For a long time, I did what good doctors do. I stayed. I served. I succeeded.
I practiced pediatrics for over two decades. I led teams. I opened new clinics. I guided wellness initiatives. I showed up for everyone.
On the outside, everything looked fine. On the inside, something wasn’t right.
I was tired. I felt trapped. I was quietly yearning for something more.
I didn’t have a dramatic collapse—in fact, I had already worked through burnout and was in a place where I enjoyed practicing pediatrics.
I enjoyed my patients. I had significant administrative time, and I found meaning in my leadership role in physician wellness.
The problem was a nagging whisper. One that grew louder and louder: this isn’t it anymore. I am slowly wilting.
The hardest part was not admitting this. It was figuring out how to change when it felt like everyone was depending on me—my patients, my colleagues, my kids, my husband. My identity was deeply tied to being a busy pediatrician and successful physician leader.
I didn't want to disappoint the people I loved—my patients, my colleagues, my kids—but in truth, I was disappointing them by not bringing my full self and my true strengths to the table.
Like many physicians, I was trained to put my own needs last. Like you, I was taught to trust evidence more than intuition.
In medicine, we’re told discomfort means something’s wrong. We learn to delay joy and to carry burden and struggle as a point of pride and a sign of being a good doctor.
But what if the longing for more isn’t a weakness—but wisdom?
How I Made the Leap
I didn’t set out to build a business, become a keynote speaker, work with my husband, or buy a farm.
I started by getting coached. While still working in medicine.
Coaching is what gave me the clarity and courage to begin both yoga teacher training and coach training.
Coaching and mindfulness changed me. Those changes allowed and empowered me to change my life.
Through my own experience, I came to understand, with certainty, that mindfulness and coaching were exactly what physicians needed to practice medicine sustainably—and passionately—in a system that is undeniably broken.
Coaching and mindfulness became, for me, like Kintsugi pottery—mending the broken places with gold and making something more beautiful and valuable in the process.
With this knowledge and my years of experience in the wellness realm, I couldn’t keep practicing medicine in a way that left me feeling disconnected from authentic self.
As Howard Thurman wrote, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
I had a deep, unshakable passion for physician wellness and supporting my colleagues. I was called to share my wisdom and experience further and farther.
I graduated from yoga teacher training. Then coach training. Each step was like a breadcrumb trail.
In early 2020, I left my clinical practice to create Pause & Presence—a heart-centered business rooted in physician coaching, leadership development, keynote speaking, and healing retreats.
Pause & Presence was born not out of strategy but out of listening—to my own soul, to what I saw missing, to what I knew was possible.
Three years in, my husband Mark left his law practice to work with me full-time. I needed help, and he was inspired by what I had built—so much so that he suggested I hire him when I was lamenting how much I had on my plate.
Instead of arguing for a living, he now brings nourishing culinary medicine to our retreats, as well as his legal expertise to support the many contractual aspects of running a growing business.
Together, we host transformative experiences on our Northern California farm—a place we intentionally sold our city home to be able to buy. We uprooted ourselves and invested in it specifically to offer a sanctuary for healing, connection, and meaningful change—for ourselves and others.
Pause & Presence is a tapestry of all that I love and am uniquely equipped to offer:
1:1 and group coaching for physicians
Leadership development programs and institutional retreats
Paid keynote speaking engagements
Coaching, yoga, mindfulness, and culinary medicine CME retreats
The Healing Medicine Podcast
A Mindful Yoga YouTube Channel
Why Change Feels So Hard—Especially in Medicine
The cost of being a “good doctor” doesn’t have to be your well-being.
For many physicians, this notion feels radical.
We’ve been conditioned to give until we’re empty. To serve at the expense of our sleep, our health, and sometimes even our sense of self.
We were taught to sacrifice. To stay the course. To wear burnout like a badge of honor.
In medical culture, martyrdom is celebrated. Creativity is questioned. Rest is considered a weakness.
Medicine that feels like alignment instead of exhaustion is considered decadent and indulgent.
In my work, I am struck again and again by the deep, unspoken yearning that so many physicians carry.
We long for more: more peace, more purpose, more presence, more passion.
Most physicians I meet are quietly craving something different—but feel stuck. Paralyzed by fear. Exhausted by the very system they trained so hard to be part of.
Wanting more doesn’t make us selfish. It makes us human. It makes us a force for healing—not just for our patients, but for ourselves.
Our problem isn’t a lack of resilience. It’s a lack of permission.
A lack of space. A lack of systems that allow us to show up as whole people.
We were trained to suppress our humanity—not honor it. We were taught to fear mistakes, avoid uncertainty, and seek approval. We overthink. We undervalue creativity. We try to do it all alone.
Alignment doesn’t come from sacrifice. It comes from presence. From trust. From sustainability.
You don’t need a perfect plan—just a clear intention and the courage to begin. There is not just one “right” way. There are many “right" ways. The system may not yet reflect your values, but you can still live them.
