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Today I had the delightful experience of interviewing Morgan Burdick. She is an energetic, motivated and inspiring young woman.
She has
Subscribe to the Women of the Northwest podcast for inspiring stories and adventures.
Find me on my website: jan-johnson.com
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Today I had the delightful experience of interviewing Morgan Burdick. She is an energetic, motivated and inspiring young woman.
She has
Subscribe to the Women of the Northwest podcast for inspiring stories and adventures.
Find me on my website: jan-johnson.com
Jan Johnson, Morgan Burdick
Jan Johnson 00:12
All right, everybody, welcome to Women in the Northwest, where I get to interview ordinary women leading more than extraordinary lives. And today, I have Morgan Burdick here with me, she has got all kinds of exciting things in her past in her young past. And is just full of doing amazing things. She's spent several years in India, working with nonprofits, and has
Morgan 00:48
an excessive number of degrees,
Jan Johnson 00:50
an excessive number of degrees and working on one more because she's a lifelong learner. She works at Oregon Health Science University, as a nurse. And that's where my connection has been with her. So let's dig in and see what we got to go. Welcome, Morgan. Thank you. Nice to have you here. Finally, we've been working on this for quite a while, or talking about it. Right. All right. So let's see, you have done all kinds of amazing things. Let's start with when you were growing up in what do you think influenced you to become the person that you are now that does the kinds of things and experiences you've done,
Morgan 01:40
I had a very formidable mother who came from the opinion that women should be able to do whatever we want it. And so she like, as long as I can remember, like, she decided that stuff that I don't know, that I would do for a kid now, but I think shaped me into who I am, where she decided like I wasn't gonna have baby dolls, because instead I was going to have toolkits and like, and I read books about strong women. And then I spent when I was younger, she like I decided I was going to be an archaeologist, like Indiana Jones. And so she'd like break up pottery and put it in the yard for me and then I find it and put it in jars called Morgan's ancient pottery was not at all. But she really supported me learning things and trying new things and taking risks.
Jan Johnson 02:33
What was your grandmother like? Similar lady?
Morgan 02:36
Yeah. Also formidable lady. She built her own house on a homestead in Idaho. Okay. And she I learned very, very recently this past year that she was up on the roof laying shingles. Eight months pregnant with my mom.
Jan Johnson 02:52
Okay, I think I know that person. Yeah.
Morgan 02:55
Yeah. Yeah. Cannot be advised by an obstetrician. But it turned out okay.
Jan Johnson 03:03
All right, in Hmm. All right. So do you have siblings?
Morgan 03:08
I do have a brother, a brother.
Jan Johnson 03:10
And what's he turned out to be like,
Morgan 03:12
he is a very cool human.
Jan Johnson 03:15
Does he do all kinds of adventures too?
Morgan 03:17
He is a little bit less traveling adventurous, but he is very adventurous in learning new skills.
Jan Johnson 03:24
All right. All right. And right there. That's one thing in life that makes extraordinary women because they keep learning. And they try things out. And they are not afraid to step out and do things. How do ideas of what you want to do come to you,
Morgan 03:43
I they just do, I will get some idea in my head. Like, at the beginning of the pandemic, I was like, Oh, we're going to have supply chain issues, because all these things are shut down. So in addition to my backyard vegetable garden, which I went way over the top on. I was like, we should also have chickens. Then we can have eggs. And it took me so I got like, way research spirals into this. I don't know anything about raising chickens never done it. We do now I do because I have chickens. Ah, um, but I like did all this research, read all this stuff, had this whole plan. And then my loving partner was like, Morgan, you're in school right now. And then you're gonna start working night shift, and sometime we might leave the house again, which turned out to be totally wrong. Um, he's like, oh, yeah, the pandemic will be over. We eventually, two years later got the chickens. And I'm figuring out by doing it, how to have chickens.
Jan Johnson 04:42
What were some of the obstacles with having chickens in there?
Morgan 04:46
It's actually been pretty straightforward so far. I found a guy on Craigslist selling chickens named farmer Dilbert, and drove out to this farm and handed him some cash and went home with chickens
Jan Johnson 04:58
with little Oh, no, no.
Morgan 05:00
Yeah, the Craigslist ad said layers or meat birds.
