Nursing U's Podcast
Ep 003 - Empathy and Endurance The Heartbeat of Nursing
Can breathwork transform your life and your nursing practice?
Join Julie and Caleb as they uncover the secrets of the Wim Hof Method and explore the profound impact of deep, rhythmic breathing on mental clarity and stress relief.
Prepare to delve into the science of breathwork, including its unique ability to activate the pineal gland. Uncover how these techniques can be powerful tools in clinical settings, empowering patients to manage pain and disorientation.
They also address a crucial aspect of nursing: the constant demand for empathy and emotional resilience. From navigating life-or-death situations to the weighty responsibility of patient care during crises like COVID-19, they share the unique challenges that define the profession. Listen to real-life stories that underscore nurses' psychological strains and the importance of self-care in preventing burnout. Embrace the journey of personal growth and self-awareness that emerges from the pressures and responsibilities of nursing.
Finally, they reflect on the holistic nature of nursing care and the camaraderie that binds nurses together. Discover the joys and struggles of mentoring newcomers, the emotional weight of providing comprehensive care under time constraints, and the fulfillment that comes from making a difference. They dive into processing moral injuries, the need for healthy coping mechanisms, and the future of nursing in an evolving healthcare landscape shaped by technology and AI.
Join this conversation about redefining nursing and envisioning a brighter future for patient care.
Can breathwork transform your life and your nursing practice?
Join Julie and Caleb as they uncover the secrets of the Wim Hof Method and explore the profound impact of deep, rhythmic breathing on mental clarity and stress relief.
Prepare to delve into the science of breathwork, including its unique ability to activate the pineal gland. Uncover how these techniques can be powerful tools in clinical settings, empowering patients to manage pain and disorientation.
They also address a crucial aspect of nursing: the constant demand for empathy and emotional resilience. From navigating life-or-death situations to the weighty responsibility of patient care during crises like COVID-19, they share the unique challenges that define the profession. Listen to real-life stories that underscore nurses' psychological strains and the importance of self-care in preventing burnout. Embrace the journey of personal growth and self-awareness that emerges from the pressures and responsibilities of nursing.
Finally, they reflect on the holistic nature of nursing care and the camaraderie that binds nurses together. Discover the joys and struggles of mentoring newcomers, the emotional weight of providing comprehensive care under time constraints, and the fulfillment that comes from making a difference. They dive into processing moral injuries, the need for healthy coping mechanisms, and the future of nursing in an evolving healthcare landscape shaped by technology and AI.
Join this conversation about redefining nursing and envisioning a brighter future for patient care.
Hi, I'm Julie.
Speaker 2:And I'm Caleb. Welcome to Nursing U, the podcast where we redefine nursing in today's healthcare landscape. Join Julie and I as we step outside the box on an unconventional healing journey.
Speaker 1:Together, we're diving deep into the heart of nursing, exploring the intricate relationships between caregivers and patients with sincerity and depth.
Speaker 2:Our mission is to create an open and collaborative experience where learning is expansive and fun.
Speaker 1:From the psychological impacts of nursing to the larger implications on the healthcare system. We're sparking conversations that lead to healing and innovation.
Speaker 2:We have serious experience and we won't pull our punches. But we'll also weave in some humor along the way, because we all know laughter is often the best medicine.
Speaker 1:It is, and we won't shy away from any topic, taboo or not, from violence and drugs to family and love, we're tackling it all.
Speaker 2:Our nursing knowledge is our base, but we will be bringing insights from philosophy, religion, science and art to deepen our understanding of the human experience.
Speaker 1:So, whether you're a nurse, a healthcare professional or just someone curious about the world of caregiving, this podcast is for you.
Speaker 2:One last thing, a quick disclaimer before we dive in. While we're both registered nurses, nothing we discuss here should be taken as medical advice. Always consult with your doctor or a qualified healthcare provider for any medical concerns you may have. The views expressed here are our own and don't necessarily reflect those of our employers or licensing bodies.
Speaker 1:So let's get started on this journey together. Welcome to Nursing U, where every conversation leads to a healthier world. So doing breathing exercises is one thing that helps calm our nervous system, and we do this before every podcast, and we were just talking about how me when we do those, what kind of breathing do you call it?
Speaker 2:and it's I. I've done the wim hof method wim hof yeah yeah yes.
Speaker 1:So it's big, deep breaths in and out and in and out, almost trying to create a flow, a continuous flow like in and out and then in and out, kind of without like a momentum, and we did it 30 times and then you breathe all your breath out on the last breath and then you hold it for what? 15 seconds or 30 seconds, something like that, closer to a minute for the oh a minute.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's called yeah yeah, and then I picture myself falling, kind of like like letting go and just like free floating. You know, as that, I don't know what's happening in our bodies. We should research that. And then you end it with a big deep breath in and you hold that breath and then for that it makes it's tingly and it's energizing and it's like all of the cells in your body are just electric. For me is what it feels like. What does it feel like for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, just you kind of get outside of your body For me. I get visions. I can see stars and colors and waves and I like to focus Because I mean, it's not really your eyesight that's seeing that, it's your mind, which is really strange, right, Right. So I enjoy exploring that space when I get there. Yeah, and I usually get there from the breath holds.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. It's when I'm holding the breath and sometimes I like increase my uh abdominal pressure and kind of build the pressure towards uh, towards my mind. Yes, and that enhances that as well. Uh, it's a whole world. Breathing is a whole. There are so many techniques and and ways to heal yourself through breathing.
Speaker 1:It's really beautiful, yeah yeah, it really is, it's, it's, it is. I highly encourage if you're having, if you suffer from anxiety, panic, not feeling grounded and like you can't get outside and ground with your feet and think that way. So if you're just somewhere and you have to ground because it's very grounding for me it gets you out of what's going on in your current reality and puts you in this like liminal space that we rarely go, but it's so beautiful. Of course I can't think of his name right now, but the gland. There's a gland in your brain that when you said that, what did you call it?
