Who Am I Under All These Roles? Dr. Valentina Serna on Identity Lessons for Physician Moms

To go to a specific point in the transcript, please use the Episode Timeline below.

• Introduction: Welcoming Dr. Valentina Serna and Physician Moms Seeking Balance
• Dr. Valentina Serna’s Personal Health Journey: Lessons for High-Achieving Moms in Healthcare
• Redefining a Medical Career Path: From Conventional Practice to Holistic Approaches
• Motherhood and Personal Growth: How Becoming a Mom Reshapes a Physician’s Identity
• Emotional Awareness in Parenting: Practical Tips for Physician Moms
• Entrepreneurship and Podcasting: Building a Mission-Driven Platform as a Doctor Mom
• Conclusion: Key Takeaways and Encouragement for Physician Moms Shedding Roles

Episode 81: Who Am I Under All These Roles? Dr. Valentina Serna on Identity Lessons for Physician Moms

“All those things are just roles,” says Dr. Valentina Serna – physician, mother of three, entrepreneur and podcaster. “I’ve been working a lot lately to not attach myself to those identities. Because I’m just me.”

When I heard her say that I thought about how easy it is to tie yourself to a role in life.

I thought of every mom in medicine that also feels the weight of titles. The surgeon. The pediatrician. The mother. The daughter. And underneath it all, there’s a quiet fear: “Who am I, really, when the titles fall away?”

In today’s conversation, Dr. Serna shares how severe illness, a brave career shift, and learning from her own children taught her to claim life as her true self. It’s about finding an identity for physician moms.

It’s about what it means to be “just you.”

Introduction: Welcoming Dr. Valentina Serna and Physician Moms Seeking Balance

Dr. Cindy: Hello everyone and thank you for coming to the Inspired Mom podcast. My name is Dr. Cindy Van Praag, and today I have a special guest.

Her name is Dr. Valentina Serna and she is a physician trained in integrative medicine. She is a mother of three girls and the voice behind the Spanish language podcast "Te para el alma." Her journey began with years of unexplained allergies and skin conditions. They forced her to listen deeply to her own body, her emotions, and eventually to the patients that she now serves.

In our conversation today, you'll hear how motherhood reshaped her identity as a doctor and why she's passionate about creating a more human personalized path to healing. We'll also talk about her podcast and the creative life that she has built as a physician entrepreneur.

I can't wait to get started. Welcome Dr. Serna.

Dr. Serna: Thank you very much for this invitation. I'm really, really excited. First English episode, so…

Dr. Cindy: You are doing fantastic, and we've already been chatting for five, ten minutes, everybody, and she's fine. She's perfect!

Dr. Cindy: My first question is just to get to know you – so you're a physician, you're a mom of three girls and an entrepreneur. And when you think about all of those identities, what feels most alive for you right now?

Dr. Serna: Hmm. Yeah. I'm a physician, a mother of three girls, an entrepreneur, a podcaster, and sometimes a writer too.

Dr. Cindy: Ooh, okay.

Dr. Serna: And but the thing is that all those things are just roles.

Dr. Cindy: Mm.

Dr. Serna: I have been working a lot lately to not attach me to those identities. Because I’m just me. And if I decide not to be a physician anymore, I will still be me. So, yes, my identity is just to be a human being.

Dr. Cindy: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Serna: And I have a lot of roles that I love. And sometimes I identify myself with a little bit more being a mother and sometimes more being a physician, sometimes more being a coach and sometimes being a podcaster, but that's not who I am.

Dr. Cindy: That is such a great lesson because a lot of times when you say no to something in life, it feels like you're giving away a piece of your identity. But if you're looking at it like, well, I'm just human, then you're not giving away anything. You're just giving away a role.

Dr. Serna: Yes.

Dr. Cindy: Oh, I love that wisdom.

Dr. Serna: The thing is that when you decide to be a physician it is like your whole identity is just being a physician. And it's so hard to be conscious of that and let go of that.

Dr. Cindy: Yes. I completely agree.

Dr. Valentina Serna’s Personal Health Journey: Lessons for High-Achieving Moms in Healthcare

Dr. Cindy: In my introduction, I briefly mentioned some of your health struggles when you were younger. So, if you would like, can you quickly describe what was happening at that time and how did that shape your path?

