Latest / The FEEL Podcast: Women’s Empowerment, Emotional Wellness and Self-Leadership with Melissa Crook / Nursing, Sleep, and Becoming Your Healthiest Self with Jennifer Johnson

Transcript

Nursing, Sleep, and Becoming Your Healthiest Self with Jennifer Johnson · The FEEL Podcast: Women’s Empowerment, Emotional Wellness and Self-Leadership with Melissa Crook

• 0:01
  Hello, Melissa Crook here from The Field Podcast.
• 0:04
  Thanks so much for joining us today as we get ready to listen
• 0:08
  to Nursing, Sleep and Becoming Your Healthiest Self with
• 0:13
  Jennifer Johnson. The ways to engage with today's
• 0:16
  episode are to think about the following things.
• 0:19
  Have you started focusing on your sleep schedule?
• 0:22
  Do you, have you considered that?
• 0:24
  Have you thought about that? Are you getting up hours of
• 0:27
  rest? Do you wake up a lot throughout
• 0:29
  your sleep cycle? Are you on your phone right
• 0:32
  before you go to sleep or right after you wake up?
• 0:35
  Sleep is one of the most important aspects of your
• 0:38
  health, and we should be treating it as such.
• 0:41
  Hope this gives you some ways to engage and think today as you're
• 0:45
  listening and taking part in this inspiring, insightful,
• 0:50
  really resource filled episode with nursing, sleep and becoming
• 0:54
  your healthiest self with Jennifer Johnson.
• 0:57
  Thanks so much for being with with us.
• 1:14
  Hello field podcast audience. Welcome back this week.
• 1:18
  I've got a new friend here with me Today.
• 1:20
  We met via our good friends at Pod Match and Jen Johnson's here
• 1:24
  to share some knowledge and some experience.
• 1:27
  If you are a nurse, if you know a nurse, if you have any kind of
• 1:33
  emergency responder in your family, we'll get on, get on and
• 1:38
  listen. This is for you.
• 1:39
  And also we all know those people, but all within that Jen
• 1:43
  story is going to have information that's going to be
• 1:45
  helpful and insightful for women, period.
• 1:48
  Busy women out there multiply tasking everything all the time.
• 1:53
  But this one, this the heart of this is for, for you people out
• 1:57
  there. Are you women out there that are
• 1:59
  doing all the things you're caretaking all the time,
• 2:02
  everywhere, including in your jobs.
• 2:04
  And that requires a different kind of capacity and ask, a
• 2:09
  different level of energy, especially emotionally and
• 2:13
  mentally that you need resources to recharge and refuel and
• 2:19
  refocus and just kind of sort of maintain your sanity.
• 2:23
  And Jen's here to help you with that today because she found out
• 2:26
  on the bumpy Rd. of life that no one was really providing that.
• 2:30
  And so she decided to be a solution.
• 2:33
  And I don't usually, I'm not always that upfront for what
• 2:36
  people provide because I do introduce guests by their
• 2:39
  character traits. But I thought it was very, very
• 2:42
  important to get your attention upfront because these resources
• 2:46
  are so important. And of course, they're going to
• 2:48
  be listed on our website, embracinglayers.com, on our
• 2:52
  resources page, so you'll have access to them.
• 2:54
  That Jen describes herself as empathetic, resilient, stubborn
• 3:00
  and a multitasking queen. So, Jen Johnson, welcome to the
• 3:06
  Field podcast. Oh my God, Melissa, thank you so
• 3:10
  much for the intro. Absolutely, absolutely.
• 3:13
  All, all the flowers, all the flowers.
• 3:16
  So we're going to get right into this because this has got to be
• 3:20
  a big part of your life for you to even just maintain because
• 3:25
  you have multiple roles you're fulfilling here at outside of
• 3:28
  your job. So talk to me about prioritizing
• 3:31
  self-care in your life. And I mean, you're a man and a
• 3:34
  partner and a nurse and a friend, a daughter, you're all
• 3:38
  these things. So talk to me about that, that
• 3:41
  self-care piece for you. It's hard.
• 3:45
  It's not easy because I mean, just women in general.
• 3:49
  The whole idea of taking any sort of time for yourself is
• 3:53
  I've been told on many occasions, sometimes by my
• 3:56
  spouse, that me taking time for myself is selfish.
• 4:01
  We've had, we've had talks about this.
• 4:03
  Yes, because sometimes a narrative that's old and tired
• 4:07
  and we've been getting as girls and women for millennia that we
• 4:11
  have to, we have to reframe. I can't it's it's so ridiculous.
• 4:17
  And you know, I continue to re reference back to the airline.
• 4:21
  You know, they tell you to put your mask on 1st when the cabin
• 4:25
  pressure changes because you have to take care of yourself
• 4:27
  first before you can take care of others.
• 4:30
  And you know, for as overused and tired as that analogy is, it
• 4:35
  is just so on point and nobody that's an eyelash at that one.
• 4:40
  But, you know, take a woman who goes like, I just need 20
• 4:44
  minutes of silence. I need 20 minutes to get my head
• 4:49
  around what the heck the day is bringing or what the day's held.
• 4:53
  I need to just, you know, I'm not particularly a bath girl.
• 4:57
  I, I, you know, it's not my thing.
• 5:00
  So, you know, I'm listening to my my car, like just being in
• 5:04
  the car, turning on the music to like full tilt and just, you
• 5:09
  know, belting it out. I'm sure my kids thinks I think
• 5:12
  I'm absolutely nuts, which is fine.
• 5:14
  But I'm just like, that's my that I got this build up.
• 5:17
  I need to let go. And it's either that or or
• 5:19
  screaming at my children, whom I love dearly.
• 5:23
  So it's, yeah, that's a good example of like it's either or.
• 5:27
  Pick your, pick what you want. Pick a battle, pick an absolute
• 5:32
  battle because it's, it's nonstop the you know, the
• 5:36
  expectations. I, I absolutely love to just
• 5:38
  say, you know, you got to forget expectations because they're the
• 5:41
  number one killer of your joy as a woman, as a nurse, you know,
• 5:47
  all these things because, you know, society in general has a
• 5:51
  idea and every generation's got a little bit of a different idea
• 5:54
  about what a woman should do and what your role is and what your
• 5:57
  expectations are. And I love to throw that out the
• 6:00
  window. You know, I, I ended up coming,
• 6:04
  it wasn't my idea, but I ended up in talking with somebody else
• 6:08
  talking about like, I've entered my villain era.
• 6:10
  I'm almost 40. I'll be 40 in less than a month.
• 6:13
  I have full on embraced, you know, if you're going to see me
• 6:17
  as the villain for taking time for my own self-care, guess
• 6:20
  what? I'm going to do it.
• 6:22
  I will be the villain because no, it is nobody else's job to
• 6:25
  make me happy than me. That's my job is to make me
• 6:28
  happy. It's it's not on anybody else.
• 6:30
  So let me just really hunker down.
• 6:34
  You know, the kids are 9 and 10 1/2 now.
• 6:37
  I I've kindly finally come out of that haze of, of early
• 6:40
  motherhood where you're just exhausted and and you've lost
• 6:44
  yourself completely to this little being.
• 6:47
  You know, they're finally doing their own things.
• 6:49
  They've got their own interests. They're kind of pulling.
• 6:51
  They're no longer stage 5 clingers.
• 6:53
  They're maybe just stage 4 clingers, you know, like they're
• 6:57
  starting to pull away ever so slightly.
• 7:00
  And so sorry, I didn't mean to get you on a spit take.
• 7:03
  I know I'm like when she's watching, I'm about black.
• 7:06
  I'm cracking up because she just nailed that.
• 7:10
  So spot on. I just taking a drink of water.
• 7:12
  So to give you a visual, Oh my gosh.
• 7:18
  But it's, you know, they're, they're starting to separate
• 7:21
  just a little bit and I'm like, OK, let's take a re look at, you
• 7:24
  know, what do I like to do? What, what am, what am I doing
• 7:27
  for me? And, and you know, of course,
• 7:30
  with looking at me, then it's like, well, you know, what am I
• 7:33
  struggling with? And, and a lot of that is, you
• 7:35
  know, just taking time and finding stuff that makes me
• 7:39
  happy. And.
• 7:40
  And of course, you can't as a woman, you can't seem to focus
• 7:43
  on yourself for too long. Before you go, let me help
• 7:45
  others. Like.
• 7:47
  Yeah. Just.
• 7:48
  Figure out what I can do to help the others because I know that
• 7:52
  everybody's struggling and we're, we're all having such a
• 7:54
  hard time and you know, what can I do for others?
• 7:56
  And that's, then that leads you down another rabbit hole.
• 7:59
  Then entrepreneurship, doing all these other things.
• 8:04
  So it's been, it's been an interesting couple of years
• 8:07
  actually. Yeah, I bet you hit some really
• 8:11
  important things there. Sometimes you got to have hard
• 8:14
  conversations with our partners because listen, when we grew up
• 8:18
  as little boys and little girls and in whatever homes we grew up
• 8:23
  and we saw things going a certain way, we got certain
• 8:26
  messages of what should be expected.
• 8:28
  And so that can require. And when you're young and you
• 8:33
  fall in love and you don't have kids yet and all those things,
• 8:35
  that doesn't necessarily come up in the conversation.
• 8:38
  It it, it, you find out later it should have, but it doesn't, you
• 8:41
  know, it doesn't necessarily come up.
• 8:44
  So it might require a little bit later and like, let's have a
• 8:48
  conversation about this. Let's reframe the thought
• 8:51
  pattern. Let me tell you why this is
• 8:53
  important for me and that this is going to be a non negotiable
• 8:59
  and it it's not my responsibility what you do with
• 9:03
  it, but it is my responsibility to take care of me.
• 9:06
  So I, I'm glad that you, you pointed that out.
• 9:09
  I think it's really important and also used a great example.
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  We got 2 choices. I could take 20 minutes and fill
• 9:15
  my cup and jam out to my favorite music before I come in
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  the house and hit the rest of the day.
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  Or I can come in irritable and angry and sour and not happy to
• 9:22
  be there and snap all your heads off because I didn't have the 20
• 9:25
  minutes. What do we think is going to be
• 9:27
  the better solution here for everybody in this room?
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  That's a becomes a pretty easy, you know, choice once you, you
• 9:34
  know, realize and have a chance to think about that example.
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  But I think it just goes back to those differences between the
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  narratives between men and women and, and the narratives that we
• 9:44
  grew up with and what how we are wired and told that we should be
• 9:48
  proceeding and what little boys are told.
• 9:50
  We've got to change that narrative too.
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  I was super lucky that my husband was raised by a mom that
• 9:55
  was a woman before her time. Literally, there were no gender
• 9:59
  roles in their family. Everybody learned to.
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  Yeah, everybody learned to do the same things.
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  There were the same expectations whether you were a boy or a
• 10:08
  girl, brother, sister in that family.
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  And so I was very fortunate. That is not what I grew up with,
• 10:14
  but that is I was very because it's not what I grew up with.
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  After surviving a couple what really bumpy crappy
• 10:21
  relationships that were too much like what I grew up with, I
• 10:24
  realized I'm going to ask some very specific questions and look
• 10:29
  for some very specific character traits.
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  If I in this person that I determine I'm going to, you
• 10:35
  know, spend my life with, if that's the road I go to down.
• 10:38
  And so he was always, you know, like, what do you need?
• 10:42
  How can I support you? What are your goals, that kind
• 10:44
  of thing. Even within all of that, when we
• 10:47
  first got married, he he would go golf on Saturdays with
• 10:51
  buddies and then I would be like, well, what about me?
