January 14, 2025 • 24 mins
Ep. 42. In this episode, Tierra Owens shares her journey from nursing to becoming a living benefits specialist and health coach. She discusses the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare professionals, her experiences with burnout, and the importance of self-care practices like Qigong. Tiara emphasizes the need for nurses to understand financial compensation and offers insights into her coaching program designed for healthcare professionals.
Financial Compensation will be a topic of discussion at our upcoming Health & Wealth Expo : A Virtual Summit . Yes, we are excited to share that our Virtual Summit is returning on February 22, 2025. Registration will open this week so stay tuned.
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Takeaways from Episode
Tiara transitioned to nursing as a second career in her thirties.
Her passion for nursing was ignited by her own childbirth experience.
COVID-19 prompted a shift in her focus from bedside nursing to coaching.
Living benefits allow individuals to use life insurance while alive.
Burnout in healthcare is a significant issue, especially post-COVID.
Self-care practices like Qigong can help combat burnout.
Tierra emphasizes the importance of financial literacy for nurses.
Her coaching program incorporates the five elements of Chinese medicine.
Qigong involves breathwork and slow, repetitive movements.
Tiara's target audience includes nurses and allied health professionals.
Sound Bites
"I became a nurse as a second career."
"COVID showed up for us, right?"
"I needed to really cluster my PTO."
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Tierra Owens and Her Journey
03:48 Transitioning from Nursing to Coaching
08:09 Understanding Burnout in Nursing
13:48 The Healing Power of Qigong and Five Elements
18:44 Coaching Program Overview and Target Audience
21:16 Final Thoughts and Support for Nurses
Connect with Tierra Owen on LinkedIn
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of Nurses with voices. I'm Dr. Lendra and
today I have Tierra Owens. Tierra is a nurse
of over 20 years and currently working as a coach and
living benefits specialist. Now you may be
asking exactly what does a living benefits specialist
do? I am going to let her introduce herself and just tell you
(00:22):
all about the wonderful work that she's doing with her nursing
career. Tierra, why don't you start by introducing yourself
and how did you become a living benefit
specialist? Awesome. Lendra, thank you so much for having me here
today and asking those very poignant questions.
I became a nurse as a second career actually in
(00:45):
my 30s. And now having spent two decades in the
profession, I really was lucky to
actually be able to come into it as a second profession. For me,
I found it through just having a deep passion and
desire to help women through childbirth. And so my own first child,
born at age 25, was something that was a
(01:07):
great sort of coming of age experience for me, a kind of a rite of
passage that I really never got coming into womanhood. So the power
of that experience sort of launched me into wanting to care for
women and newborns at this really, really important
time. Time marker, actually, even in their journeys as
women. Going through that journey was sort of a long
(01:30):
process. I thought it was going to take a different path. And of course, life
always shows you something a little different. Right. So it's
accepting those invitations or trying to knock your head against the wall to do
it your own willful way. So I was engaged in doula work for a few
years. Massage therapy. That's sort of that natural kind of
homeo gentle sort of n entry sort of
(01:52):
into the healing arts. Was taken under the wing of a local
midwife and became her apprentice. Got to do lots of home births with her, which
was an amazing piece of seeing a business person
have their own journey in healthcare and seeing how that worked as a
healer. Eventually I found that being on
call 24, seven was not really the
(02:14):
the best path forward to having a family. So I enrolled
in nursing school school and as a nurse, I got to take that journey forward
and helping about 90, 95% of our population birth, which
happens in the hospital. Right. So I was really wanting to have a bigger
impact as well, to be able to reach a lot more people and to
attend those deliveries in a really powerful way. And that was
(02:37):
an amazing journey. Really got so connected. I
mean, you touched the lives of so many at such an important time, but also
too realizing in that in those Moments that you're just
there to witness. You know, you advocate a ton,
but. And you can really affect change in terms of decision
making and be the ultimate advocate for the patient. Now, Fast
(02:59):
forward about 20 years, we have Covid that shows up for us, right? And I
found myself more and more challenged to be
in that witness space as we kind of moved along through the pandemic. And I
had had deep desires to want to shift
my focus more to a coaching perspective, to be helping
my. My clients and patients more through that. And it just seemed like
(03:22):
the perfect timing to exit the bedside
and enter into more of a coaching role.
So I was able to do that in 2021. And from
2021 forward, I was in a master's program and graduated
in 2023 for a really specific niche of
coaching called health and human performance coaching.
