Tapping Your Inner Guidance System

Many people are discovering the still small voice that resides within.  It is a source of wisdom and guidance, leading us on the journey of our lives.  It can help us tap into our life purpose or keep us safe in difficult situations.  It can show us the underlying meaning in health challenges and help us navigate extreme emotions.

If you are one of those who have undergone a spiritual awakening and learned the gifts inherent in the deeper soul you are familiar with this part of yourself.  Perhaps you know it as your intuition or the divine hand at work.  Regardless of how we identify it, giving ourselves the time each day to visit the inner sanctuary strengthens its presence in our lives.

One of the best ways of developing your inner guidance system is spending 20 minute in quiet meditation each day before leaving the house.  It's the best way I know for staying grounded in that deeper place when the outside world starts distracting us.

Years ago I found the simplest way of strengthening this inner guidance system was by simply playing games while driving or shopping.  As I approached the booths on the toll road I would scan the lines to see which one was shortest.  Then I would suspend my judgment and allow myself to simply feel which line I was drawn to.  As you've surely experienced, the shortest line is not always the fastest.  The game was to see if my intuition or inner guidance system could pick the quickest lane.  Nine times out of ten it did and most of those were not the shorter lines.

Another game I often played took place in the local Walgreen's store.  As I walked through the aisles, I would allow myself to follow that inner nudging toward one aisle or another.  Surprisingly, the inner guidance took me right to some obscure item that had been in the back of my mind but which hadn't become important enough to reach my shopping list, yet.

Needless to say, the more familiar I became with my inner guidance the more it became a reliable resource to use in more important situations.  I can't tell you the times I've listened to it and found myself avoiding freeway accidents, running into strangers who needed to talk about something for which I had just the right answer, or finding something I was certain had been lost.

So make a game of it!  Tune in and see where you inner guidance system leads you in little things that don't really matter.  You might be surprised to find that the little genius inside you will show up when you need it most!

Reflections on a Career Chosen by Default: Part 4

Today is the final part of my 'things I love about my career' series.  So much has happened since I last posted two months ago.  My hiatus was filled with wonderful opportunities.  The first afforded me the opportunity to embark on and complete a book proposal for the transformational writing contest organized by Chistine Kloser, the transformational author catalyst.  The second was the opportunity to spend a full week in Ohio with family and friends, something which happens only rarely.


Both opportunities touched that part of me that is passionate about inspiring hope in others and contributing to their well being, fulfillment and satisfaction.  It is my desire to write in a way that invites you to take the next step and move your own life to the next level.  So get in touch with that still, small voice inside and learn to trust the evolutionary being that we are.  


Make a difference in your world, more of the time...and when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.  Remember everything confronting you on your journey through life has potential for both opportunity as well as crisis.  It is how we choose to see it that makes all the difference.  So, "When life presents you with a fork in the road, take it!" and navigate it to the best of your ability, avoiding crisis and maximizing opportunity.  Which is exactly what  I did these past two months.

Part of living a life of 'no regrets' comes from taking advantage of the what happens every day of our lives.  In re-tooling these posts from my original article for Angela Brooks my hope is to inspire you to spend five minutes jotting down the top 10 reasons you love your career and reflect on the inherent gifts in them, and in so doing begin your own adventure that will take you to the next level of your own life.  


Without further delay, I leave you with the final things I love about a career chosen by default.


HUMAN RESPONSE PATTERNS

Many wonderful gifts have come through my career as a nurse but one of the greatest, by far, came unexpectedly when I stumbled across the Handbook to Holistic Nursing Practice and began pursuing my certification as a holistic nurse.  Aside from my own spiritual awakening during that time, which was monumental, the paradigm shift accompanying it transformed my consciousness in a way that allowed me to see people as evolutionary human beings in an ever changing environment.

I had been using a process to develop plans of care for my patients developed by NANDA (formerly the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association) for most of my career.  To explain it simply, nursing diagnoses are clinical judgments about human experiences and responses to health conditions and life processes that help focus on methods and strategies for helping a person achieve better or greater health.

Having used them as a matter of routine, imagine my surprise in discovering those individual diagnoses such as alteration in comfort, relocation stress syndrome, etc. were actually built on something called human response patterns, 9 of them to be exact, that informed everything I knew or had intuitively grasped while caring for people.  It was like a light bulb suddenly went on in my mind and the bigger picture of human potential and growth became clear.

