Jeanelle Klassen on Confronting Burnout and Finding Balance in Nursing

Feeling overwhelmed by the relentless demands of nursing? Join us for a profound conversation with Jeanelle Klassen, a registered nurse and author of "Nursing the Nurse," who opens up about her personal battle with burnout just six months into her career. Discover how her book, program, and innovative app aim to support nurses and shift workers by fostering resilience and helping them align their personal values with professional responsibilities.

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To learn more about Jeanelle Classen and receive the FREE video training, How to Create the Work Life Balance and Selfcare You Need as a Nurse, visit https://nursingthenurse.com/ 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Nursing
• 9:49 Overcoming Burnout in Nursing
• 23:32 Achieving Work-Life Balance and Wellness
• 37:11 Living in Harmony With Values

Transcript

Josh Porthouse: 0:00

The views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast host and guest and do not necessarily represent those of our distribution partners, supporting business relationships or supported audience. Welcome to Transacting Value, where we talk about practical applications for instigating self-worth when dealing with each other and even within ourselves, where we foster a podcast listening experience that lets you hear the power of a value system for managing burnout, establishing boundaries, fostering community and finding identity. My name is Josh Porthouse, I'm your host and we are redefining sovereignty of character. This is why values still hold value. This is Transacting Value.

Jeanelle Classen: 0:49

Many nurses actually don't realize that they're working and living in a values mismatch and that's what leads to your moral injury and your mental health concerns, because you're constantly living in a battle almost.

Josh Porthouse: 1:06

Value on Transacting value. Training to be a nurse is complicated and grueling enough, but what happens when you neglect yourself in the process or when you don't know who to talk to, how to talk to or what advice to take in the process? Today we're talking with the author of Nursing the Nurse the ultimate six-step guide to beating burnout. She's also got an app. She's also got a walkthrough program to fix some of this. Her name is Janelle Klassen Guys, I'm Josh Bordaus, I'm your host and from SDYT Media. This is Transacting Value. Janelle, how are you doing?

Jeanelle Classen: 1:45

Hello, thank you so much for having me. Yes, I love that introduction, because what do you choose? How do?

Josh Porthouse: 1:55

you navigate it, oh man. So here's something that I've learned real quick is that there's a lot of different industries and applications. Especially when you're new, you're learning the science and the material and the doctrine and publications and resources, but then you've got to navigate you in the process. It's like puberty in high school is the first exposure to that dichotomy.

Josh Porthouse: 2:17

And then whatever industry you choose medicine for you, defense for me it's all the same sort of problem set. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation, but let me just say I appreciate you taking time out of your morning and just a willingness to share some of it. So thank you for your time and your insight 100%.

Jeanelle Classen: 2:40

I love conversations like this, so I'll do my very best to be fully present. As I said, we were just briefly talking before. I've got my kids in the background, so there's a small chance I might have to jump out, but otherwise, you know I'm here for this conversation. I can talk about this for hours and hours, because I am so passionate about exactly that, like living congruently with your values and actually realizing what are they, because so many of us don't actually know what they are. And then we're wondering why we're experiencing what we're experiencing, and it's usually because we're living out of sync with them.

Josh Porthouse: 3:15

So, yeah, yeah, absolutely so. Let's start there then. I mentioned earlier that your preference was in medicine, so let's just set the baseline here for everybody who's just jumping in and watching the conversation and listening. Who are you, janelle? Where are you actually from as a person? And then, what are these considerations that are helping you focus on nursing and medicine and your perspective?

Jeanelle Classen: 3:40

Yeah for sure. So yes, my name is Janelle Klassen. I am a registered nurse here in Australia, so I've been nursing for coming on five years now. Man, it's not that long compared to many. However, I very quickly came tumbling down, came crashing down in my own bout of burnout within the first six months of starting my career.

Jeanelle Classen: 4:03

And essentially, yeah, and I mean, you know it may or may not have happened during this time period, you know, end 2019, early 2020. Don't know what happened there, but I did burn out. So you know, I really have no idea. No, in all seriousness, it happened in the first few months of COVID. And no surprise there, because I always say this if the skill of and I pay very close attention to my words if the skill of self-care was drilled into me as much as doing my documentation was drilled into me in nursing school, we'd be having an entirely different conversation. We might not even be having a conversation because we get drilled.

Jeanelle Classen: 4:49

You know, you ask a nurse, you ask any medical professional. What is one of the first things you learn in med school? It's do your documentation and then PS, make sure you look after yourself. Okay, well, how do I do that? What does that look like? Okay, well, how do I do that? What does that look like?

Jeanelle Classen: 5:07

Um, you know, because as soon as I started my career, I started noticing very, very quickly, like I said, within the first six months, I wasn't sleeping well, I wasn't eating well, my personal relationships started breaking down.

