I’ll start with my story of burnout. I spent the first 5-6 years as a professional working in different psych settings; from psych hospitals, therapeutic intervention programs, residential treatment centers, to therapeutic boarding schools. I had the privilege of working with some of the most amazing therapists/ psych professionals out there. I then became a nurse and spent a decade working in every kind of ICU there is, I traveled all around the country. I worked all throughout COVID. Again, meeting so many truly amazing nurses, and healthcare workers. With all this experience and so much more. I can tell you two things. One, Western healthcare offers us so little of what has been proven to improve overall health and wellbeing. Two, healthcare workers are really struggling. 

Here is my personal story. I suffered from burnout many times over the course of my career. The last was by far the worst and the one that broke my heart. After a decade helping others, sacrificing my own needs to be there for my patients and their families, I finally broke. l mean I really broke, and I needed help. I was crying on the way to and from work, having panic attacks at work where my heart was racing dangerously fast. My blood pressure was through the roof, literally stroke worthy. I went to my primary care doc, gynecologist (thought maybe it was pre menopause), I saw a cardiologist, went to my works EAP (where was told I needed to have more fun), and broke down to my manager, all in an attempt to find some help. I felt like my body was shutting down. Literally I was terrified I was losing control, and I was going to either die or have some kind of mental break down.

Do you know what a decade of helping others got me? Medications, a handful of medications. I could tell my manager cared but she had nothing to offer me. I saw the tunnel narrowing, my worst fear of ending my life suffering in the same ICU’s I had been working in was starting to look like a possibility. I felt like no one cared, like something was wrong with me and worst of all like I was all alone. How can this be how we treat our healthcare workers? My family and friends couldn’t understand me. All I knew was I needed to find away out.

Did you know burnout among healthcare workers is on the rise? The American Nurse Association website states that 62% of nurses report experiencing burnout. It also states that 69% of nurse under 25 report experiencing burnout. That means this is growing issue in our new nurses. I don’t know if you’ve been following along but guys healthcare is already facing a staffing crisis. This is serious and it can have serious consequences for the individuals battling this not to mention people who need healthcare in the future. I have never been as low as I have been from burnout. I was having thoughts and emotions to the point where I didn’t recognize myself. 

Here’s where I turned it around. Holistic health is something I have been developing in my personal life for as long as I can remember. I leaned hard on this the last few years of my bedside career. Breath-work and meditation before work every single morning were the only ways I was able to walk through the door. After some deep soul searching and what I will call my “dark night of the soul”.  I knew I had to put me first, so slowly I started to align with my body and self, I found a holistic nurse coach program and I stepped back, I took time off. From stepping back, going through coaching with many wonderful nurse coaches, and becoming a coach myself, I realized I have more to offer. I am here hoping no one else has to suffer alone. I am here to help you connect to your body and find balance. I am here to support you on your journey to align with your true self and achieve whole health and I am here to help people like me who are struggling with burnout. I still work bedside ICU, I’m not quite ready to lay it down. I found my purpose, I found my balance, and you can too. 

This issue is near and dear to our hearts. In the next few months, The Moonflower Collective will be hosting a number of workshops in the St. Louis area on healthcare burnout. Yesterday I did an audition for a Tedx talk about healthcare burnout and proposed solutions in our healthcare systems. We hope to host our first burnout retreat in the fall. We will be collaborating with many local healers and practitioners in this endeavor. If you are interested in any of these events or free resources on burnout, please add your email.