I have a story, and you probably do, too. Mine tends to revolve around my experience as a Healthcare Worker — a giver and receiver of healthcare services.
What’s been unfolding for the last decade is burning me out.
I can’t tell if I’m holding my heart to a burning poker — waiting for numbness to set in, or if I’m just-close-enough to feel the heat but not technically be burned. From this perspective, it’s not yet clear if I’m beginning to burn or already burnt out. Regardless, I’m feelin it!
I notice the symptoms — heaviness of my smile, mental fatigue, near-constant worry, spinning plates I can’t put down. It’s a familiar feeling, like a creeping fog.
I have a toolkit of experience and resources to help with this — medicine through the storm (my Soul Box, multiple playlists, my confidants, etc.), and have been more intentional about activating my Self-Care/Self-Rescue Toolkit over the last 1-2 weeks. Go me!
How Do You Need to be Nursed Today?
Whether it’s Healthcare Worker Burnout, Caregiver Role Strain, Stress, Depression, Anxiety, or any other human misalignment, I need an adjustment. A tire rotation. A tune-up.
And I’m not alone.
Many of us need a little spiritual nursing lately. Routine maintenance. Some medicine.
It’s time to nurse ourselves. Like new moms — pregnant, giving birth, immediately postpartum — in transition, in discomfort, in pain. Tender. Loving. Caring.
We’re all new here.
None of us has ever been here before — in this moment, this timeline, this unfolding of reality. So if we’re all living this day together for the first time, ever, let’s be a little more patient with ourselves and each other.
Let’s live today as if it’s our first, and do it again tomorrow, too.
Ask yourself:
How can I nurse myself now?
How can we nurse each other together?
What if the nursing intervention was storytelling?
The weight of stories, the weight of the world, is begging to be set down. Our minds and spirits need to rest. But a story can’t just be set aside — stories ask for witnesses. To be told, carried off into the world on the minds and hearts of others.
Stories that are shared become lessons.
Cautionary tales.
Salve on the burn.
Guidebooks.
Maps.
Medicine.
Moth to a Flame
I’d like to have conversations and share stories about care. Navigation, caring journeys, and the real pickle we find ourselves in today as workers and consumers on the Ship of Modern American Healthcare.
A Bedside Campfire, Moth to a Flame Story Hour — Care Givers & Care Recipients — Drawing a Map To and From From Both Sides of the Bedside
Curated open mic
Themed events or completely unstructured
Sign up in advance or at the door
Q&A/Conversation with the audience
Expert presenters with advice to share
Novice speakers with stories to tell
In a coffee shop, on a stage, in the corner of a bookshop. In the woods or by the water?
I don’t know what to do, but I know stories can help. Gathering helps. Gardening helps. Monarchs (not kings, monarch butterflies) help, too, so here’s a photo of a monarch caterpillar munching on some milkweed:
Thank you for being here, and for spending this bit of yourself with me. Hope this helps.
Take good care.
Love,
Jessie
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