Momfuel & Mindset - Episode 17: Parenting through Adversity w/ special guest Dr. Stefanie Mikulics.

What happens when the woman who spends her life caring for others is suddenly forced to receive care herself? In this powerful episode, we sit down with Dr. Stefanie Mikulics, a board-certified OB/GYN whose world shifted when she was faced with a life-altering diagnosis that challenged not only her body, but her identity. What followed wasn’t just a medical journey—it was an unraveling and rebuilding of self, purpose, and worth. We talk about what it really looks like to mom through adversity while navigating fear, uncertainty, and deep internal change… and how true healing goes far beyond the physical. This conversation explores: Letting go of the “strong one” identity, The mind-body connection in healing, Learning to receive instead of always giving, Reclaiming your voice, worth, and inner peace. Dr. Mikulics also shares a glimpse into her upcoming book—a deeply personal reflection born from her experience being diagnosed, undergoing both a lumpectomy and mastectomy, and standing at the crossroads of fear, uncertainty, and the weight of conventional medicine. But her book is more than a story of illness. It is a journey of awakening—into the mind-body-spirit connection, into surrender, and into the understanding that healing isn’t always about battles won… but grace received. If you’ve ever felt like you had to hold it all together while everything was shifting underneath you… this one is for you.

Please find the links to the resources discussed!

https://setmefree.info/

https://ifs-institute.com/about-us/richard-c-schwartz-phd

https://ait.institute/ait-seminars/2025-ait-seminars/

https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Remission-Surviving-Cancer-Against/dp/0062268759

https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Over-Medicine-Scientific-Yourself/dp/1401939988

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We're back. It's your mom, friends. I'm Chrissy. And I'm Jess. And today we have a special guest. What happens when the woman who spends her life caring for others is suddenly forced to receive care herself? In this powerful episode, we sit down with Dr. Stephanie McCulix, a board-certified OBGYN whose world shifted when she was faced with a life-altering diagnosis that challenged not only her body, but her identity. What followed wasn't just a medical journey, it was an unraveling and a rebuilding of self, purpose, and worth. We talk about what it really looks like to mom through adversity while navigating fear, uncertainty, and a deep internal change, and how true healing goes far beyond the physical. This conversation explores letting go of the strong one identity, the mind-body connection and healing, learning to receive instead of always giving, reclaiming your voice, worth, and inner peace. Dr. McCulix also shares a glimpse into her upcoming book, a deeply personal reflection born from her experience being diagnosed, undergoing both a lumbectomy and massectomy, and standing at the crossroads of fear, uncertainty, and the weight of conventional medicine. But her book is more than a story of illness. It's a journey of awakening into the mind-body-spirit connection, into surrender, and into the understanding that healing isn't always about battles won, but grace received. If you've ever felt like you had to hold it all together while everyone was shifting under while everything was shifting underneath you, this one is for you. Whoa! I am so excited to dive into this. Welcome. Thank you for being here and for joining us. And will you just start by introducing yourself? I mean, that's an incredible introduction, but we want to hear from you.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Yes, thank you, Jessica. Yeah, so a brief introduction of myself. Well, I always knew just from the time I was a kid that I wanted to help people in the capacity of healthcare. And I think my pediatrician was someone who I felt so comforted by and nurtured by. That was a big inspiration for me. So as I went through college and whatnot, I tried to pick something else besides medicine, but kept coming back to medicine. And so that that is the path that I that I took. And it's been it's been a crazy road. And I think, like so many of us, you know, you we get caught up in the the career, the pushing for more, the giving, our families, our children, who, you know, of course, are the love of our lives. And somewhere in the midst of all that, sometimes the me gets a little forgotten, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Absolutely. It becomes part of our identity, our career and our mom, and like we lose sight of who we are as an individual.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Mm-hmm. Or and and maybe even we don't really care anymore. As odd as that can sound, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yeah, I also almost think that we view it as an obligation. Like we chose to become, therefore, we no longer have a right to have these needs when everybody else, you know, comes first out of obligation. We chose this, and therefore we we have no right to be tired or to have the needs that we sometimes, you know, will tell, like, we preach it. This is what we preach. You have to take care of yourself first in order to take care of others well. But that's a really hard mental battle for moms.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Yeah, Jessica, I agree. And I did that to myself too. Like, you chose this, you know, buckle up, sister. Yeah, don't be a whiner. And the beauty is, yes, you we chose this, and you you can be a mom, and and you can also take care of yourself. And that is one of the most important things to model for your children, right? Absolutely. Yeah. And that was a big miss. I think that was a big miss that I had for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