Speaker 1:Pineal gland that the what did you call it? Pineal gland? Yeah, the pineal gland, that when you increase that abdominal pressure it does push the blood which carries oxygen up into that space, into that gland, and kind of helps to activate and energize and revitalize that gland. I can't remember off the top of my head what happens in that gland, but I think it's healing and dreams. It's dreams, so that's those visuals that you're seeing. I mean, it's literally an out of this world experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you can also take this to your patients. When I, when I returned to nursing, after taking several years off and exploring, breathing in depth, I've gone to some pretty far, extremes with it, just exploring it and what works, how to you know, experiencing it. When I came back to nursing, working in PACU, these people are waking up disoriented. They don't know where they're at, they don't know what they're doing, and oftentimes, you know, people will wake up in a panic. They're in pain, they haven't been able to organize their mind, and so I developed a technique I call it the connected breathwork technique, where I, when appropriate, place my hand on the chest, put their hand on top of my hand, and then I make them look me in the eye and tell them to follow my breath.
Speaker 2:This works on. This works on patients that that are just in pain. They can be, you know, sometimes pain can be so disorienting. And this technique really works with people that are in pain, because their pain is overriding their, their medications, that you find that, or I found that, um, when people reach a certain threshold of pain, there is no amount of medicine that's going to work, and so when you connect them to their breath, it allows their mind to calm down enough for the medications to start working. That's what I found. It's very powerful, but it's the connected piece. You know, the touch on the chest is providing a sensory orientation that okay, I'm here, I'm here. And then when you make them look in your eyes, you're connecting to another person and that helps to orient them to where they're at. And it's not just you know, it's like their frame rate is so fast in that in-between state of being anesthetized and conscious. So, yeah, it's very effective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and honestly, should be used more often. It should be used in combination with medication rather than just give the medication you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think it's something that can be taught. I certainly. I feel like it's one of the gifts that I bring to my patients, for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, I would definitely agree.
Speaker 1:I remember back in the day I was probably a new nurse, newer nurse, like maybe two or three or four years or something in in the ICU and we had this agency nurse that came and I don't know if you remember him, but he would lay hands not on the patient but around the patient and we just thought he was a goofy, hippie nurse.
Speaker 1:Um, but now, knowing what I know, he was like spot on, you know, intubated patients who were restless and you know he would. He would or or pain, or couldn't you know, go to sleep. It was night, he would do he was doing energy work is what he was doing, and he would I remember him breathing with those patients and I thought you're so goofy, nicest guy, like the nicest guy and but he was just very in tune with that dimension and he was doing it then just, you know, on his own. But god, now, knowing what I know I mean it's it should be widespread nurses would have such better nights, you know, if they could get their, they could get their patients to calm down by just doing some some energy work behind the scenes, behind the curtain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, how many, how many patients in an emergency situation if you were able to keep, keep calm and coach them on breathing instead of you know, straight for the Haldol or the Versed. You know, right, and you know these combative people that you know God, they're just suffering and you know they're there for help and we are, you know, I think we get somewhat jaded to all of those experiences and it's easy to just throw the howl or the burst out of these combative people. I mean there are. We all know that each situation is unique and you have to use really good judgment. If you know if somebody is coming in and they're violent, you've got to take care of that. But how many people? Because we have to chart when we started our IV or when we started our IV fluids, that would be. But there are not enough people. There are not. There are not enough time in the current healthcare bedside nursing arena to manage.
Speaker 1:That. It makes me think of, like labor and delivery, patients. You know they teach them to breathe. I mean, that's a big thing, but it's one nurse and one patient and you're with that same patient all day. It may be 14 hours, it may be two days, and that's doable, but you get five and six patients. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Nobody got time for that. So you just get meds and then that just creates more problems. And so do we know the answer? No, we do not know the answer, but we definitely know that breathing helps and breathing works and lots of different. There's tons of videos on youtube for free to check it out and see what you think and that this.
Speaker 1:This actually leads in very nicely to what we were going to talk about today, which is the essence of nursing and kind of our definitions of it, maybe other people's definitions of it, what we think about it and how maybe it's changed from when we started or, you know, even from like the 1800s, 1900s to to what it is currently 1800s to what it is currently. You know the essence of nursing Lots of things I've looked up. It kind of boils down to the knowledge and the skills that a nurse needs to know technically but weaves in the thread or rope, really what it is of caring and empathetic, being empathetic and being compassionate and having that that nature you know within the person who has the skills, because we all know those nurses who have the skills and and then and that's just about it and you know you're like you're actually creating a bigger problem when you go in there and you act like that. So let's just figure this out and do it different. But you know, most nurses don't go into nursing unless they have you know. I mean, they really care because you know they want to be a nurse.
Speaker 1:Maybe their mom is a nurse, or you know they're, or you're in, or you find yourself in nursing in nursing school, or you're in, or you find yourself in nursing in nursing school and in order to be able to stay in school, you have to have some kind of caring. You have to have that, you have to feel that. I mean what? What do you think about it?
Speaker 2:well, the thing that comes up for me uh, listen, you talk about that is when I've shared some of my stories with people who are non-medical people. They're oh, I could never do that. They all say oh, I could never do that. And I say, no, I think that you could, I think that you would, because I think that, at the core, we all care about each other, even though we have all these crazy biases that separate us. At the end of the day, if you see someone suffering, most people are going to be willing to help. That caring part is just, you know. I definitely think nurses have. The muscle of caring is maybe exercised more.
Speaker 2:I think all are bent towards caring for one another. I think that's just part of human nature, but caring is. I do think that it is the essence of what it means to be a nurse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Versus another technical job, skill, you know, in a different job, another technical job, you know, there doesn't the, doesn't the line of caring and and being in the connection between two humans doesn't matter, and so you said that. So, yeah, human nature, it's like on the side of the road or, in my case, in an airport. You find somebody who is in need of help. You run to them and you help them, and I think everyone does. But where it turns, different for nurses is it's an, like you said, a muscle. It's an extended period of time. So you might, you might really be carrying those first several hours into your shift, but after dealing with an alcohol withdrawal for seven hours and you have four more to go, you have to push and you have to continue to care. You have, you got to stay in it. You can't just drop it and be like that's enough of that. Yeah, and that's a. That's a big difference between other jobs, careers, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things that I have kind of wrestled with is, you know, part of the thing about nursing is the volume of just bodies that you encounter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:I think that is one thing that's slightly different about nursing is especially critical care, where people are intubated and sedated. You know it is just a body. It's not just a body but it's a body that you're caring for. And maybe the interpersonal interactions that you have are with family, which could be horrible or great either either way, but the point being that we, you know anybody that's exposed to large volumes of human interaction. There's going to be a lot of overlap in the effects of that. But care, you know when you're caregiving that you know the fact that they can't speak to you. And you know we've talked about before kind of the expanding your ability to intuit or expanding your intuition to receive biological information from our patients and not knowing how to put that back.
