In episode three of I've Been Thinking...podcast we chat with Dr. Taniqua Miller a board-certified obstetrician/gynecologist with a special focus on midlife/menopause health. After 14 years of practice, Dr. Miller took a step back from clinical care to center herself and her journey of burnout. She is a wife, mother of three children, and the founder of TaniquaMD, an educational platform for women in midlife. She shares how she navigated the pain and shame of burnout, the specific challenges Black women face when navigating professional pause, and how she created a life, and company, that now supports her living a boundless life.
Learn more about Dr. Taniqua Miller's Boundless Midlife™ Burnout Recovery Program
About Taniqua Miller, MD
Dr. Taniqua Miller received her undergraduate degree in psychology at Yale University. After completing her medical degree at Harvard Medical School, she completed her residency training in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA. As a 1st generation college graduate and physician, she is a committed educator and advocate for underrepresented medical students and physician trainees. She has been recognized by the Emory School of Medicine and the Association of Professors in Gynecology and Obstetrics for her teaching excellence and innovative curriculum development. After 14 years of practice, Dr. Miller took a step back from clinical care to center herself and her journey of burnout. She tells her own story of professional burnout to empower other women over 40 to live a boundless midlife. She is a wife, mother of three children, and the founder of TaniquaMD, an educational platform for women in midlife. In her spare time, she loves to sleep, visit the beach, and hang out on the couch with her family.
Bryetta Calloway (00:04):
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of I've Been Thinking with your host, Bryetta Calloway. I am so thrilled and so excited for today's episode. Now, I always feel good about the people that I bring to the podcast. I take that very seriously, but this one in particular feels very, very good to me. Dr. Taniqua Miller is a board-certified obstetrician/gynecologist with a special focus in midlife and menopause health. Now she received her undergraduate degree in psychology at Yale University. And after completing her medical degree at Harvard Medical School, she went on to complete her residency training in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.
(00:47):
She's a first-generation college graduate and physician and she's a committed educator and advocate for underrepresented medical students and physician trainees. She's been recognized by Emory School of Medicine and the Association of Professors in Gynecology and Obstetrics for her teaching excellence and innovative curriculum development. Now after 14 years of practice, Dr. Miller took a step back from her clinical care to center herself and her journey of burnout and she tells her own story of professional burnout to empower women over the age of 40 to live a boundless midlife. And we're going to dig more into that when we have a chance to talk with her.
(01:24):
She's not only a doctor, not only an educator, she's a wife, she's a mom of three kids. She's a founder of TaniquaMD which is an educational platform for women in midlife. And when she's not doing all of those other things, she likes to visit the beach, hang out with her family. She hopefully gets some naps in there as well. I know her to be not just a wonderful educator, but an unbelievable advocate for the issues around underrepresented folks. I find her to be not just smart, but incredibly delightful and I'm so thrilled to welcome her to the podcast. So hi, Dr. Miller. How are you?
Dr. Taniqua Miller (02:03):
Hi, Bryetta. That was so nice.
Bryetta Calloway (02:06):
Right? Isn't it funny when you hear your bio read out? You're like, "Oh my gosh, that's so nice."
Dr. Taniqua Miller (02:12):
No, but I think it was the way that you read it. You got that special sauce.
Bryetta Calloway (02:15):
I try. I try. Now I have to tell you that one of the things that I was stressing about, I was like, "I've never called Dr. Miller, Taniqua, ever." I'm like, "I only call her Dr. Miller." So I will say I probably use them interchangeably, but it feels a lot like calling your principal by their first name. It's like you just wouldn't do that, but I'm so thrilled that you said yes to the podcast. I know I said a lot about who you are and what you do, but for folks who don't know you or the things that you're interested, is there anything that I missed that you would want to share?
Dr. Taniqua Miller (02:48):
I really like to emphasize that my pathway was one that wasn't written for me. I really stressed the fact that I was first generation. And what that has done in terms of my burnout journey, which we'll get into a little bit later, really has shaped that because there was no script, right? There was no script. And so you don't have that script. You piece together what everyone else is doing just to make it through. And that was my turning point, that day in April, when I found myself in my car what I felt like was having a panic attack. So I'm really excited to get into that and I'm hoping that my story and how I've come through my burnout and how I want to really reach out to other women and empower them to really see themselves in this boundless way, in this midlife journey, I'm hoping that that will touch someone today.
Bryetta Calloway (03:39):
Well, I love so much of what you do. So I know you and I know that you focus on midlife and menopause clinically, but I would love to know from your own personal perspective, you've now spent 14 years dedicated to this path of being an amazing clinician, being an amazing educator. What was it that led you to the place of like, "I'm feeling something and I don't know if that's burnout or I don't know what it is," but what led you to that place and tell us a little bit about that?
Dr. Taniqua Miller (04:15):
Yeah, that's a great question. So I entered medical school in 2004 and graduated and went straight into residency as most medical graduates do and then graduated and then went straight into my first clinical job in an academic program, which I'm still in. And medicine steps are very calculated and very written out in the way that you go to residency, then you start a job and then you take your boards and you become board certified. And then at that point, you're supposed to figure things out. You're supposed to figure out what your niche is and you're supposed to figure out what your passions are. And I found my niche and my passion in midlife health and menopausal health and I felt really, really empowered.
(04:57):
But on the flip side, I make the joke, "I was DEI before there was a DEI." And so when there was more of that recognition, "No, we need to really find equitable spaces," and my passion was always trainees, I went that route. And then there was this expectation that I would do more. And not more in terms of the work, I'm used to doing work, but more in terms of being in leadership and taking on these roles that took me away, honestly, from the down-on, boots-on-the-ground work that I truly, truly enjoyed. But it was like, if you're moving up, right?
