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SoWhoCaresAnyway E53: Emergence 1: When the Covers Become Too Small · SoWhoCaresAnyway

• 0:04
  Welcome to So Who Cares Anyway?, a fortnightly podcast exploring stories that shape care, community, and the systems we live in.
• 0:12
  I'm Ruth Germaine, and in each episode I'm joined by my guests, people from behind clinical doors to the North York Moors, whose experiences open a window into how we care for one another.
• 0:24
  Together, we explore care through creativity, connection, and the strengths we already hold.
• 0:30
  Because care isn't small, care isn't soft, care shapes the world.
• 0:36
  So who cares anyway? It's time to talk about it.
• 0:41
  Over the next few episodes, I've decided to do something just a little different, and I'm gonna be exploring shame through a story.
• 0:49
  Well, through a s- series of blogs that together form a short story, and it's about a small creature, the things it's seen and told, the faces it wears, and what it finally takes for it to come out and transform.
• 1:02
  And today, I'm starting inside the cocoon.
• 1:06
  And I'm sharing this because I think many of us know what it feels like to stay covered just because it feels safer.
• 1:13
  And I'm gonna start by reading the blog.
• 1:17
  Emerging from a cocoon isn't particularly easy or fun.
• 1:21
  It's been uncomfortable in there, but safe, known, and warm.
• 1:27
  In fact, why come out at all? I mean, it's a bit cramped, and not the most comfortable of places.
• 1:36
  But coming out, emerging, well, that will require opening, stretching, broadening, and taking on a wider perspective.
• 1:47
  Whilst in here, everything has its place.
• 1:52
  If it rears its fears, then they can be pushed back, unseen, unknown, unexposed, unjudged.
• 2:05
  Oh, the shame.
• 2:07
  The shame.
• 2:08
  The shame.
• 2:10
  So staying here, unexposed and comfortable, even when the covers become too small, is so much easier So why start there in the cocoon? Well, the cocoon gives us safety, and it gives us a known warmth and a feeling of comfort.
• 2:34
  It means we don't have to question what we've been doing, and we don't have to question why we've been doing it.
• 2:40
  We don't have to start wondering what other people think of us.
• 2:44
  Hiding means that we can feel protected and unseen.
• 2:50
  So I'm gonna relate this to my clinical work, my work as a nurse, and the work I've done with other people to help them develop within their clinical roles.
• 2:58
  And I think the easiest example is going on a study day on a new program of study, one of those particularly being something around developing our leadership skills.
• 3:09
  And when we go, we learn something new, and you know, it just feels amazing because we've got this newer knowledge, and we've got something to do with it, and we can go back, and there's so many things and so much change that we can make.
• 3:22
  But the minute we step back and we accept that new knowledge, there's quite often this bit where we have to consider that maybe, just maybe we haven't always done things in the best way and that perhaps we could have done them better.
• 3:39
  And I know I've had moments flash up where I've thought to myself, "Hmm, maybe for that lady I should have...
• 3:46
  or maybe for that man what I needed to do, and even maybe every time somebody presented with this, what they really had or wanted was that," because suddenly I have this new knowledge, and I start to feel like I need to question everything that I've done in the past, and that's hard.
• 4:11
  And I think that relates to so many places.
• 4:13
  But I'm just coming at this from my position of being a nurse at the moment.
• 4:18
  I've stepped into a role where I said, "I can care for you," and actually that carries a lot of weight.
• 4:25
  And as a nurse, I was taught and I believed that my job was to do things to people or particularly maybe more for people And now here I am asking myself whether the care was really the right thing and whether I should have been doing more with people So the choices we have when we leave our study days, going back to that example on change, is to say, "Well, what I was doing was okay," and to not change.
• 4:58
  Or sometimes it's easier, and it's a clinical thing, so change can feel quite straightforward.
• 5:03
  "Oh, I won't prescribe that anymore.
• 5:04
  I've learnt today that this is better.
• 5:06
  I'll prescribe that instead."
• 5:08
  But it's those smaller things, how we ask questions, how we do things, even how we run our services in the first place.
• 5:17
  They are the bigg- bigger changes, and making them can feel like exposing ourselves, being vulnerable ourselves, and that just makes it really hard.
• 5:28
  So it's just one example of where it sometimes felt safer to me to just stay where I was So I suppose the questions really that come from the reflection are, where have we stayed covered because it felt safer? And what might it take for us to stretch even just a little bit? So I ask you to take those questions away with you today, and next time we're gonna go back to the beginning, to a little caterpillar that just happened to have two faces.
• 6:08
  I hope today's conversation gave you something to think about.
• 6:11
  If it did, please share it with someone.
• 6:13
  Ripples matter.
• 6:14
  You can also follow the show so you don't miss future episodes.
• 6:18
  And if you have reflections or ideas, then please leave a rating, or to support my work, head over to my Linktree, which you can find in the show notes.
• 6:27
  But for now, stay caring, stay connected, stay curious.
• 6:32
  Thanks for listening So thank you for listening to that episode.
• 6:37
  You've obviously stayed to the end, and I think Juliana left us a great message there.
• 6:42
  So I don't think there's much more for me to expand upon.
• 6:44
  I am thinking maybe Juliana might have expanded upon it a bit more, and I cut in with excitement a little bit quickly.
• 6:51
  But yeah, that bit about saying hello to people, just being welcoming and not being fearful of doing that.
• 6:58
  I think sometimes we, we all hold back in different situations, but actually it's fine to just reach out and connect to people, and that will make a real difference.
• 7:08
  So thank you for listening, and until next time