118: Holistic Nurse Wellbeing with Ana Vavrek
Holistic Nurse Wellbeing with Ana Vavrek
In this episode, I had the privilege of interviewing Ana Vavrek, a passionate Registered Nurse, Holistic Wellbeing Coach, and the visionary behind the Huddle Nurse Network. Ana shared her personal experience with burnout and how it sparked a transformative journey towards holistic wellbeing and self-discovery. Through her coaching and workshops, Ana empowers nurses to navigate burnout, find balance, and thrive in their profession.
Ana delves into her nursing career, providing valuable insights into the challenges and rewards of being a nurse. With her wealth of experience, she offers practical advice and guidance to fellow healthcare professionals. She also describes her work in primary healthcare, highlighting the importance of nurturing children's well-being and building trusting relationships.
We also explored the concept of burnout as a catalyst for personal growth and spiritual awakening. She encourages listeners to see burnout as an opportunity for positive change and a chance to realign with one's values and purpose.
Join us in this inspiring podcast episode as Ana Vavrek takes us on a journey from burnout to success. Her wisdom and guidance provide nurses and healthcare professionals with the tools they need to avoid burnout, foster holistic wellbeing, and create fulfilling careers.
Key takeaways:
03:00 - Know more about Ana Vavrek’s nursing career
09:11 - Valuable advice from an Experienced and Inspiring Individual
10:54 - From Unexpected Beginnings to Fulfilling Pathways
13:41 - A Day in a Life in Primary Healthcare
17:31 - Nurturing Children's Wellbeing and Building Trust
19:14 - Embracing the Gifts of Burnout
22:49 - The Path to Self-Awareness and Growth
39:24 - Unveiling the Path to Holistic Wellbeing
46:55 - How to connect with Ana Vavrek
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**This transcript was automatically generated using Descript.**
Liam Caswell: [00:00:00] Don't beat yourself up about not being able to get this right or feel like you're not getting it right. Because if you've started to do it and you know, that's why guided mindfulness meditations are brilliant you're listening to someone's voice guiding you through what to do. so if you feel like you're not doing it right, you are. It's your journey. Show yourself some kindness, because your journey is different to someone else's. So this is not the be all and end all, your journey will be different to mine.
Hello and welcome back to the High Performance R Podcast. I'm so excited that you guys are here today. We have a fabulous guest, in one of our career chats, so I'm [00:01:00] very excited to introduce to you Ana Vavrek. Ana, welcome to the podcast. How you going? It's so great to be here, Liam. I'm doing really well.
A little bit nervous, but, I'm really looking forward to having this chat with you today. It's part of the human experience, right? Like nerves are totally allowed here for sure. I feel nervous every time I hit go and record for sure. So it all like welcome it all in. but I'm super excited to chat to Ana cause Ana and I have been kind of like back and forth on Instagram, back and forth online and like cheerleading each other from the sidelines and supporting each other because we're both on a very similar mission.
And it's an important mission, to help empower the world of nursing. So I'm so excited for you guys to hear more about Ana, and of course, it's all about Ana and her vision and all of the things that she's talking about today. So, without further ado, let Ana relax a little bit into the podcast. I'm gonna introduce her.
I'd tell you more about us. So, Ana is a registered nurse, holistic wellbeing coach. Love that, and [00:02:00] founder of the Huddle Nurse Network, a supportive online community for nurses seeking to avoid burnout and thrive in their careers. After experiencing burnout herself and witnessing many of her colleagues struggle during the pandemic, Ana discovered a passion for empowering nurses to take control of their wellbeing and achieve success both personally and professionally.
Through her coaching work and workshops, Ana supports nurses to avoid burnout and see that it's possible, to flourish in all areas of their life. Ana's holistic approach emphasizes self-care as a key component of her client's journey. She believes that achieving physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual mastery is integral to beating burnout and thriving inside and outside your nursing career.
Amen. I love that, and it wouldn't be an introduction without me stuffing it up. So welcome to the podcast, Ana. So let's thank you. Let's dive in. I love everything that you are for, that you talk about there. It's such a beautiful intro that encapsulates your work. let's start from the very [00:03:00] beginning.
Tell us about your nursing career up until this point in kind of like a synopsis a little. Take us through the journey of where you started and where you are now. It's a funny journey really, because it was never on my bucket list to be a nurse, believe it or not. How about that? You and I are kindred spirits because it wasn't on my, oh, no way.
Tell me more. I wAna do more. Oh, wow. Oh, so this is interesting. nurses are in my family, not my immediate family, but my extended family and friends as I've, grown up. and I used to be a flight attendant, for an international. Airline for a very long time. So I worked with a lot of nurses who decided that they would become flight attendants and travel around and, and obviously that skill got them into yeah, the flying career.
so I've always been surrounded by, nurses. I. Had a long career, [00:04:00] 13 year career and then left flying. I took a redundancy. I lived in Italy for a little while. Oh, I, I know. Terrible glamorous it. It was, yeah, it was a tough life. but someone had to do it and I. You know, enjoyed that time. I really thoroughly enjoyed my flying career and all the experiences and adventures that it gave me.
but then it all came to an end. I lived in Italy for a little while, came back to Australia and for a couple of years just sort of worked here and there. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do, and funnily enough, my sister and her friend went off to a, an information date for enrolled nursing.