So tell us more about that when you say that was a big miss.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Well, I really, you know, everything was kind of arrows in and internalized, and like, I gotta figure this out, I gotta muscle this out, I made these choices, I knew that being a doctor was gonna require sacrifices and, you know, long hours sleeping at the hospital, on call, all these things. And so I just needed to figure it out. And there wasn't a lot of love in that thought process, and there was not a lot of self-compassion in that thought process, right? And it was very much like a driving, like pushing. There wasn't a lot of female energy in that in that mode of operating. And it wasn't my truth. And I think that for many of us, it's probably not our truth to be, you know, just all that one way, right? And where do we really get by never showing our children, like, yeah, this is hard, but it's worth it, or my life is busy right now, but I love you, and you're first. Just all those kind of things that take some vulnerability and that are very, very real.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Yeah, creating those boundaries. I struggling with I think sometimes that we struggle with creating those boundaries of showing kids like you can be a very successful doctor and be a really good mom. But what does that look like? What kind of what kind of resources do you need? What kind of will you talk a little bit kind of as your kids, what it looked like being a doctor and a mom at the same time? And even though there may have been struggles and that you were white knuckling it sometimes, what that kind of looked like to get you to that to that point.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah. So it was it was it it was it was kind of a shit show, if I can say that. And I think I was, you know, kind of fooling myself that yes, you know, this I got it all together here. We're just, you know, you okay, here's the first obstacle. When do you have a kid? Oh, well, we'll wait eight years until I'm done with all my residency and training and dah-da-da-da, you know. And then, well, I want my kids to grow up as healthy as possible. So when are you gonna do that home from scratch cooking? So a lot of it was just kind of unreasonable expectations on myself, right? Some of it we, I mean, we were in a position. So I did have a nanny who's a very wonderful friend to our family now. And that was uh a godsend. She is a godsend, but it didn't, and it and it it served my children's needs and safety and you know, food, shelter, clothing, showing up when they needed to show up. Somewhere deep inside, a part of me that wanted to be a little more there as their mom and a little more involved was denied daily. And maybe that's okay. And maybe it's like, yeah, and I tried my best. That's something. You know, maybe it's not always something to feel guilty about. It's just something to recognize. And it's hard. I did make some changes in my career. And I think that things are opening up for women now where you know you can have more flexibility, especially in the physician realm. Like I know a lot of my friends that lived in bigger cities, they wouldn't do a 72-hour weekend call. You know, they would do Monday and a Sunday, excuse me, Friday and a Sunday, and have the Saturday off. I'm in a smaller community and our calls were brutal. And they were, you know, the entire week of Christmas through New Year's or a full 72-hour weekend and things like that. I think, you know, making decisions as a family, I I wanna, I wanna have some time off to just focus on my kids, or no, I want to keep going. Maybe we should pick one of these practices and live in a place that is a little more supportive of that, you know, job sharing, things like that for those who want it. So I think I was very rigid in what I would allow myself to even consider because of just notions of the standard of how I should be and what was required to be a good doctor and a worthy human and a good mom and you know, all those things. But the fact is, there's a lot of room for creativity, for thinking outside the box, and you never know who you're gonna help in discovering that for yourself. You know, like I looked a lot to my colleagues, like, how do we do this? Here I am showing up pregnant. I'm in a practice, and certainly some of my colleagues use nannies. Some of them just didn't have kids, and others had a different arrangement, were men and just had a different arrangement where their wives stayed home and things like that. So I didn't I didn't really fit into any of the boxes. And I hope it becomes easier for women to be confident in their choices and be creative for what works with their family, you know, as we go forward.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