Bryetta Calloway (05:35):
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (05:35):
If you're moving up and I say this to all of my clients, "Whose flag are you waving, right? Was it my flag that I wanted to take on these leadership roles or was someone imposing their thoughts for who I should be that made me take on these roles? And so getting clearer, it ... That got a little muddy, I would say, a couple years back. Then COVID hit and your priorities realign, right? I had children that were homeschooling. My son was diagnosed with ADHD at the time. My husband is also a physician and so both of us trying to manage our physician households without a lot of support.
(06:09):
It was incredibly stressful and I started noticing a lot of irritability. I started noticing a lot of unhealthy behaviors that weren't really characteristic for me, so being really snappy. I discovered the term overdrinking where one cup of Prosecco became two cups of Prosecco, became the bottle. And I really was like, "This is just not me. This doesn't feel good in my body," and I really didn't know why until just, I would say, in January-February of 2022 when it seemed to be spilling over into all aspects of my life. So not only was I numbing, coming home and just sitting on my couch, not wanting to be engaged, I was at a point that I cut my family off for a little while because I just couldn't cope with what that meant. I was trying to figure out stuff with my children.
(06:57):
My interactions with patients started changing to the point that I was hiding in my call room when I was on call, not wanting to interact unless I absolutely had to. And you know me, that is not me.
Bryetta Calloway (07:11):
That's not you.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (07:12):
That's not me. And so I hired a coach at the time, myself, I hired a coach at the time and the coach was really hired to help me negotiate some of the power that I felt like I had relinquished over the pandemic. Not realizing that it wasn't just the pandemic, but it was almost this upbringing in medicine and upbringing in professional circles that really forced you to relinquish some of that power so that you can survive. And hearing a coach tell me that, "I know you're in these meetings and they're saying these crazy things and I know that you feel guilty that you're not able to feel empowered to speak up in those spaces, but recognize that these spaces weren't really built for you and you choosing, you're constantly negotiating what fights you're going to fight, that's exhausting." And so it was really validating, but at the same time, it really killed my spirit.
(08:08):
So one day I had a meeting and there was something wonderful that my committee did in terms of DEI. I was really proud of the work that we had done, but there was really no celebration. There was a lot of skepticism. There was a lot of questioning. I found that every time I was showing up now in this leadership role, I had to always justify my thoughts, my opinions with literature searches and articles and what are other programs doing. And it really just was in this moment it became almost like a fever pitch because I felt like I was muted. I couldn't speak up for myself and I didn't have the words because there was a lot of fear.
(08:55):
And so my body wasn't feeling great. When I was in residency, I had terrible anxiety on very specific rotations. It literally would be I would start a rotation and I would have chest heaviness and I did my due diligence, I had my full workup, all the things and it was literally how I manifested anxiety. Well, it went away for the most part after residency, and then all of a sudden, that chest pain started coming back. And I was like, "Girl, you back now? It's time to come back?" And I remember that I literally wanted to jump out of my body every time I felt this. And this particular day in April, I went to my car, I drove to work because now I have to see patients after this very heavy meeting that I had, and literally as I pressed park the chest pain, I couldn't breathe it away.
Bryetta Calloway (09:51):
Right.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (09:53):
I used to... I couldn't breathe it away and I literally was in my seat, in the hospital parking lot and just kept crying. And I went, "Is this my life on the outside?" I'm first generation. My mom's from Trinidad, single parent and first go to college, first go to medical school. I have this lovely husband. I have three healthy children, yada, yada, yada, all of these things. But I am in my car sobbing like, "Oh my gosh, I hate all of this. Is this my existence?" And it was so strange to me, because on that one side, I wanted to give my space to really feel that, but immediately was chest pain, "You need to go away and I need to be grateful. I'm blessed, I'm grateful. I'm blessed."
(10:43):
And so not really allowing myself to fully be in it, I felt like was part of what was keeping me back and keeping me silenced. So I show up in clinic and I'm raging. I am not myself. And I thank God for what my coach calls my spotter, one of my colleagues was just looking at me and she was like, "Are you okay?" And I was going off which is again so not me. And the next day, she called me and I was like ... She said, "I think you need some time off." She was like, "I think this has been a crappy couple of years. I think things are reaching a fever pitch for you. I don't want to see you just leave the field," because that was the real thought. I talked to my husband, I was like, "I'll just quit." And she was like, "I think you just need a break." And even the thought of taking a break, "We don't take breaks."
Bryetta Calloway (11:33):
That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (11:37):
"We don't take breaks." So for her to say, "I really think you need to take a break." And I said, "And do what?" She said, "And do nothing or do everything or do whatever it is that you want." And I was like, "Yeah, I'll think about it. I'll see." And then that following week, this was on a Thursday, that Monday I was sitting on labor and delivery just crying in tears. And I was like, "Okay." And that's when I filed my FMLA paper. And for me, at that point, I was leaving to survive.
Bryetta Calloway (12:04):
Right.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (12:04):
Leaving to come back to the feel in a really meaningful way. I thought at the moment, I thought I was leaving and never coming back or that I was leaving so that I can make my transition plan to leave medicine altogether or to leave ...
Bryetta Calloway (12:18):
Right.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (12:20):
... or whatever it was, but I'm happy that I did that because I was able to come back to myself, but I needed the space to come back to myself.
Bryetta Calloway (12:28):
That makes it so much of what you're saying is tracking for me. And I want to circle back to a few things that you said because I think, I don't know how many people really understand the pressure of being in high-performing fields and that pressure of ... And I think medicine, I am obviously not in medicine, I always say I like hanging out with doctors to get a few phrases so I can sound smart, but that's not my path. But I do certainly understand what it means to be in high-performing spaces. And I don't think enough people understand that when so much of your life is mapped towards achievement, there is something that happens to the brain that doesn't know how to just be. Everything becomes about more higher, the title, the position, the thing.
