Empowered Ease
Welcome to Empowered Ease, hosted by Jenn Ohlinger—a holistic coach, founder of The Moonflower Collective, and critical care nurse dedicated to revolutionizing women's health. Join us each week as we delve into the transformative stories of healers, health practitioners, and everyday women like you, challenging the patriarchal framework through empowerment and holistic healing. Through engaging storytelling, our podcast highlights each woman's unique journey toward embracing their feminine gifts, trusting their body, and prioritizing their mind, body, and soul. Discover how by empowering ourselves, we can pave the way for stronger relationships and a more balanced world.
Empowered Ease
Amanda Farq Healing the Healer: Somatic Practices for Burnt-Out Nurses
Hi!! I would love to hear from you!
The hidden cost of caring for others often manifests in our bodies, and no one understands this better than nurses. In my raw and illuminating conversation, Amanda Farq—registered nurse, wellness warrior, and nervous system educator—she reveals how years of nursing led her down a path of chronic illness that conventional medicine couldn't fully address.
Amanda shares her personal journey through endometriosis, the devastating loss of her child at 24 weeks, and eventually ulcerative colitis following intense workplace stress and grief. While talk therapy provided some relief, it wasn't until she rediscovered somatic practices that true healing began. "We hold trauma in our body," Amanda explains. "Our body remembers what we go through, and sometimes we need to let our body release that trauma in ways that are more intuitive."
Our conversation dives deep into how nurses—conditioned to believe that extraordinary stress is simply "part of the job"—often ignore their body's warning signals until serious health issues emerge. Amanda describes how simple 15-minute daily somatic exercises can help regulate the nervous system, release tension from specific areas like the psoas muscle, and ultimately prevent burnout. She's now created specialized programs for nurses that even offer continuing education units (CEUs), making healing more accessible to a profession notorious for putting others first.
What makes this episode particularly powerful is the practical wisdom shared about establishing boundaries in high-pressure medical environments. We discuss how detachment (not from compassion, but from outcomes beyond your control) becomes essential for longevity in healthcare. We explore the flexibility nursing offers—from per diem work to travel contracts—as pathways to prevent burnout while staying connected to the profession they love.
Whether you're in healthcare or any helping profession, this conversation offers a roadmap to recognizing when your body is speaking to you—and the somatic tools to finally listen. Follow Amanda @zen.nurse on Instagram to learn more about her workshops and upcoming 30-day course specifically designed for healthcare providers.
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Hello and welcome to Empowered Ease. Our guest today is Amanda Fark. She is a registered nurse, a wellness warrior and a nervous system educator. Welcome, amanda.
Speaker 2:Hello, thanks for having me on today.
Speaker 1:I'm so happy you're here. So tell me a little bit about what a registered nurse, wellness warrior and nervous system educator is um, so it's just kind of a broad title I use.
Speaker 2:I'm a registered nurse, um by profession. So I've been a registered nurse for about nine years working in various fields from medical, surgical, rural, emerge, my deep travel nursing around Canada and um and I've, before I became a registered nurse, I was really into like holistic healing. I was really into. You know, I wanted to become a yoga instructor when I was younger and then I became a nurse and a lot of that kind of fell by the wayside, as as it does when you do four years of university and you start this career and that becomes kind of what your your main focus is.
Speaker 2:And then through being a nurse and through my own health issues and my own traumas and seeing that of my friends and coworkers, I kind of went back to my roots of like. Remember when my younger self wanted to be a yoga instructor and so two years ago I became a yoga instructor, which was super exciting and fulfilled that dream. Years ago I became a yoga instructor, which was super exciting and fulfilled that dream. And then through some of my own yeah, just things that I was going through in my life, I was trying a lot of different things to help myself heal and nothing was really hitting the mark until I started diving into somatic work, somatic exercises and nervous system regulation and I'm like, wow, this is, this is really, this is really doing it for me and it was getting healing pieces and bringing up pieces that were so deep down I barely knew they still existed but they were adding to a lot of my chronic health challenges that I was having. There's kind of a long answer about that.
Speaker 1:that big title there, yeah, I can't wait to dig in and learn more. I have some parallels in my story, but first of all I did not know you were in Canada, which I'm so excited about. Where are you in Canada?
Speaker 2:I'm in British Columbia.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I just did. I don't know if you know her. You probably. I mean, canada is a huge place, right? But her name's Lillian DeFree and she is like a big advocate for nurses in Canada and for nurse burnout, and she's been on the podcast. So we're going to have to the three of us are going to have to talk one day.
Speaker 2:So I'm so excited about that Okay.
Speaker 1:So first of all, I love that like I parallel you in that, like when I started nursing school, I was really into holistic health and I wanted to like the trauma aspect. The acute care medicine is why I went into it, cause I was like I can do both. I was in a yoga teacher program while I went to, but I dropped it. I couldn't. I couldn't do both. So I went away, got totally burnt out, had a bunch of physical problems and then found a coaching program.
Speaker 1:Well, I was always doing yoga and mindfulness on my own, but really getting really burnt out is what made me jumpstart back into like, hey, that was the healthiest I was in my life, that was the best I felt mentally. And I also love that you were touching on like nervous system, because I think for nurses especially nurses working bedside right now, like nervous system dysregulation, just alone with the environment, taking all the other factors that definitely contribute out the environment alone, is so difficult on your nervous system. So I cannot wait to hear more about this. Tell me a little bit about well, I guess your your story. Like what kind of health struggles were you going through?