And I think I heard you say a couple of times, like that unrealistic expectation that you placed upon yourself as a doctor, as a mom, as all the things in your life, and then you're constantly worried about never doing enough and always coming up short and and how to come through that and understanding like I think yes, it's hard. It doesn't mean it's bad, it doesn't mean what I'm doing is wrong. It's hard though. And another thing I heard you say is it was a season of your life, but it wasn't your entire life. And so things shift, ebbed, and flowed, especially as you when you when you start talking about your book and and what brought you to your book. Like there are circumstances in life that we have no control over, and then we learn like, okay, well, maybe it doesn't have to be as rigid as it has been. Maybe there are ways to work around there, maybe there is ways to work through adversity, right? And everything that you just talked about really, I'm not a doctor, I'm far from a doctor. I've never been to school for that duration of time, I've never worked those types of shifts, and I could still relate to what you were saying, being a career mom and having to juggle it all and being creative for what works for me, because what works for me probably doesn't work for just. And so really figuring out that piece and then letting go of those unrealistic expectations because I think that is really the hard part for myself. I know.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Yeah, and I think how cool that, and not and I use cool, it's probably not the best term, but I think sometimes we think that like we're alone in this, right? And we're the only one. But we're listening to a doctor who is literally sharing the same struggles that we've talked about in our own lives, that people have other guests that have shared on podcasts, no matter what, from entrepreneurs to stay-at-home moms to, you know, social workers to project managers, like to a doctor who just shared, she set unrealistic expectations for herself. She felt the same emotions that moms across the board. I think that is some really cool information. Here is that no matter where you are, what career choice you made, like across the board, moms feel these emotions. And I think that's the cool part about just this podcast is bringing to light that hey, you're not alone. Even a doctor feels these same emotions as a mom, as a career woman. And then to listen to you explain to us, you know, the capacity and what you chose to do and you know, where that led you in life. I just appreciate you being here because I think sometimes we think it's just me. I just made a bad choice. Maybe I didn't, you know, didn't make the right career choice or whatever. And that's why I'm feeling these things, and that's just not the case.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, you know, I stayed quiet about it because you don't feel like you have anyone who would quite understand you. But I think just from the common ground of motherhood, there are loads of women who would understand you. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

Can you share a little bit about your upcoming book and what brought you to write it and all that?

SPEAKER_00 11:56

What brought me to write it? Yeah. So, well, life was going along and I was doing my best to burn the candle at both ends and do all the things and you know, support my family in the best way I could. And in 2017, I got diagnosis of breast cancer, and literally it's like, you know, the rug is just pulled out from underneath you. I use the analogy, not only is the rug pulled out from underneath you, but then some force takes you by the ankle and just hangs you upside down. I planned my first lepectomy to be home in time to get dinner going on Friday. So that's how entrenched I was in statement.

