73. The Hidden Weight Hospice Nurses Carry part 1

In this opening episode of a new season of The Nurses’ Breakroom with Jenny Lytle, RN, hospice nurse of 20 years Jenny  invites you to slow down and take a Monday moment for yourself.

This episode isn’t about fixing anything or adding another task to your to‑do list. Instead, it’s about naming the emotional weight hospice professionals carry—and offering reassurance that what you’re feeling is normal, human, and deeply connected to the sacred work you do.

Jenny speaks candidly about why hospice nurses often struggle to “leave work at work,” the mental replaying of conversations, the heaviness of patients’ stories, and the quiet exhaustion that can follow us home. Most importantly, she offers permission—permission to care for yourself without guilt and without believing you need to care less to survive this work.

This conversation sets the foundation for what’s coming next. In next week’s episode, Jenny will continue this discussion by sharing practical, actionable ways to begin releasing emotional stress and creating healthier transitions after your shifts.

✨ This episode is for you if you:

• Feel emotionally drained after work
• Struggle to mentally disconnect from hospice care
• Worry that prioritizing yourself might feel selfish
• Know something needs to change—but aren’t ready for a checklist yet

Gentle Takeaways:

Instead of “what to do,” this episode offers space to reflect and recognize:

• Emotional fatigue in hospice work is a byproduct of deep caring, not poor boundaries or weakness
• Loving your work and feeling weighed down by it can exist at the same time
• The challenge isn’t caring too much—it’s not having a way to set the work down
• You don’t need to get tougher or detach emotionally to keep going
• Giving yourself permission to pause is often the first step toward sustainable care

➡️ Next week: We’ll move from reflection to action, with simple, realistic strategies to help you release stress and protect your energy—without adding more pressure.

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 

Feeling stressed? Grab my quick and easy Busy Nurses' Guide to Less Stress for practical stress relief that truly fits into your life! https://www.jennylytle.com/guide

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

New Season: Focus On Hospice

Jenny Lytle, RN 0:30

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Nurses Break Room with Jenny Lytle RN. Today we are going to start a new season, and we're going to really be focusing on hospice work. And part of that is because I've been a hospice nurse for 20 years now, and I am so passionate about being able to help others in hospice really fit their own needs in without feeling like they're neglecting everybody else, without feeling like it's selfish, and without feeling like it's another full-time job because we're all busy. I continue to work in hospice. My role is a little different now. I also have a full-time day job in addition to the work that I do with hospice nurses and other stressed-out professionals. So this is going to be something that's really digging into that a bit more. And so I know that as a hospice nurse, as a hospice professional, it can be very difficult to just leave your work behind you at the end of a shift. You know, we bring home charting a lot of the times. And so this is this is really for you if, you know, if you feel like your work is still with you after your shift ends. And what that can look like is maybe you're replaying conversations that you've had. Maybe you're second-guessing yourself, you know, things that you could have done differently, um, you know, something that you wish you would have said or done, or maybe something that you would have said in a different way, or responded to something more quickly than you did another thing, because we're always making these judgments, you know, we're making these judgment calls, and there's frequently lots of things that are competing for our time and our attention at once. And, you know, it's it's hard to know in the moment exactly what to what to focus on the most, what is the highest priority. Sometimes it's obvious, but sometimes it's only in hindsight. And that's something that can weigh heavily on us. Also, when we're when we're in homes, when we're talking with families and our patients, you know, they tell us these stories of their lives and the way things have gone. And and sometimes, you know, sometimes they're very happy stories and and we're sad for them to be losing those type of things. And sometimes they're really horrific stories of the way that maybe their diagnosis and their care has gone. And and that's something that's heavy as well. And so, you know, just understanding that the things that you're feeling, the things that we feel are normal. And it's a um, it's a byproduct of the work that we do. It's something that we can we can love what we're doing, and still it can take a toll. And those kind of feelings are common in hospice. It doesn't mean that you're weak or that you have poor boundaries, although that may be another issue as well. I know it sure was for me, but it's about that deep caring. It's about the deep presence that we have when we're with our patients, when we're with our families. It's the fact that this is very sacred work. And that can be that can be a blessing, and that also can be something that's very hard if we don't have a plan in place. Because the issue isn't that we're caring too much, it's that we're not able to set that work aside, that we don't have a plan in place for kind of transitioning, that we don't have a way to set the work down and move into our regular lives so that we can refill ourselves, we can refill our own cup, we can come back ready and able to uh to carry that weight again, because it can be very heavy. So just a bit of permission because sometimes we feel like we need that. You know, we feel like we have all of these other things. And so I am nobody uh, you know, I am nobody special to give you permission, but I'm telling you from one hospice nurse to another, from one uh very caring person to another, sometimes, yes, you just need that permission to uh to take time for yourself. And it doesn't mean that you have to get tougher. It doesn't mean that uh that you have to start caring less. It just means that you need a place in a process to release some of that stress, to release some of that tension that's so easy to uh to carry. And I am in the midst of uh revamping the nurse's break room. And it's a place where we can go and exhale a bit and have a place to be with others who get the things that we experience and do that in a positive but not Pollyanna kind of way, but in a proactive and a learning way, not just a place to vent, although that is super important uh to do sometimes, but a place to really figure out like what can we do moving forward? How can we uh how can we change things a little bit so that it doesn't uh so that it doesn't weigh so heavily on us, so that we can continue to show up as our best selves. And so until next time, remember self care isn't selfish. It's the only way that we can continue to show up for others and live our best lives. Have a wonderful week.