Dr. Serna: Okay. Yeah, I think that a big part of whom I am today is because of the struggles in my health that I had in my whole life. Because it really started when I was really young, like perhaps I was eight, nine, perhaps, and it started with a stomach ache. I had a like burning and the diagnosis was gastritis. But the thing was that I would even end up throwing up in the school a lot of times.

And the thing is that I didn't understand then, but I understand now that it was connected to my emotional state, to how my nervous system was in those days, but I, in that moment, I didn't understand. And those digestive symptoms then like diminished. Perhaps vanished. And then it started with tonsillitis, tonsillitis number 1, 2, 3, 10, I don't know how many. And the tonsillitis ended up with abscesses. You know, and I had countless rounds of antibiotics.

Dr. Cindy: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Serna: It was so bad. Like, for me it was so hard to really find out what was going on with me. I already made those questions to me, but I didn't change, it didn't change my life. It was not so hard. At the end of time, like I ended up with the same routine, with the same choices until I had my eczema. I think another word is dermatitis.

But it was really, really severe. Like it was just on my face, and all my skin went down. And, when people saw me, they said to me that I looked like I was burned.

Dr. Cindy: Oh wow.

Dr. Serna: Uh, it was really, really bad. And I tried everything medicine could give me; conventional medicine could give me. I had cortisone, topical and also injected. But then I was not just fat, but also I got an infection on my skin because of all that cortisone. So now I had dermatitis with an infection, and then it was so just so bad I couldn't leave my home for more than three months.

That was it. Like at that point in my life, everything changed. Like I felt that, okay, I have to do something else. You know, this is not working. This is not enough for me because cortisone, yes, I had some relief for some hours, but then everything came back.

So that's when I decided okay, I have to let go. I have to cry, I have to yell and then realize that I had to change my food, my habits, my priorities. And the most of what I changed was the relationship with myself.

See, and then I think it started my me, my integrative path. You know, like I was like, I don't know, 23, 24, but I already knew that I had to choose another path I wanted to serve, but not in that way.

Dr. Cindy: Yeah. So that turning point was when you were at home for three months? Yeah. And that really shifted you from, I guess all of these symptoms and the treatments controlling you to you taking control.

Dr. Serna: I don't like the word control because we don't control anything in our lives.

Dr. Cindy: Okay.

Dr. Serna: Not even our bodies. I think, yeah. It started the journey to make contact with myself. With what my body was trying to tell me. It was yelling, in fact. Even here it started at nine, you know, and I had another symptom, another symptom, another symptom, until it was so bad that it was screaming and I had just to pause and, and really hear.

Dr. Cindy: And that's what led you into more the integrative path?

Dr. Serna: I wasn't sure at that moment. I wasn't sure.

Dr. Cindy: I hear that.

Dr. Serna: It was a feeling, you know?

Dr. Cindy: I do. I had a similar feeling when I was early in my career, which is straight allopathic, anesthesiology, but I had a feeling about the integrative side of things, but I didn't pursue it. The feeling is there and then it grows and grows.

Redefining a Medical Career Path: From Conventional Practice to Holistic Approaches

Dr. Cindy: Tell us about how that moved you into your line of work now. What do you do now?

Dr. Serna: After I finished med school, in Columbia where I live, in my country we have to do a year that is like a social work. We have to go to little towns and do one year of social work. Being the only physician sometimes. And that was so horrible. That was really, really horrible. I ended up with more infections, with panic attacks, anxiety with a lot of things. And then my mom came one day, and she said to me, “Okay, you're almost dead. You have to quit.”

And it was also like a turning point, I decided no, this is definitely not my way. I'm sick again. But I needed that so I could work as a physician in Columbia.

Dr. Cindy: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Serna: But I couldn't anymore. My body was saying to me, you cannot anymore. So, I quit. And when I quit, I met my husband. I got pregnant with twins, and then I decided, I wanted to do coaching and a integrative nutrition coaching. That was in New York, IAN And that was it.

When I started studying, I felt so identified with what I learned, I felt that this was my path, the start of my path. And because of that coaching, I started some consults and then I changed my city. I did one year of research in psychiatry, and then I could earn my permission to work as a physician.

After that I started my consult as a physician and then as a nutritionist. I knew about the integrative fellowship in Arizona. And that was it. I did it. Uh, it was lovely. I loved every day, everything. I was curious. That didn't happen to me before in my pre-med. I really liked everything that I learned and then I could integrate that into my practice.

