Shame around failure and rejection isolates physicians and fuels burnout. This episode explores why, through the story of Dr. René Roberts, who was rejected by every medical school she applied to for three years and later failed her Step 1 board exam twice before becoming an exceptional physician.

Our conversation explores what it took to voice her dream, trust it, and finally move toward it and the role retreats and coaching played at each step along the way.

What this conversation makes clear is that the path forward does not require leaving. It does not require arriving somewhere new. It requires something more honest: the willingness to hold up a mirror, to find thought partners who will tell you the truth, to cultivate sponsors rather than wait to be discovered, and to build pausing and reflecting into the ordinary rhythm of your career.

Dr. Ni-Cheng Liang shares what a hit-and-run accident taught her about acceptance, receiving support, resilience, and choosing how to meet the unexpected with mindfulness and self-compassion.

This episode asks whether what we often dismiss as “woo” may actually be unfamiliar, embodied, evidence-informed, and deeply effective. Dr. Jessie Mahoney pulls back the curtain on the intentional methodology behind Pause & Presence retreats, where coaching, mindfulness, breathwork, yoga, nature, reflection, beauty, rest, and community are deliberately woven together.

Communication takes energy. In this episode, we explore how clarity, transparency, and mindful communication can conserve energy in medicine, and at home –  especially when projects, relationships, and systems feel clogged or inefficient.

Almost every woman in medicine has, at some point, decided she doesn't belong. In this episode, we explore why. 

What does following your inner knowing actually look like — not in theory, but with a mortgage, three kids, and twenty years inside an institution?

In this solo episode, Jessie shares more of her story from Kaiser pediatrician to successful small business owner to retreat leader to TEDx stage. Jessie shares what becomes possible when we stop overriding our inner knowing — and what changes for the people we love most when we do.

Food can become another area where we try to get it right, especially during midlife, perimenopause, and menopause. Eating can start to feel like one more project to manage, optimize, or perfect.

In the episode, Jessie is joined by Dr. Heather Awad, a family physician. They explore a kinder, simpler way to think about mindful eating in midlife and menopause. Rather than adding more rules, we suggest returning to nourishment, awareness, and self-trust. Self-compassion matters more than striving when we are trying to care for ourselves well. 

This episode also shares a peek into the approach to nourishment at Jessie’s Pause & Presence Nicasio Creek Farm CME retreats for women physicians.

Physicians are trained to accommodate. But there is no one right way — there are many. Jessie Mahoney MD, and Ni-Cheng Liang, MD on the mindful pause between compliance and conflict, and what becomes possible on the other side.

A mindful approach to charting for physicians tired of pajama-time documentation. Dr. Jessie Mahoney and Dr. Ni-Cheng Liang on EHR overwhelm, perfectionism in notes, and a sustainable way to finish charts.

Mothering on purpose is not about fixing more, doing more, or worrying harder. It's about presence. Trust. Holding your tongue. Letting them figure things out. Recognizing that your urgency is not theirs. Join us to walk through the mindfulness tenets — patience, non-judgment, trust, letting go, acceptance, curiosity, generosity, gratitude, and paying attention on purpose — as a framework for intentional mothering.

Dr. Jessie Mahoney and Dr. Ni-Cheng Liang share their slow, non-linear paths towards more aligned lives — and why there's no way to skip the uncomfortable middle.

In this episode, Dr. Jessie Mahoney and Dr. Ni-Cheng Liang explore the idea that curiosity is not random. It has causes and conditions in specific environments, rhythms, relationships, and practices that either support it or shut it down. When we understand what those conditions are, we can start intentionally creating more of them.

AI struggles are usually translation problems, not intelligence problems. Real use cases include lease review, job searching, SEO discovery, and show notes creation. How communicating with AI mirrors mindful communication with humans.

Why AI feels so charged for physicians and high-achieving women and how to relate to it with awareness, discernment, and self-compassion instead of fear.

What happens inside us when things do not go as planned? How can we meet those moments with more mindfulness, compassion, and grace?

It’s not possible to avoid disruption in tech, and in life, but we can notice our patterns of reactivity and choose a different response.

High quality coaching is a practical, humane, and skillful form of support for physicians navigating modern medicine.  Sustainable excellence does not require us to care less or lower our standards. It asks us to build different skills than we were taught in medical training — including regulation, reflection, discernment, and intentional action. Mindful physician coaching teaches you these skills.

This episode explores decision fatigue through the lens of physiology, neuroscience, mindset, and intention.

Choices that are delayed, avoided, overthought, or made from depletion are expensive.

Intention and physiologic awareness are tools that can make decisions simpler, steadier, and less draining.

This episode is an invitation to remember: connection is not a luxury and being cared for is a practice.

We talk about what changes when we step into a small, safe community of women physicians and why yoga, breath, stillness, and sound can support the nervous system in a way insight alone sometimes can’t.