The Way WIthin…

A Journey Through The Heart & Spirit of Being a Nurse

Nurse is both a verb and a noun. Doing the job of nursing is the verb: care plans, protocols, drills, and our required continuing education all apply to our nursing practice… What we ‘do’. 

Nurse is also a noun. It is who we made the choice to BE. The Way Within: A Journey Through The Heart and Spirit of Being a Nurse  is an invitation to you… The Nurse who perhaps wears a badge with your name and some initials after it. Under that badge is a caring Heart, a mind flowing with wisdom and a vibrant Spirit. 

Nursing is a profession where we interact with the suffering of our patients in variable and complex ways. We stand between them and a healthcare system that is cracking; a system that was struggling even before the devastating impact of the pandemic. This ‘cracking system' is full of good people who are directly affected. You and I. While we may have little or no control to change the environment where we work... What we can shift is Who-We-Are in that environment.

The Holistic Nursing Theorist, Margaret Newman offered that health and wellness exist on a continuum. That one is neither completely healthy nor completely sick. She also offered that disease… Dis-ease… invites a choice point, an opportunity for a deeper wellness. Writers and poets have long referred to this place as Leonard Cohen did when he said: “There is a crack in everything, that is how the light gets in.” To my nurse colleagues I offer this: We can Be the light… We can flow vibrantly through the cracks. 

The invitation to you Dear Nurse is this: Where you (often silently) struggle is your choice point. A Journey Through The Heart & Spirit of Being a Nurse… A Journey through your unique expression of Being a Nurse… Is not only how you best serve your patients, it is how you best serve yourself. Put that oxygen mask on you first! The ripples will move well beyond your nursing career and into the rest of your life…

Are you ready to take a walk on The Way Within?