42. STORY TIME - life updates and lessons I've learned :)

A little life update :)

I am happy we can share this journey of leveling up, together. Send me a text by clicking the link at the top of the description. I would love to hear from you :) See you next week! 

- Alita <3 

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Transcript

Welcome And Podcast Purpose

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What's up? Welcome back to Vito with Alita. This is a podcast about evidence-based wellness for real life. I'm Alita and I'm here to talk about fitness, health, mindset, and building a strong and sustainable life. But doing so without extremes, guilt, or perfectionism. If you care about your health, but you also want a life that you can actually live, you're definitely in the right place. Now before we jump in, I just want to say thank you for being here. It genuinely means a lot that you choose to spend your time listening, and I don't take that lightly. If you've been enjoying the show, following the podcast really helps it grow and lets me know that you're enjoying what you're listening to. And it will actually help more people find these conversations, which means I can keep bringing you new episodes every single week. Alright, let's get into today's episode.

Why This Life Update Matters

SPEAKER_01 1:20

I'm your host, Alita, and today is a bit of a personal one. I thought that I would take the time to give a little life update. And I'm doing this because I think that this past season of my life has taught me a lot. And it has basically tested everything that I talk about on this podcast. And you know, sometimes experience is just a good teacher. It's great to share, and I'd love to share it with all of you as much as I love my science and evidence-based wellness. Sometimes science just does not account for real life, and that's okay. So that's why we're here to share our experiences, and I have a lot to unpack today, and I'm excited, and I'm just gonna get into it. No word of the week. We're just gonna talk about life. So grab a cup of coffee, a tea, go on your walk, do your thing. We're just having a little chat, a little one-on-one. So pretend that we have not seen each other for a while, and now I'm updating you on all the wonderful things, the things that have been taking up my time and keeping me busy and just a nice little chat.

Injuries That Disrupt Everything

SPEAKER_01 2:45

So let's start with kind of part one. I've divided this into some parts. I have somewhat of a structure here, but let's let's let's get to part one. I call part one the disruption. I have previously alluded to sort of this disruption in previous episodes, and of course, if you did not listen to those episodes, these disruptions include some physical injuries that I have been dealing with. Nothing major, actually, nothing major at all, but nonetheless, disruptions. One of them being a broken finger, I've talked about before. And I don't even know if I mentioned this injury, but this one was so random and came out of nowhere, like most unexpected injuries do. I fell onto like a pot like a planter that I had on the floor, and I hit my rib. Now I did not break any bones, but I had some intercostal bruising. And when I tell you that I've never felt pain like this before, I mean, listen, I don't know, I've never given birth or anything. And I do not want to compare this type of pain to that, but in my life experiences and up to this day, I have never experienced pain like this before. Where anytime I breathed, it hurt. I couldn't even sit up straight. There was no position physically possible for me to sit in that was comfortable, and I was constantly moving, jittering just because I was in so much pain. And it was just not a good time. Not a good time at all. And as you can imagine, at this point, like this second injury happened while I was still dealing with my finger. So my finger was broken, it had pins coming out of it. You know, I I had like the surgeon put pins to straighten the finger, and they had to stay in there, but they weren't like inside my they were in my finger, but the pins were kind of sticking out. Anyway, it's it's a weird situation, but the point is I was already dealing with that, and then the falling. I was just a little bit of a physical mess, and as you can imagine, that meant no nothing. I was basically on bed rest and that's it. I was homebound, bed rest, just doing a lot of lounging. And that might sound great. It was great actually. It is obviously it was my priority to give my body the rest it needed. But for some context here, I'm somebody who's very active. I'm somebody who loves to clean and to organize, who is always on the go. I'm one of those people who cannot always sit still. You know, like while the water is boiling, I'll go put a load of laundry and and then I'll walk my dog and then I'll do all of these things, and I'm just always that's just how I like to fill my time, and it's just how I feel fulfilled. Hence all these episodes about why slowing down is necessary and all those things. I am learning that. So now when I was forced to take this time to just chill out, it was nice for a day, two days, three, but then once we got to day like four or five, you know, like my mental health was not all there. I was sort of spiraling, crashing out, thinking that I'm yeah, just my routines got disrupted and my mode of stress relief got taken away. I wasn't even I felt useless, like I was so dependent on everybody, and just not a good feeling. And it really made me question, like, okay, what does health mean and look like when life gets in the way? I am very fortunate that up to this point I am somebody who is, you know, abled-bodied and somebody who is able to move and who has the privilege of of doing the things that I want to do. And not I've never taken it for granted. I've always been thankful, but I've never had to experience the other side of it. And this disruption here really forced me to take a step back and redefine what health means and redefine what showing up means and redefine like health also includes this sort of season where you just you sometimes just have to deal with it and let it pass. And now being on the other side of things, you know that it passes and it's not that bad, but when you're in the thick of it, oh man, I'm so thankful for the people around me who listened to me, who've seen me cry, who have been there with me. So it's it's a good time. Now, we're gonna get to part two here because part two added another layer to kind of this mental health uncertainty that I was kind of going through. So,