• 10:54
  He's like, well, I'm not responsible for scheduling your
• 10:57
  time. You can schedule your time.
• 10:58
  I don't care. But it wasn't, but go ahead and
• 11:01
  do it like I'm not stopping you. But it was just not, it was
• 11:05
  automatic for him to just think it was OK to go do that.
• 11:07
  Not that it wasn't OK, but I was like, well, if I do that, then I
• 11:11
  won't have this time with you. And that's our day off.
• 11:14
  And and he's like, well, yes, but this time is important for
• 11:18
  me to fill my cup and have my fun.
• 11:20
  And he's like, I want that for you too.
• 11:22
  So we then had a discussion of like, oh, wait a minute, I can
• 11:25
  ask for that too. I can do that too.
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  I don't have to feel guilty about it.
• 11:29
  We did come to the conclusion that we needed to talk to each
• 11:32
  other now that we were married. I'm like, please don't just
• 11:35
  schedule that time and not, let's not have a conversation
• 11:37
  about it. And so we did have to come to
• 11:39
  some discussions about that. But just even with what he grew
• 11:42
  up with, there was still this inclination within him that was
• 11:45
  different than the inclination within me because of the
• 11:48
  different narratives we heard. So I think it's really important
• 11:51
  to talk about those and address those and those and making sure
• 11:55
  you're not letting those get in the way of you doing what you
• 11:58
  need to to do for you. I think that's so important.
• 12:03
  Yeah, that goes really nicely into confidently setting
• 12:06
  boundaries. You did that.
• 12:07
  You said Nope, I need this. How long did it take you to get
• 12:12
  there? Was that something like you said
• 12:14
  you, you said something so funny and this is the was the start of
• 12:17
  my cracking up. It's like I've decided to be the
• 12:19
  villain. I'm OK with that.
• 12:21
  Taking care of myself means I'm a villain.
• 12:23
  I'm in my villain era. Like, I love that T-shirt.
• 12:27
  I bought a T-shirt. I'm literally, so I'm writing my
• 12:30
  second book is Nursing Power, and it really is hindering on
• 12:34
  that kind of ideal of stereotypes and breaking all
• 12:36
  that. But it's I mentioned that to
• 12:39
  somebody else again and she ran with it.
• 12:42
  And I'm like, OK, this is very obviously hitting hard with a
• 12:45
  lot of people. And she'd never heard of that
• 12:46
  term before. Pretty sure I'm going to credit
• 12:49
  Taylor Swift with it first and foremost, but I bought it.
• 12:54
  But I bought a shirt that says I'm in my villain era.
• 12:57
  I'm teaching a course with nurse Blake in August about like
• 13:01
  nurses entry, like how to enter your villain era.
• 13:04
  And and my husband hates it so much.
• 13:10
  He hates it. And so like, so every now and
• 13:15
  again, like he'll be at home when I'm either talking to
• 13:17
  people or doing things and he'll hear me kind of like start to
• 13:21
  talk about. And you can kind of like I can
• 13:23
  feel the eye roll from like the living room.
• 13:28
  I don't even care. It's audible.
• 13:30
  I don't even care. I don't care.
• 13:32
  This is what I have to do. You know, it's it's not my fault
• 13:35
  that you haven't figured out that you also need to do this
• 13:37
  for yourself. Yes.
• 13:38
  And I think. That's so important sometimes
• 13:40
  when when our partners don't come along with this on this
• 13:43
  journey and see it for themselves.
• 13:45
  You, we, we it's not our responsibility to do their work.
• 13:49
  Yeah, we have to release that. And I, I, I know which that you
• 13:52
  got to release that. And just like, Nope, I'm
• 13:54
  responsible for me and I'm going to do this for me, but it's not
• 13:57
  my responsibility to do someone else's work, even if they're my
• 14:01
  partner. Yeah.
• 14:03
  Love them to pieces. It's like having that exactly
• 14:05
  friend that you've known for forever and you've been through
• 14:07
  everything together, but they're kind of like they're entering
• 14:10
  the same patterns. You know, it's that girlfriend
• 14:12
  who keeps getting back together with that really crappy ex and
• 14:14
  you're like, you can see it coming from a mile away as
• 14:17
  they're on, they're off, they're on, they're off.
• 14:18
  And you're just like at a point you have to be like, yo, what
• 14:22
  are you doing? You know, get your get it
• 14:25
  together. This is not good for you.
• 14:28
  It's not good for me. It's not good for anybody at
• 14:30
  this. Yeah, no one's winning.
• 14:31
  Here, nobody's winning. We we see a pattern, you know?
• 14:35
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 14:36
  Let's just let's just call a spade a spade and and it's time
• 14:39
  to walk away maybe. And again, it's that being able
• 14:41
  to give that tough love to to loved ones to be like, I love
• 14:46
  you smart enough. Yeah, I love you.
• 14:49
  And I'm, I'm also seeing something that I, I hope that
• 14:52
  you'll take into consideration because it's on repeat here.
• 14:56
  We got a Groundhog Day situation.
• 14:59
  Groundhog Day, everything. I love that movie so hard.
• 15:05
  Oh my gosh, so big. All that to say, you have you
• 15:08
  have found this way like I'm going to I'm going to do this
• 15:10
  you so you have. So would you just say it's the
• 15:14
  last couple years you've gotten here or what's how long did it
• 15:17
  take you to get here? It's been a long time brewing.
• 15:21
  So I mean, COVID, for as awful as it was, really shone a light
• 15:27
  when it breaks, when you finally break to nothing and you finally
• 15:31
  have to take that really hard look around to be like, what am
• 15:35
  I doing? What is happening?
• 15:36
  What do I value? You know, what am I really going
• 15:40
  to put emphasis on? What's my time worth?
• 15:43
  You know, you go through all these phases.
• 15:44
  So, you know, working the ER during COVID, burning out so
• 15:48
  hard and then coming to a decision like I, I finally need
• 15:52
  antidepressants. I've never been on
• 15:54
  antidepressants before, but like, I, I've gone to this point
• 15:57
  where I, I need help and I need more than, than what I can
• 16:01
  provide at this point. And so finally getting on
• 16:04
  antidepressants and lots of free therapy.
• 16:06
  Thank you very much to this, the psychotherapist in Ontario who
• 16:08
  donated their time during COVID, Shout out, shout out to my
• 16:12
  therapist and getting to a point of like reframing and working on
• 16:18
  yourself. And, and it's coming to that
• 16:21
  realization where it, it is a life and death moment where it's
• 16:25
  I, I could die and I could not survive any of this.
• 16:29
  And then it's like, OK, what's been really important, what, you
• 16:33
  know, let's take a really hard look at what's going on around
• 16:35
  us. And, you know, everything's
• 16:37
  being put to the test. Everybody's at their obsolete
• 16:39
  worst, personally professional, the whole bit.
• 16:42
  And you, you sit back and go, this is not what I want.
• 16:47
  And and you're finally pushed to that point where you're having
• 16:50
  to take a really hard look at things.
• 16:52
  And, you know, that was a really hard time in my marriage.
• 16:55
  It was the beginning of the really hard time in my marriage.
• 16:58
  And over the next couple of years, you know, trying to
• 17:01
  collect myself and, and you know, then we lost within a year
• 17:05
  after COVID, you know, we were, we lost our daycare provider.
• 17:10
  And so all of a sudden it's like, well, now daycare is fully
• 17:12
  on me. So it's like, Oh my God, another
• 17:14
  thing like the, the, the few bits of support that I had
• 17:17
  completely gone. Now it's like, OK, well, now I
• 17:19
  got to go to St. nights. Now I got to do all these
• 17:21
  things. So it got to the point of, well,
• 17:23
  tell you what, if I'm going to give up all of this, I'm going
• 17:26
  to start really focusing on what I want to do.
• 17:29
  And so writing the book was, was so impactful and, and working
• 17:33
  through that and then getting to a point of, you know, it being
• 17:38
  accepted by a traditional publisher and finally getting
• 17:40
  that validation and then getting a little bit of confidence and
• 17:43
  moving forward. And, you know, getting stronger
• 17:47
  by, by the months of just like, OK, like, you know, we, we are
• 17:51
  getting through this. This isn't life or death
• 17:53
  anymore. We're kind of, we got to come
• 17:55
  out of fight or flight. We got to, you know, it's no
• 17:57
  longer just surviving. We got to start like healing
• 18:00
  and, and, and thriving a bit and got to the point in my marriage
• 18:04
  where like we separated for a week and, and, you know, it was
• 18:08
  just such a brutal moment, but it was me who called it.
• 18:13
  And I said, you know what, like I, I'm done.
• 18:16
  And, and it took me walking away for him to go, holy crap.
• 18:20
  Like, yeah, you know, and, and having that time for him to
• 18:27
  figure out that I don't want to lose this, you know, I I do
• 18:30
  really want to work on this. And, you know, getting to that
• 18:34
  point where there was this huge power shift in, in my personal
• 18:38
  relationship where all of a sudden I'm like, now I'm the one
• 18:40
  holding the power. I'm the one saying that we're
• 18:43
  continuing, you know, like that's a little drunk on that
• 18:46
  power. But like, you know, you start to
• 18:48
  go, well, for a moment there I was a single mom, you know, I
• 18:52
  was looking at jobs. I was going to be able to make
• 18:54
  it work. We were making plans.
• 18:56
  I was, I was in my full power at that moment going so I can do
• 19:00
  this. That's not a problem.
• 19:01
  I'm but now I get to do it. You know, we've talked about it.
• 19:04
  We've gone to therapy, we've fired a marriage counselor.
• 19:09
  You know, like you, you finally go through it and you're like,
• 19:12
  OK, I, I really do want to do this with you.
• 19:14
  And, you know, there was a lot of things that needed to be said
• 19:17
  that we weren't talking about. And me working straight nights
• 19:20
  and him working straight days, you know, passing each other in
• 19:23
  the in the net, working on that. It was hard, but you know, it
• 19:28
  got to the point of I knew that I could be a single mom, but I'm
• 19:34
  choosing to be in a relationship and having that shift of, you
• 19:39
  know, this isn't a necessity. This is, this is me choosing
• 19:42
  that this we want to be together.
• 19:45
  And you know, it's been, it's been a struggle.
• 19:48
  You know, intimacy is a struggle and, and finding connectivity
• 19:51
  with two young kids running like 9 and 10 running around, you
• 19:54
  know, it's, it's still hard, but it's getting to the point where,
• 19:59
  you know, that honestly, that power shift was just so
• 20:02
  intoxicating that I'm like, it fueled a lot of the pushing
• 20:07
  forward and going with the book and then going to conferences
• 20:09
  and then and the business kind of really taking off and, and
• 20:13
  all these things. So it's everything happens for a
• 20:17
  reason, however crummy at the time, But it's it's been a
• 20:23
  moment of, you know, I'm taking care of my happiness.
• 20:26
  Now we realize that you were relying on me for.
• 20:29
  Everything you know, like emotional support, physical
• 20:32
  support, you didn't really have any friends that you like, you
• 20:35
  didn't go out, you didn't have any friends that you hung out
• 20:38
  with. Like it was just work and home.
• 20:40
  And so there needed to be more. So pushing him to like, hey, you
• 20:44
  want to get back into the Masons and and do all these things like
• 20:48
  you need to get out like. Yeah, yeah, friends, you know,
• 20:52
  find those friendships again. Rekindle some relationships or
• 20:54
  make some new ones. And something so yeah, getting
• 20:59
  there and and so evolving as as a person, as an adult, as a
• 21:03
  woman and as a partner, like all these things and, and realizing
• 21:07
  that that has to happen because I'm not the same person.