(13:24):
And so something that you said resonated with me so much because that battle between like, "I'm supposed to grow. I'm supposed to be promoted. That's supposed to happen," to then not go after that feels like ... And I'm curious if you agree or maybe you can explain how it felt for you, for me, whenever I faced those sort of decision, it feels like, Well, then I'm a failure, right? I'm failing because I don't have anything to show someone that says, 'Look, I did so good that I got this or I did so well that my new title is X,' and so now I feel like a failure." And I'm curious, what were you feeling outside of the rage and the fear and all of that? How did that feel for you to say, "I'm going to stop and center on myself"? What did that actually feel like for you?
Dr. Taniqua Miller (14:19):
Yeah, we didn't even get into the promotion conversation because that is a nuts in and of itself, but oh my gosh, shame. I felt ... The first week after I actually was on leave, I cried, probably daily. And there was this deep shame that I had let my team down, I had let my family down, I had let my legacy down. Here I am. I had made it this far and I had to pause for a little bit. I couldn't push through. There was an incredible sense of isolation because I would complain about what was happening and I would complain to colleagues, but everybody else seemed to be doing okay. People are like, "Yeah, girl, yeah," but then they were showing up to work and doing the work. And I was just like, "Is nobody else seeing how preposterous all of this is?"
(15:11):
I felt like I was literally living in my own head and there was just this incredible amount of shame, a credible amount of isolation. That first week, I remember I actually set up one of my colleagues, we did a digital course together and it's really centered and tapping. And the chest pain was raging at this point, even that first week. And we had a tapping session and I was just so upset at myself. And I was like ... And I used the word extract. I just wanted to extract myself, almost disappear because of so much shame around the fact that I had paused. Everybody else was grateful. My husband was like, "Thank God, you need a break." My business community was like, "Please meet with me. Tell me all the books to read, so I can be a better person." And they were like, "Yes, you need to sit still."
(16:02):
But literally, I used the word extract and there was something that she said that was really what catapulted this whole boundless journey for me. She said, "How about we think of your chest pain as your intuition?" And I was like, "I don't understand." She said, "You literally want to run from your feeling." She said, "But what if your chest pain and how you're exhibiting anxiety is your intuition telling you that you're not safe?"
Bryetta Calloway (16:32):
Right.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (16:32):
Boom, blew my mind, and I was like, "Oh, huh?"
Bryetta Calloway (16:40):
And what I love so much about that moment of aha, that moment of understanding is the minute you don't demonize the feeling, then you're like, "Oh, it's telling me something," right? But that moment of choosing not to demonize or have the shame or any of those feelings around it. Because I often think about this as well, it's like, "How do I subtract what's happening from the feelings that I'm feeling about it enough to understand what's happening?" That's the hard work, right? That's the root of it, but I think something that you said also that feels really important to highlight, especially in a conversation this, is I just don't think enough people are just honest that they're struggling, right?
(17:37):
Because something that you said is something that I have felt so many times, which is I've been in situations where I look around and I'm like, "How is everyone happy in this?"
Dr. Taniqua Miller (17:47):
Right.
Bryetta Calloway (17:48):
And I would say to people, I'm like, "I wish someone would tell me what I'm not doing right because everyone seems okay and I'm not okay." And then you realize, it's only years later where you realize you have a conversation, they're like, "Oh no, everyone's in pain and struggling. We're just doing a good job of hiding it or not talking about it." And I think just the power of what you're saying is enough for someone to put language to their own experience to be like, "No, actually everyone is of facing their own thing. It may not be burnout, but everyone's facing calibration like, 'What am I going to spend my time doing and how am I going to live a life that feels really aligned with where I see myself?'" which is why I love the ethos behind boundless life. So tell me how you got to the place of boundless as a word [inaudible 00:18:49] experience.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (18:49):
I love telling this story. So I have this experience with tapping and literally no joke, my chest pain went away.
Bryetta Calloway (18:56):
Wow.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (18:57):
Literally, when I was like, "Oh, you're telling me to trust myself," and I had four weeks to try to figure this out, right? Like, "Oh, how do I trust myself again?" And I'm telling you this wild story. So when I was in sixth grade or seventh grade, it may have been seventh grade, my middle name is Necole, N-E-C-O-L-E. Well, I changed it to Necolé.
Bryetta Calloway (19:20):
Okay, I love that-
Dr. Taniqua Miller (19:23):
I had an aunt, her name was Délores. She used to tell people that her name was Délores and I thought that was the most fascinating thing. And she was like, "I love cheetah print." She's my cheetah print queen, literally. And I remember being [inaudible 00:19:37], "My name is Necolé," and it was so real for me at the time that even when I graduated from eighth grade, it was on my diploma.
Bryetta Calloway (19:49):
I love that.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (19:49):
With a little apostrophe over the E. And so at some point Necolé went away, right?
Bryetta Calloway (19:51):
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (19:51):
I grew up, and literally, I kid you not, this whisper came back and it was Necolé. I remember saying something and it was like, "Girl, you fly." And I was like, "Oh, who is this?" And it was Necolé. And I was, "Oh, that girl that I was way back when, when I trusted myself." I'm still unsure of myself. I was like a tween or what have you, but I had a better sense of who I was, what I wanted, all of the things. Then I started looking at pictures over the years and I noticed a sense of almost a little bit of conformity, even in my physical appearance, having to go through medicine. And I realized that some of the disruption that I was feeling coincided with how I was wearing my hair.
(20:38):
I went to a place where I was pretty much, not bringing a lot of attention to myself, right? You can see the black suits, hair pulled back, things like that. Then I started doing braids. Then I started coloring my hair. I love me a good blonde. And then I cut it short and I wasn't straightening it and I had short hair. Then I started shaving the sides. Now I'm locking up. And literally, I saw a couple of things happen. One, my relationships with my patients, and the connectedness that I had, became super authentic and in a way that they were seeking me out. So as I became more authentic, I started having deeper patient relationships. But as I was becoming more authentic, I started feeling this restlessness.