Jeanelle Classen: 5:17

The thought of going into work filled me with anxiety, you know it was. It was horrific, um and I I approached my clinical nurse educator, who's supposed to be kind of like um, the senior on the floor. She's supposed to be someone that you can come to with a question and get a genuine answer, and the answer that I got was get used to it, it's not going to change. Not very useful. And so when I offered to kind of look into it further and and see if we can find a solution to it again, the response was no, don't add that to your plate, you know if you already got so much going on blah, blah, and I was like, well, I'm not just gonna let this happen to me. And that's what led me to to creating. You know's what led me to creating the book, creating the program, creating the app, because I just realized very quickly how little support there was that was tailored to the very unique needs of nurses, or shift workers, for that matter.

Josh Porthouse: 6:16

So yeah, Okay, your, I guess, burnout origin story. I'm sorry, but it's not that original. Actually, there's a lot of people that are experienced I don't know about six months in a new industry, but some of that may be a learning curve, I don't know. What about it do you think caused you to burn out, though, like the friction, the putting in more effort than you thought was being appreciated or recognized, the time demand, I mean, what was the specific causation, do you think for you?

Jeanelle Classen: 6:52

yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree, it is not. It's not unique. Like I was talking to nurses who've been 5, 10, 15 years in the industry and they were talking about the same stuff. You know, they were struggling with the same stuff and I was like, oh man, I don't want to become this bitter nurse, so, anyway. So for me, what was?

Jeanelle Classen: 7:08

I think one of the biggest things for me was there's this massive drinking culture. There's massive toxic guilt tripping culture in the in the nursing world and in other industries as well. But obviously I can speak to nurses and you know, there's this whole thing of like oh, I can't wait for my glass of wine Sorry, I mean bottle of wine at home after the shift, like you know, I deserve it. And it's like don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against drinking wine. My husband and I have, or used to have I don't even know if it's current a wine subscription Like wine is good. Wine subscription like wine is good. The problem comes when you're wanting to grab a glass of wine, bottle of wine every time after shift and that's the only thing that will get you to calm down. Um, so I think for me it was, you know, this guilt trip around picking up double shifts when we were understaffed, because understaffing is a chronic issue where, you know, we've gotten as a saying, oh like, what about your colleagues, what about your patients? If you don't pick up this extra shift, we're going to be short, and it's like. Well, of course I will do it, because I'm a nurse, like I'm supposed to be, this caring person, giving, giving, giving.

Jeanelle Classen: 8:15

I always say that nurses need to learn how to become healthily selfish, because they're, you know, I was talking with someone last night, actually, and she was saying that nurses who, um, they think they need to give all the time, but and?

Jeanelle Classen: 8:31

And we think that selfishness is this very negative word, but when you look it up, it's actually, it's actually not a negative word, it's just, uh, looking after yourself as well. Um, you know, depends on what context you use it, of course, but you know, it was just. It just comes back down to that of creating that balance between just giving, pouring from an empty cup, versus also allowing to receive and allowing to set yourself boundaries, and that's where your values come in, and I know we're going to talk about our values in a minute. So, you know, it's just so, so important that many nurses actually don't realize that they're working and living in a values mismatch and that's what leads to your moral injury and your mental health concerns, because you're constantly living in in a battle almost of like yeah I'm supposed to be doing this one thing and yet I value this other thing, and they're just constantly in conflict.

Josh Porthouse: 9:26

Yeah, and I think that the biomechanical conflict that results just complicates your stress way far over, and maybe exponentially above, your tolerance for it which doesn't help anything either. No, no, yeah, yeah, okay, sorry, go ahead no no, no, that's what's what I was gonna ask you. What about for you in your case?

Jeanelle Classen: 9:48

yeah. So for me, I think it was a matter of, like I a very I was like I was dull-eyed coming into the industry, like many of us are. As soon as you come out of your, your training or you study or whatever, I was like, oh, I'm gonna be saving and I'm going to be the best team member that there is, and, like you know, to my own horn, I do think I'm a good nurse. However, I didn't know, I didn't know how to set those boundaries and I actually didn't know consciously what my values were around creating work-life balance. What my values were around um, you know, how how much do I work over time, how many shifts I accept for over time? Because I was regularly working double shifts, and so in Australia, shifts are either eight hours or 12 hours. I think it's very, very similar in other parts of the world and so for me, I was like working 16 hour shifts, because I was picking up doubles, because I felt guilty that my colleagues were going to be understaffed or that my patients were going to be neglected, and then I approached my nurse manager and said, hey, like I'm really struggling, what can we do? That just like we're just doing the same thing over and over again and you guys are saying it's not going to change but like, seriously, we need to do something and bless her.

Jeanelle Classen: 11:07

I think this came from a point of her own burnout. But she basically just turned to me and she turned around, grabbed something out of the cupboard and passed it to me and said, um, here is a card for um, uh, three free council sessions on the hospital. By the way, there's only three for the entire year. I hope it helps. I was like, okay, thank you so much. Three council sessions. You know counseling, great, sure, like we do need it. You know we work in trauma. You know you've got patients passing away, you've got abuse, you've got exhaustion. Three council sessions isn't going to change anything. Um, and, and that's why I was like, okay, mental health is, is goes beyond just three counseling sessions, um, and burnout as well, because it's just it's burnout is, it's your, it's your physical, it's your emotional, mental, physical, all all of the things that are running on empty and I'm not saying that you need to have everything empty before you reach burnout, but it's. All of those are taxed and that's what leads to burnout.

