Dr. Tarryn MacCarthy joins us for a candid conversation about her journey from burnout to self-discovery. She opens up about the challenges she faced, how she transformed her life, and the powerful lessons she learned along the way. Dr. Taryn dives deep into the importance of mindset work, nervous system regulation, and embracing authenticity.

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Okay, so today I could not be more excited to be with the one and only Dr. Taryn McCarthy and, um, Taryn, I've met you. I've seen you speak, but still your reputation precedes you. Everyone I know that knows you just loves you. Uh, so can you just share a little bit with the audience about, uh, kind of just, just who you are and what you're doing before we dive into the interview?

Oh my gosh, thank you, Shawn. That is a really beautiful, beautiful welcome to your show. I'm so excited to be here. I don't know, I'll tell you, right now, I'm in a place of really loving my life. I feel so blessed, so grateful for everything that I'm experiencing in my world right now. And it wasn't always that way.

I am an orthodontist and have been, oh my gosh, practicing 23 years, which sounds crazy that I'm old enough to say that. And there was a time in my career where I felt completely overwhelmed, exhausted, disconnected from myself, just really embittered, unhappy.

And I'm going to use the word, um, shameful. I was ashamed for many reasons and really scared. And it started a journey for me of unlearning all the things that I thought I needed to be in order to be successful, in order to be a good orthodontist or a good mom or a good, I don't know. It, it put anything after that word. I was always fighting to be better.

And in that journey, I really lost myself. And there started, there's this moment about 15 years ago when I really fell apart and the fear that I had at the time caused me to run. That was my trauma response. When you talk about fight, fight or flight or fawn or freeze, I fled. I fire-sailed my practice.

I swore I'd never go back to clinical dentistry again. I went to a divorce attorney, bankruptcy attorney. I fled the state. If I could have, I think I might have left my children. And I say that with a heavy heart, but in knowing that that's how fearful I was of the situation I was in, I was terrified. I was terrified of the woman in the mirror. I just was scared because I didn't recognize her.

And I kept asking myself, is this all there is? And I think the shame that stepped in there was recognizing the abundance and the wealth that I was sitting in. I mean, I had created this incredible dream for myself of being an orthodontist. I had the fancy car and dogs and fancy husband and all the things and I was miserable. And that was when I thought, well, what's wrong with me? If I have all of this.

and I can't find happiness, what's wrong with me? And you know, that was really the nightest for the start of my journey, as I said, of undoing, of unbecoming, and getting back to who Taryn really is. And so fast forward 15 years in that incredible journey of self-discovery, I eventually started another orthodontic practice, Scratch Start, and this time the same orthodontics, the same-

um, collection of finances, the same husband, even I, we didn't, we didn't get a divorce, the same kids, the same, uh, even the same dog breed, a new dog, but the same breed. And everything had changed. Everything had changed. And really the only thing that had changed was me. And I realized that I actually get to create my own life. And that

You know, they say life doesn't happen to you, it happens for you, but I realized actually life happens through me and that was enormously empowering. And I suddenly saw, started seeing this ripple effect on the people around me, on my patients, on my team, on my husband, on my kids, and this incredible new empowerment that I'd found in myself.

was literally feeding into everybody and everything around me. And I thought, well, this has got to be shared. And it was then that I started actually the Business of Happiness podcast. And I started speaking to more and more orthodontists, more and more dentists, started coaching. And I was coaching quite a few of my colleagues. And then I realized there was something missing in the coaching world. We were, I was supporting.

my clients so beautifully with mindset and I got certified in neuro-linguistic programming and there was still something missing. And what I discovered is that, um, dentists are operating at such a high stress level, such a high level functioning level, overachieving, over-functioning level, that what we really need is to learn how to step down into calm. And

what I really became interested in was nervous system regulation. And that kind of is the beginning of my story of now how I support my clients with mindset work and nervous system regulation and subconscious reprogramming to allow the incredible men and women that are taking care of us every day to love themselves so that they can pour that into the care that they're giving their patients.

Okay, so Taryn, there is like a million different ways I could dive into this because you just shared such a beautiful journey. And yet it's interesting. So one of the mentors I have talks about a certain type of knowledge that you only get when you follow your heart, when you follow your curiosity, when you follow your passion.

