#20 Life is Hard: How We Cope

Justine:

This episode’s going to feel a little different. We will say a disclaimer. Sarah’s sound might feel a little different because she is actually on the road. She is learning all about fascia and my myofascial techniques in preparation for Cancun. Something about Sarah is that she is an in-putter. This is a gift she has. She has to input, input, input for a long period of time and then the output is just incredible. I feel like Sarah, you’ve been spending a lot of intentional time inputting recently. Would you agree?

For not even recently. I feel like every day I feel pressure to input so I can output something great for you guys in Cancun. It really is going to be life changing. I spent, now that we’re talking about Cancun, but this is also for educators or for anybody that is intending to learn anything ever again, which is all of us, that I spent a lot of time last night condensing my thoughts and putting them together. I opened up the Cancun slides. There’s just a lot coming. I’m synthesizing right now. A lot going on in this head.

We are all lucky that you can do that and your head operates that way. But we were talking about…

No pressure.

Right, no pressure. We were talking about what we wanted to do this episode as we’re rounding out our first season. We have, I think, three more episodes left. Heads up there. We kind of both, to be honest, have low energy today. This week has been challenging for the both of us for different reasons. We’re just a little low. We were like, “Is that depressing to talk about that?” But I think that it’s a reality that nurses especially face, are low energy and getting up the next day and doing it all again. How do we cope, and how do we take care of ourselves? We wanted to just share some tips that we have on, what do we do during these times?

Well, and we had a lot of really cool clinical things to say. If we’re trying to be genuine about how we feel, I told Justine, I’m like, I don’t know that I have it in me right now. We want to be consistent with you, but we also want to be real with you that not everything is perfect all the time. Both of us struggle. Both of us get tired. I think we all go through seasons that are a little easier than others. It’s just being real here. But how do we get through it? Because also, you can just be like, wa wa, and I don’t want to live like that, but it also doesn’t mean that we stuff our feelings.

Yes. Do not need to stuff any feelings here. We do need to get through it to be healthy for ourselves and for our families and for our patients and the world. I guess I’ll go first and I’ll say I feel like I am more low this week, low energy, because some of you may know, but I am training full-time at the hospital right now for a new position that I’m taking on. If you work for an HCA, I am taking on a CNC position. I am training on days. I do not operate well on days. I get a stomach ache in the morning. I have to wake up earlier just because I know I’m going to get a stomach ache. I have to be there at 6:30, which is just so early. I see my nighttime friends. I’m just like, “I want to be with you guys.”

Not that I don’t love the day shift crowd. I actually worked with this crew for a long time, for a year on days. I do really like them too. I just love nights. I feel like with day shift you lose a lot of your day. Especially now with the time change, being in California, I get to work yet in the dark. I get home in the dark. It’s just very, it’s a long day. I am in meetings, which I’ve never had that part of my life before. I got to tell you, I am very under stimulated. I’m yawning and I’m dying and I’m like, I want to be on the floor. That has been more challenging. And then just regular maintenance of life. When you’re working those hours, you get home and you don’t want to do anything. You want to stuff your face and sit in front of the TV and then everything builds up. Then when you are done with your work week, it’s like, “I have so much to do. I’m so overwhelmed.”

It’s been a little of a bit of week, but some of the things that have helped me this week is I have been saying no to shifts. I feel like every day I get a text message. We’re in California, so let’s be honest. Our hourly rate is pretty good. It’s our hourly rate, plus they’re offering almost $30 an extra an hour. It’s very enticing. I’ve said no to all of them. I feel like that’s important when you’re in this low energy state. If you can financially not say yes, it could be worth it to say no.

Recently, two weeks ago, we bought this book. We had Corey, if you’re listening, Corey is in mentorship and she shared during a mentor call, she was cooking a meal and we were asking her about it. She shared this book of less than five ingredients from Trader Joe’s. I immediately bought it on the call. We’ve been cooking from it. It is so handy to have these simple recipes. We’ve cooked every dinner this week, which is an accomplishment for my family. Knowing that you cooked a meal and you’re not eating out, you’re not getting… You don’t feel gross afterwards has been really great. We’ve been stopping eating by 8:00 PM because I think we’re late night snackers. We’ll be like, “Let’s make cookies. Let’s drink milk,” and then you just feel gross. We’ve been cooking food, which has been really great. If you are on night shift mode, fast food all the time, that life can get hard if you feel your energy dwindling.