And I thought, oh wow, that. You know, I'm surrounded by a lot of nurses. I've heard a lot of things. I might look into that myself, but rather than enrolled nursing, I looked into registered nursing at the university. I grew up in Tasmania. even though I had a flying career. I [00:05:00] at one point moved back to Tasi.
Did a lot of, you know, commuting, basically from there to Sydney and then overseas. And so I decided to go to, utas and look into it and they said, oh, and I was a mature aged student. I was. 40, 41 roughly. and they said, oh yeah, no problem. You'll be able to handle it really well, even though science was not really my subject of choice in high school.
But you know what? They gave me the confidence, to say yes to doing that. And I'm so glad I did. So I thoroughly enjoyed my, three years at university and, had many different opportunities in leadership and things like that, throughout that time. And, that led me to a graduate, application and an acceptance to a graduate program.
But I was 41 or two by this stage. had done the shift work. Had done the shift work with, you know, the time zones flying. Oh my God. Yeah. And so the [00:06:00] Yes, I know. and it had been a few years, it had been two or three years by then or more by the time I'd finished my degreeand I just decided I can't do this.
Mm-hmm. The late, finishes to the early starts. Yeah. Were killing me. Yeah. And I thought there's gotta be a better way. And I actually gave up my grad program, and moved to Canberra. From Tassie to Canberra. And I took up a position, with a travel medicine practice which, Felt aligned.
Yeah. because of all, oh my God, I just made the connection. I'm slow today. I just made the connection of course travel there. You nice? Oh wow. Yeah. So I worked, with this travel medicine practice for about two and a half years. Thoroughly loved it, gained a qualification in, travel medicine. Mm. From the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, which was a great achievement for me.
Yeah. I had that opportunity to go over there and do that. And, a redundancy came along. These, [00:07:00] you know, Management changes, ownership changes, and I was the unlucky one, one of the unlucky ones, and I found myself working for, a C T Health and. In immunization. So I went from travel vaccinations to childhood, early childhood immunizations, and then from there moved into high school immunizations and the kindergarten health checks.
So I'm primarily working in primary healthcare in the school setting, delivering the National Immunization Program and the kindergarten health check program. That's incredible. I love this story. This is why I, love asking people, cause I did not know any of that about you. Of course. I didn't know any of that.
And I think that like people listen to this podcast for permission. I know when I listen to a podcast, I listen for permission and I just feel like you gave so many people permission there. To do what the heck they want. Like that is literally should be the motto of this [00:08:00] podcast. Do whatever you want to do.
And I love that you went from flying in like, and you allowed yourself to explore for a couple of years. You became a registered nurse and you knew yourself so deeply that you went hell to the new, I'm not doing these shifts. And then you said, you know what? I'm gonna create an opportunity. And I did not even think of travel medicine as a starting opportunity as a grad nurse, but why not?
Based on your experiences, and I teach this, Ana, I'm just laughing internally because I teach this every day and people look at me like I'm like drunk. I say to them, Hey guys, like you can do whatever you want to do and draw upon your amazing life experiences, personal and professional, and use that, propel that, bring it forward into your career.
And you married the two beautifully. I absolutely love that so much. So I'm curious. Based on your career so far and like the transitions and the changes, we have a lot of people that listen. Nursing attracts a lot of [00:09:00] people that are, as I call them, seasoned humans that are, you are in the mature age, era of their life, and sometimes people tell me they're mature age in the 22, and I have a laugh.
What advice would you give to them coming into nursing as a mature aged student, as a seasoned, amazing human? Coming from another industry with these perceptions and ideas that like, I've gotta do a grad program. Like, did you guys hear Ana gave up a graduate program to take this path? What would you tell them?
I would say that don't put. Place so much pressure on that graduate program, unless you do want to, experience emergency departments or ICUs or, you know, whatever medical surgical wards. it depends where your interests lie. And also too, like, you may not get a graduate program. I'm sure you would if you worked with Liam because he knows all the ins and outs and can help you there.
But if you did it alone and you didn't [00:10:00] get a graduate program and so many people miss out, it's not the end of the world, you know? I've worked with a lot of graduate nurses during Covid, during the pandemic. I was, At the, after my burnout, basically I was deployed to work in Covid immunizations.
Mm-hmm. And there were a stack of graduate nurses who had, well, they hadn't even got their graduate positions yet, you know, and so that didn't stop them from pursuing something for the experience. And I say, Do something, do anything that is of interest to you until you get that graduate program. Don't say no to something.
yeah, or like yourself. It just might be the thing that, you know, propels you to take the next step towards where you want to be, you know? I love that. Yeah. Hmm. I'm curious, when you first started your nursing career , would you have imagined where you are today?
