The Ritual Nurse

Nursing Avatar 2 of 2: Special Guest "Stop shoving sh/t in boxes!"

• Riva - The Ritual Nurse • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Hey everyone, Riva here! In this second episode with my fellow nurse and friend Jamie, we dive headfirst into what it really takes to thrive in the nursing world—especially when you’re juggling nonstop pressures and a million demands on your time. We’re sharing real-time strategies you can put into action immediately, like talking through your tasks to stay grounded and combining visualization with deep breathing for a quick calm-down fix.

We also dig into the art (and necessity) of delegation—because guess what? None of us are superheroes, and it’s high time we drop that myth. Knowing your personal limits isn’t weakness; it’s a legit superpower that keeps you and your patients safer. Plus, having a support system (whether they fully “get” your day-to-day or not) can be the difference between feeling totally alone and having that sense of belonging we all crave.

Jamie and I also get real about reclaiming your identity outside of work. After all, you’re more than just your scrubs! We share personal stories about reintroducing lost hobbies and reconnecting with loved ones—basically, how to be a nurse without losing your entire self in the job. And of course, it wouldn’t be The Ritual Nurse without a little “Coffee, Crystals, and Divination.” We talk about embracing loss, finding resilience in unexpected places, and how spiritual insights can help keep you balanced.

Tune in for an honest conversation filled with laughter, vulnerability, and practical nuggets for every stage of your nursing journey. Let’s keep each other standing strong—one shift (and maybe one crystal) at a time!

Hey! Make sure you subscribe to stay connected. Love a nurse? Who doesn't! Share with all the nurses you know. The more we reach, the more we help. We feel like no one deserves center stage focus more than nurses and our mission is to reach the millions of superstars out there. We'd love to hear your stories, your adventures, your wins, and especially your needs and questions! Email us at hello@ritualnurse (dot) com. Also, you can send us fan mail! Use the link at the beginning of the show notes. Resources, classes, blogs, and podcast info can be found on our home site at TCTH.org. The Ritual Nurse Podcast is part of The Code Team educational platform.

Love your FAYCES!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Ritual Nurse, where healing meets humor, science and a touch of magic. Hello everybody and welcome back to the podcast. This is the Ritual Nurse and my name is Reba, your host. If you're listening to us for the first time, this is a phenomenal podcast focused all on nursing and nursing-related topics regarding self-care, mental health, healing, and this week is our second week with our incredible guest, jamie, who is a fellow nurse. You're not going to want to miss the first episode with Jamie, so if you haven't listened to that, as soon as you're done with this, go run and listen to that one.

Speaker 1:

This second episode, we're going to continue the conversation and we're going to do a little bit of a deeper dive in looking at resilience and stress management More specifically, what kind of goodies and tips can we give you guys for stress management in real time on the job? Because we realize a lot of what we talk about regarding self-care and intentional space. The rituals that you create in your intentional space for self-care are all things that we do off the floor or after shift is over, outside of our work environment. So today, jamie, welcome back. I am so excited to have you on this next episode. Let me hear some of your thoughts, or maybe things you yourself do in terms of stress management on the floor when you're handling that chaos.

Speaker 2:

Well, hello again. So some of the things that I like to do when I'm on the floor and I'm really stressed out is and it's going to depend the tools that I use are going to depend on what needs to be accomplished Correct. So, for example, there are times where I'm stressed out and I feel like my brain is going in 10 different directions and I need it to focus on one.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

So, pick a lane right, pick a lane at that rate. Um, and this always happens when I'm, like in the supply, closet right.

Speaker 1:

Why? What is it about?

Speaker 2:

supply closets, that does it to us.

Speaker 2:

I don't know, but it's the thing, man. So I start saying things out loud. I'm looking for this, and by verbalizing it and hearing my own voice it helps keep me on track. Yes, another thing that I like to do is I had this experience at one point when I had walked out my front door and this was like one of those really big full moons, and I remember going to take the trash out and I just looked up and there was this giant moon in front of me and all of a sudden it was this feeling of like stillness, oh, yes, yes, calm, and you know time is moving differently.

Speaker 2:

And so I actually made a point of kind of encapsulating that moment and trying to remember what it felt like so that I could draw on it when I needed it.

