Nursing U's Podcast
Nursing U is a podcast co-hosted by Julie and Caleb. We embark on an educational journey to redefine nursing within the modern healthcare landscape.
Our mission is to foster an open and collaborative environment where learning knows no bounds, and every topic—no matter how taboo—is explored with depth and sincerity. We delve into the essence of nursing, examining the intimate and often complex relationships between nurses and their patients amidst suffering and death.
Through our discussions, we aim to highlight the psychological impacts of nursing and caregiving, not only on the caregivers themselves but also on the healthcare system at large.
Our goal is to spark conversations that pave the way for healing and innovation in healthcare, ensuring the well-being of future generations.
'Nursing U' serves as a platform for examining the state of modern civilization through the lens of nursing, tackling issues that range from violence, drugs, and sex to family, compassion and love. We will utilize philosophy, religion and science to provide context and deeper understanding to the topics we tackle.
By seamlessly weaving humor with seriousness, we create a unique tapestry of learning, drawing wisdom from the experiences of elders and the unique challenges faced in nursing today.
Join us at 'Nursing U,' where we cultivate a community eager to explore the transformative power of nursing, education, and conversation in shaping a more whole and healthier world."
Disclaimer:
The hosts of 'Nursing U', Julie Reif and Caleb Schraeder are registered nurses; however, the content provided in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing shared on this podcast should be considered medical advice nor should it be used to diagnose or treat any medical condition. Always seek the guidance of your doctor or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or health concerns. The views expressed on this podcast are personal opinions and do not represent the views of our employers or our professional licensing bodies.
Nursing U's Podcast
Ep #023 -The Heart of Nursing: Bridging Science with Spirit
After a life-changing experience, I discovered the power of choosing a "word of the year" to guide personal growth. Join me on Nursing U as we kick off the new year by exploring the importance of intention-setting and finding purpose in our lives. We'll delve into the challenges of overcoming obstacles like quitting drinking, and discuss the significance of breaking free from robotic routines to embrace intentional living. Discover how hospital routines can provide a supportive framework for personal growth and intentionality.
In this episode of Nursing U, we take a deep dive into the complex process of wound care and healing. Through heartfelt stories and experiences, we'll explore the emotional and physical demands faced by healthcare professionals in this field. Join us as we highlight the meticulous procedures involved and the importance of empathy and effective pain management for patients in severe discomfort. By drawing parallels between the journey of personal growth and the healing process, we'll uncover the role of constant attention, patience, and compassion in achieving transformation and healing.
Science and spirituality are often seen as opposing forces, but in this thought-provoking episode, we navigate the intricate relationship between the two. We'll challenge the ever-changing nature of scientific conclusions and explore the transformative power of spirituality. Discover how science and spirituality can coexist, offering us a holistic approach to understanding life's mysteries. We'll also address the impact of trauma on healthcare professionals, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and discuss the journey of healing and rebuilding trust. Join us as we embark on a fascinating exploration of these topics and look forward to the exciting new episodes to come.
Hi, I'm Julie.
Speaker 2:And I'm Caleb. Welcome to Nursing U, the podcast where we redefine nursing in today's healthcare landscape. Join Julie and I as we step outside the box on an unconventional healing journey.
Speaker 1:Together, we're diving deep into the heart of nursing, exploring the intricate relationships between caregivers and patients with sincerity and depth.
Speaker 2:Our mission is to create an open and collaborative experience where learning is expansive and fun.
Speaker 1:From the psychological impacts of nursing to the larger implications on the healthcare system. We're sparking conversations that lead to healing and innovation.
Speaker 2:We have serious experience and we won't pull our punches. But we'll also weave in some humor along the way, because we all know laughter is often the best medicine.
Speaker 1:It is, and we won't shy away from any topic, taboo or not, from violence and drugs to family and love, we're tackling it all.
Speaker 2:Our nursing knowledge is our base, but we will be bringing insights from philosophy, religion, science and art to deepen our understanding of the human experience.