Bryetta Calloway (21:26):
Right.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (21:26):
And so from the point that I was like chest pain to Necolé coming back in my ear, the message that I also was getting is that I needed to really build out a better spiritual foundation. I grew up Christian, I went to Catholic school for 12 years, right? Baptized a Catholic, but went to Catholic school for 12 years. I could give you all the Hail Marys, everything. And I was talking to my therapist and she was like ... I was like, "Some of the devotionals that I read, they're not really empowering in a way for someone like me. I'm very cerebral. I want to get something that's going to make me feel like I can conquer the world." And so she recommended this little devotional and it came in the mail. And while all of this was going on, this particular day, the message said, "Be boundless."
(22:17):
And the message went on to say, "You are a child of God. We are made in God's image. So why are you playing small? Do you think God is small or is God infinite? So if you are made in God's image, I need you to step into who you are. Be boundless. Be life's muse." This is literally what this thing ...
Bryetta Calloway (22:41):
Wow.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (22:42):
... said on this particular day. And I was like, "Boundless?" And so of course, the nerd to me, I go to my dictionary and I'm like, "What does boundless really mean?" And it was like, "Vast, immense," right? I always felt like I got a mouthpiece, as you could tell, my adjective was always Talkative Taniqua. And so I was like, "How am I being vast and immense that's true to me?"
Bryetta Calloway (23:05):
Right.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (23:06):
Then it said, "Without bounds." And I was like, "I have felt so bound by whatever caricature that I'm carrying around. And so the thought boundless, how can I show up and be boundless in everything I do? How can I be boundless?" And that kept playing and playing and playing. And so I went on this challenge where I was like, "I'm going to be boundless. I'm going to be vast. I'm going to be immense. I'm going to be life's muse and I'm going to post on Instagram every day for 14 days about my burnout journey." And what started happening was that women who were like me, I'll be 42 this year, they were in that just over 40 and they were just experiencing all of this disappointment in where they were. Not that they weren't successful, but it was just like, "Is this it? Isn't there more?"
(24:01):
And I remember that word, "Oh, we're not living in a boundless way. What is your dream?" And when I tell you, I literally went into my shower because now I'm home and my kids are at camp, so I got a little time.
Bryetta Calloway (24:15):
Right.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (24:16):
I was in my shower and sometimes we are not used to being in silence and in quiet, but it's in those moments of silence and quiet when we're not doing, what we're just being and listening that literally the framework for the coaching program came to me. It just popped in my head. It was like, "You got to breakdown, then you got to break up and then you got to breakthrough," and it was like, "That is how you get to a boundless midlife. That is the transformation. Breakdown how you got here, what was that original dream? How do you release that shame? How do you then give yourself and self-forgiveness, empower your boundaries and reclaim your power?'" And then I say, "How do you realign your purpose? How do you dream a new dream, try a new legacy. What does that look like?" And it's possible. Literally, in the shower, I started crying. I was like, "Okay." And-
Bryetta Calloway (25:08):
But see, just hearing your story explains why I've always adored you because there's so much of what you said. Because for myself, one of the things I've often said to people is like, "There are tons of things I'm not good at. The things that I am good at, I know for sure." And one of the things that I always really pride myself on is self-awareness. I really know me. And I often say, whether it's to my therapist or to a friend, I'm like, "Even if I can't fix me, I know me. I know what my stuff is. I know the areas. And something that you said, it resonates with me, which is you understood yourself enough to say that the things I'm trying to use to solve this don't work for me, right? And something that you said in particular, it's like, "I, myself, am an incredibly spiritual person. My faith is incredibly important to me and also I'm an extremely academic. I want to dig into the things."
(26:10):
And something that you actually said is so a Bryetta thing because I'm constantly looking up the words because I love language and it's no wonder that I work in marketing and communications because I love language, I love words. And so one of the biggest ahas is actually a spiritual practice that I started because I loved doing Bible studies, but I actually wanted to study. And that was really hard for me because I felt like I was accessing things that were preaching, which are good, but I wanted to study, I wanted to learn. And someone recommended to me actually studying the Greek roots of the words and actually breaking down the language.
(26:55):
And so I did this practice for myself where I took one of my favorite passages of scripture found in the Bible and I transposed it according to its original meaning. And it was so interesting, and today, it's had such an impact on me because it was four sentences that ended up being an entire page and a half of translation. And I remember just thinking, I was like, "There's so much to learn in this," but the reason why I bring it up is this idea of it, there's a very specific type of person that sees a gap and it's like, "Oh, nothing fits what I'm looking for," and then there's another person who, "Oh, there's nothing that fits. I'm going to build it," right? Like, "There's nothing that fits what I'm looking to do and I'm going to build it."
(27:45):
And I'm curious because I know your passion for the midlife phase of women and obviously your passion to help folks actually live a boundless life. I'm curious about, what have you learned about folks at this age and stage? What is it about that perimenopausal midlife space that makes so many people ask this question like, "Is this it? Is the life that I'm going to ..." what is that?
Dr. Taniqua Miller (28:16):
I don't know. There was this book, oh my gosh, I wish I had it as a reference, that specifically speaks to this idea that when you hit your 40s, it is pretty much determined that you will have some crisis.
Bryetta Calloway (28:33):
Right.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (28:33):
And the term midlife crisis, that comes from that. I don't fully understand why that happens. When my husband turned 40, his uncle called him and said, "This is the best decade of your life because you still, for the most part, God willing have your health, physically can get things, but you know a little something from the professional trajectory. Maybe your debt is down. Maybe you're in the troughs of raising children." But then you're just like you sit up and you're like, "Wait, is this it?" And so the piece for perimenopause and the menopausal transition, I study that a lot obviously. And while I'm on the younger spectrum of that, you are looking into the future a little bit.
