able to benefit from this and move forward and be more productive. And so it all kind of tied together and made sense for me for why I wanted to do the learnings that I did because ultimately this was healing myself. It's selfish, yeah, but why not? I want to heal myself first and then I can also share this gift with other people. Like how do we heal other people? 

Melissa 

Yeah, I think what a lot of people don't realize who aren't coaches is that typically every coach’s number one and best client is themselves and how, you know, us learning and being vulnerable and authentic and that type of thing. And even just when I'm teaching somebody something new or I see them have a breakthrough, like that's healing to me, you know, too. It's not just healing for them. So it's just a back and forth. So  interesting. So what I'm hearing from you, my next question was going to be about, you know, is there such a thing as healthy anger? And I mean, I know, I think the answer is yes, of course, you know, you kind of alluded to it, you know, if you aren't angry about some of the things that are happening in our world right now, you probably aren't paying attention. And I'm often telling my people, and I know you feel the same way about this, that no emotion is bad or unnecessary or  to be not felt like the key is being willing and able to see and to recognize why you feel the way that you do making sense of that and then being willing to do the work of processing it. So I know we're in agreement on that. 

Arpita 

Is anger bad, I think was your question in a nutshell. And no, anger is not bad because anger is your body's way of alerting you that something that is a core value for you has been violated. So, you know, how you then use that anger from there is what is going to put you in power or keep you in power. So, you know, it doesn't mean that we don't feel it or we just push it down and ignore it. We definitely need to acknowledge it, feel it, process it, notice it where it's coming up for us in our bodies, but then also recognize, like, why is it there? What is making me go to this point right now? And that's where you can do some of that deeper work to explore. Where do you feel like you've been violated? Where do you feel like there's a threat to your yourself, your being, your person, because your, your primitive brain and body's response to trying to keep you safe. 

Melissa 

It's so interesting because normally when I explain anger to people and you know, telling them that it's healthy and that type of thing, what I tend to think, and I don't know if you agree with me, we can talk about it, is that anger for some of us is a more socially acceptable feeling to feel than fear or sadness or disappointment and that type of thing. So I think for me, at least, like that is why I went to anger, you know, instead of fear or disappointment and that type of thing. I'm like, oh, everybody understands anger, right? But it sounds like you have a little different perspective, which of course is normal. You know, we have different lives, but that there's a lot of shame associated with anger. 

Arpita 

The point is it's your own patterning and how you experienced anger in your life, right? So any if a person has experienced anger in their life with parents who are very maybe verbal and aggressive and abusive that can go two different ways that they carry down the same patterning with their people that they interact with or maybe they see that as this is bad and I cannot show up that way so they suppress their anger and they don't press it at all so it really I think is so individualized and that's where you have to kind of weed out how is it showing up for each person because it makes sense like for me it's shame like there's so much shame around having the anger whereas for you it's okay because that's more acceptable than any of those other emotions so it's completely individual and I don't think you can make a cookie cutter for anybody.

Melissa 

Yeah, of course, of course. Okay. Awesome. So tell me, can you give us a little idea of how you help your people go from being pissed off at the whole world to being poised and ready to take on the world? 

Arpita 

I mean, well, I'm just gonna say, first of all, I still get pissed off at the world, right? Yes, like, so it's never gonna be a one and done for sure. I think the key here is just always, number one is you build awareness, right? The first step to anything is having awareness. So really spending a lot of time reflecting on what is making you get so activated. And you might not notice anything more than just like your shoulders being tight and tense. You might notice that you're actually screaming at somebody, you know, it's so different. Like, how does it show up for you? Just being aware of that and recognizing it. And then when you've kind of allowed, notice the emotions there. I mean, I have a whole protocol, you notice the emotion is there, you go find a safe space, i.e. I gotta go to the bathroom real quick, remove yourself from the situation without having that reaction, immediate like non-controlled reaction. You notice where the feeling is in your body, you breathe into it, you're activating your parasympathetic nervous system as you're taking those deep breaths. And then you're just allowing yourself to feel that emotion wherever it shows up for you in your body. And that typically, you know, 90 seconds to five minutes is what we say to process an emotion, like the intensity of that emotion. It might not be completely resolved, but it brings you back to a level where you've put the prefrontal cortex back into play rather than your permanent brain. 

Melissa 

Which is the part of our brain for my listeners who don't know that allows you to think about your thinking and make choices and that type of thing other than fight, flight, freeze, appease. 

