Adventure Awaits in Authenticity

Adventure awaits beyond the confines of your thoughts. It is easy, and simple to go about life in a cause-and-effect ride down one path that is fairly predictable. If I do this, I will get that. If I torture myself to achieve this, I may come out the other side happier. Yet, at night our brain awakens and connects with our heart and soul, rushing through possibilities, what ifs and why nots.

        When that happens to me…when my dreams are aligned with my soul, I feel at peace. At the same time I feel alive & free and vibrant. Free from oppression of assimilated thought, culture and achievement. Free from a set destiny lacking alternate possibilities and pathways.

         Now believe me I am not saying to neglect hard work and working to triumph over obstacles, and pathways that are the foundation of possibility. Quite the contrary; I propose to align your life with your dreams and passions, and work for it. Watch truth prevail and intoxication for life manifest before your very eyes. Watch choices become clearer. Watch new like-minded friends surface. Watch yourself transform into your truly authentic self.

       Be true to yourself and all that you are. Let go of fictitious versions of you. When the unique intricacies of your personality emerge; all who interface with you will see the difference. Too often our nooks and valleys of what makes us different are sanded down into a fine dust and brushed away. But behold the shine when light is reflected on the peaks and depths of your personality! It is art, it is life, it is uniquely and authentically you.

UNH White Coat Speech

I wanted to share the ‘abbreviated’ speech I shared with the UNH sophomore nursing students this Friday….

Good evening & Congratulations! As a nursing and wildcat Alumni, I am honored and excited to share my insights and journey with you tonight.

 

As I walked here tonight, I thought about how to sum up nursing school in less than 10 minutes. I thought about asking Professor Puccilli for an extension, so get comfortable, we will be here for the next 5 hours!

 

So I want to tell you a quick story about my first ever clinical day. My nursing classmates and I were so excited, and nervous….we couldn’t sleep the night before. We thought let’s document this moment in our lives to remeber forever…and so we get to the hospital, meet out clinical instructor, she leads us to the locker room and leaves us to go check on assignments. We are welcomed by one of the first staff members we see, the housekeeper. So, we ask her to please take our picture and we then went on to clinical, had a great day! We get home and look at the picture….and here it is….

 

And this is how nursing school goes…. sometimes things aren’t clear, sometimes it’s just a fuzzy memory, but what will be clear is the wonderful, unforgettable people you meet along the way. Like the housekeeper that takes time out of her day to take your picture or your professor who turns into a mentor, or friends who turn into family.

I am grateful for the professors at UNH that had high expectations for myself and my nursing practice, because the end game, or the reaching the summit of patient care was worth the hours studying, the multiple choice select all that apply tests, and the simulation lab scenarios.

UNH Nursing has laid that foundation of my journey after nursing school. Yet, there will be a time where you aren’t being graded, judged, structurally supported. You will be on a night shift, when the majority of people are asleep, and you will have to rely on what you have learned, how well you know your resources, and your critical thinking skills.

And I ask you this….do the right thing, and exhibit integrity.

Scrub the hub of the IV for the prescribed amount of time, even with no one looking, because if not it could lead to a CLABSI, which could lead to sepsis and increased healthcare spending. Turn the immobile patient every 2 hours, even at night, because extra pressure could create a pressure ulcer, leading to longer hospital days, and delay healing.

 

Having integrity is doing the right thing despite praise, gratitude or recognition. 

 

As you begin this part of your nursing journey, and you receive your white coat….I challenge you to also….

 

Coat yourself with curiosity. Ask why? Don’t take the answer, “we always do it this way”. Think outside the airway box. Yes, you can most of the time bring it back to airway, breathing, circulation…but question what else is going on? Investigate possibilities. Be independent thinkers in the sea of policies & protocols. Advocate for evidence. Never stop wondering. Conduct research. Step into the deep and away from the shore, outside of your comfort zone and familiarity. Healthcare needs you now more than ever for your possibilities and ideas.

 

 

Coat yourself with resources. Find that Professor, that Clinical Instructor, that nurse, who will celebrate and elevate your successes and help you with your areas to work on….You don’t need to know it all, but you do need to know where to find the answer. Navigating this career takes a compass…and sometimes it is broken….so trust me when I say you need someone who has traversed this very course.

 

 

Finally, Coat yourself with passion. Find what sets your soul on fire. Take this time in your education to test your flint – test what will spark this passion. Remember that someone else’s path might not ignite your own. Use rejections as kindling. Build that flame of possibility until the heat is felt by those around you. Because when you are living your passion your warmth, your inspiration will spread like wildfire to your family and friends, your coworkers, your future students…. but most of all the patients, who are the ultimate source of your passion and why you chose to go into nursing.

 

Thank you and congratulations.

Navigating Change

 

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” – Wayne Dyer

 

Change is hard. Change is terrifying.

Change is invigorating. Change is refreshing. Change creates possibilities.

 

Change is the only thing we have in this life that is constant. Down to our biological core. There are about 50 to 75 trillion cells in your body, and each type of cell has their own cycle. Each day, our cells are replacing themselves, growing, moving….in a continual state of change. So if this is a biological certainty, why do we feel so uncertain in any manifestation of change?

 

We fear the unknown, and the possibility that the change will be for the worse, despite the promise of it being for the better.

 

Young nurses often come to reflect that, “I have known each year after the other what I am supposed to do. Work to get good grades, move on to the next grade. Go to high school, go to college. Now I am in my first job, and there’s many years ahead of me without a path laid out”.

New graduate nurses once aboard their first nursing job, come to a point when the storm calms just enough for them to gaze upon the blue abyss of their careers and lives, and they ponder the possibilities and paradoxically think of the opportunities for success and the pathways for stagnation.  

 

Starving for change, yet seasick at the thought, we find our compass somewhere along the way and ride the waves, while still navigating sometimes turbulent waters. At the typical age that new graduate nurses are moving into the workforce, many are moving to an apartment for the first time on their own, paying rent and other bills, having to cook without causing the smoke detector to go off. Some are getting married, ending or starting new relationships. Throw that all into the sea, with a new job, new environment, new practice area, and it’s a wonder they are able to stay afloat.

Yet, as in old world navigation, they can find their way amongst the constellations. Finding constants in life, helps to anchor you amongst chaos.

 

“You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.” – Jim Rohn

 

Over the years, I have found my stars to help me navigate. Not to say that my course has been smooth sailing. In fact, if it had I wouldn’t be the person I have worked to be today. There have been days where I have cried, days when I have questioned my courses chosen, days when I have doubted myself and my abilities. Yet what I have discovered, is to accept the things that are beyond my control. Seasons will change, for that I am grateful as it helps me to appreciate the beauty of change. The wind will blow, and try as I might I cannot change the direction. What I can do is find my values and charge them as my compass in life.

By grounding myself in values, life will flow through me and around me. People will come and go, places will be long past, feelings will fade, but my values will last. I choose to hold respect, integrity, creativity, autonomy, mentorship, and compassion as my north star, so that no matter the circumstance or the waves of change, as long as I continue to live an authentic life with those values in mind, then I will continue on my course of inner peace and congruency.

My advice, for what it is worth, in the tornado of change, whether that be within your family, your place of work, your community or the world at large….find you north star. Find the values that you can act in accordance with, to bring you internal peace and perhaps will permeate outward peace for your family your place of work, your community and the world. So let the blustery wind fill your sails, and let the tumultuous waves move you forward as you navigate the waters of change by finding your north star.