Speaker 1:

That's phenomenal. So what you could say is if you, as a nurse or healthcare provider because this really applies to all of us that are in the scenarios if you have a moment that you have in your memory, that is a time when you felt that absolute stillness, looking out at the ocean, a lake, listening to the sound of rain, anything just one significant moment that evokes that memory and feel of that stillness, both physical and mental. Utilize that on the floor when you are at kind of red line, that overload point where you need to make decisions, you need to follow protocols, you need to have conversations, you need to call for orders, you need to speak to patients, families, whatever the demands might be, but you feel that your nervous system or your psyche, that you are on overload, you're, you've stopped processing incoming data, you're not hearing orders or people correctly, or I notice it's my level of frustration, this teeth gritting, kind of shoulders hunched, like level of. Of. It's not anger, it is like a, it is like a tenseness, it's like a, a sense of anxiety and frustration coupled together.

Speaker 1:

I know when I start feeling that, that I am at overwhelm point and this kind of exercise I would be able to do. Standing next to my computer while charting, I literally could stop and drop my shoulders and envision that moment and, like you, what you said was so significant. You not only think about the moment but you evoke or think about the physical sensation of that stillness, and I think that's the key component is combining both of those in order to evoke the same physical response. You're going to have that same parasympathetic nervous system response in that moment and that's going to slow all the catecholamines down. It's going to slow the response down blood flow to operational areas that are required to hear and process executive functioning.

Speaker 2:

Well, and to piggyback off some of the things that I know that you've touched on before a lot of times, I will pair this imaging exercise with a breath or two. Oh, excellent, I will inhale that feeling and exhale the business.

Speaker 1:

Oh, excellent, inhaling the feeling as you yes, absolutely, because you are. You're bringing that in. It's like you are, you're centering it in yourself and making that overactive mind or that over anxious mind, physically utilize, you know, one of your five senses to internalize that feeling that you're envisioning, which is phenomenal, and then exhaling. You're exhaling that energy, that negativity, that stress, whatever it is away from you. That's incredible. Visually, for visualization purposes, that's incredible because you can do that in a supply closet. You can do it on the floor. It doesn't matter where you are, but that's something that you can do. When it comes to resilience on the floor resilience I've talked about this in earlier podcasts, but the definition of resilience is really, when we're faced with adversity or challenges, our ability to maintain equilibrium is is actually our resilience. That's the definition of resilience. And when you think about the stress levels on the floor, there's usually man a lot of times on the floor. There aren't known variables. Like all of the variables are in flux.

Speaker 2:

Those are my favorite kind, by the way, you know what I'm saying. Like all the variables are in flux. Those are my favorite kind, by the way you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1:

Like all the variables are in flux. What would your, what would your advice be? Or or how have you learned to maintain your equilibrium when there isn't there's there? There isn't a known, you know marker, there isn't a known structure that that you can base that on you know marker. There isn't a known structure that that you can base that on you know, like whether your patients, everything from their vitals to their significant others, reactions to the doctor on call, you know, all of the variables are in flux. So what do you do to maintain that equilibrium? Is there a certain way you chart? Is there, you know? Is it in your nursing brain? Is there a structure you give yourself? Like, how do you?

Speaker 2:

so there's two things that come to mind. One is I am only one person. Yes, you know and it's just, I think as nurses, we really have to remind ourselves of that, because you're like no, I can do it. No, I can do it, no, I got it.

Speaker 1:

You know, right.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes you just have to delegate yes, you just do yes. And it's not just for you know the safety of the patient or the situation. Sometimes it's for your mental health.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Um, and that's not to say you should be like dumping all the things you don't want to do in your scene.

Speaker 1:

No, no, no no.

Speaker 2:

But, like sometimes you're like I am overwhelmed, Right? It would really help me out, buddy, if you could pass this med and then I could just kick it off my list and not worry about it.

Speaker 1:

Right? I think that's a prime example of being efficient in order to provide the best care, rather than providing mediocre care in several avenues, you know, like consolidating your efforts into one superb effort because you've delegated something off of your list, rather than it being mediocre effort across all three things.

Speaker 2:

Right and just to kind of like piggyback off that idea. One thing that I have learned is that just because I push through it doesn't mean that I'm functioning better.