And I feel like you've laid hold of that knowledge over the last 15 years. So I'm really curious. I guess you could say my thesis is not everybody is in journey. Okay, so everyone's on a journey, but not everyone is on the journey of their true call, their true purpose, let's say. So maybe they're going through the motions and you could call that a journey.

but it's not really life work, meaningful work. So 15 years ago, you had the courage.

to see what was happening.

I wanna go there. Like, how, you said you, it was bad enough that you would have even been almost okay leaving your kids. Whether you want to fill in the picture a little bit more or whether you wanna go into a specific moment when you felt your lowest, could you just take us there for a bit?

Yeah, I will. I've shared this moment before and it's not a, it's a, it's a painful one to share because I think, well, share it anyway.

And the reason why I'll share it is because I think there's so much shame around this idea of escaping yourself. And as you said, so many of us are on, we're all on a journey of some sort. And I think many times that journey is taking us more away from who we are than towards who we really are. And so I had this realization, as I mentioned, I had all the things and I was really functioning very well. You know, what we-

learn to do, do more, keep going, push through, push past. I got really good at that. There was really nothing that could come at me. Yeah.

But also, if I could interrupt, only because I've met you in person, I know you're brilliant. And I don't say that lightly. Anyone that's heard you speak in person understands, you have this powerful intellect. You have...

You just have so much strength and brilliance that that's why I also think you at a high level could cope, could keep going, could overcome whatever signals were like, no, Taryn, like you, because of being so excellent, could still rely on your own inner strength, fortitude and brilliance to somehow, well, like other people might've been sidelined years before.

but somehow you are still able to manage because of your strengths. So even that's really interesting dynamic that not everybody has. So just to let our audience know, there's a lot of amazing dentists and orthodontists, but I'm just saying you really have these amazing faculties and gifts that I feel like is uncommon. So just to kind of provide that context to your story. Sorry for interrupting.

Not at all. And I almost would argue here, Shawn, that it is the core of what gets us to where we are as dentists and doctors, is this, there's a sense of self-belief that we have, and intelligence, and capability, and it almost, it gets us really far.

We build great things. We can do big things. We can face big obstacles and challenges and our intellect and our wit overcome and our intensity. Many dentists have this work ethic, like I'm gonna show up no matter what. I was so surprised when I started coaching and I realized there's a whole coaching world that really talks about showing up and consistency and determination and the compound effect. And I thought,

Whoa, that we do really well. We don't need coaching on that. Yeah, exactly. As dentists, we are the kings and queens of showing up. What we don't do really well is listen to our bodies. And what we don't do really well is listen to our hearts. We kind of push past and push through all of that. And that's what I was supremely good at. You know.

We get this.

running whole marathons with a migraine, showing up over and over and over to work, even when you're going through real tragedy and loss and still being there with a smile on your face for your patients. And I know this is not uncommon in our colleagues and in the people who we call friends in the dental world. And

I think Sean, that was the beginning of that schism for me, that separation from my true self when I started ignoring. And I don't know when that happened. I couldn't put my finger on that. I think it happened at a very young age when I think as so many of us, we learn, wow, that A on that exam got me a little love and connection when maybe I didn't have before.

And if I come home with hyper achievement and push through, I get reward. I get support and love and recognition. And that feels really good. And then you serve other people in your profession and take care of other people, even when you're feeling bad and they appreciate it. It feels really good to look after other people. That's why we are drawn to this profession. It feels really good.

And the moment that I remember was, and we were sitting in our living room, the same usual day of getting up at 4.30 a.m., hitting the gym, working out hard, because that's what you do to be the best person. You keep taking care of your body and pushing yourself and working all day long, seeing 60 to 80 patients, which in the ortho world is not unusual to see 60 to 80 patients a day,

It does mean in the middle at lunch, pushing through lunch, answering emails, doing some treatment planning, making phone calls. And then at the end of the day, you know, keep pushing, go home, take care of the kids. I had two little ones at the time and just keep pushing, pushing. And after the kids are in bed and cleaned up, now go back and do some more treatment planning. And my go-to to bring my body down.

enough to relax was alcohol. It was the only way I knew. I was so intense and driven all day long. My body didn't know how to relax. I'd just been practicing it for decades. I was so good at being in that hyper state constantly, constantly. And alcohol helped me calm down. And so that glass of wine turned into a martini, turned into two martinis at night.