• 21:10
  I wasn't 22, very much so. So.
• 21:14
  Yeah, no, I thank you so much for all of that.
• 21:19
  That is what that's life. That's right there.
• 21:23
  And you, thank you for sharing that.
• 21:26
  And I hope I didn't interrupt you.
• 21:27
  Were you still? Were you still?
• 21:29
  No. I to be fair, I could just go
• 21:31
  on. No, but you like I'm, I'm
• 21:35
  sitting here listening all the time.
• 21:37
  I'm like, this is what real life looks like.
• 21:39
  These are the conversations that we have that you when you were
• 21:43
  able to start seeing the relationship as a choice, when
• 21:47
  you can see your life and the choices you have versus what
• 21:53
  you're stuck in or what you feel stuck in, what you don't see a
• 21:56
  way to out of all the when you can split that, that changes
• 22:01
  everything because then all of a sudden you're like, oh, wait a
• 22:04
  minute, I do have some sort of say in this.
• 22:07
  I do have some control. There are some things that I can
• 22:10
  make decisions on that are healthy for me that are in my
• 22:14
  best interest, not just because I quote have to I want to.
• 22:19
  And that is a really important power, powerful flip that you
• 22:24
  made there. And I appreciate your your your
• 22:26
  vulnerability in sharing that information because more of us
• 22:29
  go through that than we talked about.
• 22:32
  And there is, you know, and I think and there's just all of
• 22:35
  these like people have all these impressions of what they see
• 22:39
  from the outside and they really don't know the nuts and bolts of
• 22:42
  what go on on the inside and those, you know, relationships
• 22:46
  that have those moments and those conversations.
• 22:49
  And I think, you know, COVID brought out so much stuff like
• 22:57
  it was such a big, blaring, glaring light on so many pieces
• 23:03
  and parts of our lives, our jobs.
• 23:05
  And really, you, you hit the jackpot with coming out with
• 23:09
  these resources and book when you did, because like emergency
• 23:14
  responders lives, nurses lives had a giant, you know, light and
• 23:19
  magnifying on them of the difficulties and the problems
• 23:23
  and the stressors and the expectations of you during this
• 23:27
  unfounded time. Like no one had been in our
• 23:29
  lifetime had been through this before.
• 23:31
  There was no blue book for it. There was no script, there was
• 23:34
  no guide. Nobody had any freaking idea
• 23:37
  what to do from day-to-day. And and then you guys were on
• 23:40
  the you know, everybody else is staying home.
• 23:42
  You guys are at work more. I mean, everything else that
• 23:45
  everybody else experienced, you have the complete opposite.
• 23:50
  And I think when you start seeing the fragility of life and
• 23:54
  you start seeing how quickly it can all go away, it changes how
• 23:59
  you see your life and how you want to live it.
• 24:02
  Like hold the Fort here. We this I have no, there's,
• 24:08
  there's an expiration date on this time on earth that none of
• 24:11
  us know. And I'm going to, I need to make
• 24:16
  some shifts here in my life because for whatever time I get,
• 24:21
  it needs to be not what it is right now.
• 24:23
  And exactly. And what do I need to do to do
• 24:25
  that? And so thank you so much for all
• 24:28
  of that. Talk to me.
• 24:30
  This is a big part. You talked about the
• 24:31
  antidepressants, which is just an example of how these
• 24:34
  connections work, Taking care of our emotional health, our mental
• 24:38
  health, our physical health, our spiritual health, our sexual
• 24:42
  health, They're all health. They're all part of that.
• 24:46
  They're all connected. They all play off of each other.
• 24:49
  I don't have to explain the biology to you.
• 24:51
  You already know that. But, but just like the real,
• 24:54
  like the real life connections and impacts that stress and
• 24:59
  unprocessed trauma and exhaustion and unspoken things
• 25:05
  that need to be said that are being held back all play a role
• 25:09
  in our health and impact. So talk to me about that.
• 25:13
  And because I think it's really important what that you've,
• 25:17
  you've already spoken to it to somebody.
• 25:18
  Is there anything else you want to add to that?
• 25:20
  Piece you know, the ongoing joke from many health providers is
• 25:26
  like you see life and death you, you really do get that
• 25:29
  frontline, you know, first row look at at how fragile life is
• 25:35
  and we do we are more aware than your average person about life
• 25:40
  is short and you never know what's going to happen and all
• 25:42
  this kind of stuff. But for some reason COVID man it
• 25:48
  it just really hammered it home. I mean, so I don't know about
• 25:51
  you guys, but up in Ontario, when everything first shut down,
• 25:54
  we had, you know, lots of services being offered and, and
• 25:58
  so much support coming through. And one of the things was
• 26:03
  there's a ton of lawyers that came through to say like, Hey,
• 26:05
  we want to do everybody's wills for free.
• 26:07
  Like all the frontline workers, we want to do their wills for
• 26:09
  free. And at the time, you know, you
• 26:14
  look back and you're like, you know, they just want to offer
• 26:16
  their services and make sure everybody was covered, you know,
• 26:18
  medically, legally and, and that, you know, heaven forbid
• 26:21
  somebody, you know, you want to give your, you know, spouse
• 26:25
  power of attorney and you want to make sure the kids are taken
• 26:27
  care of and all these other and like make sure you've got all
• 26:29
  your loose ends tied up. Not in the moment.
• 26:33
  It's like, oh, OK, we're not expected to survive.
• 26:37
  Fantastic. Yeah, that's just sobering.
• 26:41
  Like, oh, you're just like, think I eat that.
• 26:44
  You're like, OK, like this is, you know, at the time I was
• 26:49
  like, it's gonna be one week, it's gonna be two weeks, it's
• 26:51
  gonna be another week, it's gonna be another two weeks.
• 26:53
  It's, you know, it's just gonna like slowly slow progression of
• 26:57
  it and just everything extending and it just was insanity.
• 27:03
  So when you know, you, the thing we don't ever talk about enough,
• 27:08
  especially like as frontline workers is just sleep.
• 27:11
  Sleep is so imperative. And you know, I'm strictly
• 27:15
  nights right now. I've been mostly nights most of
• 27:18
  my career. You know, you get used to, you
• 27:20
  know, napping before the first night shift and, and trying to
• 27:23
  nap as much as you can in between night shifts and and
• 27:26
  after your last night shift, you try to sleep until like one or
• 27:28
  two or three, depending. And with COVID, you know, with
• 27:32
  daycare shutdown and we didn't have any access to any support
• 27:35
  and my husband was also, so he's infection control.
• 27:38
  So he was also in the hospital, you know, so we had nobody at
• 27:42
  home. So I was working straight
• 27:43
  nights, going to work 7:00 to 7:00.
• 27:46
  So giving off 7 in the morning, husband would go to work, I
• 27:48
  would stay up with the kids 'cause they were four and five
• 27:50
  at the time. And he can't really nod off with
• 27:53
  a four and five year old running around.
• 27:55
  She's. A wease.
• 27:55
  The house will be on fire. 100% let alone destroyed but just on
• 28:01
  fire. Absolutely.
• 28:05
  You know, literally and figuratively.
• 28:07
  Yes, absolutely. Somebody's running around with a
• 28:09
  knife and you're like, how did you get that?
• 28:11
  It's a whole thing. You're like, you're up on the
• 28:13
  counters. When did that happen?
• 28:16
  You're climbing into the refrigerator and it's just the
• 28:18
  whole thing. So, you know, staying up all
• 28:22
  night, maybe getting a nap for two or three hours if we were
• 28:25
  lucky, then staying up all day and then maybe getting a nap for
• 28:28
  maybe an hour when my husband come home before he went back in
• 28:31
  and staying up all night and maybe getting it up.
• 28:32
  Like, I had no concept of how much sleep deprivation
• 28:38
  completely destroyed you, You know, This is why it's used as
• 28:43
  a, as a torture device. I, I, I, I had no concept.
• 28:48
  So like, God bless my therapist. She, like, that was first and
• 28:51
  foremost on her list was like, you need sleep, You need to
• 28:53
  prioritize. Is there any way that, you know,
• 28:56
  maybe you can move your shift to the weekends and just work the
• 28:58
  weekends so that your husband's home so that you can actually
• 29:01
  get sleep in between and, and trying to.
• 29:03
  We are batting around all these different ideas about how we
• 29:06
  could make this work. And at the time, like nobody
• 29:09
  took sick time when everything first started because you didn't
• 29:12
  know if you were saving up your sick time because you were going
• 29:14
  to be on a vent for an unknown period.
• 29:16
  Absolutely. So nobody called in sick unless
• 29:20
  you were actually, you know, COVID symptoms and and you had a
• 29:22
  stay home kind of thing. But for the most part, like
• 29:25
  everybody just did their shifts that they were scheduled.
• 29:28
  That was it. Nobody picked up, nobody called
• 29:30
  in. You just did what you did and
• 29:32
  went out. And so it was just this
• 29:36
  interesting dynamic of finally being very forceful about I need
• 29:41
  to be very thoughtful about work because like my, my health
• 29:44
  absolutely is in the balance and am I going to expose myself any
• 29:47
  more than necessary for what's going on?
• 29:51
  So it was a wake up call to, to boundaries for sure.
• 29:56
  And, and then, you know, napping any possible chance you got and,
• 30:01
  and being really intentional with that.
• 30:04
  And it's at least lingered that way, whereas now, you know, I,
• 30:09
  you know, I did, I was on nights last night and I got up at 1:00
• 30:12
  this afternoon, which was probably a little bit earlier
• 30:14
  than I anticipated, But I, I was just like, I'm up and the kids
• 30:18
  are running around. It's APA Day.
• 30:19
  So of course, you know, you feel like you're missing out on time
• 30:22
  with them. And so it's the, the constant
• 30:25
  battle of, you know, what's going to take the hit.
• 30:27
  Is it going to be time with your kids?
• 30:29
  Is it going to be sleep? Is it going to be work?
• 30:31
  Is it going to be working out? You know, where the, somebody's
• 30:35
  always going to lose and it's pretty much always going to be
• 30:37
  me. So how do I want to?
• 30:40
  Yeah, I mean, that's a really good way.
• 30:42
  I mean, it's kind of a somber way, but it's the truth you
• 30:44
  face, especially when your kids are young and home.
• 30:47
  A friend, I talk about this all the time, I guess that I've had
• 30:49
  on here, Valerie Rivera, she's like, whatever you're saying yes
• 30:53
  to make sure you're OK with what you're saying no to within that,
• 30:56
  whatever that looks like. You got to look at both sides of
• 30:59
  that because there are, there's, there's a tipping point on both
• 31:02
  sides. You got to make sure you're OK
• 31:04
  with that. And I think too, you know,
• 31:07
  finding the time where it already exists, it's like, OK,
• 31:11
  do I have to do those dishes right now?
• 31:13
  No, no, still be there. But I I could lay down for an
• 31:17
  hour. Exactly.
• 31:19
  And, you know, so, you know, being really mindful about those
• 31:22
  things that what really matters in that I think is so important
• 31:27
  in that that sweet, that sleep piece.
• 31:29
  I mean, you all, I think it's so interesting in the healthcare
• 31:34
  industry. I've always thought this was
• 31:36
  fascinating. And I, I told you before that,
• 31:39
  you know, my sister-in-law is, is a nurse manager and my
• 31:43
  brother is also, he's a cardiac MP.
• 31:46
  So I've got 2. Tips you got?