Speaker 2:There's been a lot down the line which is weird. Weird to admit, because I feel like I'm a very healthy person. I can relate, yeah, yeah, and I feel, you know, like, even though I wasn't doing I wasn't a yoga instructor I was still. I was always doing yoga, I always had a yoga practice. I was always like trying to be physically active. I live an active lifestyle, you know.
Speaker 2:But then, you know, in nursing school I got diagnosed with endometriosis, sciatica, like all this stuff that I now know is like stagnation of sitting and learning and stress. You know it's like all these health issues I feel for myself and for a lot of people can be stemmed back to stress. You know, it's like a stress response in the body that we've ignored that all of a sudden is a big catalyst. Um, so there was that, that happened. Um, and then I, between my children, I had a baby at at 24 weeks and he didn't. He didn't survive, unfortunately, which was pretty devastating, and just going through the healing process of that really, really got me into the nervous system work because, you know, I was, I was running, I was doing all the things I was supposed to do and I was doing talk therapy and like I feel like I was better, but I was still like holding this extra weight, my, I had this huge. Like you know, my posture was bad and then I got into this kind of stuff and it's like, oh, this stuff is, this is deep, this is really deep to heal from this. Um, yeah, when I start talking about the health challenges I have, I am just shaking my head because I'm like as if, as a healthy person, I feel this.
Speaker 2:And then three years ago, I went through a lot of stress and got displaced from my job and I lost my best friend to cancer and two months later I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. I had like all these symptoms of just like bleeding and couldn't eat and bloated, and all this is just horrible and I'm like, ok, something needs to change here. Like this is this is stress. You know, like all the other things, I'm like, okay, something needs to change here. Like this is this is stress. You know, like all the other things I talked about, like you know, I healed myself from the sciatica and endometriosis. You know, like, by relieving stress in my life. Like you know, like with doing all the yoga and doing this and like, or you know nursing school is done, so it's like, okay, that's that stress is over and I'm not being stagnant, so it moves on.
Speaker 2:And then with the ulcerative colitis it's been a lot more healing and getting to the root of it and the somatic exercises is really what has helped me with that is just. I tried the talk therapy and that was good. But it's just like I mentioned before, it just sits so deep. And the thing with trauma and tension that sometimes we forget or it's not on our radar is we hold that in our body, like our body remembers what we go through. So some like we can think that we've talked it through and we need all these modalities right to help us heal. But it's like sometimes that's just not enough. We need to listen to our body and we need to let our body release that trauma and tension in ways that are more intuitive. So our culture has really stopped us from releasing tension and trauma through like shaking and crying and all these ways. And that's where somatic exercises come in. They're gentle movements that help you guide these tension releases through your body.
Speaker 1:I love that. My I recently working with like a trauma therapist and she met, said something to me that resonated that I've thought of while you were talking, and it was like you know, sometimes there are things that happen that you don't have words for like, or even they happen to you at an age where you don't have words yet, but, or when you get older, you just it's just, it's just not words. That's what happened, and so you can't like talk that out, that's not like. You know, cause talk there. It worked for me on some levels. I got great tips, but I didn't heal and, um, I thought that for me that was just such a powerful thought Cause I thought, oh yeah, it didn't occur to me before, but that's so true. Things happen before we have words to put to them, and then also things happen so complicated and complex and like duality is present and we don't have words to give them. So the only thing we can do is reprogram our nervous systems response to it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely and let ourself move through that trauma response in like a safe and trusting way. You know, like so the trauma response to be finished. You need to have that trauma response. You need, like trembling or yawning, crying, deep breathing, like the animalistic way, like we see this in animals, right, like animals will shake after they're scared. You know you might see your dog do it with thunder or fireworks they shake and this is them releasing that trauma response. And us, as humans, we've been conditioned in our culture that something traumatic happens You're not just going to, you know, shake like you might if something's big and then maybe that person is probably going to work through it a lot quicker. But a lot of times we kind of, okay, suck it up, grin, bear it, nope, I'm all good kind of okay, suck it up grin, bear it, nope, I'm all good moving.
Speaker 2:Put it in that little closet, put it away I'll deal with this later or? Or we've also been conditioned to think like this isn't a big deal, what I'm going through is not a big deal, where it is like your body is going to hold that unless you give it space and time to move through it and process it physically.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah, it's powerful, it's very powerful. So tell me, like when you, I saw you specifically work with nurses, which I know we mentioned a little bit before this. But nurses is a hard population to work with because sometimes we're not the first to jump to help ourselves.
Speaker 2:We're usually not the first to jump to help ourselves, but I feel like there's a shift happening. I feel like there's a shift in nurses realizing what we do go through. And again, that's a, it's a cultural perception within the nursing culture that what we go through is normal, that everything we deal with on a daily basis is normal. You know, like hearing call bells for 12 hours is normal, de dealing with a patient code and then packing that up and moving to the next room is normal, like we, we just have a totally messed up way of thinking of what normal is. Um, so, because it's not, you know, and and sometimes I think nurses will realize that if they're, you know, talking, maybe to their partner about something, and then you know, kind of look at you, it's like what like? That's not like, that's not normal, that's not a normal experience. And we go through that every day. You know, we go to work and we go through that and we're seeing a lot of nurses acknowledge that they're burnt out. You know, having that pre-shift anxiety, post-shift anxiety, but maybe not quite knowing what to do with it. So I just that's why I really wanted to focus in on nurses.
