After losing her husband in 2019, Dr. Kimberly found herself in the depths of loss while still running a busy dental practice and holding life together. Through that season, she leaned on a mindset of constant growth and created practical tools to sort priorities, ease overwhelm, and slowly rebuild life with purpose.
Press play to learn how to stop drowning in to-dos, start breathing again, and rebuild a life that feels lighter, fuller, and actually yours.
Episode Highlights:
05:54 The Rock, Water, and Sand Method
09:22 The Power of Intentional Breathing
12:42 How to Live Life Again
15:30 30-Day Live, Love, Survive, Thrive Challenge
Quotes:
02:54 “You don’t have to be strong all of the time. You just have to be real every time you show up for yourself. Even when it’s hard, you’re choosing to live more and live fully.” —Dr. Kimberly Hubenette
09:01 “Your accountability for today is to use your schedule time to move from task to task so you don’t spin your wheels, and that’s how you stay productive without burning out.” —Dr. Kimberly Hubenette
11:03 “In order to take action, we have to be in action, and we have to be healthy and strong.” —Dr. Kimberly Hubenette
12:57 “I realized, to reconnect with life, I needed to reconnect with meaningful moments.” —Dr. Kimberly Hubenette
14:54 “You’re not alone. You don’t have to do it alone. Support, guidance, and community are all available.” —Dr. Kimberly Hubenette
16:12 “Showing up for yourself every day is the first step towards thriving.” —Dr. Kimberly Hubenette
Meet Your Host:
Transcript:
Welcome to the Live, Love, Survive, Thrive! Podcast that helps you embrace life’s challenges, grow through adversity, and discover your true potential. I’m your host, Dr. Kimberly Hubenette, anti-aging dentist, widow, Author and inspirational Coach. I live by the “Can I” philosophy of constant and never ending improvement, and I’m here to help you do the same. Each week, we’ll dive into real conversations, powerful stories and practical tools to help you heal, grow and thrive. Whether you’re rebuilding after loss or ready to step into a more purposeful life, this space is for you. Let’s grow, evolve and thrive together.
Hello everybody. I’m Dr. Kimberly Hubenette, and this is Live, Love, Survive, Thrive! Today, I’m welcoming you back, and I wanted to take a moment. I want you to take a moment right now with me just to be wherever you are, whatever you’re feeling, pause, breathe in peace, and breathe out pressure. I know you might be multitasking. You might be driving around listening to the podcast, or you might be doing something else while you’re listening. But take a moment and just be present, because you might learn something a little bit more. I don’t want you to miss everything or anything on my podcast today. This is your space, your sacred pause to come home to yourself. You don’t need to fix anything. You don’t need to have all figured out. You just need to show up, and you did. So welcome.
Healing isn’t just about rushing to the finish line. It’s about honoring every step, even the messy ones. So wherever you are on your path of your grief journey, starting over, holding grief, or rising in a new way, you are not alone. Before we dive in, hear this, you don’t have to be strong all of the time. You just have to be real every time you show up for yourself. And even when it’s hard, you’re choosing to live more and live fully.
Welcome to the Live, Love, Survive, Thrive! Podcast. So there I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, wishing I didn’t have to face another day. I had just lost my husband, Mark. This was in 2019. Mark was extraordinary. He lived with cystic fibrosis. And after a double lung transplant, he beat the odds for another 21 amazing years. During that time, he did not let his diagnosis define him. In fact, he looked normal if you looked at him. He didn’t have tubes or anything. He didn’t have an oxygen tank. He was riding motorcycles, we camped, and he even served on Sonoma search and rescue for over 8 years of volunteering. He lived fully, courageously and with joy, even in the face of his life challenges. I thought it was going to last for a long time, forever. And then suddenly, he was gone, and I was lost. I was depressed and was overwhelmed, but I didn’t have the luxury of staying in bed.