And after a few years, I also felt that sometimes eating well was not enough, or changing habits was not enough. And then I decided to do another facilitation coaching on transpersonal psychology. So now what I do is to guide my patients to integrate the trauma, the emotional, wounds into the symptoms. You know, like correlate the symptoms with our emotional self.

Dr. Cindy: What a journey. And you had twins along that way too.

Dr. Serna: I had twins and then I had another girl, here, at home. In her room. It was really beautiful. I wrote a book about it. It is called Rebirth.

Dr. Cindy: Oh wow.

Dr. Serna: And it's about the conscious birth, I think it's an entitled, I'm not sure. How to be present when you're pregnant and you're giving.

Dr. Cindy: That sounds beautiful. I'm sure you'll give us a link to your book. We can give that to listeners.

Dr. Serna: In Spanish.

Dr. Cindy: Yeah, that's okay.

Dr. Serna: For sure.

Motherhood and Personal Growth: How Becoming a Mom Reshapes a Physician’s Identity

Dr. Cindy: I've read some of your writing and you've called motherhood, a "totem", and I'm putting that in quotes.

Dr. Serna: Yes.

Dr. Cindy: That transformed you from the root. Can you share with us what that means?

Dr. Serna: Yeah. None of my kids were planned. I got pregnant before I really knew I wanted to be a mother. Before I knew what I wanted to do or to be in my life. And I felt that since the pregnancy, they were already my teachers, they were already my mentors. And that has not changed along the pathway of being a parent.

You know, they teach me a lot. They have been always a mirror for me, for what I have not healed yet.

Dr. Cindy: Hmm.

Dr. Serna: So, they always show me what I need to work on me. And I think we can all share that feeling if we are really conscious, you know, if we are present. And I think that's not comfortable, but that has made me a much better human being. It's challenging and even if it's really, really hard

Dr. Cindy: Sometimes it's hard to just to have a mirror on yourself and see what needs to change.

Dr. Serna: For sure. Yeah. But I think our generation has something beautiful and it's sometimes when I make a mistake with them, when sometimes I'm not patient and I yell at them, well, I just say, “I'm sorry, I'm really sorry.”

Dr. Cindy: Right. And you mentioned they help you to be present. What practices help you to be present, both when you're with your children, but also when you're working?

Emotional Awareness in Parenting: Practical Tips for Physician Moms

Dr. Serna: Some years ago, I say to them always like, when they were yelling or it was like a chaos in my home. I say to them like, breathe, breathe, breathe. No, but then I understood that they will mirror me, and they wouldn't breathe if I don't breathe.

So, I breathe. Sometimes I cannot because I'm a human being. But sometimes when I realize that I'm not in myself, I try to breathe, you know, to make a pause, to breathe. I close my eyes and then perhaps they can appreciate that, and they also breathe.

We do an exercise, with the little one, that we pick up a flower and we smell the flower. It's an imaginary flower. You know, we just take it, and we smell the flower. We inhale and then we exhale, and we pick another flower, and we inhale and we exhale.

But also, with breathing comes a thing that I just learned as an adult, and now I'm teaching them. It's to name the emotion that we are feeling. For us adults we struggle with that. And they, as kids, even more so sometimes when I'm good – when I'm calm, I breathe, I pause, and then I try to say to them, “Okay, you're mad, you're angry. You're angry because your sister took your bicycle, you know? And it's okay to be angry, but you cannot kid us.”

When I name the emotion, I feel better, but she also feels better. Sometimes the amygdala gets like, whew, and then everything gets better. Sometimes she still cries. But she's not in such chaos in herself. You know? So, naming the emotions has helped me. I have a circle here on the wall with a lot of emotions that help me to put a name, to name, and then I do the same thing with them.

Dr. Cindy: Yeah, I'm hearing that your children are mirror to what you're doing, and so what you've done is first off, breathe. That's your primary goal in helping yourself be present. You're becoming present and you're breathing and you're calming your own amygdala, but you're modeling to your children how to respond to stress and chaos that happens in life. They're learning how to behave from you, and then they're learning how to name their emotions. How old is your daughter that you're talking about?

Dr. Serna: Four.