Med School Uncertainty And Waiting

SPEAKER_01 8:07

part two here, we're gonna label this the uncertainty. Now, I've had a few episodes where I talk about uncertainty and not knowing what the future holds, and yada yada yada. And I think I've always been very vague about it, like I've never really mentioned what exactly I'm waiting for. Like nobody really knows. And I think, I think this is the good personal, great time to go through that. So the very first episode of Vita with Alita was literally called Uncertainty of the Future May Make You More Likely to Indulge, or something along those lines. Okay, why was I making episodes about uncertainty? And why did I talk about being in this uncertain time of my life? Well, that's because I personally have been trying to apply to medical school. Yes, I'm somebody who is looking to go to medical school. Now, the process of this journey is quite a difficult one, and you may hear that, you may not, but I am personally I'm in Canada, and it's just known amongst the pre-meds that this is a grueling process. Nevertheless, I have continued to decide to actively pursue this journey. Now, I have applied to medical school at this point probably three times, and just to break down the medical school process, or at least the way it works here in Canada, you kind of apply almost like a year before. So if you want to start school in like September 2026, you're applying in like October 2025, and that's when the application's due. So you're spending your summer in 2025 reaching out to referees and verifiers, so these are people who can verify activities that you list and writing essays and doing all the things to apply. And then you don't hear back for a while, and then usually in the new year or February of 2026, you may or may not get invited to an interview, and then finally in May of 2026, you hear if you kind of got in or not. Sometimes. Sometimes you can get waitlisted, and you don't really hear back, and they don't really give you a timeline. It could kind of be any time. So that's just an overview of the process. I've gone through this process three times at this point, and you know, I'm kind of used to rejection. I've been rejected by a lot of schools over and over, and you kind of start to not take it personally. Kind of. You tell yourself it's not personal, but then you start overthinking and spiraling, and you're like, well, how can it not be personal? Like, what am I doing wrong? You see this, that person getting in, that person getting in, this person getting in, and you're just like, what is happening? And now, this is kind of the uncertainty period. While I was applying to med school, I wasn't just sitting around, I was working, I was still volunteering, doing my extracurriculars, trying to move on with my life. But in the back of my mind, I always had this like goal that I was trying to achieve. I'm trying to get into med school and it's just not working. So then what happens? So during this period, now we're going back to the disruption. So back to part one where I was injured and my mental health was on a decline, and I was just doing I was just a couch potato, basically. I'm already feeling bad about myself, but I'm trying to keep my spirits up. I'm buying myself flowers, I'm making some nice coffee, I'm doing what I can to just, you know, stay in a positive state of mind. Now, May 12th comes around, and this is the day where med schools release their decisions about students being accepted or not. So your girl logs on to the portal, and I see that I have been waitlisted for med school. Now, this is an improvement because I have never been waitlisted before. So I was like, alright, not a flat out rejection, not bad, not bad. But just the mental game of sitting there and waiting by your phone, because they can call you any day, anytime, and they don't really tell you when or where you are on the wait list or when to expect a call or or anything. They just say throughout the summer up to August, you might get a call if you get in. If you get in, you could you could also get rejected if all the spots fill up and they don't call you. So I'm dealing with not being in the right headspace, not having things to fill my time. Like I can't sit straight, I can't do anything with my dominant hand where I broke my finger and I'm wearing a splint. And I'm just like not in the place right now to deal with news of being waitlisted. And it's this idea that I was so close, but it's yes, so far. And just this idea that like my future is being controlled by like I don't know who. And as somebody who, you know, tends to like to control their environment, I was just not dealing with this properly. Like, I didn't know what to do. I tried to forget about it, I tried to ignore it. I literally started tanning in my backyard. And mind you, because of all these injuries, I have not been working or doing anything. I've just been a little bit of a mess. Just a tiny bit. Again, redefining, okay, what does health, what does wellness look like right now? How am I taking care of my physical health, my mental health, my well-being? Like, what am I doing? And I'm waitlisted, I'm sitting there staring at my computer screen, don't really know what to do next. And of course, within all this, as you know, I opened a social media, like an Instagram account for the podcast, and having nothing to do, you're just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, and it's just not helping. You're seeing other people's lives and highlights, and I know it's not real, but honestly, it gets to you. It just gets to you, and I was not in a good mental space. I had a little bit of a spiraling moment where I kept checking online and I kept checking Instagram, and I just did not have the energy or I did not feel like doing anything, honestly. I would just I was in bed until noon sleeping. Get up, I would get up because I I had to use the washroom or I was hungry, and then I was just scroll and scroll and not do much. It was a vicious cycle, and in the back of my head, there was this voice that's like, Alita, come on, get up. Like, why are you doing nothing? Why are you not doing anything? Come on, you can do it, get up, do something, paint, color, like something, or just like go outside, nothing. I had no desire, motivation, energy, anything. And there was there were a rough few days like that. Now, here we are on the other side of it. My days no longer look like that, thank goodness. Now, what did I what exactly changed? So, this time where I'm waiting, I'm on the wait list, I'm chilling. I

