Nursing U's Podcast
Ep #004 - Navigating Nursing: From Burnout to Self-Care
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the emotional weight of nursing?
Join Julie and Caleb as they uncover the hidden layers of personal growth and healing through genuine conversations.
Julie and Caleb kick off this episode by reflecting on their journey through the initial episodes, shedding light on the power of verbalizing thoughts and emotions. They share insights on the contrasting roles of doctors and nurses and the financial and philosophical dynamics within the healthcare system.
Opening up about their experiences emphasizes the importance of connection and shared experiences in fostering understanding and growth.
They take a deeper look into the complexities of healthcare, from patients' subjective experiences to the objective protocols followed by medical professionals. Julie and Caleb explore how individual backgrounds and personal skills shape how healthcare workers absorb and process energy and emotions. They highlight the essential role of dark humor as a coping mechanism, especially during the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. They discuss how humor aids in processing grief and maintaining mental well-being, even in the most critical situations.
Finally, the conversation shifts to the emotional and mental challenges nurses face, including burnout and the lack of genuine support within the healthcare system. Julie and Caleb stress the importance of authentic self-care, self-awareness, and taking time to heal.
As they imagine inviting dream guests, such as psychoanalysts, to provide deeper insights into the emotional aspects of caregiving, Julie and Caleb open a forward-looking discussion on integrating Western medicine with alternative therapies. This exploration of the potential of energy healing and frequency in future medical practices is a testament to the ever-evolving nature of healthcare. Don't miss this thought-provoking episode that aims to redefine nursing and promote well-being through innovative conversations.
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the emotional weight of nursing?
Join Julie and Caleb as they uncover the hidden layers of personal growth and healing through genuine conversations.
Julie and Caleb kick off this episode by reflecting on their journey through the initial episodes, shedding light on the power of verbalizing thoughts and emotions. They share insights on the contrasting roles of doctors and nurses and the financial and philosophical dynamics within the healthcare system.
Opening up about their experiences emphasizes the importance of connection and shared experiences in fostering understanding and growth.
They take a deeper look into the complexities of healthcare, from patients' subjective experiences to the objective protocols followed by medical professionals. Julie and Caleb explore how individual backgrounds and personal skills shape how healthcare workers absorb and process energy and emotions. They highlight the essential role of dark humor as a coping mechanism, especially during the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. They discuss how humor aids in processing grief and maintaining mental well-being, even in the most critical situations.
Finally, the conversation shifts to the emotional and mental challenges nurses face, including burnout and the lack of genuine support within the healthcare system. Julie and Caleb stress the importance of authentic self-care, self-awareness, and taking time to heal.
As they imagine inviting dream guests, such as psychoanalysts, to provide deeper insights into the emotional aspects of caregiving, Julie and Caleb open a forward-looking discussion on integrating Western medicine with alternative therapies. This exploration of the potential of energy healing and frequency in future medical practices is a testament to the ever-evolving nature of healthcare. Don't miss this thought-provoking episode that aims to redefine nursing and promote well-being through innovative conversations.
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.
Speaker 2:So, julie, we have three episodes in the can. This is our fourth. We've been having a nice conversation just about various different elements of our journey. How do you feel the first three episodes have gone?
Speaker 1:I think they've gone good I it has caused me to think about things and put them into language that I hadn't before. Even with journaling, really, you're with another human and you're speaking and the language flows and that's different than even just writing it Sure, and so it's been. This actually has been very healing for me and it's given me opportunities to heal. I should say that opening up about ways and things that I haven't thought about allows me to see kind of inward.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm about allows me to see kind of inward and that opens the door for just more healing and processing processing with language, processing with thoughts, trying to put your thoughts together so that they make sense with the intention of someone else resonating with it and being able to recognize their self in our story yours or mine, or both. Because I was on that side lots of times, I mean when I quit drinking. I listened to so many podcasts just because it was real people talking about their real problems. It wasn't the media, it wasn't commercials, it wasn't sponsored, it was just real people talking about their lives openly and it allowed me to feel that I wasn't alone.
Speaker 1:And you know, because when you're going through such a hard time and you feel in such a place that you sometimes don't really know where to turn and for me that I kind of became robotic in my life and groundhog dayish because I just didn't. I didn't want to make the wrong decision, I didn't really know what my choices were, but listening to other people talk about their feelings validated what I was feeling and that allowed me to not feel alone, which then made it kind of feel safe for me to start trying to work some of that out in my mind, and knowing that I needed to work some of that out in my mind, and and knowing that I needed to work some of that out in my mind that it couldn't just stay where it was. It needed to be processed through the dishwasher and then taken out, and put back in the right cabinet.
Speaker 1:Right, you know, I felt like my my dishes were a mess, always overflowing, and to start to make some kind of sense of all of the feelings that I had and can I throw you a big curve ball?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, just listening to you talk about the subjective experience that you're, that you're having it's, it brings me back to something that I've been thinking about for a long, long time, and it will tie back into, uh, everything you just said.