unknown 12:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

That is the most mom statement.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Right? Yeah. And then I remember in post op, because of course it didn't go like it should have, and they snowed me with anesthesia, and I couldn't even lift my head. It was supposed to be like, you know, this outpatient thing. And I couldn't even and I remember saying to her, What time is it? Because I was hoping to be out of there by four, four thirty. And she said, It's seven o'clock. And I sat up and I said, Seven, what? That means I missed dinner. I literally said this to the recovery nurse. And in my haze, I could just, you know, you could just feel like her eyes rolling. You know, you have other things going on right now. I'm sure you don't need to worry about that. Like she was trying to be nice about it, but she was just like, give me a break. But that's where I was a hundred percent. That's what I thought I had to hold on to and do for the safety of my children and my family. And it's just so not true. And I have a supportive husband and I had some supportive friends, but for some reason, there's just that instinct, like, no, it's gotta be me. So that was the start. And then I, you know, I went through the the treatments and I had an issue with recurrence. And so there were, you know, a couple discussions with having with my kids along the way. And um, when I was first diagnosed, my son was just going into junior high and my daughter was just going into high school. So, you know, really tender, tender years. And through all of that, I really explored healing on a much deeper level. And I think part of what drove me to this is that the whole thing didn't make sense. And I know that people get sick and get cancer when there's no risk factors and all of that. But and I, and I was very much in that category. But I just had this knowing that there was something deeper in me that needed attention and needed to be healed. And that's really the journey. Like, yes, I went through all the medical stuff and you know, ended up having the mastectomy and all of that. But the the real journey for me has been healing my soul, my relationship with myself, honestly, and really working through trauma, which I didn't think I had because it's small T trauma, not big T trauma, right? But when you look into like psychoneuroimmunology, we know that even those small T traumas can affect you later in life. And we know that a lot of what you're telling yourself, I was telling myself, I gotta do this, I gotta pull the line. If I don't do this, I'm gonna have a good mom. But all that stuff you tell yourself comes out in your cellular health, right? So that was where a lot of my healing took place, which was much more on you know, a spiritual level, really. And so in that way, it's been a beautiful journey to walk. It it's priceless in many ways. I mean, it is for sure. And it led me to write the book. If you know anyone else can be helped by knowing or being introduced to some of the things that help me so much, you know, that would be a wonderful thing to me. I feel like this is really the stuff, right? This is the nitty-gritty, the stuff. Like anyone can go and get a standard cancer treatment consultation, but really, really, what are we doing here? You know, who are we gonna be at the end?

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that particular story. I am curious, as a mom, your first instinct is to protect your children. And so when you've got that diagnosis, did you try to shield your children from it? What what would what did that process look like for you?

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Yes, I very much tried to shield them and I didn't tell them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

And was that harder on you than you expected to keep it from them?

SPEAKER_00 16:41

It was hard because it was a wedge, it ultimately it was a wedge, and that's the last thing you want to have between the people in your life that you love the most. I and I think it's hard either way, but again, part of what we teach our children is how to deal with adversity because life does throw you curveballs, and it's not always the easiest, you know, the everything working out. So ultimately, in sharing that with them, you know, it has allowed for that. It has allowed for them to see a scary thing, a hardship, and like, okay, what do we do? And to trust, I hope, go on a higher power of their own. I think it's it's opened up a lot that's gonna make them stronger, stronger humans, you know. One interesting thing I will say though, and this yeah, this makes me sad, but my son, when I we told them, and you know, my daughter had questions, of course, and was concerned. My son said, Well, don't worry, mom, like everybody has it these days. And I know, I know. And I just thought, like, who else? Who what other moms have his friends in his class, or who do I need to reach out to? You know, do I know or should impatient am I? So yeah, it it you know, kids, it's always very different. Like we're coming from our perspective, and I had so much fear and shame and guilt around all of this. It was just so horrific, you know. But kids aren't coming from that same place, and right, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Yeah, and I think we forget that, we forget their perspective, right? There's such a such a different view. I think that's incredible because we do we do talk a lot about what are we our actions speak louder than words, and our kids are learning from our actions, and we want them to be able to we want to protect them, we want to shelter them, but then when they grow up and go out in the world and they hit that first adversity, how are they gonna handle that? And if we've done nothing to prepare them for that, who knows which way it could go? And so I love that you talk about healing on a deeper level, and I think that that's something that your kids are watching you do because there's so much importance. For me, I didn't grow up in a world where like your mental health, I always thought anxiety was BS. And now I realize I suffered from crippling anxiety and I didn't even know what it was. Nobody ever told me that it's not normal, you know, to replay a conversation. Yeah. And you know, there's just, and I'm like, wow, had I known this when I was younger, things would have made so much more sense. And maybe I would have made decisions differently. So I think the fact that yes, you went by the medical route and you did what you needed to for this diagnosis, but recognizing that your insides, your soul, your mind, your mental health needed work is something that I think is just priceless when it comes to our kids. If we can teach them this from a younger age, to be able to know the power of taking care of themselves first and really working on the relationship and the connection they have with themselves so that when they go through adversity, they're not looking for all of this outside validation, all of this outside stuff to fill. They're gonna look inside, they're gonna know and have the confidence and be able to say, you know, I it starts here with me first. And so would you talk a little bit about that journey, maybe some of the things you did, or you know, where that soul, that soul healing started.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Yeah. So right around this time when all this was happening, interesting, I was just naturally a little more drawn to kind of more integrative healing, alternative healing. And it started with, yes, it started with like gut health and supplements and things like that, but then it it quickly got into like the power of the mind. And I read a book by my mentor, Dr. Lisa Rankin, called Mind Over Medicine. It's it's very well researched, actually. This, you know, it it is a story, but there's also it's grounded in studies and what we know, what we know for sure in the scientific community. And people have the ability to get better from more than just conventional means, right? So this was all kind of on my radar a bit. And then I get this diagnosis, and so I end up going. There was a retreat that was, it was actually like a six-month kind of training seminar exploring all of these things. And so to me, I looked at it as kind of a heal the healer type of process. And so there I learned about some different modalities. And I don't know if you're familiar, there's a PhD, Dr. Richard Schwartz, and he's coined the whole study of IFS or internal family systems. And so he was in our curriculum. I got to interview with him. And basically, you know, his work demonstrates how we all have different parts of ourselves. And we but we need to be self-led, right? You don't want your worried, anxious part running your show. You don't want your party girl, like whatever part running the show. You're like, you want your your highest self running the show. And so his work was something that was really, really to me. And then there's another system called advanced integrative technology. And this is founders, Asha Clinton. And I got to work with her directly. And I worked with her for almost two years. And basically, it kind of uses a little bit of like it's based off of EFS, you know, kind of that tapping, except you hold pressure points as you work through your feelings, your, you know, traumatic memories, things upsetting you. And it's just a way of processing emotions so that they don't linger in the body and give messages basically to release more cortisol to really simplify it, which then gives your cells a stress message, right? So AIT was another big thing I used. I used a lot of energy and sound frequency healing. My very good friend Allie Bowen is a practitioner. So that's something I did on a regular basis. And then also things like there's a book called Radical Remission by Kelly Turner. And she do you want to hear a little bit about her book?