(29:18):
So when you start experiencing those changes, recognizing that you are now transitioning into a physiologic change, your body physically changes. It changes the way it looks, it changes the way it feels, whether that's hot flashes or weight gain or all of these things and then you layer on all of those psychosocial aspects that you're dealing with. You're dealing with raising children, you're dealing with almost hitting those ceilings, right?
Bryetta Calloway (29:46):
Yeah.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (29:47):
Not the glass ceilings, those concrete ceilings. You're hitting these ceilings at work, but you're not building and either you are building or you hit a dead end, you have aging parents and you're trying to make decisions for them. You have relationship ... There's so many things that come about that makes you feel like, "Gosh, I'm going to ..." I laugh all the time. I'm like, "I'm saving up for a tiny house because I'm out of here. I'm going to have a little retreat from there."
Bryetta Calloway (30:13):
So I tell people all the time, I'm like, "If you don't see me for longer than three days, I've committed to this plan of finding a cabin someplace and just completely getting off the grid." So I tell people, I'm like, "If you don't hear from me in three days, I committed to this thing." I'm like, "I'm outliving my wilderness cabin life." And I think this is the other piece, it's so funny, we're talking about this, life is so funny this way because I was actually having this conversation. It's like being at this age when you start to hit your 40s, it is such an interesting mind space to be in because while you go through transitions throughout your entire life, there's something about the transitions at this stage that start to feel more final, right?
Dr. Taniqua Miller (31:01):
Mm-hmm.
Bryetta Calloway (31:02):
There's something about, for myself, I'm starting to really deal with having an aging parent and what does that look like. And even as I explore things, "Do I want to start a family biologically?" that door is either open or closed at a certain point. It feels like where before you might have gone through life's transitions, there was always time, right?
Dr. Taniqua Miller (31:26):
Yeah.
Bryetta Calloway (31:27):
And so I think as you reach this stage in life, you start to ask yourself, "I think maybe that's what lends itself to that, 'Is this all there is?'" because you're really aware of like, "I'm going to live the next 20-30 years of my life doing something, it's got to be something that I love and that I feel passionate about," but one of the questions I want to ask you about this is I find, so for those who are listening to this podcast, I almost forgot we were doing a podcast, Dr. Miller. I was just talking-
Dr. Taniqua Miller (32:01):
Right?
Bryetta Calloway (32:02):
But for those of you who are listening, you may or may not know, I did do some research on Black women professional development in the concrete ceiling. Well, you were one of the first people that I sent this to. And it was really an act of courage for me. I was like, "Because ..."
Dr. Taniqua Miller (32:17):
It was not bad.
Bryetta Calloway (32:18):
It was an act of courage because I was like, "No, but she's for real smart." So I have a lot of people who are smart, but I'm like, "No, technically on paper, she's actually smart." And so I sent it to you and I was so encouraged by how receptive you were to it, but I think from a timing perspective, when I think about when I sent you that paper, it seems to align with of where you were mentally in this journey of burnout. And I'm curious, I don't know and I think this is something that I'm passionate about, it's the reason I wanted you on the podcast, I just don't know that I hear enough women of color and Black women actually talk about this feeling of burnout. I don't know that we've ever given ourselves permission to actually be multidimensional enough to say, "I'm struggling."
(33:16):
I think we do really well with achievement, right? We do really well with, "I'm going to go get it. I'm going to advance," I don't know a lot of black women who actually talk about pausing and stopping and reassessing and figuring out, "Maybe more for my life if less professionally or less in those spaces." And so I'm curious for you, did you feel like there was anyone that you could have a conversation with about being burnt out ...
Dr. Taniqua Miller (33:45):
Yeah.
Bryetta Calloway (33:48):
... being a Black woman who is highly accomplished on paper and you are an accomplished professional, and yet, you were saying, "This might not be ..."
Dr. Taniqua Miller (34:00):
Yeah.
Bryetta Calloway (34:00):
"... what I want"? Did you feel like you had someone to have those conversations with?
Dr. Taniqua Miller (34:04):
So it's interesting, the places where I felt the most shame with my community, my close friends circle, people who weren't in medicine, my family, they were like, "When are you going to leave that job, girl?" Literally, they were really behind me. And it was really this self-imposed idea of who I wanted to be for them. My mom was just kind of like, "When you going on leave? When are you taking your time off? You don't seem ..." And she was constantly ... And this is a woman who worked at a job. Hey, shout out to The Post Office, got me through school, right? But it was hard for her. And there were times she would want to throw in the towel because she didn't want to do it anymore, but out of necessity, she did. And she would always say to me, "You don't have to do that. You actually have resources, savings, a partner. You could take some time off and figure it out and figure out something else to do."
(34:59):
And so I felt off the hook there and then even my friends who were not in medicine and I would describe what life was like. I saw this wonderful post that a friend of mine posted on social media about, "How do you get your nonmedical friends to really understand what you do?" Imagine you have 12 clients and you have to provide them with briefs for all of them within 20 minutes each. You know what I mean?
Bryetta Calloway (35:22):
Yeah.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (35:23):
This is a constant. And then after the pandemic, there was so much need, not just of women's health, but also a lot of need in terms of psychiatric help for our patients. And so you've constantly get that dumping into you, right?
Bryetta Calloway (35:37):
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (35:38):
And you have to process that in some way. So my folks outside of medicine, they very much were like, "Girl, that's blah, blah." That wasn't the issue. It was within the community, it was never demonstrated. You always felt like you were at extremes and I've left all together or you push through. And the worst-case scenario is that you committed suicide, right?
Bryetta Calloway (36:04):
Right.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (36:05):
Because many high profile cases of women during the pandemic, women physicians who are committing suicide and it's like you have to be at these extremes. You don't really see the people in the middle who are struggling, who are good and struggling and they just need a pause. And so you don't really have an example. You really don't have an example, even mentors who I know absolutely love me and adore me, they were just like, "Oh, so you going on leave? Okay." What do you say to that? Which again, perpetuated the shame for me like, "Oh my gosh ..."