Speaker 1:So, whether you're a nurse, a healthcare professional or just someone curious about the world of caregiving, this podcast is for you.
Speaker 2:One last thing, a quick disclaimer before we dive in. While we're both registered nurses, nothing we discuss here should be taken as medical advice. Always consult with your doctor or a qualified healthcare provider for any medical concerns you may have. The views expressed here are our own and don't necessarily reflect those of our employers or licensing bodies.
Speaker 1:So let's get started on this journey together. Welcome to Nursing U, where every conversation leads to a healthier world.
Speaker 2:Welcome back.
Speaker 1:Here we are Now. We did our New Year's episode that I think will be the first one in January. Will it be on the 5th? Yeah, because the 29th came out. Yep, but we're actually recording this on january 1st on the 1st.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah so in.
Speaker 1:It's interesting because we decided not to do it on sunday, which is our usual recording day, and that I just like that it fell on the first, like it feels like a good stepping stone to move forward into the 2025.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we've been talking a lot about in the last couple of podcasts, about looking into the future, as one does when the year clicks over to the next number, and you know we've talked about a lot of futuristic things. We've talked about, you know, ai. We've talked about a lot of history and how that's relevant now and where the future of nursing, where the future of this podcast might be going, and I've also had a lot of thinking. I've been thinking a lot about my future. Like you know, I've had a. I've had a word of the year I don't probably since I quit drinking.
Speaker 1:So that new year, I quit in November of 2017. And so in January 2018, that was a real, a real turnover year for me I left night shift, so I quit drinking in November and then in December, I went to two weeks of intensive outpatient therapy what is it IOP, intensive outpatient, whatever and so that was like daily for two weeks, and so I worked weekends, overnights during that time, but I knew that I was going to go to day shift. I had been on nights for like 22 years, so 2018 is when I went to day shift, and so I must have come across something that was, like you know word of the year and then you kind of you know, you bubble off of that all year, all year long, kind of, and that you know has a connection to that year and kind of brings your thoughts back to oh yeah, okay, I forget what my word was, maybe like I think it was purpose, because I left a life that had no meaning.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I was like you have purpose, you have to find what gives you purpose in life, like so, basically that, what is meaningful to you. I didn't even know I. I was so disconnected from my body and was just robot. It was, I was just a robot. Yeah, I did continue to be a robot for multiple years or I kind of got out of it a little bit, but it was so hard to focus on the not drinking. It's like you just have to take one layer at a time and that was one layer of the not drinking and then kind of relearning who I was without alcohol, which was huge, so that was like whole death of ego that ego, I mean, really, and learning, letting go, because that was like a death. I felt alcohol was like a friend that I lost, like a you know, like we just can't see each other anymore, like it sucks with this kind of toxic loving relationship, like I love you and we had a lot of great times, but you're like a dick and I feel like shit and this is, things aren't going well.
Speaker 1:So it was a lot of loss, but then, you know, propulses you forward to find, find, find stuff. So that was my first year having a word, and so when I was thinking about this year, I thought you want a word, a word to write. This doesn't cover it. And more for me, Not one word. I I of a place where I want to be like mentally, where I'm going to not just notice that I'm there, but I'm going to purposely put myself and do the things I need to do, to purposely maintain. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm, Mm-hmm. Like maintaining I don't want to hold on, like I don't want to grasp to strings anymore. I want to have like a fucking solid foundation, and you know.
Speaker 2:I'm about utilities. I'm about utilities, like when you're talking about robotic being robotic, it's finding the balance between being robotic and intentional. You can only be intentional so much of the time. You can't be intentional at every single second. One of the things that I really appreciate about the structure that a hospital provides is the routine. That having those routines and the structure of those routines enables me to move freely in other ways that I couldn't without that. So finding that balance is, I think, important.