Speaker 2:I think that is a unique thing to to caregiving. That is a differentiating piece and it's life or death. So, quite literally, you're dealing in life and death terms and if you mess up the pressure of that thought, I don't know that I ever in the moment had the thought if I screw up, somebody's going to die. I think it's just like an underlying thing. That you know is true, but if you let that into your thought process you could get overwhelmed with that. So you just never, it just doesn't even. You just perform, you just do what you know you have to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't think I've ever I got the feelings of like people could die, like, and how are we going to prevent that from the know? Like during COVID, there'd be like I don't know, eight or nine patients in our unit on the vent literally circling the drain of death, and as a charge nurse, you know it's all on you. So I remember going to each one of those nurses and saying, okay, here's the plan. You'll see the heart rate start going down. If they're sat drops to this and you see the heart rate, then that's, then I want you to grab the atropine. Like you know, that's the plan and then, if it really does, then we're, we'll get the code cart and and you, you know what to do.
Speaker 1:You pull that out, you pull that, and I would literally go through that scenario with every nurse and their patient so that if I wasn't right there and that happened, you know they would know how to get, how to start. Sometimes I would even. I remember going to the floor because you know, some of those patients would have to stay up on the floor till they were literally at the brink of needing to be intubated, and so they were so sick on the floor and being up there saying, okay, if it gets to this, this or this, then I want you to call me and then we'll, we'll, we'll make a plan. And this is the plan, it's all, it's always. It's always planning for the worst, but you know, hoping for the best and that is literally life and death. So you don't really think that in your mind, but it's. Maybe I was, and so that was part of the planning, why I was doing the planning.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting as I'm listening to you, I'm kind of thinking about the way that we plan when, because that plan is is emerging from it's emerging responsibly to the situation. Right yeah, so we are really adept, really skilled at seeing the problems, creating an immediate action plan and implementing that plan. And you know I'm thinking about the nurse that, like myself, I wasn't able to keep my personal life in order as well as manage the chaos of the hospital. And I'm looking at some of the ways that I made choices and it's almost like I thrive in that responsive, critical moment. And if I don't have that outside in the past, if I didn't have that outside, if I didn't have that crisis, I didn't get much done. And I wonder how many other nurses experienced that that we're because we're on such high alert that when we're not there, we just have to let it all go, and then we create crises in our, in our personal lives, and you can't have crisis in the hospital and at home. That's something.
Speaker 1:I learned oh my God, it's so true. It's so true about the. You know, you, you are always on high alert and you know you could say this for other jobs that have high alert. But the one thing that runs through all of that that is the same is what do you do with all of that energy? So if you think about yourself in those situations that create this high level of being very alert, and you could even think back to, you know you could say caveman or whatever. But when they were on high alert, there are chemical reactions happening in the body that release different hormones, neurotransmitters, all the things that keep you at this high alert state. And so you know back then they would be on high alert. They would either kill the animal or be killed, and then the situation was over until they went back out and hunted again, which may be, you know, weeks or whatever.
Speaker 1:But when you are back to back to back to back, 12-hour shifts running on that high alert and you don't have any downtime or you don't have any release, even on your downtime if you're not consciously releasing that energy and refilling your body with the nutrients, with the nutrients, with the love, with the things that you need to come back to a homeostasis in your body that's. I mean, there's so many physical things about our bodies that you know, oh, I can't lose weight. Or oh, you know, I can't sleep at night. Or oh, you know, I have high blood pressure. Oh, I got to get on antidepressant. Oh, I got to take thyroid medication because I have, you know, cortisol depletion. Well, why, you know, we think, oh well, we're just getting older, well, no, you know, we think, oh well, we're just getting older.
Speaker 2:Well, no, actually no, not really.
Speaker 1:I mean, for me at least, a lot of that was directly related to overdoing it doing my job but yet not doing my job in between, my job which was taking care of me, and you know. But I didn't know, I didn't, I didn't know that I needed to do that. I thought, you know, a day off, a day off, a day off, not a day at the hospital, so that's, that's good. You know, if you're not at work, you're not at work, but you know. And then you wonder, like why do I fight with my husband so much? Or why am I so irritated at my kids? Or why do I feel like I want to drink from the minute I wake up on my day off? Like what is going on? And it I don't know.
Speaker 1:It just never dawned on me that it would be my job. And you know, I think that's again why we're doing this and why we're talking about it is bringing more awareness to the fact of what actually is really going on during some of those shifts and during the time that you are at work. In doing a nurse's job, you know it's, you have to be able to take care of your body. You know it's like getting in a car and it doesn't have any gas or oil and it has all four bad tires that are low in air and dry, rot, and expect that car to run well all the way to St Louis. That's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:One of the one of the quotes that I was thinking about. As you were talking about, uh, you know why am I?