Building A Control List To Cope

SPEAKER_01 16:10

was like, Alita, you know what? You have to kind of look at what you can control. So I literally made a list. I'm like, what can I control right now? I can control how much rest I get, I can control the foods I'm eating, I can control very light movement, like a bit of walking here and there without like and like making myself feel pain. And as the days went on, my ribs started feeling a little bit better, and my hand was just being my hand. I could control the physical therapy that I have to do to regain the motion in my finger. So these are all the things that I could control. I could control my personal hygiene, you know, things start to decline when you're not in the right headspace. And I just one by one, even if it was like one thing a day, like shower, I would just check it off. And I was like, okay, this is what I can control. And I would do it, and slowly, slowly, I was getting in a better headspace. I also very strongly leaned on the people around me. So I have very wonderful, fabulous friends that that honestly deserve the world who came to visit me, surprised me, and just to lift my spirits up. They came to see how I was doing. All of those things. I started watching a new show with my mom, so I was spending time with her, and we were talking about it, and watching this show kind of helped me kind of forget what's happening. All of these things. I was making sure I was on top of my hand therapy, on top of my shower routine. Whenever I was able to, I started walking my dog again every day. All of these things that I was able to control, I was doing. And I was making sure that I was eating right because I knew that it was just gonna help with my healing. Now, as somebody who likes to, you know, kind of like have a tangible goal or something I was achieving. I literally started writing down everything I was eating, what I was doing. And by doing this, it allowed me to see, like, okay, see, like you still have control over this. Look, what you're still doing, you're still eating all your protein. Good job, yay. And this is slowly, slowly how I started to rebuild my my self-trust, my confidence, my I started to just be in a better headspace overall. Now, I at some point in my life, I kind of made a list of things that I would do that if I got into med school. Some were like generic, you know, like I would buy an iPad or something for supplies for notes or whatever. Some were kind of like cute, like, oh, I would do like a closet clean out and go shopping to buy some few items to to like ramp up the wardrobe. I would go and get my nails and toes done. I don't usually do that because I'm a climber and it's always they always just get ruined. But since my finger's broken, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna take advantage and I'm gonna go do my nails, do all of these things. And in this moment where I was told I'm on the wait list and I was looking at things that I can and can't control, I was like, Alita, why are you gonna wait until you can get into med school to do these things? Your value does not like is not determined by if you can get into med school or not. So then I literally decided to go through the list of like to a certain extent. Obviously, I didn't go buy an iPad before I needed it, but I literally cleaned out my closet, I went to do my nails, I did all the things, I cleaned out my computer, like all of these little things that I told myself I was gonna do, I just did. And it made me feel good, honestly. I was like, yeah, you deserve to do these things no matter what. So I did. And to add on to all this, something that really helped me during this time was deleting the Instagram app off of my phone. I just completely deleted it. I even blocked it from my browser. I was not even looking at it. It was just nice to not be on it, to not scroll, to not see what anyone's doing or what's happening in anyone's life. And that's what I did.