every night. It was also a way to connect with my husband, to bring myself enough to have that moment of sweetness with him. And would wake up at 4.30 in the morning and sweat off the hangover, you know, on the treadmill. And that was my, for a decade, maybe more. That's the way I had lived. And it was, it was doing great things for me. I was growing a huge dental practice. I...

bought a mansion in the suburbs. Everything was, I was doing what society said was success. And I'll never forget this moment. It was a moment of sobriety. Instant, I didn't, I wasn't even aware that I wasn't sober at night. But there was this moment of waking up where I literally, in my scrubs.

was hovering over the trash, peeing into the kitchen trashcan. And I remember seeing my handsome oral surgeon husband on the couch in this beautiful, newly renovated living room and absolutely mortified. So embarrassed, just so ashamed. And ran into the bathroom and just looked in the mirror and did not like the person I was looking at.

I think that the terror was there, but more than anything, it was the shame. Because I didn't even know the person that I was looking at in the mirror. And that sudden realization that I didn't know myself and that I was living a life that someone else expected of me was terrifying. And now I had children and I had hundreds of patients that I was responsible for.

And I was not there. The person behind the meat suit just wasn't there. And it was scary. And I know that doesn't seem like an enormous tragic moment like a cancer diagnosis. But I'll tell you, that hit me like a ton of bricks. And that's when I started to run. And.

And the running was just the fear response, the trauma response. It was just because I didn't know what else to do. I only knew how to attack, how to push through. But this one part of understanding and knowing and loving me, I didn't know how to push through. I didn't know how to push past and get to that. I didn't have the skills. And I look back at that time, and it's interesting, you said that was courageous.

It was anything but at the time, for me, I didn't feel courageous. For me, it was survival. I knew I had to flee. It was survival. Um, and it's interesting because I really now love that beautiful woman in the mirror for a long time. I despised her. She was not a great boss. She didn't know how to lead. She didn't know how to.

take care of herself and because she didn't know how to take care of herself, she really didn't know how to take care of others. She felt really victimized by the economy. You know, whether somebody put in their two weeks notice or, you know, something happened at the daycare or, you know, her kid got sick, she felt like everything was happening to her and attacking her. But I feel a lot of love for her because I know that...

Mm-hmm.

She cared deeply. She really wanted to do the right thing. She was trying so hard. She was just ill equipped.

Yeah, and I think so much of it is we don't know what we don't know. We don't know there's a better way. You know, we buy into the American dream of can we consistently create great outcomes? And the way we do that is like you're saying, hard work, dedication, try harder, try to control.

as much of life as possible so you can continue to almost like enforce your will upon your life and build the dream. And you were great at creating positive outcomes in patience, climbing the ladder with your practice. You got the amazing husband, the house, and yet amidst the busyness, amidst the pace,

Exactly.

There wasn't any space for your heart, for keeping what made you human alive. And you didn't know that was the sacrifice, or else you wouldn't have made it. But we don't know that that's not a pace that the human heart can sustain. And we find all these amazing, highly sophisticated coping mechanisms.

Yeah.

and all these labels so that we can feel sane about almost like losing the core of who we are. And again, we just don't know any better. And yet, had you not walked through that, you wouldn't now be a conscious, empowered individual that is so equipped and yet compassionate.

Yep.

Yeah.

You have this ability to empower people and release life, and yet you have compassion on those that still might be struggling in that tyranny.

Yeah. And isn't that so phenomenally beautiful that even when we're going through those really difficult times, that there is so much beauty and power in it, because that's exactly, you're right. I, now, when I talk to clients who are in that place of pain, of not.

loving themselves, of judging themselves so aggressively, of pushing themselves, of not feeling good enough. I completely identify with that because I know that that's the lie. That's the lie. And it's so fascinating, Sean, because, you know, when we look at, like a three-year-old, I don't know if you have a three-year-old in your life, some most...

We look at a little three-year-old and every three-year-old, it doesn't matter who or what color or what race or culture they come from, we look at a three-year-old and we think, gosh, you are perfect. Yeah. And the world is your oyster and you're, and wow, you're brilliant. Look at what this three-year-old can do. And it's so fascinating, the curiosity and the creativity and the fantasy. And it's so gorgeous.

And if you ask that child's parents, what do you wish for your child? They'll always say, I just want her to be happy. I just want him to be happy. At three years old, that's all we wish for that child. I want you to eat up the world and take it on and live it to your fullest. And above everything, I just want you to really be happy. And we forget that we were those three-year-olds once.