When you’re already successful,
change feels even riskier. You’re potentially giving up more: structure, status, predictability. Physicians face even more barriers:
We are trained to catastrophize and overanalyze. We are taught to seek certainty and control. To over-function and people-please. We work in a culture that sees burnout, self-sacrifice, and struggle as badges of honor
We forget that transformation isn’t about abandoning medicine. It’s about realigning with what matters most.
And it’s not all or none.
You don’t have to be burned out or on the verge of collapse to leave.
You can simply be called to more—or different.
A calling isn’t a flaw. It’s a guidepost.
What if your yearning for change is actually a sign of health?
When we are well—physically, emotionally, spiritually—we are most equipped to lead, to innovate, and to change not only our own lives, but the systems around us.
You can be good at something, and still decide to leave it. You can enjoy it, and still know in your bones that it’s no longer yours to do.
What It Actually Takes to Change
Physicians who want to reimagine how they practice medicine and actually make change happen need to embrace what I call the 7 C’s:
Courage – to ask what you truly want and trust the answer
Creativity – to build what doesn’t yet exist
Calm – to regulate your nervous system so you move forward with clarity, trust, and intention rather than fear and reactivity
Compassion – especially for yourself
Capacity – because nothing sustainable grows from depletion
Commitment – to keep showing up for the life and practice you want, even when it’s hard, uncertain, and unclear
Community – for support. Being seen by others walking the same brave path is invaluable and essential.
Your success will not come as a result of your self-doubt. It will come in spite of it.
We are taught hyper vigilance in medical and professional training. We’re told not to trust ourselves, not to approve of ourselves, and to doubt ourselves as a way to push harder and do more.
Learning to trust yourself is an excellence tool. Letting go of self-doubt is a performance enhancer. Feeling calm, grounded, and assured is a sustainable success strategy.
Trusting yourself and approving of yourself is a learned and practiced skill for almost all of us.
Who better than you to make a decision about your life?
If you have gotten this far with self-doubt leading the way, just imagine what might happen without it.
When you are willing to change yourself, not just your situation and move toward something meaningful—not just away from what hurts, you will be unstoppable.
When you nourish and heal your nervous system and regulate your energy, no one changes effectively from fight or flight or from empty, a world of possibility open up.
When you lean into kindness, compassion, and curiosity, you can't hate or judge yourself into sustained and effective change either- and get strategic support, you can’t not succeed.
Before I made my leap, I got healthy. I got coached. I practiced yoga and mindfulness.
I took a pause.
And I nourished my nervous system.
All of this allowed me to make decisions with clarity and intention.
Instead of saying, “One day,” it started with “Day one.”
How Pause & Presence Became a Metaphor for Fixing Medicine
A physician at one of our retreats once told me, What you are doing at Pause & Presence is a metaphor for how to fix medicine.
She was right.
We cannot fix medicine from depletion. We cannot shift culture with burnout.
Healing begins inside—with individuals. With mindful awareness, intentional presence, and new stories that empower rather than deplete.
Checklist wellness does not work and a checklist approach to career pivots does not either. Neither are not one-size-fits-all. They about reconnecting with our humanness and individuality—including the messiness and the meaning—and learning and utilizing tools that allow and create sustainable change.
At retreats, in coaching, and in every keynote I give, I aim to build a lighthouse, not a rescue raft.
I’m no longer bashing my head against systemic boulders. I’m building life preservers for others—tools, mindsets, and communities that allow us to float.
As Marc Nepo says, When you stop struggling, you float.
A New Way to Lead, A New Way to Live
Today, I work with individuals and institutions alike. From private coaching to grand rounds, from immersive retreats to keynotes at healthcare symposiums. I’ve seen the ripple effect of empowering just one physician to reconnect with their why. I’ve also seen entire departments shift when they do this together.
I don’t miss practicing traditional pediatrics.
My work is not behind me—it’s unfolding, expanding. This is medicine too. Potent, purposeful, heart-centered medicine.
I have found my own entry point to fix what’s broken in our system—one empowered, awake, and supported physician at a time.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled. And that has made all the difference.
And as I also like to say:
If the white coat—or the culture and practice of medicine—no longer fit, it’s time for a change.
Craft that change not from obligation or fear, but from purpose, presence, and possibility.
May you pause. Be present. And grow exactly what you need.
If you want support, please reach out.
You can find me at www.jessiemahoneymd.com . There is information there about private coaching (with or without CME), my Transition Well small group coaching program, and retreats - where we do all the things required for transformation and change at the same.
I also teach yoga on Zoom for free most Saturdays at 9 am Pacific. All are welcome. Link and schedule are shared in my weekly emails.
The Healing Medicine Podcast, which I cohost With Dr. Ni-Cheng Liang is full of episodes on transitioning, pivoting, changing, and/or choosing to stay with grace, elegance, and pride.
