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Hello and welcome to today's Upt to Thrive.
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Manage your mind, mindful moment.
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Welcome to Upt to Thrive, your go-to podcast for women's wellness in midlife, designed to educate, support, and inspire you to live your very best life.
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And now your host, Dr.
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Karina Sims.
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So I have just literally gotten back from my trip to Canada.
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Got my Mont Tremblant mug.
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I'm drinking out at 4 a.m.
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this morning.
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I am thinking the jet lag's not going to be so bad coming back this way.
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We'll hope.
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I'll stay up all day today and then hopefully right back into the zone tonight.
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It's been an amazing, like a whole whirlwind of a couple of weeks, and it was just me on my own.
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My husband stayed behind.
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He had a lot of farm jobs to do, just starting to get busy on the farm, and both my children, as you would know, if you've been listening to it for a while, they're off doing their own thing, so it was just me.
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And essentially, I was invited over to actually I was brought over by the Fit Physician to speak at a Canadian women's physician fitness retreat and be a part of it all.
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They run these uh retreats twice a year, once in the fall, and then again once in the winter.
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And so I got to come over and and be a part of it, which is fabulous.
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My head is absolutely spinning with reflection after this trip.
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There's so much I want to share with you guys.
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I have so many mindful moments that are, I think, are gonna come out of the last couple of weeks, which is just so fun.
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It took me 44 hours of travel time to get to my destination when I went over, and significantly less when I was 20, maybe three coming back.
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So that was pretty cool.
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Um, when I got there, Devin, Suzanne's husband, and Finn and Sophia, their children, picked me up from the airport and we headed off to Mont Tremblant, which is where they were where Suzanne was preparing for Thanksgiving.
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So I got there on a Saturday, and Thanksgiving dinner was going to be for her family on a Sunday, and then we traveled back into Ottawa for my second Thanksgiving, and this is the first Thanksgiving that I've had in 27 years, like a proper North American Thanksgiving, which was just super cool.
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I took full advantage of all the pumpkin pie.
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I, in fact, before I flew back home, I had a massive piece of pumpkin pie, and I actually brought some pumpkin pie spice back home with me, and I've put that in my coffee this morning, which is fantastic.
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For the first two weeks I was with Suzanne, you know, pretty much 24-7.
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I took my wetsuit.
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She she had advised that I should bring my wetsuit and swim in the lake that's just behind their house.
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So I did take my wetsuit and I took full advantage of all the fresh water.
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It was amazing.
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I swam in the lake a couple of times, and then I also swam in the river, and I can't remember which river.
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There's so many rivers and lakes there.
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Just so many, and it's water everywhere you look.
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And I swam in the river outside of her brother's house.
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Like literally, you just walk out the back door and into the river.
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It was doable with my wetsuit.
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In fact, I think the temperature was probably very similar to what the temperature was in the river here in the riverland before I left.
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So it was it was getting colder.
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Like we did have a powder of snow, a little bit of a snowfall one morning while I was there.
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So it was cold enough to get some snow.
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It melted very quickly, but it cooled off progressively in the two weeks that I was there.
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So that last swim in the river did get a little bit of brain freeze.
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That's all right.
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Um it went away within a couple of minutes, and then it was just a spectacular swim.
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Like you could literally see the bottom of the river, the pebbles and you know, little trees that had fallen and were in the bottom of the river, but you could see everything, it was just amazing.
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And then you're surrounded by mountains and pine trees, and then all these deciduous trees that were in different stages of losing their leaves.
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It's a this place, apparently, people come by the busloads to just drink in all of the fall colors, and I can see why it was it was breathtaking.
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You really did just want to just drink in all that color, it was amazing.
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I am definitely have to get back there over the snow season because it would just be a winter wonderland, I am sure.
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I have to say the river experience was one of my favorites, but so many favorites, so hard to pick, really.
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While I was
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there, we were very active.
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We did lots of, we did some hiking, swimming, we did some mountain biking, and on one of the last days that we were there, we mountain biked like through the trails, you know, around this mountain at the back of their house and into the little village there to have lunch.