And we forget that possibility is still available to us. It doesn't matter what age, that opportunity to have the world as your oyster is always still there. And when we look at a three-year-old and we see their wholeness and their value and their worthiness, we forget that we still have that too. We've put on us all this judgment, as you mentioned, labels.

and beliefs and expectations that were never ours to begin with. And we all do this. It's not like somebody escaped this. We all experienced that trauma. We all experienced the trauma of seeing ourselves through a lens that was a lie.

And yet we take it on and believe it. And I actually think that this experience in our human life is that this is the purpose. People think, well, what is your purpose in life? I think that self-discovery is the purpose of life. That is the purpose, is that we show up as these whole beautiful, totally worthy three-year-olds. And that...

Life puts its meanings on us and we take it on and that our purpose in life is to peel back those layers and rediscover our deserve and see and our wholeness. I think and it and I'm so grateful for that journey for myself. I wouldn't change a thing.

Okay, so there's like, you're amazing. So there's so much here. So I'm even hearing you're saying, the three-year-old, what does the parent want? It wants them to be happy. And there's this contrast between doing and being. And something you said already twice, maybe even more than that, is this idea of shame. And truly the definition is

Yes.

wrongness of being. And a three-year-old doesn't have that because it's not true. And yet, as we believe the lie that we find meaning in our doing, in our being robotic machine-like doers to create this future that we want, this life that we want, we lose that sense of being. And I think part of it is because we encounter those harsh realities of life

where hurt people come along and they get threatened by our gifting, they get threatened by our beauty. And they're like, no, there's something wrong with you. There's something wrong with you. And if we believe that, if we take that prescription and let it go in and all of a sudden let that seed get planted in our heart, shame just gets us to hide. It gets us to shut off who we are because it's like almost an indictment against our most innermost self, our most innermost being. And

Mm-hmm.

Hmm. Hmm-hmm.

I was just at a conference where there's this woman, I don't know how to say her last name perfectly, but it's Megan, maybe Macedo, I think she's from the UK. And she talks about these two paradigms. The business paradigm is outcomes, what does the market want? And we need to do what the market wants. We're focused on outcomes. It's all about doing versus the art paradigm, which is all about who are you? What makes you come alive?

Mm.

How do you discover what makes full aliveness, wholeness, alignment in you? And Taryn, even what you were saying, I think our purpose you said is to discover that. And I would just take it, I would postulate one step further, and that's what I see in you, is that in the discovery of our purpose, in the discovery of what makes almost that aspect, so I always say it's like the aspect of the divine that we all carry.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

It's that in discovering the gift, what's the purpose of a gift? Like, you don't have a gift to hoard. You have a gift to share. Like, the gift is meant to be given. So even as Dr. Taryn McCarthy discovers the beauty, the brilliance, the glory, the magnificence, the uniqueness of who you are, and you uncover that, well, once you've uncovered that, what do you do? You do what you're doing.

Mm-hmm.

You share it with the world.

I mean, that is, isn't that so amazing that we get to do that? That we get to share ourselves with the world. It's so exciting to me. It offers so much hope and so much promise for our future is that, yeah, we get to share ourselves with the world. You know, I'll, I'll share another story with you that was so poignant in my journey.

And it comes from my daughter. Um, for those listeners who have children, you know, your children are your greatest teachers, always at least mine, mine have been, and at 15, my daughter, who was born a boy decided, or decided, told us that actually her whole life, she had felt.

that she was a woman. And at 15, she walked into her homecoming dance in a dress for the first time, sharing the truth of who she was with high school students. I mean, can you imagine a room of more judgment and more fear and...

watching her walk into that school, this was the first time her way of coming out, she had nobody had, she hadn't spoken or shared this with anybody, any of her friends. And her brother who was a year younger was by her side. But watching her walk into that gymnasium at homecoming and allowing herself to be true to herself despite her fears of what other people would think.

of what other people would say or assume or judge. And seeing the courage of her to stand in her truth damned anybody else's opinion was a moment in my life where I realized who am I not to stand in mine? Who am I, if she can do that at this tender age of 15 who am I as a grown woman not to stand in mine?

