Ep. 62 - Dr. Karen Bodemer - The Healing Power of Forgiveness

What does it truly mean to discover your identity through adversity? This is a profound question we explore with Dr. Karen Bodemer, a physician whose journey took her from the heart of Pretoria's HIV wards to the rural landscapes of Saskatchewan, Canada. Her story is not just about professional achievements but also about the resilience, faith, and the power of forgiveness that shaped her path. 

Karen's reflections on her greatest failure, the lessons learned from neglecting her first husband due to the overwhelming demands of her profession, and her advice to young professionals on maintaining intentional relationships offer invaluable insights into balancing career and personal life.

Tune in to hear Karen's remarkable journey and how it can inspire you to align your work with your true self, find strength in forgiveness, and nurture the relationships that matter most.

Thanks for listening!

Click here to take the LeaderImpact Assessment and to receive the first chapter of Becoming a Leader of Impact by Braden Douglas.

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Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:05

Welcome to the Leader Impact Podcast. We are a community of leaders with a network in over 350 cities around the world, dedicated to optimizing our personal, professional and spiritual lives to have impact. This show is where we have a chance to listen and engage with leaders who are living this out. We love talking with leaders, so if you have any questions, comments or suggestions to make this show even better, please let us know. The best way to stay connected in Canada is through our newsletter at leaderimpact. ca or on social at Leader Impact If you're listening from outside of Canada, check out our website at leaderimpact. com. D S K P

Speaker 2: 0:38

I'm your host, lLisa Peters, and our guest today is Dr Karen Bodemer. Dr Bodemer received her medical degree from South Africa's University of Pretoria and worked as a doctor in South Africa for 21 years before moving to Canada in 2017. Following her husband, dr David Hyman, to Oxbow, saskatchewan, it took Karen two and a half years to attain her license in Canada, and then she joined the Galloway Health Centre, where she practiced for three years. Dr Bodimar and her husband relocated to Regina in 2022. And, with the shortage of doctors around the world, we are very excited to have her in our city. Welcome to the show, karen. Hello, hi, hello, did I say Pretoria right? Did I say that right? Yeah, pretoria.

Speaker 1: 1:26

And we actually moved to Regina, sorry, in 2023, just last year.

Speaker 2: 1:31

So you haven't been there that long. Well, we're very excited to have you and over the last few weeks we have got to meet and I found you hilarious and funny, so I'm expecting big things here today. Just saying, just saying so, obviously I mean Leader Impact. We're here to share a bit of our stories and our journeys and those pivotal moments. So the first question is just about that A bit of your professional story and how you got to where you are today and if you can give us those pivotal turning points along that journey, those big highlights. Okay. So I was fortunate enough to grow up in a household where both my parents were physicians. So it was easy enough. You know, in those days you're basically your parents enroll you and, lucky enough, it was something that suited me. So my brother and I both did medicine and I finished when I was only 23 years old. Then I started working with the African people and I learned their language and I eventually found myself in a family practice in downtown Pretoria, which is not a very affluent area and doing mostly HIV, because the statistics in South Africa is we have the highest HIV population. So that was a big part, and that was even before we had antiretroviral drugs. So it was an interesting time. But it was a lovely time and I really got very fond of the African people. They are very joyful, very thankful, very loving people. So, yeah, that was my life there.

Speaker 1: 3:00

And then, pivotly, I unfortunately I got married at 23, had two children. They are now 21 and 25. I got divorced after 18 years. That was very sad. Just after that I reconnected with an old boyfriend of mine, which was my boyfriend in 1991. He had then by then moved to Saskatchewan. He'd been here for 25 years. We reconnected, we got married, I moved here and I did, I think, every exam twice. One thing that I can say of Canada is it taught me how to fail and get up again, so I had to do my drivers three times. I did every exam twice. Yes, in South Africa I was a clever lady, but you know, canada cuts you down to size. So, in any case, yeah, and then now I started working in 2020. So I was 23 the first time I started working and I was 48 the second time I started.

Speaker 2: 3:59

Wow. So when you came to Canada you talk a little bit about just those years of you know you had to get a license to practice in Canada. What did you do in those years, like I think of you? You came here, you're a doctor, you're doing the licensing, you know, did you? Did you farm in Oxbow?

