47. Who’s in Your Circle? Reflecting on Relationships That Support Your Well-Being

This week on The Nurses' Breakroom with Jenny Lytle, RN, we’re slowing down to talk about the people who matter most.

From celebrating her 27th wedding anniversary to honoring the 7th anniversary of her mom’s passing, Jenny shares a heartfelt reflection on the power of meaningful connection—and the impact of friendships, faith, and showing up for yourself.

You’ll walk away with powerful reminders of what true support looks like and how to nurture relationships that bring peace, not pressure.

💡 Takeaways + Action Steps:

• Reflect on which relationships feel easy, authentic, and energizing
• Identify people you can truly be yourself with—and those who drain you
• Explore ways to reconnect, release, or reprioritize relationships
• Revisit your relationship with God or your personal spiritual practice
• Take one small step: call, journal, pray, or schedule time for someone who matters

✨ This episode is a gentle invitation to grieve, celebrate, and reconnect—with others and with yourself.

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

Chapters

• 0:58 Welcome to Nurse's Break Room
• 1:12 Celebrating 27 Years of Marriage
• 2:05 Honoring Lost Relationships
• 3:48 Finding Deep Friendships Later in Life
• 5:38 Nurturing Your Most Important Connections
• 7:51 Self-Care Reminder and Sign-Off

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:29

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the nurse's break room with Jenny Lytle RN. This week we're going to focus on relationships, because it is a week that is full of lots of feelings about relationships. For me, on the 24th is my 27th wedding anniversary, which is something that I'm happy to be able to celebrate, and I can't believe, in some ways, that it's been 27 years. It seems like just a few years ago that I was 27 myself and our relationship hasn't been perfect, because there really is no such thing, but it's been good and I'm so thankful to have a wonderful husband and partner and somebody that I not only love but truly like and enjoy spending time with after all these years.

Speaker 1: 1:36

The seventh anniversary of my mom's passing and that's something that I talked more about in my book, and you may have heard me talk about how that's something that really helped to spur my desire to help people realize that self-care isn't selfish and that we really need to care for ourselves in order to be able to continue being there for the people that we love and doing the work that we do some grace with myself and take time to appreciate the relationships that I have, the ones that I still have the ones that I've been blessed to have in the past, and on Sunday this week we actually went and celebrated the life of a sweet woman who was in my table group or small group like a Bible study, and I'd only known her for close to three years, but she was one of those people that just that just impacted you. It doesn't have to be long term relationships to really make a difference in our lives, and she she passed away earlier this year and we had her celebration of life and it just the things that people talked about were how she was relationally with people, with her family and with her friends, and what it boils down to is there's so much busyness in our lives, but it's the relationships that really make a difference. And it's just really made me reflect on the relationships that are most important to me and while I have a wonderful family and I'm very thankful for them a lot of my closest relationships on a day to day basis are my friends, and I don't think there's anything at all wrong with that. I'm very grateful to have the friends that I have, and that was something that I usually had a couple of close friends or at least one close friend and a few acquaintances, but I, several years ago, decided that I wanted more and I really felt maybe it was too late and that people already had their friend groups. But as I talked to more and more people, I found that a lot of us were thinking the same type thing. And now these relationships that I have with several women are they're lifelong, deep, really important in the day to day kind of relationships, and it's so important to have people that we're able to really be ourselves with, that we can be honest with and not worry about what they're going to think of us or how they're going to judge us. And and also those people that can lift us up when we are struggling, because life is not easy and there's going to be times when we need some extra support or maybe we need somebody else's input, because when life gets hard, sometimes we aren't able to see things super clearly because we're so close to it.

Speaker 1: 5:09

I heard several years ago that you can't read the label from inside the bottle, and so when you're in the middle of something that is so tough, that is so challenging, that is just taking so much out of you, it can be hard to figure out exactly what to do, and that's where having good, trustable friends can really come in handy. So I encourage you this week to really think about your relationships. And what types of relationships do you have? Which ones feel good? Which ones feel peaceful and involve people that you always want to be with, that whenever something comes up, you don't think, oh, I don't know, that I want to do this thing with her. Instead, it's somebody that it's not going to be complicated, it's not going to be drama filled. You can just be whatever that looks like, and maybe that's. You can be full of energy, or you can be tired, or you can be angry and need to grumble a little bit.

Speaker 1: 6:19

For me, my most important relationship is my one with God, but it's also the one that sometimes gets pushed to the back burner in the busyness of life. And I know that when I have distanced myself from him, that I feel more disconnected, I feel less peaceful, less joyful, and having that awareness enables me to do the things that I need to do to get back to where I want to be. And then that relationship with yourself, like I know for me this week. With yourself, like I know for me this week, I have intentionally scheduled downtime because I know that having this time to celebrate and having this time to grieve and just reflect, I want to have that extra space for myself.

Speaker 1: 7:18

What relationship do you want to nurture this week? And then, what is one step that you can take to bring that closer to reality? Maybe it's making a phone call, maybe it's saying a prayer or journaling a bit, or just having a moment to pause and reflect. Until next time, remember self-care isn't selfish. It's the only way we can continue to care for others long-term and live our best lives. Thanks, and have a great week.