Where you started? No, [00:11:00] no, no. Not at all. I think not at all. And I've had amazing opportunities and just in my, role at the moment, you know, I've had the opportunity to step up to a RN level two position mm-hmm. and coordinate a whole kindergarten program for 12 weeks of the year last year, which was an amazing experience and I've only been a nurse for 10 years and you know, it's quite possible to advance in your career even sooner than that.
but I'm a, a homebody, so to speak, and so I really love where I am. The niche of nursing that I am in, the people I work with are incredible. I think that's so important, especially for me. You know, having worked across a, you know, a couple of different careers prior to, even flying. Yeah. I just love that stability and that sense of family that I have within the team and the area that I work in, and I think it's important.
To look [00:12:00] for all of those kinds of things too. Not just, you know. Correct. I wanna work in emergency because it's, you know, exciting. Yeah. And without really understanding, how does that fit in with your personality, with your values, with Mm. You know, how you want to feel, Yeah. And all the things, you know?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love that. And I think that that's so true. And I think for me personally, that's what was probably a problem in my personal career was that I was always attracting the opportunities because I was like, oh, I see you. Oh, this like, and I was moving towards the opportunity rather than thinking about, hold on a minute, what is it that I need from this opportunity?
Like what environment? My best. Operate in, you know, who do I want to be surrounded by? What do I value in this experience Because mm-hmm. You can get Ed and we see this happen all the time, right? As nice coaches, you can get Ed and then you can like, absolutely hate Ed by day two because it's you know, not what you actually wanted. You wanted the, the [00:13:00] feeling of Ed, like the busyness or the chaos, but maybe you didn't like the, the manic of it. I don't know. Like, I think it's super important for us to do that in our work and to really get in tune with ourselves. I think that's something that I've seen personally.
A lot of mature, aged, seasoned, amazing humans. Come to nursing with that. That's why I always say if you're coming in as a mature age, you have this beautiful essence of life experience and transferability of skill that sets you apart from other people. I love that so much. So I don't think we've had somebody on the podcast that works predominantly in primary healthcare.
I could be wrong, I could be mistaken there, but we've done a hundred episodes, I don't think we have. So tell us a little bit more about like a day in Life in primary healthcare. Obviously there's so many different aspects to it. But for people listening, they're curious about pursuing a career in primary health.
what would you tell them? I would tell them that, it's not exciting like the hospital. it has its stresses [00:14:00] relative, right? So, I would say it's not as stressful as ICU or Ed, but, When you're in it, it does have its own stressors. But nothing that you can't handle.
You just need to, be in the right head space and be organized and, really work as a team. to ensure that. you enjoy the experience and it's preventative. Yeah. You know, clinical work, so it's not live or die type of day-to-day, actions, and critical thinking in that respect.
Mm-hmm. However, you know, you can still draw upon those. Skills, and obviously you need those skills if an emergency happened, particularly with immunization. and we are very well credentialed and it's very organized and it's such an important part of the whole public health, you know, umbrella that, it's a [00:15:00] really nice.
Place to either start your career in And stay there. If you're a seasoned, nurse, seasoned person going into nursing, or it's a really nice place to segue into as you, you know, taper down your career and you want something a little bit more. Monday to Friday, eight till four 30, you know, office based and out in the field, based, it's a little bit of admin and clinical.
Yeah. It depends if you are filled by the excitement of doing all that clinical stuff and that's why you got into nursing or you're at that season in your life where, well, this just happens to be perfect. For me and suits my lifestyle, you know? Yeah. In in this moment.
I really like that idea of like seasons of your career. I think that we all kind of go through, depending on how you come into nursing in your own personal like life journey, but people come in and they, you know, they're at the season where it's the [00:16:00] excitement season and they want all of the activity, but then maybe you're in a face where you don't want that anymore.
And I think what. A A lot of people struggle with is making that shift or just giving themselves permission because they think it's a step back. Is what I hear all the time. Mm-hmm. Right. They think, like for example, icu, I went from ICU to primary healthcare in the community at the walking centers in Canberra.
And cognitively, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna lose my skills. Oh, this is not gonna be as good. Even though it was a promotion, right? Like people forget you can step back into a new area, but you could potentially get a promotion in the process. You could, So it's super fascinating. I think the big issue or challenge there for most people when they're in that season, that new season is, oh, am I stepping back?
Am I less than because I'm not in the chaos? Because I think we've been conditioned to believe that chaos means that we're a real nurse and the kids Totally. And keeping busy and Always doing, and, [00:17:00] yeah. Yeah. And we need to like decondition that idea for ourselves. Mm-hmm. I think in that, like I'm still working on it now, even as a nurse entrepreneur, I'm still like busy like 40, 50 hours of the week and I'm like, Liam, you run your own schedule.