Speaker 2:fighting with my, you know, you said why am I fighting with my husband? Why, you know, um, why am I making these choices that I'm making that are hurting me? You know, I'm also thinking about my own self and the foolish ways that I chose to self-medicate, which were maladaptive forms of self-care. But all of those things, all of those choices. I wouldn't be who I am today without making those choices. And so there's a quote I believe it was classical writer Proust, from France, and I haven't actually read this author, but one of my favorite people, uh, quotes him and the saying is if I were to deny the fool that I was in my youth, it would be to deny the man that I've become. I love, I love, love, love. That quote, um, yeah, because without the, without going through all those experiences that we had to go through, we wouldn't be here doing this work that we're doing, which, and make better life choices that are caring for themselves instead of just giving their care to other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. Well, you know that quote. It's like that. That just reminds us to not shame others, the decisions we made when we made them, because that's all we could do, that's all we knew, that's all we had the capacity to do, and so we love ourselves so much now that you can't not love who that was, you know. But putting the information out there so that or, you know, just making it available on another platform for you know, whoever may come across, it is just allowing them to maybe come to that conclusion sooner and not have to have so much suffering.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think there's nurses out there who still don't realize you know what you know. They may be nurses for 10 years or 12 years, you know and and they don't realize the consequences of ignoring all of the signs related to burnout. Really, I mean, what will then come to burnout? And they haven't been able to put the pieces together to be like, oh, wow, I got to do something different. They're like you know, they're always looking for another job, they're looking for another thing, or they're always looking, looking, looking and what it what it really is is is actually going inside to take care of you and who you are, and you don't really know that until you recognize. You know that and maybe another person's story and you know that's. I think that's why stories are so important and you know another reason why why we're doing this podcast really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it kind of. It makes me think about ICU psychosis, and using that term not not just for patients that are experiencing ICU psychosis, because ICU psychosis, you know, what happens for these people is they're generally drugged, intubated, sedated, or they're just in the hospital in that environment, with the beeping and the lights and people coming in and out, all the time. They lose orientation to reality. The sun, you know. Without seeing the sun rise and set each day and having those structures that inform, you know, the human experience, they lose their minds. And you know, I think a lot I when I think about the things that we experience wiping butt or, you know, you know, putting somebody's guts back in their belly. These are not normal things that we're experiencing and but you know, they're shared experiences that nurses have amongst themselves. But they can be disorienting Because, you know I think I've said it before you know, you see the geometries of your patients, right, the anatomical features that they just have are geometric, that they just have are geometric. So we, you know, that's why, that's why I always say I've seen every form of geometry that the human body could possibly manifest. And having such familiarity with the human anatomy and the overexposure, I think is the overexposure to human anatomy, biology, the ways that it can fail, lead to a disorientation of the mind for some nurses not everyone, but I think that that's part of why nurses are taking their own lives is that they, the experiences that they're having, are so different from the people outside of the hospital that they no longer can relate to those people. There's very little common ground. The ignorance that most people are walking around with is in terms of you know the risks that they're taking with their lives.
Speaker 2:And for nurses, I well here's I have a perfect story.
Speaker 2:I had a young, a young child, die in my hands in the emergency room early in my career and that experience because I, because I knew the story behind the death and and it touched me so deeply my relationship with my, my nephews and niece was changed by that experience, that that I couldn't watch my sister just let her kids run around free because the potential, like every time I was there, it was just like my breath was being taken away from me because they were too free.
Speaker 2:It was painful for me and it still is I, when I see children in that two to four range, my anxiety level skyrockets. That age group stresses me out so bad and I know that it's because of that little baby that died in my hands. I know that, looking back, I didn't know that then I wasn't able to process that and so I think those things you know when, when I play with the idea of ICU psychosis in relationship to nurses and how the psychology of nurses changes through their career that I think touches pretty close to the, to the heart of it touches pretty close to the, to the heart of it, yeah, and I think that, um, you know, understanding, awareness is key and then doing what you need to to try and understand.
Speaker 1:It can take some time, but, you know, in order to care for your patients, you have to care for yourself, and that doesn't just mean put the oxygen mask on yourself first. I mean it goes way deeper. And so sometimes, you know, because I used to think, oh, you know people be like, yeah, I think you're going over the limit, julie, I think you're doing too much for them. And you're doing that, you know, and it's like it's part of my nature to do that and you know, I thought, okay, well, you know, I'm doing, doing what I doing what I can, doing what I need, but I it, I mean, it wasn't enough, it didn't even really even touch the surface.
Speaker 1:And you know, sometimes you think, oh, my God, adding in another thing, like more things, it starts to replace not what you're currently doing, knowing and allowing for grounding and allowing for energy release and allowing for processing and journaling and debriefing, and all of those things become the only things that you that work for real, and so it's much more. Um, it goes to a deeper level, and so that you have lasting outcomes. Um, it's not just, you know, fleeting, like you know. Oh, I'm gonna go home and drink a bottle of wine and go to bed. You know that'll, that'll really take the edge off.
Speaker 1:Well, it will but it doesn't do anything. I mean it's not doing anything for you, you know, and I think it just pushes people closer and closer and closer to burnout where they're like I don't even want to ever see another patient in my life, you know, and that, and that's scary and sad because the more nurses that go that route and just let their career end, or you know, I've got to do something else or I gotta get, you know. You know I got to get out of the hospital. I got to do, you know, I got to do that, you know it. Just lessons and lessons and lessons.
Speaker 1:The quality of the people who are actually taking care of the patients, you know, I mean there's not that many nursing schools out there and there's not that many nurses that graduate every year, not, not, not as many as what's needed, not as many as what you know is needed to take care of how many actual patients there are doesn't equal Right. And so you know I was looking at this definition again that we were talking about. This is the definition of the essence of nursing from Jones and Barlett Learning. They emphasize that the essence of nursing involves a combination of knowledge and caring. This definition highlights the integration of scientific knowledge and compassionate care, ensuring that nursing practice is both evidence-based and patient-centered. This approach aims to provide holistic care that addresses the physical, emotional and psychological needs of a patient, and so that's a huge job, that's a huge role. I mean, that's a huge ask from one person, one human who maybe doesn't even have their own life together. That's a lot, you know.
Speaker 2:You can only do that or have your life together right, right, I don't.
Speaker 1:I mean that's, that's huge. Yeah, it is. Maybe they told us that in nursing school. They're like well, you're going to be taking care of the whole. You know we always talk about holistic stuff. You know, like you know, mind, body and soul about holistic stuff. You know, like you know, mind, body and soul and all that. But you know, if you really think about it that, are we really doing that at the hospital? Because I kind of don't think so.