Jan Johnson 05:05
Okay. Yeah. Good because you could have either option right.
Morgan 05:09
Yeah. There's like if this goes south, I have options.
Jan Johnson 05:13
And you have a butchered in them?
Morgan 05:14
I haven't mostly not because I like have an ethical issue with that. I like the idea of eating happy animals if you're going to eat meat, but mostly because it sounds like a lot of work.
Jan Johnson 05:25
Yeah, I think it is a lot. Yeah,
Morgan 05:28
I see. My friend Cynthia's kids have grown very attached to the chickens. Yeah, so yeah, you can Yeah, they named one. So that was
Jan Johnson 05:35
that was that was and no predators?
Morgan 05:42
Not so far. I mean, my dogs are kind of predators. We've worked our way up to we can do 30 minutes before the dogs get too excited about the chickens and start chasing them. Which is a vast improvement from when we first got them.
Jan Johnson 05:58
Okay, live and learn. Okay, now you could check that one off.
Morgan 06:02
You know, we're for live chickens. Oh, when I first got them. I didn't think we make this.
Jan Johnson 06:09
So great. Tell me about your formidable mom. She was involved doing some nonprofit to work? What kind of things did she do? She was
Morgan 06:18
she was on the board of a nonprofit that provides micro loans for farmers in Central America to buy their own land.
Jan Johnson 06:26
Okay. And then were you involved in that at
Morgan 06:29
all? I was I did. I led some of the trips to Central America for them. And was involved in our we had a community group in Seattle that was supporting a village and you got our work. So I was involved with that for the better part of at least 10 years. Oh, my.
Jan Johnson 06:49
So how old were you? When I started doing that? Little.
Morgan 06:53
I was somewhere in middle school.
Jan Johnson 06:56
When you took your trips, how long were they?
Morgan 06:59
About two weeks? Usually weeks?
Jan Johnson 07:00
Yeah. Okay. All right. So you probably have some friends still?
Morgan 07:05
I do. Yeah, they all have kids?
Jan Johnson 07:10
Because you kind of grew up together. Yeah. Sounds right. Did you just do Nicaragua or other places,
Morgan 07:16
and the organization works in other countries, our community that we worked with was just just in Honduras.
Jan Johnson 07:23
And I bet you probably learned some Spanish I did. You might know a couple other languages, too. What else?
Morgan 07:31
I've heard I know a few. I also speak Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi, which are all three South Asian languages
Jan Johnson 07:38
, which, you know, who doesn't speak those languages?
Morgan 07:42
A lot of South Asians. And then also me.
Jan Johnson 07:46
Well, how did that come about to learn those languages? Yeah,
Morgan 07:49
I really liked language learning. I think it's really fun how, when you make any effort at all, to learn somebody's primary language, that interaction changes. Yeah. And I, in India, especially in northern India, there is no expectation of people with my skin tone, being able to pronounce a single word correctly in Hindi.
Jan Johnson 08:12
So you were out to change that.
Morgan 08:13
I take it on the whole thing by myself. But it was just so fun. As soon as I knew how to say a handful of words and ask people how they were. And people were so tickled and delighted. And then people started inviting me to their homes, and I meet their families. And I just, it opened a lot of doors did it and I got to have this really different experience in the places that I was living because I could communicate with people. And I, it was really special. I think for a lot of the people I had the opportunity to meet and be friend as well as for me to be able to be the first person who's not from their local region that they've met. And oftentimes the first person that has learned Hindi, not as a language growing up as an adult, and so people would always joke around with me, there's this Bollywood star who didn't grow up speaking Hindi. She's her parents are South Asian. She grew up in the UK. And people would always joke around with me, oh, well, your Hindi is better than hers. And I was like, I'll take it.
Jan Johnson 09:12
What did you just learn by immersion?
Morgan 09:14
I studied, hindi was just being around or do is incredibly, incredibly similar. And Punjabi is also a related language kind of like Spanish and Italian. The grammar patterns are similar. And the words are similar with more mixed in. So once you kind of get rolling in one the others come much easier.
Jan Johnson 09:35
Can you read it too?
Morgan 09:36
I can, oh, literate and
Morgan 09:39
yeah, I read like a toddler. It's very humbling to learn to read a new script as an adult. What you're seeing is sounding out words is way different, as well.