Bryetta Calloway (36:36):
Like, "I can't handle it." Yeah.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (36:38):
"I can't handle it. I'm not strong enough." And then let's not get into the whole Black woman trope of strong Black woman, which I love, I love Nap Ministry, which she talks about, "Sit down. Lay out. Go take a nap," right?
Bryetta Calloway (36:51):
Mm-hmm. It's true.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (36:51):
And it's an idea that we have to be so strong and I talk to my husband about this all the time, when you have, in my generation, I grew up with nothing but women. There were no men around. And so I saw my mom, my grandmother, my aunt, they just pushed through. And here I am in my little privileged little world talking about, "Oh, I need a break." They didn't get breaks.
Bryetta Calloway (37:12):
I know.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (37:13):
And don't really see the examples. And I remember meeting with one of my mentors who's very senior and telling her some of this. And she was like, "Girl, they watching you. They looking at you. They're seeing what you're doing and you are actually setting somebody free. You're giving them permission to feel all the feels, even if you don't know it or even if you don't know them." And so that was the thing that made me feel okay and then also trusting myself to know that I needed a break.
Bryetta Calloway (37:43):
Yeah, so something that you just said that I think is so important. I do think and I talk about this a lot, the power of mentors, the power of actually having safe spaces to go, to actually be honest enough to say, "I'm struggling. I don't know what to call it. I don't know what it is. I don't know maybe even what I should do," but having those places where you can actually be honest about what you're struggling about, and also I read this interesting article a few years ago that was talking about how for Black folks who have Black therapists or Black counselors, the results are actually better, statistically better because there's this inherent intrinsic understanding of that just being Black thing that you're dealing with in the world around you.
(38:39):
And I think one of the things that, when I think about your journey, especially knowing so much of what you've spent your time doing and what you've committed to, I would imagine that there is this pressure to be a good example for other Black young women physicians, but to also be true to yourself enough to say, "I can't be all things to these people. I have to honor the fact that my body, my mind, my spirit are telling me that something's got to change." And I'm curious about now having gone through this process, what have you learned that feels like, "I can now help other young doctors, young Black women doctors like, 'Here's some things that I learned through this process that you need to know to help you navigate some of these changes'"?
Dr. Taniqua Miller (39:40):
Yeah, and some of that takes a little bravery. I'm not even going to lie to you. And so when I tell folks this and I say it, I don't think that, especially the younger folks, we're dealing with eons of time, of conditioning and training, especially as you're coming through medicine, but I would say even all of the professional fields, there is a certain way you do things.
(40:03):
One thing that really, when I was coming back to myself, I'm telling you these weird things will pop in my mind, you remember Pretty Woman, the movie Pretty Woman and there's this guy at the end of the movie and he's, "Welcome to Hollywood. What's your dream?" And it made me think of when Julia Robert's character gets to Hollywood, she does not intend to be a prostitute.
Bryetta Calloway (40:24):
Right.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (40:25):
She had a dream, right? And not to say that at some point in academics, I was prostituting myself, but I had a dream. Now maybe I lost that dream along the way or it wasn't clear to me what that dream was, but somewhere along the way, I was no longer living that original dream. And so one thing that I tell my clients is, "I want you to go back to the why." Like the founder of Toyota, I was reading this in the Celeste Headlee has a book, Do Nothing, and she talks about the why like, "Why are you doing the things that you're doing?" And for me, I had to go back to the why, "Why am I physician?" Why did I go to med school? Why? Why? Why?" It really all came back to me wanting to empower women and girls to have full majesty over their bodies. Literally, that was it.And I remember being a tween schooling the girls on periods and I don't really have one yet. But being intrigued and fascinating and hearing how the girls would talk about their bodies or how boys would regard them like, "Oh, she's a project girl," because I also grew up in the projects and it was like, "Oh, she's a project girl and you know those girls." And it's like, "No, I don't know those girls." Those girls are bad. Those girls are ..." And it was just like, "That was the original dream. That was the original dream." And so how I end up over here?
Bryetta Calloway (41:53):
The thing that I love about what you're saying is it's actually so easy to be misdirected. And I think when life starts to take you in these directions, it happens so incrementally that by the time you look up, you're like, "Wait, how did I get over here?" And something that I want to ask you about, because you did mention, you were raised by a single mother. So you weren't raised with all the bells and whistles of life. You go to medical school. You work a job that has created a certain standard of life. And I think this is something that I've been asking myself over the past few years post-pandemic. It's like, "I know that I enjoy what my work brings me financially and yet I know choices need to be made. I know that." Because-
Dr. Taniqua Miller (42:45):
Right.
Bryetta Calloway (42:46):
And so I was talking ironically in therapy and my therapist was asking me ... I was telling her all the things that I'm doing and she's like, "Yeah, no wonder you're burnt out." She's like, "Any one of those things, if you're just doing that would be enough to keep you stress." And she asked me, she's like, "So why do you do them?" And I told her, I was like, "Well, candidly, financially, I do like the fact that I can have a comfortable life and do all those things." And so I haven't yet figured out the answer, but she did pose the question. She posed the question, which was like, "You're going to have to decide what is worth giving up. What's worth giving up?" and I have not yet made that decision.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (43:30):
Actually, I'm going to challenge it a little bit because I think when you get really clear on the why, which is what I tell people, "Get clear on your why and so when all of these other things show up at your doorstep that do not support that why ..."
Bryetta Calloway (43:46):
That's good.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (43:47):
"... you say no." And when it happens, when you say no to those things, it gives space.
Bryetta Calloway (43:55):
That's so true.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (43:55):
It gives space for all of the things that are in alignment with that original why to come your way. But I tell, I resigned from everything. I get it. I was just literally sitting there, not so much I don't want to be involved and things like that, but literally, when I sat down as, what is my why, is this in alignment with that why? And if it wasn't, it had to go. I had to make that promise to myself. But what was in alignment with that why, this mouthpiece.