Speaker 1: 4:20

Well, we have a farm, but I'm not very involved there. I guess I just it was good because I acclimatized to a new culture and I got to know rural people. I loved it. I loved it how they take care of people, especially newcomers. I love rural Saskatchewan. I felt very loved and needed and wanted, even though I was not practicing.

Speaker 1: 4:44

I think I rode a little bit on my husband's reputation so everybody had to love me because I was married to the doctor and then I brought one child with me so he went into high school, so I learned the schooling system and how that worked. I had another child who I left in school in South Africa for two years, so he was there and the younger one was with me. Yeah, I know I loved it and I was studying. You know, contrary to popular belief, I was studying and studying, failing studying. And the worst part is you know when you study and you don't do well and you tell yourself, hey, but I didn't study. The worst part is if you really did study and you don't do well. That's when courage really sets in, that's when you pick up the pieces, when you realize this was my very best, but I'm going to give it again.

Speaker 2: 5:38

Yeah, no, I really never studied much and never did that well until I got older. I appreciate you sharing that and that you know you did do your best, you did study very hard and you still it was humbling, I bet to fail.

Speaker 1: 5:57

Yeah, you know. Also, the other thing is it's not my first language, english, and I didn't study medicine the first time in English. It was all in Afrikaans, even our textbooks were Afrikaans, so, I think, and my patients didn't speak English, and I didn't study medicine the first time in English. It was all in Afrikaans, even our textbooks were Afrikaans. So I think them and my patients didn't speak English, so I think the language crossover was.

Speaker 2: 6:16

Good All right. Well, we're glad you it did. So our next question is about the principle of success. So if you have a best principle of success and tell us a story that illustrates this, okay.

Speaker 1: 6:29

So I think, for me, success and that's what my whole life is actually built on is to walk in your true identity. When we are small, we are born with identity and then after that, we create systems around us to protect us from being hurt or to try and achieve something. But we all have a true identity and then, unfortunately, with leadership, you have to be, in my eyes, someone that was born with that identity, because soon enough your true colors will show. If you want to be a successful person, you really have to love people because, unfortunately, daily we're in contact with people you know, and yeah, yeah, we don't live anywhere else.

Speaker 1: 7:19

So, yeah, so we walk in your true identity to be happy enough in my situation to do a job in my true identity. And so, for me, success in my a hopeless situation, whatever the situation you know, hours before they die or whatever, it doesn't matter. I'm very drawn to people's weaknesses and that is not because I want to feel needed, that's just my true identity. So that makes my work easier, because part of medicine is compassion and encouragement. Yeah, so that's what I think is whatever you are and you were born to be, to walk in that and that's success.

Speaker 2: 8:21

Those are. You know, I've recently had the conversation about the unique gifts we are given and to bring those out, do you think that when you were because both your parents are physicians you said and your brother is also a physician, did you think you're? I mean, was it just because you know what mom and dad are physicians, you're going to be a physician, or was it they saw something in you?

Speaker 1: 8:45

I don't really know. I was so young, I was 17. I remember telling my mother I want to sell Tupperware one day and that will be my job, and she was like no. And then they. But I think they, you know, because you are family of your mom and dad, you do inherit some characteristics and they are also drawn to people's weaknesses. So I guess that's why you get families where everybody's teachers, you know, they all have that identity. And in our family that's just what happened. I didn't have to squeeze myself into a mold, I just fit the mold and I'm so grateful because there's nothing so hard as to do a vocation that doesn't bring out your true identity. There's nothing as sad, you know. So yeah, I'm very, very fortunate, you know, at 17, who knows what they have to become?

Speaker 2: 9:34

I mean no one knows nothing.

Speaker 1: 9:35

I was so glad for my yeah. I was so fortunate for my parents.

Speaker 2: 9:38

Yep, I think that's, you know, being squeezed into something or our own, like we are trying to squeeze our way into something. What does it mean for us? And I wonder yeah, people listening and same with our children, you know.