Arpita 

Exactly. You're executive functioning and stuff. So once you're back into that, then you can kind of decide in that moment, can I go back to the situation and remain with my thinking brain, intentional brain? Or do I need to do some research? Or do I need to call in backups? Or do I need to just give myself more space and time before I revisit? And I'm going to go back and say, Hey, I want to talk to you about this, but we need to do it at a different time. Let's set up a time. And so that, again, is anything you're going to do that keeps you in power, makes you stay in your, with your agency, with how you're showing up. And then you go do your thing there. And then the key after this is to really reflect on, with regards to why it set you off so much. Like what about the scenario got so deeply under your skin? And this is where the goal is because if we don't do this step, we're never going to be able to prepare ourselves for the next time. So, you know, reflecting what, what was I feeling? Yes, I was feeling anger, but if I remove the anger from the situation right here, what was I feeling? Was I feeling threatened? Was I feeling the urgency that I'm not getting everything done? Was I feeling pressured from other people having expectations of me? What were you feeling and why were you feeling that? And that's, I know what we talk about a lot is that our thoughts create our feelings. So working backwards from there. And this is where you can then start to have more awareness around why you got so activated. And it might be as simple as mirror neurons. Like I talked about this with my husband, mirror neurons are when we kind of take on the emotion of somebody who we are around, who sometimes we care a lot about. Sometimes we may not. It's just our tendency to be empaths as human beings. So we take on that emotion. So I always tell a story about my husband when he, it was COVID again, and we ordered takeout in and he had ordered soup, some sort of soup, and the soup didn't come. And he was like, lost his shit pissed. I'm like, this is soup. But I could easily feel myself getting just as pissed off as he was about the fact that there was no soup in the takeout bag. So these are neurons, right? The soup, not being there didn't impact me at all, but I was just as pissed as he was that there was no soup. And so really seeing if you tend to be a person who takes on other person's emotions, other people's emotions, being aware of that so that you can kind of give yourself some distance. And so that's what I did. I was like, I tend to get really pissed off when you're pissed off, even if it has nothing to do with me. So the next time you're really pissed off, I might just leave the room and I'm not being a passive aggressive bitch. I'm just trying to keep us in some form of sanity here. So we're not bouncing off each other, this negativity. So again, just figuring out the why behind it, and then solving for how you want to address it next time. 

One of the biggest things is just not making yourself wrong too, because a lot of times we beat ourselves up, right? We make ourselves so bad or damaged or broken for not being able to do it better or show it better or not get it perfect the next time. And that's where that mindset shift is really important, because if you have compassion for yourself to recognize that it's happening for a reason, it always makes sense. We just have to figure it out. That's when you start to really allow yourself to be vulnerable and heal and grow. 

Melissa 

Well, and I think, I don't know if you experienced this, but, and I know it was true of me when I first started coaching too, like I just wanted to quickly like, let's figure out the problems so that I can do better so that I can feel better. And like, we're going to figure it out once, like you said, a one and done situation and that type of thing. And now I know for sure, for me, and of course, for my clients too, it's not doing a 180. It's like changing by degrees and having that be good enough. And you do it a little better every time. You get a little bit more aware every time you figure it out, like as you're screaming at someone the first time, and then you figure it out like, before you start screaming the next time, and then you figure out, oh, I don't really need to scream about this at all. Like, you know, so…

Arpita 

I have a funny story. Nikhil was just home. They just went back from break. And I think it was just he and I the last couple of days as Mike was gone and he didn't do something. I think there were like three or four things around the house that I needed his help to get done. And we're like the last day before we had to go back to school and then it got moved up because of snow. And I just went downstairs or I got out of my room, got dressed, came out, went and saw clients, came back downstairs and he's still in bed. And I just opened the door and I just said to him, Nikhil, I'm a little bit irritated right now. I'm feeling a little bit irritated right now. And I just had my sentence and I shut the door and I left. And he, I mean, it's hysterical now thinking about it, but he mocked me. He was like all day long, mom, I am feeling a little bit irritated right now and just using my voice. And it's so funny because I mean, I even asked him later in the day, I was like, how would that have gone like three years ago? Like how would that have gone? You would have like, you would have literally opened the door, pulled the shit off the bed and said, get your ass up. What is taking you? So why aren't you doing anything? Slam door, you know, like it would have been so different. And so it's, it is like the growth is definitely there. We just have to give ourselves a little bit of space to get there. 

