The Ritual Nurse

The Debrief: Season One Finale

• Riva - The Ritual Nurse

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This is your wrap-up report. Your sacred shift sign-out. Your permission to exhale.

In this emotional, powerful, and heart-filled finale of Season One, host Riva reflects on the journey we’ve taken together through trauma-informed healing, skill-building, and ritual creation. This season wasn’t just a podcast. It was a guided process for learning how to regulate, recover, and reconnect with ourselves, designed specifically for nurses.

Riva walks us through the key DBT-inspired nursing skills we’ve explored throughout the season, including Code Blue to Code You, IV PUSH, T.R.A.U.M.A. - C.A.R.E., and The LIST. Each skill is recapped with clarity and purpose, reminding us how and why we use them.

She also shares her personal story of how this work began during the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a front-line nurse, student, and researcher, Riva witnessed firsthand the mental health crisis unfolding among nurses and knew that something had to change. Her commitment to creating evidence-based, real, and ritual-infused healing practices is what built this podcast, and what will carry it forward.

Plus, stay tuned for what’s coming in Season Two:

  • New DBT-inspired skills and deeper trauma recovery work
  • Guest episodes featuring nurses, therapists, and healers
  • The official launch of the R.I.S.E. curriculum
  • Exclusive access to The Ritual Nurse Collective for private community learning
  • All-new sticker merch and free gift offers for listener stories

This isn’t just a podcast. This is practice. This is science. This is sacred.

Want to receive a free sticker pack?
Send Riva your story: how the podcast or any episode helped you, your story... and she’ll mail you a full set of our new waterproof stickers, made for nurses who wear their truth loud and proud. You can also request a private use promo code if you prefer not to share your address via a message.

Mentioned in this episode:

  • Code Blue to Code You
  • IV PUSH
  • C.A.R.E.
  • T.R.A.U.M.A. - C.A.R.E.
  • S.T.E.P.
  • The LIST: A Nurse’s Survival Task Organizer
  • R.I.S.E. Curriculum (launching Fall 2025)
  • The Ritual Nurse Collective (by invitation only)

Support the show:
If this podcast has helped you, please consider leaving a review. It helps the show reach more nurses and healers who need it.

Website: https://bit.ly/RitualNurse
Shop: https://bit.ly/RitualNurse
Email: hello@ritualnurse.com
Follow: @ritualnurse on tiktok and @the_Code_Team on IG. 

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. We made it Through another shift, through another season, and not just a season of nursing Bestie. I'm talking about this season of the Ritual Nurse. Welcome to our season one finale, the Debrief. This is our wrap-up report. It's our sacred shift sign-out. It's our sacred shift sign out. It's definitely our invitation to exhale.

Speaker 1:

This inaugural season has been a journey not just of survival but of awakening. We've been learning how to recognize our own needs, our own voice, how to build self-awareness voice, how to build self-awareness, how to create ritual not just as a vibe but as a clinical tool of real self-care. A place where we could explore trauma science and healing layer by layer, layer by layer. A safe space. A place lined with intentional, crafted ritual by the very people who resuscitate others for a living now learning how to bring themselves back from the dead. We didn't just talk about self-care. We activated shadow work. We crossed that threshold. We brought evidence-based trauma healing into sacred, doable, daily practice. So, whether you've been here since episode one or you're joining today for the first time, this is your regular reminder that you are allowed to heal, you are allowed to come first I'm Reva, nurse educator, witchy healer and fire starter, and today we're reflecting on what we felt and what's next. Let's do one final round. These aren't just podcast episodes. These were protocols that we created, like psychological PPE, if you will. Let's go over some of our core skills, the ones nurses remarked on the most. Let's go over what they are, how they work and why we use them.

Speaker 1:

Code blue to code you. This one has been really significant. This is where we teach you to recognize the signs Heart pounding you. To recognize the signs. Heart pounding, overwhelm, building that tightness in the back of your throat. Colors start to get brighter and instead of just powering through or panicking through it, you call a code blue to code you. You're going to pause, you're going to put a name to the emergency that you're feeling and then you're going to breathe, you're going to stabilize, before continuing by grounding yourself with either sense, work or maybe with a mantra. Why? Because you are worth the code. You have to be able to function through the emergency, whether it's a literal code blue or a personal life crisis, our experienced trauma affects every space we move in, and calling a code blue to code yourself is a way to force yourself to stop and critically focus on what is happening with yourself and address it in a space-limited, limited timeframe to curb the overwhelm and give you a productivity tool, a processing tool to step through it and continue functioning.