Bryetta Calloway (44:23):
Right.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (44:24):
Talking. So then all of a sudden ... And I invested in myself, I did a speaking coaching program, talk. I've had speaking opportunities where I'm actually able to talk about burnout. I just came from a retreat in Jamaica talking about burnout. I have a presentation where I'm giving both my keynote on perimenopausal transitions and burnout at University of Kentucky. I'm talking in Arizona in May. All of a sudden, I was like, "Oh lord. Oh lord. I don't even know ..."
Bryetta Calloway (44:51):
Oh, that's so good though.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (44:53):
And another thing that I did, which I highly recommend that everyone does, take a strengths finder. We don't do this in medicine and actually that's a project that I'm working on with a colleague of mine. We don't do this in medicine enough. Business, they got them in a long time ago. But I joined a business community when I was first trying to figure out what TaniquaMD would be and he was like, "You need to take a strengths assessment." So I took CliftonStrengths. All of my strengths are in influencer. All of my strengths are in strategic thinking. I had zero execution strengths. I was like, "I can't execute now." But it explains so much about why when I had to sit down and write these papers and format the margins, why I just couldn't sit down and do it. And I thought it was because I was a terrible physician, like an academic physician, that I didn't have what it takes to be promoted because that's part of the promotion pathway. Whereas my friend was like, "Girl, don't do that. Pay somebody to do that." You know what I mean?
Bryetta Calloway (45:53):
That's right.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (45:54):
"Let them do it." But literally that was part of the shame like, "Oh my gosh, I'm not good enough. I can't get promoted. I don't have enough of this. I don't have enough of that." But when I started playing into my strengths, recognizing that I've always been Talkative Taniqua, that's my adjective, right?
Bryetta Calloway (46:09):
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (46:10):
My strengths is futuristic positivity, winning over others. That is what I do. That is my strength. Once I'm in my strengths, it's not work.
Bryetta Calloway (46:20):
Yes, I love what you're saying because I do think that this is something that I definitely have seen the trend change. We can do so much better, which is we penalize people for having weaknesses, right? We say, "You need to work on this area," when it's really just a matter of like, "Just acknowledge, that's not you and that's okay. Just double down on the things that you are good at." And I think you're right, it is about having that filter of saying, "Okay, this is the dream for myself, and if everything that comes to me, I have to have the discipline to filter through that to say, 'Does that serve it? If it doesn't, it should be easy to say no to all of those things.'"
(47:13):
Because I think that what happens is a lot of people end up with lives that are just a collection of things like they picked up that over there, they picked up that over there and they've never taken the time to stop and look at the full collection and be like, "What picture is this painting, right? I'm doing this over here, I'm doing that over here. I don't know why I'm doing those things. I just am," and there's not a lot of time given to people to stop and ask those questions. But I do think something that you said feels really important. One of the things I've noticed as a theme on the interviews that I've had on the podcast is that collectively, and we all know this, collectively, COVID gave everyone the opportunity. It forced the issue of like, "If you were down to just like you and this life, are you happy with it?" right?
(48:11):
And it forced a lot of people to ask some of these deeper questions that they haven't been able to ask before. I'm curious, when you're working with your clients through your program, are you helping guide women to ask those deep questions? What does that process look like?
Dr. Taniqua Miller (48:35):
So I'm currently in a doctor coach school with Doc ... She's amazing. And doing some of the coaching, really just asking the questions, "Why are you doing that? What is this coming up for you?" I do a lot of the coaching. I realize I was doing so much coaching in my midlife practice where you had people coming in, had sick parents, COVID, things like that and I'm like, "I know this is hard for you. What are you doing to reclaim a little bit of yourself during this process?" and really just asking the question. Sometimes, it's not about finding the answer for them, it's really for them to feel empowered in getting the answer for themselves which has been incredible to see happen like, "What is it that you want? If you could dream big and absolutely big, what would that be?"
(49:20):
For me, with this whole of like, "Making sure you get clear on what your original dream was, that when things come to you now, how did that feel to let go with that feeling? Sit with that feeling." I can tell from my own experience, I think I was so done at that point, but when something came up and I said, "No," that was part of my framework of having empowered boundaries and saying no. That's something that were very uncomfortable doing. And what it did in turn, it made me feel powerful. It made me feel like I was looking out for myself.
Bryetta Calloway (49:55):
Right.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (49:56):
Because it was easy stuff. It's like, "Oh, this is easy. I'll just do it, right?" while I'm hemming and hawing and I'm mad and, "Oh, god, I got to do this thing." And it totally is just like, "No, I put this boundary in place because it's not an alignment with my original purpose, my dream that feels really good in my body." Really understanding what feels good in your body is super important. Again, it came back to that chest pain and that being my intuition and nothing to be afraid of, so trusting myself. And that's what I impart to clients is like, "Trust yourself." And there's so much brainwashing along the way that we no longer trust ourselves and it's a practice. That same little book that told me to be boundless, there was also another little daily devotional that said, "Whose flag are you waving? Whose flag are you waving? Are you in alignment with the flag that you ... Are you proud to wave this flag?"
(50:58):
The idea was like, "Get clear. Get clear on who you are." Now that's easier said than done and that is why you go through coaching to get from that point A to point B because it is a process because there's so much unlearning that we have to do. And I would say even as women, we constantly, constantly are taught to not trust ourselves, not trust your body, not trust your thoughts. How many times have you sat in a meeting and you've said, "Oh, this doesn't feel right" and you've hesitated to say something and then somebody else says it even though it was your thought in your head all along?
Bryetta Calloway (51:42):
Yeah.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (51:42):
We don't trust ourselves enough to step out in that way. And so I get it's very challenging. There's a lot of unlearning that you have to do. There's a lot of, I call it my bravado, to try to ... You almost have to hype yourself up. You have to have a hype girl. Necolé is my hype girl.
