Shedding parts of us that no longer serve us.

Photo by Javardh on Unsplash

A couple months ago, I shared my experience with burnout and lessons learned from it. This experience propelled me into a healing journey. This healing journey wasn’t just about a newfound appreciation for “self-care.” Guided by several mentors, coaches, and healers, it incorporated modalities such as energy healing, spiritual healing, mindset work, inner child work, meditation, breathwork, and journaling. Burnout had initiated an intense deconstruction and deprogramming process that made it clear it was time to shed the pieces of me that were no longer serving me.

During this healing journey I asked myself:

  • Why do I do what I do?
  • Why do I feel that I’m not good enough/smart enough/skilled enough to take care of my patients?
  • Why do I feel like I can’t prioritize myself and my own needs so I can take better care of my patients?
  • Why do I feel like it’s not safe to speak up if I have a concern?
  • Why am I afraid to fail?

After being brutally honest with myself, I realized I had to go back to where the programming began.

Confronting our fears.

As children, we learn a lot from important adults in our lives, siblings, and experiences. At the time, we are served by what we learn: we learn how to behave in ways that will keep us safe, ensure we are accepted by others, and keep us out of trouble.

But now, as adults, some of these learned behaviors may no longer serve us. I have found that we must confront such behaviors in order to heal them. There is no other way. When you’re on a healing journey, you must get comfortable being uncomfortable.

These memories are not always easy to face and can lead to emotions like anger, fear, sadness, and more. The trauma stored in our physical bodies can be intense. Find the right support system for you and allow yourself to go there. A level of freedom I’d never known was on the other side of confronting my deepest, darkest fears. I could not have returned to the hospital environment without doing this work.

Self-sacrificing tendencies in nurses.

I have found that nurses, as healers, have several common characteristics. They tend to be self-sacrificing people-pleasers who avoid rocking the boat. Despite any frustrations they may have, they will continue to put their own needs on hold for the sake of others. They are pouring from an empty cup with nothing left to give others, and this is the recipe for burnout. A shift in how we approach our own needs to better meet the needs of our patients and colleagues is desperately needed to sustain the nursing workforce. We can no longer take a backseat to others. Our patients need us firing on all cylinders. It’s what they deserve—and what we deserve, too.

Fill your own cup.

When I returned to the hospital after my hiatus, I made a commitment to apply what I had learned to my personal life as well as to the health care environment and to share what I had learned to as many nurses as possible.

First, fill your own cup. Perhaps you recall the instructions from the flight attendant on an airplane: “Make sure that your oxygen mask is securely fastened before assisting the passenger next to you.” The same is true for health care. As caregivers, we tend to put others first. Reframe this: put yourself first so that you can give the absolute best of yourself to others. The best of us is what our patients deserve.

Spend time caring for yourself physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and energetically. Regularly spend time in prayer, meditation. Get enough rest, spend time in nature, exercise, eat foods that nourish you. Surround yourself with people who lift you up and energize you. Be careful what you consume—think about the TV you watch, the music you listen to. How does it make you feel? Be in tune with what makes you feel good and do more of that.

Tangible tools for nurses at work.

But it’s not just about the things we do for ourselves when we are off the clock to stay balanced and recharge. What about when we’re on shift? Those moments count, too. How we handle the stressors in the moments when we’re ready to spiral are crucial.

  • Develop a pre-shift routine: Set intentions for your shift. Pray or meditate, if that resonates. Ask yourself: How do I wish to feel during my shift? How do I want to interact with my patients? How do I want my team and me to interact with one another? If challenges arise, how do I want to handle them? Clean up the energy you’re starting your shift with. Don’t rush. Slow down. Be intentional. Ground yourself. Think positively. If you go into your shift expecting the worst, you will probably receive confirmation that your initial expectations were correct. The fun part about all of this is that we get to decide. We get to write the story of what our shift is going to look like.  Don’t hand your pen over to someone else.
  • Self-care doesn’t start when your shift is over: What you do inside of work is just as if not more important than what you do outside of work. Self-care at work looks like hydrating throughout your shift, using the bathroom when you need to, and taking your lunch or dinner break. Sometimes your patient assignment will make this challenging; those circumstances should be few and far between. You need to be rested and fueled so that you can deliver an optimum level of care.
  • ‘Take two’: Develop an awareness of when you are becoming stressed or anxious. Perhaps you can’t think clearly, you have a lump in your throat, your chest tightens, or your stomach feels like it’s in knots. Notice when these feelings in your body come up. When you have the awareness that you’re beginning to feel this stress or anxiety, take two. This means you will take two minutes to stop what you’re doing; take some slow, deep breaths; write a to-do list, if needed; and reset yourself. The goal of this practice is to emerge grounded, able to think more clearly, and ready to take on that list of to-dos. It might not feel like you have those two minutes, but in my experience, you often do.

Lastly, make your own self-care nonnegotiable.

Learning and putting this into practice has shifted everything for me. I’m happier, healthier, more energized, and more productive. These practices have moved me out of survival mode to a space of wholeness, so I have more than enough available to give to those I serve. I hope they will do the same for you.

Jenna Colelli, MSN, BSEd, RN, CCRN-K, is director of staff development for Wellington Regional Medical Center, Wellington, FL. In this role, she works to “mentor and empower nurses to care for themselves so they can better care for the patients we serve.”