Speaker 1:

The IV push skill this one's for our kinesthetic healers. You're going to have your palms flat against a surface, or maybe each other. You're going to inhale through your nose and at the same time you're going to press your palms together or against the surface, flexing those muscles with intensity. Then you're going to exhale slowly through your mouth and, at the same time, slowly release the muscle tension or pressure. This is going to bring you back to your body. It's tactile, it's fast, it's vagus, nerve stimulating andsaving in a clinical environment. I use it all the time.

Speaker 1:

The CARE skill is an initial step or part of a two-skill process. You don't always have to use two skills, but it's step one of that dual approach. Care stands for checking in, acknowledging, reminding yourself that you're safe and then executing the next thing on your list that you can control. This is a mental triage tool when, let's say, your shift is spiraling and you're swallowing your own pain to stay functional, or you're in personal life situations where you're feeling wildly unbalanced or overwhelmed or stuck in freeze, stuck in freeze. This care skill can be implemented anywhere, anytime, and it is a great mental skill and exercise to really get into muscle memory as a way to build that emotional intelligence and self-awareness that allows you to debrief effectively and functionally the next part of this, the trauma aspect of this. This is for after the shift, this is for after the moment, the experience. This is an extension of the care scale.

Speaker 1:

Experience. This is an extension of the care scale. You're going to tell the story. You're going to physically reset, if you need to, as many times as you need to. While you debrief and tell and relate that story, you're going to acknowledge your role. You're going to uncover your needs in the moment. You're going to make meaning out of what you experienced and then activate healing by setting a tangible goal or giving yourself permission to feel or release what you need to. Then you utilize the care skill right on the heels of that, and this can be done in as many segments or parts as you need to. Sometimes the trauma is big enough that we have to do it in bite-sized pieces. Other times, just simply moving through the acronym is enough to process it and physically release the emotions and the physical response associated with the event that happened. So the whole purpose of this skill set, the combined skill set, allows us to reprogram in a debriefing pattern the physical and emotional responses to both the context, the psychological stimulation, the emotional stimulation of the event that happened.

Speaker 1:

The next thing is the list. This saved my life. This is not an exaggeration. It's a modern, modified Eisenhower matrix that I created yes, next pass and goodbye. As an ADHDer and a neurodivergent dealing with overwhelming amounts of stress, I needed a type of Eisenhower matrix that actually prompted my step action. So yes is 24 hours, next is 48 to 72 hours. Pass, delegate it and goodbye is releasing it. It's how I survived nursing school, divorce, single parenting, the pandemic grad school, sustaining community organizations and businesses simultaneously while working full-time, and now the final stretch of two terminal degrees, while still working full-time and still sustaining community organization and business. The system doesn't just organize tasks. It saves energy, time and actual sanity by literally lowering cognitive load and decreasing stress. You can find this tool on our website if you don't already have your free copies.

Speaker 1:

I've also made about 30 other designed versions with the coolest fun patterns. It's incredible, and every single one of them I hand designed myself from scratch and put them in two different notepad size formats. I'm also working on a magnetic version and I've created PDF versions of every single pattern for all of my digital note-taking besties out there that are like me. I go everywhere with my iPad pro and pencil keeps the paper clutter down. As a ADHD neurodivergent, I'm the type that the less clutter I have, the less air quotes, alarm fatigue that I have for all the sticky notes and papers. So the paper version works like amazingly by your bedside because it's not a digital device, so you won't doom scroll, you won't pick it up and get distracted by notifications that then lead you to doom scrolling. The paper version, I mean including the aesthetic and some of them being absolutely stunning, some of them being super fun, some of them being snarky and some of them being absolutely beautiful and minimalist. But the paper version keeps you grounded. It's perfect for the bedside, it's perfect for right next to your coffee pot, your tea kettle, whatever it may be. Wherever you craft that initial or closing, you know five to 10 minutes of ritual space for yourself. You, it's not a digital device, it's just paper, so you can put pen to paper and then you can set it down and it serves its perfect function in that regard, and the digital version is perfect for those of us that do digital planning and need that list on hand to create our reminders by, to fill in our calendars, by to do our digital planning by. It works perfectly.

Speaker 1:

The last one that seemed to get a lot of traction as a core skill is step. Step stands for stop, take a breath, evaluate your next move and proceed. And by evaluating your next move, this is very um critical and time intensive. Your next move is the very next thing that you can accomplish, that you have control over and that you can actually perform. This is perfect for decision paralysis, functional freeze, emotional freeze, fight or flight response. You don't have to do it all, you just have to take one small step. So these are just some of the rituals that we've crafted over this past season. It's some of the tools that we carry that we've learned.