Speaker 1:Eventually, oh, I know it will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we always bring it back around um so let me see if I can get the thought right. And and none of none of this that I'm going to say is absolute, it's just my kind of my. My buddy calls it, uh, caleb's mental workshop.
Speaker 2:Uh, I've been running this thought through my, my mental workshop for a long time year, like three years maybe and the idea is that you know the the different roles between doctors and nurses, uh, are that doctors are coming in. There's and this is the ICU perspective Doctors come in, they spend a few minutes with the patient, they make their objective analysis and then they write their objective orders that they view fit for caring for the patient, and then we are left with the task of carrying out those objective orders. But we're there for 12 hours and the carrying out of those objective orders oftentimes is pretty finite and there's a lot of time in between where we are dealing with the subjective nature of the patient experience and so to kind of just walk you through the whole mental workshop of this idea.
Speaker 2:You know, in healthcare I'm really confident that nurses are listed on the budget sheet as an expense, but we're called providers and doctors are listed on the income generating side of the revenue sheet or the budget and so the philosophical perspective that any healthcare administrator necessarily is going to approach that budget sheet is that the doctors are going to be valued higher than the expense.
Speaker 2:So, just philosophically, we cannot be viewed any other way than an expense or a liability to the outgoing flow of cash. And so thinking, you know, recognizing that thought, and then what I've been, you know, and I don't even know if it's possible, it's not possible on my own. I don't think.
Speaker 2:I think I would need a team of people that were able to think about things in an abstract form to figure out a way to identify the value of the subjective caregiving that we're taking on and giving and if we were able to identify the value in that, then we could potentially charge for that and that would be a source or a pathway to the other side of the performa, or the financial performa to the other side of the performa or the financial performa.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like in order for nursing to get to the point where it's, in order for nursing to become healthy. I think that we have to be viewed differently by administrators. Yeah that viewing us. As you know, there's a, there's a uh, one of the hospitals, uh, during COVID, I remember seeing an award top 100 hospitals in America.
Speaker 2:And it's so. It's a gold leaf and gold leafed, and you know it's a placard, and directly next to it was a cartoon of a male nurse with a cape and a female nurse with a cape and a stethoscope or whatever, and it's like heroes work here, plated and, and you know, have that, uh, formal reverence is these people that are sacrificing literally every part of their lives to take care of others, but they're the ones that are represented as cartoons. Yeah, um, and this award that was more than likely purchased I mean, well, like that's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's how it works.
Speaker 2:I mean, we all know that, that if we're going to repair healthcare, it is going to be you know it's going to be nurses have to be elevated, regarded, cared for. You know, like I said, I think you know we've been we kind of dabble into topics and we weave in and out of them and you know the nurses that are choosing to leave the bedside or choosing to kill themselves or whatever, whatever escape that they have, whatever, whatever means that they find rest from the caregiving trauma they're finding it and that means the patient population is going to be left with a huge, tremendous void and no one's going to be able to take care of anybody. Yeah, and that is very concerning. Yeah, and I think there is something, I think there's something to explore in that subjective realm, yeah, which is so difficult because it's subjective, right, how do you? You can't.
Speaker 1:Right, you can't measure it. You can't measure it, you can't put a number on it. You can't.
Speaker 2:Well, you try. I mean, we've got the pain scale, yeah.
Speaker 1:Again not truly subjective, you know, or someone's pain level at four is completely different than another person's pain level at four. It can be measured but not referenced. Really, you know, like you can't in your mind, you have to. There's so much more than just the pain level at four that you look at the patient and decide how you're going to proceed with them.
Speaker 2:That gives me kind of an interesting idea, like and this is just exploring, this is mental workshop, yeah, mental work Moment. Yeah, like because you know when someone is in. I've been in extreme pain before where time kind of changes, like five minutes from now, doesn't register.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like maybe measuring pain in turn somehow in terms of time, like are you at zero seconds?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Like, that's like 10 out of 10,.
Speaker 2:you know, I don't know it's, it's interesting.
Speaker 1:It's just a yeah, well, because I mean, who even came up with that? Yeah, zero to 10. Yeah, like, what does that even mean? Right, it doesn't mean any, you know, it doesn't. The number literally is a reference point and that's it. And my interpretation of a four is not the same as someone else's, you know, and I don't know. I just think that, speaking of subjectivity, there's there's also no one way to heal either.
Speaker 1:So healing is also very subjective and I think we'll explore a lot of different topics just because we like to talk and we've been able to take a step back from the grind and have time to think about how we feel about lots of different things and I think our perspective is different than it was when we were in it. But offering, you know, some cause, some people will like very, you know, start here A, b, c, and then you move down and like an algorithm type of way, and then some people will just be able to reflect by our words, by hearing our words, and then that will cause them to kind of reflect on their life. And, you know, looking looking to the future of what this podcast can be or what we can offer, because I think it's it's definitely both our calling to be able to off I don't even know if we know what we're going to offer I think we are. We both have been called to offer whatever it is to help the collective you could leave it at collective period but also we're, because we're nurses and we have such an affinity towards other nurses, you know, by helping them, and you know, I think it's hard to to see what that is going to entail and and what it all you know means.