Melissa 

Right. So good. Well, of course, this segues beautifully into my next question, which is, you know, I think that the most important relationship that I will ever have is my relationship with myself. And I'm so happy that I've done the work to change my relationship with myself due to coaching. So I'm curious how your relationship with you has changed because of coaching. And then, of course, we're going to get to Michael and the kids. 

Arpita 

I'm going to say that I think that this is still always an evolution. It's a process of growth, and each year, I get a little bit better. I think for me, my biggest area of growth right now has been focusing on noticing who I want to have in my life, who I give the privilege of my time to. That's what we learned recently at another event that we were at, but that really was a shift for me because I found myself, I'm a fiercely loyal friend, and I find myself giving myself. 

Melissa 

I can't get rid of her I cannot get rid of her people I've tried just like it's like a bad fungus she just keeps coming back of course you're fiercely loyal and I'm fiercely loyal to you as well.

Arpita 

I love it. I love it. Yeah. But like once I'm your friend and if there's a rupture, I try to figure out why and I want to be there. But I realized over time that friendships sometimes are complete. They just, they end and it doesn't always have to be or make it mean something like that. I didn't show up well or that it's something wrong with me or I'm not a good enough person. It's just what happens. And maybe it's also the other person who knows. So I think one of my favorite parts of me now with my relationship with myself is knowing that the people who love me are going to show up for me and are going to want to spend time with me without me having to always try so hard. And so that's been lovely. And like we've talked about this, like we have friends that we don't talk to for weeks, months, and we just pick right back up where we're at. And those are the type of people that I want in my life who are willing to do that, right? Who are just, there's no, no offense taken for whatever. It's just, we love each other unconditionally. 

Melissa 

Yeah. Well, and we recognize that we're busy people with full lives and like, it doesn't mean anything. If we don't talk for a while, it's not… It's not saying anything about the friendship. It's just, this is not convenient at this moment, right? So, so good. All right. Tell me about your relationship with your hunk of burn and love, Michael DePalma. 

Arpita 

It's definitely better. I had him on my show talking about how our relationship has changed, you know? And it's being able to be, honestly, less angry and less prickly with each other because even though the anger wasn't directed at the person, we would take out our frustrations from everything else in our world and our environment on each other because they're your safe person. And at that point, my mindset was that he's not going anywhere. Like, I can do whatever. But the point is you don't know that to be true. And you don't know when you don't have time with that person anymore, when that will happen. And so part of this was just having the ability to build in a more of an emotional connection with him and being able to have vulnerable conversations with him where that we both respect each other. We both know we're both very busy and we do our own things. And when we come together, we can communicate in a way that's much more, I guess, impactful and authentic. 

Melissa 

Well, and emotionally mature. 

Arpita 

Right, right. Exactly. Like we're not screaming at each other because we're pissed off at something else. Like we recognize, I'm irritated with this. And some of this is just when you know you have things in your life that activate you, like for us, whenever we talked about things from the office at home, inevitably, if it wasn't a good thing, we would be in a bad mood. So a huge revelation. We're just not talking about the office at home anymore. I mean, it's not a big deal. It just doesn't happen. And to the point where he's a lot better at it than I am, but he'll shut me down and say, we're not talking about that. You'll have to come to the office. And I'm like, well, I don't have time for that shit this week. You know, so it’s…

Melissa 

Well, I guess we don't have time for the conversation then. So good. I love that. I love that. Okay. So if it's not abundantly clear, I mean, I know you know this, but I'm really so proud of you for doing this work and I'm so glad that you get to have a different experience of your life and that I'm so glad that Sarina and Nik get to have a different experience of you as their mom and other than not ripping Nik's bedding off his bed and, you know, screaming him into submission of helping you, how would you say your relationship with them has changed or your relationship with yourself as a mom? 