Speaker 1:

Now I really want to tell you why this work is so meaningful to me. I know early on in the season, you know I discussed some of this and in a few podcast episodes throughout the season I've referred to it and kind of, you know, done a little bit deeper dives on it, but I started researching nurse mental health in 2020 during a grad semester. While finishing a grad semester, while also commuting almost 300 miles a week to work as a frontline COVID nurse, started this in January of 2020 and began commuting right at the end of February. I was trying to survive, but also trying to make sense of the horror show that nursing had become Medicine was unrecognizable. We were trying to save lives in a surreal hellscape and a lot of us didn't make it. Not just patients, but us Nurses became the walking dead and somehow we just kept going. I turned to research. Thousands of nurses, thousands and thousands of nurses answered my survey and over 70% of them described themselves as the walking wounded Moral injury, physical trauma, suicidality. When I opened those survey results, I cried. It changed everything. Results I cried. It changed everything. I knew in that moment that nurses were my patient population. It changed my life.

Speaker 1:

I've spent the last five years in this work researching, healing, building and crafting tools. I've almost finished with my family nurse practitioner and my doctorate of nursing practice. The culmination of my research project focused specifically on nursing mental health and resilience is nearing and I've never been clearer. I've spent so much time in training, in academia, in examining theory after theory, both in psychology, in nursing, even sociology, and crafting them, these tools, these learned lessons, from a nursing perspective in our nursing context, which is inherently and significantly different than the contextual spaces of so many others.

Speaker 1:

Nursing mental health, I've noticed, however, has also become a trend, a marketable hashtag, and yet most of the air quotes, solutions, are just lip service. They're fucking buzzwords in a corporate boardroom trying to hoodwink nurses into staying in toxic sludge by not actually telling them anything useful. No one is actually teaching. No one's certainly teaching what I'm teaching. First of all, because I created everything myself after years of studying these theories, getting degrees, accumulating training, revising, revisiting situations among nursing and nursing context, with these new perspectives, as I learned them, as I tested them, as I researched them and then turned the nursing lens and nursing perspective on these things, but from a standpoint of being real, not just buzzword after buzzword like some craptastic LinkedIn newsfeed. It absolutely drives me nuts.

Speaker 1:

Secondly, it's because my goal is to put you first, us first, not the profession, not the patient, and certainly not the system, not the system, you, us first. No one was showing us how to actually heal, and I decided that I'm here to end that. Like I said, I'm not here to make the system prettier. I'm not here to package it better. I'm not here to put blinders on nurses. I am here to keep us alive in such a manner that how we move through this system, away from this system or into this system, changes it fundamentally forever. I'm going to teach nurses how to put themselves first period, not to be selfish, because that isn't selfish, but because if we don't, we won't be here and without us, the whole damn system collapses.

Speaker 1:

All right, best. We're at the midpoint. Breathe, stretch, sip your water, shake it out. You know what to do. It's dance break. New day begins. I feel cold and heartless. I've run myself in Like the distant star. Have you traveled far? I miss you in my arms. You're like my lucky charm. Are you happy? You're not loved.

Speaker 1:

So what's next? Well, season two is coming in hot More skills, more shadow work, more healing and definitely more of the real. We have amazing guests lined up from nurses and therapists, healers, professionals doing things that we didn't know nursing and health professions could do. New skills are coming as we move towards the launch of the RISE curriculum resilience, insight, strength and empowerment. And by curriculum I mean organization, vetted standards, meeting quality and science based curriculum, not some MLM, ish resale coaching package, rehashed Instagram top 20 list or watered down feel good mantras. As a highly educated nurse, educator and executive, I mean actual curriculum, like actual training and protocols. Fun note that doesn't sound like any of those heavy duty, serious voices. Like any of those heavy duty, serious voices. A fun note new merch is here, hand created and crafted by me.

Speaker 1:

I needed a mental hiatus and kind of rejuvenating mental space myself over the past few weeks as I am ramping up completion of these degrees and ramping up completion of my research project. So I allowed myself to get back into that creative, artsy space that I love so much. And these are beautiful, sassy, colorfully vibrant, waterproof and oh so perfect for our collective. A sticker collection. And if you send me your story and share your survival experiences or share how the podcast has helped you, I'll send you the entire sticker pack for free. Also, you can DM your address or ask for a secret code to grab one from the website, shipping on me, just depending on which method you're comfortable with.