Speaker 1:There's just not enough time and so you can't do it and so you just get these like stragglers, like straggling messes that you've almost created in in trying to take care of your patient, all of your patients, you know.
Speaker 1:So you have to just do the most important things for them that you can, because you never know when you're going to be able to come back in the room. So sometimes it doesn't really feel holistic at all Our minds, don't? You think your mind wants to take it there, like think about when you go in and like you've been off for, say, like five days and you go back and you're starting it's your first of three 12s and you know you're like this is awesome. I've totally meal prepped, I've packed my lunch Like I got a new lunch box, I have new pens and my I clean my stethoscope and I feel great. And you go and you're like I am going to give the best care I can to my pay. I am doing ever. I am going to just 100 percent it, even though we all are like 100% of it all the time.
Speaker 1:But you know, that feeling, you know that shift you're driving in it's, you got the best music on, you find you park, you don't have to walk very far like, and, oh god, to top it off, the best crew you, the nurses you're working with that night are like this is, this is amazing, this fun. I love this so much, like I'm right back there. And so you have that attitude. And so you go in and, oh my God, your assessment. You know how you do your initial first assessment in the ICO. I mean it's, it's thorough, and you're looking and you're looking in between their toes and and you take, take all the blankets off and you roll them around and you're like all right, every two hours I'll be in here. And you know I got a plan and I got your meds, I got them all written out Like that's so such an awesome feeling and just as great as that is, it can go to shit in a split second.
Speaker 2:You know you have either your pod partners I was picturing you know you have either your pod partners. I was picturing you know this person walking into the hospital and then right next to it is the person walking out of the hospital with flames coming out of the hospital totally totally and it's the same, patients Same unit, same patients.
Speaker 1:You have the night nurse fresh coming on and the day and all of their needs and you know the other nurses that are. You're working as a team together and their patients and their needs and the needs of the if you're the charge nurse the needs of all the nurses in the unit and I mean it's an extraordinary beat to even get through one shift. Honestly.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and applaud, applause, applause, applause to all nurses because it is hard, hard work. And I found, you know, it's grad, graduation season's kind of gum, and my girls, my one, graduated college and so they're, they're that age, and so some of her other friends there was a couple went to nursing school and they were graduating, and it just it's all I have to like take the jade out of my heart and set it on the desk because I, you know, I don't want to be that old, that old crotchety nurse going in saying, oh girl, you really chose a great oh god love them gosh, you know, but also you can see, you know, from the side.
Speaker 1:That's like I've been there, I've done that, I am old, I've done that for a long time and thank god there are new baby nurses who can come in and keep this going, you know yeah, it's amazing, it's really amazing it is. And they look so young they look like little they are so young? Yes, because I was. How old were you when you, when you military first? So what? How old were?
Speaker 2:you. I was like, I think I was 28 yeah really old yeah, I, I was older too.
Speaker 1:I think I was, let's see, I was probably 24, 25 maybe. Yeah, um, by the time, yeah, yeah, yeah, by the time I got through nursing school, um, because I was. I went another route first and then I decided, and then I took some time off because I moved and but then I just picked my prerequisites and went to nursing school. Yeah, some of those baby nurses you're like, oh, my god, are you 21? Oh, but god, love them. I mean, they are so eager to learn and their brains are so fresh. Oh god, to have that over again, but not really. Yeah, I don't know if I'd want.
Speaker 2:It's like you can't really I mean it makes. It makes the older nurses that we were brought up by make more sense because they were, you know.
Speaker 1:Yes, we're them now, you're exactly right.
Speaker 2:You're exactly right yeah, it's like they just make so much more sense because they're. They're like even by being mean, like in in some sense, by by being aggressively certain that their path was was correct and whatever I was doing was wrong. The aggression that they brought to that to save me from making a mistake or whatever, or just teaching me how to do it properly, like they could have been way worse.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like they did care and they made me so much better than I ever would have been without them.
Speaker 1:Oh God, yeah, I do feel, yes, very grateful than I ever would have been without them.
Speaker 1:So I'm very grateful for this, yes, very grateful. And I know you and I were at the same hospital at the beginning of our, you know, my career was I began there and then you also then began there and you know some of those. I mean I am so grateful for some of those seasoned nurses that I was around and that you know, took me in and led me and guided me in my learning and, you know, were rough with me sometimes. You know, and that's that's kind of part of it, I think it's part of any any kind of learning curve. You know it's like it's going to be rough and you might get your feelings hurt, but I mean, if it wouldn't have been that way, I wouldn't be the nurse I was. You know it's just another layer of nursing honestly teaching other nurses, because that's a huge part of every year. Clinical students come in every single year and you know, especially when you get older and older nursing and more into your career you're the ones that they are that that you get the nursing student.
Speaker 1:You know the new nurses don't get the nursing student, you get the nursing student, and so some nurses get them, you know, every semester and and I also love having students and I uh, I was a preceptor for for probably maybe two years in two years, but but solid like one right after another and and I remember going to the manager and being like raising my hand, like can I have a break? I just want to come in and just float through and just do my thing Can.
Speaker 2:I.
Speaker 1:And so I did get a break. But a huge part of nursing, beyond taking care of patients and families, is teaching new nurses whether they're new employees or students.
Speaker 2:You don't even know, yeah, you're taking care of people. You don't even know, yeah, yeah, you're taking care of people. You don't even know when you're training a new nurse.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And sometimes you don't really even know that nurse. You know, you don't know. Well, you don't know the student, you don't know him.
Speaker 1:So there's no, it's just a weird like rapport and like do we get each other or what you know? Is this jiving or is she understanding? Or you know, um, that's a lot of weight. It is a lot of weight. I never really thought about that, but that you know that that also goes into the essence, because it's like you are taught from within, within the environment. You get your book knowledge from nursing school and you get your maybe essential skills how to do a bed change, maybe not really, how to start an IV, how to put a shirt on a bedridden page, I don't know silly things like that. But really you learn once you're in the career, once you're in the unit or wherever you land. Those are the people that are teaching you. It's like that you grow your own, that's so strange.