Jan Johnson 09:49
Yeah. Wow. Wow. That's That's incredible. What? Tell me about your experiences and while you were in India, what drew you there? What were who did you work with, what kind of things did you do?
Morgan 10:02
I had so, my family when I was really small lived in Singapore. And there's a big South Asian community in Singapore. And then we moved back to the states and I ended up going to middle and high school in a Microsoft suburb of Seattle. So my high school, my Catholic high school run by an order of nuns had a higher percentage of practicing Hindus than practicing Catholics.
Jan Johnson 10:25
So it was evangelistic,
Morgan 10:27
it was very welcoming. My, so we had that going on. And then my dad had people he worked with, they did a exchange program with a company that that they worked with in India. So I had these guys come over and they, he kind of was like, you guys don't know anybody here like, come have dinner with us. Yeah. So I had a couple of uncles from India, I had a load of classmates, whose families were from India. And then I'd always grown up with people from South Asia. Yeah. And I loved the food. And I like known all these great people. And I wanted to learn more about where they came from. Yeah. So when I was 19, I got on a plane. And then somewhere between my first stop in Dubai and landing in Mumbai, I realized that I was going to a country where I had no plans to actually see anyone that I knew. And there was there's a little bit of panic, I almost missed a flight, connecting to the place where I like, had a plan. And this lady, I must have looked completely panicked. And this woman like pulls me out of line. And we don't speak a whole lot of any of each other's languages at this point. And she like kind of just pushes me into the front of the security lines. I mean, by playing.
Jan Johnson 11:47
Here, let me help you. Yeah. I mean,
Morgan 11:49
people living being a woman who does not at all blend in India. Yeah, who went by myself, people did a really, really beautiful job of taking care of me.
Jan Johnson 11:58
Yeah, yeah. Tell me about the people that you worked with.
Morgan 12:02
I worked with some really cool people. It was important to me and thinking about the work I wanted to do, to be working at an organization led by local people doing work in their local community, and be thoughtful about as I have a lot of privilege with my citizenship and my skin tone and the languages that I speak, especially in a country where you look like me and your ancestor you are like from a country colonized by the British, as well, there's there are a lot of pieces there that I wanted to be thoughtful about. And so I was thinking about how I could have a role in supporting an organization using the skills and tools that I have to help them to do their work. Right, thoughtfully being in that space.
Jan Johnson 12:48
So you were 19? When you went over there, then that was before you went to college?
Morgan 12:53
It was on a hiatus from college. Okay. Yeah, there were a couple of college took me a while there were some extended hiatuses. And then some like zoning. Yeah, exactly. I learned a lot of things.
Jan Johnson 13:06
Did that fit in with what you were majoring was?
Morgan 13:09
It did.
Jan Johnson 13:10
in what ways? Did that help you?
Morgan 13:12
Yeah, I, there were a lot of pieces of my time in India and my experiences growing up with a lot of different places that I lived, and people that I got to know, that made me critical of some of the things I was learning. So my, one of my university programs did a lot of history and philosophy. And it was very, very focused on Europe, and European thinking. And the same is true, but in a different way of the field of social work, a lot of the framework that that we get taught and the same is true of nursing, of like, both programs do a lot of theories of human development, and they're all European theories. There. There are theories that move from, like an individual and being interdependent with community as a little infant, to being individual. And that is a very European worldview, that somehow being out by yourself and being an individual is better. Yeah, meeting other people and being connected with community.
Jan Johnson 14:19
So you went into this with one idea of how things were going to be and then what were some of the things that you adjusted to?
Morgan 14:29
Yeah, I think it left me with a little bit more criticism of how the way that mental health is understood in the United States. And we created this tool called the DSM which codifies all the mental health diagnoses, we've actually and it was only intended to exist in Eurocentric contexts was developed by the American Psychological Association but because it's the the big book, and because of the way our health models get exported. It's the big book everywhere. And it was never developed for that. And it doesn't make sense for that. So even when there are people who that's their background of their family growing up, or they emigrated to the US, and they're being receiving care in the US context, that tool might not make sense for them.
Jan Johnson 15:20
Right? That might be a whole nother splinter that you can use to rewrite the programs.