And I think the more we see evidence of one another courageously standing in our truth, courageously saying yes to who we truly are, the more we give permission for others to do the same. And that's everything. That's everything. Because that person who you were talking about, that one moment of judgment, somebody ridiculing,

you for your brilliance or your beauty or your talent. That's also just a coping mechanism. That person is also just trying to self-protect because of the fear and the shame that he's experiencing. That person's in just as much pain. And when we see one another in that way, that we all have this, as you mentioned, this incredible divine within us that makes none of us.

Yeah.

Um, separate from the wholeness, separate from the miracle. We also, none of us are separate from the trauma. We've all experienced it and we can see one another in it. We've all gone through that and we can witness one another when we're in pain.

And I think that the greatest gift we have is to be able to share, as you said, share our stories with one another so that we can see ourselves reflected in one another.

But that's where I see it in you, and that's where I have, there's this deep connection of like, thank you for Taryn because she struggled in the ashes, in the pain, in the fire of uncertainty and not knowing. And now as you're shining this brilliance, this gold, it's like I applaud you for not giving up.

I applaud you for facing it instead of numbing out. I applaud you for embracing the tension of you know what is, but you're curious about what could be. And yet that's why this podcast, it's for those that might still be in a place where they're on the sideline or they're in denial or they're still in that business paradigm.

or they're on that, I don't know, that rat thing of performance where it's still just about striving and doing and earning, like as if you have to earn your worthiness. And that goal just becomes more and more elusive. You never earn worthiness. It's not by what you do, it's by who you are. It's not found in the doing function, it's resting in your being.

Hmm, beautifully said.

And yet there's something so scandalous and scary about that. And that's why when a pioneer like you is like, you can do it, I've done it. And that's why it's like, you've blown open this paradigm by living it so that other people, I agree 100%. It's almost like there's this fabric or there's this energy not to get too like metaphorical, that when you tapped into it, it's almost like you gave permission

for other people to tap into it as well. So your victory then becomes our victory. Like that's the oneness in this whole thing. Like it's like, I'm not intimidated by your victory. I'm thankful. Like I'm so happy because the more we become conscious, the more we wake up, the more we connect to our hearts, it allows there to be almost like a blueprint or a capacity for other people to enter into it as well.

It is.

Yeah, so beautiful. Oh, you said that so eloquently, Sean. So beautiful. So beautifully.

You stir up the artist in me. And that's the great thing. Like you can't achieve art by striving. Art isn't found in the performance. Art is found in the resting and yielding in. It's almost like giving birth. How many times have you given birth?

Right, and that's it.

Yes, three times. And the first two times I forced and I tried to control. And I love that you say this, it's like giving... it is. And I learned so much from my birthing experiences each time because those first two times I was so controlling over the situation and even, you know...

once again, metaphorically, I had epidurals to, so I didn't feel the pain. And both my first two babies were born with these huge big hematomas on their heads because I was pushing so hard, doing my best, doing my hardest again, but I didn't have the feedback of the pain to guide me. And...

That was another huge lesson in my life, is to actually appreciate the pain. Because the pain we experience is our own personal professors. And we know this from our patient care, that we're so lucky in dentistry, because we know pain really well. We witness our patients each experiencing pain in different ways. No two patients react the same way to a palatal injection.

Nobody reacts the same way or even at different times in their lives. And we know that. We experience pain differently at different times in our lives. So pain becomes such a personal professor of guidance. And we tend to avoid it with all our might. And I think that's a lot of the doing and achieving mentalities, avoiding pain and discomfort.

but actually the pain is such good feedback. And if we allow ourselves to sit in the discomfort of those moments, psychological, emotional pain. And when I delivered my third baby, I did it naturally and I did it with that intention. I wanted to feel what was happening in my body so that I could listen to my body. And it was this incredible, beautiful experience.

There's so much learning in there too. There's so much opportunity to say, wow, that part of my life was really painful, but man, did it give me some of the most important lessons that I'll ever need in my whole life. I don't know if you, have you, I'm sure you've read.

I was like, wait, just don't become the podcast host.

Oh no. I'm about to, you know me well. It's hard not to. We're gonna, yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. Well, maybe I'll save this question, but you know that Bronnie Ware, have you heard of Bronnie Ware and the five regrets, top five regrets of the dying? Oh my gosh, Sean. Okay, so Bronnie Ware was this incredible palliative care nurse in Australia. And she took care of

We're gonna do that, right? You're gonna have me on yours. That'll be.

