I’m so glad that you’re with us today, and I want to bring to a attention today a case study from a fellow nurse educator with with whom I’m associated with in my community.
This nurse has had a brilliant, brilliant career teaching nurses, nurturing them, even being available to them in the years as they transition into, into practice the most vulnerable time for most nurses, and where we are losing 25% or more of our nurses currently. And so I have had the good pleasure of working with her name is Ellyn, and she is a delightful human being and I’m just so grateful that our, our paths crossed and she sent an email to me that is just so beautiful and I want to share it as a therapeutic moment for all of us because it speaks to what so many, and by many, I mean millions of nurses are experiencing today.
We’ve been working together and Ellyn is immersed in this healing work and has attended webinars and will be supporting the academy. And I’m just, I’m just so excited for all that she’s doing to support nurses. Our professional walks are similarly aligned.
Ellyn recently emailed this message to me, which I am sharing with her permission.
“I have been healing today. I got together with one of my previous, previous students who was a new nurse. Wow. I have been so angry, sad, and disappointed about the way she is being treated at work. “
I’m just gonna pause there because I, too, am a nurse educator. I teach in a BSN program with an integrative health focus where we do our very best. I mean, we do such a good job. I know every nurse educator out there is doing such amazing work and preparing each generation of nurses that enters the profession.
And there’s also, there’s also an element of that that feels like we’re sending lambs to slaughter. 🐏🐏🐏
It doesn’t feel good. 🥹
I, like Ellyn, am doing my part to build a better bridge from new grad to transition to practice nurse to early career nurse so that we can (a) really support them, (b) help them learn how to insulate themselves from the broken system, (c) help them to learn the language of their nervous system so they can protect themselves from the toxic and harsh work conditions and all of the avoidable nurse specific traumatization that they’re exposed to.
The harsh practice conditions are literally bowling them over.
New grad nurses are literally saying, “No. I’m not working here, like this. No way!”
And they’re going and doing something else even though most have student loan debts.
The truth of the situation is exactly as they see it. They see and experience unsafe nurse-patient ratios, suboptimal training and precepting. And, but it’s, it’s not safe nor is it healthy, especially for the youngest nurses coming in. And so it’s important that we all do our part to support them. As I know Ellyn has done. And her words landed in a very deep place within my healer’s heart.
“I’ve been doing some healing work and grieving about the way I have been treated in my past jobs.
Thank you for waking me up.”
So let me just hold, let me just hold Ellyn and the new graduate nurse and all nurses across the globe who are experiencing the same thing, it is time for us to wake up the nursing crisis that is so avoidable 💯.
And yet, it’s not in the system’s best financial interest to fix it because 💸💸💸
Organizations and corporations have to return and profits to their stakeholders, their shareholders. And so there are corporate and mega conglomerate interests that are making billions with the b of money off of what is happening in healthcare today. And largely as due to the overworking and stretching nurses so thin that they’re now snapping and breaking. And by the end of this decade, the world will have just over half of the number of nurses it needs. 🌗
So those who are left are going be stretched to or beyond their capacity.
So I think we’re all grieving. I think we’re all mourning. And I think that it’s, it’s really time for us to wake up to what is really happening. And it is the systematic oppression and traumatization of nurses. And there is a pathway out. There is hope.
I personally have invested six years of research and six figures of my own money to bring one approach to massive change and healing forward.
I self-funded to ensure that the opportunity for nurses to come together for healing in a global community was not in any way diluted by an external interest, by a grant, [publication bias, and the list goes on.
This self funding approach was needed to ensure that I can bring an evidence-based healing framework from my living room to yours. The research that I conducted resulted in a five-step evidence based framework called the Your Innate Care Plan (YICP), For within each of us, each human, each nurse, we each have our own lived experiences, the own our own challenges that we’ve been exposed to or experienced that are in varying degrees of, of unhealed-ness.
And we embody those. And the YICP really looks to leverage each nurse’s unique individual innate capacity for healing. And we leverage that in the Haelan Academy nonprofit programs. We leverage that so that we can use the, the framework which is 3As + B –> 3Rs. And again, just to refresh the 3A’s are awareness, attending, and alignment. This is the internal nurturing our nervous system so that we have a strong foundation so that all the self-care we do on top of that stays in place instead of what it does now. It just keeps collapsing and collapsing.
That’s not optimally effective because, because we are exposed to far more trauma than is prudent right down to our mitochondria are saying we can’t keep up with this. Nurses are leaving, they’re experiencing presenteeism (being there but not fully engaged) absenteeism, and of host of challenges. None of which are a nurse’s fault, all of which are avoidable nurse specific trauma exposures secondary to healthcare system and adequacies.
Your Innate Care Plan, YICP, again is the 3As, which are the foundation, our, our nervous system nurturance, which is awareness, attending and alignment. And then we add to that in the balance, the B component, all things that are, are self-care, health and wellness practices, right in, in all our wellness domains.
And that leads us to the 3Rs, which is where we want to be. We want to be regulated. The first R is regulated in our nervous systems. We want to be reconnected within ourselves. Because we get internally fractured, literally internally fractured in terms of dissonance between our nervous system and, and suboptimal coherence in our left and right hemispheres, all of which I discuss in my, in my book in academy.
And then the second R is reconnected within ourselves and with one another. . And then the third R is, is restoring our healer’s heart or our why for what matters most to us, our why for nursing. And so as we step into the awareness of what has really happened and is happening to us as we look through the lens of polyvagal theory, and we look through the lens of Dr. Karen Foli’s Middle Range Theory for Nurse Psychological Trauma, which is hot off the press.