I remember my husband and I were zombies for a long time. We just strictly were nights. We were 3:00 AM Wiener Schnitzel crew knew our names, basically. Breaking that cycle can be really helpful for your energy, and then also good for your wallet because fast food’s expensive. Inflation, man.

I would say getting outside. I always say that they say as a generation we’re not getting outside enough anymore. I think I posted something recently that people that spent at least four hours a week outside had better mental health. Four hours a week does not seem that much. That’s like 25 minutes a day or something. It’s manageable. But there are people that don’t spend it. I would say, Sarah, I don’t think your window counts. I’m thinking about your outside time.

My window.

By your computer.

In my hotel room right now that looks like it’s in a murder film?

No, not that window.

That’s about an inch and does not count. I actually leave my house and breathe the LA “fresh air”.

Another one is separating from our third appendage, I would say. We have more than three appendages, but I’m talking about our phones and putting that down for a little amount of time can be really nice. That’s hard for someone like me who is on social media all the time. It’s a main part of my job. I don’t have, to give you a point of reference, I don’t have notifications. I never have my sound on, but I’m usually pretty good at responding. That shows you how much I’m checking my phone. I never have my sound on. I’ve been leaving it in another room for just periods of time to just separate from it. That has been really helpful, and just making me feel a little more lighter. That can help your energy, and then good quality sleep.

Sleep hygiene’s so important. I’m tired but I’m not mentally tired. I will say today, I’m a little more physically tired because I think my kid’s getting his second molars and he cried all night, but mentally tired. I’m good. I don’t feel overly stressed, which I think normally, in my normal life, I would with the things that I have going on.

Summarize, say no to extra shifts if you financially can. Make yourself some good nutritious food. Add a vegetable in. We would go all week without having one vegetable.

Totally. It’s really easy to. Even especially here being gone and having to live off of restaurants and stuff, I’m like, “Where’s the vegetables?”

Give me a brussel sprout.

I probably want a carrot.

Right. Then trying to separate from your phone for a little bit and then getting outside. I think that’s all on my list. I’m trying to read my list.

Oh, you made a list.

Yeah. That’s all my spiel, so I hope that’s helpful. I think I’ll be much better when I get back to my nights, which is funny. I think if you’re day shift you’re probably listening like, “You’re out of your mind.” But I thrive on nights. I thrive being able to be at my house during the day. I only miss out on sleeping and then I take a little nap and then I’m good. What about you Sarah?

Let me preface by saying that I live by… I try to live by the philosophy of our word choice matters. Although I’m a rambler, so I don’t know how well I’m at this, but in this kind of circumstance and I’m talking about something hard, I’m going to be pretty intentional about the words that I choose because I think there’s a difference between complaining and being the victim of your circumstance versus sharing how you feel.

I have to say, this last week has been hard for me. You can hear it in my voice. I haven’t talked a lot about… I haven’t really talk to anybody about this. I say starting a business is hard and haven’t been, blah blah blah, blah. You hear this, or like I’ve said before, the entrepreneur, you quit your nine to five to work 24/7. I’ve made so many strides to not have to work so much. I have an incredible team. This is not complaining at all, it just, it’s the end of the year. There’s a lot going on. I have set really high standards for myself and the quality of impact that I dream that we can have here at Bundle Birth and amongst each other in the community of Bundle Birth.

I really care about what I do. I care about people. One of the things that I struggle with is the phrase, I use this as coping and I think it has been somewhat the downfall of me is, I’ll be okay. I’m sure there are many of you that once you hear this you’ll be like, “Oh yeah, me too.” When something pops up and someone wants a private childbirth class and they give me a window of three days that they’re in LA and we really want you to come for blah blah blah and can you come teach me a class? My answer, I look at my calendar, I have one window of free time in the amount of time they gave me. I’ll go, “Well, I’ll be okay.”

But if I were to actually consider how I feel and how my body feels, this is what I’ve been really trying hard to do is… You hear it in my voice right now, so I hope you’re not dying of boredom because normally I’m Peppy Sarah, but I’m just… I’m kind of wiped out. I’ve been doing this myofascial release seminar this weekend. It is currently the weekend. In the last month and a half, I haven’t really had a day off, which is how things were, I don’t know, a year ago when I didn’t have Brian to help, and that we didn’t have some better systems in play, but I’ve worked my way out so that I can work out for the first time in years, or choose to eat healthy food versus live off of whatever I can get my hands on, like goldfish, not healthy habits guys.