Those 9 human response patterns, with a short explanation, are:

EXCHANGING - physical and chemical processes/homeostasis
COMMUNICATING - sending messages
RELATING - establishing bonds
VALUING - assigning relative worth
CHOOSING - selecting alternatives
MOVING - activity
PERCEIVING - receiving information
KNOWING - meaning associated with information
FEELING - subjective awareness

From that point on, I began to understand that all patient behavior, symptoms, lifestyles, choices, etc. coalesce into recognizable human response patterns.  ‘Pattern recognition’ became my buzz word for bridging the science and the art of nursing and expanded my ability to take people from point A to point B more effectively.  How wonderful it was to learn and use a deeper, broader,  more effective base of nursing knowledge and wisdom, and how much more satisfying my interaction became with people from all walks of life.

SPIRITUALITY/HOLISM/CUTTING EDGE NEW THOUGHT

It was this path into holistic nursing that literally transformed and launched the second half of my career.  The holistic nursing program occupied two and a half years of my life and become a strong plank in the foundation I used to make sense of the spiritual awakening I was undergoing.  It formed the organizing principle behind my understanding of life and the world at large.

In 1989, a critical juncture in my personal and professional life, I was seriously considering changing careers altogether.  I had owned a small healthcare consulting business and made more money than I'd ever dreamed possible.  I was clearly at a juncture in my career but, after working a few months as a grocery checker, for which the manager pointed out I was sorely overqualified, I took a position in a rehab hospital.

I had gone to a medical bookstore for a care planning book to brush up on my clinical skills.  While  walking down an aisle in the nursing section, a large, pink volume literally fell off the shelf as I approached...The Handbook of Holistic Nursing Practice.  Now I had witnessed a number of amazing events in emergency rooms and intensive care units, things that at times seemed truly miraculous because they defied explanation.  But that day it struck me as odd that a book would seemingly jump off a shelf in front of me as if trying to get my attention.

In hindsight I know there are no coincidences and that things always happen for a reason.  Picking up that book changed my life and the journey that followed is really beyond the scope of this article.  Nevertheless, I began to see and become aware of a realm operating behind the day to day world with which we are more commonly familiar.  The health challenges people were presenting began to show me how consciousness was an emerging, expanding, transforming process occurring in each and every individual, a process in which we are all participating but which is most often seen during health crises.

Helping my patients navigate these challenges and assisting them in ‘seeing’ with a new set of eyes the transformation within their challenge taught me that health is expanding consciousness and that every health challenge brings an invitation to expand, grow and develop the next level of who we are becoming.  It  became obvious that evolution doesn't just happen over thousands and thousands of years, it happens in every moment, with every choice, in every interaction with another, and with every thing we do and think.

Nursing, once again, became the vehicle for my own next level of growth and development.  In hindsight it is easy to see that my nursing career did NOT live up to the expectations I had placed on it when I was forced to abandon my initial career choice in journalism.  But, how could it?  Those expectations were far too small for the journey.  Nursing had its own plans for me.  Bigger plans.  Better plans.  Plans I could have never dreamed.  It has taught me and shown me the depth and breadth of emotion and the heights of transcendent moments.  It has made me a bigger and definitely better person.  It has been a career that has changed me and allowed me to learn to love, to live with the unseen and to trust in the unknown mystery that always lies before us.

Reflections on a Career Chosen by Default: Part 3

As I re-work these posts from my original article I am struck by the fact that my life has been full of transformational experiences.  From the earliest days of my life I remember yearning for the next step.  Unlike many people I couldn't wait to grow up...now at 54 I still feel the same...what's around the next corner.

A mindset that is continually seeking growth and adventure is one that never gets old.  Given our short time here on earth, I want to live with that gusto as long as possible.  I've even been known to say I want to live to 120 because, after all, why sell yourself short!

Below are the next three gems I've gleaned from my career as a nurse...read them and see if they don't spark some sense of adventure in yourself.  Who knows, you, too may decide to pick up the quest again and make the most of the life you have yet to live!

SELF ESTEEM

With the discovery of my unique talents, being involved in saving numerous lives, and having the opportunity for continuous growth and ongoing self improvement, I can say without a doubt that my nursing career has directly impacted my own self esteem in a very positive way.