Speaker 1:Yeah that makes a lot of sense. I've even noticed that lately when I've kind of been like my school, this semester was over, so I don't have that anymore and you know, we kind of got the podcast under control a bit you know, it's flowing and I don't know if that just created more space for me to think about things. But what I've been noticing is my uh, leaning back to work more like shifts at the hospital.
Speaker 2:I hadn't been picking them up very much and I've been busy, but you're right, the shifts at the hospital are like easy you know, it, does it, and I think you say easy because you have easy because you have the routine and you know all of the things that you have to do. Yeah, not easy like it's not easy work, but it's easy to step into that role.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, yeah because we've been doing it for so long because it's yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, as I learn these other ways about myself and it allows me to not have to think so much about like, oh my God, am I doing this right? Or who am I working with, or oh, you know, I've got to go to the committee and or just you know all the things that you did the days are long and I've also been noticing how am I now that you're working like 12 hours on the floor, so it's a med-surg floor. Well, they take telemetry too, but nothing critical, nothing real real sick, and really the most I ever have is like four patients. So I'm over here like I could take an ad. I mean that's fine, and then other nurses are like oh my God, we need another nurse.
Speaker 1:I'm like are you kidding me?
Speaker 1:you know, uh, so it, there's an ease to it. And then I had to get over the, the whole script that I had of like, get away from the hospital, get away from the hospital, get away from the hospital. So there's something there, there's something there, there's something there that's pulling me back. I mean money, you know, we all need the money, but I'm grateful that it allows me the mental space to be able to focus on insides and my soul and just continuing to be happy rather than, you know, hanging on by threads, you know, and just being pulled. Know, hanging on by threads, you know, and just being pulled, pulled. I feel more, I feel more controlled, you know, and I think a lot of it's just from all the work that that I've already done, but it's always a journey, so there's always more work, and so we're always in a new season, and, and so when you look at this 25, 2025 year, does it, is it going to differ for you, or is it just kind of continuing on your path?
Speaker 2:well, I mean, continuing to work on this is obviously important. Um, I had a couple of really um, I would say, inspiring moments in hospice recently. Just you know, inspiring moments in hospice recently, just you know, the flow of that work is so different than anything I've ever done before because it's, you know, there's no. There's no rush. Like you have your patient, your your caseload, that you have to get done. But if it doesn't get done today, as long as it gets done tomorrow, it's okay. Like there's, the pressure is so much less. There's still emergencies that you have to respond to. Whatever. There was this one patient that I was wrapping up my my visit and they were tearful because they didn't know, they didn't expect to see 2025.
Speaker 1:They didn't expect to see 2025.
Speaker 2:This person was having a lot of anxiety and fear around the anticipation of death. They thought that they would be gone already and they're not. And what now? What am I? What am I? I'm supposed to be dead, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and so the conversation, the conversation that ensued was just for me, for my soul, like it's almost. It's almost like um, I'm talking to the like, patients from the past, patients that didn't get the opportunity to have. I didn't get to have the conversation with them about their death. They're just fucking dying on me and I can't do anything about it.
Speaker 2:And so I don't know, in some really beautiful way, doing hospice is allowing me to have the conversations that I never got to have with those patients that did die, that they weren't ready, they weren't prepared, the panic in their face as they were dying, all of these things, even though and I do think that the conversation was therapeutic I think that this person, at the very least, they laughed. I got to make them laugh.
Speaker 1:That's so cute though it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it is, and so for me I think there's a chance I could really like doing hospice after that experience, and there's been a couple of others, and it's just like you know, it's kind of strange. I feel like the harshness of my career in critical care jaded me and took away the kind of innate kindness that exists within my being that I'm like that is who I, at my core, truly am. But when all of the junk get gets piled up and and um, you have all these terrible experiences, you build this thick shell around yourself that, uh, the real you can no longer like funny, because the, if that's the innate part of me, then the parts of me that are you know, for lack of a better term bad acting, those bad acting attributes are the shadow yeah and when you build up all these shells on top of you from all these harsh experiences, the goodness that exists within you becomes the shadow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so you have to like. Then you, when you uncover all of these elements of yourself, uh, when you, when you go and you do the work, you're in the therapy and you're you're engaged in active introspection and and all these things, and you start peeling off these layers of of of the shell to reveal the true nature, then you can get. You know I think that's part of becoming whole, instead of having like, not that, not that there's not a shadow, but that the two are then working together in a, in a functional capacity that, like I can be a dick, I built that show up pretty good. If I need to be a dick, I can do it, but I don't need to.