Arpita 

Yeah, I think that that was my real incentive for doing this work because I recognized immediately when I started this that we had like a year, a year and a half with Sarina home before she left for college. And immediately I had this revelation that the type of person that I am right now, there is no desire. I would not have any desire to want to come home and be with me. And so I, that was, she was my incentive that I need to cultivate a relationship in a space with her where she wants to come home and she wants to be with me and she wants to spend time with us. And so that was, that was the switch of like, I'm done with this. I have to make a change. So it's been amazing. It's not been perfect. We've definitely had growth and we continue to have growth, but we, I think the biggest thing that we see is the ability for our kids to A, want to be home with us, want to come home. They don't have to. Nik's just two hours away. Sarina is seven hours away and they've made trips to come see us even when we had no plans for that. Even when we were actually going to see them for Sarina for her 21st couple of days later and fly down there, she still came up the weekend before to celebrate her 21st with us. Like who does that? Like, I don't know if I would even do that. But like the fact that we have that relationship, that bond, you know, it feels so good and that's, that was the most important thing. So we are, I think Mike and I are both so proud of what we have been able to create now where they want to be home with us. And you know, and we talk about it, that's, it would have been so much different, I think, if we hadn't made those changes. That's where you totally came in. Like I didn't believe, I didn't know what the hell you were doing, but when you did it that first time with me, I was like, oh my gosh, like this woman has this sense of what's happening here. And I don't know what this voodoo is, but I wouldn't have experienced it if you hadn't, if you hadn't done the uncomfortable work first of something different.

Melissa 

Yeah, I love to have been the one to lead the charge and when I think about all the ripple effects like you guys are definitely a big ripple so that makes me happy. All right, is there anything else that you think the millions of listeners of Your Favorite You need to know about you, about me, about coaching, what do you want them to know? 

Arpita 

Melissa. Melissa is a gem. She is freaking hysterical. She will take conversations to levels even as my friend that I never imagined. I will just let her tell you guys at some point the story of us driving in her grandparents' hearse from nationwide children's in Cleveland and the conversation she had with her grandmother in the car. 

Melissa 

Oh, about blow jobs, I think.

Arpita 

I didn't realize people talk about this with their grandparents, but okay. 

Melissa 

Yes, authenticity has never been lacking and that is me. 

Arpita 

But yeah, I think one of the things that you're going to get with Melissa is you get what you see. There's not really any holding back, and that true authenticity is key, I think, to cultivating safe space with anybody. So yes, having you on my side has definitely been a gift. 

Melissa 

Yeah, so okay. So how can my people, all my angry people, how can they find you? How can they work with you? Tell us all the deets. 

Arpita 

I have a podcast called From Pissed-Off to Poised that I just started in October of 24 and it goes through the whole process. I actually just have taught my anger course in that. And I also go into time management because one of my biggest sources of anger was the urgency, the feeling of urgency. So, a little bit of both there. So, you can learn about what I teach there. And then if you want to learn more about working with me, I have my website is www.thoughtworkmd.com and you can come visit me there. I do one-on-one in group coaching, small group coaching. And I love it. This is my life now. I can't believe it. It's amazing. I get to kind of dabble in a little bit of consulting for practice management, but that's like the tiniest piece. Now I do this full-time and do talks and lots of amazing things. 

Melissa 

Yes, and we drag each other to coaching conferences and to see people like Liz Gilbert and Martha Beck instead of droning on about CME and the AAP and... 

Arpita 

The renal function and, you know, the anion gap and all that shit that I still don't get. 

Melissa 

Our nephrology experience at Nationwide Children's in 1999. It's probably a source of trauma for both of us that we need to work through. Shout out to Jeff Green and Bill Knoblock. 

Arpita 

Oh my gosh, so many memories, so many memories of the good people. 

Melissa 

So many memories. Okay, lady, I think we need to share. I'm so excited. Arpita and I are going back to Miraval in Tucson in April, we leave on my birthday. So I will be celebrating my 52nd birthday with a bunch of my girlfriends in one of my favorite places in the United States.

Arpita 

Such a favorite place. I have a surprise that I'll share soon about Miraval with you. I can't divulge it yet, but I'm super excited. It's one of my favorite places.

Melissa 

I can't wait to hear. All right, come back again next week, folks. I'm sure it won't be quite as entertaining as this one was, but I can try. Bye.

Hey - It’s still me. Since you are listening to this podcast, you very likely have followed all the rules and ticked off all the boxes but you still feel like something's missing! If you're ready to learn the skills and gain the tools you need to tiptoe into putting yourself first and treating yourself as you would your own best friend, I'm here to support you. As a general life coach for women, I provide a safe space, compassionate guidance, and practical tools to help you navigate life's challenges as you start to get to know and embrace your authentic self.

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While, of course, I can't guarantee specific outcomes, as everyone's journey is brilliantly unique, what I can promise is my unwavering commitment to providing you with the skills, tools, support, and guidance you need to create lasting changes in your life. With humor and a ton of compassion, I'll be available to mentor you as you do the work to become a favorite version of yourself.

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Thanks for tuning in. Go be amazing!