I’m a cosmetic dentist, and I still practice. I’ve been practicing for over 30 years, and I own my own dental office here in Sonoma, California. My team and patients depend on me. I depend on me. Running a practice isn’t easy, and I know that with struggling and juggling patients, staff, and endless responsibilities. I’m trying to take care of myself. As business owners, you probably have the same thing. You probably juggle around lots of things, and you still need to take care of yourself. Well, one thing I’ve learned over the years is the power and the structure of “can I” constant and never ending improvement dentistry. As we see it, we schedule every minute, prioritize every patient, and make sure nothing falls through the cracks. And that’s exactly how I approach my own life, even after loss, by taking the same principles I use in my office, applying them to my day to day on my overwhelm and my healing. This helped me get through it, so I wanted to share it with you my method so that maybe it could help you.
So my method, I call it the Rock, Water, Sand method. Rocks are your top priority, the non negotiables. Water, more important things that can wait a little bit. Sand is the nice to-do tasks that are the fillers, the optionals, or the long term things. So when Rosco, my dog tried to get me out of bed that day. Rosco, Rosco, Rosco. Roscoe had always been the rock for my husband Mark when he was sick. Rosco always knew when my husband Mark needed care, or when he was sick, or when he needed comfort. And that day when I was laying in bed and I didn’t want to get out of bed, he pawed at my face, refusing to let me be ignoring him, and something inside me whispered, Kimberly, you can’t go on doing this. You have to get up. You have to do something. So that was my turning point. That’s when I grabbed a notebook, took a deep breath, and began the workings of moving forward. My “Can I” strategy.
All right, let’s start talking about something that’s really connecting with everybody. You know there are a lot of high achieving women out there that all know too well about overwhelm. You know who you are, and you know that what you’re feeling. Like your brain is running 100 miles an hour, and your heart is racing. And no matter what you do, the list of things to get done just keep piling up, piling up, piling up.
Here’s the first thing I want you to do. I want you to identify what’s truly causing your overwhelm. Grab a notebook and just imagine, on a piece of paper, write down your top five things weighing you down, and what’s the strategy? It’s just like when you see a patient, I think about the rock, water and sand. So the rocks, what’s the top one to two things on your list that you must tackle today that are the non negotiables? Then you have the water, the medium. What’s important, but maybe can wait a little bit longer, a few days or a week? And then there’s the sand, the small box stuff. Maybe it’s the nice to-do tasks that aren’t that urgent, but should be done. Besides each of these items, jot down how it makes you feel, your emotions are a compass? Tackle the rocks first, maybe do some water things, and maybe then do the sand, and then let it be. Your accountability for today is use your schedule time to move from task to task so you don’t spin your wheels, and that’s how you stay productive without burning out.
As far as it goes when I’m in overwhelm, I like to do breathing exercises also. So maybe task things aren’t your thing, and maybe breathing things are. So a few things that I do is I do 10 intentional breathings before I wake up in the morning, before I get out of bed because that oxygen fuels your mind and your body. If you don’t have oxygen in your mouth and in your brain, then you’re sleepy, and you can’t really think straight. So take a deep breath and release, and take a deep breath and release. Every time you take a deep breath, the pressure of the day goes away a little bit at a time. So when I do these breathing exercises, it really helps me get through the day. Some days, I like to look in the mirror and say my affirmation like, Kim, you’re gonna conquer the world today. Kim, you’re a strong woman. Kim, you can overpower and over conquer your depression, or your needs for today. And you can even say to yourself, I love you. Or you can say I love you to your loved one. Like, I love you, Mark. I’m glad that you’re here with me today. Because you know what? Your loved one surrounds you every day, if you didn’t know that.
And then you can also do some stretching. I like to stretch, move my neck, my arms, my hips before I get out of bed. And I always think of it this way. In order to take action, we have to be in action, and we have to be healthy and strong. I break my tasks down into little, bite sized pieces. I also break myself things down. Kind of like think about like a tree, another way of thinking about life. So you have your tree, you have the branches, you have the leaves, and you have the roots. So if you think of your life as a tree, think of the leaves as small winds, think of the branches as the medium priorities, and think of the roots as the big foundational changes. So if you’re not into rock, sand, water, maybe you’re into trees, leaf, branch and roots. Whatever it may be, however it may be, and however it might connect with you, I want to challenge you to do that. Think about those things. And then every evening when you go to sleep, or before you go to sleep, check off your accomplishments whether it be really small or really large. You did something. Hey, you showed up today. I also like to journal my priorities for the next day. Then if I write everything down on the things that I need the next day around, then my mind feels lighter, and I can go to sleep. Maybe your mind will feel lighter and your energy will be restored when you get rid of it. Write it down, get rid of it.