• 31:48
  Yeah, we're all sorts. Yeah, we have.
• 31:50
  We cover it and he's his shifts. Early on he had to do the funky
• 31:55
  shifts, but he was able to get into pretty regular shifts and
• 31:58
  he was very mindful about career choices.
• 32:00
  He turned down upward moving career choices that were going
• 32:03
  to cost him with his family, with his time, with his quality
• 32:07
  of life. And so he took he could have
• 32:09
  made some career moves that would have been huge, but he was
• 32:12
  like, it's not worth it. Was that yes, no thing it's not
• 32:15
  worth the exchange. My sister in Yet some of our
• 32:26
  most sleep deprived, stressed out individuals are healthcare
• 32:31
  workers. Exactly.
• 32:35
  There's a cognitive dissonance here, folks.
• 32:38
  I feel like we need to talk about this, but you hear about
• 32:42
  it all the time, which this LED you on this journey that you're
• 32:46
  on and, and you do it so beautifully.
• 32:50
  We'll get to it in the in a minute.
• 32:52
  But that that sleep piece and the impact it has on your
• 32:55
  mental, emotional, physical health, We cannot talk about
• 32:59
  that piece enough. You talked about earlier under,
• 33:02
  you know, the impact it was having on your mental health and
• 33:05
  needing the help and assistance with that because you're not,
• 33:08
  you're not only sleep deprived, you're dealing like the level of
• 33:12
  trauma that you deal with in your job on a daily basis
• 33:16
  anyway. And then add in a global
• 33:18
  pandemic to the mix. Like, wow.
• 33:23
  I mean, I don't, I mean, one therapist might not be enough.
• 33:26
  I mean, honestly, to impact all of that.
• 33:28
  I think there's so much truth to that.
• 33:31
  But I mean, I bet thank you for Mitch.
• 33:33
  I think the sleep like man, so hard.
• 33:36
  Don't miss the sleep part. And, you know, when you're
• 33:39
  looking at different health pieces, how's your sleep because
• 33:43
  it impacts anxiety, depression, blood pressure, heart health.
• 33:48
  I mean, there's especially in women, there's so sure resolve
• 33:51
  levels. I mean, there's so many impacts,
• 33:54
  you know, so many impacts. So, yeah, I'm glad you brought
• 33:57
  attention to that. I think that's huge and and the
• 34:02
  ships he all work so yeah I think you know to be continued
• 34:05
  in the healthcare industry I I know we can't shut down
• 34:07
  hospitals at night time and just leave the patients to be at
• 34:11
  their own will I. I get.
• 34:14
  That good luck see you in the morning hope it all goes well
• 34:16
  drips right there and should run out I mean I just.
• 34:20
  Keep pressing the silence button, it'll be fine.
• 34:24
  You know, I know that's not this, but I mean, I think I do
• 34:26
  think it's an interesting thing that goes on that has to be
• 34:29
  continued the year. So I really drove you to do what
• 34:31
  you're doing now on the entrepreneurial side in the book
• 34:34
  and those resources that we'll get to in a minute.
• 34:36
  But and this goes nicely into how we can support ourselves and
• 34:40
  other women in living unapologetically.
• 34:43
  Your villain era is exhibiting of that.
• 34:46
  I mean, honestly and and also too, but talk to about talk to
• 34:51
  this is I really want you to talk about the resources that
• 34:53
  you've come up with. This is because this is how
• 34:55
  you're showing up unapologetically for yourself
• 34:59
  and for other women and specifically nurses.
• 35:02
  Yeah, So everybody keeps saying, oh, we've got a shortage of
• 35:05
  nurses. No, we don't.
• 35:07
  You've got a shortage of nurses willing to put up with a bare
• 35:10
  minimum. That's what you've got.
• 35:15
  There's a regeneration, but here's the reframe this new
• 35:18
  generation of nurses that are that are coming out.
• 35:21
  You know, you want to talk about heroes and nursing.
• 35:24
  You know, I was never comfortable with it.
• 35:26
  I just showed up to a job that I was already good at, that I was
• 35:29
  already trained at. I just I just kept on.
• 35:31
  I did, I changed nothing. That's that's what I did.
• 35:34
  The ones coming into nursing during the pandemic, those are
• 35:37
  the real heroes. Those are the ones who looked at
• 35:40
  everything going on and went, you know what I want in
• 35:44
  insanity? Kudos to those people.
• 35:47
  Absolutely unwavering support and strength to those.
• 35:53
  But it's just one of these things where, you know, they're
• 35:56
  like, oh, we just, we don't understand why nurses are
• 35:58
  leaving. Really it's because nursing
• 36:02
  school, while as much as they try to, to get you into it, you
• 36:06
  know, there's an entire different language that you need
• 36:08
  to learn. There's an entire different
• 36:11
  sleep schedule, there's an entire different coping
• 36:13
  mechanisms. There is being witness to
• 36:16
  society, the worst of society on a daily basis.
• 36:21
  And then when we're assaulted, the first question out of your
• 36:27
  manager's mouth can be, well, what could you have done
• 36:31
  differently? Pardon me.
• 36:34
  Pardon. Me which is which is just
• 36:36
  another chapter in the women's book of how it was your fault,
• 36:39
  not somebody else. 'S I can't even.
• 36:42
  That's a whole other side note. And especially with everything
• 36:45
  that's just happened in the States with, with Lila getting
• 36:48
  attacked and, and the administrator's comments again,
• 36:52
  whole other side topic, But you know, you're not, you're not
• 36:57
  well prepared for all of the different emotional and soft
• 37:01
  skills that it takes to be a nurse because no one really
• 37:04
  teaches you. How do you grieve a patient?
• 37:06
  How do you grieve a patient that you knew for all of 30 minutes
• 37:09
  and they were dead the whole time?
• 37:12
  How do you, how do you come to terms with that as a person?
• 37:15
  You know that the so taboo, it's so off limits.
• 37:18
  It's, there's no access to it in, in safe, supportive spaces
• 37:22
  where you're not responsible for things.
• 37:25
  So that when it does finally happen and you're, you're the
• 37:29
  nurse, you're the one who's who's in charge of things and
• 37:32
  you have to go, you know, nursing school.
• 37:35
  They're, they're trying their best and they, they're the
• 37:39
  message that you usually come out with is you're going to save
• 37:42
  everybody, you're going to change the world, you're going
• 37:44
  to do so much good. When in reality, it takes an
• 37:48
  entire shift to go from death as the enemy to, you know,
• 37:54
  providing a comfortable, dignified death is probably one
• 37:58
  of the most sacred things that I can do for somebody.
• 38:01
  You know, it's that took a lot of time and effort and that was
• 38:04
  getting a palliative care certificate before even
• 38:06
  finishing nursing. Like I still had to get that,
• 38:10
  that understanding. And so, you know, the, the grief
• 38:14
  piece, the, the Wellness piece about, you know, taking care of
• 38:18
  yourself, the focus is always on the patient and the family and
• 38:24
  what can you do for the patient and how can you go above and
• 38:26
  beyond. And, and the underlying
• 38:28
  messaging, especially when I was going through school and, and
• 38:31
  1st starting was you're not a good nurse unless you give
• 38:34
  everything of yourself. If you leave even one iota of of
• 38:39
  care and compassion for yourself, well, that could have
• 38:41
  gone to a patient. Oh, you're so selfish.
• 38:44
  Again, a whole other side piece on.
• 38:48
  Never mind, your cup's empty, so there's nothing to give anyway.
• 38:51
  Yes, Yeah. So what am I giving from?
• 38:53
  That's not our concern. You can figure that.
• 38:55
  Out. Yeah, yeah.
• 38:57
  You know, getting, getting comfortable with learning and
• 39:03
  you know, you're you, you graduate nursing school, you
• 39:06
  write your N class, you get through, you're so excited, you
• 39:08
  get your first job. You know, they give you some
• 39:11
  orientation. If you're really lucky,
• 39:14
  Ontario's got a new grad guarantee where you can get six
• 39:17
  months worth of full time work being paired with somebody.
• 39:20
  So if you're not actually working, you're being paired.
• 39:25
  So it's an extended orientation and usually you typically are
• 39:29
  guaranteed a job, a full time job after that's over.
• 39:35
  OK. So, so at least they can, they
• 39:40
  can get into, you know, you know, and usually the place that
• 39:43
  you're getting hired is somewhere where you've already
• 39:44
  done a clinical rotation in your fourth year.
• 39:47
  So you kind of get, you get exposed to a couple of different
• 39:49
  places. And Oh my gosh, these kids, the
• 39:56
  Internet shut off, heaven forbid, because you know, it's
• 40:00
  close to the time that they get home from school.
• 40:04
  So we're like losing it because the Internet is all for half a
• 40:06
  second and, you know, getting used to the fact of, you know,
• 40:12
  getting all this extended orientation.
• 40:13
  But sometimes you get maybe six weeks, you get maybe six weeks
• 40:17
  and you're being pulled off early or you're being put into a
• 40:21
  position while you're on orientation where you can, you
• 40:24
  can take that room, right? You can take the patient
• 40:25
  assignment here, you know, but you can take that patient
• 40:29
  assignment, right? Well, no, that's me working on
• 40:31
  my own. I'm supposed to be in
• 40:32
  orientation. I'm not supposed to exist.
• 40:34
  You're not supposed to count me as staff.
• 40:37
  But very often, you know, you're pulled off orientation early.
• 40:41
  You're, you're utilized, you know, more fully than you should
• 40:44
  be. So you're pushing people the
• 40:47
  second they get onto the floor and, you know, being short
• 40:51
  staffed, the, the risk of violence, the, the overwhelming
• 40:53
  need to, to get used to what you're doing.
• 40:57
  And, and then that responsibility piece is so huge
• 41:01
  that you really can't feel that until you've got your own
• 41:03
  license. And then you feel the need of
• 41:05
  having to make sure that that license is taken care of.
• 41:09
  And so, you know, you're carrying all this around and
• 41:12
  then you're, you're fumbling through your first shifts and,
• 41:16
  you know, everything goes by so fast and you're trying to keep
• 41:21
  track of what's going on. And, and we always say like, you
• 41:24
  know, something interesting comes up in the day or there's a
• 41:26
  medication that you're not sure of, you know, the side effects
• 41:28
  or, or what it affects or, or the pathophysiology.
• 41:31
  Maybe you want to dig it a little bit deeper into that.
• 41:33
  When you get home, you're like, I'll just remember that.
• 41:36
  No, you won't. You shut off the second you, you
• 41:39
  that, that Ding that you hear when you you touch your badge to
• 41:42
  the to the chronos machine, You you hear that Ding and like, you
• 41:46
  shut off. Yeah, it's done.
• 41:50
  Yes. So you're you're done and you're
• 41:52
  just trying to like, OK, let me drive home.
• 41:54
  Let me. And then you're worrying about
• 41:55
  what you have to do at home. So it's it's one of those things
• 42:00
  where, you know, how can we keep track of the little wins because
• 42:04
  it's the little wins that really make a career.
• 42:08
  But when you're starting out, you're looking for those big
• 42:11
  wins, you know, oh, I want to do CPRI want to get somebody back
• 42:14
  from the dead. I want to save somebody.
• 42:16
  Sometimes those don't happen for years, you know, like they they
• 42:22
  don't happen. And so you really need to be OK
• 42:24
  with feeling like you're losing for for at least two years full
• 42:30
  time. Like, and you know, that's
• 42:32
  coming into a Med surg floor, which is kind of your your entry
• 42:35
  level spot to come into, let alone like if you happen to get
• 42:39
  started into a specialty like a merge, like Oh my.