Dr. Cindy: Oh, she's little. Okay.

Dr. Serna: Yeah, she's four. So, she doesn't know her emotions yet, you know? She cannot identify, so I help her with that. But I feel that when I help her, I help me.

Dr. Cindy: Yes.

Dr. Serna: But that thing of modeling. Sometimes it's so hard when I read about it, when I saw videos about it from kids psychologists. It was so hard because I felt that sometimes I cannot even recognize those emotions in me. How can I do it for my kid? I felt so impotent, like I felt like frustrated, but then with patients and with calm and with practice, it's getting a little bit easier to do it.

Dr. Cindy: What would you recommend moms who are listening now do to help name their emotions? What's helped you the most?

Dr. Serna: For me, it's printing. I have an emotion circle because sometimes we have so many emotions that we don't know, even us how to name it. Like I can read here, like devastated or ashamed or rejected or insecure or terrified, you know.

But sometimes we don't know those names in those moments. And sometimes when I read the circle, then I say,”Ah, wow, what I feel is depressed or I feel is interested, or I'm confused.” And then everything get a little bit clarified. And sometimes it's not just one word. Perhaps you're feeling feelings are complex. So sometimes I can feel a lot of emotions at the same time. Like I'm scared, but I'm also confused. But I'm also scared. I know it's a mix, but if I name it, I think everything gets calmer.

Dr. Cindy: Mm-hmm. It sounds like you're stepping out of the emotion, and looking back as kind of a third party to name the emotion. It kind of puts you in a different role of observer. And the observer's usually calmer than the person who's experiencing the emotion.

Dr. Serna: For sure. For sure. Yeah. And I think also with my patients, I, I teach them this, to be curious. That's what I try to do with my kids. It's so hard to be curious with what they are feeling and why they're yelling and what they are anxious and why they are angry. If you're curious, you then understand that perhaps they're feeling threatened.

And then everything makes, makes sense, you know? Like, wow, that's why she's crying so much.

Dr. Cindy: That word curiosity is so valuable. It really keeps us from making assumptions about what the other person is thinking or feeling, or why they did what they did. And if we approach it with curiosity then we're not reactive to it and we, I guess I'm saying, we meaning me. I'm not reactive to it. And I learned something about that person that for sure my emotions wouldn't have let me learn if I wasn't curious.

Dr. Serna: For sure.

Dr. Cindy: I love that you're touching on that.

Dr. Serna: Here with our patients to be curious.

And I say compassion is curiosity without judgment. That's for me, compassion. And I think with my patients, it's really easy to do it. With my kids is hard and with myself it is really hard.

Dr. Cindy: Yes.

Dr. Serna: That's it, because if I learn with my kids, perhaps I can relearn how to do it that with myself, I have to be curious with myself.

Entrepreneurship and Podcasting: Building a Mission-Driven Platform as a Doctor Mom

Dr. Cindy: You have your practice, and you also create content. You mentioned you're a writer; you're a podcaster. What really motivated you to step more into entrepreneurship alongside seeing patients?

Dr. Serna: This is going to sound so sad, and I don't want to sound like a victim. But here, the term integrative medicine almost doesn't exist. You know, in Columbia there is a lot of alternative medicine. But I don't like alternative. So, the term integrative medicine is not yet known as in United States. Okay. I would love to work at hospital where there is a center of integrative medicine, but that doesn't exist, so I have to work on myself.

I think I'm opening a path that it's already made in United States or in Canada for perhaps. But here in Latin America and in Columbia. Not yet. We are not yet there.

Dr. Cindy: But you are leading the way, you are a trailblazer, as we call it.

Dr. Serna: Yeah. It's hard. It's hard because every time I have to explain, you know?

Dr. Cindy: True.

Dr. Serna: And sometimes they associate this kind of medicine with stars or with esoteric things or with rocks, you know? Perhaps it can contain some of those things, but for me it's not like that. Evidence based medicine, in a more open perspective, in a way that I can see the human being as a complete self, I don't know how to say. Like, I love to make this integration with mind and body and the context you're living in.

Dr. Cindy: Right. The mind, body, and spirit.

Dr. Serna: And I think I also follow my gut feelings for sure, because I'm connected with my body. But what I do about the circle of emotions, that's not because I invented that, you know, there is a theory behind that.