Morgan 15:26
Oh, I have no interest, but somebody needs to somebody out there needs to, but you
Jan Johnson 15:32
could be the advisor. My environment, so when your feet on the ground, what kind of specific things did you do?
Morgan 15:39
So I worked my most useful skill, which honestly was a bit disappointing. To me, this is not what I had thought I was speaking English, and being having had a lot of formal education in English. So the oftentimes the most useful thing I could do was be that interface to English, because a lot of the people I was working with, there's various levels of privilege in India around what language of instruction or education is in. And English tends to be the most expensive and least accessible. But you're in a country where the many functions of government and of business still operate in English. So often, the most useful thing I could do was to say, hey, you have this cool idea for this grant we want to work on together. Let's talk about it. And then I'll make it sound like fancy
Jan Johnson 16:30
English. Okay, so you're basically translating their ideas into Yeah, the grants in the work. Yeah.
Morgan 16:36
And it just took me so much less time. Right? That that was really often the most helpful thing I could do is kind of like behind the scenes stuff,
Jan Johnson 16:45
right? And sometimes, sometimes that's doing the foundational stuff is way more or as important is hands on with people. But even aside, I'm sure you had developed relationships. So you could, you know, keep and yeah, and learn from it.
Morgan 17:03
Absolutely. And so, I was so lucky how often people I worked with are glad to know would invite me home. So I had a lot of people not unlike the US maybe a generation ago, are working in a city, but their family is from a much smaller community. And so many of my friends would take me home, to their village to their family, which was really cool. Like people would make me so much food that I was physically ill. Yeah. Because that's one of the beautiful ways. It's their love language. Yeah. showed me their love and their hospitality. Yeah.
Jan Johnson 17:42
Have you found that with nursing in Portland? Have you had incidences where you become translator for some
Morgan 17:49
I situations do that? Because I am not a medical interpreter. And that is a really, really hard job. Yeah. And it's even when I'm just trying to help out it scrambles my brain to have to hear one thing and then in your ears and have it come out your mouth in a different language is really difficult. Yeah. So I've had patients whose families speak languages that I speak, and I can like, talk with them there. And that's really special. And that part?
Morgan 18:18
And people get lonely in the hospital setting. Because it's only when they're getting like important medical information. They don't often have that opportunity to just chit chat. Because we're good at using interpreters for the important stuff. But right, but not the Yeah. And part of nursing care is chatty. Yeah. It is like getting to know someone and relationships.
Jan Johnson 18:18
Yeah. Can I have that conversation? Yeah, they're probably so thrilled. Yeah.
Jan Johnson 18:43
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Cuz you're feeling a different need than just the medical, and you learn things
Morgan 18:49
about your patients that you can then use to help you help align their care with their values.
Jan Johnson 18:57
Right? Yeah. So all the way around, you've learned all kinds of things, you know, thinking of the quality of life or how you the values that you're not imposing on somebody else to be able to have in all of your areas there. How about who was a person that was, touched your heart or was influential to you?
Morgan 19:21
Yeah, I mean, we talked about my mom already, she was pretty special. She got i
Jan Johnson 19:27
i think moms are special. I mean,
Morgan 19:29
as you should. She was diagnosed with metastatic cancer when I was in middle school, and that for her really caused her to reexamine her life. And like, pivot on she was working on she had a business with a friend she completely stopped doing that and focused on things that she wanted to do with her life that made a difference for other people, which is when she got involved within the nonprofit world. Yeah. And she did a bunch of different things. But she did a really good job at focusing on what was important to her and reconnecting with her faith community. That I think has helped me to think about, like, Yeah, I don't have time to mess around with things I don't want to do and that aren't important to me.
Jan Johnson 20:22
Right. Yeah. Because there's no given. Yeah, yeah.
Morgan 20:26
And why should you?
Jan Johnson 20:27
give us you know, yeah, I mean, why? Yeah. Yeah. Too many things to do in life that are the drive you to be helping or to? I don't know, for me, my biggest thing is building relationships. So that's just, if there's a way I can do that, that's my go to
Morgan 20:44
this is that for you. You get to have these really intimate conversations with people.