Josh Porthouse: 12:18

All right, folks, sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value.

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Jeanelle Classen: 12:54

It's your physical, it's your emotional, mental, physical, all of the things that are running on empty and I'm not saying that you need to have everything empty before you reach burnout, but it's all of those are are taxed and that's what leads to burnout yeah, yeah, absolutely trying to find a balance, I think only comes with experience, because otherwise you don't know what you don't know.

Josh Porthouse: 13:20

you're trying to perform and do well and, like you said, prove to yourself you, you're capable, right, anything and everything in between. That is no different in, at least in the us case, our department of defense. It's the exact same thing. And then eventually, this isn't always the case, okay, but I think this is going to be a very similar, uh, parallel concept where eventually you get a little experience, or enough experience, whatever it is, respective to each person's purview and you start to see I don't want to become that person if I stay around longer and they're everywhere the more you see them. It's like I'm looking for a red scooter I've never seen. Wait, there's a red scooter, hold on, there's another. My neighbor's got three red scooters and you just start to see it everywhere. The pattern how do you recommend, based on your book, your research, your experience, whatever you prefer, but how do you recommend working through that?

Jeanelle Classen: 14:29

Because, you stayed after you identified it. No, you know, I laugh because it is exactly like how many I see. So many nurses, so many professionals leave the industry because they think, hey, I, I must not be cut out for it anymore, or maybe I was never cut out for it, or this is the only way that I'm going to survive. I must quit. And my whole mission is to help equip nurses and empower them, saying there's a, there's a third option. That third option is learning the skills necessary to maintain a healthy balance between being the best nurse that you can be, that you want to be, that many of us um, couldn't, you know, trained hard to be um and then also being present for your loved ones, being there for yourself, looking after your own wellbeing so that you can have a long, sustainable career, and doing that guilt-free, because the guilt part is a massive one In the industry. In life, we think, like I said before, we need to just give, give, give and then, as soon as we want to just take a little bit, as soon as we have that sort of what about me? Need to just give, give, give and then, as soon as we want to just take a little bit, as soon as we have that sort of what about me? We're like, no, I shouldn't, I shouldn't, it's not for me, I'm not deserving, I'm not worthy. So I think you know you mentioned earlier about how things get better with experience and I must say I agree to a point with that yes, you get better with experience.

Jeanelle Classen: 16:14

However, when it comes to a toxic environment that we work in and I'm interrupting myself because we often hear nurses or medical staff saying the medical system is broken. And I mean the medical system is broken in that it's not broken in that when someone presents with, let's say, chest pain, we usually know and we usually are able to manage that and someone will go home and they'll be okay. However, why do nurses still burn out, like? Why do we still have such high dropout rates? Why do we have, you know, burnout rates and mental health concerns? And it's not necessarily because the medical treatment aspect is broken, it's because our work culture aspect is broken. There's this whole culture around nurses eating their young, going like. I went through it, so you must go through it. It's like you know, yeah, like it's like haha, your turn and it's.

Josh Porthouse: 17:07

That's just, and if you don't, then you didn't earn it you didn't have it as tough as we did, yeah yeah, exactly like you know this it's you must.

Jeanelle Classen: 17:15

You must do this because I, because I did, now it's your turn, and and that in and of itself just goes to show how. That's just one little insight into the toxic culture, because then you start having people you know nurses going so, and so you know you start having like back, uh, what do you call it bullying? You start having gossiping and it's just like not a safe environment to be working in when you're supposed to be trusting each other with other people's lives um and so yeah, anyway, um, in terms of to answer your question sorry, I know, I just went a little bit of a roundabout.

Jeanelle Classen: 17:54

Um, I'm so sorry, I want you to repeat your question. Sorry, I know, I just went on a little bit of a roundabout. I'm so sorry. I want you to repeat your question because I want to make sure I really answer it rather than going on a tangent.

Josh Porthouse: 18:02

Well, so essentially, my question is how did you manage to stay around?

Jeanelle Classen: 18:07

Right, of course, of course. So for me, after I had that initial conversation with my nurse manager and my clinical educator, who both said like here's your counseling sessions. You know, get used to it, it's not going to change. It took me on a, on a journey, it took me on a rabbit hole, um, to try and figure out like, well, I don't want to become those bitter nurses and I genuinely love what I do. How do I keep loving what I do? How do I stop resenting it?

Jeanelle Classen: 18:38

Because I started seeing resentment creeping in, you know, like dread, and I started noticing like the resources that were available to help manage shift work, to help manage stress, to help manage all these things were tailored to everything but nurses. It was tailored to CEOs who for some reason, have the capacity to wake up at 4 am every morning and have an hour of power. Or for, you know, like nurses don't do that. Or for stay-at-home moms, who stay-at-home moms work hard, like I'm currently stay-at-home while I look after my two young kids but it was tailored to them where they didn't have to get up and come home and do this and do that Like it's just managing a household is one thing in and of itself.