Speaker 2:Like, as a nurse, I see it and I see it, you know, on the job, and then I see it also in the chronic health challenges that the nursing population has. You know, like the nurses, that it's like, oh, they always have a sore back, oh, their shoulders are always so, or I've got this really weird leg thing going on. I don't know what it's from and it's like or digestive issues, or like menstrual issues, like all these issues that nurses are having that probably can be related back to chronic stress and the tensions and traumas that we hold from our job and then from, like, the periphery of our life, because nursing is also a very triggering, it's a very triggering profession. You know, like when I went through the loss of my son, it's like, and then I had some time off work, but then I go back to the hospital and it's like this is where this happened and this is just so.
Speaker 2:It's a lot right, it's a lot. So when people are dealing with whether they're dealing with a loss of a friend, a parent, a grandparent, it's like or their own, their own traumas, or their children, it's like then you're going to go back and usually work in that exact same hospital like it is. It's, it's a total. Yeah, mind fuck, I'd call it.
Speaker 1:I don't know sorry if I'm allowed.
Speaker 2:No, it is, it is it's hard because now you're carrying your own weight and your own trauma while trying to look after everybody else and hold it together. And so much in nursing is like we're trying to hold it together. We deal and a lot of times we deal with that by like dark humor and like the weird sense of humor we have as nurses, which is fine Like I'm here for that If you also have coping, healthy coping strategies.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, that's so intense and it's something like if you don't like I. Personally, one of my big struggles was finding a community of people that understood cause I don't have healthcare in my family and so to come home and talk to people they're just like they didn't get it at all. So it's so important to like work with someone like you who, like you, know exactly what the struggles are and how difficult it can be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's why it's important too for a nurse to be doing this work. You know, like nurses, helping nurses, I think, is really important because as much as other health modalities and other healthcare practitioners, they'll know that nursing is hard for sure. But just to know that struggle of being deep in it for 12 hours and it's, it's a lot, it is a lot, it is a lot.
Speaker 1:And I don't know about Canada, because I feel like, overall, you're probably I'm probably going to get people to hate on me, but you guys are overall you have a healthier population than we do.
Speaker 1:But from working in all over the United States and all kinds of ICUs and on being floated as a travel nurse to every floor as well, illnesses and mental health are tied together and I would say that maybe mental health wasn't the root of it for a lot of people, for some people, I would say it definitely is, and I would say that the mental health aspect is definitely what makes a lot of it worse. And for me, that was the like whatever you call it, like your rock bottom or whatever. The moment that I thought like my health issues that I was having were, like you know, a lot of cardiac issues. What made me think like if I don't do something about it, I'm going to end up one of these patients. To me, that was like worst case scenario ever. That was enough to like shake me out of it, like I'm not gonna end in my life in this like work that I do every day.
Speaker 1:So such powerful, powerful stuff.
Speaker 2:And it is. It's like you can see, and with the, the alternative colitis, for me it was I I'm not going to say it's the biggest thing, but that would be the biggest chronic health issue because it's like it's really big and it has the ability to progress. So, same as you're talking with your cardiac stuff, it's like I'm like if I don't change something and if I don't get ahead of this, I'm already behind it. If I don't get ahead of this, I am gonna end up in the hospital. I'm gonna end up and that's not where I'm gonna be, like you know. And then that's another thing that the disconnect with um health care and the medical world is that I remember after I got my um colon, because this is the other thing with nurses I'm going to circle back to this because how you're talking about how nurses ignore their health. So I was having.
Speaker 2:I was having all these issues with my bowels and I was too much information here, but like I was bleeding, every time I went to the bathroom I was bloated, like it was just. It was awful. But you know, when I went to the doctor because I hurt my knees two months earlier, so I went to, I was making work hard, yeah, like.
Speaker 2:I was. I was my knees were really sore because I had a skiing accident with my daughter and I was like I think I need like just wondering what I'm doing. There's this other thing that I just want to mention, just to see if you think it's a big deal or not. And he's like Amanda, like, like what, like what are you talking about? Like yeah, and he was, he was pretty pissed at me and I hadn't told anybody, anybody about these symptoms. My husband was mad at me because it was like immediate blood work, in for a CT and in front of a colonoscopy within like the week. You know it was and I was like, wow, okay, yeah, I was ignoring my own health and uh, yeah, and that's what we do as nurses.
Speaker 2:I think we do that as as a lot of people, but anyway, but um, moms, yeah and then circling back to after my colonoscopy, I said something to the doctor in my in my uh haze there I was like, okay, like just diet stress, I can go through a lot. And he's like nope, nothing to do with that, nothing to do with stress. Here's your prescription, it's like.
Speaker 2:So when I came out of it, you know I was kind of like is, like directly related to stress yeah, and I'm like okay, so I'm gonna have to take matters into my own hands here, and it was hard and it's been hard, you know. It's like how can I release the stress that I was going through? But you know, that was um three years ago now and I'm I mean they'd say I'm in remission, but it's like I feel like I've healed, healed myself from it and but it's just crazy that disconnect of like no, this has nothing to do with stress, this has nothing to do with your lifestyle. It's like everything has to do with this. Like how can we be telling patients this, you know? Like how can we be like spreading this myth that it's not all connected, like that nothing is connected. It's like it is all connected and we need to work together, like because I'm so happy that I got those diagnostics to know like, okay, this is what we're dealing with.