What are you doing mate? Come on. Create a schedule where you work 30 hours, you know, and do less, but mm-hmm. It's so deeply ingrained, I think, in the nursing culture. So I'm sure that will appeal to some people that, hey, like there's actually space to be autonomous, to make good decisions, to be able to.
Operate, at your highest scope and capacity in primary healthcare, what do you love about primary healthcare? Like what would you say is like your favorite thing about working in primary health? Because I work with kids. Yeah. It's just the different personalities that I see. and being able to, you know, we always talk about patient centered care and it doesn't stop, in.
You know, out in the public realm, in primary healthcare, it's really their children are there without their parents for a start. And so it's [00:18:00] really, you know, you are their, it's like you are their mom at the same time Mm. As their clinician. giving them the confidence and the courage to, to go through, an immunization of vaccination that for the first time they've.
Had to do without their parent by their side. You know, the last time they would've done it would've been for their covid vaccine or maybe a flu shot. but they had their parents by their side. And so the beauty, there's a beauty in, being there with that child in that moment. And they might be fine with it or they might be super anxious and, totally freaked out.
And there's a beauty in being able to share that experience with the child and to help them get through that or not. Yeah. Because there is no pressure. Yeah. and just helping them to get through that and just having fun with them and trying to make them relax and, Kids say the funniest things sometimes.
Yeah, [00:19:00] it's, it's beautiful. It's fun. It's fun. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Such an important work as well. You know, like we can't devalue that work. It's so, so important for the greater good. and absolutely. I'm sure you do an incredible job of that, so thank you for doing that work. I'd love to segue into burn out and your experience in burnout, because I know that burnout seems to be a catalyst for a lot of us in like what I'm starting to see as like an awakening, and I know that you do spiritual work as well.
I'm starting to see that this burnout experience is like, For me, it was like, it was always meant to happen. Like it was meant to happen like that, Liam, like in the moment, I didn't like it. I didn't see it. I, I was like, how can I get out of this? But I needed to go through that phase of burnout, so I'm curious.
We always think of burnout in like, what it's taken away from us, but I'm, I always like asking people, what did burnout give you? What did you take from that experience? That is such a good question. it gave [00:20:00] me self-awareness, greater self-awareness because I think, and like I said before, stress is relative.
I was going through, you know, you can have stress from outside of work impact how you perceive work, inside work and then all the stressors inside work have a greater impact on you because you are less robust or resilient. And, I wasn't aware of that at the time and so I let that build up to the point where I burnt out, with the rising, the incoming pandemic and all that uncertainty and change that ensued so, As a result of my burnout, I really value being able to be more self-aware.
Mm-hmm. And not only just of myself, but aware of everything around me and what could trigger me into a stress response, so that I can better.[00:21:00] React to it. Mm-hmm. You know, and react to it proactively rather than allow it to wash over me. and so I end up having this reaction I don't want to have, you know, so that's self-awareness and then the awareness of what's going on around me and.
Putting it into perspective, you know, so if you're aware of what's going on around you, you're better able to say, okay, this is this, and this is how I'm going to react to it. these things will happen and I'm going to choose to react to it this way in a proactive, positive way, rather than, just be totally unaware and have it, you know. turn you upside down and turn you crazy. So, awareness is what it gave me and it's been great. less stress, you know, stress will happen, but I'm more aware of it and I've become the most chilled out team leader there ever is. My team now, [00:22:00] And so if the burnout hadn't have happened, I think my reaction to stress would have possibly, you know, stayed the same if I hadn't got to that point where the pandemic came in.
And, you know, that was the, biggest trigger for my burnout. Yeah. And I think that, That's a common trigger, right? Like this, the pandemic seems to have been a common trigger across the industry. I think that, a lot of people like put a lot of, I dunno, like, maybe draw a lot of attention to the fact that the pandemic created or started the burnout process for them.
But I think that like, we were working towards that, right? And I think that it was just like another cherry on the top of the cake, there's another layer. And we suddenly realize, oh, hold on, this isn't working. Like our souls realize that, hold on a minute. I can't navigate this anymore. I've gotta just check back in.
What surprised you most about becoming self-aware? And I, I want to like maybe explore what we mean by becoming self-aware, because I think people listening might be like, what is self-awareness? How does it just [00:23:00] happen? Does it just get delivered from the universe? what does that look like?
so what did becoming self-aware look like for you, like in a tangible sense? let's start there. I will overload you with 10 questions. I'm good at that. Well, for me initially, because my burnout was so intense, that, meant taking time off work and just being mm-hmm. without thinking and without processing anything because it was like a mental complete wipe out, and emotional wipe out as well.
So taking that time, counseling, so then getting to the point where you're talking to a professional counselor and to process how you're feeling, what happened, what were your thoughts, and how you can move forward. But then, so that helps you process it because you need to, you can't let it sit. In your body and in your mind, you need to [00:24:00] process it and put it somewhere to make sense of it.