Speaker 1:But having a platform to be able and the courage to be vulnerable and talk about how we feel and how things affected us will shed a light, even if it's a tiny flashlight, but it still will. And light, you know, light on the darkness. Shining light on the darkness. It only shows what is really there, you know and and we'll continue, you know, it just continues to spread and, having all of the experiences that we have had individually and, you know, together for a while, it's like we just have to share it. We have to. So, whether pod, whether five people watch this podcast or 500,000 people watch this podcast, even if there's five people who were like thank God for you, you know, you, really you talking about that changed it for me, you know where and whatever that changes, because we're not putting people in any particular direction.
Speaker 2:Leave the bedside get out of the hospital.
Speaker 1:It's not that if it can just open their mind to think in a different direction. You know so, in a way kind of being teachers of life, you know and and and experience of it.
Speaker 2:I think that kind of informs the curve ball that I threw you know, just because we're all having subjective experiences, and I think that you know what you were talking about initially was, um, that you're trying to make sense of this experience, that you have the subjective experience that you've had and understanding, like there's like a context of, of understanding that that everything that we've experienced at the bedside all of the, you know, screaming patients, that, like our cells have absorbed those sounds, you know, yeah, like, yeah, all of that, like it just gets lost in there, yeah, and then it then on this side, you don't like, you don't even know what you're dealing with.
Speaker 1:You don't even know. I mean, unless you understand that concept, you don't know that you're absorbing, that you don't know. And then you wonder why you can't sleep at night or why you're getting really pissed off at your kids or why? Yeah, like why do you? When you say I'm not drinking at night, why do you drink?
Speaker 2:Why are you doing that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. You're just not even aware that that's happening, right, yeah, and you know, but it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's definitely happened.
Speaker 1:It's. There's so much to be absorbed, there's so much emotion and so much energy, with all the emotions of the patients, and so I mean it is all subjective, all of it. The patient's experience is subjective. The medicines we give can be the same, the treatment that we do can be a protocol which is the same. It's very objective. It's exact an algorithm, the way we code a patient. You know those kind of things.
Speaker 1:But the subjectiveness is like you could picture all the energy coming off of that and then each individual absorbs that in a different way and you don't know where you're going to get stuck. You don't know where that energy is going to be stuck. You know because you don't. I mean, it has to do with so many things where you came from, how your childhood was what, what you're doing now, how many skills were you born with? You know, how much awareness do you have? Yeah, elementary school doesn't teach awareness of ourselves, in space, in the now. They just don't Not yet, not yet. Oh God, so great. Yeah, those teachers who do meditation with kids, yeah, yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 1:So what do you think about?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean one thing that popped up for me was one of the gifts of all of that which is healthcare's inclination towards dark humor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, don't you love it. I don't know if there's a nurse out there that loves that dark humor.
Speaker 2:There is nothing like it.
Speaker 1:I know it is so funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, health care provides so much humor.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I mean, that's the opposite of suffering.
Speaker 2:I mean don't you think? Yeah, no, we have to do it In a way, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the only way to it's a release moments.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, you can laugh with another nurse like no one else. I mean it is the best it is, and you know people feel shameful about it sometimes.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I do Well.
Speaker 1:I usually don't, but I think sometimes they're like I'm pretty blunt, yeah, and at the bedside. You know, I had a way and I'm just going to call it like a see it and say things out loud. And some baby nurses, and I could just feel the looks they were like. Oh my God, so comfortable, yeah, but it's a tool, it's also a tool, like in critical situations.
Speaker 2:I know that. I've experienced, you do it, I've done it like that one moment where everybody's kind of quiet in a code or just a critical situation, and you throw that one little dart into the situation, yeah, and it just lightens everything everything and then it just continues to move forward in a different direction, like it's kind of like the whole thing is hanging in a balance and that one, that one joke that's thrown in there, just shifts the energy of the whole thing it does. And it just, it goes in a positive direction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean I did it. I did it for myself and I did it for others, you know so that they could feel like Absolutely, you know so that they could feel like this is not so serious. This is serious, it's so so, so serious, but it's not really that serious, you know. Or even when you're kind of griefing or what you know, you're talking about things afterwards, or you know, a nurse would come to me and say, well, I had my first death, you know and.
Speaker 1:I'm listening, listening, but like we can't make it so serious because otherwise you take that down to the soul.
Speaker 2:And that's not where that belongs.