Speaker 1: 9:54

So each child is born with a true identity. We try to squeeze them into a mold and then we realize but all the squeezing didn't help. And then we come to a point of acceptance where we realize look, the best thing I can do to someone is serve them with my identity the best, more than giving them anything else in the world. I can serve them with my identity, the same with every person. So the best thing my children can do one day is to serve others by bringing their true identity in. So the Lord made us all unique and we have a true identity, and that is the thing that gives us joy and purpose. It's no striving, it's no stretch. I love it, yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:37

So I want to ask you about a story you had told me a few weeks ago and you can tell me if you don't want to tell, but there was an incident in South Africa with you and your family Right, and there was a break-in. Mm-hmm and I feel like that is your identity came out there, and so I wonder, would you share that story?

Speaker 1: 10:58

Yeah, sure. So it was in 2009 and I was lying in a bed with my two children they were, say, six and nine years old trying to get them to sleep and I had forgotten to lock the back door and my husband, at that stage, was watching the Tour de France as it's July and we all watched the Tour de France In any case and then five armed men came in with guns and they first came to me, you know, and the children, and we were quiet and they led us to the room where my husband was and then, unfortunately, they hit my husband over the head, so he was unconscious and they tied the children up and they put them on the bed face down, and they put lots of blankets on them, and then they unclothed me and they didn't rape me, but they did anything else with me and they started packing everything in that house. They took all our suitcases, they packed all our clothes, they took all our digital devices. Time went on, time went on, time went on. During that time, I just prayed in my heart oh Lord, oh Lord. I could just cry out His name, lord, and I just co operated. Whatever they wanted, I just co operated. And then time went on, and I think it was two and a half or three hours later, the youngest one started crying underneath all these blankets and then they got rattled and eventually they just left. Oh, and we were so grateful and I must say, when they left, out of my heart I just started praising the Lord and said Thank you Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you Because I know this happens to thousands of people in South Africa, but not everybody survives and thank you for his mercy.

Speaker 1: 12:35

So then the police came and we went to my parents' house to sleep over there and the next morning so that was actually a pivotal part of my life I realized forgiveness is key. So I took the children and we went back to the house and we sat on the trampoline and I said to them we now immediately have to forgive these people immediately. Sham and my children were so cute, they said. The one said I think they have a mama and a papa and two boys at home that are exactly the same size of clothes that we are. So they watched us and then they realized they have to take all our stuff because it's going to fit them, and they were, so they felt quite good about this. And the one said, yes, they left because I was praying the Lord's prayer. How much he knew of the Lord's prayer, I don't know. And the other one says, yeah, but I was the hero because I cried. So at the end everybody won. We were all winners in this situation and what I loved of that is to realize that forgiveness is key so there's no post-traumatic stress disorder. The Lord was grateful and faithful enough.

Speaker 1: 13:40

After that, people gave us food, people gave us clothes, people bought us a new DVD player. You know, but I think, the principle of instant forgiveness. So in any situation I always say there's three people you have to forgive. One I had to forgive myself for leaving the door open. We know it's South Africa, we know you don't leave the door open. Why would I leave the door open? The second one is to forgive the people. That's quite easy. And then the third one sometimes is to forgive the Lord to allow that this happened.

Speaker 1: 14:15

Often in life there's many even more traumatic things that we think but the Lord could have prevented this. But we forgive the Lord immediately because here we are, he was so good to us and we always live in the present, so we never live in the future or the past. That's where anxiety lives. Anxiety lives in the future or in the past. So we live in the present, in the present today. Now I have food, I have clothes, I've got a heartbeat. My children have a heartbeat. We are very grateful. This is our life. Yeah, so in any case, that's what happened.

Speaker 2: 14:50

Yeah, Thank you for sharing that again, I appreciate it and I knew that it was there and I wasn't sure if you're going to share that under your pivotal moment, because forgiveness, to learn that I mean I can talk about it. I don't know, you know, until you are in it and you have to forgive to move on in life. And so to listen to what your children said, you know the whole they must have had someone you know our size to take our clothes. Yes, thank you for sharing that, karen. So I want to talk a little bit about failures and mistakes, because I think we all know we learn more from our failures and mistakes than our own successes. So would you be able to share one of your greatest failures and what you learned from it? Sure, yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:38

So I think my greatest failure is neglecting my first husband. So what happened is we were both young, we became doctors and then the moment you go into medicine, look, there is always a greater need of illness than there are physicians to treat it. So you're always on call and you're always away and then patients are very grateful and they say such kind things to you. And then you come home and you feel but my husband doesn't say such kind things to me like these patients you know and patients you know. So what happens is the need becomes great and I'm always away and I'm always busy with other people and sick people and caring for them. And then your own relationship fails.