(03:44):
So when we look at that, it's. It's
really quite philosophical because we start to ask ourselves questions
like, what is health? What is the pinnacle of health? Is there a pinnacle of
health? Or is it something that just keeps growing all the time in terms
of your search for it? Somebody with a chronic disease, can they express
themselves and in really optimal health for them? So it really asked
(04:07):
me a lot of questions. And then human performance was another aspect. It was
like, well, what is our expression in the world
and how do we show up as our best selves? So they kind of go
together. You know, there's growth and health and how we show up in expression. You
sort of have to have all of those, right? So that led me
into spending a lot of time on LinkedIn, where we met, which
(04:28):
was wonderful and engaging with a lot of nurses,
developing a program that was called Care for the Whole Nurse.
And this was the culmination of. Of my work in
academia to, to bring that forward to hospitals and seeing the
struggles that. That during that time
to. To recreate something a little bit different.
(04:50):
And in doing so and sharing that vision and message, I became
really acutely aware of
these. These individual nurses and the burnout really
facing burnout was something I had really gone through and felt like
I emerged from, but that was because I wasn't working at the bedside. So how
do we actually just rebuild that replacement, replenishment and restore
(05:12):
while we continue, because we definitely want nurses to be at the
bedside still. In the middle of all this, I was
faced with a divorce after another two
decades of marriage. So that actually kind of shifted my
entire perspective. I would say,
you know, if not a 180, maybe a 160.
(05:35):
And so this led me into the introduction as I was
introduced into living benefits. And so becoming a
living benefits specialist was my next iteration of
coaching. To be able to help nurses at the most
basic level of being able to compensate
ourselves well in our careers and also
(05:56):
post career. And how I do that,
very simple. I introduce and share
what living benefits are to as many people as I can
and just to share what they are. It's the ability
to actually use life insurance and
not have to die to use it. Here I'll give you an example of a
(06:17):
friend of mine. So she was able to get herself living
benefits through a life insurance policy in her 30s,
with two young children, had a heart attack. And who would
expect that to happen, you know, healthy woman, young
professor. And she was
able to turn over that face value
(06:39):
of what normally in traditional life insurance
would. You'd have to die for it. Hundreds of thousands of
dollars to allow herself to build a new life where she
paid off her house, she set up her kids for college, she took an entire
year off work and rebuilt her lifestyle,
established a really, really grounded
(07:01):
financial system. Fortunately, she was married, so she had
another income to support through that and was able to continue on
in her journey after that, really with a new definition of
health and a new definition of human performance. So as I hope
know her now, several years later, she's in a position
where she was, she's much stronger and really
(07:23):
appreciates that she was able to have that
experience to get to where she, she is now.
Who would think that, you know, in your future you have a heart attack
coming and that you would know that this would be sort of
a pinnacle of your life to really re examine
and go a direction where life was really wanting
(07:45):
to take you. I, you know, thank you for sharing all of
that. I want to just back up a
little bit to your sharing of
burnout. Now burnout is such a hot
topic, especially right now in nursing and in
healthcare. And I want to just ask you a little bit about
(08:07):
your burnout that you experience. We talk about burnout all the
time. We know that it exists in healthcare now more than ever. But
no one, I don't think really a lot of people share what exactly
they were able to do to overcome the burnout in
healthcare. Right. Can you share a little bit about your journey?
Absolutely. And you know, I think the components of
(08:29):
burnout, the one component that affected me the most
was those feelings of futility that my prior
work in nursing was so much more effective. Now this is my
own experience. Right. I'm not sure, you know, who knows what, you know, I'm sure
that my patients really felt like I was still, you know, able to
help them. That less and less effective
(08:52):
is what my experience was, is that I was able to do less and less.
And especially during COVID right. I mean,
early on, in terms of the pandemic, you know, pregnant
women and children were really thought to be spared. Like, that was really a
population that wasn't getting hit. We weren't seeing a lot of numbers. But as
the pandemic progressed, there was more and more complications
(09:14):
that were occurring with people who had had Covid during pregnancy.
And what that showed up as the type of
birth and the medicalization that maybe sometimes needed to happen for people, and it
wasn't respiratory for us the way that we. It really hasn't
quite been figured out, but it really showed up often as a
really severe preeclampsia. Lots of those mamas. Now it's, I think
(09:36):
as far as right now goes, it's, you know, it's still an association
rather than it being a cause because of so much of that endothelial
tissue that gets affected in the vessels, which is really a big piece in terms
of preeclampsia. So I was seeing sicker and sicker patients where the
medicalization of the birth, because of having to treat
that, it just felt like less of this sort of rite of passage that we
(09:59):
were talking about. You know, it just felt like it was really being
profoundly controlled
by this really rigid and strict protocol, plus
being, you know, covered head to toe in like gowns and masks and all that.