Jeanelle Classen: 19:22

Whereas nurses wear that hat, they wear the nurse's hat, they usually wear the partner hat, the mother hat, you know all the hats. And so I was like, okay, well, how am I going to tailor this to nurses? And I started to create resources that I could tailor to the very unique needs Because, like I said before, there's so many hats to wear, and then you throw shift work into the mix and then you start having sleep issues, you start having, you know, metabolic issues, so, like you know, you're not eating.

Jeanelle Classen: 19:51

Well, because, you're either snacking because you need that sugar rush or you're snacking because you're emotional eating because of the stress and the trauma that you experience, and and I kind of that's what led to my six steps. Uh, in my book, because I I identified that there's six aspects to this is just simple and it's not a one-size-fits-all, it's very much I always advocate for these aspects are aspects. The nitty-gritty inside of it is going to be individual to what works for you, because you know, in my first I, if you, if you don't mind, I'm happy to run through the six steps that I've got in my book yeah, go ahead, yeah, great.

Jeanelle Classen: 20:30

So the first, the first step. I always say like you need to know where you want to go. You know it's like chunking in a, a suburb or a state or whatever equivalent you've got um into a gps versus putting in an exact address like it's an older, it's becoming an older saying now, but like it's so, so true, it's like if you just kind of, you know, shoot from the the hip or go like gunshot approach, you're not really going to get where you want to go.

Josh Porthouse: 21:01

Yeah that's the wonderland.

Jeanelle Classen: 21:04

Yeah, exactly. So you've got to say like I want to go here, this is what I want, and even if you, then it's like the whole, like shoot for the. Was it the moon? You'll land on a star or whatever.

Josh Porthouse: 21:16

Stars, you'll land on a star or whatever stars you hit the moon or something.

Jeanelle Classen: 21:18

Yeah, yeah, exactly like there's something. And so it's exactly that like, even if you don't get to that exact same spot, you are going to get closer to it in that direction and see it. So that's the first one. And so I actually I don't know if you're familiar with the wheel of life. Um, it's a very, very popular, for the most part self-help personal development tool where you essentially rate yourself in various aspects of your life, so that is usually your relationships, finance, so many I can't even remember. There's, I think, eight of them. And I took that and I tailored it to nurses, so I said like, how are you feeling in terms of your sleep? How are you feeling in terms of your nutrition, your exercise, all these things? Um, so that we can get a clearer picture of where am I at, because it's one thing to know where you want to go, but if you don't know where you're at, you still don't know what you need to get there. So that's what leads into the second step of like self-awareness leads to self-care.

Josh Porthouse: 22:19

Alrighty, folks, sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value. Join us for Transacting Value, where we discuss practical applications of personal values, every Monday at 9am on our website, transactingvaluepodcastcom, wednesdays at 5pm and Sundays at noon on wreathsacrossamericaorg slash radio.

Jeanelle Classen: 22:40

It's one thing to know where you want to go, but if you don't know where you're at, you still don't know what you need to get there. So that's what leads into the second step of, like, self-awareness leads to self-care, and that's where we start looking at, okay, what are my values, what are my beliefs, what are things that have, like, my defining moments, what are the things that I have I have come from, that influenced me to where I am now, and how might that influence me as I move towards my goal? Um, because, again, if we're not self-aware, you can't do anything about something you don't know um and so how often do you?

Jeanelle Classen: 23:15

I don't know if you've talked to you've probably talked to many people like me of they don't actually know they're in burnout, they think that it's normal, they think this is just the way things are. Like I say, like you need to know where you're coming from before you can get anywhere. So that's, those are the two things. You don't want to know where you're going, you want to know where you're coming from. And then the last four aspects kind of build on that.

Jeanelle Classen: 23:38

We look at what is sleep and how do you manage sleep when you're a shift worker? Because if you can't sleep, you're going to be a zombie, you're going to be making mistakes, you're going to be grumpy, you're going to try and sleep days away, which is not really great for your mental health, is it? Like you know? You're just sleeping days on end, you're not going into social interactions, you're becoming more and more isolated. It's just a, you know, a spiral. We're headed for disaster.

Jeanelle Classen: 24:04

Then we start looking at habits and getting organized and managing all the balls that are in the air because of the many roles that we play, all the hats that we wear. We look at eating and nutrition, because, even though the nutrition might fall into habits, nutrition in and of itself is again one of the biggest things I noticed. For me, when I was on night shift especially, I wasn't able to maintain a very good eating routine or anything like that. Like I said before, I don't know what the gifting rules are like in the States, but I know for Australia. Here we're not allowed to be gifted or be thanked in any way other than cards that are for everyone, flowers that are for everyone, so on the ward, or loll or lollies.

Josh Porthouse: 24:55

food or you mean as a nurse?

Jeanelle Classen: 24:58

oh, I have no idea yeah, so we're not allowed to receive anything other than those things. Um, and so when someone wants to thank us, like even obviously people they were like thank you so much for doing this now, yeah, sure. So like how often do we have this lollies or pizza or whatever sitting at the nurse's desk? It's like 2 am in the morning and you're just mindlessly eating, snacking, whatever 100, and so you know like we go into nutrition.