Speaker 1:That doesn't Like, let's process through that. And we got to let that energy go and laughter for me, integral, integral for getting through it. And I didn't really realize it's not like I was reflecting on that back then, I just wasn't, but it was just. It was a huge part of that which I do believe I lost during COVID. I really did.
Speaker 2:As you were saying that I, I, I feel like you know we haven't really talked through any of the details of why I left the first time, uh, that that patient lost it was so traumatic for me. But I was kind of, as you were talking about that, I was thinking to that situation and I don't ever. It was just only serious, it was never. There was never any laughter in the room, it was just oh yeah, this is not good. Yeah, and it was 12 hours of it. It started from the beginning to the end. That kind of broke me.
Speaker 1:Well, and I feel also, too, that that probably was your time to exit.
Speaker 2:I didn't have a choice, it was just my journey.
Speaker 1:I had to go.
Speaker 2:I had to go, I couldn't stay, felt betrayed, I felt a lack of confidence in myself um all of it. Yeah, just like I had to get out of that. Yeah, yeah hospital.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think you know so, everybody's journey is different and everybody's on a different timeline. And you know, I guess I I would want nurses who are like what should I do? I mean, I just'm feeling away, I don't even know how I feel.
Speaker 2:I don't even know what I'm feeling.
Speaker 1:I don't even know you know it's it, you know, you will know. So, if you're still getting up and you're still going to work and you're still doing it, that it's just not time, but becoming more aware you from, from maybe even ever leaving. Yeah, you know, I mean you might be able to work some things out in your own mind, to you know. Remain at your job and in a happy place in a healthy place. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that's the perspective that we're coming at this from. It's like how can we help nurses to become more self-aware of their experience and keep them at the bedside, keep them caring for people? Yeah, because, like you said, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, who's going to?
Speaker 2:who's going to be there? Who is it?
Speaker 1:Who is it going to be? I mean, are you going to go to the hospital and you're just going to have a robot? I know?
Speaker 1:I mean it really takes away the whole like we talked about last week the whole essence of nursing of nurses is the caring part, and if you cannot care for yourself or are not caring for yourself, you will not be able to continue to care for other people. It will happen if you don't. And you know, I think back like that's where it's at. Yeah, Learning, educating yourself. It's a practice. It's not knowing about self-care. And you know, because I look back at some of my social media and things that I was doing, even during COVID part of it, I was in a manager role and I felt so deeply that I needed to take care of those nurses and make sure that they were taking care of themselves, but it was as if no one could step off the hamster wheel to even get a minute to do it Me neither.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So here I am putting this information out. You know, and we had resource page and mental health resources, and you know, take care of yourself and go home and take a bath, and you know all those little things.
Speaker 1:And it's like why didn't I? I didn't do any of that, I couldn't. It was like a, you know, you just feel like you're on this hamster wheel that you can't get off of. I don't know how to depict that, except for just awareness within. So it's not like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I need to do that, cause it did feel like more to do. I didn't have enough time, but it was it's. It's a decision that you make that you're gonna slow down, no matter what, and you have to be come comfortable with sitting with yourself in who you are, right then, and not be afraid of that anymore. You know, I think a lot of us are afraid to really sit quiet because I think we're afraid of what ourselves are going to tell ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think there's a shame component. Yeah and fear.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, yeah, fear of the shame.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the shame component of you. Know where my hands were for. You know in the last shift, you know what I had to do to this person's body to save them or preserve them or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think there's a shame to, because again that goes back to the whole idea of the lack of shared experience with community. You go out into your family setting or community setting where people have no context for where your hands have been Right, and there's like, if this person could have seen me two hours ago, what would they think of me? Right, like that. I remember having that thought many times. Um, like playing racquetball, like you know I'd be, uh, I'd be, you know, having the camaraderie of the racquetball players and that silent, this silence between conversation. I'd just be like God, these guys have no clue what I do for a living.
Speaker 1:And why do you think that that was like? Do you think other people in other professions feel that way, like the body is so intimate. Yeah, as, as as a healer, rather than you know a nurse who's paid hourly, who's on the clock and is told to take her lunch and told when when she's not going to work, and how many patients they're going to have and what they're going to work with. It's like. It's like a total dichotomy of like you're this healer who is literally hands in another patient and or you know another person, another human being.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah with their soul and your eyes are with their eyes that maybe the moment they're dying or the moment they have to go in the ventilator, or the moment they get off the ventilator or come out of surgery and wake up, and it's so intimate that it doesn't fit with someone who clocks in and out of a job and who is an expense and who is expendable as we king and queen that we are, and so it feels. It's like your body and your essence wants to heal and be that intimate with that other human being. But it's like you're doing it for free, it's's like you're giving it away because no one really, except for another nurse, knows what you're actually doing.
Speaker 1:It's like being a king and queen behind the scenes, kind of.