Speaker 1:Is that that way in any other career? I think it a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah, I mean, nursing has unique elements too. I mean it is I don't know. I always tell my my patients when I'm messing with their gown that I went to school for four years to learn the schematics of a hospital gown. Yeah, that's very true.
Speaker 1:That's right here, right here yeah, yeah, when we're getting beds ready in the surgery department we literally have to make sure that those sleeves are snapped. Or when you give the gown to the patient it'll be on some kind of odd all all different ways yeah. So yes, part of nursing, part of a job, is learning to snap those goddamn gowns.
Speaker 1:Oh, god it's so funny. That's so funny. It does feel very good to talk about all this and I hope people listening can then maybe be reminded of their stories and of their first day and that you, you know we tend to forget. Really, you know why, why we're actually doing it and why we like it. I know I was there a lot but never left because that's what I knew and I didn't really feel like I didn't have the energy to do anything new. Left because that's what I knew and I didn't really feel like I didn't have the energy to do anything new, so I just wanted to keep doing what I was doing because it was. I had been doing it for so long and it was just what I knew and it's easy and you know.
Speaker 2:I mean it's good money, it's you know. You know what you're getting. You know what you know what you're doing. When you know what you're doing, it just makes it easy to come back. But yeah. I'm kind of at that place where I feel like in some ways I've given more to my career than I should have.
Speaker 2:Maybe I haven't the the the part that the part of it that broke me is is the part that I gave too much of myself to it, that I didn't know, and that goes back to what we were talking about earlier not knowing how to make the separation from the experiences that you're having and making them make sense in the rest of your life. And you know that all comes with just experience. But I'm at a place where you know what we're doing here is we're stepping out of that comfort zone and trying to do something different and take care of people in a different way than what we are used to. We are used to and even though it's a little scary and we don't really know what we're doing, and just for a little backdrop on that statement, we've recorded this episode what three times now this is the third or the fourth time. We just we don't know really what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean we're literally doing something new and we're just not winging it. I mean, we have guidance, but it's still just like we don't know, and so it's. But you know, there's so much growth. I have come to realize which I didn't because I was a creature of habit, I mean that's why I stayed at the hospital for 26 years but there is so much growth and joy and happiness when you do something that you are uncomfortable doing, but you learn to do it and then show yourself that you can do it. You know the, the reward is, is is so huge and it's, you know, it's a, it's an inner feeling, that that you get from doing something new.
Speaker 1:And I didn't let myself go there for a very, very long time and and I mean we're both, we're both healers very long time and and I mean we're both, we're both healers, I think, coming to know, with all that we've gone through, coming to know who each, you know, you know you, I know me, and I think we both can agree that we're, we are healers.
Speaker 1:So not only are we care caregivers, we're caring, we have nursing knowledge, but you know, we are here to heal, to heal ourselves, to heal other people, to heal our patients, and I think that's just another outlet of our healing. You know it's hard to take it to this level with a bedside nursing job. You know I'm sure there are other nursing jobs out there that are a little bit slower paced and you might be able to incorporate some of this. But for us to be able to gain the satisfaction of well for me I'll just say live my purpose. I can't just not do anything. I have found that I have to continually heal, whether it's people at my work or people I meet, or you know myself for sure, and I think this is another way that we are helping to heal people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I'm kind of thinking back.
Speaker 2:Go ahead of nursing, the planning around critical situations and the element of caring, the element of technical knowledge and the prioritization that is required, the ability to prioritize tasks and even bed movement. As a, as a coordinator, you know the the dynamism that is happening in those situations and and how you know I'm just trying to I'm thinking back to that conversation we were having earlier. I'm thinking back to that conversation we were having earlier how do we dig down to the essence of nursing in that realm? Because when you, you know prioritizing requires you to deny something, when you're prioritizing that this is the most important thing that has to happen. Everything else is going to be denied and that means someone's going to go.
Speaker 2:Either either someone's going to go without some form of care or, you know, there's a hierarchy of needs that emerges in that process of prioritization and the unique skill of the nurse, I think, is that being able to pull forward all of that knowledge and make a good clinical decision. It's, it's such a dynamic thing. I don't know. I just feel like we we could explore that idea. What did that mean?
Speaker 1:Oh we could. Yeah, I mean it's so, it's so huge because it goes. I think that's part For me. I know that was part of burnout was, and I didn't know it in the time. But, looking back, it was the things that I couldn't do, the things that I know I should have been doing but I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it Either I didn't have the supplies to do it, I didn't have the time to do it, I didn't have the other nurses to do it. More, more time it I didn't have the time to do it, I didn't have the other nurses to do it More time.
Speaker 1:And for me, because my end to things as they were happened with COVID and it shined a very, very bright light on the things that could not be done. You know a heavy, heavy prioritization on triage and life-sustaining measures. Honestly, and I know you know it didn't happen a lot at our hospital where we didn't have enough ventilators, but I know it happened a lot and I know there were people who died because they did not have the equipment, because the decision was made out of prioritization and you fell in some kind of you know grid and you know either you met the criteria or you didn't. And if someone was sicker, they got it and you didn't.
Speaker 2:And that was just it.
Speaker 1:They got it and you didn't and that was just it. And you know, I know that in our area there were hospitals who did the ecmo, um, and if you got to one of those hospitals, lucky for you. If you didn't, unlucky for you. Because there was no movement. You that wasn't, it wasn't an option and the way that I felt as far as prioritizing care, I feel like that was part of what started to break down my soul, or absolutely broke it down, because it was probably already broke down, but it ended it.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was well what you're describing is is there's a there's a term for it that I learned when I went through Warrior's Ascent. It's called moral injury. Moral injury when you're unable to, when you know what needs to be done and you're unable to do it for whatever reason, that's a moral injury. When you have a family member that's asking a question and you speak, you know I call it a dark truth, like something that isn't it's 100% true, but there's maybe some context that's missing. Or you know we have a sense of obligation to the institution that we work for, a sense of obligation to the institution that we work for, and so you don't necessarily share all of the information that you possess. That's a moral injury. You know we aren't trained on the ethics of that and I think the unknowing for me, like knowing, for instance, a situation where that we were both involved in, where a patient was essentially abandoned by the physician and and we had done everything to save this individual's life and it didn't.