Jeanelle Classen: 25:26

And then the last one that's my absolute favorite and I think is the most vital skill that anyone but no matter whether they're a nurse or not can learn is learning how to unwind, learning how to leave work at the door and be present in the next phase of wherever you're going into, whether that's a family gathering or your own family or whatever, because how often do we carry the baggage of you know, I'm still wearing my nurse's hat of I just lost a patient or I've been physically or emotionally, verbally abused or anything like that.

Jeanelle Classen: 25:58

And then we come into home. I remember for me during my low moments, I would just be like no one, talk to me, leave me alone. I would go into my room, I would either sit in the shower, have a cry or go to sleep, and it's just because I didn't know how to deal with everything that I had experienced?

Jeanelle Classen: 26:16

Yeah, exactly, and so that is the biggest skill that I learned. It's my favorite chapter, like my absolute favorite chapter. I love writing that one, and I'm actually in the process of doing a second edition of the whole book because I've learned even more since then and I want to, you know, just make it better and better. So those are the six steps, and that's why I think it's so vital to then start taking each aspect and start tailoring it to. Okay, I'm going to try this for me. Is this part working, yes or no? If it's not working, let me tweak it. But these brackets, these umbrellas, I found were pivotal in kind of creating a bit more balance between work life burnout.

Josh Porthouse: 26:59

So, yeah, that's it, though right balancing the burnout, not avoiding the burnout, because it's a matter of time yeah, yeah.

Jeanelle Classen: 27:07

And, like I, I recently came across this beautiful phrase of finding. It's not necessarily finding perfect balance or like equal, you know, um division between aspects. It's finding harmony, what works best together. And I love that so much. It's so good because, if we think like our balance must be even like no, no, it's okay for one thing to be a little bit heavier than the other, as long as they work together, and I love that it's a, you know, a seesaw like at a playground, the board on the fulcrum, yeah.

Josh Porthouse: 27:41

Yeah, it's okay for one side to be heavier than the other. You just gotta work together to make it happen, yeah exactly, absolutely absolutely, and the point you brought up too. I guess I had totally forgotten the intricacies of the movie and the play and the musical and the show. But alice in wonderland, you mentioned it earlier and I till just now.

Josh Porthouse: 27:59

The only thing that went through my head a couple minutes ago was when the cheshire cat was talking to alice saying well, if you don't know where you want to go, it doesn't matter how you get there, and she was trying to figure out how to make her way around. But as you were talking, I think unless I'm totally misrepresenting this, this plot line. But initially she's just trying to figure out who she is and her place in the world, and so she's so worried about the future that that gets represented early right and the, the rabbit and the uh, the white rabbit and the clock and he's late and all these things, and she's just as anxious but she's unwitting to it but no, no, clue yeah.

Josh Porthouse: 28:35

No, and then she runs in I may be misrepresenting the sequence here, but eventually she runs into the Mad Hatter and he's got all these hats at this tea party and she's like, oh, this is great, all these hats. And until right now I was like, yeah, he's got a lot of hats. And then you said wearing all the hats. And I it okay, yeah, I was today I was today years old when I realized that okay so thanks for that yeah, mad hatter.

Jeanelle Classen: 28:57

Like you know what you know. When we don't know which hat we're wearing, we become mad yeah, and I was.

Josh Porthouse: 29:02

I just took it at face value. I was like well, that's an odd character, yeah, until right this moment. So I appreciate that but yeah, yeah yeah, so she's trying to figure out all these roles right, sort of subconsciously, and, and maybe it was that weird mushroom trip that took her the whole way through, but I don't know what did it exactly, but the point being this, catalyst right and then I, I think it was even. Uh, there was a centipede, I'm pretty sure. Who said you're not alice? I know alice, she was here.

Josh Porthouse: 29:29

You're not alice, she's like no, but I am alice no no, no, you're not.

Josh Porthouse: 29:34

And he was like the harmony, I think, character right between the chaos and the uncertainty and the responsibilities, and the future and the past and and being in the present. Obviously, at the end, when she finally figured out who she was in the world and then I just happened to wake up, I guess in in the East India tea company, but you know it it all sort of like came together as you were describing your six steps, that what a man, what a wild revelation. That was just crazy. But I totally agree with you for all of those reasons. And it's interesting too because the theme is everywhere but the understanding, the actual competency, and then what to do with it, let alone the fact that it's okay isn't no exactly.

Josh Porthouse: 30:28

It's so strange. It's become like this, or at least in the US, I assume globally it's become like this entertainment mechanism, not this edutainment mechanism, and I think that's a downfall.

Jeanelle Classen: 30:41

Yeah, 100%. No, it's definitely, it's almost. You know, like I said earlier, it's a bit of a rite of passage in terms of, like you know, haha, your turn. It's also very much almost like a rite of passage to say to start complaining to each other. It's like the only thing we talk about these days. Uh, in the north, in the, the break rooms, especially, of like, oh, like I'm so, I'm so exhausted, I'm so this like. It's almost like this competition of who is more exhausted than who.