And then it was, an opportunity to start practicing mindfulness, doing guided meditations, sitting in quiet, solitude and feeling what stress or anxiety or whatever it may be feels in my body so that when I am at work or wherever I may be, I am more aware of how that feels in my body. You know, is it in my chest?
Is it in my belly? Is it a tightness? Is it, a niggling, you know, like butterflies? What is it? so that I'm better aware of. Mm-hmm. Recognize, recognizing it in the moment if that were to happen again. Yeah. And then breathing into it, you know, like breathing, breathing practice, definitely mindfulness practice.
You need to take that time to just be fully in [00:25:00] the present moment so that when you are in a stressful situation at work, that you can be fully present in that moment and not let your mind and your body, Carry on and react negatively, without, you know, your awareness. So it helps you to reign yourself in and, calm yourself and, you know, react in a positive way.
Yeah. It was a lot of mindfulness. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. And that's coming through, right? That like the importance of just creating and holding a space for yourself. I think that, like, as we talked about earlier, we're just, so for three years we're trained, like busy assignments, placement work, part-time work.
Do just keep on the cycle, go to the gym, do your job, like all the things, and there's no space. And then we start the career and we're already like amped up. We're already like at nine, you know, on the scale out of 10. And then we start and we just compound the pressure and we just have all of these things and these inefficient and it all just keeps [00:26:00] compounding until we get to a point where we just can't, like even just talking through that, I feel stress.
So it's, super interesting to me that , the process for you was creating space. Because people always say, well, like what do I do, Liam? Create and hold space for yourself. It's the most, yeah, simplest thing to do, but it's probably one of the hardest things to do cause we've been conditioned to do the opposite.
And then that idea of like having somebody to talk to. I did a similar process where I had a psychologist and I went and sat with a psychologist and it's funny. Sent to my partner this week. It's probably been maybe, oh, like eight years or so since I had my first psychology session. And what he taught me in the first few sessions keeps coming back to me, and I just realized this, like this month in lessons that I need to keep relearning.
All them, you need to hold space for yourself. you're so good at holding space for others, but you're not so good at holding space for yourself. Like how true is that for every nurse that's [00:27:00] listening, we just need to create space. And then he also taught me, and it's funny, he had me doing mindfulness and meditation and of course I love doing it in the moment I.
I felt much better. I felt much calmer, but I let my mind overrun me and I let my mind say, you know what? What a waste of time. Like, what a waste of time, right? And we all have these thoughts. And so I stopped doing it for a while and I started again. I stopped doing it. I've started doing it again recently, and I do notice this difference in myself.
I noticed this calmness, like this detachment from my brain and like just being able to tune into my body. And I wAna hone in on what you said there about feeling. And I think this is the missing piece, so I'm really pleased to brought it up. I think this is the missing piece in nurses being able to better, better human is how I put it.
Like how can we learn to human better so that we can nurse better? And I think that is by learning that what goes on in our mind is not [00:28:00] factually true. I think that it's bringing awareness to what we're feeling in our body and realizing mm-hmm. That we felt all of the emotions that we possibly could feel already and normalizing that as part of the experience.
Yeah, I love, love, love that you said. I sit there, I create space, I do a guided meditation. I drop into my body. I feel the feeling ahead of time, like you're kind of consciously creating that feeling ahead of time so that when you're in the moment, you understand what is happening. And it's not an easy process.
I'm not saying, oh, you know, no, that's how you do it. And it happens that way. I wonder what does that, like you said, it takes time. That's right. But it takes just a couple of minutes to every day to build up to five minutes to 10 minutes to 20. And you know, you could go beyond 20 minutes a day or every couple of days, whatever is what works for you and whatever you love doing, but just a couple of minutes of just dropping in and taking a couple of breaths [00:29:00] and, you know, just being present with yourself and how you're feeling and what thoughts are going through your mind really, really, has huge benefits. You know, it starts creating new neural pathways in your brain And like we said before, you know, helps you, to cope with situations, in a more proactive way.
But it, All boils down, I should say, to, self-compassion. Mm-hmm. As well, you know? Don't beat yourself up about not being able to get this right or feel like you're not getting it right. Because if you've started to do it and you know, that's why guided mindfulness meditations are brilliant.
You've got, you're listening to someone's voice guiding you through what to do. so you know, if you feel like you're not doing it right, you are. It's your journey. Show yourself some kindness, because your journey is different to someone else's. So what I may say here today, you know, this is not the be all and end all, [00:30:00] your journey will be.
Different to mine, but, and these are just some of the ways that may work for you, you know? Yeah. there may be other ways for other people, you know, that suit them better, so, yeah. Yeah. I think that just be can to yourself through the whole thing. Such a powerful message. And I think that so many of us need to keep relearning that lesson, myself included.