Anyway, I’ve been away for this weekend learning this myofascial stuff. It’s very energetic. It’s hard on the body, as you’re learning these techniques. At this point, I think I’ll be considered an intermediate provider of myofascial relief, which is hilarious, because…

Ooh, that’s exciting.

I know. They keep saying, “Oh, what’s your practice?” I keep going like, “Oh, life.”

Cancun. Just kidding.

Because they are all PTs, OTs, massage therapists, chiropractors, all these people with actual practices and I’m like, “I’m just here to figure it out. I don’t know.”

Anyway, it’s a lot. I drove up here by myself. It was a four hour drive on top of literally running from a meeting, to a podcast, to the gym, which that is one of my wellness things that I have chosen to maintain and has been really important. I found a gym and have found Pilates that I just love, that makes me feel really good in my body and feels right for my body. In effort to pay attention to how I feel, I have not let down. I’ve been very consistent in going to the gym. That has been really life affirming for me. But it just feels like things have piled up. At no fault but anybody but myself, I have been caught in the trap of, I’ll be okay.

I think if I were to think about what I need and prioritize, whether it be rest or that, no, I know this person “needs me”, but I also need myself well for those that are in my life and those that I have impact on. I don’t know that I have… I think it’s a fine line of… I think it’s just a weird season of I’ve chosen to take on some really important things but I’m worn out.

On top of that, I have some interpersonal stuff that has just been hard. Life transitions for around me, feeling a good amount of loss, feeling I’m 34 years old. It’s crazy because y’all will hear me. We have this beautifully impactful, meaningful work that we do, but I don’t want to be just work. It feels like every time I try to step outside of that and gain experiences, or build life outside of work, it’s just work sucks me in.

There are times when, if I’m being totally honest, I feel like everyone needs everything from me. That feels like a lot of weight to carry at times. I know that’s not the truth, but there’s evidence in that way. I’ve created this life for myself, so I can’t really complaign. Anyway, I’m rambling. What’s the fruit of all of this?

One of the things I identified when we were sitting and going back and forth on all these clinical things and I was just like, I don’t have it in me. I can’t… I think one of the coping tools that I have really intentionally worked on, and I’m definitely not perfect at, is helping to compartmentalize. I talk about this in mentorship, but I used it this weekend as I was driving to the gym and got news that there’s likely a high, high chance that I will not be able to go see my family for Christmas because of a client, at no fault of hers but mine that I said yes to it and I’m choosing to be there for her, for her birth, but some things happened and it looks like I don’t get to go home for Christmas. I don’t get to be with my niece and nephew. I don’t get to see my parents. I don’t know when that’s going to happen again because Cancun is coming very quickly.

That was really hard. As I got those news, it felt like the overwhelm was bubbling up so fast to the point where I was like, I can’t breathe. I’m going to panic. I can’t take one more thing, one more news, whether it be… I can’t take one more bad news. Then it was like… Brian called me, who’s our COO, and was like, “So…” I was like, “Bryan, if it’s bad news, it has to wait. I don’t have it in me to hear it right now. I need you to handle it unless it’s totally urgent and I have to know right now. Can it wait?” He was like, “Yeah.”

I think that’s the first skill that I’ve learned is this idea of tapping into, how are you doing really? And asking that question to yourself of, where’s your capacity right now? If it’s low, which I feel like mine, I’m sort of walking on eggshells and having to push things aside so I don’t bubble over, to be aware of that and to start setting some boundaries of, I’m at a place where I cannot take on one more thing, so the answer is probably no. Now, if something comes into my life, then I’m going to reevaluate, but then something else has to be set aside. Does that make sense?

No, it totally makes sense. It actually, I’d really love to ask you a question on that. If I can, on boundaries. Because the other night, I realized I don’t have good boundaries. The other night someone asked me to do something for them and it was late. It was 10:00 PM. It was after. It was their responsibility to do it. No harm done, they just couldn’t. They were like, “Do you mind doing that?” I was like, “Sure, I can do it tomorrow.” I shouldn’t have said sure, because then it’s on my mind and I’m like, “Oh, I’m going to get out of bed. I’m going to open my computer and I’m going to do it.” I did it.