So that's depersonalizing as well, which is also another factor
in. In burnout. So. So in terms
(10:20):
of what I was needing during that time just to get through
was to be taking big breaks. I mean, I needed to, to really
cluster my PTO together and go and take five days where
I was just away, and I would really focus on the things
that fueled me, you know. And so luckily, in my journey along the way,
I'd found those already. It was qigong. So one of the huge ones,
(10:42):
journal writing and really significant
exercise. That's always been a part of my life. And I was
needing to actually expend a lot of that
pent up energy that was in me out. If I
could come to this place of calmness and use the qigong and meditation
and the journaling. So that was one piece. As I continued to work through
(11:05):
the pandemic, I felt like that that was actually working less and
less. So just the Days that were being piled up on me and what I
was experiencing, it started to move more
to. I wouldn't call it,
I would call it moral distress, not moral injury, but moral distress. I knew
that I was at a kind of a values conflict at that point.
(11:27):
And at that point I knew that it was my, my time to, to
step away. Now a lot of nurses didn't experience that
and so their own experience of go going through this, you know, may have
taken a different message. I, I also was building a business on the side,
you know, like mothering, you know, in terms of introducing myself,
I have three kids, right. So mothering in there, you know, you have
(11:49):
your second shift, as a lot of us call it. Right. So just being on,
on, on, on all the time. So in my own experience, the way to
replenish that was just to take a break.
I removed myself, I ended that, resigned my
position. And it was hard initially. I thought, take two to three weeks,
it'll be fine. And that two to three weeks turned into six months.
(12:11):
And the six months marker, that's when I was actually back into my
program. I was still starting to ask myself questions like, is it
okay to rest? Is it okay to still be in this
downtime that I absolutely need? And I was still tired.
So it was right around that six month mark where, you know,
I felt like I had some time and energy to
(12:32):
start to reinvest myself in something new. So back in
the program I went. And I don't know about you, Lendra, but
you know, I have three degrees in my life and all of
my educational experience experiences have always
been tied to having some kind of a, a work experience
during that time. And for the first time I was able to be a student
(12:56):
and not have a position. It was like heavenly. It
was gift, like I can
indulge myself in all these projects and
sing. And so for those out there that,
you know, get to have that experience or, you know, have the opportunity
to it and you know, most of us, you know, in nursing love education,
(13:19):
I highly recommend, but I know that it's not every, on everybody's
docket to be able to get to have that. So, so that was sort of
my healing and being able to put together this program,
care for the whole nurses. Nurse. I was able to use
this qigong background that I had and
tying it into Chinese medicine, which uses the five elements. Yeah.
(13:40):
So let's, let's talk about that for those who are not
familiar with qigong. And that was one of the things that was
helping you so talk a little bit about the qigong and what that means and
those five elements. Love to. It's just one of my favorite things to,
to share about. So qigong is an
ancient Chinese practice and it involves breath work
(14:03):
and slow movement. And it's usually repetitive movement. Now
you've maybe heard of Tai chi. So Tai Chi is similar
to qigong, except for that Tai chi has a little bit more
complex focus. It also has a martial purpose too. So
Tai chi can, can be considered as a, maybe a slow motion
kung fu. You know, when we think of kung fu, we often think of
(14:25):
fighting, right? Well, Kung fu is a lot more to that. It's very much an
internal art as well as an external martial art. So, so kung
fu, most active qigong, most internal. So a lot
of times people have a lot, a lot of, maybe a more difficult time
doing sitting meditation, right?
Qigong can be an answer for those types of kinesthetic people where maybe they
(14:47):
need a little bit of motion while they're meditating. And qigong
commonly translates into energy work, the energy of
life. It actually means steam, if we go very, very
literal. So we kind of think of steam rising from like say a
pot of cooking rice. That energy transformation is
really what qi is. And then gong
(15:09):
means a cultivation. So practicing through
cultivation of work and energy. So, so you're cultivating your energy.
And what a better thing to do through burnout or
just through life is to really hone in and master your
energy. So that was, that's really kind of the underpinning
of what it, what it does for me and what it was doing for me.