You know, me too. I've got a bloody nasty and a critic. Like I have a real loud, nasty and critic Mm. Is constantly on the go, right? Trying to like, bring me down. And I think the self-awareness part is like, what does self-awareness look like? It looks like me acknowledging and understanding that
it's part of me, but it's not the whole mm-hmm. And that, that's a mm-hmm. Combination of my experiences. So the critical part of me that sometimes tries to shoot me down. Has its moments where it actually serves me. That's why I love asking the burnoute question, like, burnoute took from you, but what did it give you?
And I think that when we look at both sides of the [00:31:00] spectrum, we kind of neutralized it and just feel a little better. I certainly do. Cause I'm like, oh, well the critics coming up today. Of course. Here I'm interviewing Ana. And the critics telling me, you're not gonna be good enough today Liam. Like, your brain's not quick enough to d you can't think blah, blah, blah.
Right? Mm-hmm. The critics there, but then the critic in other moments is gonna really be supportive of me in an interview. The critic that creeps up and is like, oh, you didn't do so good there. Might encourage me to do better in the next one. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So it is all through perspective, but I think that the first step for anybody listening in with regards to self-awareness is just creating space.
And just notice the resistance and the difficulty in just doing such a simple thing, like stopping. Mm-hmm. Cutting everything off and just sitting there, try it, test it. Tell us how well you find that because it is the starting point of your self-growth journey. I believe, and I believe that that's why we do experience burnout is because we've become misaligned and out of touch with what we're actually here [00:32:00] to do, I think.
Mm-hmm. That's my perspective. I'm curious what you think about. Being free from burnout, cause there's a lot of stuff online where people say, mm-hmm you can be free from burnout and you can never experience it again. And you know, like if you just do these three things are gonna change your life and change your world.
And, in Tru Liam style, have a different perspective. But your take on that? I don't think you could ever be free from anything, you know, like, Does that come with a guarantee that you'll never be free of burnout? Like say, look, I think if you've experienced it once, it's possible you can experience it again.
But if you do all the self-care, if you do put yourself in situations that are nurturing and Are supportive, you know, and you support yourself. then it's possible to avoid it. But I, wouldn't say once you've [00:33:00] had it, you'll never have it again. Like it is possible. You just don't know what's going on in people's lives.
It's not just, you know, they say burnout is a workplace syndrome. but how much of someone's, you know, psychological makeup and environmental, you know, background that's going on outside of work, how much of that impacts upon a person's, response to what happens in work? So you can experience burnout in work, but.
What are the other influences that have impacted, upon you? Because what one person experiences at work is the same as another, but they may, you know, not burn out, but the next person will because they've got a lot of stuff going on, you know, in their lives, and that plays into that and has an impact on how they respond to stress at work.
So yeah, I say [00:34:00] burnout is possible. Even when you have experienced it before you, it's just that you are more aware of it. Yeah. So you are more in tune. Yeah. When you do all these practices, you're just more in tune, so you're less likely to experience burnout again, because I think it's impact to, you know, stress that's built up over time.
If you can handle stress better, I think you can manage to avoid, Burnout. So it's a matter of staying on top of, That self-awareness, all those practices. Yeah. And yeah. Yeah. I think it's interesting for me cause my experience at burnout has been that the more that I just pretended it wasn't happening, the more I seem to get burnout.
And I seem to keep needing to learn the lesson even till this day. Mm-hmm. I've been through multiple episodes of burnout and even in my business now, I still burn out and I'm still learning how to navigate this. So I think that, People come and chat to me all the time and say, Liam, you know, [00:35:00] I'm burnout and if I move here, it's going to be different.
And I struggle with that idea. Cause I just think, you know, new environments seem human, so like Absolutely yes. It's not always. And I love that you touched on that. The workplace contributes, and I want people to hear this. The workplace contributes to burnout 100%, but the workplace is not solely responsible for helping you manage, navigate, and like have a burnout free life and career
I believe that we are sent these challenges because we are supposed to experience them and. were supposed to grow and develop through these experiences. And if we don't take the nudge on the first go, they'll nudge us again. And I dunno who they are, but I just believe that to be true. I've just seen it happen so many times.
So it gets to a point where usually when we hit that rock bottom right, and we just really are in the, low vibration, that low frequency, we're just thinking to ourselves, there has to be something more. There has to be something different. I have to change something here. And that's usually the catalyst, right?
For us to move forward. So I think that for people [00:36:00] that, I really struggle with the whole collective mentality of like, when we get ratios and better staffing and blah, blah, blah, burnout will be solved and we will feel differently. I, that I just cannot buy into, you're entitled to your opinions, but I can't buy into that.
And I think that it's important that we revisit. What I think is probably one of the better definitions of burnout, which is the W H O, burnout, I don't always love going to them for everything, but their definition of burnout is like, It is a, self creative phenomena is a part of burnout through our thoughts, through our feelings, through our inability to be able to manage the stress of life.