unknown 23:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

So she, in a nutshell, was a student going for her PhD at Stanford, and she discovered a large database of patients there who were stage four untreatable cancers and were sent home, you know, sent home. And what she found was they were still living. They were still coming in once a year for their annual check and whatnot. So she decided to study this group of people and figure out like what is their secret, why are they still here? So she personally interviewed several hundred of them and she came across nine factors that individually they all were doing that contributed to their that they feel contributed to their healing. So the interesting thing was none of these people knew each other. There were several hundred of them, yet she found commonalities. And the first book has nine factors. The second book includes a tenth factor, which is exercise. But very few things were physical. Most of the things were like, you know, community support, getting in touch with your intuition, increasing your positive emotions, forgiveness. So very fascinating to me how this part that's, you know, it's it's a little hard to define, right? But yet was so key in the healing of these terminally ill people that were living not just a year later, but like 13 years later, 15 years later, 20 years later, she's interviewing them. And this was so instrumental in their cure.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

I don't think we realize the power that our mind has. We don't give enough credit to our thoughts and and just our mindset and how incredibly powerful it really can be. I'm gonna have to look up that book because that's that's super It's a must for anyone going through the diagnosis.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

I feel going through the diagnosis or family member going through because your doctor's not gonna tell you this, and you need to know. You know, there's more to it, and there there's a lot of hope. The paradigm is really changing, and it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

I'm I'm gonna find the link to all the things that you talked about and put them in the show notes. So when go live, it'll be there. And a link to your website. And when is your book going to be released?

