16. Lie #8 "I Need to Leave the Past Behind"

Ever felt the pressure to bury your past and move on? Join us in this episode of the Nurse's Breakroom with Jenny Lytle, RN, as we debunk the myth that we need to leave the past behind us. Jenny opens up about her own journey, revealing how she learned to reflect on her past through a tool known as the "Four Helpfuls," introduced by Christy Wright. This invaluable method helps you identify what went right, what went wrong, what's confusing, and what's missing to create a roadmap for self-improvement. By taking a few moments to assess these aspects, you can amplify your successes, correct mistakes, clarify uncertainties, and add what's lacking.

As autumn paints the landscape in vibrant hues, Jenny encourages listeners to use this transformative season to pause and reflect. Whether you practice this at the end of the day, week, or month, these small habits can create significant improvements in your life. Take a deep breath, relax, and engage in this reflective practice to gain insights into your personal growth. Tune in to discover how these reflections can help you not just move on from the past but learn from it to build a better future. Thank you for being part of our community, and we can't wait to share more insights with you soon.

If you're feeling overwhelmed, burned out, or like there’s never enough time, I’ve got something just for you! Head to https://selfcareisntselfish.com to grab your FREE copy of my book, Self-Care Isn’t Selfish: The Compassionate Nurse’s Step-by-Step Guide to Personalized Stress Relief. It’s packed with simple, effective strategies to help you prioritize your needs—without guilt—so you can feel energized, focused, and ready to take on the day. Go to https://selfcareisntselfish.com 

Looking for connection with people who get the stress and self-care struggles of nurses and caregivers? Check out https://thenursesbreakroom.com

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennylytlern/

More ways to connect here: https://linktr.ee/jennylytle

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:29

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Nurse's Breakroom with Jenny Lendl RN. Today we're continuing our Lies. We Tell Ourselves series with the lie I need to leave the past behind me. Now there is some truth to that. We don't need to dwell on all of the mistakes we've made in our past or things that we wish were different, but there is something to be said for taking time to reflect on things so that, if there are changes that need to be made or lessons to be learned, we don't just skip past them.

Speaker 1: 1:07

And I know personally, when I started doing some of these reflection type things, what I found is that I had a tendency to hold on to the not so great things, the areas where I felt like I had made mistakes or like I didn't show up my best, but I didn't take time to appreciate the things that had gone well. And so I was introduced to a handy little tool called the four helpfuls or the four helpful lists, and I don't know if she's the one who came up with it, but I had learned about it from Christy Wright, and it's super simple, not a real creative title, but it's something that you can use in just about any situation really and I like to use it when I'm if I've done a big project, or you can do it at the end of the week or the end of the month, but especially with us just moving into fall right now even though if you're listening later, we definitely can apply to you as well it just is a great time to pause and reflect just a little bit. I love fall, it's my favorite season, anyway. It's just. Things are the colors and the I like the crutch of the leaves, and thankfully I live in a place where we have pretty big changes in all of the seasons and the shorter days. It's bittersweet as we leave summer behind and move into fall and then know that winter is coming as well, but just being able to slow down a little bit and enjoy all of the beauty that fall has to offer, at least here in Indiana.

Speaker 1: 3:00

So just a simple way that you can incorporate reflection into your life is to, at the end of the day, coming up with three things that went well that day or maybe things that didn't go well.

Speaker 1: 3:17

You don't have to sugarcoat things, just pausing to realize there are things that go well in our days, there's things that don't go so well and really these questions could be used on a daily basis even.

Speaker 1: 3:32

But regardless of when or how you do this, I do encourage you to just take a couple of deep breaths and just relax into the moment and then, as you reflect, think about what went right, what went wrong, what's confusing and what's missing and those are things that, like I mentioned, can relate to the past season, the past week, each day looking at those things, and so when you do that, it's not just looking at those areas and going past that, but when you look at what went right, how can you amplify or do more of that? When thinking of what went wrong, what do you need to fix? What do you need to change to maybe not have those same things happen? What's confusing? You can clarify that, make it simpler, easier and more effective and what's missing, and with that one, add it if you can Come up with ways to be able to add that in. In summary, just taking time to pause and reflect on the way things have gone can really encourage us as we go along into other things, because we look at the things that didn't go the way we wanted to and things that did, and then we build on that, and I thank you so much for for being here and I look forward to talking with you soon.