Jeanelle Classen: 31:05

Oh, yeah, same thing in the dod yeah, exactly, I don't think that we do it because it's a competition. Like right then and there of like I'm gonna, you know, prove to you how, how I think it's a subconscious thing, it's become this we've normalized feeling this way so much that we don't even know it's happened and we don't even know that it's not normal. We don't even remember what it was like before. Um, because we're just, we're just, we're already, we're kind of, you know, we're just perplexed it's crazy, yeah, it's like.

Josh Porthouse: 31:37

It's like you norm, the, the demoralization of the environment is such a it is it's a culture. Well, I guess it's a subcultural thing, right, because it may happen to everybody. But I don't know that. I don't know enough about every industry to say that it's that ubiquitous. Does mcdonald's happen? Or hungry jacks? I don't know, maybe. Well, you know, what's funny is because you know it's that ubiquitous.

Jeanelle Classen: 31:56

Does McDonald's happen or Hungry Jack's? I don't know, maybe. Well, you know, what's funny is because you know it's just. I talk to nurses all over the world. I talk to them in Australia, obviously, new Zealand, canada, europe, us, and I've talked to a few nurses in other, smaller countries. Same thing You'd think that we were if it wasn't for our differences in time zone or in accents. You'd think we're talking about the same hospital, the same ward, maybe even the same people.

Josh Porthouse: 32:22

Yeah, All right, folks sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value.

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Josh Porthouse: 33:20

same people, yeah, how is that universal like that blows my mind a little bit, but it is. It is, yeah, but, but it's like. It's like all of these positions that have this enduring exposure to high stress or just enduring exposure to occupational stressors. I think eventually you acclimatize because you need to disassociate to a degree you need to detach intentionally just to function. It's too chaotic, otherwise right. So let me ask you this this is a segment of the show called Developing Character, d-d-d Developing Character, and it's about value systems and here's why I'm bringing this up. And it's about value systems and here's why I'm bringing this up.

Josh Porthouse: 34:03

My working theory is that values are a grounding mechanism for every individual person in a high stress situation, not necessarily a position, but to better influence your behaviors, your cognition, and then whatever your actions are to process sort of like getting the train moving. Your actions are to process sort of like getting the train moving. And so I'm curious and maybe for the sake of commonality here, but two questions as vulnerable as you want to be, it's up to you, but that has to start somewhere. It's not all necessarily. Nurture some of its nature, because you don't know any better as a kid, like you said. So in the beginning, what are some of the values that you were exposed to or that you were brought up around?

Jeanelle Classen: 34:38

So I mean for me it's always been one of service, Like for my family. It's very much like, you know, you should be putting others first and it's. You know I sometimes blame my yes, I'm an Australian now, I'm originally from South Africa and so it's a very it's an older culture, it's a more traditional culture. So it's very much like, um, it's not so much in my household, but definitely they were like little elements of it, of like children especially are seen and not heard. And so it's very much like, you know, trying meekness, but not in a weak, not in a in a empowered way. Meekness, but not in an empowered way, meekness in a forced you need to be quiet, like this is not your place type of thing. So very much like try and keep your emotions in, try and keep your opinions to yourself.

Jeanelle Classen: 35:30

I mean I failed miserably at those tests. I have offended people left, right and centre in my life and I'm not wearing that as a badge of honour, more of a humble admission that sometimes I come across as very direct, very strong, and I don't necessarily mean it. But it was very important to me. Even though the familial values were seen and not heard, my personal values have always been speak up for what's right, and so, um, I think those two yes, they're a little bit in conflict, but those two together shaped my, my go-getter spirit, because I definitely believe that I don't just let life happen to me, I want to do things so that things can start working for me and with me. Um, or, you know, I can start working with and for it, um, you know, depending on the scenario.

Josh Porthouse: 36:28

So, yeah, harmony, love it, love it All right. So then my second question is and you alluded to this a little bit right in terms of speaking up for what's right, but now, a couple decades after the fact, a bit of time into your sort of nurture phase of life, have they changed? What are some of your values now?

Jeanelle Classen: 36:51

I think, yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of taken those. I mean, obviously there's more than just two values that anyone holds, but those two stand out to me at the moment and I think for me now they they're even stronger in that I I mean, I mean, I'm a nurse, so my, my desire to serve is there and like it's definitely integral to the person that I am. However, I am much more confident in my ability to stand up for us right. I'm much more willing to, um, risk it to be able to to. You know, I might be separate or I might be, I might stand out, not necessarily in a good way, um, but it does mean that I'm able to to take that next step, because otherwise I would have after that those conversations with my senior nurses, I probably would have just sat back and gone oh, that's just the way that it is.

Jeanelle Classen: 37:42

Oh like I guess this is, this is my new norm now. Um, and so I think again, like if I didn't have those values to stand up for, what's right to stand up for fight for right to stand up for, fight for what I want, I don't think I'd be nursing or I would be a very miserable nurse.