Speaker 2:It didn't work. And you know, I think I had to tell the family that we had done everything that we could, which was true, the nursing staff did everything, everything possible, to save that life, but there was, there was more that the physician could have done. At least that's that's our shared opinion. Yeah, but that is a moral, that's a big moral injury.
Speaker 2:You know, I remember, I remember I won't say her name, but one of the nurses that we worked with and you may remember this but the, the patient, had extubated themselves in the middle of the night and I, the nurse, had left the bedside and the and the spouse untied the restraint and I was across the way and I saw the hand come up and I was like, oh shit, I bolted, I ran as fast as I could to that, that bedside and I was like two steps away the spouse was was kind of fighting the the hand from getting to the tube and I was like two steps away from being able to save this, this guy, from extubating himself and uh, or say, I feel like, uh, I don't know if I've given away too much patient indicator by by saying gender or whatever.
Speaker 2:I don't know what HIPAA rules are for what we're doing, but I was so close to stopping this, this patient, from harming themselves and was not able to do it. I was just one or two steps away and then to watch the course that that individual had to go through after the fact and like there was nothing I could do. But if I could have done just a little bit more, I could have stopped it, like that's a moral injury. I feel like I suffered psychologically because you know it wasn't just that moment, it was weeks and weeks of watching this individual and you know we're put in these, we're put in those situations and, as you know, any caregiver, firefighter, police, anybody that's interacting in critical situations is exposed to moral injuries Nurses- are suffering.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's definitely what it felt, because it did feel like an injury. It felt, you know, not good and I didn't know, I didn't know how to label it and I didn't know what to do with it. Yeah, and I guess you're kind of numb really, then to it is how maybe I could describe how I, how I was, I knew it's. It's like you know what needs to happen and what should have happened, and it didn't and and you're just left with like huh, well, it's just hard to even put into words how that feels. But you know, nurses aren't taught what. What do you do with that when that happens? Where? How do you explain? How do you get your mind right with it? You know, and I don't know, I don't know in the situation.
Speaker 1:I guess if I had to go back, I probably could recognize that, I could recognize that that's what it was and that's what was going on was and that's what was going on.
Speaker 1:I could then know that that is something that I need to process, whether it's through meditation and release, through journaling and processing and release.
Speaker 1:You know, whatever way you would choose to kind of release that energy from that situation in your body. You know, I've learned that you know how animals, after they do like a prey drive or like a like a hard run after something or running from a predator, they, they shake their body, um, and that is a release. It's an energetic release that they naturally do to the energy buildup from all the chemical reactions that are happening in their body while being chased. Which can I mean we can simulate that in a ton of situations, as far as being in a critical care situation. All of that has to be released. So I guess I would have done which I'm kind of doing now some somatic release work. But it's best if you can catch it right then and either do it before you go to bed, knowing that you dealt with that, you've recognized it, you know what it is, you can label it and you know that you have to release that, and then it wouldn't store, because I think the damage is done from all the everything that's stored in our bodies.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So that's interesting that we could do a whole podcast on that. No, I mean, I'm thinking you know. I'm thinking you know we're nurses, we make protocols you know making a standardized protocol for for how to how to process critical situations.
Speaker 2:You know like there's a there's a routine for post-mortem care and that's for the patient. What about the nurse? I just don't think that it's an option to continue going as it's going without addressing these issues. We aren't going to have caregivers to provide care if we don't start taking care of the caregivers we have. Absolutely, or even, you know, one of the things that your animal idea triggered for me was the thought that so many times, because I'm coming off of my shift and I'm so overwhelmed with the experiences that I've had that I just want to go home. I want to, you know, drink, yeah, in the past you know call you know my girlfriend or whatever, and and you know so there was.
Speaker 2:You know the escapes were sex, alcohol, going to bars, doing maladaptive behaviors and or or the other one, just going home and vegging out and doing absolutely thing for days days, yeah, yeah, well, it's a form of disassociation, you know?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah it's usually letting everything fall and um, that that's quite, quite literally the worst thing that you can do. That, instead of just letting all of your energy fall, that we should be challenging ourselves to stress ourselves in a positive way, because we've just been stressed in a very negative way. We need the opposite. We need, we need the opposite. We need a positive stress. You know, I think that's part of why people choose sports as an escape. I certainly did early in my career. Was, I mean, arguably addicted to working out?
Speaker 1:arguably addicted to working out, couldn't function without it, and I certainly think that that's it. If it's an escape, if you're in, it's the intention with what you're using it. So of course we're not saying that exercise is bad. Of course we're not saying that sex is bad. Of course we're not saying that having an alcoholic drink is bad. It's the intention with which you're using it and so it. Or vegging out watching netflix, watching a whole series on netflix if your intention is like this is awesome and I've been waiting for this to come out and this is what I'm doing this weekend great.
Speaker 1:But if it is to disassociate from being you, then it's damaging and can be damaging and and it's escape it becomes escape. So it's almost like you have to ask yourself am I escaping or is my intention to? I'm working out for my health. I know what I need to do it get my cholesterol down, and you know, or whatever you know. But it's it's, it's in the asking and the kind of researching it in your own brain, because everybody's going to be different and everybody's thing is different. But if you look deep enough, you will know are you escaping or are you literally just watching some Netflix? You know, people know, yeah, but sometimes they don't even know to ask the question because they're literally on autopilot and I feel like that's the way I was for a long, long time, like it becomes. You don't question because your disassociation is the automatic default, for your behavior is the automatic default for your behavior.
Speaker 2:So I am just finishing up a book called. It's just the writings of Epictetus, a Stoic philosopher, and one of the things that he, I think he quotes maybe it's Plato, I can't remember who he's quoting, but he quotes maybe it's Plato, I can't remember who he's quoting, but he says essentially. He says even the great Stoics would say that the unexamined life is essentially not even human. You haven't really taken account of your life. You're not human yet, and so what?