Speaker 1:

Yes, oh my gosh.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so, like sometimes, taking your lunch break is more necessary some days than it is other days, and part of the reason is, yeah, I understand, it's 30 minutes of your time. You're not going to get back. However, you're going to function way better after you eat something, absolutely. So take the 5, 10, 15 minutes that you need, whether you've taken your lunch break already or not. If you need that time, you need that time, correct. Just take the time, go to the bathroom, drink some water, get something to eat. Don't think about the floor for five minutes, correct. And when you come back to it, you're gonna be so much more organized, so much less scattered yes, so much less stressed out, because you've taken care of the human needs Correct, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

I think that's vastly, wildly important. We often kind of wear this badge of. You know our nurse avatar is unstoppable. They are tireless. They need no water or bathroom breaks. You know, they can work a 16-hour shift. Pull one for the team. We've got this, whereas what we're not doing is we're not acknowledging the human of us that has limits, that has needs, that has physiological exhaustion, that has upper limits of endocrine problems like okay, I, okay, I am overtaxed and overstimulated. I can't do this at the moment. You know my fight or flight system is in flight and already gone right. So taking the time to recenter really slows that entire process down and I think it's important, like you noted, stop thinking about the floor for a minute. It's okay to stop thinking about your patient for five minutes and just let your mind breathe.

Speaker 2:

And, that being said, don't hop on your phone either, like you don't need that stimulation.

Speaker 1:

Exactly. This is not overstimulate in another area, because you have that innate desire to dopamine farm, right? You know cause you're feeling burned out, so you don't have dopamine and we can generate that dopamine in some other way than persistent onslaught of stimulation.

Speaker 2:

Right, I'm like just just just enjoy the S word, or the Q word.

Speaker 1:

Right, we're not going to say it, but yes, that aspect, yes.

Speaker 2:

Because your mental health needs that too. Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

It's funny. Even even in podcasts, we don't want to say that no. We don't want to say that no, because then it'll follow you.

Speaker 2:

Right. My next shift is going to be terrible. If I say that Correct, we're not saying it.

Speaker 1:

It's not even happening, we're not even discussing it. I wanted to really kind of quickly touch on support systems. So kind of give me, just give me an encapsulated idea of, like, what a support system means to you. How have you used that to support yourself, like mental health, self-care? What does that mean to you?

Speaker 2:

So, in terms of a support system, I have found people in my life that A who can accept me for who I am.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

All the bits and pieces, yes and B. They are people that may not always understand what I'm going through, but they will listen and be there. Excellent and that's what I need.

Speaker 1:

Okay, excellent. Do you think that support systems a lot of times as nurses we kind of tend to we're not, you know, it's not a mean girls kind of thing, but we kind of tend to pod together Do you think it is important to especially newer nurses to make sure that they keep the that existential support system in place and not just I feel like I feel like we isolate in nursing?

Speaker 1:

Do you know what I'm saying. I do like, like we tend to gravitate towards nurses, whether it's from a feeling of like other people won't get it, or our jokes horrify them, or I don't know, but I just I feel like maintaining life outside of nursing is okay and necessary, but for some reason, I think we kind of have this belief that it's the like. What do you mean? You have a life outside of nursing.

Speaker 2:

So I think for me and I think other, maybe neuro spicy people might identify with this.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

But I tend to jump into things, go a thousand percent and obsess about it. Yes, and that's exactly what I did. When I first started my nursing career was like everything was nursing.

Speaker 2:

Yes, absolutely, and I totally had like zero chill about it, like you know, and I had to learn like everything was nursing yes, absolutely, and I totally had like zero chill about it Like you know, and I had to learn, like I think the big question that I've been asking myself over the last couple of months of um, separating my identity from my nursing avatar is what do I need? What do I want? Right, and so it's. It's slowly just evolved into I, I nurse, and then I come home and take care of the house and keep it clean, cause that's what I'm supposed to do too.

Speaker 2:

I have all these other facets as a person and all of these facets need attention Absolutely, and so I've really, in my self routine, actually have started divorcing myself from my career. Love it, because it needs to happen. I mean, there are parts of myself that I've neglected for so long.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And it's like. I busted out painting something the other day and I realized that I don't paint things that aren like simple or within the lines, because it stresses me out, and I was like. I was like I think this defeats the purpose, Like, and so I had to relearn how to just let whatever comes out comes out on paper.

