Welcome to my Blog! For all of you Nurses who have been Selflessly applying your life toward the Care, Healing and Transformation of your Patients, I applaud you! This Blog is for you; in support of you. Whether you are a Nursing Student, a New Grad, exploring what you will do with your education now that you graduated, or a burned out vintage nurse, ready to drop out of the Nursing Field forever, I applaud You All, and I understand what life is like for you, because I am one of you. You have given much of your life to care for people you don't even know, even when they have no appreciation for all the overwhelming stress, pain, exhaustion, burn-out you carry on their behalf, and for whom you have given up holidays with family, nights of restful sleep, and a normal eight hour work day, among other things. Either way, Nursing is extremely demanding on so many levels, and if we do not take care of ourselves, we will most certainly fall into the downward spiral of Burn-Out. This Blog is, in part, here to address this issue of Toxic Burn-Out not only in nursing, but in most groups of people who serve in the medical arena; how it came to be, how it penetrates into the very core of the medical field and all who work within it. How it can be a mirror for the dysfunction, ignorance, lack of awareness and utter lack of Healing that is the hallmark of modern day medicine.
This Blog is being offered as a way in which we, as Nurses & Healers can come together to create a better way of Being and of Serving. We will attempt to work with all Nurses and Healers who are interested in Transformation of the Nursing Role and of Medicine, so that True Healing can take place within ourselves and with our Patients and their families. We are going to bring about a Transformation of Medicine by utilizing The Healing Ways, both Ancient and New. We will assist each other in becoming Instruments of Awareness, Healing, Love, Compassion and Truth, for it is only by transforming ourselves that we can hope to have any effect on the Healing of Others. We are going to Reclaim the Heart & Soul of Healing by becoming Instruments of Transformation. We will begin to study many of the ancient ways that have proven themselves over and over again, and we will integrate those ways into the Transformation Healing ways of the Integrative Nurse. We will study the ways of Consciousness, Awareness, Meditation, Prayer and Mantra. We will explore the use of Herbs, supplements, Massage, Nutrition, Inner Energy Work, Breath Work, Yoga Postures, Mudra, Spiritual Power Tools, Integrative Medicine, Inner Alchemy and so much more. This is the True Nursing Renascence. Come and Join me, and let your Inner Healer Emerge in Full Power & Light!
How many nurses do you know, including yourself (although it is so much easier to see those symptoms in others than it is to see it in yourself) who are in the throws of burn-out, to one degree or another? Do you remember the term, Horizontal Violence, that we used in Nursing School to describe the work-place culture of the hospital environment in which everyone is working way beyond their own limits, stressed-out beyond measure, irritable, angry, frustrated and looking for someone to dump it on. This group behavior grows and grows over time, and unless checked by at least one enlightened and conscious supervisor or manager, it becomes a form of workplace brutality. Yes, Brutality. Inevitably, nurses take their stress and misery out on each other, hence, the term horizontal violence. Does it have to be like this? No, it most certainly does not. Human beings were designed to evolve over time, and although I admit that most human beings seem to lack the ability to see and understand their own behavior, thus making all of us suffer, we have the capacity to learn and to grow. Thus, as ape-like as we can be at times, we still have the capacity to shift our perceptions of what is, and to take a step toward the possibility of growth, enhanced understanding, greater awareness of how we interact with those around us, and how we can use our own "Potential-For-Goodness" in a Healing Way, a way that will bring Ease and Comfort, Love and Kindness into our environment, to be used as an agent of Healing Energy & Mutual Support and Encouragement rather than Brutality. Do you see what I mean? We have a choice.
We always have a choice, in every situation in life. I have been studying with a Beautiful Saint from India for decades now, and in India, there are many words that are used to describe subtle ideas and states of being that are normally very difficult to describe. Take for instance, the Sanskrit word "Vasana". A vasana can be defined as any subconscious quality that affects character. A Vasana can be described as a karmic residue, unconscious propensities, disposition, habit energy, thought, habit formation, habitual thoughts, potential tendencies, habitual thoughts and habits that are present and active, but also below that level of the person's awareness, therefore unconscious in nature.
So much of our thought patterns and perceptions are unconscious, and therefore they play out in a group environment in a way that can be damaging to the group as a whole, with everyone running around with unresolved, yet unconscious emotional patterns that get activated when others in the group incite a "churning of the pot," so to speak. When you have a bunch of stressed out, unconscious people together, generally the pot is always simmering, and it takes only one small incident to get the pot heated up to a rolling boil over. Once it boils over, there is no turning back; the damage has been done and more than likely, someone has gotten burned.
Yet, if that is the case, than the opposite can also be true. When people are together daily, usually under difficult, stressful circumstances such as in a hospital environment, those deep vasanas have many occasions to make themselves known to us. Hummm. This is the gift, if we choose to pay attention to what those vasanas are trying to tell us. The Gift is embedded in our ability to listen to what is arising within us as we are being triggered by someone else's words or actions. In order for this gift to utilized, we must be able to stand back from our own thought processes and pay attention to what our subconscious mind is churning out for us to look at. When this happens, we have many opportunities to simply pay attention to what is there, within us. It is in that rare moment of clarity and silence that we can make peace with what is there within us, waiting to be released from that dark place where it has been held captive, unable to be expressed. In that perfect moment, we can really begin to understand the concept of compassion, for ourselves and for everyone else. This is where we all must begin.
The process of meditation is like this. Meditation is nothing more than an attempt to give the mind a rest, by slowing down the incessant flow of thoughts that constantly assail us. When one shuts ones eyes and attempts to calm the mind by emptying it of all thoughts, at first, this seems like a monumental and completely impossible task. Thoughts will rise up, again and again, like an infinite supply of soldiers on the battlefield, where, when one gets shot down, a thousand more rise up against you. When you pay attention to all the thoughts going through your mind, at first, the mind will rise up against you and the thoughts will come to you with even greater force, kicking, screaming and yelling all the way. Is is only when we begin to use a counter force against this incessant flow of thoughts, such as a sound, a mantra or a prayer, used with repetition and concentration, that we are able to slowly find release from the hold our thoughts have on us. As we learn to make meditation a daily practice and use this discipline to create order in our hearts and minds, that the hold our mind had over us slowly relaxes and we can perceive what is actually behind that flow of thoughts. Once we establish this practice, the fruits of this discipline is deep inner peace, a sweetness that was never there before, and a sense of being connected to all that is. Our minds shine with a new Light and a new Bliss. We find ourselves being "happy for no reason," and our vibration, or the spiritual energy that we radiate out into the world, begins to have a powerful effect on those around us, even if they don't perceive it. Yes, then we can really change the world, including those we work with, and those we care for. Then, one day, Burn-Out will be a thing of the past.
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