Speaker 2:like when I hear you say um autopilot, that, when I look back on on the ways that I autopiloted, where it just was so routine and I didn't know how to look inward- and I think that goes back to the quote of Proust to deny the fool that I was in my youth would be to deny the man that I am today, that if I didn't differentiate within myself at some point, I had to go through some really hard stuff to get to the point where I was able, or or get to the point where I had no choice but to look inward. Um, there's no way I've become who I am today. So maybe we? That's just part of becoming human. Well it is.
Speaker 1:It is, I mean, I think you know being human, but then it's, it's becoming. It's becoming you, it's becoming, you're coming into yourself and really learning and having the desire to understand who are you and who are you on the inside and what do you mean? What, what is meaning for you? You know on autopilot that what I? None of those thoughts ever came into my mind. I just got up, did the same thing every day, every day, every day, every day, and then I asked myself why am I so? Why am I so fucking fucking miserable?
Speaker 2:you know well, it's, uh, it's kind of the idea of the difference between, uh, a human being and and being human oh yes, a human being and being human, oh, it's totally different, because being is yeah well, yeah, you can't, you just don't know.
Speaker 1:So maybe this hopefully will bring some awareness to some people, because you know, you don't know until you know.
Speaker 2:I didn't know until I knew.
Speaker 1:You didn't know until you knew.
Speaker 2:Right, you didn't know till.
Speaker 1:You knew, right, you know, and even just getting people to kind of just start thinking about it, like are you on autopilot or are you really living?
Speaker 2:Are you living, you know? And then I mean that makes me think of where healthcare is inevitably going, which is AI. You know already, artificial intelligence is able to diagnose radiological images better than humans. So, yeah, that's. That's been a couple of years, I think that that has been true, and radiologists will likely be the first to be replaced for that reason, because it's based on an image and the AI can analyze it. I don't know how AI replaces what we do.
Speaker 1:Well, it definitely cannot replace the essence of a nurse, oh no, Well, it definitely cannot replace the essence of a nurse, oh no, All of that kind of stuff, but the essence of nursing the real caring human connection that we have. I don't know if that can ever. That can never. I feel like it can never be replaced by AI, for sure.
Speaker 2:And so that's why we gotta, we gotta that kind of brings up a thought about AI, that there would be a personal AI and that one of the. I've listened to lots of people talk about it, just to help me formulate my own thoughts, because my initial thoughts are.
Speaker 2:This is a huge mistake for humanity. This is we shouldn't. We should mess with things we shouldn't be messing with, and one of the things that I've heard about it is that it's going to change. It's your. Men and women will have access to personal AI that knows them and knows what they like better than any human could know.
Speaker 2:And be able to to uh assimilate that into a customized uh experience for them and and so, in that sense, connecting that idea to the essence of nursing, which is caring. If the ai is able to to recognize our emotional responses and can manipulate our emotional responses, then it can't replace the authentic human experience, but it can replicate it in a very real way. And that's scary, that feels really uncomfortable for me.
Speaker 1:I don't like that at all well it's, I never thought about it that way, but I mean it. You know it really could.
Speaker 2:I mean it would be very different, but you know, on the positive side, I mean the suffering and so on the positive side, if you're going to make the positive argument for ai and health care like it would relieve or alleviate a lot of the trauma that we're talking about, a lot of the things that broke us, uh would be could be alleviated, but then it for me I mean the, the fundamental existential question that ai is is is raising is what does it even mean to be human right? And we're not. You know, I I my very hard opinion on on that question is that we're going way too fast and that if we don't push pause on that, we're making a big mistake.
Speaker 1:Right. I mean I think you know, keeping you know I tend to not watch a lot of news or, you know, read a lot of that stuff, but it just feels if we can continue to be just our loving, compassionate, authentic person that we are, you know that that's our job, that's our job here and you know whatever else happens will fall as it may, because otherwise I think it's too it could be too scary, yeah, yeah, yeah, well, I think, no, I that I think you're right, I think I mean that's kind of where I've fallen in in all of the.
Speaker 2:The drama of our, of our modern time is that the real challenge that we have is to is to elevate consciousness With all of the, all the hate, all the you know violence. I mean, nursing is such a violent job. It's so like you just wouldn't think of it. I never, ever, would have thought that nursing would be as violent as it has proven to be in my career or our careers. Um, and elevating our consciousness and you know, for me, choosing, choosing to see things positively, has changed everything for me in how I view myself and how I view others, and it's a practice. It's not like you just decide that you're going to see things positively. It's something that you have to cultivate and build and create for yourself, and your life really changes when you do that. It's incredible, yeah, truly.
Speaker 1:It really really, it really is yeah.
Speaker 2:So, with all the misinformation that's out there and all the voices so many voices, I mean I don't know that's one of the things I think about with what we're doing Like there's already so many voices, like how could what we have to say mean anything or make any impact? And I guess I've alleviated myself from having those thoughts by saying that that's not up to me. The impact that it's going to have will just be it's um, I have. I have very little ability to influence the impact that I have beyond just sharing our experiences.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I, I, I fully agree. I fully agree because I know the people that I have found, that have helped me, and I feel like there's infinite room for there's infinite space, infinite space and the people who are meant to find, just like we found the people that were meant to help us. So, where we found help, which for you and I was both completely different, but you know, we can be that for for others and so, and I, it's, you know, it's, it's it's attraction, it's like it's law of attraction, it's, uh, you know, an connection. And who it's meant to find, it will find. But I think we're doing our job of hearing the calling, doing the inspirational work, the inspired action to put it out there so that who needs to find it will find it. And that gives me peace, whether it's one person, five people or a million people, whoever it helps, even if it helps again, two, five, doesn't matter. And it also is very therapeutic for us because we're doing our purpose, we're living in our purpose.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We hope you've enjoyed this week's episode.
Speaker 1:Remember, the conversation doesn't end here.
Speaker 2:Keep the dialogue going by connecting with us on social media posted in the links below, or by visiting our website, wwwnursingupodorg.
Speaker 1:Together, let's continue to redefine nursing and shape a brighter future for those we care for. Until next time, take care, stay curious and keep nurturing those connections.
Speaker 2:And don't forget to be kind to yourself.