The Call That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Lo and behold, two weeks after finding out I was on the wait list, I get a call. It's a call that I cried when I picked up the phone, and I was in the middle of making breakfast, I was making myself some protein pancakes, and suddenly I get a call, and it was a call to say that I was accepted into medical school. And oh my god, the relief, the weight, just everything. I I just cried as soon as she told me, as soon as the person on the phone told me that, I honestly just cried. And I thanked her. I was like, oh my god, thank you.

unknown 21:08

I got it.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

And it was just this party of the celebration, and it was the best feeling in the entire world. And I am the luckiest person that I have so many people around me who support me and love me and want to see me succeed. So when I shared the news, honestly, it was basically a party. It was a party, it was a good time, and suddenly, like, I was on the other side of it, the sky was blue again, and it just made everything feel worth it. Again, this is like after three whole cycles, so three three years, they actually weren't consecutive years. I applied once after my undergrad, didn't get in, decided to do my masters. Of course, pursuing something that I was into, which is kinesiology. I was like, you know, I really do enjoy this field, I would like to learn. More about it. And then I applied after my master's twice. So for two years after my master's. And here we are. And I'm here standing today saying that I am going to be a medical student. I'm going to be starting in September 2026. And I am so excited for what the future holds and for everything that it means for my career, for this podcast, just for my life. It's a goal that I've honestly had since I was in high school. You know, I had a high school teacher literally write in my report card in grade 12, like whatever pleasure to teach, like the basic standard comment. And then he wrote, now go become a doctor. And here we are. So the uncertainty of the future, I still don't know what the future holds, obviously. But there's there's a sense of relief. And I'm here to tell you that if you are in this period, whatever that might be, you're looking for work, you don't know where you want to go for school, you don't know what major you want to do, you anything that you might feel like you're uncertain about. I'm just here to say honestly, it's okay. And it's good to try. I've tried so many things in these years while I have been waiting to get into med school and reapplying that I think will honestly just contribute to me being an even better doctor for my patients. And it's something that I'm proud of the perseverance, the discipline, the wanting to keep going. There are moments where, you know, if I didn't make an episode today and talk about people, no one would know about it. But that's why I'm making this episode, is just to tell you that we're all kind of going through our own thing, our own journey, and your life path looks completely different than somebody else's, you know? While I was waiting and sitting there, I obviously felt horrible when I would hear about, I don't know, somebody who's in like third year undergrad, just get in on their first try. And I'm sitting here after my master's, after three cycles, after all of these things, still not getting in. And mind you, mind you, that this year I was like, you know what, Alita, you're gonna expand your horizons. I also applied to dentistry, I also applied to pharmacy. Okay, I wrote the DAT and I had to go to Buffalo to write that. Okay, so my dad drove me to Buffalo for one night. We wrote the DAT and we came back. And all of these things, I was just so just so like and mixed, lost in the sauce. Like, I don't know how else to say it. Everything was just everywhere, and I got rejected from pharmacy school and dental school, and that was just adding to the load, and I was like, oh my god, like what's happening? And here we are. We are at the other side of it, and I'm here to tell you that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I am so very lucky and fortunate and so thankful to have this opportunity, and I'm just sharing it with you that if something is meant to be for you, it will eventually happen in the timing that it's supposed to. You know, without kind of this time off, I wouldn't have started this podcast, I wouldn't have volunteered with the organizations that I do, I wouldn't have gone to therapy, I wouldn't have spent so much time with my family and my dog, and I wouldn't have I wouldn't have found people who are so supportive of me. There are just so many things that wouldn't have happened if the plan went the way I thought it should have gone. And I'm so much better for it today, and I think I'm going to enter and start med school very appreciative. You know, you may I understand the workload, but I'm never gonna take it for granted. I'm always gonna be thankful for the opportunity and the education and the responsibility that I will hold. So that's that's the that's the little update. I never shared with anyone that I was applying to medical school. I didn't want it to be my whole personality, although deep down it was so important to me, and so it was something that I have been thinking about so much, and I'm so so glad that I'm finally able to share it, and it's finally happening.