SPEAKER_00 25:13

How can people putting the internal I I included some photographs of pictures are taking a little longer? So I I think by the first week of May, my book will be released. So yay! It's exciting. Will people buy it on your website, on Amazon, something else? Uh Amazon for sure. And then we'll have a link on the set me free website. So a couple different ways to funnel. Yeah. And is that the name of your Set Me Free? Love it. Yeah, I love it too.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Well, this was amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing part of your story with us. There are no words to describe it, really. I think so much of what you said today really gives me a lot of hope, too. For all moms, all moms, no matter what walk of life, no matter what their struggles are, we can parent through adversity and come out the other side of it. And you are a a clear reflection of that. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

I was just gonna say, can you attest to the fact that, you know, in the earlier days when you were a younger when your kids were younger and you were kind of in the thick of it where you were setting unrealistic expectations to now where you are today going through adversity and really doing that deep soul healing? Your perspective obviously has changed, not just being somebody who has fought a battle that, you know, we don't want anybody to have to, but also being a mom and a doctor. How is your mindset shifted in those roles because of this adversity? Like I think that Chrissy and I have talked about, we always see struggles and adversity as a bad thing. But look at you now. Like, I just look at you and like you're glowing and you've gone through struggles and adversity, but you've come out this a better person, a better mom, a better doctor. And now you're helping people on a deeper level, which to me is so much more important than a conventional level.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Yeah. So I think some of the changes with adversity now, the first thing, and I it's not that I don't have emotions and fear. That is not what I'm saying at all. But the first thing I think is okay, what am I what am I supposed to learn from this? How is this gonna help me? What's gonna be the takeaway? And then the very close second, or maybe even the first, is gratitude. And I and I don't want that to sound cheesy because it is so true that no matter where you're at, there's something to be grateful for. We had a friend who it was a child illness, a child diagnosis that was very serious. And what came to my mind was thank God not a car accident because a lethal car accident, because at least this sweet, sweet little human is still here and is able to go through some treatment and and still be with us and move on and all the things. So that is just so important. And it just, it's it's what you know, when they think about your like your emotional scale, right? When you're low, sometimes you there's not a lot of things you can do to just flip that switch. But if you can think of some things to be grateful for, that is the ticket, and that is gonna flip it faster than anything. So those are the things. And then I also start my day with why not put it out there for a positive thinking and being grateful to God in advance. Like, and if I'm worried about a little something, you know, thinking that that is gonna go so well. And why not? Right. And when we talk about like what we tell our brains and the whole chemistry that happens in our body as a result of what we tell ourselves, I've become a huge believer in that. Gotta, gotta tell yourself the positive stuff 100%. One other thing I will add too is that we all have I didn't know this before, but we all have trauma and it's nothing to be ashamed of. And it doesn't mean anyone did anything wrong. It doesn't mean you did anything wrong. It's just kind of like part of our human experience, in my opinion. And when I was first referred for the AIT therapy advanced integrative technology, I said to her, Oh, Asha, I don't think I need your services because I don't have trauma. You know, no, no one died. And you know, when I was a kid, no one got a divorce. And she was kind of like, well, there's big tea trauma and there's little tea trauma, and we all have little tea traumas.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. This is this is incredible. And I appreciate you sharing all of this with us. This is going to help many, many women. I believe. And I think that if we can take control of really doing the inner work and the mindset work, and I mean, that's why we named it mindset, right? Mom fuel and mindset, because we know that it's such a powerful tool to get us out of that stuck in the rut, that just going through the motions, feeling like we're alone and we're the only ones going through it. But thank you for sharing your story because I think we need to hear more stories like this. We need to hear more people who have gone through the thick of it on all different scales of life, different social statuses, different like everything. Women and moms are going through it just the same. And so we appreciate you sharing your story. And we cannot wait for your book to come out. We know we will be the first buyers. We cannot wait and we'll share it with all of our listeners. And so just thank you. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Thanks, thank you both, Jessica and Christy. It's been I feel bonded. I feel connected to you guys.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

I love it. Awesome. So thanks for hanging out with us on Mom Feel a Mindset. If today's conversation spoke to you, take it as your reminder that happy moms don't come from doing more. They come from choosing themselves and owning their growth.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

And if you loved this episode, please be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with another mom who needs a little fuel and a mindset shift today.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

Until next time, keep showing up for yourself. Keep growing forward. And remember, happy moms own their growth. See you soon.