Jan Johnson 20:49
Exactly. Yeah, it really is. What do you think? What inspires you most ,to doing, to being your best self to do,
Morgan 21:02
I feel really inspired when I get to, in so before nursing, as was am, I still get to be a social worker, I just do it while giving medications. But I have had what I think is a huge privilege of being able to work with people, and be with people through difficult times as they change and heal and grow. And as a social worker, as a nurse, there's not the percentage of those experiences that are like huge wins is not high. Yeah, a lot of times we're with people in really difficult times who really need love and care, but also housing and food and health care and these things that our country doesn't provide people generously in the way that they need. But it's really, really special when you get to work with someone who changes.
Jan Johnson 21:58
But you know, the other thing is, every time you do something you do not know the effect you actually had, a lot of times you don't until maybe years later, something comes back. And as you know that there was that.
Morgan 22:10
And I like to think about I've always worked in roles where you don't get a lot of wins. There's a lot of obstacles. And so I like to think about what I call success nuggets.
Jan Johnson 22:21
I like it. I like it.
Morgan 22:23
Yeah. So like a success nugget is like if I'm working with a patient, and they just get really upset when a small thing goes different than planned because they've had a lifetime of trauma. They don't know how to regulate their emotions very well, if I have an interaction with somebody that, like we talked about just taking a few seconds, taking a few deep breaths, and we've run out of the vanilla pudding, which a week ago would have been a really big deal. But instead they can say I'm annoyed, I need space. That is massive. Or even if somebody can say get out like great. You told me what you needed. That's huge. Yeah. Yeah. Preferably, it wasn't a nice tone of voice. But if not, it's so when
Jan Johnson 23:07
you'd make a great teacher, you'd have all opportunities for the same kind of similar skills. Out of the things you've done so far not thinking in the future. Would that with those kinds of things be counted as some of the most rewarding things you've done? Can you name like one specific thing that's really been high on your reward list?
Morgan 23:32
There's one specific person that I think of that I work with. Yeah, he is a very, very, very kind hearted person. And when I met him, he was extremely depressed. Yeah. And we were together and I like some days I go bring him groceries, and I just sit outside his door and talk to him because he couldn't open the door. And he we got him connected with resources. He was seeing a therapist, he got started on some meds. And he just lit up this beautiful soul that he had inside him, you could see and you could just see joy in his eyes. And he had a little twinkle and he just he was himself. And so we were was who is supposed to be absolutely. He was the person that was in him the whole time. That wasn't able to come out.
Jan Johnson 24:25
And you were able to draw that out of him.
Morgan 24:26
Yeah. And he did so well. And he like talked to his sister and told her some things he was afraid of telling her and ended up moving away from me, which was sad for me.
Jan Johnson 24:36
To be healthy for him.
Morgan 24:39
Yeah, it was it was great for him
Jan Johnson 24:41
Because you were in a period in his life. You were there. Yeah.
Morgan 24:45
And that person and because he was away from his family because he was embarrassed. And so for him reconnecting with them and sharing some truths with them was huge.
Jan Johnson 24:54
That is awesome. Yeah, that is really awesome. What What would you say is your superpower?
Morgan 25:02
My superpower is being a really huge nerd. I really love to learn all things, which is really fun as a nurse because there's so many opportunities to learn new things. Yeah. Like I learn new things from my patients all the time. I was getting tips,
Jan Johnson 25:21
maybe some words you didn't know before.
Morgan 25:23
Oh, definitely. Words I can't pronounce all the time. Which is really embarrassing when you're trying to talk to like the surgeon who did this procedure. You're not sure how to say because you've only read it. So you're kind of like that. Yeah. That the the surgery that you did
Jan Johnson 25:39
that one? Yeah, thing on that one body part that was you know that I had to do this one thing for
Morgan 25:45
abdominal surgery, the patient rooms such and such have yesterday.
Jan Johnson 25:50
Yeah, that way. That's it good. Thank goodness for Google. Right. So lifelong learning. Now you're back at school again. What are you studying?
Morgan 26:06
Now? I'm studying to be a psychiatric nurse practitioner.
Jan Johnson 26:11
What do you want to do with that? I? What was the problem first that yeah, that made you want to be that person that could help solve that.