Returning To Training And Quitting Instagram

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Now, we're gonna go to part three. So we talked about part one and two. The injuries, the uncertainty. Now I'm at the other side of it. I'm pretty healed. My finger's doing a lot better, my rib is pretty much completely healed. After being about a month and a half off from the gym, I'm finally back in my routine. I started doing a little bit of running, a little bit of weight training, of course, easing back into it, but I'm finally kind of getting myself back into it. Part three, part three here. Sorry. I decided to delete my social media. So the Instagram for this podcast has been deactivated and deleted. I wouldn't say deleted, it's been deactivated. I deactivated it and deleted the Instagram app. I did this because I kind of want to keep the potential there. If one day I am able to actually revamp it and have a team behind me to help me manage it, but as of right now and as of today, it's deleted, it's gone. So much better for my mental health. I stand by not having social media like I did five years ago. I honestly only got it trying to grow this podcast, but there are other ways to do that, and I don't need social media. I am focusing on other things, obviously, at the moment. And for me, this is the best decision for me. I feel so much better without it. So no more Instagram. Sorry if you hear different episodes that are advertising it. It's gone, it's no longer there. Don't try to find me on Instagram. I you can email me, honestly. So, part four, and the way we're gonna sort of wrap up this episode is what I'm taking with me.

Lessons On Identity And Resilience

SPEAKER_01 28:20

I hope throughout this little story time you took away some of the lessons that I've learned about health, about remaining adaptable, flexible, figuring out what health looks like for the different seasons of life that you're in. Lessons about identity, so not letting one idea or one thing completely just derail everything else. I always was very I always tied my identity to going to med school. I wanted to go to med school so badly, I wanted to do all these things, and if I didn't get in, it was like it almost was like, oh, I'm not worth it, I'm not valuable. But this period and this this time and doing the things, for example, that I told myself I would do if I got into med school, even if I didn't know if I got in, just showed me that you know you can do those things, and it's it's important that you separate your self-value from these external things, especially things that you cannot control. Now, I guess of course resilience comes into this. If you have a goal, if you want to do something, whether that's with your career, with your health, with fitness, with whatever it is, there will be setbacks. I'm not gonna sit here and lie to you, but there will be just how badly do you want it? What can you do? What can you control? Who is around you that you can lean on? These are the most important things, and these are the things that got me through sort of this period, these these years of just not knowing what I'm doing and what's happening. Alrighty. I think I said everything I wanted to say. I hope that this episode was personal, but also reflective, thoughtful, val thoughtful, valuable, and I hope you took a little something away from it and we got to know each other a little bit better. And I will see you on the next one. Bye bye.