(15:31):
So in tying in the five elements, you can think of the five elements
of sort of flavors of energy in a way. So the
five elements in Chinese medicine, I'll start with the center, which is always
earth, right? So earth is like our mama, right? It's
the center of us that sort of holds space and nurtures. It's
the ground underneath us. So you can kind of think of like, you know,
(15:53):
gardening would be a very earth oriented activity, as would qigong,
because it kind of brings you back to your center. And
then there's metal and then there's
water, and then there's wood and fire. So each of
these, if you kind of put them into a circle, they all have
orientations in terms of south, north, east and
(16:15):
west. They all have seasonal significance. So I'll give
you a seasonal example, which is really fun. So
earth being at the center. So think of like a compass, right? You have
your north south, east, and west. And like earth is at the center of that
compass. Okay. So winter
would be the water element. And water always has this kind of
(16:37):
downward collective energy to it. It is where
we kind of go into respite, we go into rest, we go into
internalizing and putting our energy into our roots for the season.
It's cold, the leaves have fallen off the trees. You're in
a dormancy state. From there, we have spring.
And spring would be a manifestation of the wood energy. Think
(17:00):
of a sprouting seed just popping up
out of the ground. Or think of the bamboo, how bamboo grows so
fast. Right. It just kind of shoots. Think of like a baby and
how, you know, how they're born. They had. They're just full of potential energy. That's
the wood element. Bring. And then coming to summer, it's like
your full fruition. That's the fire element. That's like the full
(17:22):
manifestation in this life cycle. That would be something like a,
you know, a young adult who's, you know, come to their
maturity. They still have a lot to learn. They've got a lot of energy still.
They're finding their passions. That may explain a little bit of
leadership. That would be the summer element of fire. Right. And sun's high
in the sky, so that makes sense. Right. And then
(17:45):
from there you go to fall. And fall would be your metal
element. Metal is very cold and dry. It starts to pull
that. That essence from the summer and the. The
fire kind of down into a slowing
down. Leaves are falling from trees or they're turning colors. In
terms of a life cycle, that would be sort of maybe middle
(18:07):
age, you know, and. And being able to kind of refine and
master what your skills are. And maybe
mentor mentoring is really also part of that metal
element strategy and planning, being
organized. So sometimes you learn that as you go into wisdom. And
some people are more predominantly one or the other. But that's just a good
(18:28):
example of the five elements and how they kind of fit into
nature and how they reflect nature and ourselves.
That is awesome. I love hearing that. I love. I'm glad that you
shared it. Now, do you talk about this in your coaching
program? What do you do with your program? Who's your target
audience? Who you help? And what should, you know, those expect
(18:51):
from your program? I love to start everybody off with a five element
assessment. These are questions that you get to
ask yourself. You know, kind of think along the lines of like a Myers
Briggs. So I'd like to start with that five element assessment so people can
See their strength and they can see the
areas of their holisticness, their nature
(19:13):
where they want to put some energy and refine that energy and being able
to use it more masterfully. So from there, you know, there's
a coaching call where we take a look at all that. So after
that assessment, let's make a plan for growth. What kinds of activities
do we want to bring in that are saying maybe they're more, you know, wood
element or water element to sort of balance out the other ones and
(19:35):
then meet on, you know, whatever the, the contract is a
bi monthly basis to kind of check back in. And I really like
to work with nurses. I mean that's, that's my place. I mean, I think that
the piece around working with allied health professionals
been great too because you know, there's a lot of caring
profession. People wouldn't want to exclude anyone. I have worked with some
(19:57):
doctors, I have worked with, with some teachers. Teachers are great
because I feel like they're often right along the same as, you know, kind
of what we're doing in terms of living, profession.
Agree, agree. Yeah. So teachers is a, is
another big space. And then, you know, kind of along the way, you know, I've,
(20:19):
I've found people that are just writers that are just drawn for some reason
to want to do the work together. What, and what should anyone who comes into
your program and once they complete your program, what should they
expect as a deliverable. Yeah, that's a great, great
question. So I, you know, I, I think that that
refinement of energy and kind of knowing the ongoing
(20:42):
work to where to keep going. So it depends on what their goals are,
you know, in terms of, you know, are they a nurse, Are they really looking
to have tools to, to work with
regeneration and restoration? We can have that, you know. So it
really depends on who I've got and what their goals are.
But I really always like to layer it in this five element process
(21:04):
because it's just, it's so tangible. They can keep growing with it
so easily as they start to kind of shift their perspective of, of seeing these
different ways of looking at aspects of their life. Well, how can
people find you? You know, I really am working just mostly on
LinkedIn. I would say go to my profile, message me on LinkedIn. So I'm
really just doing a lot of one on one work and enjoying that
(21:26):
very much. And so I'd say, you know, a message through LinkedIn, connect with
me on LinkedIn. That would be place to request an
assessment and have a complimentary coaching
call where we can just see how it might look like or what it might
look like to work together. Anything that I haven't asked that you'd like to
share as we wrap up? You know, I think I'll just. I'll just
(21:47):
finish just with a. Like a gentle support
around. Around nurses and their own compensation.