Speaker 1:No, and that's not your true nature.
Speaker 2:It's not my true nature, I guess, as I think about 2025, I could. If the situation was really right, I could see myself making a full transition to hospice care. It kind of calls forward that part of me that entered into healthcare innocent and kind and no longer quite so naive. But this situation, because there's an acceptance, a fundamental acceptance of the mortality, family interactions. I'm sure that there are negative ones, I'm certain of it. I have not experienced it yet. All of my interactions have been beautiful and and good. So there is a difference there as well.
Speaker 2:That allows that part of me to come forward.
Speaker 1:Yes, as we evolve, I mean that's what we do from the moment we're born, what were the moment we're conceived? We're evolving and we're growing from the inside out. I mean that's what we do from the moment we're born, the moment we're conceived. We're evolving and we're growing from the inside out. I mean it's just how it is. And so you know, as we continue to evolve and change who we are, we see different things because the different things are reflected to us. As we change on the inside, the reflections start to change, and so you meet people who are very aligned with you. You find jobs that are very aligned with you. Things just are created for you when you're open to the evolving. I always think of, like minding your mental health and caring for who your soul is. It is like, uh, debriding a wound is how I can see it. Ah, yes, Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, you first look at it and it might be a little bruised, and there's some like little bruised and there's some like blanchy weirdness, but skin intact. And the next day you go in and you got the little hole and you're like that looks weird. And now next week you come back and there's, you know, a 12 centimeter hole.
Speaker 1:This is tunneled down like. So what do we do? We take them to the or we open it up, we wash out all the nasty bad bacteria. We pour antiseptic stuff on it, we clean it, we tend it, sometimes twice a day, three times a day. We take the dressings, we wash it. We wash the inside. We're continuing to pull all the goo off and re-dressing bacon's packing, all of that, but then what happens?
Speaker 2:so it it heals that's, that's that smell of my otiform it's like I can smell it right now they have this new thing.
Speaker 1:I did a wound um the other day because the outpatient nurse was gone. They have this new stuff. It's hard foam and you cut it and then you get it wet and then it's this weird slippery dressing but I think it's got silver in it. I've never used it before. But you can, like you know, get it in the bed of the wound it up and around it.
Speaker 1:The nurse who was with me was like oh, she thought she was going to show me Cause. Like I haven't worked there very long, I probably no one's ever seen me do a wound, and so I just get in there, get the thing off, get thing, get thing. I'm packing pack, you know, and holding the, you know. It's like holding chopsticks when you hold those little things. You know exactly where to push and push yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:She looked at me and she was like, oh, I can see you've done this before.
Speaker 2:And I was like I have, I have, I don't want to be the wound nurse but I've done a lot of dressing, so I'm pretty confident in that I can pack this wound. Oh, we've done some complex wounds.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, and it never gets better for me. I mean, I'm less like and this was clean, so it was outpatient, it wasn't that bad. But it's the pushing down into when you can see your stick under the skin from above, when you're pushing. Yeah, it never really gets easier.
Speaker 2:I don't want to gross our viewership out. It's really bad. It's a really bad story.
Speaker 1:Let's just go for it.
Speaker 2:Are you sure it's one of my worst. You may remember it. You may remember it.