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And we got some time to ride side by side and have a little chat.
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And Suzanne and I, even though we haven't been face to face for a few years, every time that we meet, it's just you know, one of those friends where you just or you start where you left off.
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Like the conversation is so easy, and we're still finishing each other's sentences.
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We still have five conversations on the go at any one time.
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Anyone listening would just have their head spinning trying to keep up.
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That was Devin.
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We still can have those beautiful conversations.
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And one of the conversations that we had on this bike ride was somehow our interview for med school came up.
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So, med school here in Adelaide, Flinders University, and she told me that she went to the interview, not even expecting to really go to med school in Australia.
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It was like a warm-up interview for her.
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It was in New York City, you know.
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So, why wouldn't you go along to New York City?
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And but then, you know, they offered her the place in class, and there she was.
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And it just hit me in that minute having that conversation that what my life would have been like had I not met Suzanne.
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It was really this what I like to call it's a wonderful life moment.
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If you've not seen it's a wonderful life, it's one of my absolute favorite old movies that in America anyway, it's played every year on TV around Christmas time.
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It's a Christmas movie in all black and white, and it's about essentially how we touch people's lives in ways that we don't fully often appreciate or comprehend.
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And that was one of those moments for me.
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Just it seemed like it flashed before my eyes what my life would have been had I never met Suzanne.
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We met on the very first day of medical school, it's actually orientation.
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Um, Devin likes to joke because Devin was there as her fiance at that time, and likes to joke about it's not actually really a joke.
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Our our first day, I think a good half of that was spent of someone showing us pictures of all the things that could hurt us or kill
us in Australia.
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So, you know, the snakes, the spiders, all the things that we needed to be aware of, um was you know an interesting start to our our journey here in Australia.
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But that very first day, we hit it off so quickly.
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She and Devin and I and my then husband had lunch together on that very first day, and then it was pretty much, you know, we bonded so quickly from there.
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And so again, hearing her say those words, that whole journey flashed before my eyes of what that could have been like.
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She was there for me when I was pregnant with my first baby.
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I got pregnant with Megan in first year medicine, and I struggled through that pregnancy.
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You know, the relationship wasn't great.
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I was a new medical student in a foreign country, you know, everything was new.
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In one way, it was the best experience of my life, the best time of my life, the whole medical school.
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But at the same time, it's so weird to say it was the hardest time of my life, probably not just those four years of medical school, but then doing my obstetrics training and my GP, rural GP training after that.
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Those were the hardest days of my life, but again, at the same time, the absolute happiest as well.
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So weird.
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But it was always Suzanne there supporting me as a new mother.
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I had no experience with children, like I'd never been around babies and children, but she had had some nanny experience.
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So, you know, I remember times of her just taking Megan off of me when I was sitting there crying because she wouldn't settle and I didn't know what to do.
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And, you know, just go have a break, Karina.
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I got this, you know, she was just always there as I, you know, sat and felt like a failure.
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She made me feel better, right?
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She had experience.
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I didn't, it was something that I was going to have to learn.
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She was there with me as my relationship went through what it went through, and you know, that was a lot of stress with everything else going on, as you might imagine.
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We went for very long hikes and had these really long, in-depth conversations.
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She was there with me as that relationship was falling apart, but at the same time, as I got pregnant with my son, my second child, 14 weeks into fourth year and final year medicine.
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She was there supporting me through that.
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She was there in the delivery room when I gave birth to Lachlan.
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She was there with me studying for every single exam.
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She was there when I graduated.
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You know, her family came over from Canada and she just took me in to have all of the celebratory dinners and just be part of the family to celebrate this accomplishment that we'd had.
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She was pivotal in the job sharing internship that we both then went into.
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I've said it before.
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I'm I don't think I can ever get tired of saying we were the first job-sharing interns in all of Australia.
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She was pivotal in making that happen.
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There were so many days I wanted to quit along the way, and Suzanne was always there, just supporting me through it, believing in me.