Because I think that that's a piece of the burnout as well, is
being able to work as hard as we work through our careers and in
such a giving way to be able to
move from that to whatever phase we are and kind of learn that
(22:10):
water element a little bit better in terms of what that financial
piece looks like. So I'd say that, you know, that's really tied in to the
work that I'm doing. I always have questions around that for people, because I think
in nursing, that's not really an area that we have strengths
in. In general, you know, we weren't. Not that our profession doesn't
really give us options to explore it as much. And so that's another
(22:32):
area that, you know, I would love to support with as well.
Okay, well, thank you so much for coming on today, just
hearing the holistic aspects of your
approach to wellness, and thank you so
much. So there you have it. Until next time. Make
sure you guys stay inspired, stay educated, and
(22:54):
stay empowered.
Welcome back to another episode of Nurses with voices. I'm Dr. Lendra and
today I have Tierra Owens. Tierra is a nurse
of over 20 years and currently working as a coach and
living benefits specialist. Now you may be
asking exactly what does a living benefits specialist
do? I am going to let her introduce herself and just tell you
(00:22):
all about the wonderful work that she's doing with her nursing
career. Tierra, why don't you start by introducing yourself
and how did you become a living benefit
specialist? Awesome. Lendra, thank you so much for having me here
today and asking those very poignant questions.
I became a nurse as a second career actually in
(00:45):
my 30s. And now having spent two decades in the
profession, I really was lucky to
actually be able to come into it as a second profession. For me,
I found it through just having a deep passion and
desire to help women through childbirth. And so my own first child,
born at age 25, was something that was a
(01:07):
great sort of coming of age experience for me, a kind of a rite of
passage that I really never got coming into womanhood. So the power
of that experience sort of launched me into wanting to care for
women and newborns at this really, really important
time. Time marker, actually, even in their journeys as
women. Going through that journey was sort of a long
(01:30):
process. I thought it was going to take a different path. And of course, life
always shows you something a little different. Right. So it's
accepting those invitations or trying to knock your head against the wall to do
it your own willful way. So I was engaged in doula work for a few
years. Massage therapy. That's sort of that natural kind of
homeo gentle sort of n entry sort of
(01:52):
into the healing arts. Was taken under the wing of a local
midwife and became her apprentice. Got to do lots of home births with her, which
was an amazing piece of seeing a business person
have their own journey in healthcare and seeing how that worked as a
healer. Eventually I found that being on
call 24, seven was not really the
(02:14):
the best path forward to having a family. So I enrolled
in nursing school school and as a nurse, I got to take that journey forward
and helping about 90, 95% of our population birth, which
happens in the hospital. Right. So I was really wanting to have a bigger
impact as well, to be able to reach a lot more people and to
attend those deliveries in a really powerful way. And that was
(02:37):
an amazing journey. Really got so connected. I
mean, you touched the lives of so many at such an important time, but also
too realizing in that in those Moments that you're just
there to witness. You know, you advocate a ton,
but. And you can really affect change in terms of decision
making and be the ultimate advocate for the patient. Now, Fast
(02:59):
forward about 20 years, we have Covid that shows up for us, right? And I
found myself more and more challenged to be
in that witness space as we kind of moved along through the pandemic. And I
had had deep desires to want to shift
my focus more to a coaching perspective, to be helping
my. My clients and patients more through that. And it just seemed like
(03:22):
the perfect timing to exit the bedside
and enter into more of a coaching role.
So I was able to do that in 2021. And from
2021 forward, I was in a master's program and graduated
in 2023 for a really specific niche of
coaching called health and human performance coaching.
(03:44):
So when we look at that, it's. It's
really quite philosophical because we start to ask ourselves questions
like, what is health? What is the pinnacle of health? Is there a pinnacle of
health? Or is it something that just keeps growing all the time in terms
of your search for it? Somebody with a chronic disease, can they express
themselves and in really optimal health for them? So it really asked
(04:07):
me a lot of questions. And then human performance was another aspect. It was
like, well, what is our expression in the world
and how do we show up as our best selves? So they kind of go
together. You know, there's growth and health and how we show up in expression. You
sort of have to have all of those, right? So that led me
into spending a lot of time on LinkedIn, where we met, which
(04:28):
was wonderful and engaging with a lot of nurses,
developing a program that was called Care for the Whole Nurse.
And this was the culmination of. Of my work in
academia to, to bring that forward to hospitals and seeing the
struggles that. That during that time
to. To recreate something a little bit different.