Speaker 1:The wounds are flooding back in my memory. I'm sure every nurse knows a wound. Every nurse can think of a wound, that wound they were like. What is this? Um, it was colovaginal vaginal fistula, you remember it oh I have seen maybe two of them that got really bad and that we may be thinking of the same one yeah, it was so bad it was unbelievable.
Speaker 2:It was unbelievable no, it's not even right, it's not, it's not, and only nurses will really understand what, what I just said, or health care professionals. Yeah, it's so bad, it's so bad.
Speaker 1:And then, if they're awake, the one I was thinking was awake and I think we had a lot of trouble managing her pain. A lot of nurses don't like to give a lot of pain medicine, but I'm like she's in the ICU. If she quits breathing, we'll just put her on the ventilator, we'll just tube her. I know why are you letting her lay there in excruciating pain? Give her 10 more feet. If we need to put some oxygen on her, we will.
Speaker 2:All of it, give her all of it. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:All she can have Every 10 minutes.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:We can put a BiPAP on her. It is going to be fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, same same. I still live by that. I still live by that I still live by that.
Speaker 1:So the wound example helps me to see that it's evolving, it's slow and it happens in stages.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, like it really is constant care, you can't just get through one thing, because you know then the next time you take the dressing off maybe it's worse again in the one side, and so you have to go back and you have to do a little bit more there. But it's always noticing, always looking, always checking in. How are you, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:But? But the other side of that is that with with wounds just like wounds, and and the analogy of of healing yourself, you can't recognize the change when you're assessing daily. It's only when you come back a week later or two weeks later, or two years later, five years later, that you can really see the radical transformation that's happened.
Speaker 1:And then you pull back that bandaid and you're like, oh wow, this looks so good, the edges are approximated and pink and the granulation tissue is that resonates a lot because when you so I just and I did a year review of like questions, there were some journal questions like reviewing your year, so reviewing your accomplishments, things you might have done different, that where you are with this, this, this and this and and and it was that really that I was like I re, I really have come a long way Like and it's it's different than achievement come a long way Like I I've that was a thing for me, like you know, getting the master's degree, getting this doing that being a coach like make these accomplishments.
Speaker 1:That's not what I want to count for my life. So I have to get away from that programming that that makes me feel guilty because I didn't finish this or I've changed my mind or you know whatever. But it's, it really is. When you look back, you're like but I'm a completely different person, and getting to know who you are on the inside and what you really really want is is actually very hard. Sometimes they're like well, what do you, what do you want? You know what? Visualize, let's visualize like what, what, where? Your future? Sometimes I can't even, I don't even know.
Speaker 1:All I do know is that I want to be calm, happy, peaceful, satisfied. I want things to happen with ease. I want things to come to me just naturally, and so doing inner work and again continuing to peel those layers back of the ego that just build up over time Nobody can help that it just is and getting to the true essence of really who I am. I'm still learning. Like I thought I didn't know myself after I quit drinking. That was just like one gal back, like I'm so many different gals and and really so for me this year is going to be, I think, just exploration of me, without trying to manipulate. You know all this. You know I don't want to work at the hospital, so I have to focus. I have to get a job going. I have to do this, I have to do this. I don't want to try so hard. Actually. I'm not doing that anymore.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to go to my nurse job, which I love, and really just continue to excavate what's going on inside and I've never felt like this before.
Speaker 1:On inside, and I've never felt like this before so something has I have cut something, some cord has been cut because the the the pressure to achieve and build and make, um, it is gone a little bit, not gone very, very less than it has been. And even with this podcast it's like, you know, I don't, I don't feel the like, you know, chest crushing anxiety of like, oh my god, we have to be the first, we have to get that, we have to do social media, we have to market, we have to get something. We have to do. This. It's really just been very easy to like.
Speaker 1:Let's just see where it goes and and like I'm okay, being okay with that is what I'm like. Are you actually? I am, you know, I talk, I have a lot, we talk a lot, yeah, yeah. And what do you feel about this year? And if you were to look back over 2024, what are? What are some achievements that you have?