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She was just such a huge part of my life, and imagining doing all of that without her looking back just seems impossible.
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I I can't even imagine what my life would have been like without her in it.
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And having that experience just made me really reflect on all of the moments that we have in our lives, those it's a wonderful life moments that, you know, sometimes maybe are even, they seem insignificant at the time, but then they later turn out to be really sliding door moments, really significant moments in our life, you know, those chance meetings, the people who come into our lives and then change the course of them without us even realizing it.
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It made me think about something else too.
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How often we tell those people what they have meant to us, what they mean to us, not that, not just that we love them or that we're grateful for their friendship, but you know, that real deep stuff, they helped us get through something that we didn't think that we could get through.
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You know, at the time, especially early on, Suzanne had, I don't think, had the depth of knowledge of what was going on for me in, you know, that first probably couple of years.
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She was just there.
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So, you know, those people who help us get through things, they're not even realizing they're doing it, they believe in us when we're struggling, struggling to believe in ourselves.
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They make our lives richer, fuller, probably sometimes just even entirely different just because they're a part of our lives.
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And I think sometimes that we assume that people know.
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Maybe they know this, right?
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But do they?
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Do they really?
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Because
there's another side of this as well that became apparent while I was there.
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So when I did the talk for at this retreat for these beautiful women physicians, Suzanne introduced me and she said very similar words about how her life had been impacted by me.
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It really did make me take a step back.
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You know, we don't always know the impact that we have on somebody else's life either.
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Sometimes it's big, you know, the big things, but sometimes it's something as simple as just showing up, being there, listening, offering a little encouragement, sitting beside someone when their life feels overwhelming and giving them a kind word or even, you know, those small compliments we give to a stranger.
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We might not remember that moments or even years later, but they might.
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So when she was talking about me at the retreat, that she couldn't imagine what her life would have been like without me, I never really thought about that before.
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I had never appreciated that her life was touched by me in a significant way as well.
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She's beautiful.
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And I think it's something worth remembering, particularly when we're caught up in the busyness of our own lives, wondering whether we're doing enough, if we're achieving enough, or making enough of a difference.
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Because the most meaningful difference we make isn't always something that can be even measured.
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Maybe it's the way that we've made someone else feel, like I've said, the courage we helped them find without realizing we did that, or the fact that we were there when they needed someone.
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So here's what I want you to think about today.
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Who is someone in your life whose presence has changed its course?
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Someone who showed up for you, someone who helped you through a difficult time, someone who believed in you, encouraged you, or maybe just made your world a better place just by being in your world.
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And maybe more importantly, when was the last time you told them?
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Have you told them?
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Not just a quick thank you, but really told them.
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I think it's something that we could maybe most of us, if not all of us, could do a little bit more of.
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So if someone comes to mind as you're listening to this today, maybe today's a good day.
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To pick up the phone, send them a message, and just make the time to tell them.
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But there's one thing that this trip to Canada has reminded me of, it's that some of the greatest gifts in our lives aren't things we're we've achieved or the places that we've been.
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They're the people that we've been lucky enough to share the journey with.
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I think we all need, and it's a wonderful life moment every now and then.
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Not to imagine all the things that we might have missed out on, but to recognize just how much richer our lives are because of the people who have found their way into them.
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And maybe to remember that we might be that person in somebody else's story too.
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I hope you've enjoyed this manage your mind mindful moment.
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And if you have and you can think of someone else who might enjoy it, please pass it on.
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And don't forget to write and review the podcast to make it more visible to those who might get something out of it too.
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Have a great week, everyone.
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And until then, I hope you opt to thrive.
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The Opt to Thrive Podcast is designed for information purposes only and is not engaged in the giving of medical advice.
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The information provided on the podcast should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease.
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In no way should the information provided by Opt to Thrive be considered medical advice, but at all times the advice of the medical professional should you receive recommendations from opt to thrive.
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If you have or suspect you may have a health problem, you can consult your healthcare provider.
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The views expressed in this podcast are purely mattered afterstands and do not in any way request those of the institutions to contract the medical person.
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