No.

hundreds and hundreds of patients until their dying day. And at one point she interviewed, she started interviewing them. What is your greatest regret of your life? And she found that there were five common regrets that over and over and over, people on their deathbed kept saying. And the number one regret was, I wish I'd lived a life true to myself and not the life that everyone expected of me. That was the number one regret.

Number two, by the way, was I wish I hadn't worked so hard. And you probably could have guessed that one, but I think we don't even allow ourselves to slow down enough to know what that means. What does it mean to be true to myself? What does that even mean? And it takes a courage to slow down from the doing. It takes a courage to pause.

to be quiet and still with ourselves in order to even have an understanding. And it takes a courage to face the discomfort because in the discomfort is the understanding of who you are.

Okay, so you might have just answered it in that last segment, but, so I just wanna wrap up two thoughts and then throw you a question. So, we have five kids and my wife was a labor and delivery nurse. I-

Whoa, five kids! That's amazing, Sean! I didn't know that about you! Ha ha ha!

Yeah, yes. If you meet my wife, you understand why. She's just super, super woman. And so the first two we delivered at the hospital that she worked at. And I remember vividly, number two, she literally is bouncing on the ball, charting, and then she finally admits herself. So she goes from working to admitting herself. And to me, the first two, so we went from hospital birth, hospital birth, number three, we did birth center, and then the last two, we did home birth.

Hmm. Oh my god.

So for a nurse, labor and delivery nurse to actually go to a home birth, it's not because we believe in witchcraft, that's a joke. But what I observed was the first two births, epidurals, my wife didn't want epidurals, had a different birth plan, but it was almost like every single time a contraction came. Every time that...

Mm-hmm.

wave of pain came. It was like, how can I meet that wave with an equal ability to endure, outlast, persist, and overcome? I'm not going to let it overcome me. I'm going to resist it and meet it and in a performance way overcome it. And birth number three, it shifted where it was now, how do I yield?

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

partner with and allow this wave of a contraction to do the glorious thing it's meant to do. And I'm giving it permission to do it. I'm allowing it and I'm yielding to it. And the births were night and day difference.

So beautiful.

And so here, here it is, Terrence. So right now there's birth pains, there's contractions, there's waves of circumstances and challenge that are coming at someone right now. And they continue to numb out or, or maybe they think, maybe they think it's a signal that they're doing something wrong, right? Like, oh my gosh, why am I doing so? And yet I would postulate it's actually an invitation to their transformation, almost like,

Mm-hmm.

I live in Phoenix, so I just love the metaphor of the Phoenix arising out of the ashes. What would you say to that person that is having those?

those signals, those divine invitations you could say to partner with these birth pains because there's something so beautiful in them that is meant to get birthed, but somehow they keep resisting it. What do you say to someone that's in that moment and they're not sure what to do because maybe they keep resisting like you said, or like you were doing, you just kept on going, thinking try harder.

Yep.

How do you speak to that person?

You know, I think one of the greatest superpowers we can tap into is trust. Trust. And as you're, you're talking about this beautiful metaphor of birth and yielding to that incredible natural, natural process.

And looking at life in the same way that there is going to be pains, labor pains, birthing new opportunities. I think we're afraid of.

the ending and follow me here for a moment. When we're feeling the pain, we're thinking, as you said, can I endure this? Is this something I can endure? Am I, am I good enough? Am I enough to endure this? And yet.

Every ending makes room for a new beginning. That's what birth is, right? It's an ending of the time, the baby's time in the womb that gives birth to a new life. It's actually not the birth that starts the process, it's the ending. And we're so afraid of ending. We're so afraid of losing relationships, of losing people in our lives, of transitions.

whether it's retirement or changing jobs or, you know, losing an assistant or an office manager or a marriage. And really in every one of those endings, it opens up so much space for birthing something miraculous. There's a vacancy. We know this when we look back over our lives and we think, gosh, I was so scared of that one thing ending or the

potential opportunity ending. Yet it was so divinely timed because it made room for this other spectacular learning. And if we can just in those difficult moments, remind ourselves to trust.

to trust the process. I think when we saw each other last, Sean, we also heard Catherine Itell Belt, she was talking about the river, the flowing river of life, and that we can choose to fight the current, or we can just allow ourselves to flow with the current.

and experience that yielding that you mentioned, allowing for natural processes of endings and new beginnings to take place. And just even though we're in a difficult place of not understanding, not knowing the fear, if we can remind ourselves to trust the process, that really is the superpower.

