The Show I Never Chose but Always Watched

I’ve spoken with many dentists, both through education programs and as patients in my clinic. 

Dentistry has exceptionally high rates of stress, burnout, and suicide. 

Dr. Chan isn’t a real person.

She’s a composite of countless conversations with dentists and other high performers with similar traits. 

One dentist told me she spent her drive home replaying conversations with employees.

Another found herself mentally rehearsing procedures scheduled days in advance.

Dr. Chan represents those conversations.

One evening she was driving home while replaying a tense exchange with an employee.

She found herself replaying the discussion in her head, imagining better responses. 

By the time she pulled into the driveway, she could barely remember the drive home.

Her body had been on the road, but her mind had been somewhere else.

All of us can relate to these experiences that replay automatically all day and often at night.

Do these actually impact our energy? 

Wednesday : The hidden energy leak most high performers never see until they learn where to look.

Mechanism

For the past five weeks we’ve been building a vehicle.

An energy dashboard, an accelerator, a clock, and then the brakes. 

This week we turn our attention to the windshield.

Take a look at the image above.

Pilots and many modern vehicles use a Heads-Up Display (HUD).

An HUD projects a semi-transparent layer of key information on the windshield. 

In the image, the road represents reality: what’s actually happening, right here, right now. 

But projected over that reality is another layer.

A criticism, a past conflict, a future worry, etc. 

When that layer becomes too vivid, we no longer see the road (aka reality). 

Now notice the thin line connecting the HUD to the battery.

That invisible layer from the HUD actually uses energy.

It’s a constant power leak, even when you’re at rest. 

And it’s not just visual. Most projections come with audio too.

An inner soundtrack of commentary, criticism, worry, and prediction.

You might think that inner dialogue is silent, but an MIT researcher showed it was real.

He invented the AlterEgo device, a headset that detects the tiny muscle signals produced during silent speech and converts them into words on a screen.

Think about that for a moment.

What you thought was silent head talk sends an actual physical signal to the rest of your body.

The HUD may not consume much power at any given moment.

But for most of us, it runs constantly in the background, consuming considerable energy over time.

I’ve noticed patients who appear calmest on the outside often have the loudest inner dialogue.

As stress increases, the display gets brighter and the inner audio gets louder. 

It may not be possible to turn the HUD off, but we can learn to turn it down.

The Tool: Headflix

Headflix is the continuous stream of thoughts and commentary that plays inside your head.

It’s similar to the Heads Up Display projected onto a windshield from earlier. 

If the projection becomes too bright, it becomes harder to see the road.

Something similar happens with Headflix.

A replay, a worry, or a criticism can become so convincing that it starts to feel like reality.

The breakthrough is surprisingly simple.

By asking a single question, you shift activity from the emotional brain toward the thinking brain:

What show am I watching right now?

The moment you recognize the show, the projection loses some of its power.

The road comes back into view.

Notice the dashboard dimmer slider on the right side of the image from above. 

Last week we learned to tap the brakes through breathing. 

This week we are learning to dim the display.

The goal isn’t to eliminate the show.

It’s to lower the volume so it has less impact on your mind, body, and energy.

Just as braking reduces fuel consumption, a dimmer HUD consumes less power.

That leaves more energy for the moments that truly need it. 

Use the protocol card below as a guide this week.

Dr. Chan initially assumed her fatigue came from a busy schedule, difficult cases, and the usual demands of practice.

This week introduced a different possibility.

Some of our energy may be consumed by processes running quietly in the background.

Replays, worries, criticisms, and mental conversations that never fully end.

The HUD image and Headflix protocol card help you visualize the energy drain. 

What background operation seems to consume the most energy in your life right now?

Poll

• Replay
• Worry
• Criticism
• Comparison
• Other