Morgan 26:20
I think my whole career has been a huge amount of mental health, social worker, nurse. But what I've noticed is that in the hospital setting, all everyone that I take care of has a mental health component to their physical health. Very often, it's that their mental health has led to challenges in managing chronic health conditions that end up with them in the hospital. And then the hospital can do a bunch of medical interventions and stabilize the medically but we didn't address the pieces that have led to their hospitalization. And a huge amount of that is mental health. Right? And if not, that, then we take care of people who've had a surprise, new health change, and their mental health is hugely impacted by that, like a new cancer diagnosis or a car accident, or a heart attack. Pivot. Exactly. And it's, it's scary, and it makes people think differently about their lives and their future. And it's hard.
Jan Johnson 27:20
Yeah. Do you feel like, I mean, have you just gotten started in this? Yeah, I can't really say. So you can't really say whether it's what they're teaching currently, really is addressing the things that you're seeing?
Morgan 27:38
Yeah, I think what I have realized about a lot of healthcare, education and mental health as a field, is that education doesn't necessarily align with what each person needs. And my, my nursing education didn't prepare me, my social work, experience and education prepared me for some of the patient population that would take care of my nursing education didn't prepare me for people are going to swear at you sometimes. But fortunately, it has that experience as a social worker. So I think, like I feel comfortable in that my learning journey, and being a good psychiatric nurse practitioner for people will involve seeking out some of my own learning, it will involve some of the learning I've already done. And it will involve a lot of learning in clinical settings and in practice and learning from the wisdom of people who knew more than me, and the humility to ask for their help.
Jan Johnson 28:36
There's no shame in asking, asking questions. What about me, you address patients, but what about the the mental health issues just with nurses taking on Trump traumatic, daily traumatic situations? Yeah, or especially if you're a person that's very empathetic and caring some of those things?
Morgan 29:01
Well, I think nurses as and caring professionals, like I'd include teachers and social workers, and everybody in health care, in there, have taken on a lot of emotional work and really heavy situations with the people that they're taking care of and working with. But for nurses, specifically, we've spent two years in a pandemic, we've spent two years not having the supplies and resources that we need to give our patients the best care that
Jan Johnson 29:32
we can, and very, very sick patients.
Morgan 29:35
And, and nurses, I think, by and large, want to be able to provide really good Karen and have a lot of heart and a lot of empathy. And it's hard to keep caring, big and carrying hard. When. Yeah. Two years not being able to do your best. And we have and will continue to have and I think as the pandemic gets better, and we're still not there yet, we'll start to see more and more healthcare professionals, giving once the adrenaline dies down, needing more time and space for our mental health. And we aren't doing a good job right now of normalizing that mental health is a need that we as healthcare professionals, and as caring professionals need, right, and we need time and space to heal and that, and like the impacts of mental health impact, literally how your brain works, like how your executive functioning, can organize your brain and do tasks, right. And so what what that healing looks like is something that I don't think our systems and our culture as healthcare professionals is really prepared for yet. So that's an agenda I have.
Jan Johnson 30:50
Well, and it's a good agenda too, because I mean, all of that should be included in nursing school. Yeah. And it should be an ongoing workshop basis. Yeah. To and even just to sit down and say, Hey, how's it all going? And you know, and how are you feeling, though? Really, how are you feeling? And let's talk about how we can address that and
Morgan 31:12
to Yeah, and I think one of the ways that I think it's really important to this, and super easy, is when I'm talking with coworkers to just like, share the truth, not in like a, you know, emotionally vomiting way where it's not appropriate at work. But like, I somebody will be like, Oh, what did you do on your days off? And I'm like, Oh, I went to therapy at a great appointment with my therapist. Right? And it's interesting to watch. Sometimes my coworkers are like, you just told me you went to therapy. And I'm like, of course, you go to therapy. I like my therapist. She's contracted with our insurance.
Jan Johnson 31:49
Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Boy, that's the truth, isn't it? There's just so much of that. And I think this last two years, there's been so much grief, in all kinds of layers, just even with things not going as normal or having things that you need available to you, or the prices of things or, you know, as well as all of the the physical issues and the ongoing physical results of COVID or whatever, you know, but so much, so much grieving. Yeah, you know, and I don't think that it's been addressed with people really, on a good level.
Morgan 32:32
And I think one of the ways that we, as humans have healed from trauma, throughout our history of our species is in community, and with connection, and people don't have that right now. They can't, like, you know, how many celebrations that would bring community together have been postponed or different or, or scary, right? And you can't you can't embrace that healing of your community when you're worried about the exposure risk to people attending.
