On the first day of classes, all us first year nursing students (192 of us) were gathered on the field listening to the head of the department talk about the next four years of our lives. Among other things, she said something along the lines of, "In this first year it's going to seem like all you're doing is talking about your feelings, but there's a reason for this! For the first year you have to learn how to take care of yourself, then you can learn how to take care of other people." Hearing her say that made me feel really excited. I love talking about my feelings! And I could definitely see the truth in what she said.... couldn't wait.
My first class, on my first day, was a class called Nursing Practice. I walked in a tiny bit late (with an excuse that's too long to explain here) and instead of the expected rows of desks and chairs found myself in a brightly painted burgundy room with a circle of chairs in the middle, mostly already filled by my classmates. That class was 3 hours long and how did we spend that time? That's right - talking about our feelings. There was 16 of us, and we went around in a circle and we shared about ourselves: our interests, likes/dislikes, hobbies, reasons for going into nursing. And then we talked about what we were worried or nervous about, what we were excited for, our dreams and hopes. 3 hours. Talking. It was glorious.
Then, later that same week, I went for the first time to my RP class - Relational Practice. This is an entire class devoted to the sole purpose of teaching us how to have good relationships. Our course outline says that the goal of the course is to learn to know ourselves, and ourselves in relation to others, and that our objective in the class is to become more caring people. Better people. It seems like a dream come true... and the instructor is amazing.
And so this theme has carried on through the last 2 weeks that I've been back at school. In every class we take the first 20 minutes and go around in a circle to share about how we are each feeling and what our stress level is, etc. In my RP class she asked us to tell the group what kind of weather we were that day (I said sunny with a chance of showers in the afternoon). There really is a big emphasis on being mindful of yourself and testing what you believe and digging deep down into yourself for feelings and then talking about them with the class. It's cool, and I've enjoyed it... uuuuntil..... Wednesday. Wednesday I had my Professional Practice class, which was lovely and informative, and at the end of which we were given a journalling assignment (Did I mention that we have to keep a journal? Oh yes, it's so that we can write about our feelings and express ourselves :D ). The questions we had to write about was this: Why is it important to know yourself in order to be a good nurse?
Well, this got me thinking. Sure, I've been enjoying all this me, me, me stuff but I haven't had to think about why we're doing it yet! And as I sat down tonight, with a crisp new journal page before me, I couldn't think of anything to write. And let me be clear, this is not usually a problem for me. It took me a while before I could start writing, but once I did the words just kept coming. What a relief.
Why is it important to know yourself in order to be a good nurse? For me it became easier to answer when I made this questions a bit broader. Why is it important to know yourself in order to be in any relationship? It goes back to what the head of our department said on that first day - in order to be able to take care of other people, we must first know how to take care of ourselves. I think that can apply to more than just the physical, but the emotional, social, and spiritual as well. It's hard to be in any intimate relationship when you are unstable in some way.
In the profession I'm going into, I'll be seeing a lot of, well, troublesome things.
It could be something like cardiac arrest, in which case I will have to be strong both physically (performing life-saving procedures) and emotionally (staying cool and calm in high stress and pressure situations).
Or it could be something like a terminal cancer patient making the decision to leave treatment and live their last few months in their garden at home. I may feel that they are giving up and should stay and fight with the chance the radiation therapy will work, or grieved that this person is going to die. If I am not healthy emotionally in all this, I could burn out and grow depressed, etc.
In a job where I will always (potentially) be surrounded with death and sickness and horrible things happening to good people, a spiritual health is important as well. Leaning on God as my support and trusting in His divine plan will be an invaluable comfort to be in distressing times.
How do we become 'strong' in all these ways? I think it's by getting to know ourselves by questioning our assumptions, testing our beliefs, going where things feel uncomfortable. It's after we've done all these things that we really know what it is that's important to us. When we really know who we are and we're secure in that.
Hopefully that makes sense. Don't worry, my journal entry is much more clear and concise.