Was it me?

It was fine. It took a minute.

Did I ask you to do something?

I should’ve said no. No, no, no, no, no, no. It wasn’t you. Actually, it wasn’t you.

I was like, “Oh my gosh.”

I’m calling you out. No, it was not you. It was not you. I wasn’t even mad at her. I was more mad at myself to be like, I should have just said I can’t, but it was such a simple thing, for me personally to do because I know how to do that thing really well, but as soon as I said yes, I was like, “Oh God.” I resented the fact that I said yes. How do we say no without… Because I didn’t want to say no and just be a jerk, without sounding like a jerk.

Right.

Is there a script? I guess for you and Bry, you have a relationship where you can go, I can’t handle it.

Completely. That’s a piece of it, yes, but you’re not going to always have that kind of a relationship with everybody that’s asking you for everything in the entire world. Trust me, I’m saying no to things guys. This is the important lesson that I’ve had to learn. I’m still internalizing and clearly not great at, but that has helped me to conceptualize this concept, is that one, that when you make a decision, first of all, making slower decisions. When someone asks you to do something, to take a moment and not just first instinct, because our first instinct, especially as nurses, is like, “Yeah, for sure. I got you.” We want to be helpful. We’re giving people. That goes back to the script of, “I’ll be fine. I’ll figure it out. I’ll be fine. It’s just my sleep. What’s 15 minutes?” We start justifying, for their sake. The question is, why?

That question you have to ask probably with every single circumstance of, in that case, I don’t want to let them down, but then it goes into, but well, am I letting them down? Who’s letting who down here? Honestly, you can’t really let anyone down until you’ve made an agreement with them. If you agreed to do it and then didn’t do it, you let them down. But by asking, you are not obligated to say yes. The other side that goes right along with this is that by making a decision, every single time you make a decision, you are saying yes to something and you are letting something else down, 100%. In this case, you said yes to this person, but who did you let down?

Myself.

This goes into the whole self-love journey that I’m on for myself of why… First of all, do I matter? Does my mental health, does my sleep, does my happiness, does my energy, does it matter? That works. It could go a lot of different ways for me how I justify it, because it’s easier for me to matter for other people than to matter for myself, which is why this is entirely a self-love journey. But I’m like, yeah, I matter because I have a team of people that depend on me for work that I’m guiding into the world, and I have impacted, influenced through my business, and my life and my relationships and their lives matter. I want to show up well for them. That’s like, “Oh, okay, but what about showing up well for myself? What if I didn’t impact anybody in the whole wide world? Am I enough? Do I alone matter?”

I think for a lot of us, if we are honest, the answer is probably no. That, to me, is a glaring like, “Whoa, okay, hold on”. For me, it’s been no, to be honest. That work then becomes a whole nother story. But in letting myself down, for me, I justify it for the rest of the world but I’m beginning to say, “Okay, but what if I didn’t have that reach, or I didn’t have the team, or whatever? Is it okay for me to just say no and go, no, because it doesn’t work for me?” And what’s worse? Letting myself down? Who matters more to me? Sorry, who matters…

I’m not going to matter anymore to anybody else than to myself. That’s the goal. No one’s going to prioritize know your needs. No one’s going to be able to meet your needs like you can meet your needs. Unless you’re in touch with your needs, then you can’t advocate for your needs. This also applies to patient care.

With that being said, by letting them down, I’m writing the story of whether or not they’re let down or not. Yet I’m not responsible for their response to me saying no. If they love and care about me, and you’ve prioritized yourself, they really should just say, “Wow, good for her for prioritizing what she needs.” You’re not obligated to anyone else but yourself. But the moment you don’t set that boundary between other people, now you’ve become obligated and you’ve let yourself down. Does that make sense?

Makes so much sense. I think that the idea of I’m… I don’t let them down until I commit to it is really huge. Nurses listen to that. The other of make slower choices. That’s really great.