Speaker 1:

And I'm doing this because I want to celebrate you, because I want to hear from you and connect with you. I want to showcase you and also the thought of these amazing stickers making their rounds on the water bottles of the warriors that are just waging their way through this system. It just fills me with so much glee I can't. Even so, I definitely want to get these packs out to you guys. You will absolutely love them. They're waterproof, they're badass. Built for all of us nurses who need a little sticker therapy on our shift bottles, for all of the inside voices that we wish could be really big outside voices sometimes. So, trust me, they're classy, they're beautiful. Some of them are definitely quite sassy it would not be the ritual nurse if they weren't. And for those who want more than that, even who want more than the podcast, the ritual nurse collective is coming.

Speaker 1:

We're talking private space, deep dives into all of our favorites skill building, ritual building, community, real, face-to-face shared space, crafted and significant moments. This is not general public accessible and it never will be. The real ones will know it is meant for them and I'll meet you there. All right, let's close with our favorite segment, one last time as we end season one Coffee, crystals and divination. I'll be pulling a divination card live, as usual. This week, I'll put it on TikTok and our reels, and this time it's going to be a traditional three card spread for usual. This week, I'll put it on TikTok and our reels and this time it's going to be a traditional three card spread for the first time. Let me grab the cards. As you know, we're using our Moonstruck Crystals for both our tarot the Crystal Struck Tarot and our Crystal Portal Oracle for when we do our incredible crystal prescription.

Speaker 1:

But this season deserves a reflection and a transition into the next. So let's get to shuffling. And I almost I literally just told you that I was going to record it and then almost completely forgot to turn on the recording. So hold please while I keep my word and set it up here, okay, so? So let's do this. So we're going to do a three card spread and go over what the message is, both about the first season, our takeaway, our incredible transition into the next season. Oh, what do you know? And three of them flipped right out Unbelievable, all right. So, and of course, I set my recording up on the book that I needed. Sorry about the mic noise there, okay.

Speaker 1:

So, first one that we pulled oh, this is. This is really giving me the emotional bracketing around some pretty significant, uh, financial and growth. Oh, this is, this is going to be. Hmm. Okay, our first one is the three of cups and it's turquoise friendship celebration joy. Turquoise signifies communication, friendship and strength. It's exactly the foundation of what we've built over this past first season. Celebrate good times, come on. Hmm, I have a really interesting story for the collective about that first sentence. When this card appears, take this as a sign of encouragement to spend some quality time and celebrate with your close friends and family, to lift your spirit. This entire first season has really been us building that collective and that connection and community, and so I can't think of anything more apropos than celebrating it.

Speaker 1:

The next one is the nine of pentacles, and when I read um, I do so intuitively, of course, but I think it's really important to always include the artwork and the message that the tarot cards were crafted and created with, because it is part of it is part of them as a tool. So the next one is the nine of pentacles and bumblebee jasper. The nine of pentacles signifies financial independence, comfort, gratitude. The bumblebee jasper is celebration, positive attitude and abundance. Treat yourself. You worked so hard to create all of this abundance in your life. Literally, is that not perfect for where we've arrived at at the end of this first season? So don't be afraid to splurge and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Celebrate your achievements. You deserve it, you do. You've put yourself first. You've done so much incredible deep shadow work and some of this is really hard. You deserve to celebrate those wins.

Speaker 1:

All right, our third in the spread. We're heading back to cups, and it's the 10 of cups and spirit courts and, as we look towards season two, this is incredible. The 10 of cups is happiness, relationships and reunion. Spirit courts is unity, harmony and spiritual growth. Life is good. The 10 of cups embodies joy and harmony, especially in domestic and family relationships. Take a moment to appreciate and share the love with those that are close to you. Collective we are so. We are so coming back to it, growing and getting stronger.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to definitely show the beautiful cards of our three card spread and now we are on to our crystal of the week. While I'm shuffling that, I'm going to talk about our coffee and it's our aesthetic. I mean, really it's got to be something bold, something unbothered and it's something that you want to take your time making. I'm just trying to make sure that all the cards here are facing the right way. We're also going to pull a legendary three card spread here as well and get a really powerful crystal excuse me trio prescription to just light everything up. Well, that one came out. And when it comes to our coffee, I think it's really important to highlight, at the end of the season, the whole meaning and significance behind this part of the segment. Yes, it's tongue in cheek, it's fun. I love the whole. You know crafting, special drinks and special treats.