Speaker 2:and achievements and I'm not talking about, like you know, I'm just talking like personal, emotional excavating, you know evolving things- I think probably doing this work with you is the biggest thing that happened in 2024 for me In terms of that personal excavation. I mean, it's allowed me to say things out loud that haven't been said. It's caused me to go back over a lot of the things that I have learned over the last 10 years of reshaping myself and becoming who I am today. I would say this has been tremendously healing. It also, you know I don't know if I've said this on here. I know that I've said it recently but I can't remember if I've said it on here but it does feel like, regardless of where this takes us or where it goes, it feels really good to me that you know, if I died today, my kids and my family would have most of the answers that they would need to the questions they have about me.
Speaker 2:I that that what I mean. I know my parents listen, uh, but I don't know that anybody else really listens in my family right now. But if I were to just no longer exist, uh, here, um, I have a lot of peace knowing that when the time is right for my children to to understand who I am, they would see the side, they would get to see the best part of me. I'm really close to tearing up about that right now. They would get to hear me say from my own mouth about my experiences, what brought me to such a devastatingly low place low place and I believe that that would heal their hearts, as well as my other family members that just can't understand me because their life experience is so radically different than mine. So for me, that's the biggest thing of 2024.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's been path changing for me you know, really and and something that I had thought about for a very long time either writing a book or starting a podcast, and I just wouldn't have ever done it by myself.
Speaker 1:It's not something that I would have been able to, because I, you know, you know those weird thoughts that you're like just coming along. You're like, oh, why could you do a podcast? Or, oh, I could do that, or I should do that. You know, over the years it's so weird how things just like keep popping in your mind. You're like, is that crazy? Or who's saying? And who is saying that? Like, who's saying that to me? You know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:My word, my mouth is not saying it, but who? Who is? Who's saying that? You know?
Speaker 2:So is it just? Is it really? I literally had this thought last night. I was falling asleep and you know those little dreams that you have. You start like you see someone and they're talking and you're, and then, and then something happens and you wake up and it's like I was thinking, like I recognized that who like the disconnect between this dream state and and myself, which actually I'm going to share this? This was so incredible. I can't quote who it was, cause I don't remember. Um, but uh, you know, light is, exists, we can observe light into a fundamental uh capacities as a waveform and as a particle, particle, but they can't be viewed as both simultaneously.
Speaker 2:And this scientist was presenting the idea that consciousness is existing in a waveform and as a particle. That, um, I can't remember. I'm sure we'll be able to get close and just thinking about it. But the idea that consciousness is a waveform that is active, where these so in, in anesthesia, they think that these microtubules within the brain are collapsing from the anesthetic gases and that's what shuts consciousness, consciousness off. So in that collapsed state, it, the brain, is functioning as a particle, but when we're conscious and awake and aware, it's a waveform, it's open, it's moving, it's fluid, yeah. So I think that's a fascinating idea and I think there's a Nobel prize for this, this data that just came out, but it's. I mean that that kind of it kind of gets to the answer of the experience that I had in that transitional place last night of sleep and awake Like it was collapsing, but then it opened again. It's like in that collapsed state, all of the information that was flowing through that in a, in a, in the waveform, it like meets and starts moving internally.
Speaker 1:It's very quantum physics and and I have read what, when I read things about quantum physics and things in nature and energy and the vibration and the particle and when it becomes, you know, a vibration is when there's a tension on it and when it's not, it's solid. No, the opposite, when there's a tension on it, it's a particle and it's solid, you can see it. When there's not, it's all waveform, and that thoughts create energy and the energy is also a waveform, so that all plays into something. And that's why they say your attention, which really is your thoughts about it, you're, you're attending it, you're thinking about it creates energy. And so that energy attracts like energy.
Speaker 1:And so you know, in a grand example it would be you know someone who just gets out of bed and they're shitty and they have to go, and then they stub their, their toe and then they're cussing and they're so mad and then the toothbrush falls on the floor with the toothpaste and like you know, those mornings, like nothing goes right, every stoplight, and you're just like more mad and more mad and more mad.