I’m talking to Bry and I’m like, “I can’t take any more bad news.” For my own self, I know that I’m literally on the verge of tears. I’m on the verge of a meltdown, which I’d had the day before, not a full meltdown, but I cried and I don’t really cry. By cry, I usually say I cried and I welded, but this was a tears down my face, had to bring it in. I know that, that to me is an indicator. That’s not normal behavior for Sarah. There’s something going on and something where I’m going, “Whoa, there’s too much.” My capacity has reached its ceiling right now. What needs to happen then is I need to identify, “I’m at the ceiling. I can’t take much more,” and therefore need to discharge or diffuse some of that capacity, and/or set the boundary that nothing else until I can flush it out of my system.

When this phone call came in right after that with my client basically telling me I have to work through Christmas and can’t go see my family until Lord knows when, and truly I’m on call. We have too much going on and prep for Cancun. My nephew will be three by the time I see him. My niece will be practically walking. My coping mechanism for that was throw it in a box. I was going into a Pilates class. I was literally leaving from Pilates to drive four hours to San Luis Obispo for this class. I needed to get there. My best friend’s getting married on Monday and I’m doing her hair, makeup, flowers and photos for it. I have this huge weekend. I don’t have a for sure date for her induction. Until then, it’s going in a box and I’m shoving it aside. When I’m ready and when I choose to, and when I’ve created capacity in my emotional self to pull the box out, I’ll pull it back out. Does that make sense too?

It does make sense, but how do we know that we’re ready to pull it out?

Well, eventually you have to. At some point with this… First of all, I have to change my flight, plus cancel my flight and try to get refund, which is not going to happen. Or find another flight over the holidays and hope it’s not astronomically different. Again, I’m kind of playing. I’m a martyr right now because I’m annoyed, but bear with it. At some point, I will have to face this, but when I look at my life, I go, “Not this weekend.” I’m in class literally from eight to six every single day for the next three days. I drive down and I need to be ready and present for my best friend while she gets married. I am her support system, but here’s the difference. Instead of, “Ugh, I have to,” the script around it is, I am choosing to. I chose to be here. I’m not a victim to my circumstance. I chose to be here, but while I’m here and in order for me to be present and get the most out of it, this weekend’s not the time. I know I need to get through this wedding. I know I need to get some more answers. Until then, that box is put away.

And it’s not just shoved away forever, but it’s a, let’s have a plan to pull that out. In the meantime, I need to work at either creating more capacity, or of getting rid of all the things that have piled up. One of them will be, I’ll get through this weekend. I’ll get through her wedding and then I’ll be like, “Okay, hold on. Now I have a little bit more space in my brain to be able to tackle this without full blown meltdowns,” which I still may cry and I’m for sure going to have to grieve the time with my family when they live across the world and I barely see them. Again, murder. But it’s hard. It’s hard.

No, that’s good. But I think I would struggle with… I feel like I’m just pushing it off. I’m thinking about school for me. My school right now, I just found out this test that I just failed, if I fail it two more times, I cannot continue in the program at all. I can’t even retake the class. My answer was like, “Well, I’m not even going to focus on that while I’m training.” So I’m pretending I’m not in school. I need to be more intentional. I am just putting that aside until I have more space, instead of feeling guilty feeling like I’m just not giving it time.

Exactly. By not putting it in the box, you still carry the weight of the test, and studying for the test, and then you carry the weight of the guilt of you don’t have time to do it, but then it’s just, you’re creating your own suffering. By putting it in a box, which sounds like you did, but now it’s just a decision of I’m going to have to go there again. But right now, it’s just completely unrealistic for me to manage my situation, and it’s unrealistic for you to study for this test. But you know when it will be.

That’s good. That’s going to help me not carry it.

We create our own suffering. We write the story. We decide that we spend too much time thinking about things. I have to think about it. At one point, I thought I was just an apathetic jerk who didn’t feel things. Then when… I don’t remember who I was talking to, where they were like, “You feel so deeply, you just choose when to feel.” Then I was like, “Well, that feels a lot better than I don’t feel,” because that didn’t feel fair either. I don’t know. That has really helped me in my life, and is currently helping me manage and not have meltdown. I know I’m at very clear capacity. I knew yesterday that by the end of the class the energy was just off. I wasn’t feeling good. I had all these plans to, “I’ll go walk around downtown  and go get a nice meal on a patio somewhere and get a coffee,” and blah blah blah.