Speaker 1:

This one looks like it's ready to come out, but honestly, it's about creating space. It's about giving you a focal point to create space around, because oftentimes we neglect ourselves, because we don't allow ourselves to become a focal point, and so if we take a habitual action like creating a drink, we enjoy crafting space around a time frame to enjoy that drink. Whether it's hydration, whether it's coffee, tea, a sweet treat, our favorite fizzy water, whatever it is, doesn't matter. We are creating and crafting space. I thought that one was jumping out for a second, but it's not. We're waiting for one more card, but we're creating and crafting space. That is intentional, and so the purpose of this is to give you guys kind of. You know, it's like writing prompts, but this is ritual prompts, this is you space prompts in giving you ideas and hints and fun things to focus on as you create that focal point. But every single podcast that we go over we're reminding you that. Oh, and there's the last one, we're reminding you that you're worth creating a focal point, you are worth being a focal point. And that habitual act of creating that drink, that space, that time is really important. Okay, these are so beautiful and I really have to laugh.

Speaker 1:

The first one is focus and it's fluorite. Now, those of you that know me know I am a fluorite queen. We are not going to talk about the sheer amount of fluorite that I have in my home. I collected the ones that are beautiful. Ocean colors, again, those of you that know me are kind of snickering right now because mermaid um, my Jeep is a mermaid. I'm actually even wearing fluorite right now. Of course I am Um, but fluorite is very. I gravitate towards it. I gravitate towards it like a siren would gravitate towards the ocean.

Speaker 1:

Um, and fluorite as a focus, a signifying focus, is for mental clarity, intellect and concentration. Snap out of that daydream, honey, because the focus card is here to whip your scattered mind into shape. Time to clear out the brain fog and ditch the endless doom scrolling and zoom in on what truly matters. No distractions allowed. This is your moment to put your head down and focus on what you know you should be doing right now. This card has got to be like the singular focus of the entire first season as I drop it on the camera, the entire first season of the ritual nurse podcast like this. This paragraph that I just read just summarized the entire episode into one brief, sassy moment of me yelling at you, epic.

Speaker 1:

The next one is radiance and it's an agate. So let's see here. This is absolutely gorgeous. It's almost kind of like a slice of agate. This signifies confidence, courage and grounding. The radiant energy of agate and the empowering warmth of the sun symbolize a profound moment of self-discovery and confidence. This card signifies a transformative journey towards embracing your inner radiance and finding the courage to shine brightly. Just as agate brings grounding and stability, allowing you to find balance and harmony within, the sun's light illuminates the path to self-assurance and belief in your own abilities. Welcome this moment of radiance. Trust in your inner strength and step into the light with confidence and grace, knowing that you are supported by the universe on your journey towards fulfillment, that you are supported by the universe on your journey towards fulfillment. This card perfectly encapsulates this transition moment of us stepping from the season one into season two and kind of where we stand in this moment. Absolutely perfect and again, I'm so glad I did this on camera.

Speaker 1:

The last one is exploration. It's serpentine. Oftentimes, whenever we are rock shopping which we're not going to discuss how often that happens, but when we're rock shopping I see these serpentine stones and they're usually formed in like eggs and sometimes towers, but they always remind me of dragon eggs. Um, so let's discover what this has to say. I don't think we've pulled this before. So exploration, serpentine, new beginnings, resilience and independence. I'm showing the camera because I this. I'm so glad that I did this on camera. It couldn't be more perfect.

Speaker 1:

Pack your bags and get ready for the adventure of a lifetime. This card invites you to scale new heights with a spirit of independence, curiosity and resilience. Because of its deep connection to the earth, serpentine enhances your bond with the energy of nature that surrounds you. So bring your sense of adventure, explore your surroundings, open your heart to new opportunities and navigate life's twists and turns with determination, much like conquering a grand mountain mountain. Well, that is an epic crystal prescription on the heels of an incredible three card layout. Um, he couldn't be more perfect. I absolutely love it. So let this be a reminder You've never been broken. You've just been buried under a lot of stuff and, bestie, you are rising.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for being a part of season one. If this podcast held, you, healed you made you laugh, made you cry, please leave a review. We are million strong and every time you share it, we reach another one, we save another one, we elevate higher. Tell every single nurse you know love. Tell every single responder, first responder, healthcare provider and healer Our healing applies to their struggles as well, for we share a lot of these burdens together in so many ways. Their struggles as well, for we share a lot of these burdens together in so many ways.

Speaker 1:

Follow the code team on an Instagram, the ritual nurse on Tik TOK. Share your stories, dm me your wins, dm me your struggles. I'm here, I see you and I'm listening to you. And remember season two is coming and you're not just a listener, you're actually a part of all this. Until then, love your faces, craft your spaces and put yourself first. 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.