(This work is also published on http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Lori_Daniell where you can enjoy a bunch of my articles)! One is more smarty pants than the next. Let the good times roll!
Any nurse can tell you how difficult it is, even under the best of circumstances and having a light patient load with safe acuities that there are many factors in a traditional healthcare setting which are catalysts to all of those horribly toxic and mind numbing issues which cause burnout. Just for fun, I’ll name some. I bet you can quite easily develop a repetitive motion neck injury by nodding your head in agreement, so don your brace now.
Bad attitudes from staff, unrealistic patient and family expectations, lack of quality managerial support, weak leadership, poor communication, increased documentation, blurred responsibilities, decreased quality time with your patients, robotic routines, insubordination, having to tolerate cliques in your work environment, bullies, mandatory committee involvement and wearing your multitudes of hats such as clinician, magician, psychotherapist, pastor and master coordinator extraordinaire…..alright, enough! Please do not click the X right now. I know that this can really help you and create a new and refreshing manner of thinking about your career.
Really!
Here is a disclaimer, though. Sometimes people for whatever reason choose to stay stuck in their lusciously mucky misery and not want to address these issues and here are the reasons why. When we enter a process whereby we really begin to explore the ways to improve our lives, often this entails having to address personal and deeply resonating self attributes: the good, the bad and the horrible. This energetically and automatically leads to having to “own” or be responsible for our perceptions, actions and correlating behaviors. When we claim ownership for our own behaviors, there is no one to blame, no excuse to whine and the table turns inward.
When we are responsible for ourselves, there is no more external finger pointing or blaming the admittedly broken system. By fixing ourselves and our perceptions of the challenges which the traditional healthcare setting are marinated in, we not only can affect the quality of our own lives, but by virtue of the laws of attraction, we can alter the dysfunctional behaviors of our peers, our unit, our entire place of work, our profession!
No, this is not magical thinking in the manner it seems. There are no wands, nor are there packets of happy dust or LSD for you to sprinkle in your co-workers coffee when they aren’t looking. This technique if you will is magical in that it is so simple, yet so effective and powerful. You know how laughter is contagious? That is pure energy! When you look inward with determination and the promise of living a life filled with joy, enjoying your work again and healing your patients from a place of compassion instead of a place of dread and duty, your environment will have no choice to be responding in kind. This is pure energy! You contagious Happy Camper Nurse, You! With this guidance, you can begin to heal our profession, one nurse at a time!
Earlier I described all of the real and lousy things that create such a dire work environment. If you notice, they are all issues which happen “to” us in any given shift. Where is our control? No matter how we try, how much we cry, how many times we threaten to quit, how many times we actually do quit only to find another job position with the same issues, just different faces, this stuff still happens extrinsically, or outside of ourselves.
Here is why these circumstances occur, based on my clients feedback and years of research. We “burnout”. If we move the focus away from outside ourselves and focus inward, we will realize that it is our perception which will enhance our lives, and all of the marvelous correlating perks that go along with it that we do indeed have control over will be ours to enjoy. No, I am not suggesting that you lie down, die and take it. I am suggesting that you accept what you can control, and that is your beautiful and amazing self.
When we enter a situation at work where burnout is rampant, and we try and try to just get through our day without attempting to adjust our perceptions of this mess, there are reasons for that. This may be getting really deep, yet issues such as self worth, self esteem, unresolved childhood or karmic (or both) traumas which lead us to be called to heal others. This lot consistently looks outside them for its definition of self, therefore blames people, environments and circumstances when dissatisfaction occurs.
This is what I refer to as the “burn in” aspect of burnout. The issue becomes not how miserable our work environment is (external/burnout), but how we choose to perceive and react to our work environment. When this is unaddressed for whatever reason, this is what I refer to as (internal/burn-in).
By virtue of the very definition of nursing, combined with our profession’s dynamic challenges, I honestly feel that it is fair to say that burnout, or external magnets for ulcers will always be a part of our equation. Yet, you have heard you call to heal others, and you worked hard to become a nurse.
Get your big girl and boy Pull-Ups on and let’s address why we are burned in.
There are two keys which open the door to your Kingdom of contagious joy and happiness in the profession of nursing, or in all healing professions, for that matter: Your Self Love and correlating healthy boundaries. You love and care about yourself enough to not allow the unaddressed and dysfunctional energies of others into your being. Period. We cannot necessarily choose our work environments, but we can indeed choose to determine how we will allow it to affect our wellbeing.
When we with intention deliberately stand firm in who we are and project this awareness in our carriage and responses to situations, practically anything can come your way and you will remain poised and focused. On the flipside, when our energies are scattered and we lack purpose, when we are emotionally and physically fatigued from a wicked morning and you have 6 more hours to go, you are a veritable sponge and soak up your surrounding negativities. When you enter your shift with an innate knowing that you will do your very best and embrace boundaries, with practice you will be blown away with the positive and grateful comments that you receive! Now hang on, I am not suggesting that you tell your manager that you won’t perform a task because you are engaging in Self love and boundary work. There are still some things in your role which you will have to continue to do, yet this is a great exercise in tolerance and accepting what your accountabilities are while embracing the concepts which I have outlined. In this instance, you would choose to not allow your manager’s authoritarian or rude tone to be a perpetuation of negative energy, yet you will still perform the task because it is within your role to do so.
Are you up for the challenge? Let’s heal our profession, one healer at a time. http://www.nurseyourspirit.com/