(04:50):
And in doing so and sharing that vision and message, I became
really acutely aware of
these. These individual nurses and the burnout really
facing burnout was something I had really gone through and felt like
I emerged from, but that was because I wasn't working at the bedside. So how
do we actually just rebuild that replacement, replenishment and restore
(05:12):
while we continue, because we definitely want nurses to be at the
bedside still. In the middle of all this, I was
faced with a divorce after another two
decades of marriage. So that actually kind of shifted my
entire perspective. I would say,
you know, if not a 180, maybe a 160.
(05:35):
And so this led me into the introduction as I was
introduced into living benefits. And so becoming a
living benefits specialist was my next iteration of
coaching. To be able to help nurses at the most
basic level of being able to compensate
ourselves well in our careers and also
(05:56):
post career. And how I do that,
very simple. I introduce and share
what living benefits are to as many people as I can
and just to share what they are. It's the ability
to actually use life insurance and
not have to die to use it. Here I'll give you an example of a
(06:17):
friend of mine. So she was able to get herself living
benefits through a life insurance policy in her 30s,
with two young children, had a heart attack. And who would
expect that to happen, you know, healthy woman, young
professor. And she was
able to turn over that face value
(06:39):
of what normally in traditional life insurance
would. You'd have to die for it. Hundreds of thousands of
dollars to allow herself to build a new life where she
paid off her house, she set up her kids for college, she took an entire
year off work and rebuilt her lifestyle,
established a really, really grounded
(07:01):
financial system. Fortunately, she was married, so she had
another income to support through that and was able to continue on
in her journey after that, really with a new definition of
health and a new definition of human performance. So as I hope
know her now, several years later, she's in a position
where she was, she's much stronger and really
(07:23):
appreciates that she was able to have that
experience to get to where she, she is now.
Who would think that, you know, in your future you have a heart attack
coming and that you would know that this would be sort of
a pinnacle of your life to really re examine
and go a direction where life was really wanting
(07:45):
to take you. I, you know, thank you for sharing all of
that. I want to just back up a
little bit to your sharing of
burnout. Now burnout is such a hot
topic, especially right now in nursing and in
healthcare. And I want to just ask you a little bit about
(08:07):
your burnout that you experience. We talk about burnout all the
time. We know that it exists in healthcare now more than ever. But
no one, I don't think really a lot of people share what exactly
they were able to do to overcome the burnout in
healthcare. Right. Can you share a little bit about your journey?
Absolutely. And you know, I think the components of
(08:29):
burnout, the one component that affected me the most
was those feelings of futility that my prior
work in nursing was so much more effective. Now this is my
own experience. Right. I'm not sure, you know, who knows what, you know, I'm sure
that my patients really felt like I was still, you know, able to
help them. That less and less effective
(08:52):
is what my experience was, is that I was able to do less and less.
And especially during COVID right. I mean,
early on, in terms of the pandemic, you know, pregnant
women and children were really thought to be spared. Like, that was really a
population that wasn't getting hit. We weren't seeing a lot of numbers. But as
the pandemic progressed, there was more and more complications
(09:14):
that were occurring with people who had had Covid during pregnancy.
And what that showed up as the type of
birth and the medicalization that maybe sometimes needed to happen for people, and it
wasn't respiratory for us the way that we. It really hasn't
quite been figured out, but it really showed up often as a
really severe preeclampsia. Lots of those mamas. Now it's, I think
(09:36):
as far as right now goes, it's, you know, it's still an association
rather than it being a cause because of so much of that endothelial
tissue that gets affected in the vessels, which is really a big piece in terms
of preeclampsia. So I was seeing sicker and sicker patients where the
medicalization of the birth, because of having to treat
that, it just felt like less of this sort of rite of passage that we
(09:59):
were talking about. You know, it just felt like it was really being
profoundly controlled
by this really rigid and strict protocol, plus
being, you know, covered head to toe in like gowns and masks and all that.
So that's depersonalizing as well, which is also another factor
in. In burnout. So. So in terms
(10:20):
of what I was needing during that time just to get through
was to be taking big breaks. I mean, I needed to, to really
cluster my PTO together and go and take five days where
I was just away, and I would really focus on the things
that fueled me, you know. And so luckily, in my journey along the way,
I'd found those already. It was qigong. So one of the huge ones,
(10:42):
journal writing and really significant
exercise. That's always been a part of my life. And I was
needing to actually expend a lot of that
pent up energy that was in me out. If I
could come to this place of calmness and use the qigong and meditation
and the journaling. So that was one piece. As I continued to work through
(11:05):
the pandemic, I felt like that that was actually working less and
less. So just the Days that were being piled up on me and what I
was experiencing, it started to move more
to. I wouldn't call it,
I would call it moral distress, not moral injury, but moral distress. I knew
that I was at a kind of a values conflict at that point.