There were many times as a child where I felt inferior or less than those around me.  Even as a young adult those feelings plagued me.  When I was into the 'club' scene and dancing as often as I could there'd be nights where I'd look around at all the 'beautiful people' surrounding me and feel inadequate.   Now it didn't matter that I was already creating value in the world in my professional life.  The club scene was all about appearances and no one could tell by looking who I was.  It was a world that judged by appearances.

There finally came a point in my life where I had to dig deep enough to anchor the truth about my core.  It was there that I found real self esteem and it grew directly from what I had to offer the world.

So when you're feeling those twinges of insecurity, feeling 'less than' go to the mirror and look into your eyes and find the truth about you, the truth that is good and has value.  That's what I would do in those clubs so many years ago.  All it took was one look to realize I wasn't nearly as immaterial as I felt.  It's a simple strategy but it works!

ADDED VALUE

As I continue to enumerate the reasons why I have been truly gifted from my nursing career it becomes easier to see the contributions I have made to the individual lives of my patients and their families, but also to the nurses I have been blessed to work with.  I've learned from some of the greatest and most humble people on the face of this earth.

One of the most important women I've had the honor of working with was an LPN in Ohio who I credit with having taught me everything I needed for a solid foundation in nursing.  Shirley was not an easy person to work with, or so I was told.  The truth was, she was a damn good nurse and without her I may never have arrived where I am.  She was a beautiful blend of talent, hard work and fun.  She gave me a tremendous sense of self worth that I have leveraged into a career where I now add value to people’s lives.  Whether it's with a patient or a co-worker, the value is never only one direction.  The mutual relationship benefits both the giver and the receiver.

PEOPLE SKILLS/SOCIAL INTERACTION

Perhaps one of the most often cited reasons people go into nursing is to help others.  After many years in the field I began to reflect on the incredible people-skills I had learned.  Looking back, I can see how often I was picked to work with the ‘difficult’ patient or family member, and I realize how much joy I got from interacting with such diversity in the people who enter the health care arena.  That diversity had directly related to the opportunity to improve people skills and use my unique talents to make a contribution where others may have walked away because of the difficulty and challenge these people presented.

So the next time you face a difficult person or someone who challenges everything you believe in and think, pause, and wonder..."What would I do if I knew this person's behavior was driven by something so important, so incredible valuable they were willing to show up as my biggest problem?"

A little willingness to wonder sometimes opens doors we least expect and change us for the better.

Reflections on a Career Chosen by Default: Part 2

As I discussed in my last post, my career has been a truly transformational journey...one I could have never planned myself.  Today I want to continue with three more reasons I love my career and invite you to begin looking at the gifts you have reaped from your journey through life.

FINDING MY TALENT

When I graduated from nursing school it was a lot like graduating from any college.  I had to get out in the ‘real’ world and find out how to put my degree to work.  My nursing school instructors had taught us about ‘reality shock’ in the 'real' world beyond school but understanding it intellectually was nothing like experiencing it first hand. 

It was a rough and rocky start for me. 

In fact, one of my first supervisor’s told me I would never make a good nurse, then she intentionally tried to add insult to injury by saying I would be lucky to be an LVN/LPN.  Well, being young and inexperiences, I was sure she was right.  Luckily I was never raised to be a quitter.  So, I gathered myself up and went on down the road to apply for work at another hospital.  It was here that I received the unexpected offer to work as the charge nurse in the ICU. 

Looking back on it, I can see the humor in how that first interview went but at the time, I was dead serious.  When the Director of Nurses  offered me the job I told her I didn’t think it was the job for me because...and honest to God these were my exact words...I wasn’t a good nurse.  I can remember her smile and the conversation that followed.  The bottom line?  She promised they’d train me.  When I repeated myself she added "We won't leave you alone until you feel ready."  What could I say?  This awesome and incredible nurse believed in me and not only helped launch my career but unwittingly  helped me find my talent, because, I was never cut out to handle 30+ patients on a general med-surg floor where I had barely enough time to talk to each patient.  The ICU grants access to (and responsibility for) every single detail of one or two people’s well-being and care. 