Speaker 1: 16:23

And I think what happened in my case is my mother and father had a very successful marriage. So I thought relationships, good relationships just happen, you don't have to work at it, it's just like that's how it is. You get married and everybody's happy. But as we know now, it's not like that and through that failure I realized that the most important thing is your nuclear family Before you help anybody else. And I don't know if it was so much ambition driving me, but the need. I was also working at a place for refugees coming in and there was just such a need. And you only have 24 hours and you have small children and, like any mother knows you, you give your children then priority before your husband.

Speaker 1: 17:07

So the poor husband? Yeah, so I must say that was for me a very big failure in my life and if I can say anything to young mothers or ambitious young professional woman, please don't go that way. Learn from my mistakes. I can never, ever say there was anything wrong with my husband. He was just human. You know. He married a wife, he didn't marry a doctor. And then at the end of the day, you have these parallel lives where everybody just does their own thing. That's no good. So it doesn't matter how successful you are, it has to be that your most attention and your most love and your priority has to be at home. Yeah, that's the lesson.

Speaker 2: 17:53

Yeah, so you've married another doctor now I know. And you're still, you know, you still care and you still. So what are you doing? What are things you're doing now? I have date night every Thursday with my husband. Oh nice. Ever since we had children, and you realize life is, you know, everything gets shut down and there's more than that, but Thursday is specific. So is there anything you're doing? Is it always dinner together or breakfast together?

Speaker 1: 18:19

No, it's nothing specific as that. I think we both because he was a bachelor for so many years before we got married, he realizes the value of relationship and because what I went through, I realized the value of relationship. So we are very intentional in making our relationship work. Look, we're also immigrants. Hey, can't leave one another. Who's going to be left? No one, you know. So we make this work. But the point is just for me, I think what is easy is if you're a doctor and you're married to a doctor, that makes life much easier. Make no mistake. I think it's very difficult to be married to a doctor when you're not a doctor, because you have to be in that rut of things to realize why it's so hard, why it's so hard to pay attention and make time and all of that. But I think the only thing for me and my husband is we both, due to our past, are very intentional and I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful to be married. I am so grateful to.

Speaker 1: 19:20

I mean, I'm somebody that loved South Africa. I would never have immigrated South Africa. I always there were many people speaking about immigration and they would tell you how bad is South Africa while I was in South Africa and I would say, oh, please, just do it. You know, stop complaining, just go. You know we need you out. You're such a complainer. But for myself, a year, I mean a year before, no one would ever have convinced me to immigrate. No, I didn't want to get. I love the country, I love the people. It's just that life worked out that way. And now I'm here, but I do realize core relationships. And then, which made it also a little easier, as my children had been grown up by then, that also makes it easier. As you know, young children, it's strenuous on any household. Yeah, I don't know with you, but with me.

Speaker 2: 20:07

Yes, and moving countries with children right Moving countries with children.

Speaker 1: 20:13

Yes, Cold countries you know cold cold countries yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:17

Yeah, I want to talk about leadership in South Africa. I don't know if you can talk about what makes a great leader in South Africa, and do you feel this is unique to your country? I mean, now that you've lived in both South Africa, now you're in Canada, do you see a difference at all?

Speaker 1: 20:33

Or yeah, no again. I think leadership, the big biggest thing, like success, is you have to love people. If you're going to lead humans and not aliens, first you have to love them. So if you love someone who loves people, it's a problem, and then you have to love the cause more than you love yourself and you have to love the people that you are leading more than you love yourself, because otherwise, again, your true colors will show through, you know so? No, I think leadership is the same everywhere. And then if we don't have the Lord, it's very hard, because we have to be under leadership to know what leadership is. So we fall under the Lord and then, because we're under the Lord, we know what it is to be under that, so we can give leadership, we receive leadership and then we can give it. But if you're your own boss, I guess it's very hard being a leader.

Speaker 2: 21:34

It is hard being a leader. It's lonely at the top.

Speaker 1: 21:40

Yeah, it depends where the top is.