Speaker 2:Well, so there's. That's an interesting thing, because I remember I I had this guilt, especially when I was on a weekend option. I had a patient that was long format, like eight, nine months. I know we've talked about you don't remember, but, um, the things that I did to that person's body, like it's just like no one else, no, who does? That, yeah, right, yeah, and. And then I go get in my my fancy little sports van and I'm like that that paid for that.
Speaker 1:Like what is that?
Speaker 2:Because there's an altruism to nursing that you know, like I think every nurse is altruistic and I think that's part of why we're on the expense side. I think that our altruism is used against us, that staffing ratios are manipulated. Someone will be morally inclined to not leave their coworkers in such a shitty situation excuse my language that someone will step up and more than I mean, at least in my experience my own choices of not leaving my coworkers alone. It was that ethical, altruistic, like I'm not going to leave them in the trenches by themselves.
Speaker 1:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:But then you realize that the staffing ratios are manipulated. Yeah, and that is.
Speaker 1:We, as the healers, should be saying what they should be. What do you mean? The staffing ratios? We who are in there should be deciding how many people we need to do the care that we're giving Right. But it's completely opposite. You don't get to say you don't get to say you don't, you don't get to decide that you need more that day. Right, you have to do it under the constraints of whatever facility you're working at, or what the government says, or what the state says yeah, whatever it is the finance guy that's making the medical decisions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it yeah.
Speaker 2:So it hurts it hurts and it cuts and it it makes you jaded jaded yeah, because it doesn't match up and our minds cannot make sense of it yeah and so you just do it right, that kind of that reminds me of something we were talking about the cognitive dissonance, yeah, and what was we kind of talked through that? Yeah, like the experience and like so much of the experience of nursing and the internalization of that experience is in contradicting force. Yeah, and we talked through this. I think it was before or after our last episode.
Speaker 1:You can only be in that place for so long and then it's going to cause breakdown If your mind cannot make sense of what it's doing and your mind and your body and your soul are doing one thing but you also have to be doing the same. It can't exist at the same time, you know, and it it does for a while.
Speaker 2:But I think that is also part of the breakdown of nursing as as as a career, because I mean, or even further down, the psyche of the nurse, yeah, the when things just don't make sense anymore. Right Like it. Well, I mean that the term I I, I kind of apply to myself is ICU psychosis. Yeah, like the thing that we don't like and I've got.
Speaker 2:I actually that's an interesting thing to kind of work through because we we typically think of ICU psychosis as being, you know, a patient that's been in the unit for multiple days. They lose orientation to time and space. Yeah, like they lose orientation to reality.
Speaker 1:I mean, we give them medications to take that away. We take it away from them, you know, like they don't even have the ability to maintain any kind of normal sense of day, night and being alive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, All orientation is lost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all orientation is lost.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then we just continue the cycle by suppressing any cognitive function with sedatives and drugs. Yeah, cognitive function with, you know, sedatives and drugs, and we just turn you off because you're not behaving, instead of like figuring out ways. I mean, how do you figure out psychosis? How do you?
Speaker 1:how do you but I mean just even the concept of that, I mean you can apply that to nurses.
Speaker 2:Well, that's, that's what I'm saying. Like I, I had, I think I diagnosed myself with ICU psychosis. I lost track of perspective. Oh my God, me too. Yeah, I think that's why nurses, like ICU nurses, in particular ICU critical care, er nurses, are the ones that are taking their own lives. I think they lose track of reality, they develop ICU psychosis. I really think that that I mean, that's a, that's a mental workshop piece that you know I don't think we could entirely hash out in one session, but over time we could figure we could maybe come up with some differential of understanding what that means for nurses. Yeah, and that you know that could be a very useful tool for managers, for individual nurses to, to police themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean there, there, there really is so much to explore and I feel like I mean we're just, we're just getting our feet fairly wet, yeah, and it. It feels very expansive, but it feels like just thinking about the future and what we can talk about and develop and all you know, I'm just thinking like, oh my God, all the nurses that we could help by putting our effort into this type of thinking and putting it out there on a platform so that other people can have access to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just remind me of another thing that I really want to see happen is a nursing think tank. I want to create a nursing think tank yeah, God that would be so much fun. How fun would that be.
Speaker 1:They pretend that they have that like as far as like, coming up with a better way, coming up with, you know, like a, a committee beyond the committee so that we can think about it and do things you know get nursing input. Well, that's all bullshit, yeah, yeah, it's just. It just is it's not working. You've been doing that since the seventies Committees.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God.
Speaker 1:So think tank is not a committee.
Speaker 2:No, Like, like if we did a think tank like we need a think tank, a think tank.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do need a think tank. A think tank, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I think you know naming our podcast, nursing you, is twofold. I think we've we've thought and talked about this, that you know. We're nursing you, you're nursing me, I'm nursing you. And also the whole other side of that would be like a nursing university, like a place that can develop. I don't even want to say education, because that sounds weird, but it's ideas. And I don't want to say like processes, it's just words.