Bryetta Calloway (51:59):
Right. Right. But it is about the trusting yourself and I love when you talk about tapping into your power. Yeah, it is something that once you get a sense of that feeling, it helps guide you to do it more often for sure. I'm curious about what your dream is for TaniquaMD. You're now officially a founder, you're running your own thing, waving your own flag and so what is your dream for what this will be?
Dr. Taniqua Miller (52:36):
So of course, I have what every early entrepreneur has. I want to do everything. When I first started out with the brand, and really again, even that, even that, with following everyone else's lead, I looked at the midlife menopausal space and I was like, "Ugh, there's a lot of people in that space, and obviously, I should have known that once you click on a menopause, the algorithm sends you more menopause." You're going to see all the menopause and you're like, "Oh, this place is crowded and this is not me." And I love my coach because she says, "You are one. You are in of one. Your story is unique. Nobody is you."
Bryetta Calloway (53:16):
Right.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (53:18):
And so at the time, I was doing some market research about, "What would you love to learn from gynecologists?" And I was hearing the menopause piece, but people were like, "And I wish I had something for my daughter." And so I have a daughter. I have a 10-year-old and I was like, "I'm going to create a tween program." And the program was fabulous. It was lovely, but again, I had 11 girls in my first cohort. It was fun. The program was the bomb. If you wasn't licensed and if you have any friends who want to license it for a little tween program, it was really great and got great feedback. And then it was time to launch again. I was like, "I'm not feeling it." Because it wasn't my flag. It really didn't what I really wanted to do, which was midlife menopausal health and really empowering women in this stage of midlife.
(54:06):
So as I'm building out Boundless Midlife Burnout Recovery Coaching, I still love talking to my ladies about perimenopause and I would love to bring those two worlds together.
Bryetta Calloway (54:18):
Sure.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (54:18):
I'm realizing that there's so much overlap in midlife like we talked about where you're starting to have these questions and these disappointments and these concerns and worries about where you are arriving, right?
Bryetta Calloway (54:29):
Yup, yeah.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (54:31):
And the menopausal transition.
Bryetta Calloway (54:33):
It's true.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (54:33):
And so that is my dream for TaniquaMD to be able to do both successfully, but also to find some synergy between the two, so that there is a place for women in that stage, whether you're burning out, which I would argue there are a lot of people ... Even if they don't call it burnout, there is dissatisfaction in that phase. That's why we have the term midlife crisis like I said and that menopausal transition and how do we get them to feel empowered through that menopausal transition. I'm not silly. I adopted the same framework that I had for my teens. I called it The Precisely Framework and it was for my midlife women. I was like, "Oh, this is why this was so easy to create because this is what I envisioned for my midlife women, this idea to have physiological reproductive education, to have energy and movement in their bodies, to take time for that as opposed to sacrificing for family and all of these other things. Putting everyone else as a priority except for themselves. Finding that connection to community and prioritizing that because there's actually studies that show that that helps you through your transition in terms of symptom management as well as your experience of your symptoms. Finding new identity and purpose." That's where I think the link is, right?
Bryetta Calloway (55:49):
Yeah.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (55:50):
New identity and purpose like, 'What does that look like as a woman in your 40s, right?" And then really that self-compassion piece, that has been a big thing. When I talked about the shame, crying, being really just like, "I'm not showing up as a mom. I'm not showing up as a wife and not showing up even as a doctor, that was the one thing that I had, right?"
Bryetta Calloway (56:11):
That's true.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (56:11):
To be able to give myself some self-compassion like, "Sis, you got this. This is a season. You're going to work it out."
Bryetta Calloway (56:18):
I know again because I know you, I know that there's so much potential for what you've created and I could talk to you all day. I won't take up more of your time, but I do want for people who are looking to learn more about your Boundless Program who are maybe interested in you coaching them or just want to learn more about what you're doing, tell folks where they can find you on all the things.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (56:45):
Absolutely, absolutely. So I am busy on Instagram. My assistant is like, "Let's get on TikTok." My brain, I just can't do that. I can't do that. I'm get there one day, but really on Instagram, I'm Taniqua Miller, MD, T-A-N-I-Q-U-A, Miller, MD. On my website is TaniquaMD, T-A-N-I-Q-U-A-M-D, dot-com. On the website, it gives you information about how to connect with me, whether that is through one-to-one midlife coaching, whether it's that through burnout recovery or even for speaking engagements. I have the most fun talking to groups of women. I've talked to church groups. I'll be talking at universities, I'm talking at influencer conferences. I like the spread of it all because I think that the message, if anything, is so universal. So universal to all of our lived experiences as women in our 40s. And so that's how you can find me.
Bryetta Calloway (57:44):
I love it. And for everyone who's listening, I will obviously have all of that linked in the description. I am so happy that I am the one who gets to introduce Dr. Taniqua Miller to this audience. If you were not able to take away from this conversation that she's so incredibly passionate, she cares so deeply, I knew this from her just as a physician and an educator, but to see all of that care and compassion and intentionality now going towards you're coaching clients, I just can't recommend enough that this is a person that you should know. And I'm so grateful that you said yes to being on the podcast. So thank you.
Dr. Taniqua Miller (58:25):
Look, you have to kick me off here because I wasn't going to say not yes to you, Bryetta.
Bryetta Calloway (58:32):
Well, I am so thankful. For everyone who's listening, I hope that you've taken away from this conversation so much. I know that I have. For everyone who's listening, you will be able to find all of the information, not just about this podcast episode, but all of the places where Dr. Miller's coaching program and all of her ways that you can connect with her will be in the description for this podcast. For everyone who's listening, I think I delivered on my promise which is always to bring you interesting people who can help us think more deeply in our lives. And I am so thrilled with today's episode. So for everyone who's listening, thank you again for joining and I'll be back with another episode really, really soon. Bye, everyone.