It couldn’t have been better or more perfect fit for me.  I discovered it is better for me to handle the intensity of a crisis with sustained focus, and attention to subtle nuances, as well as the grueling hours of a high stress environment for 12 to 16 hours at a time.  Plus, I learned that in an emergency, when no one else steps forward to take charge, I can and do.

LEVERAGE/JOB VARIETY

Landing in that ICU early in my career surely helped to leverage my career in part because it honed my skills.  With those skills, nursing has offered me an incredible variety of job opportunities.  My willingness to learn and accept opportunity when it presented itself resulted in a long run of interesting and exciting jobs.  Aside from the ICU’s and ER’s, which are certainly exciting, I have had opportunities and experience  with spinal cord and head injuries in a rehab hospital, as a home health nurse and in hospice.  In a more wellness-oriented vein I was the coordinator for health promotion programs in four major corporations, have had my own case management business, been a clinical manager, taught full day workshops to other nurses on holistic nursing, coordinated performance improvement and staff education for a large home health company, been an auditor in a revenue management department for a county hospital system, handled financial and service contracts for incoming research protocols from medical schools, and contracted with attorneys for medical record reviews.  What do I do now?  Currently I work as a regulatory consultant, and will be teaching nursing students in an LVN school this fall.  You gotta love the variety.

LONGEVITY/REMAKING OF A CAREER

With all that variety comes a nice career with unusual longevity.  Most people face the challenge of transitioning to new careers at lest two to three times in their life time.  As you can see from the variety of jobs listed in the last paragraph, nursing has afforded me ample opportunity to remake my career without having to start from scratch.  In fact, longevity in nursing has been possible exactly because it has offered me such diversity.  It has truly offered me a journey like I could have never imagined.

In my next post, I'll begin with Reasons 6, 7 and 8...and a more personal look at how it has afforded me a truly transformational journey.

Reflections on a Career Chosen by Default: Part 1

Recently I was asked to write about the 10 Reasons I Love My Career.  The request came from a colleague I met briefly at a conference in Indianapolis last year, Angela Brooks.  Like me she is a nurse and May is the month we honor nurses during National Nurses' Week.  Her blog has a host of interesting topics, some written by nurses like myself.


As I wrote the article for her blog, I discovered that, although nursing was not a career choice that came from my own inspiration, it has turned out to be one that has gifted me through my life in many ways.  For those of you who didn't see my original article on Angela's sight, I am reposting it in more digestible segments, and hopefully with more clarity than the original version.  May it inspire you to reflect on the gifts your own career and life choices have brought.  Enjoy!

10 Reasons I Love My Career

When Angela emailed me about writing for Nurses’ Week this year I was quick to jump at the offer!  You see, I’ve been a nurse for nearly 35 years (I graduated in 1978-I know, I’m old!) I and I love writing!

So here I am, sitting in Starbucks with my writing group just an hour after her invitation.  Although I don't always outline when I'm writing fiction, the first thing I did for this article was take out my pen to create my list of ten.  

So what are my 10 Reasons for loving my career?  Here's the short list:

1.    Job Security

2.    I get to Save Lives!

3.    It helped me Find My Talent

4.    Leverage and Job Variety

5.    Longevity - the ability to remake my career

6.    Strengthens Self Esteem

7.    Add Value to society and the world in general

8.    People Skills & Social Interactions

9.    Knowledge of Human Response Patterns

10.  Spirituality/Holism and cutting edge thinking

Now I’ll be honest, the intention of this article is not to convince you to be a nurse or that nursing is a great career.  My only intention here it to share with you the skinny on what has made nursing a great career for me.  It is my hope it will inspire you to take five minutes to jot down the top 10 reasons you love your career and reflect on the gifts it brings.

Here are mine.

JOB SECURITY

From the time I graduated nursing school and was licensed as a registered nurse, I have never gone longer than a few days without landing a good job.  In these economic times it is easy to see why this one was the first to come to mind.  The fact is, I took this for granted a long time until I became more aware of how different this is for many other people.  Granted, I interview fairly well which helps, but that skill came with experience and  undertanding that I had a lot to contribute.

SAVING LIVES

One of the things I had the  opportunity to learn early in my career is that we each have unique strengths that we owe ourselves to discern.  If you'd like a way to begin that process for yourself check out the StrengthsFinder website.  I bought the book which included an online evaluation.  It may be as empowering to you as it was to me.  