That is why I always talk about on this podcast, the whole reason I do this podcast is to help you human better so that you can nurse better. cause when you're more in tune with who you are as a human. You can do your thing at work and you can grow and develop and you can learn to love it if you want to.
So I'm really glad that we aligned on that for sure. I think that's, re Kendra there. I don't wAna speak on your behalf, so if you have anything to say there. Oh, [00:37:00] look, you know, a lot of people can say, yes, there are staff shortages and there's a lot of organizational dysfunction happening, or whatever, you know?
And to a degree, organizations do have a responsibility to ensure your workplace is safe, a legal responsibility however, yes, you do have a personal responsibility for your own wellbeing and to ensure that it's like putting on, here we go flight or flight attendants saying, putting on your own oxygen mask first before you put on the oxygen mask On the patient in the bed, you know, like, look after yourself. Have that responsibility for ensuring that how you respond to, those organizational dysfunctions or, stressors in the workplace mm-hmm. That you respond to them in a way that does not impact you greatly and therefore does not impact, upon your patients.
And, yes. These things, there's gonna be the same sort of stressors wherever you go and moving to another job or another unit [00:38:00] is not going to change anything because your mindset needs to shift around, your perceptions around all those things because. Same. What's that saying, Liam?
Same. Ooh. I dunno. Oh, well, what Coming to my mind, just same shit differently, but that's probably not ok. Maybe. Yeah. I didn't wAna Same, same different job maybe, but, we can read Yeah. That, but I totally agree with you. And I think that, In coaching, I teach a lot about this idea of a manual and sometimes we have a manual for how things should be in a perfect world, and sometimes those manuals cause us more pain than they're worth having, right?
Sometimes we have this vision of this amazing, perfect hospital that we work at and we have this vision, and then we have the discrepancy in the gap, and then we have the actual reality. If we continue to like keep looking at the manual, We're like, hold on. It's supposed to be like this, like one who said two.
You've [00:39:00] created that idea, this visual idea of what it could be, and that's amazing. But how is it serving you to outsource all of your power to this future version of the hospital that's not here yet? You hold all of the power right here, right now. And like that's what I think we're forgetting when we say, Hey, totally.
Yeah, let's wait for ratios. Hey, let's wait for better pay. Hey, let's, we have to acknowledge that we have the power right now to do that. So I love that you brought all of that up. I want to dive into holistic wellbeing coaching you being a phenomenal, amazing nurse coach, the huddle nurse network. Tell us all of the things.
Well, I really believe that, holistically, like people might look at that and go, you know, does she do some weird woowoo stuff? You know, I'm here for the woowoo. Oh yeah, that's great. And not everybody is right. Yeah. But, my take on holistic is that it, it's so important to, you know, focus on your self-care holistically.
So [00:40:00] your physical self-care, your emotional. Mental, spiritual, professional, financial. Mm-hmm. Whatever that looks like for you. But basically, emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical are the, the four key, domains or pillars of self-care. That, and if you can consciously, like, look at each area and see how you're tracking in those areas.
you can see where the gaps are, you know, and work out what is meaningful to you, what you need, and what you need to do to fill in those gaps so that, You know, you can be a better human, basically. for yourself and you know, for your patients. Right. and so that's where, the holistic part of my coaching comes in, doing, Almost like a have a self-care checkup tool, which I'll be re-releasing.
I've taken it off air and I'm going to be [00:41:00] re-releasing it. So it's like a self-care checkup tool where you look at each of those domains, ask yourself a number of questions and almost rate your, self in those areas, see where the gaps are, and really ask yourself some deep questions on. What matters to you the most in those areas?
And sometimes you need to work with a coach to, you know, go a little deeper and figure it all out. or it just might mean going through the, the tool and just really, and like we said before, taking that time to just check in with yourself and how, you know, you're really feeling on all those levels.
and then working out a plan. I love that. It's like the old nursing, nursing plan. You know, it's literally, in preparing for this today, I was thinking to myself, It is just like a self-care plan. we just need to write better self-care plan, better plans of care for ourselves, me included.
I'm preaching to myself here. People. yeah, we just need to like really lean into [00:42:00] that. I love that you incorporate the holisticness and I, I just, as you were talking now, thinking to myself, I wonder if burnout. For me, this is resonates so deeply if experiencing burnout is like basically the start of a spiritual awakening.
Because I feel like for me, from the minute that I really cognitively knew that I was in burnout and I was like, holy shit, I'm here. This is happening. what next? This transformation, this journey, I don't think is a coincidence for me. And I think that, I am leaning into the Woo room, like I'm loving the woo woo, to be quite honest, because it's giving me more answers about myself than I've ever been able to get through any other means, you know, like, Learning more about my human design, learning more about how I show up, like what my aligned life looks like.
Learning more about the conscious mind and the power that we have and that we always have, but we don't see it. We can't access it because we're just not ready yet. Like we just haven't gone through the [00:43:00] trials and tribulations. I truly believe that this is why we're here. You know, I've questioned like everybody else, why are we here?