Oh my gosh, like even as you're saying that, like I can't help but keep thinking of the birth analogy. Like you get so close to feeling like you are going to die and then at the greatest moment of feeling like you're about to die, you can't control it. Life comes forth.

Yeah, isn't it beautiful?

Yes.

And you survive.

But you can't go through that near-death experience if you don't trust that it's going to be okay.

Wow, you just, what if we looked at birth as a near death experience? I hadn't considered that before. I mean, that's what it feels like.

As a an observer?

I remember thinking, my wife looks like she's about to die and I can't do anything about it.

Yeah. Oh.

And yet it gave birth to the most beautiful miracles in my life. It wasn't this peaceful time. It wasn't this ease. It wasn't this strife. It was literally my wife in travail and agony. And yet what came was the most beautiful gifts to our family, these beautiful children, these miracles of life that

that that's the condition they came forth in. It was messy. It wasn't contrived and calculated and perfect in performance. It was this primal near death, almost anguished.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And what a beautiful, exactly that primal component we have to trust. And so why do we judge ourselves when we have those moments, those primal moments on the floor? You know, that is a part of our life experience too. That is a part of it. And I think the other interesting thing, I think another component of human fear is we think that

that we had to trust and yeah.

pain might not end, that there might not be, you know, if you're in the moment, you're like, oh, is this going to go on forever? And, and even that is a fallacy because everything has an ending. Nothing is permanent. Change is the consistency. There's consistency and change. So even those moments that feel so painful will come to an end. We can trust in that too. That's a law. That's the law, the universal law.

And I love that you just identified that in those most primal painful moments came the greatest gifts. So really that trauma that we were talking about at the top of the hour when we were saying that we've all been through those really difficult moments, really those we can start to look at them as gifts too.

I don't know if I can handle this because it's like, like encountering discoveries in real time. I think part of the excitement here is that you're, you've spent so much time investing in these discoveries and I honor that and I see that. So it's almost like I'm excited to use this time to pull on.

your genius, this zone of genius that you're occupying that is meant for the liberation of those stuck.

those stuck in so many different forms, like what you've discovered, what you've tapped into is meant for liberation. Specifically, like what-

If I'm a dentist right now, like who's the ideal to say, okay, Taryn, I'm so excited. I want to experience this transformation. Like, how do I know I'm a good fit for you? Like, speak to that. Who would be ideal to work with you?

You're so generous, Sean. You're so generous and you're so, and I just love listening to you because the poetry of how you speak is so beautiful to listen to. So thank you. Let me just say thank you for your gift that you're sharing because it really is captivating.

Really, I think that my greatest joy is to support the incredible men and women who we...

who we know and love so deeply, who are literally putting smiles on children's faces on a daily basis. Can we just hold space for that for a moment? Literally, we have such an incredible profession, literally serving and putting smiles on children's faces on a daily basis, and yet hurting in and of themselves. And those are my most favorite people to support and help, the people who are.

hurting and know that feeling of disconnection. When you wake up in the morning and you think, is this all there is? And what is the point? And I'm working so hard and I know I have big things to do in this life, but I'm exhausted. I'm too exhausted to get started. That still small whisper that says, yeah.

There's something else that niggle that says, I'm meant to do something beyond this. Those are the people I love to work with most because they already.

have tapped into the awareness of the magic and the possibility within themselves, the divine within themselves. They already know that that's the potential is there. And they're just looking to understand and get beyond what feels so real in the day to day.

Wow, so again, as you speak, I just, I keep seeing pictures. So this has only happened a few times when I talk to people. So it's really cool. Okay, so what I was seeing is like, and this is a, it's weird because I feel like even in my speech at Expansion, I said the language of the heart is not English. And in the same exact way, I feel like the reason we use imagery and metaphor is because that is more of the language that the heart or the spirit can understand.

Mmm.

Yes.

Um, if that makes sense. So it's like, as you're, as you're talking, I was again, picturing like a boat at, at the harbor. Um, so it's tied to the harbor and yet in its view is just like, it's like this mist or fog.