I know that it works because I have read psychologists and psychotherapists that work on that. My great mentor has been Gabor Mate and almost what I do is what he does. Or I hope so. I hope so.

Dr. Cindy: Gabor Mate, wouldn't it be great if he was listening? What advice would you give to other women in healthcare who are feeling called to do something outside of traditional medicine who deep down want to be a trailblazer like you. What would you say to them?

Dr. Serna: I wrote that answer and I wrote to listen to their hearts to be faithful to what is true to them. And I quote Gabor Mate, he says that, "We become ill when we are not being ourselves." So, if we follow this pre-established medical path, what would happen is that they will get frustrated, but even more they will get ill.

I have been there, you know, so. I think this path is not for everyone and I think I am really glad there is conventional medicine and that I can go to a surgeon. I'm really glad about it and I think there are amazing doctors, you know, conventional mindset.

A few days ago, I took one of my girls to an endocrinologist, and it's really conventional. It was a good consult, you know? But I think that path is not for all. And the thing is that if we are not faithful to ourselves, we will not just get sad or angry with ourselves so that we will get sick.

Dr. Cindy: And each person is called to a different path, and we all complement each other. Of course we need the surgeon, we need the endocrinologist, not that they can't bring integrative medicine to their practice, but we need doctors and physicians and caregivers of all types.

Dr. Serna: Yeah.

Dr. Cindy: That speak to us where we are in that moment. Tell us a little bit about your podcast. What inspired you to start it? What are the topics that you cover?

Dr. Serna: Okay. My podcast is called Tea for the Soul. In Spanish it's Te para el alma. And it was inspired because I have a friend of mine that had breast cancer and when she told me her story, I felt that there was so much courage in that story. Also, it was so vulnerable. What she told. And I felt that that testimony had to be heard. You know, like so many people will benefit from that testimony that perhaps I could be the channel and that's it.

And that's how it started. She was my first episode. It was the secret of healing, the Secret of the Disease, something like that. The translation.

What I do in my podcast is to interview people, normal people that had gone through disease, different kinds of disease. It can be cancer, it can be autoimmune disease. I interviewed a girl without a leg because of a trauma she had when she was a little girl. And I also interviewed a friend that had vertigo and a boy that had depression and anxiety. And what I try to do in my post podcast is like medicine from another point of view and how the disease can be an opportunity for growth and how you can share resources to other people that have helped you to a healing path.

Dr. Cindy: So, listeners with a similar disease can maybe find help from your guests?

Dr. Serna: Yeah. But the thing is that, for example, my husband has listened all the episodes. And he, and other friends had said to me that they can relate to the stories even though they had that disease. You know, because at the end, no matter what disease we have, or no, no matter what we are dealing in life

We can always breathe, we can always make a pause. We can always take those resources to our lives, you know? To be present in our bodies, to learn how to listen to our bodies. And I think in all the stories, there's this common point, like this path of pause, this path of breathing, this path of meditation, this path of connectedness.

And so we can all, all relate no matter how the story was.

Dr. Cindy: There's a common thread. A common thread between your guests. Yeah. That's beautiful.

Dr. Serna: We are all humans, you know?

Dr. Cindy: True.

Key Takeaways and Encouragement for Physician Moms Shedding Roles

Dr. Cindy: Where can people find you to connect with you and where can they find your podcast?

Dr. Serna: My podcast is on Spotify. It's not in English. And also I have a webpage. It's Valentina Serna with an h, ValentinaSernah.com.

Dr. Cindy: Okay, perfect. Thank you so much for being our guest today. I thank you for sharing your story and for being vulnerable and for sharing some of the tools that you use to be healthy.

Dr. Serna: And thank you for making a voice for the physicians that want to take another path or want to be conscious of and taking, a different perspective.

Dr. Cindy: I appreciate that. Thank you so much.

Dr. Serna: That's also really a struggle to think that I could be a physician in another way.

Dr. Cindy: Bingo. Exactly. Yes. You get to be how you want to be. You don't have to follow a set path. It is hard. Yeah. And then you combine that with motherhood, and it makes life more fun, doesn't it?

Dr. Serna: Yeah.

Dr. Cindy: Your beautiful children though. Thank you. And everybody listening. As always, thank you so much for being here today for listening. If this episode resonates with you, please share with a friend. Thank you.