Speaker 1:It's just, it's the power of the thoughts and the energy that is creating and attracting like energy. And you know, it's in that that I've been trying to practice letting go of my thoughts about certain things and then being present. So bringing yourself to the just now, like what's going on right now, right now, where am I and where am I sitting and what am I doing versus all the thoughts about everything and things tend to tip my way a lot like front row parking um, not a lot of traffic, the best seat in the house, and when you can get in that flow of being present and thinking, not ruminating on shit that happens, just to literally let it go and not create thoughts about it.
Speaker 1:It can't come to you if you're not creating thoughts about it. It's so interesting and that, and so I'm. I have lots of books. I read lots of books all at once. Do you read one at a time or do you read?
Speaker 2:no, no, no, no I I have stacks of books me too, and I read I'll get a chapter here in this one, a chapter here out of that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's kind of like what do I feel like reading, and so then I'll read a little bit of that. But I have multiple books on, you know, thoughts and energy and vibrations and quantum physics, and so I love the quantum physics because it's actual data and science and research and things that can be measured, not just like, oh, I don't know, I just had no red light, you know, I just flew down, but it has it's science and so it. It definitely intrigues me, probably because it makes sense. It makes things make sense to me. I should say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm writing about.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The science.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah it's tricky. It's tricky because it's tricky. It's tricky because yeah, when you talk about spirituality and like being just above the humdrum of daily living and then to merge the science with it, it's like it can be almost merged, but there's still like these two fingers just won't go.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean Like it can?
Speaker 1:it gets so close and I don't know I would and I'm very ignorant. I mean just, you know, getting basic into it.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't call you ignorant. I we're, I think we're highly educated people.
Speaker 1:Well, I think about this subject, particularly, like in this with the science. Yeah, no, I mean it's it's kind of the the frontier.
Speaker 2:I think that we're on. You know, that's what actually, the chapter that I'm I'm writing, not chapter, but the the leg of the writing that I'm on right now is talking about how you know up until you know, up until you know, like, like 1680, when the enlightenment started. I think it was 1683 is the official date, I believe. Actually it says 1680 here on the book.
Speaker 2:Up to that point we had only leaned on spirituality, whatever like in in the context of Western civilization it was predominantly Christian, but we leaned entirely on spiritual texts to answer the existential questions that humanity faces. Why am I here? What is the purpose of my life? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why suffering? Why death? Why, why, why, why, why, why tail end of that? The 30 years war, uh, 1618 to 1648, tremendous suffering, tremendous death. And on the other side of that we said we need to look to the material world and use logic and reason to elucidate the answers to these existential questions. So for the last 17, 18, 19, last 300, some years, we've leaned on reducing our material world to understandable parts. We still have all of those same questions.
Speaker 2:So we've leaned we still have all of those same questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, so we've, we've, we've leaned, we've this is what I'm writing about We've leaned on spirituality to answer these questions, and now we've spent 300 years leaning on materialism and understanding our material, natural world.
Speaker 2:All of the same questions remain. And so to me, and and like this, this data that's coming out about consciousness, it's like to me that is, these two worlds coming together, that we're in a moment where this understanding that we've come to through studying the material world and in some ways, I think, just to get the idea to study consciousness in this way has a spiritual element. It's where the pursuit of material understanding intersects with or crosses over into spirituality, and so we have a unique opportunity. I think this is the saving grace of the time that we're in is that that smart people will figure out how to navigate that path to blend, because so much of the dogma that the spiritual texts can cultivate, I think eventually we'll fall, fall off that, as we have deeper and deeper understanding of, of the reality of the relationship between the material and spiritual. Through science and spirituality, the the two kind of become one, and I'm not you know that's, it's a.