So the third thing today I want to share with you is how to live life again as I see it. After my husband died, I felt disconnected from everything, even myself. I realized to reconnect with life. I needed to reconnect with meaningful moments. With your journal that you have, or take a paper and write these things down. You want to write three things down that you’ve accomplished, near term and tangible things, set a date and write what you want to do, what you want to set, what you want to do. Doing things like this brings me light, fullness, joy and energy. And maybe it will do that with you. That’s what living again feels like to me. Small steps, taking action, and building back your life and your heart.
I remember one day that I had a leaky sink, and I tried to fix it myself. I looked at YouTube channels tutorials, I went to the store, I bought all the things that it said to do on the YouTube channel, and drip, drip, drip. I was so excited that I could try to fix it, and then I was frustrated that it didn’t work. All of a sudden, it started like having more and more water instead of less and less water. Man, it was so exhausting. Then finally, I decided to call a plumber, and he fixed it. No drips, no stress. But you know what? It took me three and a half days and a whole bunch of money later to figure this out. What was the lesson? Well, life is like that sink. Sometimes we try to do everything ourselves, and we push through overwhelm, overthink solutions, and waste energy, and waste time, and wasting life that we didn’t need to do.
So you know what my message is? You’re not alone. You don’t have to do it alone. Support and guide. Science and community are all available. I want you to tune in each week to listen to my podcast. Maybe you’ll find something that resounds with you and resonates with you. You know there’s strength in helping, getting help and accepting help so I really hope that you enjoyed the messages today, and I hope that you will join me next week.
And before we wrap up, I wanted to share something special. I’m launching a 30 Day Live, Love, Survive, Thrive! Challenge, perfect for anyone feeling the weight of the holidays. Each day will include short exercises, journaling prompts and micro actions to help you reconnect with yourself, your energy and your joy. The goal is simple, to feel lighter, more present, and more capable of enjoying life again, even during a challenging season. Check the show notes for the links to join me. And remember, showing up for yourself every day is the first step towards thriving. Today, you’ve taken that first step, you’ve shown up. Keep breathing, keep reflecting, and keep moving. You are capable. You are resilient, and you are not alone. Until next week. Keep living, loving, surviving and thriving.
Thank you for joining me on this episode of Live, Love, Survive, Thrive!. I hope our time together has inspired you to embrace life’s challenges, find the courage to overcome obstacles, and create a life filled with love, purpose and fulfillment. If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast. Your feedback means the world to me, and to help us continue to bring you stories and tools to empower your journey. And if you have a story of resilience, transformation or thriving after adversity, I’d love to hear from you. Reach out to me directly at LiveLoveSurviveThrive@gmail.com. You never know, your story might just be the inspiration someone else needs to hear.
To learn more about me and my work, visit my website at www.drkimberlyhubenette.com. While you’re there, be sure to check out my current book GRID: Once in a Lifetime, You Get to Start Over, a guide to rebuilding and rediscovering life after loss. Get a sneak peek at my upcoming book, Live, Love, Survive, Thrive!, a powerful companion to this podcast, and a heartfelt roadmap to reclaiming joy, resilience and meaning after life’s toughest seasons. You can also connect with me on social media. Follow me on Facebook at authordr.kimberlyhubenette. Follow me on Instagram with the same name, and subscribe to my Youtube channel at Live, Love, Survive, Thrive! for more inspiration and insights.
Remember, you have the power within you to write your story and thrive beyond your wildest imaginations. Keep relearning to live love, survive, thrive every single day. Until next time, I’m Dr. Kimberly Hubenette, and this is Live, Love, Survive, Thrive!