Josh Porthouse: 38:02

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. Finding something to latch onto, like I said, to ground, you, I think, makes all the difference and it's the same thing here in the Department of Defense. You, I think, makes all the difference and it's the same thing here in the Department of Defense. I worked in Darwin a few years back with the First Armored Regiment and they had very similar points of view towards burnout, but also towards its I guess we'll call it remediation through some of these considerations, and it made all the difference. I mean, they were collectively a very rambunctious group of individuals and really enjoyed having fun and being around each other and everything that comes with that kind of camaraderie. But they complained quite a bit. I mean, there was still plenty of circumstantial things. We were all experiencing the same things. It didn't matter that we were in different hemispheres, militaries, branches I mean it was all the same. Just like you brought up with the nursing community and the crazy thing, I'm not a shift worker but we're finding the same things industry to industry now as well, right, which?

Josh Porthouse: 39:06

is such an interesting, I think, phenomenon that I don't know if it's complacency or complicity. I'm not too sure if it's ignorance or academics. I don't know that there is a fix. Maybe it's just human nature and some of it is. You just have to deal with it. But I don't think dealing with it means accepting it as it is. I think it can also be accepting it as it could be or in spite of itself, learning to accept it.

Jeanelle Classen: 39:32

Yeah, that's powerful 100% agree, and I always say that there's some things that people go. They'll really focus in their complaints or their woes on things that are out of their control and I'm like, okay, well, yes, those things suck, but let's focus on what you can control. What are the things that you can take and what are the actions you can take, how, what are the mindsets you can have around it? Because if you're choosing to, if you're choosing to have a negative mindset on something like similar to what you mentioned about the scooters, if you start noticing, you know, red scooters, like continue, continue with that analogy and that metaphor of you know, if you're noticing the red scooters, all the red flags, all the you know negative things, you're going to notice more and more of that. And I'm not saying live in oblivion or be oblivious to things or like turn a blind eye, but I do think that you need to think about okay, is this actually something I can do something about? And if it's not, it's okay for me to let this go. How can I then work towards that? And you know, turn to me.

Jeanelle Classen: 40:42

I always say, like if you start with you, you might actually see a change in your surroundings. And it's not just. You know, it's not always someone else's fault. It's not always someone else's responsibility to fix the thing. Sometimes it's us that we need to work on and sometimes sorry, I'm interrupting myself I think it's one of those things like sometimes the problem is us, not in a blame blaming way, but like if something is not working and it doesn't look like things are going to change, maybe I can do something about it and not just wait for someone else to take the lead. Maybe it's time for me to take charge. It could be something as small as saying no to a double shift for the third time in a row.

Jeanelle Classen: 41:26

It can be something as simple as saying no to that guilt trip and just graciously saying I really acknowledge that you're going to be understaffed if I don't pick up this double shift. But for my safety and for yours and for those of my patients, I need to say no today. I need rest, I need to spend time with my loved ones, I need to look after me. You can't argue with that if you do it in a gracious way.

Josh Porthouse: 41:51

Yeah, man, absolutely. And I think the other sort of maybe partnered aspect to that is sometimes, even if you try to take the ownership, you can't do anything about it.

Jeanelle Classen: 42:04

Exactly.

Josh Porthouse: 42:05

And so it maybe does have to be that way, but you can still do you in the process like you did, and you find ways to better manage and cope and process. So, for the sake of time, I have two more quick questions for you, yes, and one of them is then if you had to try to summarize, or if you already have summarized, a way that your values are being transacted through your behavior, through your thought process and cognition, into your actions, what's the benefit? Do you think that you've learned from identifying that these values have been important to you in the process?

Jeanelle Classen: 42:45

Look, I think when you live in congruence with your values, you're living in harmony, because when you're living in conflicting with your values, that's what leads to moral injury. Like, for example, when you, I was working with an allied health professional I think I can't remember now whether she was a physiotherapist or an occupational therapist. Either way, she was telling me a story, or an occupational therapist. Either way, she was telling me a story of during covid, when you know how pretty much everyone was in their own segregated, separated rooms, everyone individually, very isolated, and this elderly lady had no family who came visit her. And this allied health professional came in, did her thing and she was about to leave. And she says that the patient says please don't leave me, please don't leave me, I don't want to be alone. And I get a tear up when I think about it, because how often I've heard patients say don't leave me, I don't want to be alone. And I I'm thinking and this allied health professional had the same thing of if I don't leave this room and move on to my next patient, I'm going to be pinged for underperformance. And it's like, you know, that human aspect of us wanting to be like yes, I will be with you. You don't want to be alone. Versus, actually, I'm going to lose my job if I do this more than once or twice. And then you know that is a massive mismatch in our values. So then that's what leads to.

Jeanelle Classen: 44:25

In many ways it's a trauma. It's a brief moment of time of trauma, of like I actually have to put this person's desperate cry for help away and push that away so that I can then, you know, reach some kpi that some person in the office somewhere said I must reach, um, yeah, and so that's one thing. So for me, being able to to find that balance between saying I must leave right now, but I will make sure that I come back and I sit with you for 10 minutes, or whatever, and you know, like, or in that moment, much, much easier said than done, obviously, but being able to say, okay, I really want to be here for you, I will be here for five, 10 minutes. And you know calling your co-workers and saying, look, hey, like I really need five, 10 minutes. And you know calling your co-workers and saying, look, hey, like I really need five, 10 minutes. I'm, you know, I'm going to take that now to be with this patient, because they need it for their patient care.