Speaker 1:This can help lead me on, like my healing journey a bit more, but like and there's resources available that for you to dive into your own house, since no one and the system wanted to educate you about it Totally so.
Speaker 2:it's like, you know, but it'd be just be so nice if, like the interconnectedness of like allopathic medicine and complementary medicine would be like, okay, yeah, here's like, here's a prescription to help you get started on your healing and then here's also a bunch of other resources or like um practitioners you should be seeing as well to discuss your stress and you're, you know, like in a perfect world. Here's my perfect, like the two are going to collide and it's right.
Speaker 1:Treat the human like the nursing model is which is why nurses are amazing yeah, I totally agree. It's crazy. Yeah, I I got a lot of medications thrown at me as well and I was like not what I was looking for. Wanted to look on how to make it better, not how to live with it, but thank you.
Speaker 2:Exactly Right. And then it's like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So how do you start with nurses when you like? How do you work with them? How do you help them start to heal?
Speaker 2:So I'm just kind of I'm just kind of bringing up my practice here. So I've gotten all these steps in place and I'm just kind of building it up right now. So I've worked with nurses, like in person, with workshops, and so I brought that workshop online. It's called the Nurses Force Field Workshop. And the great thing about my workshop, too, is you earn two nursing CEUs for it. Um, it's been accredited, uh, through debriefing the front lines, so, um, you can get two nursing CEUs.
Speaker 2:And then the course I'm creating is um, um, the 30 day chronic stress and trauma release course, like specifically for, specifically for nurses. Um, but it would work. I mean, this is going to work for any anybody who's feeling like they need this. But my content is specific to to nurses, even though other people could probably apply it into their other women could probably apply it into their lives. But with this course it's going to be a 30-day course 15 minutes a day of somatic exercises to help work through that trauma intention for nurses.
Speaker 2:So my whole big thing with nurses is I want to make something easy, accessible and simple for them to do. And when I say easy and simple, that term is just so broad at first, because before we've healed from our trauma intention, nothing in healing seems easy, nothing seems simple. It all just seems so like, where do I start? How do I do this? So I want to just package something up nicely for nurses to be like, hey, you get home from your shift or when you get up in the morning, just click this and I will show you 15 minutes maximum 15 minutes what you can do today to regulate your nervous system. So that's going to be my offering that I'm hoping I can bring to fruition by April, and that's actually going to be 10 CEUs for that course as well. So that's something I'm very excited about.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I love that you put the CEU in there. It's so smart of you, too, to get nurses there too yes, like, and that's kind of what you know.
Speaker 2:It's like how do you get nurses who don't want to um, not necessarily don't want to, but maybe feel like they need to do something, but don't really want that push or like, don't want to, like you know, spend their money on that. They'd rather spend their money on this. It's like if you've been thinking about needing a little bit of extra help in regulating your nervous system, a little extra help because you've been overly stressed out, it's like here it is and you get nursing ceus for it, like, so I'm very, very excited about that do you know, are those just canadian ceus?
Speaker 1:are those no?
Speaker 2:no, they're american, so it's really yeah that that is amazing in Canada. We don't necessarily. We need continued education, but not in the same model as the states.
Speaker 1:I was like it's different state to state. Not all states require it, but most do yeah and so um.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I did it through debriefing the front lines. They um she Tara, the CEU, um nurse, she um is getting that accredited. So she's gone through that all and so it's yeah for the US.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I met Amanda because I did one of your videos and wrote you a testimonial.
Speaker 2:And it was I felt very calm afterwards.
Speaker 1:I was, I had put it off and put it off and I was gonna do it and then I finally did it and I was like Whoa, like I feel good and I'm a big like. If you've listened to any of my stuff, I advocate a lot for breath work, cause I do it every single day before I go in the ICU in my car and if I don't do it it's a bad day because I I have mood. Like you know, it's a stressful job that I've done, so I have to regulate how I walk in there every day. Breath works, but a big tool for me because it is a direct acting on your nervous system, your vagus nerve.
Speaker 1:But this is similar and I'm as I'm, so I'm neurodivergent and you know, as I get older and all the perimenopause, like hormones hit me, I get to cover all these great things about myself. But one of the things that I'm learning, which is involved in somatics so much, which is just one of the reasons I'm so interested in, is the balancing of the sides of the brain which somatics does that. It's the tactile and it is balancing. So tell me, tell me a little bit more about that if you can, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like the bilateral simulation. Yeah, so everything you just said, totally the bilateral simulation. It helps like reprogram the brain, it helps you get more in tune with your body to help process those emotions and let them go, and just it's about reprogramming those like neural pathways in the brain and really getting in tune with your body without having to put words on what is actually going on.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. It's so helpful because as nurses, we're big stuffers, right Like we have to be. You could not do your job if you had to feel your feels in the moment every time.
Speaker 1:It just wouldn't work, so we have to be able to push things away. But then taking that back out and unloading that suitcase is not something all of us know how to do. I mean, I remember when I was first a nurse, like I'm a crier now I'll cry at anything, but when I was younger, in my twenties, that was not something. I was not a crier and I would find myself like making myself watch like sad stuff or like because I could feel it, I could feel it building, like I need to cry, I need to like mournn, like kind of grieve, all this crazy, crazy stuff I'm seeing, and so I'd have to trick myself into doing it sometimes.