• 42:41
  God these. Poor these poor I want to call
• 42:47
  you know you want to learn by trial by fire.
• 42:49
  Here you go. Because, you know, a merge works
• 42:52
  so differently than the floor and it's a whole different set
• 42:56
  of, you know, we got a fast pace and organize and, and have 15
• 43:01
  things going on and keep track of them and, and all these
• 43:03
  different things and then realize what, what you know
• 43:06
  could turn into a, a bigger emergency.
• 43:08
  What could you know if this happened to turn out to be
• 43:12
  something worse? You can get caught with your
• 43:14
  pants down if you're not really careful.
• 43:16
  You know, these different things that you really could get you
• 43:19
  burned badly if you're a new grad and you're put into the
• 43:22
  emerge and you're not given enough support and, and that
• 43:25
  kind of stuff. So this is where the journals
• 43:27
  came from. I ended up speaking at Brock
• 43:29
  University, which is one of our universities up here.
• 43:32
  It's got a nursing school and so the professor reached out and
• 43:36
  she's like, hey, do you want to teach a three hour lecture?
• 43:38
  I'm like, pardon, like on what? She's like whatever she's like,
• 43:42
  whatever you want. I'm like, she like just tell
• 43:44
  stories. I'm like, okay, good stories are
• 43:46
  bad stories. She's like, I'm like, do you
• 43:48
  want them to, do you want them to stay or do you not want them
• 43:50
  to say she's like, well, we want them to stay.
• 43:52
  I'm like, Oh, I've got less of those stories.
• 43:56
  So but of course I could talk for forever because almost 17
• 44:03
  years of ER stories at the wazoo.
• 44:05
  So ended up, you know, doing the two, two different classes, but
• 44:10
  like they were first month, first year of nursing school.
• 44:14
  So like they are so fresh. And honestly, they were also on
• 44:18
  point all their questions. How do I prevent burnout?
• 44:21
  How do I manage work life balance?
• 44:23
  How do I mitigate, you know, sleep deprivation with night
• 44:27
  shifts? How do I grieve somebody?
• 44:29
  And so all these journals were all born out of first year
• 44:33
  nursing students and what their needs were.
• 44:35
  And so I'm like, well, let's, let's try and put this together
• 44:39
  and, and create some supports. And truly the, the, the response
• 44:45
  to the journals has been just so fantastic and things are
• 44:50
  starting to, to move and shake and, and pick up.
• 44:52
  So I'm just now it's trying to figure out how to be an
• 44:55
  entrepreneur as a nurse still working and mitigating the, the
• 44:59
  border, like the, the Canada versus US border issues and, and
• 45:04
  taxes and tariffs. That's a.
• 45:08
  Whole. Other Christmas I can't even if
• 45:14
  I could figure out what the heck a routing number is, I literally
• 45:17
  had to physically go into the bank to sit down to be like hey,
• 45:21
  I'm going to go teach for Nurse Blake in August.
• 45:24
  They want to do a wire transfer. The hell is a wire transfer?
• 45:29
  So she had to sit down and explain everything and and there
• 45:32
  was like 6 different questions and answers to whatever you
• 45:35
  needed. So I'm like, I can't do this
• 45:37
  online. I'm very much, I can't talk to
• 45:39
  people like on the phone. I don't enjoy that at all.
• 45:41
  It stresses me out to no end so I I was like I just need to go
• 45:46
  in and and get solid answers for the before the show me.
• 45:51
  Where to find this? Where are the answers?
• 45:53
  So she thank God she was so lovely and straightened things
• 45:58
  out that I didn't even know need to be straightened out.
• 46:01
  Also the joys of starting a business during COVID and
• 46:03
  everything being online that I had missed a lot of steps.
• 46:05
  So reaching out for help and asking for help of others is a
• 46:11
  huge issue for me. So that's another thing where
• 46:15
  it's, you know, you think you're, you're ticking along,
• 46:17
  you're doing OK, You're like, oh, that's a, that's a sore
• 46:20
  spot. But why is it a sore spot?
• 46:22
  Well, because people are supposed to ask me for help.
• 46:24
  I'm not supposed to ask for help.
• 46:25
  I'm, I'm supposed to be the help.
• 46:26
  So it's figuring your mind around that and and being OK
• 46:30
  with reaching out and kind of put yourself out there.
• 46:35
  It's it's a learning process. Yes, it is.
• 46:38
  I, I, I, I was listening back to an episode that I recorded a
• 46:41
  couple weeks ago and she talks a lot about this with new moms and
• 46:45
  she's, and we came up kind of coined the phrase Healthcare is
• 46:49
  self-care. So it is Yeah.
• 46:54
  And it we and it is one of those really undervalued, overlooked
• 47:00
  parts, but we do we as women, we think would because we've been
• 47:04
  trained with this mindset that we can do be all, all the
• 47:08
  things. And it's like there is nothing
• 47:10
  wrong with you or asking for people want to help, but they
• 47:16
  aren't mind readers. So they don't.
• 47:17
  And especially if you're a goer, doer, go getter, they don't see
• 47:21
  you as someone who needs help unless you state that to them.
• 47:26
  And you haven't failed. You've actually are really
• 47:29
  victorious because you understand the need and it's
• 47:33
  just going to free you up in other spaces and ways when
• 47:36
  you're willing to do that. But it's hard.
• 47:37
  I'm I'm. I'm.
• 47:38
  I'm. It's.
• 47:39
  Still learning how to do that. So even as a new mom, you know,
• 47:43
  you think, oh, I'm a nurse, I've got some perinatal like
• 47:46
  experience, I've got some a little bit of extra education.
• 47:49
  I should be fine to breastfeed wrong.
• 47:52
  She's so wrong. She'd have gone to the class,
• 47:55
  but like a genius, I thought I already knew it.
• 47:57
  No, Horrible. Well, I.
• 48:00
  Didn't think kids got it in the in the actually, I mean, I mean
• 48:03
  the school. Didn't wanna do the things just
• 48:06
  yeah, just sat there and he just, you know, and, you know,
• 48:10
  reaching out for help and, and really not getting anywhere and
• 48:12
  having to push for it. And finally I think we're like 3
• 48:15
  or 4 weeks in and he really wasn't gaining like you should
• 48:17
  have been. So I finally went to see a nurse
• 48:19
  practitioner and she's like, why don't you just try for me?
• 48:21
  I'm like, oh, but we're supposed I'm breastfeeding, it's fast,
• 48:23
  blah blah blah blah blah. And so I'm like, she's like,
• 48:27
  just try it just and so that was the the validation I need just
• 48:30
  to try it. So jumped the border, went into
• 48:33
  Walmart, picked up some pre made formula.
• 48:36
  You know, the kid starts crying and you're already like losing
• 48:38
  it and it says on the bottle that or on the box at
• 48:41
  breastfeeding best on the formula bottle.
• 48:43
  My God, I know bread feeding his best, but he just won't do it
• 48:46
  and crying and having some man try and come down the aisle and
• 48:49
  like double back freaking out the aisle.
• 48:54
  So, you know, getting home and and trying it and that kid
• 48:58
  sucked back those two oz. He was we were supposed to try
• 49:01
  for one ounce. She's like just try one ounce,
• 49:03
  see how it goes. He sucked back those two oz
• 49:05
  before I could even like count 10.
• 49:07
  And then the mom just sets in to be like, Oh my God, I've been
• 49:10
  starving my baby like, and that's a whole other roller
• 49:13
  coaster. I know the things that we do to
• 49:15
  ourselves. Brutal.
• 49:18
  That's too brutal. I know, I know to.
• 49:21
  To any new moms like we don't the nurses do not have it
• 49:25
  figured out either. It is OK to come and ask for
• 49:28
  help. You know, I mean, it's, you
• 49:30
  know, supposed to be kids are being raised by a village that
• 49:33
  that was the idea because everyone has a different set of
• 49:36
  knowledge. Do not stress because we've all
• 49:39
  been there. We've all stressed.
• 49:42
  Yeah, thank you for that. And that journal piece, I tell
• 49:45
  you what. But you know, I think it's so
• 49:46
  interesting the transition we've seen.
• 49:48
  I I've got a millennial and two Gen.
• 49:51
  Xers as my as my grown children. And they have I it's been very
• 49:58
  interesting. And I've actually, it's, it was
• 50:00
  an adjustment because I, we had, we realized over a, a, a time
• 50:05
  that we could learn from them too.
• 50:07
  But it was really them taking in the experience they saw us
• 50:11
  having and being really like that part worked.
• 50:15
  Y'all, you went to college, you got the degree, you got married,
• 50:18
  you got the car, you got the house, you did the thing.
• 50:21
  But did you ever ask yourselves if that's what you actually all
• 50:25
  really wanted or, or you just follow the script that was this
• 50:30
  is you're going to be the first generation to do all these
• 50:33
  things, you know, collectively and as a majority, and if
• 50:37
  everything's going to be better because of it.
• 50:39
  And somewhere in there we forgot to ask ourselves what we wanted.
• 50:43
  And so they. Yeah, I know.
• 50:45
  And so they've taken that next step, which, you know, at first
• 50:50
  when, when my oldest was the first one, and they're all two
• 50:53
  years apart. So they, they, they're within
• 50:56
  four years, you know, I had at one point, I had 419 months and
• 50:59
  a baby. Yeah, yeah.
• 51:04
  Survived that. They're all, everybody's grown,
• 51:06
  everyone's head's still on, everyone's standing up straight.
• 51:10
  We all still talk to each other. Exactly.
• 51:13
  Everybody survived. But you know, the first time my
• 51:17
  oldest came home and talked to us about boundaries around
• 51:23
  conversations and, and if they got too emotional stepping away
• 51:28
  and coming back to them. And I'm very like a reactionary,
• 51:33
  I'm going to say what I got to say.
• 51:34
  And by God, you're going to sit there and listen to it until I'm
• 51:37
  done. And I'll decide when I'm done.
• 51:39
  You won't decide when I'm done. I mean, that's very much the
• 51:41
  environment I grew up in and the family I grew up in.
• 51:43
  You had to be the loudest voice all the time.
• 51:45
  And as a girl, I had to be even louder, louder and just to just
• 51:50
  to try to be heard. No one was listening.
• 51:52
  Everyone was just yelling over each other.
• 51:54
  It was completely counterproductive.
• 51:56
  But but when that's what you know.
• 51:59
  And so the first time. So it sounded good in practice.
• 52:03
  And then her and I, I got in a conversation, I can't even
• 52:05
  remember what it was about. This was, you know, she was
• 52:07
  still in college, whatever. I'm in a conversation.
• 52:09
  We weren't agreeing on something.
• 52:10
  And I was getting more kind of emotionally charged.
• 52:16
  And she's like, I'm going to stop this conversation right now
• 52:19
  and ask that we come back to it tomorrow.
• 52:21
  We're not going to get anywhere. You're getting very upset and
• 52:24
  bothered. And I was like, I'm not dead
• 52:26
  yet. I'm not dead talking.
• 52:28
  You know, don't. Tell me when I I don't decide
• 52:30
  you what? You don't get to decide that for
• 52:32
  me. She's like, well, I get to
• 52:32
  decide if I'm going to participate in it, which means
• 52:35
  you're not going to be talking to anybody.
• 52:37
  And that was a a very like light bulb moment of, huh, maybe I can
• 52:46
  learn something from this approach.
• 52:49
  But it because it is a big switch in the narrative, the way
• 52:52
  they view the world. But I also credit that with the
• 52:55
  questions those students were asking you, because those
• 52:58
  weren't questions any of us were thinking of asking.