Jeanelle Classen: 45:21

Like you can definitely, you know, not spin, but spin it in a way that is more congruent with how you want to care, how you want to be. So that's what I want to say around values, like, if you're living in mismatch, let's go the positive way. If you are living congruently with your values, you'll find that you are a happier person overall, not just at work, because if you're doing the same thing at home and someone is asking you for something, or you know, I don any value, name any value if you're not living in congruence with it and you're going against it often and like chronically, basically that's, you're going to be empty, you're going to be so, so drained emotionally because you're having to constantly go no, no, no, cut off, cut off, cut off, and you become this really numb, empty shell.

Josh Porthouse: 46:16

It's like soul dust yeah.

Jeanelle Classen: 46:18

Yeah, absolutely so. That's definitely one thing that I say. I love the Demartini he's the values guy. He always says that you will make time, time, money and effort available for the things that you value most. And so if you value someone else's opinion over your value to remain human, you're going to like you're going to lose your humanity. So it's about taking a conscious effort to make effort and and work towards what is going to uphold the values that I hold, so that I'm not in mismatch.

Josh Porthouse: 47:00

I love it. I love it. Then my last question is, assuming all of that is covered in your book, if people want to find it, if people want to check out your resources or follow along with second edition when it comes out, where do people go? How do we do it?

Jeanelle Classen: 47:17

Yeah, yeah, thank you. So my website is nursingthenursecom and so I'm on Nursing the Nurse pretty much across all platforms. We're currently in massive rebranding from Mindfulness for Health in massive rebranding from Mindfulness for Health. So if you're looking for nursingthenursecom, you should be able to find us. But, yeah, that's pretty much where everything lives. I've got free resources on there. I love connecting with people. I've got a beautiful Facebook community as well, so it's all under the same name. But, yeah, thank you so much. It's just so wonderful to be able to share. You know my passion, which is helping nurses, and you know, like I said, I think we might've mentioned this before we start recording, but take, take nursing in everything that we've said and insert your industry, insert your situation, because it's applicable.

Josh Porthouse: 48:08

Absolutely, Absolutely and for everybody. Well, first off, you're welcome.

Josh Porthouse: 48:13

But for everybody who's tuned into this conversation. Depending on the player you're streaming it on click, see more. Click show more and then in the dropdown description for the conversation, you will see links to Nursing the Nurse, and you can get to Janelle's website as well, track down the book, and so, if that's easier for you, that's totally an option as well. Janelle, I know you've got commitments to get to and you guys have plans you're trying to fulfill today, so I appreciate it your time, your insight, your perspective and your personality and your passion. It was a great conversation and I couldn't have done it without you, so thanks for coming on the show.

Jeanelle Classen: 48:49

Thank you so much. It's awesome, awesome, awesome and what an honor to be able to share this stuff, because it's so important, and that's what we're here for. Right Is to share those insights with others so that people can know that they're not alone and know that, yes, it's tough, but if you've got the skills and you equip yourself with the right stuff, then there is another way there is a way out, yeah, or a way through or forward.

Josh Porthouse: 49:15

Exactly yeah yeah, yeah, for everybody else who's tuning in and listening to or watching the conversation, depending on where you're coming from you can go to our website, by the way transactingvaluepodcastcom. You can listen to other conversations, re-listen to this one if you want. But here's the cool part On the top right corner of the homepage it says leave a voicemail. Now you can click it. You can tell us what you think of the show and I will welcome that as well. However, you can also take two minutes and let Chanel know what you thought of the conversation and her opinion and her book and give her an audio file and we will forward it to her as well. Guys, so many cool opportunities when it comes to broadcast media now in 2024, 2025 and what everybody's doing with it. A voicemail, pretty standard play. Now you can do that on a cell phone as well. So why not with a podcast or to help somebody out in their own brand or book? But I appreciate everything that you guys are doing my team obviously producing the show, janelle for you coming onto the show and everybody else's time listening to and supporting it as well.

Josh Porthouse: 50:16

Until next time, that was Transacting Value. Thank you to our show partners and folks. Thank you for tuning in and appreciating our value as we all grow through life together. To check out our other conversations or even to contribute through feedback follows time, money or talent and to let us know what you think of the show, please leave a review on our website, transactingvaluepodcastcom. We also stream new episodes every Monday at 9 am, eastern Standard Time through all of your favorite podcasting platforms like Spotify, iheart and TuneIn. You can now hear Transacting Value on Reads Across America Radio Eastern Standard Time, wednesdays at 5 pm, sundays at noon and Thursdays at 1 am. Head to wreathsacrossamericaorg. Slash transactingvalue to sponsor a wreath and remember, honor and teach the value of freedom for future generations. On behalf of our team and our global ambassadors, as you all strive to establish clarity and purpose, ensure social tranquility and secure the blessings of liberty or individual sovereignty of character for yourselves and your posterity, we will continue instigating self-worth and we'll meet you there. Until next time. That was Transacting Value.