Speaker 1:Um, so I love that this is just like a gentle way to process as you're going so do you recommend? This is like a daily practice for people.
Speaker 2:I do and and so with the 30 course that I'm creating, it's like it's a lead up and then there's actually a trauma release on the eight, on the 18th, 20th day of the course. So it's like a lot of gentle movement to open up, release tension, open up these pathways so that when the actual trauma release day comes which you would never just throw the videos I share don't share the actual trauma release movements, because they can be really intense if you haven't really gotten your body ready for it. And that's where we really see people doing the shaking like uncontrollably shaking, crying and really working through the emotions. But the somatic movements I do recommend as a daily practice. Like you're saying that you do your breath work before work, I always. But the somatic movements I do recommend as a daily practice. Like you're you're saying that you do your breath work before work, I always do some somatic movements in the, either in the morning before I go or at night when I get home.
Speaker 2:I find them to be really helpful before I try to go into my normal life with my family. I try to set up and you know it doesn't need to be 15 minutes, just something to if you're doing some knee, sways or just some sort of movement that like grounds you into like being here now into your body. A lot of somatics is about noticing how you're feeling without judgment. So you know it's like you're. You can do these movements and you can all of a sudden notice that like, oh yeah, my hips are tight, oh yeah, I get a lot of, I'm getting a lot of tightness in my chest and maybe anxiety or something when I'm doing this. But just like noticing that and breathing and continuing to do these movements can help you kind of work through it and release these things. So, yeah, just noticing your body and trusting your body through the process.
Speaker 1:So you can. These are videos people can do like at home, so they don't do. You work with people one-on-one to where you are Is all of your stuff online.
Speaker 2:All the stuff's online now. I've done a couple of workshops in person, but I've moved to online now just to reach a broader base of people and just to make it more accessible, as I I'm um, so, yeah, most of my stuff's online. So the workshop um the force field workshop is live and in person. So when I do that the workshop, it's an hour and a half of um. I limit it to 10 people so it's pretty intimate group and it's focused on like peer connection with other nurses because, like we talked about before, we really know what each other are going through on like a really deeper level of how crazy the job can be.
Speaker 2:And so we talk about nursing, we talk about um trauma. I tell people the different effects of trauma on the body. We do some somatic exercises and then talk about co-regulation, a lot in that workshop and just how to protect your own energy and try to help that kind of radiate out to the rest of the floor. So that workshop is online, online and live. And then the course that'll hopefully be coming out in April is going to be pace yourself, do at your own pace, pre-recorded so do you have videos or anything on YouTube that if anyone wanted to try it out they could access, or so?
Speaker 2:I just right now have the video that I shared with you and then on my Instagram. Every once in a while I'll, if I I'll post something that says like comment balance and I'll send the video. All my videos on YouTube right now are just link access only, but if you comment on one of those ones that says that, then I'll send you send a link over to you watch them and then on my on my Instagram, which is zennurse, I share a lot of tips on on regulating your nervous system, on doing somatic exercises.
Speaker 2:I do a lot of them at work, when I'm on break. So you know, like stockroom sessions or like stowing away to the bathroom for like two minutes to just do some sort of grounding exercise, whether it's like a butterfly hug, and just like disconnecting from the floor for a minute or two. You know, like the biggest thing I want people to know with the somatic exercises is like, ideally, yes, you're going to be at home in an environment that you find safe, lying down and cozy, but these can also be done anywhere. Like I find myself on my shift, I will even going outside for a walk on my break, you know, instead of sitting doom scrolling, gossiping with everybody else. You know, like all these things like peer connection super important to in a healthy way. But it's also good, like I find, on my breaks at work, to disconnect and give myself some space to to be, you know, and disconnect from the floor.
Speaker 2:So I share a lot of those tips on my on my Instagram, just like what to do when you're at work, like what to do when you're at work, like what to do in a stressful situation, how to decompress when you are kind of like in the heat of it, like obviously you got to finish with your tasks and make sure there's patient safety and everything, but there's still things you can do. If you need to stow away for two minutes on your own, that's going to make you feel better in yourself. We're going to make you a better team member. I'm going to make you a better nurse.
Speaker 1:So I like that about your videos. I noticed that I was like, man, I never even thought about doing that kind of stuff at work, cause you know, I like will stow away and do a little breath work sometimes if I'm having like a oh my God, way too much, and so I'll stow away, do like a little breath work. But the physical movements for me it was something that like I just had a barrier there and I didn't know. Until I saw your videos I was like, oh man, you could totally do like more physical things here. I just never even considered it until I saw your videos. I love that, yeah, okay. Well, let's see here, if people want to get started in somatics, they hear this and they're like I definitely need this. Where would you, uh, recommend they start?
Speaker 1:um, I think I recommend, um, like you mean kind of like what kind of practice they should kind of start with yeah, like, if they're like, this sounds good to me, but I don't know where to where to even go about this like. But I feel like somatics would help me.