Speaker 2: 21:43

So at Leader Impact, we want to grow personally, professionally and spiritually for increasing impact. So I'm wondering if you'd be willing to share an example of how the spiritual makes a practical difference in your life as a leader.

Speaker 1: 21:57

Yeah, I think the spiritual is everything in my life. It's not even just a part of my life. I would not be here and I would not be a happy living person if it wasn't for the Lord. Everything I have, everything I do everything, I every breath I take, every patient, I see everything. So it's not just that, it's my whole life is so dependent on the Lord. You know, in order for me to love people, to serve people I have, anybody of us needs to know how much we are loved. We are extremely loved, extremely. The one who formed us in our mother's womb is the same one who keeps us every day, is the same one who takes us back to himself.

Speaker 1: 22:41

If there will come an end to whatever good quality you have, unless you have the Lord, there will be an end to my human patience. There will be an end to my anything unless I have the Lord. So there would be an end to my leadership. If I don't have the Lord, our supply will always run dry, it doesn't matter how cute you are. So for me, yeah, for me, it's my breath, it's my life, it's my wisdom, it's my insight. When I see a patient, I often don't know what to do I ask the Lord? I often pray for many of my patients. I always feel that this is my life, my patients. I always feel that this is my life. Maybe you can agree that to be able to lead people is to serve them, and the.

Speaker 1: 23:30

Lord is our biggest server. He's always served us. It has never been different, and for us also. We serve people, not because we want to get something out of them. You know, we love people and we use things. We don't use people and love things. It's the other way around.

Speaker 2: 23:46

So yeah, I lost my train of thought there, but yes, yes, no, I love the comment that you said something about like the cuteness could go away, yeah, and you will still have the love. You will still have the love of the Lord, you know, because, yeah, we get older and things, everything, the things start to change, but God doesn't change.

Speaker 1: 24:14

That will always Definitely not, and he's so close we are swallowed up by him. You know, we don't have to go and search for him or we don't have to deserve him. I feel many people feel they have to do the right thing, and only if they do the right thing, they're allowed to come to the Lord.

Speaker 1: 24:32

That's a good point. Yeah, he's just there. It's like I don't only love my children when they're good children, I love them all the time and they can actually do nothing, that I would love them more or less, and that's the same with us and the Lord Speaking of that, because I know your son just left for another country, right?

Speaker 2: 24:52

How are you doing?

Speaker 1: 24:53

No, I love it. I love it, I'm out of the picture. You know, if you've been a single parent for any amount of time, you realize you're not the best thing that can always happen to your child. So I always feel the Lord is their father. And when they're away from me I feel, oh Lord, thank you. It's like dropping your children off at someone else. I'm like, oh, you know, I feel so relieved. Whatever happens now it's not totally in my hands. I miss him and I think he's going through some hardship.

Speaker 1: 25:20

Hardship, you know, as parents we always try to protect our children from hardship. In the old days there was something called the helicopter parent and now it's more called the snowplow parent, where they try to plow the snow and the child has no grief and no unhappiness and no responsibility. But we know that doesn't lead to good character and it doesn't lead to good problem solving skills. So we have to allow our children to go to hardship knowing that the Lord takes care of them, as if I was the one that also always took care of them. The Lord always.

Speaker 2: 25:52

Yeah, yeah, and he's out there, finding his true identity.

Speaker 1: 25:55

For sure, and that's how they do through hardship Right.

Speaker 2: 25:59

Good point, yeah. So at Leader Impact, we're dedicated to leaders having a lasting impact. So, as you continue to move through your own journey and it is an amazing journey just listening to it and I have to say that I love being around you. I think your stories are fun and just listening to you and to the listeners, I've had a chance to sit with you more than just this, and my cheeks hurt when I'm with you and I smile and your stories are good and there's so much encouragement and the forgiveness in your stories and you've taught you have taught me so much. So the question here is about, as you continue through your journey, what legacy, what faith legacy do you want to leave when you leave this world?

Speaker 1: 26:45

I think, for me, if I leave the world, I please don't want a street named after me or a bench. I would like anybody on earth that contacted me to see something of the Lord and to be drawn to the Lord, not to feel any judgment, any condemnation, but to really be attracted because he is the universal magnet and we are the vessels, we are filled with him. So the only contact point I would like people to have is not often people look at me and they like me for the person I am, but I'm sure the same for you that we would like them to see Christ in us, because that is lasting. If there's anything in my life that can make anybody love the Lord or turn to the Lord or even just think about the Lord, that would be a legacy.