(11:27):
And at that point I knew that it was my, my time to, to
step away. Now a lot of nurses didn't experience that
and so their own experience of go going through this, you know, may have
taken a different message. I, I also was building a business on the side,
you know, like mothering, you know, in terms of introducing myself,
I have three kids, right. So mothering in there, you know, you have
(11:49):
your second shift, as a lot of us call it. Right. So just being on,
on, on, on all the time. So in my own experience, the way to
replenish that was just to take a break.
I removed myself, I ended that, resigned my
position. And it was hard initially. I thought, take two to three weeks,
it'll be fine. And that two to three weeks turned into six months.
(12:11):
And the six months marker, that's when I was actually back into my
program. I was still starting to ask myself questions like, is it
okay to rest? Is it okay to still be in this
downtime that I absolutely need? And I was still tired.
So it was right around that six month mark where, you know,
I felt like I had some time and energy to
(12:32):
start to reinvest myself in something new. So back in
the program I went. And I don't know about you, Lendra, but
you know, I have three degrees in my life and all of
my educational experience experiences have always
been tied to having some kind of a, a work experience
during that time. And for the first time I was able to be a student
(12:56):
and not have a position. It was like heavenly. It
was gift, like I can
indulge myself in all these projects and
sing. And so for those out there that,
you know, get to have that experience or, you know, have the opportunity
to it and you know, most of us, you know, in nursing love education,
(13:19):
I highly recommend, but I know that it's not every, on everybody's
docket to be able to get to have that. So, so that was sort of
my healing and being able to put together this program,
care for the whole nurses. Nurse. I was able to use
this qigong background that I had and
tying it into Chinese medicine, which uses the five elements. Yeah.
(13:40):
So let's, let's talk about that for those who are not
familiar with qigong. And that was one of the things that was
helping you so talk a little bit about the qigong and what that means and
those five elements. Love to. It's just one of my favorite things to,
to share about. So qigong is an
ancient Chinese practice and it involves breath work
(14:03):
and slow movement. And it's usually repetitive movement. Now
you've maybe heard of Tai chi. So Tai Chi is similar
to qigong, except for that Tai chi has a little bit more
complex focus. It also has a martial purpose too. So
Tai chi can, can be considered as a, maybe a slow motion
kung fu. You know, when we think of kung fu, we often think of
(14:25):
fighting, right? Well, Kung fu is a lot more to that. It's very much an
internal art as well as an external martial art. So, so kung
fu, most active qigong, most internal. So a lot
of times people have a lot, a lot of, maybe a more difficult time
doing sitting meditation, right?
Qigong can be an answer for those types of kinesthetic people where maybe they
(14:47):
need a little bit of motion while they're meditating. And qigong
commonly translates into energy work, the energy of
life. It actually means steam, if we go very, very
literal. So we kind of think of steam rising from like say a
pot of cooking rice. That energy transformation is
really what qi is. And then gong
(15:09):
means a cultivation. So practicing through
cultivation of work and energy. So, so you're cultivating your energy.
And what a better thing to do through burnout or
just through life is to really hone in and master your
energy. So that was, that's really kind of the underpinning
of what it, what it does for me and what it was doing for me.
(15:31):
So in tying in the five elements, you can think of the five elements
of sort of flavors of energy in a way. So the
five elements in Chinese medicine, I'll start with the center, which is always
earth, right? So earth is like our mama, right? It's
the center of us that sort of holds space and nurtures. It's
the ground underneath us. So you can kind of think of like, you know,
(15:53):
gardening would be a very earth oriented activity, as would qigong,
because it kind of brings you back to your center. And
then there's metal and then there's
water, and then there's wood and fire. So each of
these, if you kind of put them into a circle, they all have
orientations in terms of south, north, east and
(16:15):
west. They all have seasonal significance. So I'll give
you a seasonal example, which is really fun. So
earth being at the center. So think of like a compass, right? You have
your north south, east, and west. And like earth is at the center of that
compass. Okay. So winter
would be the water element. And water always has this kind of
(16:37):
downward collective energy to it. It is where
we kind of go into respite, we go into rest, we go into
internalizing and putting our energy into our roots for the season.
It's cold, the leaves have fallen off the trees. You're in
a dormancy state. From there, we have spring.