Speaker 2:And it's like we have this aversion to these like catchphrase.
Speaker 1:I know I don't want it to be, that. I don't want it to be sponsored by an association. I don't want it to be sponsored by an association. I don't want it to be sponsored by a healthcare system. You know. I don't want it to be sponsored by a university nursing school. You know what I mean. Like I just I want it to be authentic and genuine. Coming from two nurses that were in the field for so long, we're very broken and have learned to put to start putting the pieces back together, and you know I mean the best inventions come from those who were in the field. You know, the best medicines come from those who wanted better and knew that there were, there was something better.
Speaker 2:There's a better way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is a better way, and I haven't found, I haven't found it, I haven't found. As far as nursing goes there, I still it. I just don't really, you know, see much advance in that. It seems very loop ish, mmm, like there's ulterior motives more or what you know. Systems will talk about building, resist, resilience, zillions that's only for them. It's one way. It's selfish.
Speaker 1:They want you to be resilient, so you don't call in sick so that you feel bad when you take a day off, when you can't work the sick so that you feel bad when you take a day off, when you can't work the proper schedule that they want you to, or however many days you're supposed to work. You know what I mean? That, to me, is just gross and there's. It's not genuine, it's not authentic, and I think the good thing, one of the good things about this, is that we're not coming from any of that any of that, like nothing we're doing has any motive, or I mean, there's really the only, the only thing.
Speaker 1:What we're, what I'm getting out of this, is a sense of allowing people to gain awareness about where they are in their life. Are in their life and, just like when I was seeking things that I needed in my toolbox to help me, I knew I needed help. But so you just start looking and you're scouring wherever podcasts and YouTube and books and and classes and and all of those kinds of things and you know I I want this to just be one of those things that offers a lot of knowledge and that we're just holding this space so that others can feel that, Like I really want it to come off as authentic and genuine, coming from inside of us, you know, From the heart, From the heart.
Speaker 1:From the heart, and I think the reason we question sometimes is anybody going to listen to this? Why did I last so long? Why did it take me so long to figure that out? Why didn't I take care of myself sooner? Those are just unanswered, I mean.
Speaker 2:I mean that gets back to the subjective experience that we don't like. We don't have any tools to process. That is the key we have to. We have. That's the thing to figure out.
Speaker 1:I think, I really think that that's that that is what sparks the new idea and sparks the new impulses and our brain to think like oh you, you know it could be bad, or you know inspiration. I think it sparks inspiration when we're like why are we doing this?
Speaker 2:yeah we're so amateur, you know it's that, it's there, yeah, that it really is like well, it is interesting I mean, we talked about this a little bit before just the like listening to myself, like I'm so self-critical and listening to myself talk in the earlier episodes let's go get to your point, man but there's like this, this, this honest reflection of who I am Just like, oh, that that's. I do that, I have that mannerism, I have that Right Cause we don't?
Speaker 1:we just don't take the time to really look at ourselves. We're so busy looking at everybody else Our families, our you know our children, our marriages, our you know friendships and the patients and everything, everything. There's so much. There's so many other things to look at besides really just looking at ourselves, and I mean that's healing. That's healing being able to, you know, self reflect. So, if you're not doing anything else, if you can just write a paragraph about the way you're feeling like right now and just don't do anything with it, just reflect on it, just think about it, you know, you're just.
Speaker 1:We have to get to know ourselves who we really are and what we really want and why we're here.
Speaker 2:I think you know it makes me think of the kind of unhealthy you know, when I left nursing, I isolated myself in an unhealthy way, but it was.
Speaker 2:I had to be like, I had to have that time to process, like, even though it was, you know, like, even though it was, you know it was ill-informed and and completely reckless on my part, I, there was a part of me that had to be alone. I had to be alone and the solitude of just being by myself and not giving. I mean, I think I, I think I talked about about that in one of the earlier episodes kind of the selfishness, of that self-care that everything else had to fall away in order for me to completely break so that I could put myself back together. And that solitude piece is like I'm listening to you and that's what it's taking me to, that place of solitude, like the way you described, you know, all of the, the work, the relationships, all of the different pieces of of life that you were portraying in in in that idea, all of them require giving of yourself. And there was, it was there's like. When do you have time for like, for just being with yourself?
Speaker 1:And we're not taught that. No we're not taught that. We're taught that it's you're successful If the more things you can do and the more things you can hold on your plate, the more successful you are the more businesses you have, the more money you make, the more hours you put in, you know it's, it's, it's not really.
Speaker 1:You know, if you're like no, you know, no, I just work. I work about 15 hours a week and, oh, you do. Well, what do you do? You have a, so where do you work actually? What are you actually doing?
Speaker 2:Like, no, it's like oh no, I'm Andrew.