And if we start looking, we can really see evidence, a landslide of evidence, that nurses are being systematically traumatized, abused, and oppressed. And when we step into that awareness, as Ellyn writes, it can be a little overwhelming. It can be a lot disheartening. And as we step into the emotions of it, there is an element of grieving and mourning.
And so I am wrapping my heart around Ellyn’s and all nurses who have been mistreated in their professional roles in any way. And as you step into the awareness of what has happened to you, it might feel overwhelming. I went through a big grieving process myself. I called it a tsunami. That’s what it felt like. It was like when I started just realizing all of the ways that I had been professionally traumatized, not to mention the, the, the harsh traumatization that I experienced in my personal life as, as most humans do.
So I just want to extend all the love and support 💕. I’m going to read, read a passage from my book. So here comes the shameless plug. So my book is Nursing Our Healer’s Heart. A recovery Guide for Nurse Trauma and Burnout. 📚
It’s available wherever books are sold. And I want to drop a little nugget, so together we can sow some thrive seeds. I’m on page 33 of the book. There, as we step into the awareness of all that has happened, as we start to mourn and grieve and go through the stages of grieving. In my work, I don’t use Kubler Ross’s stages of grieving (though they are prudent and relevant). In my book I used Morse & Penrod framework, which is similar, but I think more encompassing about the big picture of where we are in that grieving process.
What we go through as we start to become aware of all that has happened to us, and really start leaning into the healing that is before us. And so I have what I call the thriving in practice and in life, it’s a seed planting exercise. So I’m going to read this passage, and it’s for us to not only understand all that’s happened to us, but plant seeds for where we are going. We do not need to stay stuck in this. We do not need to remain broken.
We do not need to be trauma remain traumatized. We do not need to be shackled or oppressed in any kind of way, metaphorically and figuratively speaking, there is a pathway out. There is hope, there is the possibility to thrive in practice and in life. And so it starts with planting those seeds. So with the grief, which is a form of suffering . . .and also a process of repair.
Part of grief is the emotional work. And, and that is actually a process of repair, which I’m not gonna go into in this podcast, but it’s, it’s, it’s part of, it’s, it’s all in the book. And, and in our academy, we work through it too. And so suffering – this grieving process – it’s a, a process of repair. And so while we’re in there, let us plant the seeds that we can sow towards our neuroplasticity as we start to rewire the grain and recover from nurse specific traumatization.
So here, here goes the passage that I will read.
Imagine the unlimited potential and possibilities that could emerge if you nurtured and nourished yourself with the same tender care that you would a newborn, a puppy, a kitten, or a seedling.
What if you nourished every aspect of your body, mind essence with life, supporting perceptions, thoughts, decisions, feelings, behaviors, and relationships. So close your eyes if that feels comfortable for you. And take a moment to just gently explore these possibilities in your mind’s eye. Use your senses to tenderly.
Imagine how you and body mind essence would respond to being so authentically and genuinely nurtured and nourished. Your mind will probably rush in and tell you that it’s not possible, and there’s no way or no time if that happens, thank your mind for producing whatever thoughts emerge. And then release them.
Release them. So they may pass you by like harmless clouds in the sky. Just take a moment, take a moment to be with yourself and the possibilities of nurturing and nourishing yourself with others to the fullest and most loving sense of the word healing is.
So plant those seeds, plant those seeds. Be with be with this. What thrive seeds would you like to plant in your life, in your practice? What does it look like? Your mind’s gonna rush in and tell you it’s not possible and it can’t be done. We’re just gonna let those thoughts, those conditioned thoughts, the programming, the narratives, the tapes, let them play. Just let the cloud let them float by like the clouds. You don’t have to, you don’t have to believe every thought.
And you see it in your mind’s eye. What it, what are the sounds you hear? What are, what scents, odors, aromas, what are you smelling? Like really let the brain start to get some neurons and synapses firing around your thrive seeds,
And really stay connected with the possibility that healing is possible.
Because the reality is healing is possible.
It is possible to insulate yourself from the broken healthcare system. It is possible to insulate yourself from difficult colleagues, short staffing and harsh working conditions.
It is possible to thrive in practice and in life. So your homework, not that this is really homework, but I would invite each of you to stay with your thrive seeds, tending to that thrive garden, for a week or longer, a couple times each day.
You can do this by just tuning in during your day. Like when you’re driving in the car, you’re unloading groceries. You know, this doesn’t have to be a big thing that you have to disrupt your life. Just shift your attention, shift your awareness from survival mode into what thrive mode might look, feel, and be for you.
So thank you. Thank you, Ellyn, so much for all that you have done for our profession and for nurses in our community and and beyond.
And thank you to my listeners for tuning in. Thank you from the bottom of my healer’s heart to yours. Thank you for the important work that you are doing. And until next time, sow those seeds of thriving. Plant as many of them as you can because we will continue to nurture and nourish those seeds as we go through our time together.
If you’re curious how to go about your grieving process, insulating yourself from difficult working conditions, or how to leverage neuroplasticity in service to thriving, please attend my free webinar where we unpack all this and so much more.
So until next time, thank you for the important work that you do. 🙏🏼
Thank you for who you are, at your core, at your essence.
From my healer’s heart to yours and until next time, namaste.
Dr. Lorre 💕