And spring would be a manifestation of the wood energy. Think
(17:00):
of a sprouting seed just popping up
out of the ground. Or think of the bamboo, how bamboo grows so
fast. Right. It just kind of shoots. Think of like a baby and
how, you know, how they're born. They had. They're just full of potential energy. That's
the wood element. Bring. And then coming to summer, it's like
your full fruition. That's the fire element. That's like the full
(17:22):
manifestation in this life cycle. That would be something like a,
you know, a young adult who's, you know, come to their
maturity. They still have a lot to learn. They've got a lot of energy still.
They're finding their passions. That may explain a little bit of
leadership. That would be the summer element of fire. Right. And sun's high
in the sky, so that makes sense. Right. And then
(17:45):
from there you go to fall. And fall would be your metal
element. Metal is very cold and dry. It starts to pull
that. That essence from the summer and the. The
fire kind of down into a slowing
down. Leaves are falling from trees or they're turning colors. In
terms of a life cycle, that would be sort of maybe middle
(18:07):
age, you know, and. And being able to kind of refine and
master what your skills are. And maybe
mentor mentoring is really also part of that metal
element strategy and planning, being
organized. So sometimes you learn that as you go into wisdom. And
some people are more predominantly one or the other. But that's just a good
(18:28):
example of the five elements and how they kind of fit into
nature and how they reflect nature and ourselves.
That is awesome. I love hearing that. I love. I'm glad that you
shared it. Now, do you talk about this in your coaching
program? What do you do with your program? Who's your target
audience? Who you help? And what should, you know, those expect
(18:51):
from your program? I love to start everybody off with a five element
assessment. These are questions that you get to
ask yourself. You know, kind of think along the lines of like a Myers
Briggs. So I'd like to start with that five element assessment so people can
See their strength and they can see the
areas of their holisticness, their nature
(19:13):
where they want to put some energy and refine that energy and being able
to use it more masterfully. So from there, you know, there's
a coaching call where we take a look at all that. So after
that assessment, let's make a plan for growth. What kinds of activities
do we want to bring in that are saying maybe they're more, you know, wood
element or water element to sort of balance out the other ones and
(19:35):
then meet on, you know, whatever the, the contract is a
bi monthly basis to kind of check back in. And I really like
to work with nurses. I mean that's, that's my place. I mean, I think that
the piece around working with allied health professionals
been great too because you know, there's a lot of caring
profession. People wouldn't want to exclude anyone. I have worked with some
(19:57):
doctors, I have worked with, with some teachers. Teachers are great
because I feel like they're often right along the same as, you know, kind
of what we're doing in terms of living, profession.
Agree, agree. Yeah. So teachers is a, is
another big space. And then, you know, kind of along the way, you know, I've,
(20:19):
I've found people that are just writers that are just drawn for some reason
to want to do the work together. What, and what should anyone who comes into
your program and once they complete your program, what should they
expect as a deliverable. Yeah, that's a great, great
question. So I, you know, I, I think that that
refinement of energy and kind of knowing the ongoing
(20:42):
work to where to keep going. So it depends on what their goals are,
you know, in terms of, you know, are they a nurse, Are they really looking
to have tools to, to work with
regeneration and restoration? We can have that, you know. So it
really depends on who I've got and what their goals are.
But I really always like to layer it in this five element process
(21:04):
because it's just, it's so tangible. They can keep growing with it
so easily as they start to kind of shift their perspective of, of seeing these
different ways of looking at aspects of their life. Well, how can
people find you? You know, I really am working just mostly on
LinkedIn. I would say go to my profile, message me on LinkedIn. So I'm
really just doing a lot of one on one work and enjoying that
(21:26):
very much. And so I'd say, you know, a message through LinkedIn, connect with
me on LinkedIn. That would be place to request an
assessment and have a complimentary coaching
call where we can just see how it might look like or what it might
look like to work together. Anything that I haven't asked that you'd like to
share as we wrap up? You know, I think I'll just. I'll just
(21:47):
finish just with a. Like a gentle support
around. Around nurses and their own compensation.
Because I think that that's a piece of the burnout as well, is
being able to work as hard as we work through our careers and in
such a giving way to be able to
move from that to whatever phase we are and kind of learn that
(22:10):
water element a little bit better in terms of what that financial
piece looks like. So I'd say that, you know, that's really tied in to the
work that I'm doing. I always have questions around that for people, because I think
in nursing, that's not really an area that we have strengths
in. In general, you know, we weren't. Not that our profession doesn't
really give us options to explore it as much. And so that's another
(22:32):
area that, you know, I would love to support with as well.
Okay, well, thank you so much for coming on today, just
hearing the holistic aspects of your
approach to wellness, and thank you so
much. So there you have it. Until next time. Make
sure you guys stay inspired, stay educated, and
(22:54):
stay empowered.
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