Speaker 1:You know I've. You know I have three units. I, you know I do that. No, I call 24 hours. You know what? Like that's what is like. I am so proud of you, mmm not, I'm so proud of you for taking the time that you need. What managers ever said that to you, right? I'm so proud of you for calling in and taking that day, because you literally coded three people yesterday, right you? Know it was like okay, well, you've called three more codes coming tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Well, right.
Speaker 1:Or now you're in trouble. So now you're going to, you'll have to write you up because I have to, because the hospital says I have to. So now you're on like a written plan, right? I mean it's just not, it's not, it's not allowed, it's not, it's just looked at as a negative thing and so it's not comfortable to do and it's actually not comfortable to do because we're not taught to do it initially, but then, once you get used to it, it's like you have to have, you have to have it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I. So I mean, that's where I, you know, that's where my thoughts, you know, mature, like you know, within my mind. But then there's like that for me I found that those thoughts that I run through the mental workshop as I process those, there is a definitive limitation to my ability to really see through all the problems, and it's only when I come back to community that I share them and then they get. They get polished, yeah, like they're only, they can only take a rough form in my mental workshop. It's only when I have someone that is able to see it from a perspective that I don't have, that uh, that it becomes something valuable.
Speaker 1:Well, that made me think of like community gardens. You know so like it takes the community. You know you can have one person tend the garden, but how much more will the garden flourish if you have a community tending to the garden?
Speaker 1:And so you know, finding your people who can help you tend is is huge, and it is something that I really now, in just learning um, you know, I've been married I did. When I quit drinking I I isolated a lot within my own family and home, and so that's necessary, necessary. No one should ever feel shame about needing that I didn't cook, I didn't do any laundry and then I had to work through the shame of all that because that not performing my tasks at a mother.
Speaker 1:I mean it was, yeah, but now, coming out of that and being very comfortable with who I am and what, how I feel and need allowing others to tend to me and that I can talk with and allow in my circle, I just didn't know that something could feel so like flourishing about it, you know, like nourishing about it, and I don't know which which should come first, but they might happen simultaneously for some people. You know some people, um, and I might've been one of those. Can you know flourish in a social setting, and that's fine, but, like, do you really know who you are in the social setting? Cause I could flourish in a social setting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that was only this layer, so nothing down here was being worked on. So I had to literally take it down and I know you did too to bare minimum, to bare bones, and work some of that out almost like an archaeologist would you know you really have to like take it all the way down to as low as you can go within and start uncovering some of those old bones and then you're shocked at like what you now see this whole structure of something that you never knew was there because we it was so covered up.
Speaker 1:For me that's it's just a hard skill, but even if you can do a small amount of that for a small amount of time, even starting five minutes in the morning. So you asked me who would be a dream guest if we had guests on our podcast, and I was thinking someone to. I would love to hear someone's take on like a nurse's psyche. Oh, like someone not in healthcare, you know, like not a storyteller, but more like a someone who could Like a psychoanalyst kind of like someone who could evaluate a little bit of what we're saying or just their knowledge of nursing and and caregivers and, um, you know what caregiving trauma.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, someone who was real versed in that and how you know. I'm sure we could get a lot of things out of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Be able to understand better. You know cause he, even being fresh out of it, then it's still very fresh and I think we're just we understand a lot and have a a whole different perspective, kind of being on the other side of that. We are so new to our healing, you know, even years, I mean, I still think it's just years, even with years under the belt, yeah, it's still like.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that's part of the human experience. Maybe like, maybe we never like there is no goal you're right like I don't believe it's an end point either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's always a journey because, as I have found, healing, this opens you up to now. This. And so now you can recognize and heal this, and then opens you up to this, and then you recognize and heal this.
Speaker 2:So I literally think it's a journey of healing kind of reminds me of, like the video game mario brothers or super mario, yeah where they you know they are running, and then they jump on top of this tunnel and they go down into this underworld where they explore, like, and they get their rewards and they come out, yeah.
Speaker 1:The little coins they jump up and down and it never ends.
Speaker 2:And then they come back up and they're in the real world again and they're running, and then they like and then they get to the, to the end, where they you know they are doing the flagpole thing and and you're going on to the next level?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does. It's like there is. I guess there is an end when you know. But I think while we're still in this meat sack is a journey always I mean meat sack, is such a base term I mean, it's just a bag of bones. It is, it is but interesting book that you're reading about the organs and how they are grounding our body.
Speaker 2:Spiritually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Grounding our spirit to our body, to our body.
Speaker 1:There it is, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And even you know you can look at it from a. If you look at it from just a nursing, you look at it from just a nursing. What our knowledge is that you know the heart beats and it's electric and the brain functions and that's electric, like there's electricity there and so that's energy and our nervous system is entirely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's all electric, yeah which is so interesting yeah yeah and so you know there, there are other ways to heal those types of systems, beyond just medications well, yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 2:That's we were talking, kind of talking through that, that, um, you know, we're we're responding to all of the all of the maladaptive ways that the body is operating, and Western medicine is not really looking at how to optimize the positives, it's really only looking at the negatives. I mean, we're really really great at emergencies, like give us emergencies, we got this. But when it comes to optimizing health, we're not really focused on that in any way. But I do think that that is the future of of medicine, like looking at sound waves and waveforms, biological waveforms, like I think I think that is the future of medicine.
