I think it's appropriate to take some time to even grieve the person of the past because you're not gonna take everything with you.
Welcome to the Hertz Like a Mother podcast, where we celebrate the joys and pains of motherhood to share the message that we aren't alone in this journey. I am Megan Hansen, mom to six-year-old triplets registered nurse and certified integrative health coach.
All right. Welcome back to another episode of Her Like A Mother, today's Friday. Woo. Fridays really don't mean so much when you have kids, but I'm just gonna say Happy Friday. Cause that's a nice thing to do, right? , these episodes air on Tuesday, so if you're listening on a Tuesday, happy Tuesday to you.
Hope you have a splinted week. , I'm gonna be talking about something that I've been thinking about for months, and when I say months, I mean it , so. , I left the bedside last July, so July of 2022 to pursue expanding my health coaching business. My baby, and I gotta tell you to leave the bedside was incredibly liberating, like badass bitch.
To the umpteenth degree, feeling pulsing through my veins, like middle finger to the man, all of these wonderful things. But yet my primary client are nurses.
In fact, 95% of my current client load are nurses.
And after a few weeks of not working in the hospital, I started to feel like a nurse imposter. Like, am I still a nurse even though I'm not at the bedside? And. How can I make content about being a nurse and living in a healthful way if I'm not at the bedside?
Now, I know there are many nurses who don't work in the hospital, but this was a mental block that I found creep up on me due to my change in my work environment.
And I discovered I had an identity shift and I felt like a complete imposter when I would make content related to nurses, especially related to shift work, meal prep. Coming home after working a 12 hour shift because I didn't do those things anymore. I have the luxury now of not having to do a ton of meal prep.
I still do some, because that is like a lifestyle thing, that you have two cooked proteins. in the fridge at all times. You have vegetables in the fridge at all times ready to go. You have extra emergency backup stocks of frozen veggies as well. You have other carb sources. You got your potatoes, soup, potatoes, like these are the basics.
This is lifestyle stuff that doesn't go away just because it's stepped away from bedside.
but I felt an incredible block when I would try to make reels or make posts about shift work when I wasn't a shift worker anymore. And I don't know how many people can resonate with that. And so I didn't wanna bring it up because I was afraid. Well of, of actually coming to terms with my emotions. Cause that's hard to do, right?
like, who wants to look at themselves in me and really come to terms with the, the inner workings of their brain? That's hard. And sometimes who has time for that? But it is the most important thing to do. But I have to realize this, you are more than where you work. You are still a nurse. And this is why I tell myself it, it is about who you are as a person.
So as a nurse, we put people first. I still do that as a nurse, you educate your patients and you have best practices based on research. I still do that. I no longer have patience, but rather I have clients now. So I think taking those things into account that, yes, my job is not at the bedside, but I still have all of the tenants of being a nurse in my life and in my work, and I will always be a nurse. in addition to always keeping up my, my certifications, I'll always be a nurse at heart because it is in your blood and once you're a nurse, you're always a nurse.
I think the same applies to law enforcement and other first responders, that once you are living that life and living those shifts and living with those traumas that. That go with those jobs, it becomes a part of you and your soul and your path will always be imprinted with those experiences and those memories.
So this is something that I'm still dealing with and I've even thought of going back to take like a very small part-time job at the bedside for different reasons. But there's something that I'm not quite ready, that's not something that we're not quite ready to do yet. So, . It's tough, and I'm putting this out there just to be transparent as well as for my therapy, because I don't currently have a therapist, but I need to get one because let's be real, nobody wants to have a.
Business, have a home life, have three six year olds who drive you insane and not have a therapist like I need one on speed dial asap. So you guys can be my therapy session today. I appreciate you listening and if you feel like billing me, go ahead, send me your bill, uh, because this is honestly stuff that I would talk with my therapist about and so much clarity comes from just speaking your mind.
and I felt like you would be the right person to talk about this today, so I appreciate it. I think this can kind of be extrapolated to any kind of identity shift, whether it's a job change or a job loss. You know, with economic change, there's layoffs and I think Covid brought a lot of. Clarity to people in terms of what they wanted out of life and what they want out of their jobs.
And those changes might lead to job shifts and new identities in that regard. And I think it's appropriate to take some time to even grieve the person of the past because you're not gonna take everything with you. And I think that's,
Woo. All right. not gonna cry on the podcast, but anyhow,
I don't know who told me this originally, but
Sometimes to get to where you're going to look ahead, you have to grieve a part of you from the past and grieve where you've been. So I think that's where I'm at right now. So thank you for coming along on my journey. I love you to never one of you.