Speaker 1:

get paint on the canvas or get it on paper, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:

And so it was actually ironically I had to relearn how to do some of these smaller things, and that's where I am in my process, where I'm reclaiming those other parts of myself that I buried, you know, years before nursing school.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, yes. That is absolutely phenomenal. I really like what you said about divorcing that nurse avatar. So often when we enter nursing and that nurse avatar starts getting built, it's like we get seatbelted in for the ride and it takes us, and sometimes we don't successfully do it, we forget how to get out. I'll, you know, I'll be walking around a grocery store and see somebody and I'm you know are they. Are they having a stroke? Is there? You know you're innately assessing everything in your environment. That's a trauma response. That hypervigilance is a trauma response. It is okay for me to go to the grocery store and not be a critical care nurse or an ER nurse. Like I can literally just go to the grocery store in my sweats and pick up mac and cheese and leave Goodbye, Like I don't have to be on all the time.

Speaker 2:

I do struggle with that a little. I'm not going to lie, I know, I know, like I look at people's calves and I'm like those aren't supposed to be that big Right you know, is there preferred BEMA happening Like what's going on here?

Speaker 1:

But I think it's. I think it's super important for us to be able to divorce that nurse avatar without guilt, because otherwise we'll never be able to find self and like what you're doing is finding self because you have got unhooked the seatbelt.

Speaker 2:

It's like. It's like you know, lopping off an arm doesn't make you whole Like you still need the other arm. You can't just pretend it's not there Exactly.

Speaker 1:

That is epic. So right now we are going to go to break. If you have to head back to the floor, well, we wish you the absolute smoothest of shifts and the most fun patients.

Speaker 1:

The least critical scenarios, the best residents and the lightest amount of orders. We don't wish you the Q word. No, there is no. No, the Q and the S, that does just does not happen. We're not even saying it. So if you are going to hang out with us and stick around, enjoy the musical interlude here, get yourself some tea, some coffee, whatever it is, and we will be back. We're going to continue the discussion with Jamie, a couple more points of advice and, of course, another segment of our Coffee Crystals and Divination, but we will see you shortly after the break.

Speaker 1:

All right if you have stuck with us so far. Thank you so much. We are going to get back into our topic. We have been focusing on everything from resilience and stress building mind, body, spirit care. This is a second part episode with our guest Jamie. We've had two absolutely incredible episodes, some of the most golden information that I think has come out of discussing this stuff with another nurse. We've really kind of delved into this created topic of the nurse avatar. You're definitely going to want to listen to last week's episode to catch up with where we're at today, but I really want to kind of delve into advice for new nurses or other nurses. So if you met a brand new nurse who was about to start in the ICU, what would you tell them about taking care of themselves first so they can care for others effectively?

Speaker 2:

One of the best pieces of advice that I've actually received as a nurse was take, you know, at least one day a week to go do something fun, right. And at first I don't think I really truly grasped this concept, because I'm over here like, yeah, watching TV is fun. Yeah, doing this is fun, right, that's mindless. It's mindless or it is fun, but the fun that needs to be had is the kind of fun where you can't think about anything else except the great time that you're having.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay, A mindfulness in a in a completely different manner.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like I'm having so much fun right now, like I am a million miles away from my troubles. Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. And, to note, you can do that kind of stuff for free. That has nothing to do with a cost variable or the expensiveness of something, nor does it have to do with company. I mean, I can think of several activities that you know, outdoors, hobby or crafting activities that are solo, activities that are also not expensive.

Speaker 2:

So for me, being alone is probably like the antithesis of what I would need to do, right?

Speaker 1:

And for some people that is yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Because my brain's like okay, we're going to think about things, but when I'm with others, I find that it's a lot easier to disengage with my own thought process and engage with what's going on around.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, that makes a thousand percent sense. You wrote something in your notes here about sometimes taking care of yourself is inconvenient to others, and that's why it's important to surround yourself with people that can support you, even if they don't understand what you're going through. Talk to me about that, because I think there's so much truth to that statement, and it's something that keeps us, as nurse avatars who provide for everyone else, from engaging in self-care.