Speaker 2: 27:36

Yeah, One of our comments we had earlier. One of the stories you told me was just the people in South Africa. When you came here you talked a lot about the faith and that it was in everything, and you find it different here. Can you share a little bit more about that, Because that was really interesting.

Speaker 1: 27:55

Yeah. So I think in any poverty-stricken country, you realize there's something more than humanity. You realize that death is just around the corner. Be it illness, be it a bullet, be it famine, it's just around the corner. It's got nothing to do with age, it can happen anytime. So then, very fast you get your life with the Lord, you just start believing in the Lord. Very fast you realize eternity is awaiting. Very fast you realize everything is not in your hands, but that gives you such joy and such hope.

Speaker 1: 28:31

So my patients had, even though they were all HIV patients and most of them terminal. I didn't see any angst, no angst. They, I, they agreed with me. This is just a disappointing body. You know, this body was made to disappoint. The best day you had was the first day you were born, and since then it's a slippery slide down until your demise. And so to idolize the body is not a good idea. It was made with the expiry date. But that's why they accepted the illness so well and that's why they all had faith and a lot of communal love, because if they had anything to share, they would share it with someone else. They had a very inclusive community mindset, loving one another and connected, I feel.

Speaker 1: 29:20

In Canada what was difficult for me, I felt people were not so much rural but in the city, very disconnected. Many people didn't have family. We are made to be in connection. You can be as much an introvert as you want to. No man is an island. You need to be connected and then in that connection your anxiety goes down a little bit. But connection has all to do with forgiveness. So it doesn't matter what anybody ever did to you, you just forgive them immediately. You keep on loving them. That love will overtake them. Soon they'll love you back. Even if you did something to them, you just say sorry, sorry, sorry, and then soon they'll take you back Because we all need to be loved, we all need to belong and the sense of belonging obviously in the third world is much greater because everybody lives in the same house. There's not enough money for more than one house. They eat from the same plate, they sleep on the same mattress and here, because of affluency, there can be disconnection.

Speaker 2: 30:21

Wow, thank you for sharing that. I'm glad I asked that question. My final question for you is what brings you the greatest joy?

Speaker 1: 30:30

I love nature. That's my greatest joy. I should say people, and they do too, but I love nature. I love nature, anything to do with trees and plants and animals. That's the original design, that's the unspoiled design, that's seeing the Lord in operation. I love it. So that brings me the biggest joy.

Speaker 2: 30:55

Oh well, we're gonna have to go hiking one day, then I will take you out. I will find somewhere for you. That's good, yeah, so if anyone is listening and they're like oh, I would love to connect with you. Are you on linkedin or anything like that that people could find you and connect with you?

Speaker 1: 31:11

I'm on no social media. Okay, maybe they can. Yeah, maybe they can. They can connect with you and via you, we can connect. Excellent, okay with you, you can.

Speaker 2: 31:22

Anyone can connect with me and I will. There's an email that I'll give, but if anyone has any questions, um yeah, sure. That's great, Karen. I want to thank you for taking the last 30 minutes with us and sharing a little bit of your story. Thank you, I think it'll have helped someone you have. You're just a joy to be around. You are fun. Thank you. Thank you very much, lisa. Thank you. This ends our podcast and we hope you've enjoyed our time together. Thank you. So if you're part of Leader Impact, you can always discuss or share this podcast with your group. If you are not yet part of Leader Impact and would like to find out more and grow your leadership, find our podcast page on our website at leaderimpactca and check out our free leadership assessment. You will also find on our webpage chapter one of Braden Douglas' book Becoming a Leader of Impact. You can also check out groups available in Canada at leaderimpact. ca or, if you're listening, from anywhere else in the world, check out leaderimpact. com or get in touch with us by email. Info at leaderimpact. com and we will connect you. And if you like this podcast, please leave us a comment, give us a rating or review. This will help other global leaders find our podcast.

Speaker 1: 32:36

Thank, you for engaging with us and remember impact starts with you.