• 53:01
  I don't think I've ever asked them myself.
• 53:03
  I know that's just you. I mean, thought of that, yeah.
• 53:07
  This framework that I use here on this podcast is largely due
• 53:11
  to the lessons I learned from my three daughters and mentoring a
• 53:15
  college student through a mentoring program I was working
• 53:18
  with. So I was working a lot with that
• 53:20
  age group. And through that, I'm like, huh,
• 53:23
  there's some really good practices here that maybe as
• 53:26
  women, we need to be a little bit more mindful of applying and
• 53:30
  to help us stay on track, be true to ourselves.
• 53:33
  Make sure we're aligning our time and our spaces with things
• 53:36
  that are actually authentic to us and not just listening and
• 53:40
  not assuming a thought or a narrative is truth just because
• 53:43
  it's what someone told you or what everybody else is doing
• 53:46
  unpacking. Is that actually true for me?
• 53:48
  Is that actually what I went out the situation?
• 53:51
  So yeah, thank you for all. Oh my gosh, so good and really
• 53:54
  goes nicely into coming back to your why and your values and
• 53:58
  what you do and what you value, what your it was important to
• 54:01
  you. You talked about earlier, you
• 54:03
  realized you had a choice on how your life was going to move
• 54:07
  forward, whether it was going to be in this relationship, in your
• 54:09
  marriage or out of this relationship.
• 54:11
  You were able to sit down and really identify your values,
• 54:14
  your time, what was important to you.
• 54:16
  You're able to create this journal off the feedback that
• 54:19
  you learned of like these are the things we need to do to make
• 54:22
  sure we're well and have bandwidth.
• 54:25
  Whether it's 20 minutes jam into my music or writing down the
• 54:28
  emotions I'm unpacking and feeling from that ship so that I
• 54:31
  don't take on everyone else's grief, So I don't take on every
• 54:35
  everyone else's stress. So I'm able to be empathetic
• 54:39
  without taking it on. And that's a practice.
• 54:42
  That's something you have to be really intentional about.
• 54:46
  So talk to me about how just kind of the awareness that
• 54:51
  brought to that why values piece in doing this, because you had a
• 54:53
  very clear why of doing this these journals.
• 54:58
  Yeah. It just, you know, the question
• 55:01
  always came back to what would I have done or how would my
• 55:05
  practice have changed or how would I have survived better had
• 55:08
  I had the support when I was going through it, right.
• 55:11
  It always came back to that. You know, my first job, first
• 55:15
  five years, like I was bullied so hard and it was miserable and
• 55:19
  I hated it. And it just, it took everything
• 55:25
  in me to continue to go to work. And it just, you know, it got to
• 55:31
  a point where spite 1. And it was like, well, I'm, it
• 55:35
  got to a point of, you know, I'm going to be the most educated
• 55:39
  nurse to ever leave this place. And you know, the night shift,
• 55:43
  the town was less than 5000 people.
• 55:45
  It was just me in the ER working in and call the physician in.
• 55:49
  If it was overnight, you know, nobody was staying there.
• 55:51
  There was one registered nurse and two registered practical
• 55:55
  nurses or LVNS on the floor. And there was only like 12 to 14
• 55:59
  beds on the floor. And most of those people had
• 56:00
  been there for months waiting for long term care beds.
• 56:04
  So it's not like there was a lot going on.
• 56:06
  And and little, little things turned to like mountains out of
• 56:10
  molehills for sure. You know, you'd get hauled into
• 56:13
  the office if you didn't put extra lined paper into the
• 56:16
  charts on night shift for day shift, even though it took all
• 56:20
  of three seconds And, and you know, the charts here, the
• 56:24
  papers right underneath it. I'm like, I don't understand why
• 56:27
  we're freaking out about this, but that was the expectation
• 56:30
  and, and all this kind of stuff, 'cause there's nothing else to
• 56:32
  focus on. Sure.
• 56:34
  So, and so to, to go in every day and, and have so much
• 56:38
  scrutiny and, and I was a southerner up north and, and in
• 56:42
  the small town with my, my, my husband's family, you know,
• 56:45
  they've been there for, you know, generations.
• 56:48
  And, and so everyone who came in to emerge, came in to emerge
• 56:50
  just to be like, who are you and who are you dating and, and
• 56:53
  what's going on and what's your life story?
• 56:55
  And I'm like, do you have an emergency?
• 56:57
  Like what's what? Why are you here?
• 56:59
  Like, yeah, that was for months. That's all that happened was
• 57:04
  just people who are interested in what I was doing and who I
• 57:07
  was versus their own, like medical concern.
• 57:10
  Because again, it was the small town, the gossip, you know, it
• 57:15
  just, it was a whole different atmosphere and very different
• 57:20
  from what I grew up in. So, you know, I was very
• 57:23
  authentically myself at work, you know, maybe filtered ever so
• 57:28
  slightly and then myself at home.
• 57:30
  Whereas my husband who grown up in that town and was also a
• 57:34
  professional in that town, like he was very different at work.
• 57:37
  And so he'd be exceedingly professional in the community.
• 57:42
  He'd be exceedingly professional at work.
• 57:44
  And then he'd come home and he'd be just such a goofball.
• 57:47
  Like off the wall acted like a 5 year old goofball and like just
• 57:52
  all this pent up energy and, and you know, want to play around
• 57:55
  and goof around. I'm like, what what's going on?
• 57:57
  Like what is happening here? Like this is a very different.
• 58:00
  I've never seen this before. And he's just like, well, you
• 58:03
  know, I, I can't do this at work, so I got to do it at home.
• 58:06
  I'm like, what do you mean you can't do it at work?
• 58:08
  Like, yes, you're a supervisor, Yes, you're, you're responsible
• 58:11
  and professional and all this stuff, but like you're working
• 58:14
  with people who you've grown up with that people who have known
• 58:17
  you since birth. So like, I don't understand why
• 58:21
  there's this huge disconnect. And, and my mother-in-law kind
• 58:25
  of same thing. You know, she owned the SO
• 58:27
  station in town and it was a gossip hub and, and you know,
• 58:32
  she was very much one person at work and then a a different
• 58:35
  person at home. And I'm just like, I don't
• 58:37
  understand why, like the effort to take to have two different
• 58:41
  personalities. Was just.
• 58:43
  Was just so bad and it just, it never sat well with me.
• 58:49
  And so, you know, to just be my authentically goofy, you know,
• 58:54
  weirdo self clearly did not fit well as well as being an
• 58:58
  outsider. So yeah, was not welcomed at
• 59:02
  all. So it's interesting.
• 59:06
  Yeah, but that, but that also gets very clear.
• 59:09
  I'm like, OK, this is important to me and I'm not going to
• 59:11
  sacrifice this because I'm living in a fish bowl of people
• 59:17
  curious out of. Boredom.
• 59:19
  Yeah, very much so. I don't know how the town did
• 59:23
  not blow up when Facebook was invented.
• 59:26
  Like, I swear I don't. So the ongoing joke in town was
• 59:30
  so there was no stop lights in town.
• 59:32
  That's how small it was. And the ongoing joke was nobody
• 59:35
  uses their their indicator lights to go left or right
• 59:40
  because everybody knows where you're going anyways.
• 59:42
  They. All know where you live, they
• 59:43
  know there's time to go to the store, everybody.
• 59:46
  'S everybody's so on top of each other because there's literally
• 59:51
  nothing else to do that, you know, it's just the gossip and
• 59:55
  and the BS and, and just, it was just.
• 59:58
  Oh my. Gosh, but a very interesting
• 1:00:02
  take to be able to then compare to like Southern Ontario nursing
• 1:00:05
  where you know nobody gives a crap.
• 1:00:08
  Yeah, yeah, you got to work to do.
• 1:00:12
  Yeah, you're like, oh, you've got kids great.
• 1:00:14
  Never, you know, work with these people for 5-10 years.
• 1:00:16
  Never learn my kids names. Fine.
• 1:00:18
  I, I don't necessarily know your kids names either.
• 1:00:20
  It's not like we've got a lot of time to sit around and gab and
• 1:00:24
  and dissect everything. So it's it's definitely an
• 1:00:27
  interesting perspective. I bet it was.
• 1:00:30
  Oh my gosh. Well, and this goes really
• 1:00:31
  nicely into the expectations piece.
• 1:00:33
  Like you talked, you said early on, you know, you forget them,
• 1:00:37
  figure it out and learn. Forget about it.
• 1:00:39
  I am not living out of somebody else's expectations of me.
• 1:00:43
  I've got my own expectations. I'll live from that place.
• 1:00:46
  I'll communicate those. You all can do with your
• 1:00:48
  expectations of me what you want, but they are not going to
• 1:00:51
  define who I am. Talk to me about getting to that
• 1:00:54
  absolute point. And I would imagine that early
• 1:00:57
  on day stages you talked about in Northern Ontario, you're a
• 1:00:59
  big part of that. It's 100%, you know, it's just
• 1:01:03
  like once you figure out, you take a step back and go, oh,
• 1:01:08
  this is what's going on. You know, this is what
• 1:01:10
  everybody's doing. This is what everybody's got
• 1:01:13
  these two different personalities and everybody's
• 1:01:15
  you're just like, this is so odd that I'm not going to
• 1:01:19
  participate. I'm just, I'm going to pull back
• 1:01:21
  from it. I'm not going to participate.
• 1:01:22
  It's not worth my time. And once you figure out that,
• 1:01:26
  you know, people are going to have all sorts of opinions about
• 1:01:29
  you, regardless whether they're correct or not or or informed or
• 1:01:33
  not, or if you even have ever talked to you and they've got
• 1:01:35
  opinions about you, they're like, you know, what's the
• 1:01:39
  quote? Other people's opinions or not
• 1:01:42
  of of me are none of my business.
• 1:01:44
  Exactly. So, you know, you got very good
• 1:01:48
  very quickly at being like, whatever, I don't care.
• 1:01:52
  And everybody's going to have a thought process on what you're
• 1:01:56
  doing. So why would you possibly limit
• 1:01:59
  your happiness or what you could do or, or any of this based on
• 1:02:03
  somebody else going like, oh, I don't think you can do that.
• 1:02:06
  Me personally, you know my personality.
• 1:02:09
  I'm like, watch me you want. To bet.
• 1:02:14
  You want to bet so and my husband has figured this out
• 1:02:18
  where he'll go like I don't think I don't think you're going
• 1:02:20
  to do that knowing full well go pardon and just and knock it out
• 1:02:25
  of the park. And then he goes, well, I knew
• 1:02:27
  you could. I just needed you to get.
• 1:02:28
  Going fire under there. But that's, that's my
• 1:02:35
  personality. That's just, I love proving
• 1:02:39
  people wrong. I love watching people go.
• 1:02:43
  You've done what it just and and blowing people's expectations
• 1:02:48
  because again, so if this is just an audio only podcast, I'm
• 1:02:53
  your typical white woman. Glasses, brown hair, blue eyes,
• 1:02:58
  you know, mid, yeah, mid range weight.
• 1:03:01
  And you know, the number of times in a day that I get, oh,
• 1:03:05
  you look so much like my friends.
• 1:03:07
  So and so I'm like, yes, I look like your basic white girl.
• 1:03:09
  I understand. I get it.
• 1:03:11
  I appreciate it, but it's just like, I don't.
• 1:03:16
  So if I just look like everybody else, you know, then people have
• 1:03:20
  expectations of what you're going to look like, what you're
• 1:03:22
  going to sound like, how you're going to talk.