Speaker 2:I think on a very basic level, like what I could tell you right now if I was like, if you were to do one thing today that could help you, like start in this somatics healing kind of journey, start noticing what is going on in your body. Start noticing without judgment and listening to your body Cause that's a huge thing is that you know we can do all the healing in the world. We can do all the gross things in the world. We can go to the classes, we can go to the healers. But if we're not listening to our body and knowing and understanding that we can find these tools within ourselves to like heal our body and regulate our nervous system, like within ourselves, then it's all kind of falls by the wayside.
Speaker 2:We need to listen to our bodies, we need to understand that we can trust our bodies to tell us when things are starting to happen before they become these catastrophic health challenges. Right, you know, like um, leading up to some of my things, it's like, yeah, yeah, I was feeling stressed. Yeah, I had knots in my tummy. Yeah, like there was things that could have been done sooner if I had have listened to my body and I think if people wanted to do something today, right now. Tune into your body and take time to listen to your body. I love that.
Speaker 1:I love that Because I always say, like with burnout, a lot of things, it's like one of two things happening. A lot of times. It's like we know what's going on and we're avoiding it. Like we can hear it, but we're like just avoiding it, pushing it away, or we're so disconnected from our bodies that we don't even recognize the signals that it's screaming at us, and so we have to slow down and learn to listen.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And that slow down piece too. You know, it's like noticing how you're moving through life, like if you're moving through life like, oh, got to go, got to rush, hurry up, let's go, let's go, let's go. It's like again, all the amount of nervous system healing isn't going to help if you don't start like doing things at a regular pace, like if you have that sense of urgency and absolutely everything you're doing. That's not good.
Speaker 1:Which is like that's kind of the flow of nursing, though, right, that's like the flow of the job we do. So we get stuck, and I think women in general because we take on a lot of that's, you know, in our personal lives as well as moms and as like this hustle culture that's going around to be everything, do everything all at once there's this habit that we have where I like to think of it as like leaving walking on your tippy toes, like you know, you're just like grasping, we're constantly trying to get somewhere and what we need to do is just like rock back on our heels, settle down for a second and assess where we're at. But we spend so much time in that, trying to get somewhere, achieve something, find like in that reaching place. Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:And even in nursing like, I try to convey this, like I try to be a pillar of like, not necessarily calm, but just like, like on the floor of like. Yes, there is a lot to do. I try not to say too much. I'm like oh, I'm very busy, cause this goes into our nursing.
Speaker 2:Oh, there's so much to do, I'm so busy and it's like I try to tell people, yeah, and we've got 12 hours to do it, and we're one person and I'm going to do my best every time I go to work, but there is only so much I can do safely, you know, and I need to make sure that I'm going about that in a safe way and a calm way, so that I am doing the best that I can, you know, and so I've. I've brought that into my nursing practice with you know, the learning more about somatics and everything in the last couple of years, and that's changed my nursing practice as well and changing how I'm able to like go about the floor. And that's why the workshop has so much end piece about the co-regulation, because I notice it like kind of ripple out like OK, yeah, like yeah, we only can do so much you know, and obviously there is emergencies, and there is things that like yeah, you are moving faster, but you can still only do so much.
Speaker 2:you are moving faster, but you can still only do so much. You can still only do what you're capable of, and and that limiting for nurses because we are our own kind of superheroes and we think we can, can and should do it all. But no, we, we are just one person and can only do what we can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I talk all the time about detachment at work and I think it rubs some of the newer nurses who are like really committed. You know, like really, really wanted to do good the wrong way, which is okay, they'll get it one day. But I'm like you have to to protect yourself. You know you have to ask yourself what do I, what do I can I do right here, do that and then after that you can't do anything else Cause I I get I got caught up in years so much about that, like just the inequality and the injustices that you see in healthcare sometimes, which I found a way to detach from. You know, I do what I can do. I do the best for people I can. I still struggle sometimes getting angry when things happen. That shouldn't you know. It's like.
Speaker 1:Oh it's so angry and that's where I feel like I could definitely be a calmer role model in that way. So I feel like I can you have such a calm presence? I bet working with you you're like people are just feeding but I do get them.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say that I get, I probably don't get angry, but I'm definitely quite assertive and direct as well, which I think people kind of like oh, like you did that in a very like like interesting way, that they, like, you know, the doctor listened there and it's like, yeah, well, it's like I'm still gonna advocate hard. You know, I'm not just gonna let.
Speaker 1:That's part of what can you do.
Speaker 2:That's the part of what you have control over totally, and so it's like no, let's do this and this. And, like you know, even just I remember the other day I said a doctor, okay, well, like they need to know this and that's your job to do, like not mine. And one of the younger nurses was like oh, my God, I'm like, but it's true, and they know that, like it's their job to tell them this new diagnosis, not mine, yeah, yeah, that's not in your scope.
Speaker 1:I love that I that's the thing I think I do really well at as like so, nurses who are listening you will get this so much Anyone that's still bedside but like I've been a nurse 10 years but bedside critical care 10 years and it sounds like you're very, very close, like right in there. And when I started nursing there were still I still worked with nurses that had been nurses like 20 years, 30 years, like that was. They were there, they were in a lot of them, but they were there and like if I had a problem, I mean, you know they had different personalities but I knew who to go to, but I knew who to go to and nowadays there.
