Today I want to continue our conversation about nursing crisis. It’s a global nursing crisis that would say that we don’t have enough nurses. Well, that may or may not be true, but what we for sure know is true is that we don’t have enough nurses who are willing to put up with the broken healthcare system and the avoidable nurse specific traumatization that is occurring across the globe.
The nursing crisis isn’t really about burnout. It’s not about self-care, it’s not about resilience. These are terms that nurses feel gaslit by 😤. It doesn’t get to the root cause of what the issue is in the nursing crisis.
After years of researching this topic, I uncovered the root cause of the nursing crisis 🔎.
The root cause is actually the systematic critical mass trauma exposure, much of which is avoidable, that is resulting in nurse specific traumatization. This is what is driving nurses from the profession 💯.
So please, let’s not call it burnout. Let’s call it what it is. What it is is avoidable nurse specific traumatization 👏🏽👏🏼👏🏻.
Nurses don’t need to take better care of themselves. They know how to do this. That’s why we have licenses. That’s why we are hired by healthcare organizations across the globe, because we know how to take care of people!
So what it’s about is minimizing, getting that extra layer of avoidable trauma exposure off of the nurses so that they are not unduly burdened in their roles.
So what we need to start thinking about is really how can we support the nurses in their roles?
How can we support ourselves so that we can be nourished and nurtured and safe in their nervous systems?
Not coddled mind you, but we have a mass exodus of nurses leaving the profession. We have reached critical mass in terms of the tipping point of this trauma exposure and it’s consequences.
Nurses need to be seen, heard, valued, understood, respected, and supported with the resources and supports that they need to thrive in practice 💯.
And if we can do that. . .when we do that . . .we will turn this nursing crisis right around.
But guess what? Chances are that the healthcare system and organizations aren’t going to do this on their own. We can’t wait for the system to fix itself because it isn’t in the system’s financial interest to fix itself! And so this is our point as nurses, our point of professional empowerment.
We are the healers that know how to dig deep within ourselves and one another and facilitate the healing.
Remember that being a healer means that we are positioning ourselves in right relationship for healing by re-patterning in one or more dimension of bodymindessence.
Nurses need for the gaslighting to stop💯. Gaslighting is just another term for institutional betrayal. And then we can get the healing process.
I want to call to the attention a quote from Dr. Janet Quinn from the 1990s, and it’s completely relevant today.
“These are such challenging times, and so many people feel disempowered as though there’s nothing they can do. The problems are too big. We’ve also given away our sense of power thinking that so solutions come from outside of us, for example, that the healthcare system will take care of healing.” –Janet Quinn
Well, we can’t wait. As nurses, we can’t wait for the system to untangle or un-eff itself, for lack of a better word. And we can’t wait another moment and lose another nurse to nurse traumatization or burnout.
So let us lean in, reach in to one another.
We are the healing experts.
We know how to do this.
So let us nurse ourselves. And from our healed scars, we can usher in a new era of nursing.
It’s a long road to travel from gaslighting to thriving. But that is the journey that I’m prepared to lead and I hope that you will join me on as we all travel it together.
If you’re wondering if and how you’ve been affected by avoidable nurse specific trauma, I have a one-minute assessment so you can start your self-assessment and healing process. https://drlorrelaws.com/burnout
Thank you so much for tuning in. From my healer’s heart to yours. Thank you for the important work you do, and namaste. 💕
