MEET YOUR COACH

Dr. Najmun Riyaz, MD is a practicing psychiatrist in New Jersey and an ICF Certified Empowerment Coach. She empowers women in the workforce, especially in healthcare and tech fields, She loves to raise awareness of the importance of our emotional wellbeing and runs a social media campaign for Kashmir, India to remove the stigma on mental health.

” Two years ago, I was feeling exactly the way you are feeling now. I was working more hours than I had signed up for. I was noticing that my stress was not coming from providing my patients the care

that they deserved, but, from the corporate world, managed care, and administrative staff. I found myself being less of a doctor and spending most of my time advocating for myself, for the team involved in patient care, as well as for the clients, and stressing on the importance of good quality work. I used to feel drained, overburdened, and underappreciated. When I would come home after a long day’s work, I had nothing left to give to my family.

Then the pandemic happened. I started working from home and realized how much time was being wasted in unnecessary conversations, advocacy, and even commuting. I spent quite some time alone, pondering over what is more important in our lives? How did we get here? I started recognizing that many of us healthcare providers may be struggling with some form of codependent traits, meaning; we are fixers. We like to fix things, which may be a nicer form of “imposing control”. But we mean well and in all this caregiving business, we lose sight of our own self, our own priorities. We become bitter, angry, annoyed, and constantly stressed. Then we have trouble sleeping, trouble relaxing. We blame our husbands, partners and even children.

But in reality, what we need is first to do some soul searching as to how we got here, and what to do, to regain back our power, our authenticity and integrity, and above all our inner happiness.

I want to hear from you all and I want us to create a sisterhood, a friendship, where we will lift each other, where we can be vulnerable, and vent not just for sake of venting, but to feel heard, validated and then begin to problem-solve. With help of our inner power, we will find what works best for us. We will change the course of our life so that we can enjoy our work and that may mean making some serious changes. Some of us could be ready to make that change, and some of us, maybe not be there yet. It does not matter where we are on this journey. What matters is how we want our journeys to be from here on.

I am so looking forward to taking this journey with you and hearing more about you.”