• 1:03:24
  So when I get very raunchy very quickly when I drop, you know,
• 1:03:29
  swears like nobody's business. They all just kind of like, look
• 1:03:32
  at me and I'm just like, what? Like I love that moment when
• 1:03:36
  people's minds are blown because they think that I'm just going
• 1:03:39
  to be very soft spoken and quiet and, you know, demure and all
• 1:03:43
  this kind of stuff. And I blow it out of the park,
• 1:03:46
  you know, or I tell them stories about things that I've done
• 1:03:48
  previously. You know, I modeled nude at 18
• 1:03:51
  for my arts department. People go what?
• 1:03:54
  Like like I knew it wasn't going to get better.
• 1:04:02
  Like it? Was like it was the moment, it
• 1:04:05
  was the. Best training job on campus.
• 1:04:07
  You literally had to sit there. But truly the most painful job
• 1:04:12
  I've ever done because you don't realize how much it hurts just
• 1:04:15
  to not move. And so, yeah, a little ADHD, you
• 1:04:20
  know, you had to disappear into your head and and go off into a
• 1:04:23
  million different directions. And I was able to do it for a
• 1:04:26
  period of time. And then, you know, other work
• 1:04:28
  came up. So I was like, oh, OK, I can do
• 1:04:30
  this. So it makes a little bit more
• 1:04:31
  sense. I don't like getting cold.
• 1:04:33
  It was Thunder Bay like. That was the other thing.
• 1:04:35
  It's like cold. That's the first thing to mind
• 1:04:37
  is just being freezing. Absolutely.
• 1:04:39
  Well, and they want you, they want you to sit in like odd
• 1:04:43
  angles, not like crazy angles, but just odd angles.
• 1:04:45
  So you're not just sitting straight equal, sure, you know,
• 1:04:48
  straight on you're you know, if you're sitting on the floor and
• 1:04:51
  you've got one leg up or crossed and and then you've got one arm
• 1:04:54
  behind you and like you have to sit like that for hours.
• 1:04:57
  They give you breaks obviously, but.
• 1:04:59
  You're. Sitting there for hours, it's
• 1:05:00
  hard. So, yeah, to be able to, like,
• 1:05:03
  tell people that information about me and watch their minds
• 1:05:06
  be blown is like the best thing ever because I love it.
• 1:05:12
  I love when people think that they know me just by looking at
• 1:05:15
  me, and then I get to blow their expectations out of water.
• 1:05:17
  So, you know, for me, it's always been, this is my life.
• 1:05:23
  I'm going to my life for me. I'm not going to live it for
• 1:05:25
  anybody else as much as I want to live it for my beautiful
• 1:05:28
  children. What happens when they go off to
• 1:05:32
  college? They I'm a shell of a person.
• 1:05:34
  I'm a shell of a person because I no longer have my children to
• 1:05:38
  like, lean on and and make my whole world.
• 1:05:41
  I I am an. Individual I not their
• 1:05:43
  responsibility to do that in the 1st place which is.
• 1:05:46
  Yeah, and that's a whole other. Yes, that's a whole other
• 1:05:49
  conversation, Yeah. A whole other convert psychology
• 1:05:52
  conversation there. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:54
  So it's just like, I'm going to do what makes me happy because
• 1:05:57
  my kids, yes, they seem, I'm tired, but they also seem I'm
• 1:06:00
  happy. They seem I'm getting to be
• 1:06:02
  creative. And then all of a sudden my kids
• 1:06:04
  want to write their own little books.
• 1:06:05
  I'm like, I guess it's they're, you know, they're very
• 1:06:09
  observant. They, they know exactly what's
• 1:06:11
  going on. So why not be happy for them and
• 1:06:16
  show them that that's what life actually is.
• 1:06:18
  You want your life to be happy and fun and do things that you
• 1:06:21
  love while having some responsibility and, and, you
• 1:06:24
  know, managing it. But their life is not just
• 1:06:28
  school, work day, that's not. That's not living.
• 1:06:33
  That's not living. No, exactly.
• 1:06:35
  Oh, thank you. That was so good.
• 1:06:36
  Thank you so much for that. I love that so much.
• 1:06:40
  Accepting the layered aspects of ourselves, which goes right into
• 1:06:43
  you gave a great example earlier when you were going through that
• 1:06:47
  bumpy time in work and your marriage.
• 1:06:49
  All those things, that's life. There are tough seasons.
• 1:06:53
  We make decisions, we say things.
• 1:06:56
  We don't do things. It's all so many pieces that go
• 1:07:01
  into it and there's pieces we love, there's pieces we don't
• 1:07:04
  love, but we have a tendency to want to stop and ignore the
• 1:07:08
  things we're embarrassed about or we have shame about and we
• 1:07:12
  just want to have the highlight reel.
• 1:07:14
  Life doesn't work like that. You've got to get to a point
• 1:07:16
  where you can acknowledge all the pieces or they will creep
• 1:07:19
  back up in a not so pleasant way.
• 1:07:22
  You've got to have a place and space to move through those
• 1:07:26
  things. So talk to me about your layers
• 1:07:28
  journey. And because you've clearly you,
• 1:07:30
  you were, I mean, from every indication you're there, you,
• 1:07:33
  you are you and you're continually being there in doing
• 1:07:37
  this work and you've created things that allow you to
• 1:07:40
  continue to be there and a life that's allows you to continue
• 1:07:43
  together. But talk to me about your
• 1:07:44
  journey with that. Yeah, it's one of those moments
• 1:07:49
  where you finally get to decide like, you know, life is up and
• 1:07:53
  ups and downs. It's always going to be ups and
• 1:07:55
  downs. It's it's been that since moment
• 1:07:57
  1. You know, you can't be happy
• 1:07:59
  100% of the time. You can't be sad 100% of the
• 1:08:01
  time. But how you choose to embrace
• 1:08:05
  those moments, you know, really can either bring you up or tear
• 1:08:10
  you down. So, you know, social media could
• 1:08:14
  go down a rabbit hole about especially mothers.
• 1:08:17
  Oh my God, everyone's posting perfect baby pictures and, and
• 1:08:20
  photo shoots and, and the nurseries are Immaculate.
• 1:08:24
  And you know the lunch, Oh my God, the lunches are packed
• 1:08:28
  beautiful. Like it's like 16 layers of
• 1:08:30
  beautiful lunches. I'm like all BS show me.
• 1:08:34
  Reels. Exactly.
• 1:08:36
  Show me the reel you are doing no service to.
• 1:08:40
  You are actually doing a disservice to absolutely every
• 1:08:42
  single person that's coming across these photos without then
• 1:08:45
  backup photos to be like well here's a crap day this.
• 1:08:48
  Is. Here's the blooper's reel.
• 1:08:50
  Here's the. Blooper's Reel Here's me
• 1:08:52
  getting, you know, poop all over me from my kids.
• 1:08:56
  Here's me, you know, here's the kitchen.
• 1:08:58
  It's a disaster. You know, here's here's me
• 1:09:02
  getting fired from my first job. Here's me having to go through
• 1:09:06
  the motions to fight to get that job back and, and go back to
• 1:09:10
  nursing in that small town and, and getting through that.
• 1:09:15
  That was hard. That was a year of absolute
• 1:09:18
  ridiculous trauma. That's me, you know, getting my
• 1:09:23
  book to a traditional publisher that that you want to talk highs
• 1:09:26
  of highs, such a high two years after moving, you know, waiting
• 1:09:31
  for the book to move into editing and then going into
• 1:09:33
  editing and getting it there for three months, thinking that the
• 1:09:36
  books going to come out in another nine months and it's
• 1:09:37
  finally going to be done. They gave me my rights back.
• 1:09:40
  They said, you know what, we're actually going to go back to
• 1:09:42
  physiotherapy books. That's kind of our main base.
• 1:09:44
  You know, we appreciate your book, but this is not for our
• 1:09:47
  audience. We're going to give your rights
• 1:09:48
  back and here's your book back and and good luck with it.
• 1:09:50
  Gosh, wow. And for two years I told people
• 1:09:53
  I'm going to be traditionally published.
• 1:09:55
  Like that's a really huge, that's a huge deal.
• 1:09:57
  You put no money forward. You've you've it feels like
• 1:10:01
  you're so validated because somebody completely outside of
• 1:10:03
  you also really believes in this book.
• 1:10:05
  So that so much so that they're going to fund to edit it and put
• 1:10:09
  it out there and do all the things and then they give it
• 1:10:11
  back to you and it's like, so now what, you know, so I took
• 1:10:17
  two days to be absolutely miserable.
• 1:10:19
  Really feel it really get in the you know, I have got every right
• 1:10:24
  to be so upset right now. Feel it, be upset, be moping, do
• 1:10:31
  eat all the ice cream, do it. And then after two days I'm
• 1:10:34
  like, well, I've got an option. I either start, apply again,
• 1:10:38
  wait potentially another two to three years, that's if somebody
• 1:10:42
  accepts it and then potentially how this happened again.
• 1:10:45
  Or I hunker down, put the money up, publish the book myself and,
• 1:10:53
  and go for it and not really worry about that approval piece
• 1:10:59
  of having it being traditionally published.
• 1:11:01
  Whereas now I'm self-publishing, you know, in that two years
• 1:11:04
  there actually was like quite a shift in in the viewpoint of
• 1:11:07
  self-publishing and all that. So it's like, you know what, I'm
• 1:11:11
  going to put the money forward. I believe in it.
• 1:11:13
  This is my baby. It has to get out there.
• 1:11:15
  Here you go. So didn't went through all the
• 1:11:18
  steps, all the processes, you know, bumps and, and editing
• 1:11:22
  took way longer than anticipated.
• 1:11:24
  Even though I, I budgeted months for it took even more many
• 1:11:27
  months, you know, cover design and typesetting had no idea what
• 1:11:32
  the heck of typesetter was. Had to pay for that.
• 1:11:35
  You know, PR and and doing all these things and and again, very
• 1:11:40
  much putting yourself out there. And it's just like, OK, well,
• 1:11:45
  but this is it. Looking back, the, you know, I
• 1:11:49
  always try as best as I can to find that little silver lining.
• 1:11:53
  And the silver lining is, you know, with a major hospital now
• 1:11:57
  wanting 6000 of these books, had my, had I been traditionally
• 1:12:02
  published, my royalties would have been like 12 to 13% with
• 1:12:06
  them buying from me directly. Now I'm getting like 60%.
• 1:12:11
  So. And, you know, winning, you
• 1:12:17
  know, more than pays for the book would.
• 1:12:19
  You know, once this goes through, because it is going to
• 1:12:22
  go through, I'm putting it out there, it is going to go
• 1:12:24
  through. You know, then I can go to more
• 1:12:27
  conferences and travel and, and meet wonderful people and, and
• 1:12:31
  build the connections and build my network and, and really
• 1:12:34
  continue to help nurses, which was the entire point this.
• 1:12:40
  Thank you for all of that. That was such a great breakdown
• 1:12:43
  of layers and what happens and how we got to move through.
• 1:12:46
  I love how that example you gave, I sat with it.
• 1:12:49
  I did. I shed the tears, I said the
• 1:12:52
  words, I ate the ice cream and then then I got up and but you,
• 1:12:57
  you know, it was that's such that that we skip that piece
• 1:13:01
  because we don't think we have the time or we minimize, we
• 1:13:04
  minimize our grief. We compare to somebody else's.
• 1:13:08
  You know, one of my biggest beefs in the world is toxic
• 1:13:12
  positivity. And I, I to the point where I
• 1:13:16
  have a whole episode that I did called weaponize gratitude
• 1:13:20
  because it's used against women all the time.