Speaker 2:

Inconvenient could be. It's three o'clock in the morning and I still haven't gone to sleep yet, because my brain won't shut off. Yes, and it's calling a friend or it's taking a bath, yeah absolutely. But those are all like. I have people in my life that I could call at 3 am and be like bro. I just need, to like, get my mind on a different track. So I can get sleepy and not obsess about my day at work.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, that makes total sense. I think in another aspect, people don't want to burden others. Like our nurse avatar, the way that we function on the unit is as a team player, is as a heavy lifter avatar. The way that we function on the unit is as a team player, is as a heavy lifter, and I think oftentimes, especially newer nurses feel like they have to carry more of the load to prove themselves, and so they won't ask for help because they don't want to burden other people, and so that too is a form of inconvenience in terms of I don't want to inconvenience another nurse, but I haven't had a break off the floor in eight hours.

Speaker 1:

Right, you need to. You need to ask somebody. Hey, can you listen for my patients? Hey, can you do these two finger sticks? I have to go to the bathroom, I need to eat something and I need a drink of water. I haven't had a 15 yet. That's. Those are boundary settings. That, yeah, does it feel weird, especially if you're a new nurse to a unit? Does it feel weird to put an ask out there to express a need? It absolutely does. But I think it's something that we have to support each other in doing.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

You know, I think I can remember being a new nurse and being absolutely so wildly intimidated to ask other nurses for that very thing, A because of their responses and B because I had that weird stigma of, as the new nurse, like, I've got to, I've got to carry the heavy pack, I have to prove my worth, I've got to prove I can hack it, and that was just perpetuated in the culture back then. Okay, that makes sense, you know what I'm saying and it's like we got to stop that. You know, I think newer nurses have done a really good job, especially those of you that you know were born out of the pandemic and that kind of chaos in really being able to break and shift a lot of those stereotypes. But I just I what you said in that note there was so significant in terms of that feeling of inconvenience. It rears its head in so many different aspects and it is such a speed bump to us asking for help.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and it's. It's such a if you can kind of shift your mind a little bit and shift your perspective on it, you're not inconveniencing someone else, You're taking care of your needs so that you can function better.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. I think that sentence right there. It's like we talked about before we started recording, where the fact that we're not talking about it, that's what's lauded, that's what's prized, that's what you know. You stick the gold sticker on the nurse avatar, but that's exactly the problem. Talking about it is what heals it. So the fact that we're not talking about it, we're not taking the break, we're not asking for help, is just perpetuating the harm. It's just it's it's it's digging it deeper into the wound, as it were, rather than if we actually talk about it, if we do the thing, we say the thing, that's the actual healing process.

Speaker 2:

Well, and that being said too, that doesn't mean that just because you ask it and you're in a good place about it, it does not mean it will be received that way, absolutely. And this is that point where you get to pick and choose what you accept and what you don't.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Holy crap.

Speaker 1:

That's such phenomenal advice.

Speaker 2:

So if someone gives you a hard time about it, right, clearly their priorities and your priorities are not the same, correct? And you need to find people who prioritize the way you prioritize.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, and that can be, you know as much as in that moment, finding the charge nurse or finding somebody else who either has the mental space or the capacity or the priority like finding importance in the same thing at the same time to do so. If it's a repeated situation, then, yeah, you have to surround yourself with people that are going to support you as much as you support them, and that is a very real thing. When it comes to the support systems, like we talked about before the break, you know your support systems at work and your go-to. I'm the kind of nurse that I I'm not the. I'm friends with everybody on eight, nine, seven and down in ortho. I'm the one that's like.

Speaker 1:

I have a couple die hard, I've got your six in ER, one or two buddies in the ICU, maybe somebody that transferred over to PACU, that used to work with me, or whatever. I have a very small circle. However, it is a very the equilibrium in the circle and, like the um, I'm forgetting how to pronounce the E word, but the equality, you know, between the equivalency between members of this, of the support system, is the same. Yes, you know finding like-minded, like-focused individuals and there's nothing wrong with that either way, right.

Speaker 2:

And to clarify too there is nothing wrong with getting the answer of no Correct. It's not the answer of no that we're having a problem with Nope Exactly. It's the attitude that comes with it. If it's hi, friend, I hurt your face and I support you but I cannot help you right now.

Speaker 1:

I'm underwater right now.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I'm underwater too.