As for saving lives, I had the fortuitous opportunity as a new graduate to accept a job in a rural, community hospital as the charge nurse in the intensive care unit (ICU) on the night shift.  One reality of rural hospitals is that, at best, they have a single contracted doc to man the emergency room (ER) if and when someone visits.  There are no regular doctors in the house.  There is only a skeleton crew of nurses with little to no ancillary staff.  In fact, the charge nurse in the ICU is often presumed to be the most skilled nurse in the hospital and, at a minimum, the emergency backup for other units and situations that arise throughout the hospital.  

Suffice it to say, I wasn’t sure I could do the job, but what I learned could never have come without this experience.  Over my 33 years in nursing I’ve been involved in saving dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of lives.  Even so, the significance of it never dawned on me until one evening at a networking event with other young professionals, mostly oil and gas managers and ‘up and comers’.  Inevitably the conversations at these events always came down to “So what do you do for a living?”  For some reason that night, and without a second thought, I simply said “I save lives.”  The young man I was talking to got this smirky grin on his face and said “No, really, what do you do?”  In that moment I knew what I did was incredibly special and powerful!

...next up, more on Finding my Talent (Reason 3) and Leveraging my Job into Incredible Variety

I look forward to hearing from you and the reasons you have for Loving Your Job!

Relationship Compatibility

How much we learn over time!  In my 50+ years I have often wondered about relationship compatibility.

I can remember during the early dating years of my 20's hearing the much-bantered term "compatibility".  What was that, really?  I wondered.  It was a question that would stay with me to this day.  For years I accumulated information that eventually formulated a better understanding of it.

My latest foray into the adventure of relationships has once again added to my evolving understanding of  compatibility.  It has been my observation that compatibility occurs on multiple levels.  Today I'd like to suggest that these levels can be understood as physical, mental, emotional and sexual/spiritual.

It is my premise, that if compatibility is too far off in any one level the relationship is destined for pain and heartache and certain struggle.

Wikipedia defines Interpersonal Compatibility as follows:
Interpersonal compatibility is a concept that describes the long-term interaction between two or more individuals in terms of the ease and comfort of communication.

The article takes a deeper look at components of psychological theory but for the purposes of this article I will keep the ideas as simple as possible.

PHYSICAL COMPATIBILITY
I have found that physical compatibility begins with a physical attraction.  When I first started dating again, in my 40's I had to confront a ridiculous idea that accepting my physical preferences in potential mates was somehow shallow.


Since I ventured into the world of online dating, I had to admit that no one would even know if I looked simply for what was physically pleasing to me.  It didn't take long to realize that physical attraction wasn't shallow.  It was simple one part of determining compatibility and the longterm potential for happiness.

MENTAL COMPATIBILITY
Another aspect that increases the likelihood of happiness is a similarity in mental ability.  Now, I have learned that mental compatibility includes a vast number of components.  It includes innate intelligence, common sense, communication skills, and what I've been told is called "lag time".  


Lag time is the time it takes between a verbal comment and a response.  Of course, I'd never have learned about it if I hadn't been in a longterm relationship where the difference in the speed at which we each processed information hadn't been so obvious.  Being the one on the speedier side of the equation, I found myself often thinking "spit it out!"  Obviously not very conducive to warm and loving feelings between partners.


I've also learned that, although I have a huge heart with the ability to find the good in most, equal levels of innate intelligence and common sense can be critical factors in compatibility, too.  And, they are not the same.  Some people are highly intelligent, some have a high degree of common sense, and some have both.  Figuring out where you fit and how well matched you are with your potential mate is something to look at closely.

SOCIAL COMPATIBILITY
Perhaps an easier trait to examine, or perhaps one more commonly addressed is the social aspect of people.  Most people are aware of whether they recharge their batteries by being around people or in quiet, more solitary activities.  If you're interested in looking at introversion and extroversion tendencies, I would suggest the Myers-Briggs Trait Inventory...of course, that appeals to my level of mental stimulation which may not suit you at all!