• 1:13:23
  Well, you should be thankful for and, and it's like, just because
• 1:13:26
  I'm bringing up a problem does not mean I'm not thankful.
• 1:13:31
  I can both recognize what needs to improve and get and, and be
• 1:13:38
  better and change well simultaneously being thankful
• 1:13:42
  and appreciative. They don't have to be mutually
• 1:13:45
  exclusive. And so and I feel that way about
• 1:13:48
  emotions and processing them, moving through them, feeling
• 1:13:51
  them. We don't stuff the bad ones and
• 1:13:53
  just highlight the good ones because the bad ones aren't.
• 1:13:56
  They're storing up in our body. I mean, I again, I'll tell you
• 1:14:00
  other words, they're going to come out in some really not so
• 1:14:03
  great way if you don't do something with them.
• 1:14:06
  But they're not there to work against us.
• 1:14:07
  They're clues, they're indicators.
• 1:14:09
  And you and I have talked about this already, you know, anger
• 1:14:12
  and frustration. This can be great motivators.
• 1:14:16
  To spite to get surviving it's. Spite, yeah, to get to where it
• 1:14:21
  is you want to be, to move forward, move the needle to
• 1:14:25
  something that is really important to you.
• 1:14:27
  So thank you so much. That was so good.
• 1:14:29
  OK, All right. I love this.
• 1:14:31
  And that you're going to this is going to be really good to you
• 1:14:33
  because you've done this work already.
• 1:14:35
  But in living out feel, finding empowerment, embracing layers,
• 1:14:40
  which you have given so many examples of how you're doing
• 1:14:44
  that. Talk to me about the quality and
• 1:14:46
  effect it's had on your relationship with yourself as
• 1:14:50
  well as your relationship with other people.
• 1:14:53
  Yeah, when people see you happy, they can't help but be drawn to
• 1:14:58
  you, right. And so you do have to watch out
• 1:15:01
  for those people who kind of want to bring you down and, and
• 1:15:04
  the, the, the energy vampires and, and they just want to like
• 1:15:07
  suck out your joy and use it for themselves and, and purposely
• 1:15:10
  push you into drama or, or spiral you into, you know,
• 1:15:14
  whatever high emotions. But you know, when I get to go
• 1:15:20
  to work and people are like, Oh my God, what's happened now?
• 1:15:22
  Like what's what's changing? What's happening?
• 1:15:24
  What's going on with the business?
• 1:15:25
  What's the new news? Like I haven't seen you in two
• 1:15:27
  weeks. Like what's going on?
• 1:15:28
  It is so much fun to watch other people be inspired and not to
• 1:15:35
  sound, but like be inspired too. Absolutely move themselves
• 1:15:40
  forward. And then to have people who I
• 1:15:42
  had no idea were in my corner really start to shine and you
• 1:15:47
  go, you know, I the first day that my book reached number one
• 1:15:53
  for holistic holistic medicine and nurse and patient relations.
• 1:16:01
  I had somebody who I used to work with and it had been at
• 1:16:04
  least 10 years since I talked to her.
• 1:16:06
  She was a work clerk. I was in the ER, but we'd like
• 1:16:09
  talk all the time and and hang out and stuff, but we never hung
• 1:16:12
  out outside of work. She texted me that morning with
• 1:16:15
  a screenshot. She goes, I am so proud of you.
• 1:16:18
  I can't believe that you've done this.
• 1:16:20
  I'm I'm just so rooting for you and and I'm so proud like you,
• 1:16:24
  you know, congratulations. And you know, here I am.
• 1:16:27
  It's like 5 in the morning. I've gotten up early just to get
• 1:16:29
  silence coffee and to maybe write a little bit, and I'm
• 1:16:34
  bawling because here's. Somebody that I.
• 1:16:37
  Have not really made an effort to talk to in 10 plus years, but
• 1:16:41
  she's in my corner rooting for me and and and saying
• 1:16:44
  congratulations where I'm just like, holy cow, like I would
• 1:16:47
  have I had no idea, right. So to be able to be in that
• 1:16:52
  moment of, you know, I'm so proud of myself for pushing to
• 1:16:58
  get to this point and, and for, for following through.
• 1:17:01
  And, and yeah, there were ups and downs and, and to continue
• 1:17:04
  to to go through it and, and really take a risk publishing
• 1:17:08
  this because it's a, it's a little controversial nursing
• 1:17:10
  intuition. You know, it's a little
• 1:17:12
  considered a little woo woo and a little out there.
• 1:17:15
  But, and, and with the amount of like personal stories that I, I
• 1:17:19
  also put out, it's just like, you know, here's myself on a
• 1:17:22
  platter and people are, are responding so vigorously to it
• 1:17:27
  that I can't help but really be so proud that we're putting a
• 1:17:34
  voice to it and that I've been able to, to put it out there.
• 1:17:38
  Oh my gosh, I love that so much. And and I will tell you, I agree
• 1:17:42
  with you 100%. People draw from your energy in
• 1:17:47
  a way, or they use, they use it, man, she can do that.
• 1:17:50
  What can I do? And it's like they, and it's
• 1:17:53
  like an invitation or almost like a permission slip to like,
• 1:17:58
  oh, wait a minute, wait a minute.
• 1:18:00
  There's I can, where's, where are the areas I can thrive in?
• 1:18:03
  Or I want what you've got. Tell me more.
• 1:18:06
  You know, I think there's so much to that.
• 1:18:08
  Yeah. And and then and then finding
• 1:18:10
  out who you're surrounded by some, I think it's so
• 1:18:15
  interesting when you go through these different times that you
• 1:18:18
  can fight people that will come out there in your corner that
• 1:18:21
  you're like, I did not see that coming.
• 1:18:24
  And it's, it's such a revelation and such a, you know, a remind
• 1:18:28
  powerful reminder. But thank you so much of such a
• 1:18:30
  good example. All right, we are down to the
• 1:18:33
  rapid fire here. Name 5 activities that nourish
• 1:18:37
  you Sleeping. Eating.
• 1:18:43
  Belting out music in the car either on the way to work or or
• 1:18:48
  coming home from work. I love to veg out on the couch
• 1:18:53
  and cross stitch. It's been a while since I've
• 1:18:56
  done that because I've been doing the writing.
• 1:18:57
  But then the writing also is so much of just an interesting
• 1:19:03
  creative process that I had put I put away because I thought,
• 1:19:08
  oh, I'm gonna do that. And and you know, you go through
• 1:19:11
  university and they beat the love of writing out of you very
• 1:19:14
  quickly. So it's so much, I'm never gonna
• 1:19:17
  write an essay ever again. And here I've written this like
• 1:19:19
  60,000 word book. I'm like, I could have been a
• 1:19:21
  thesis. Shit.
• 1:19:25
  Dang it, can I retroactive go back?
• 1:19:29
  I'm like, can I just submit this to somewhere?
• 1:19:31
  That'd be great, no? Kidding.
• 1:19:33
  Not to do anything else, I'll just submit it.
• 1:19:35
  We're just going to start with the pieces and that's what
• 1:19:37
  people can end. We'll.
• 1:19:40
  Just do that graduation ceremony now.
• 1:19:42
  Exactly. I've done all the other stuff
• 1:19:44
  already, I don't need to do that work.
• 1:19:45
  That's fine. It's.
• 1:19:46
  Fine, exactly 5 words on how you want to feel the next six
• 1:19:51
  months. Supported, loved, joyous,
• 1:19:58
  excited and thankful. Oh my gosh.
• 1:20:04
  All right, Jen, tell people where they can find you.
• 1:20:07
  Follow you. This will all be on our
• 1:20:09
  resources page at embracinglayers.com, but share
• 1:20:12
  real quick in case people want to jot it down right now.
• 1:20:16
  Yeah, so you can find me at LinkedIn is probably where I'm
• 1:20:19
  most active. Jennifer Johnson, BSCNRN to the
• 1:20:24
  nurses. Don't come for me.
• 1:20:25
  There's a lot of Jennifer Johnson's LinkedIn, so TikTok
• 1:20:32
  and Instagram is at ernurse.genjennyoucanfindme@rxforgrowthforgrowth.com.
• 1:20:40
  And yeah, I'm always more than happy to support nurses.
• 1:20:45
  And if you're looking for Nurses Week gifts that are better than
• 1:20:49
  like if I hear about rock painting one more year, we will
• 1:20:53
  drag you all the sister-in-law. If you ever give us rocks to
• 1:20:58
  paint, we're going to throw them if the fact that nobody's
• 1:21:00
  throwing them through a window is shocking.
• 1:21:03
  But, you know, if you're looking for something.
• 1:21:05
  At you. Back at you if if you're looking
• 1:21:08
  for something that's just a little bit different to support
• 1:21:10
  your nurses in their own learning and and all that,
• 1:21:12
  obviously the journals or my wholesale.
• 1:21:16
  Prices and those are on the website.
• 1:21:18
  Those are on the website and then just e-mail me and we can
• 1:21:20
  talk about wholesale prices for sure.
• 1:21:23
  OK, awesome. All right.
• 1:21:24
  Thank you so much. This has been so much fun.
• 1:21:26
  I've enjoyed you so much today. I appreciate what you're doing.
• 1:21:30
  I appreciate how you show up in the world with just the full
• 1:21:33
  authenticity, energy and and willingness to just say what's
• 1:21:38
  say what it is, put it out there and like, OK, how do we move
• 1:21:42
  forward with this? How do we live in the way that's
• 1:21:45
  fun? Like you said, something so
• 1:21:46
  important, being happy, being content.
• 1:21:49
  You can have a hectic job and a hectic flight and still be
• 1:21:55
  content, happy and having fun in it.
• 1:21:56
  And what's the point if you're not?
• 1:21:58
  I mean, you know, you get this one precious life.
• 1:22:02
  Let's let's do the thing that in the most enjoyable way possible,
• 1:22:08
  I'll spit realistically, like I think that's a really important
• 1:22:11
  thing you brought out is like, I'm doing the thing.
• 1:22:13
  I'm living the mess and I'm still having fun in it and
• 1:22:16
  that's possible and I think that's so important.
• 1:22:19
  Thank you so much. I've enjoyed this so much today,
• 1:22:21
  ladies, here's your resources, your your you've heard it your
• 1:22:26
  next birthday gifts, Valentine gifts, book club, if you group
• 1:22:30
  of nurses journals so many things here for Genda to help
• 1:22:36
  you with. If you want Jen to help your
• 1:22:38
  clinic, your space, your hospital, go to that website,
• 1:22:42
  check her out. She's got all kinds of things
• 1:22:45
  for you. But but take good care of
• 1:22:47
  yourselves this week. Find that space for yourself.
• 1:22:49
  GM to your favorite music on the way home, be the person at the
• 1:22:53
  traffic light that's using your steering wheel as a drum.
• 1:22:56
  I mean, do it all in and and have fun this week.
• 1:23:01
  Whatever your life is, fine. That space to have fun.
• 1:23:05
  Thanks so much for being with me, Jen.
• 1:23:07
  No problem, have a great day. Yay.
• 1:23:10
  All right, take care of yourselves everybody, and have a
• 1:23:12
  great week. Hello, Melissa Crook here.
• 1:23:17
  Thank you so much for joining us on the field podcast today.
• 1:23:21
  Finding empowerment, Embracing Layers.
• 1:23:24
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• 1:23:27
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• 1:23:32
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• 1:23:35
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• 1:23:40
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• 1:23:43
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• 1:25:00
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• 1:25:03
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• 1:25:07
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