Jan Johnson 33:04
Right? I totally agree. Yeah. What do you think is, what would be your best tip for making the world a better place?
Morgan 33:17
I think everybody has to figure out what lights them up, what they're excited about what they're passionate about. And then not be afraid to look like you don't know what you're doing. Because you don't, um, and seek out those people who do know what they're doing, especially the people with lived experience of the thing that that you're excited about? And listen to them and, and learn how to get involved. And pick your thing, and then do it
Jan Johnson 33:50
and then do it. Yeah, step out and do it. Yeah, to be afraid of.
Morgan 33:54
Yeah. And then give yourself license to not do everything, right. I know that I am a very empathetic person. And it's hard to hear. We've had a lot of bad news for a long time, and especially the past two years with the Civil Rights Movement and the pandemic. And now we've got to cover wars. Yeah. And it's hard not to feel your heart tugged and want to take on all of these things. But you can't do all of them. And it's exhausting to do all of them. So pick the thing that matters to you, but also that feeds you to do and do that.
Jan Johnson 34:33
Yeah, yeah. I think that's wise. And if you get into it, and it's not everything you thought it could be It's okay. Back.
Morgan 34:41
Yeah, I know something else. If it's too much, because you went in full speed ahead and you way over committed step back.
Jan Johnson 34:48
And you don't have to say yes to everything.
Morgan 34:53
And you can do you don't have to say yes to everything and you can take on things that you don't know how to do. As long as you We'll ask for help.
Jan Johnson 35:00
That's right. That's right. That's what YouTube's for.
Morgan 35:04
And smart wise people. And
Jan Johnson 35:08
Okay, one last question. What brings you the greatest amount of joy?
Morgan 35:15
Lately, my, I don't know if it's quite joy, but what I've really been enjoying lately. So it is I'll give myself oh, what I've really been enjoying lately is spending time in my garden. Yeah, because it's been really nice to get my hands and dirt and get some time away from work and thinking about real life. And just to do something that feels really good for my mind and my body and grow food that tastes good. And makes me feel good. Yeah,
Jan Johnson 35:45
I like it. Sometimes just doing that mindless something is just. Yeah, it's the renewal. It helps. Yeah, the spirit
Morgan 35:54
and slowing down. I've been really realizing that I need to make intentional space to slow down. Yeah. And to recharge, especially as nursing a pandemic.
Jan Johnson 36:06
Right, right. I just thought of another another thing. I wonder what if you had one or two things that you would go back to your original nursing instructors that once you got into nursing, said why didn't they teach me that they needed to do what would those things be?
Morgan 36:29
Well, it came from being a social worker. So I said a lot of those things in real time. Because I had seen the way that nurses caused harm in my work because I as a social worker had worked with basically the same population I take care of now as a nurse. I worked with people experiencing acute mental health challenges and people using substances. were experiencing food insecurity and not able to access stable housing often. And I had seen how nurses have this idea of people who are walking through those types of challenges, where nurses only see the hospital. Usually for those people, they don't see what their home is like. And so when I was working with people living with HIV, I had seen nurses who would blame the people that I was working with and blame them for not being able to effectively manage their HIV or blame them for like a return to substance use without understanding the context of like, I would know, oh, this person lives in a shelter, and his medications keep getting stolen, and their $7,000 a month medication. So it's, it's actually no small feat at all, for this person to take a pill every day. And it might seem that way to someone who only knows them in the hospital. So for me, that's the biggest thing I wish all of us were more thoughtful about about
Jan Johnson 38:02
or informed. Yeah, I mean, that takes being informed about that.
Morgan 38:06
Yes. And it also takes assuming the best. Yeah, coming to everyone you meet from a place of kindness, assuming good intentions.
Jan Johnson 38:16
Well, that can be said for everything in life. Right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Right there as a life tip. Yeah. Well, Morgan, thank you. This has really been fun. I'm so glad to hear your story. We could be talking for hours and hours more. I'm sure we might have to do a second interview at some point.
Morgan 38:34
I think you need to be interviewed.
Jan Johnson 38:36
We might arrange that sometime. Thank you.
Jan Johnson 38:42
Thank you.