Speaker 1:

That is an acceptable answer from someone who still cares about you. Yes, A thousand percent. The no we're talking about is ugh.

Speaker 2:

The judgment.

Speaker 1:

No one's had breaks here. What makes you special? Yeah, you know what you can't work a full shift and hold your bladder. Guess you just haven't been around long enough. Like we have all heard that nonsense and that is absolute nonsense. Right Before we get all wound up on that though I want to.

Speaker 2:

I want to segue you. Read my mind Right.

Speaker 1:

I just happened to catch Jamie taking a drink of her drink and we almost ended up wearing it on the podcast. But I want to segue into our coffee, crystals and divination segment because I really want to hear what the cards have to say about resilience and nursing, and Jamie brought an incredible deck. You didn't listen to last week's podcast. The reading was phenomenal, but I will let her talk about it. I am going to pull our crystal Oracle card with the focus this week of resilience. So what is our crystal prescription for the week for resilience? Last week it was how light when we were talking about our nurse avatar, and it was very apt and incredibly fitting. But this week let's see what our crystal prescription is for Whoa, that literally jumped right out and it is morganite. So morganite is an absolutely gorgeous stone.

Speaker 1:

I am reading from the Crystal Portal Oracle Deck from Moonstruck Crystals, and morganite is a gorgeous kind of peachy red stone. I had to laugh when I drew it, though, because of the meaning. So the morganite signifies alignment, emotional balance, harmony and compassion. Embark on a cosmic journey of alignment with Morganite, where finding harmony means syncing up with the planetary rhythms of the universe. Just as this crystal radiates love and compassion, you too can attune your spirit to the harmonious alignment of the planets, surrender to the universal flow and allow its gentle guidance to lead you towards emotional balance and your true alignment.

Speaker 1:

Oh my goodness I know, I keep thinking, you know, I'm going to have to start doing this stuff live, because nobody's going to believe that these are live draws.

Speaker 2:

Well, I just you know it's so funny how often something like a certain phase of the moon will line up with what I'm going through in my life. Yes, it's. It's crazy when it happens. You're like what?

Speaker 1:

There's a reason that there's so much cultural context and community gnosis surrounding planetary alignment. Whether it's quantum physics or whether it's ancient beliefs, there's a reason that these themes, both scientific and spiritual, keep repeating themselves, and energy being a constant. You know, it's kind of something that, no matter what you believe in, that these themes, both scientific and spiritual, keep repeating themselves, and energy being a constant. You know, it's kind of something that, no matter what you believe in, you can always find some kind of compass or arrow of truth that just provides clarity in thinking or a focus in thinking when it comes to, you know, the spiritual aspect of these things when it comes to you know, the spiritual aspect of these things.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so, if you remember from last week, I still have the same Yuletide tarot deck.

Speaker 1:

Straight to this deck is deceiving. I'm telling you the artwork. It is cute as a button Christmas themed, yuletide themed, solstice themed. It's gorgeous, it's incredible and it is it is.

Speaker 2:

It is not joking around it. It's gonna tell you what you need to hear, correct what you want got it okay, so we're focusing on resilience this, this time all right, and I'm gonna do the same thing. Have you pick a card.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's see, isn't that? That is weird? That is one way that I oh, that is the last one. That is one way that I pick cards, the cup.

Speaker 2:

There's a color variation is it a real color?

Speaker 1:

no oh, well, then perfect it's just another form of intuition. It just, yeah, I'll look at it and I'm like, oh, that one's a different color five of good cheer okay it doesn't look very cheery at all we're looking at resilience.

Speaker 1:

My goodness okay goodness um somebody broke something this is like this I'm sleeping cat. There's three broken goblets, but there's two golden goblets behind the person and a rainbow overhead. Okay, five of good. And I'm telling you the artistic style of this. It really belies how direct and straightforward the decks. The message is the divinatory meaning of the deck.

Speaker 2:

Right, okay, so what I have here is for the few words it's sadness, despair, loss and grief. Okay, grief okay, it says. On the surface there is a little, if any, good cheer present on this card. The figure has gone through the motions of decorating the home for the season.