Speaker 1:I'm the, I'm the one of the older nurses, I'm one of the people which, to me, is terrifying because there used to be a lot more experience there but boundaries is something that's so lacking and so important. It's okay to say no. If you don't feel comfortable, immediately stop that process and ask questions. If you have a gut feeling, go with it. And you know it's okay to ask more information. Someone's getting defensive with you. You're probably finding a problem. You know like this is okay and I think that we're not trained that way and you go into the world. No one arms you with how to speak up for yourself and stand alone in a world where you're trying to advocate for people and the system will swallow you up sometimes. So it's so important to show people how to say no and how to get things done using keywords that, like people have to listen to. You know what I mean Not like aggressive stance, but serious words, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And then like, yeah, just what you just said resonated so well. Like we're not taught in nursing school. There's such a big piece missing of like. I feel like all this stuff should be taught, like how to protect your own own energy, like boundaries, like all this stuff that we aren't taught. And then you get the new nurses come out and it's like they just want to work and they want to do this and it's like they have such good intentions really, I know, and it's just a recipe kind of for burnout, because then it kind of shows your career that, like um, it does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a projection for your career that you don't say no, you're just saying yes to everything and then and then it just kind of comes this cycle and yeah, and interesting that you say that you're one of the senior nurses now, cause, yeah, when I started it's like nurses that have been there 30 years, like the nurses in their sixties and like 65. And now it's like the older nurses are 50, maybe like 40, like they're all there. Nobody's really been there 25, 30 years and it's like where'd every, where'd everybody?
Speaker 1:go.
Speaker 2:And that's where.
Speaker 1:I learned to stand up for myself. To be honest, I've watched some nurses that I you know. When a nurse has worked there like twice as long as any of the doctors, they just gain some knowledge that you know from experience and don't watch in a situation where everyone's so uncomfortable and I've seen this over the years so many times. Pre COVID stopped what was going on and did the right thing, and it was always someone older who cause the younger people are nowadays don't get me wrong. There's the new generation has some spice and I love that about them Cause they changed this industry for us. And thank you, ladies.
Speaker 1:But before that's like man. Just that's where I learned to do that. It was, that was OK. That's not something that you know how to say no to. And also, they're mostly men who are used to getting what they want, that it is taught in men to be pushy because that's what people do. It's not like a negative intention from them, but we're raised differently and their social skills are usually lacking because they just came out of med school. There's so many factors involved.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of factors involved there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:So it's great that you're out there like being that role model. I love that because you know also, like my plan is to ultimately leave bedside, but there's a part of my heart that hurts a little bit about that because there is not very many people left. Not that there's anything new nurses you guys are awesome, but you need support, you know it needs support and they know that they need support.
Speaker 2:You know and a lot of that shifted in COVID that all of a sudden you're seeing floors being run by all new grads and in charge and they've been on nurse for and travelers, and it's kind of like, oh, this is scary, you know, and I don't know what I think about leaving bedside. I don't, I don't actually think I will leave bedside, like I mean, that's the beauty about nursing is that we can do travel contracts. We can do um, we call it casual in Canada, it's per diem in the states, but it's like we can, you know, do casual like.
Speaker 2:Right now I'm kind of in between. We were in Newfoundland for the summer on a travel contract to travel with my family and then now we're back in BC and I'm working casual again at, like, my local hospital. There's just so many options right like, and that's one thing too that I try to hit home like on um with the whole zen nurse instagram and message to nurses is like if you don't like where you are, you can pause. Like you don't. Just because you went to school, like nursing school, doesn't mean that you are stuck in the same job forever. Like take a per diem job, take a travel job, like mix it up if you're burnt out where you are like half. That is a bureaucratic bullshit. That's going on. That, yes, you cut from maybe could change, but that's exhausting. If you just want to be like going to work, you know it's like you.
Speaker 1:You know one is going to change the system we have right now. From our level, I mean, you can get involved in things that are changing it, but you're not going to change it from work yeah, so it's like you know you're so right, though Nursing is so versatile, you can have any kind of lifestyle. You can do so many kinds of nursing. There's so much education involved in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even just like um, yeah, you can make your own schedule, like with a per diem or casual job. It's like, yeah, I'll work here, yeah, I'll work there, like, and then if you're burnt out with that, you take a 13 week travel contract, take 13 weeks off. You know, it's just like there's just so many options that if you're like, you're not stuck that's what I want nurses to know Right, you're not stuck and nurses have the power. We're smart, we're a smart group of folks, and it's like you can change how you're feeling, you can change your environment and yeah, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:It's so true.
Speaker 1:I love that you want to stay in nursing too, because I don't think I'll stay full-time.
Speaker 1:I I've always thought like, oh, I probably work PRN forever, just cause, like there is just some of the most golden moments I've had with patients, sometimes that like, yeah, you can't put words to how awesome it is to like connect with people like that, like you do in nursing, um, but the work, the work of like the full-time work, is something that my body is just like, not a futuristic thing for me, that's going to work. And I love that viewpoint too, because I think there are a lot of nurses leaving the field or not leaving the field, but leaving for soft skills and leaving the field. But like for me, when I got very burnt out, I thought I was done with nursing and I was leaving nursing forever and I was angry and I was bitter and I was mad at nursing, I was mad at healthcare and then, once I healed, I realized like it was never nursing. Nursing is all like. It is the model I love, I believe in it, I got excited about it for a reason, and there's other ways to do it.
Speaker 1:We're just like in a system that isn't functioning as well as it should be right now.