I just was like, that’s normal Sarah. Sarah’s not normal right now. I need to love that place of where I’m at and be honest with that, which is why I have zero qualms even just talking about it publicly, because who cares? We’ve all been there. We need to understand that when you see people, whether it be on social media or at the nurses station, that we’re all going through our stuff. We’re all carrying weight in various ways. We do have some control over how we carry that weight, when we carry that weight. Some of it is totally unavoidable. If you are at capacity, that’s a warning sign for you. Too often we’re at capacity for too long and then it turns into burnout.

For me, if I were to take this on, guess what? Y’all don’t want me burnt out. Y’all need… I’m literally talking to you, Justine. I employ you. My team, literally, I can’t quit. They all need me. Everyone has these answers, all the time. Out of love for those around me and out of love for your patients, out of love for your family members, we have to be paying attention to this stuff and being true to how we’re feeling, where we’re at. If you’re not feeling good, instead of just going this is a bad day, and that, I think, is where the word choice also matters of… I don’t use that terminology in my life. I’m not having a bad day. I would say, I’m grieving some things, or I’m feeling like I’m almost at capacity. I don’t have much else today. I’m feeling extra tired and I’m trying to be conscious of that, because the moment it becomes… Who puts the label of bad on that?

It doesn’t have to be bad. Is it an easy season? No, it’s not easy. I feel overwhelmed. Those aren’t notoriously positive emotions, but I wouldn’t call it bad. I have to believe there’s something beautiful in this season for me to learn, for me to take from. I know that by the fact that I’ve been through other seasons like this and there have been fruit that’s come from it. I think also being careful about how we speak about the hard times. I’m grieving. I’m struggling. I have a hard time getting out of bed, being a lot more objective about our circumstance because the moment you flat bad day, then literally, there’s not one single blessing in that day. Whereas, I found my favorite water that Instacarted to my door yesterday. I was like, “This is a great moment.” I loved it. My water that I was… This is so dumb, but I really like this Proud Source sparkling water. It’s my favorite and you can’t find it everywhere. They delivered it to my door in the bottles that I like and I was like, “I get to sit here and drink my sparkling water. That’s just so great.”

That’s a choice. I think in the midst of hard, choose gratitude. I told… I just got off the phone… Sorry, I’m done. I’m done. I’m done. It’s like therapy for me. I just got off the phone with a friend who is in a really, really, really, really hard season and struggling with some mental health stuff and dealing with some trauma. As we know with trauma, the moment you open that wound, it’s not just a quick fix a lot of times. She’s like, “I had a horrible birthday. I had this and that. It’s just everything’s hard,” and blah, blah, blah. I said, “What are three things you’re grateful for right now in this moment?” She said, “My family, my friends, and my animals.” I said, “Can I make a suggestion?” She said, “Yeah.” This is literally right before we got on to do this podcast. I said, “Why don’t you, when you get home,” she’s driving, “Why don’t you get home and set a timer for 20 minutes and either close your eyes and think about it, or sit and journal about all the reasons why you’re grateful for each of those three things.” She was like, “I think that’s going to be really helpful for me.”

It’s that gratitude is, I know it seems cliche, but that gratitude, the moment you shift your perspective of, I really am so glad to be drinking this Proud Source water rather than tap water right now. I can drink tap water. I’ve been drinking tap water. But you know what I mean? I’m grateful for this water bottle. I really like this highlighter I’m using to read these 6,000 articles that I found last night, which by the way, I have a whole book of new articles for Cancun that I’m going to read, or I have Justine that I can talk to and vibe and that we have this beautiful community that if you’re still here listening, God bless you. I hope you take something from these words. That’s like, regardless of this moment in my life where it’s not all hunky dory, that I really have so much gratitude for all of those things and more.

That’s another great tip. That’ll be our last tip. Gratitudes. Write down what you’re grateful for. Thanks for sharing that. Thanks for spending your time with us during this episode of Happy Hour with Bundle Birth Nurses. If you like what you heard, it helps us both if you subscribe, rate, leave a raving review and share this episode with a friend. If you want more from us, head to bundlebirthnurses.com or follow us on Instagram.

Now it’s your turn to go and apply something that you learned from this episode to your life. By life, I mean yes, of course your practice, but also your life outside of work because we are not just what we do. We are much more than that. Take one tip and try something new to care for your soul, putting yourself first and choosing love over sacrifice for your soul.

We’ll see you next time.