And yet, let's say that the journey of the heart is it starts almost when you enter into that unknown. But the immediate unknown, Taryn, back to your story was, I don't wanna look at this because what I'm seeing is shame, is I'm not enough, is lies and accusation that says there's something wrong with me. And yet what you've given people permission to do,

again, through that birth analogy, is that if you lift up the anchor and set sail, you are gonna realize that you'll get through that fog, through that mist, through that veil of the unknown, and then you will see the life, you will see that promise, you will see that beauty that will emerge, but you need to trust in order to lift the anchor and face that initial period of, can I make it?

Hmm.

Am I enough? And that's what I'm hearing you give permission to our listeners right now. If you haven't started that journey and you're scared because you think all you're gonna find is that somehow you're the one human that's condemned. You're the one human that is, there's something wrong with you, you have shame, and you need to keep hiding who you are. We absolutely say no to that and say, you are brilliant, you are beautiful, and you are enough. And...

Hmm. Yep.

Dr. Taryn McCarthy right now is giving you permission and urging you to trust that you will get through that mess, you'll get through that whatever fog. Because that's what you did, Taryn. And so for you, when did you start actually seeing, oh my gosh, this lie that's tried to keep me here, although it actually is just a lie. Like when did that become clear to you in your journey?

I think it took me a very long time. It took me a very long time to, I remember for years saying, I just want to love myself.

I do remember saying that for a very long time. And I don't remember a moment where that transition happened. It was one of those, you know, we say change happens in many different ways. Change can either be an aha, lightning bolt moment of transformation where you think, oh, I'll never go back to being the same way, you know, those kinds of moments where you think, oh, I've changed forever. And then there's another change that happens a little more subtly where you

have a little more appreciation or insight daily. And you start to see this really almost more sustainable change, these kind of incremental changes. And then there's a third type of change where you wake up one day and you look back like a retrospective change and you think, wow, somewhere along the way.

That switch flipped for me. I don't know when it happened. I remember feeling that way, but somewhere I change and that, that is my experience of my own self love journey is I think it just kind of woke up one day and I thought, Oh my gosh, it's there. It's there. I don't know when it happened, but it

I know that it was my intention. I know I was searching for it. I know I was working on it. I know I was trying to heal those subconscious limiting beliefs, trying to really dig deep and somewhere along the way it happened. And I think...

I think that too is important to share because transformation doesn't always happen in an instant and that if there are people listening who think, gosh, I should be there already. I've been working on this. I've been trying. I've been reading all the books. I've been watching Oprah and downloading all the positive affirmations. Why don't I feel better yet to once again trust that the intention...

is enough and that the journey along the way is the gift. It's the lessons that keep coming. And that it doesn't have to be a lightning bolt moment.

Okay, so I'm a professional or I'm a dentist and I'm chomping at the bit. How do I work with you? Where do you want my eyes to go? How can I connect with you?

Well, you can find me at the Business of Happiness podcast anytime or www. or find me on Facebook. Anyway, I'm on all the social media channels, Taryn McCarthy or The Biz of Happiness.

Here's my closing question, Taryn, I think you're ready for it.

Hit me.

So you are walking down the street and off in the distance you see 21 year old Taryn. And you know you only have a brief moment to communicate one sentiment to her. What do you share?

You're exactly where you need to be.

That's it. Her whole journey. She was exactly where she needed to be every step of the way. You know, I want to say I would go up to her and tell her you are so worthy and so whole, but she needed to find that out herself. She needed to go through those labor pains. She needed that self-discovery. And so I think I would just offer her that. She's exactly where she needs to be.

It has been so easy honoring you as an innovator, as someone that like is a champion for the human spirit, as someone that literally entered the darkness, entered the void and didn't give up when you could have given up. You could have numbed out, gone back to just believing the narrative that we were told that it's about the outcomes and it's about the nice home and the outward, you know,

destination of success, and yet you had the courage to say, no, there's something inside that's beckoning me, that's calling me, that's missing. And you dared to go on that journey and yield to it, Taryn. And because of that, you now have a prescription, you now have an antidote, you now have a message and a banner that can liberate not just dentistry, any professional that needs to find out and go on that journey of discovery. I would want you in my corner. I would want you.

being that mentor, that coach that's helping me out. So thank you so much for owning who you are, for shining your brilliance and for sharing that and for letting me interview you today.

This has been amazing. What a joy. Thank you so much for all that you do, Sean.

Thank you.