Speaker 2:

The warm glow from the fireplace indicates that they are, to an extent, taking care of their basic needs I think this is very apt, uh-huh but there is a deep grief or sense of yes that is present and casting a gloom over the scene that belies the cheeriness of the tree and garland. The individual finds this time of year immensely painful, and if every symbol, every bauble reminds them of something that they can never regain, this is the picture of love lost and usually through means of permanent separation. This is the face of loss and the pain that comes as the price of love. Yet there is hope, for the cat is still content, near the heart, implying that she is loved by the one who is in the sufferance and loss. There is still love to give.

Speaker 2:

The two full cups on hearth, imply that not all is lost, and the rainbow picture above the mantle tells him that there is a path back to love, back to fulfillment. The old tide can be a cruel reminder of the things and the people that we no longer have in our lives, and it's okay to feel these things, dwell on them if you must. Give them an ear so that you listen to the whisper of your own losses, but do not be overwhelmed by them. Emotional relocation is difficult and a challenging process of the human condition, but there is a rainbow bridge and there are others who are deserving of your love and affection. You did not lose the ability to love by losing something or someone you love. You are more resilient than you give yourself credit for.

Speaker 1:

This entire time I've been like this is resilience. They're talking about facing adversity and maintaining equilibrium, not by ignoring it, not by dismissing it, but acknowledging it and walking through it. Because we, as nurses, compartmentalize the living shit out of everything. Yeah, so we're able to be resilient and maintain equilibrium because we stuff it in boxes to just suffer from it later.

Speaker 2:

Well, and also I do think that once you cross into nursing, there is a part of you that dies. Yeah, and it's okay. Yeah, it's okay. There's a part of evolvement that you that dies. Yeah, and it's.

Speaker 1:

It's okay, yeah, it's okay, there's a, there's a part of evolvement that we go through.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you will never not be a nurse once you become a nurse, correct?

Speaker 1:

Correct. Um there's no going back to what was before. Exactly Now that you know, you can't forget, you can't unknow it.

Speaker 2:

And it's okay to lose, the loss of man. I used to find that fun man. I used to connect with these people, man, I used to love doing that. But now your life has changed. Yes, it's not just a career, it's a calling, and I know that's cliche, but it's cliche for a reason. Yes, like it's the same for a reason.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. I mean literally. It's talking about resilience. Yeah, Wild, I'm telling you, I watched you. We just did this live, Like we couldn't have planned this if we tried. I think the message of finding emotional balance and especially both objects the crystal prescription for the week and the divination reminded us about applying that same love and compassion towards ourselves in order to process the emotions, in order to find that emotional balance. So it's okay to acknowledge your you know, if you're distraught about something, your grief process about something, it's okay to acknowledge the emotions that you're feeling. Denying them isn't going to, isn't what gives you resilience or achieves that equilibrium. It's actually acknowledging them and letting them go to the ability to process Correct.

Speaker 1:

Correct and you have to do that with you know, alignment and I think I think not just planetary alignment, but I think that could be a euphemism for alignment with self Like what do you find significant in your belief system, your morals, your ethic, what is your North star? And align, don't lose sight of that. Keep yourself aligned with what you believe at your core and allow that to guide how you process these emotions, how you let certain things go to maintain your emotional equilibrium in a healthy way, not the maladaptive coping way that we do, where our nurse avatar is just full of thousands of boxes, like an empty storage unit that we just keep shoveling the shit into, and that's a very full storage unit.

Speaker 1:

Yes, it absolutely is. Well, I want to thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast. I cannot wait to have you again. This has been so much fun. We may or may not have another episode in our pocket that, you know, who knows, may or may not be released for subscribers. We'll have to see how that goes, and I would love to have Jamie back on our podcast. Until that time, please, please, find your North Star and make sure that you, with love and compassion, are allowing yourself to process what you need and taking care of yourself, because we cannot take care of anybody else if we're not taking care of ourselves. So thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for having me. This has been so much fun. Dude this has been great. I was like I need this this week. I love this.

Speaker 1:

But, as always, take care of yourselves, and I love your faces. This is your Ritual Nurse Reva. Thanks for tuning in to the Ritual Nurse podcast. You can find us wherever you listen to podcasts, so don't forget to subscribe and stay connected For all our social links, free education classes, blogs and podcast notes with resources head over to tcthorg. Until next time, love your faces.