What are we doing? I know it's a bit deep, but like why are we here? What are we doing? And for me, The spiritual awakening through the burnout experience, I think is like probably the best gift that I could have got. Even though it was hard, it was difficult, it was challenging, and it still is to this day.
I still have the same challenges cognitively that I had back then. Like you said. I just know how to deal with them a bit better. I'm just getting absolutely a little bit better every day. So I love that idea for anybody listening that if you're going through burnout, like maybe it is a spiritual awakening, maybe you're starting to really start to see what is possible for you and it's starting to create different pathways of possibility.
I'm a believer in like absolutely what for you doesn't go by you. That's right. And, you know, what meaning and purpose that you felt in your work prior to burnout gets lost and diminished as the [00:44:00] stress, increases and impacts upon you. And then that burnout leaves you thinking, well, you know what?
This was. What meaning do I have now in my life? You know? and so going through that awakening really allows you to re like, evaluate and reassess where you are at in your nursing career with your job. Is it really aligned to your values? You take a look at, you know, your strengths and your values and what you wAna get out of it, and.
Does it really have that meaning, and serve that purpose for you spiritually and professionally and all the things, right then and there as a result of that? Experience of that burnout. So yes, and for some that might mean a change, which is a scary thing to do, but it's coming from a more aligned place.
Mm-hmm. Rather than, as you were saying before, people, you know, hop for [00:45:00] one job to the other because it's gotta be better. I'll feel better when I, you know, start this other job and it never happens, you know? No. So, Really, burnout is a positive thing because of that awakening that you get.
Yeah. Really like I'm just so good thing. What is, what is, there's not like there is a bad thing cause you have to experience it, but Oh, we, we've labeled, it's terrible. Like we've labeled it as bad. But I'm just so curious now, even after this conversation today, like. People in every industry go through burnout.
It's not just, nursing. You know, I'm sure it's a flight attended, you burn out. You know, it happens all across the world. So like, how can we see that as an opportunity, as a growth opportunity? You know, if it's gonna happen and it's inevitable, maybe we should be teaching people, Hey, when you burn out, Super exciting things are gonna change, and you're gonna have all this awareness and you're gonna raise, your vibration.
You're gonna be able to go out into the world and create new things and attract different pathways. [00:46:00] That's what happens to every person that I talk to on this podcast. They burn out and then they create something new and exciting. And I created my coaching career from, so did I, from my burnout experience.
So yeah. You know how wonderful is that? And now I can help other amazing other people. I love it. Love that. Yeah. I, I like, I've had a few like aha moments today talking to you. It's been super awesome. It's super cool. This is not gonna be the last time Anas here cause we are kindred spirits aligned and I'm super curious and excited to explore the holistic side of what you do because I am.
Leaning more into that. I think that, I have a lot of resistance currently around like, just giving people advice about their careers. I'm like, hold on, we've gotta know the whole of you. We've gotta know all of the things. Yeah. You know I can't just tell you you'd be great in oncology because I think you look great in oncology.
We've gotta assess the whole picture, otherwise you're gonna keep making the same mistakes. So, Tell us more about where people can connect with you. in between our next [00:47:00] catch up on the podcast here, where can they connect with you? How can they get in touch with you to work with you? Tell us all the things.
Well, a number of places. we didn't really talk about the Huddle Nurse Network. Maybe we can do that next time. Yes. But it's on Facebook, the Huddle Nurse Network. join the Facebook group. That's where it's all gonna be happening. I'll have, some live. I won't call them workshops or master classes.
We'll have some live experiences in there, coming up soon. so that's where it's all happening. If you're a nurse, nursing students, a i n whatever, come and join us there. and I'm also, on Instagram at ana v av, r e k at Ana Fabric. And. I've got the huddle nurse network as an IG page as well, but I wAna steer people to the group, so fi you'll find me in the group and on [00:48:00] Instagram.
Amazing, fabulous. We will put all of those links in the show notes. We'll definitely talk about the huddle net. Maybe we go live on Instagram or something. We talk about. Maybe that's what we do. Let's do that. That sounds fun. we can, that sounds amazing. Yeah, we can do something like that and have a chat live and answer people's questions about burnout, live.
That'd be super cool. Yeah. But yeah, go and check out Ana's work. She's incredible. you have got so much to offer the nursing industry. I'm so excited to watch you on the entrepreneurship journey and doing all of the things that you're doing as well cause it's such a cool space to be in. and yeah, thank you for your contribution.
Thanks for sharing your story. And if you have loved this episode today, please make sure you let us know. Connect with Ana, connect with myself, and I'm sure Ana's also gonna have that self-care checklist at some point, so when it goes live, I will also share it on all the socials. But until next time, everybody, thank you so much, Ana.
Thanks for your time. And thank you everybody for listening. Stay safe and stay forever curious. We'll see you in the next episode. Bye. [00:49:00] Thanks, Ana. Thank you.