SEXUAL/SPIRITUAL COMPATIBILITY
For many, many people the first four aspects I've covered are enough to determine compatibility but I would venture to include one more for your consideration.  This is one that I call sexual/spiritual.  Now I understand that for some of you, linking these two together may give you pause.  For others of you it may stop you dead in your tracks.  But from my perspective, as a holistic nurse who is used to dealing with the very nature of our biology and its intimate link to the unseen world beyond this one, I find them quite related.


Of course, I'm not talking about religion or religious beliefs here and if you haven't separated them from spirituality I would encourage you to invest some time there first.  What I am talking about is the energetic connection between our sexual-biological urges and the creative impulse.


The areas of interest for me evolved from years of spiritual exploration and practice.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with my background, I was raised Catholic...yes the whole parochial school thing for eight years...and have spent much of my life exploring eastern and western spiritual teachings, yoga and meditation.  In the late 80's I had a life altering spiritual awakening which catapulted me into the world of holistic nursing.

My nursing practice trained me to recognize human response patterns and to see health challenges as signs of expanding consciousness and I soon began to realize just how much we didn't know about the deeper spiritual nature of our selves.

That said, sexual and spiritual compatibility are topics that can be better addressed in further posts.  Suffice it to say that everything from the way we approach sexuality to the depth of our own spiritual consciousness affect our compatibility in relationships.

EMOTIONAL COMPATIBILITY
For those of you who noticed I moved from mental to social compatibility, skipping right over the emotional, you might find it interesting to know I was surprised to reach the end of my article and find I hadn't addressed the most recent insight I've learned.

The emotional makeup of people is likely as varied as any characteristic.  Given that many people are averse to dealing with emotions it makes sense that this area of compatibility can cause the most confusion and wreak the most havoc on relationships.

Emotions are a difficult topic for many.  Our families either expressed or didn't express emotion.  And, we were all wounded at this level at some point in our lives.  For those of us who are aware of our wounding, the variety of responses to that are myriad.  Some willingly admit it but won't deal with it.  Others never talk about it though they're aware of the deep pain.  My father falls into this category.  Still others are regular emotional adventurers who delve deeply into the recesses of the mind and enjoy the spelunking.  One of my favorite jokes goes....What do intelligence and 4-wheel drive have in common?  They both get stuck in even more remote locations!

Okay, so now you have a feel for my sense of humor and hence, my emotional preference.  Finding an emotionally compatible mate has never been easy for me.  First of all, most men are taught to bury their feelings from the time they are wee little.  Secondly, their ability to understand, yet alone navigate or, even more unlikely, be able to comprehend a partner's emotional motivation is less likely.  And in the rarer scenario, where a male partner has the awareness and ability to synthesize this amorphous territory, there conclusion may or may not support your higher evolution.

The toughest part of the emotional journey is that intimate relationships tend to strip away our defensive covering and lay our hearts bare, exposing our softest, gentlest most sensitive underbelly and hearts.

Seeking out compatible relationships is not for the faint of heart.

Interestingly, the Wikipedia article mentioned above has brought to my attention yet one other factor related to emotional compatibility.  That of the nature of 'complementary' behaviors that fall into two dimensions....specifically the submissive/dominance dimension and the hostile/friendly dimension or warmth.  Basically, the idea is that each behavior invites a certain response from the other.  The behavior and response are said to be complementary.

The surprising thing is that friendly behavior begets friendly behavior but dominant behavior begets submissive behavior.  Now, I don't know about you, but I am both trained and sensitive to natural laws and find it much more comfortable to respond in a complementary fashion.

If the initial behavior invites a natural response from the second person that matches the second person's goals then the second person is satisfied.

The problem is that I am drawn to more dominant men but have lived the bulk of my life in a dominant role.  Always a teacher never a graduate?  It will take a unique man to be a compatible match for me.

People tell me it will happen when I least expect it...well, that could be any time now because when compatibility is too far off in any one level....well, let's just say I'm not sure I can expect emotional compatibility to happen in my lifetime without pain and heartache and certain struggle.

In the mean time I will continue to value the journey and social adventure of relationships and hold tight to my belief in this quote from the Tao Te Ching:

When opposites no longer damage each other, both are benefited through the attainment of Tao...

Therefore, the wise identifies opposites as one, and sets an example for the world. --- Tao Te Ching

Or perhaps it is as my friend Tim so gently said "we live by simple rules...don't expect what you yourself cannot deliver."