Speaker 1:So it would also be interesting to have a guest that would be able to that maybe wasn't in healthcare, that knew a lot about frequency and energy healing, you know, and and relate that back to nursing, Because I feel like that's a whole untouched realm.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:You know for, if you want to put it, you know caring for our bodies.
Speaker 2:I mean the? The trick is, you know everybody, everybody's heard, you know, during, during COVID, the healthcare workers mocking the mocking the essential oil community. I've got the essential oil of amiodarone.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's hilarious, but there's something to it.
Speaker 1:I mean the olfactory nerve and the whole way it responds to your body. I mean, there's something about smells.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, absolutely no, I absolutely believe that.
Speaker 1:I mean, it was just so dividing, you know, with the treatments that just glared during COVID, that some of those holistic things that aren't in a medicine book were brought because nobody knew how. There was no answer. It was brand new, so everybody was kind of throwing everything at it and I wish I would have been more open to some of that. I didn't have the skills to To the alternative therapies yeah, I didn't have to the alternative therapies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't I mean there, but there is a, a balance to be found with, like the idea of sound waves, like there has to be, like it had, like instead of going entirely on subjective and and um and objective paths.
Speaker 2:You know, there's like the subjective, but like rejecting the, the path of Western medicine that claims absolute truth or claims to be an authority on truth when and and and be as a result of the objective data that we collect, which is, you know, very finite and you know, because it's so myopic, it's looking at this one thing, this one element of this one thing, and they're deep diving into this thing.
Speaker 2:And, yes, you, you identify objective, an objective pathway to this, this form of truth, but it's not a comprehensive truth. And you know to to entirely disregard the, the anecdotal experience, subjective experience of people who benefit from these alternative therapies is also, you know, I think to to go fully on either path is unwise and I think that we are like that is the divide that we're kind of standing on is people are moving in the direction of believing science is almost a religious truth and medicine being the full realization of that, and then, on the other side, rejecting it because it's saying we have the truth and it's the cohorting of foods and medicines and all these things where clearly we're having a health crisis in America and so to say that divide is growing. And if we don't find a way to balance the subjective and anecdotal experience of these people who are looking for alternatives because they recognize the falsehood of the claim of absolute truth of medicine, yeah, that is that's a tricky dance to tango with. That is that's a tricky dance to to tango with.
Speaker 1:But very interesting to talk about and very, I think discussion is.
Speaker 2:More discussion is needed around that I wish I could have said that more articulately. Try it again is divided between the objective path that medicine takes and the subjective path that rejects uh, the absolutism of Western medicine. Western medicine that these people on on this side are saying you're claiming truth and it's obviously not true. They're recognizing something subjective in the claim and saying you're forcing this on me and I'm going this other path and rejecting what there is wisdom in Western medicine. It's not like we've come this far and we don't know things.
Speaker 1:Like we know things, yeah, but like you're saying, it's not absolute.
Speaker 2:It's not absolute. And and the way forward is, I think you know, navigating this, this path of you know, finding objective truth in waveforms, in sound waves, in you know, in you know the all the diverse ways that our nervous system is receiving information that is informing health. I mean, that's a pretty broad statement, but I think, if we dialed in on what that means, that our entire being is responding to information that it's receiving and, um, and you know, waveforms are at every level of of science. So studying that from a from an and applying it to health and optimization of health, not not just responding to illness.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:That's. That's where we have to go, if we're going to to find a way out of the mess that we're in.
Speaker 1:So I mean this podcast. We've talked about a lot of things. I think it's the vision for future podcasts. I think we could take like 10 podcasts, you know, of of some of the subjects that we've talked about today. Um, we talked a little bit about the vision, what we want to see while we're here, you know, I think I think it's pretty clear that what we want out of this, you know, is is to provide insight into lots of things that nurses probably don't ever think about, to get them in a better place than they're currently in, even if it's just a very small better place to just think differently about the situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe they don't have to dig out, think differently about the situation. Yeah yeah, maybe they don't have to dig out of such a deep hole, right yeah?
Speaker 1:Yeah, If we could prevent even just a little bit of that. That's, I think, why part of why we're doing why we're doing this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, agreed, it's been fun.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to see where it goes.
Speaker 1:Oh, me too, it's like it's fun Cause it's like we're not on a. You know we don't have a. It's not cookie cutter.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:And there's not an algorithm.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:And there's not a protocol Right. It's very um, it's fun it is fun so we'll see.
Speaker 2:See you on the next pod on the other side we hope you've enjoyed this week's episode remember, the conversation doesn't end here 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 and don't forget to be kind to yourself.