Speaker 1:So it's just beautiful because it's okay, you can, you might go back to it and once you heal it's not always what you think. That's going on Like I don't approach work the same way I used to. I don't. It doesn't feel like the same job since I've gone back. So I had to take three months off when I got really, really ill and I went. Once I finally got to the point I could go back it. Just I don't feel like the same person there and I like that. I feel much more free, like I don't feel scared to say what I need. I'm not scared of them firing me either. That's a great thing. Traveling is like I can get another job. Then that's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when you move around, you build your skill set up to be such a love. You know what I mean. You see so much, you know so much. It really just helps you grow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, absolutely Totally Like I. When I came back here, I was doing something on the floor and the doctor's like is that, can you do that on the floor or is that critical care? I'm like, no, this is something we can do on the floor. And then the nurses on the floor are like, oh, we haven't really done that. I'm like, okay, Like I know in the policy we can do this on the floor. And I was doing this at a like travel hospital I was at on the floor, like I'm comfortable with this, it's in my scope and it's like you know, so you bring these.
Speaker 1:And you see the way different places do that. I love that. So there's a hospital system I worked for which I quit traveling for a while and became a traveler for this specific system and they were so smart. They use that program because it was like literally to all their hospitals and it's a giant system, but they use that system to make the hospital more cohesive and find issues and what's working well on these units. And they took cause. You had to have quite a bit of experience to be the ICU travel nurses there and once you got that job they sat down with these nurses and they were like what's working, what's not working places? And there was no punitive involved. It was like they were going to make the system better.
Speaker 2:And I was like man.
Speaker 1:That's the best way to do it Cause they're the ones in there finding the mistakes, seeing it. So there's so much, so much in that. Yeah, we're so smart, nurses are so awesome, anyway, well, amanda, I'm so glad you have joined us and sharing all of this with us. I always ask everyone what is your, what is your go-to self-care when, like, things are awful, and you, what is the practice that you go to?
Speaker 2:You can probably guess.
Speaker 1:I can, but I'm like, is it a?
Speaker 2:specific one and I wonder or yeah, somatic exercises, and it honestly just depends how I'm feeling, you know like, if it's like a grief feeling, if it's an anxiety feeling, if it's like a rushy feeling, if I'm just down, like it just depends how I'm feeling If I'll do more rocking movement, if I'll do more flowing movement.
Speaker 1:Um yeah, it just kind of depends, but I love that you said that, because I didn't even know that like. But it makes sense Now that you said that there's probably different movements tied to different emotions.
Speaker 2:So it just depends, like, where you're holding, holding those emotions and tension, like um your psoas muscle, which is like the big muscle that runs um down your back from your T12 to your uh, greater trochanter, and that muscle um cannot be like it's your muscle that it tenses up when you like hit, bin and fight or flight, and it will not release itself unless you do movements to help release it. So if it's been really intense, um, like if I've had those feelings at work, I'll be doing exercises to help release that, which is like a pelvic tilt exercise to help release that muscle. And so the different things like that. You know we hold a lot of trauma in our hips. I'll do more hip circles if I'm feeling like that. They're feeling really tight and I'm holding things there and so, yeah, every different movements can help different things and and also just what what it helps for different people, like I know what movements help me when I'm feeling a certain way.
Speaker 1:So did you know your, your triggers and what boils up for you, which I assume people learn as they start to get into this?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, as you start noticing your body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is hard. I think I've said this on here before but the first time someone asked me, like where do you feel that emotion, I was like looked at them cross-eyed. I'm like what are you? Nobody feels their emotion in there. I'm like what are you Like? I just thought that was so um, what are you talking about? Because I was so like overwhelmed. By now, after working on it for years, I know exactly what they're talking about absolutely, but it sometimes it takes time to get in there.
Speaker 2:Oh, it takes a lot of time. And it takes a lot of time to like take the time to notice your body and notice that, like just noticing will actually help you with with regulating you know, so it all just, yeah, it takes. It takes time when somebody hears about these practices to become open enough to it to be able to try it. Um, you know, like yeah, and just know there is science behind it. There is like studies on holding trauma in the body and how our body does hold that.
Speaker 1:Have you read that book? The body keeps the score.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's been recommended a lot. I love that book. It's a really intense book. I find that book really intense and there's just so many good pieces in it. Another really good one is when the body says no, by Dr Gavramate, and that's about like chronic stress and how we hold it in the body. And yeah, he's an MD in Canada and he has a lot of really great work. But that book really attunes to this kind of work I'm doing and he's curious about it, right, he gets curious about his own habits and how he holds chronic stress and just even like habitual patterns that we have from like childhood and what we do. And it's all just so interesting learning all this stuff so cool.
Speaker 1:Well, amanda, is what is the Zen nurse on Instagram? Just Zen nurse, right? Zen dot nurse. Zen dot nurse on Instagram. Where else can we find you?
Speaker 2:That's the best place to find me right now is just on the Instagram channel, and then I do have the link in my bio is to sign up for my and become an email subscriber, and email subscribers are the first to hear about workshops. They'll be the first to hear about the course drop with a little discount code in there. So I do have another workshop that I'm planning for march that I'm gonna announce to my subscribers tonight or not tonight because this is march 17th but but that's the best place. Um, yeah, so the best place to hear about all that is to, uh, sign up as an email subscriber awesome, yeah well, thank you so much I thank you so much for having me you're welcome, okay, bye.