Speaker 2:It's a very expansive thought and one that I think is probably fraught with a lot of tension, especially that's that's, that's part of you know, one of the reasons why I'm trying to understand all of this is that I think my, my, my assessment is that science has, you know, because you know, enlightenment period hat begins 1680 and we create this reductionist system of understanding our material world, but we still hold on to the spiritual texts as well. It's not like those things just disappeared.
Speaker 2:They've still held on. But we're at a point where science has replaced religion, in the sense that we have gone so far with it and for a long time we've been in this place. We've gone so far with our understanding of science that the PhDs and the doctors and the scientists are the high priests of the religion of science, that it requires a degree, a high degree of faith in the data, in the work that they've done, to believe in the science. And and at the same time, because of the capitalistic nature of our scientific process today, we have been told that, you know, milk is bad for you, cholesterol is bad for you, eggs are bad for you, all of these things are bad for you. And then, five years later, we come to find out that, oh, they're not bad for you, we're just kidding. So the rug gets pulled out from under us all the time and it undermines any real science. That's done.
Speaker 2:And I would finish with the biggest problem with science as a religion, as a religious entity, because that is how I think of it. The biggest problem with that is that there is no overriding moral or ethical code that comes along with it. There are morals and ethics that are process-driven, and even those, as we know, pharmaceuticals. Nobody trusts pharmaceuticals, nobody trusts this data that's coming out of these institutions that we know are funded by X, y and Z, because it's funded by X and z, so yeah, but super biased. So the, the, the morality, the, or the lack of moral structure, to me is the scariest side of science as it becomes. You know, that's the thing. During COVID, people said I believe in science, you can't believe in science. Science is a process you can believe. You can believe that the process of science produces an element of truth, but to say that it produces an, an all encompassing truth is fundamentally false.
Speaker 1:Totally yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean you know, there there's so many things that science has proven and then are then unproved. Then it's proved that it's actually something else. And so you know there's been a lot of things that have happened with science that have created a lot of distrust. But then you know, but we need science, because you know the science and understanding and researching and testing things, that's we need all of that. But to to eliminate spirituality from any of that is you're never going to get anywhere, like you're just going to go round and round and round and round like a hamster wheel, because it's always going to be, it's it's always changing, always changing. They're going to find something new and this or disprove that or this, that and the other, or someone was lying or someone was paid, you know, but spirituality is just that Like. It's just, there's no question about it. It's harder to, it's harder to hold on to because it's not just like.
Speaker 1:Science is to me very in the head and it's very, you know, logical and and under you can understand it. It doesn't take a lot of emotion to understand and and allow science and data to come into your conversation. But if you're having like a spiritual conversation or a spiritual um experience with yourself or you're trying to understand who you are. None of that is tangible. It's spiritual and it takes more. It takes more energy from your body and your heart and your mind to put it all together, using emotion and looking at things that are our discomfort, and it can create a lot of discomfort, and so I think people, you know, maybe that's why they steer away from spirituality. You know what? Why do you think people don't just embrace spirituality, that it's great, all you have to do is think of it and you're going to change your body. I mean, that's been proven over and over and over that even with just your thoughts, that you can change your body, dna, you can literally heal and change yourself with just thought. It's been proven.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you want my, if you want my answer, I think I have an answer. It's control, it's it which is, which is a product of, of enlightenment that we're I can reduce, I can, I can take this, this uh problem and I can reduce it to its empirical form and I can, I can, I can figure, I can figure it out, I can figure it out. You know, you get stuck in that trap. Science as a process of discovery is exciting, fulfilling, enthralling, when we require data to validate our experience and everything fundamentally undermines the innate mystery of life. That life is a beautiful mystery and we can like, in some ways, it's that mystery is undefinable. It's, you know, you can't explore it, there are no words.
Speaker 2:I think it's Carl Jung that talks about transcendence as a form of eternal, of the eternal. And when you try to define something that is eternal with words that are describing space and time and volume and volume mass, you're fundamentally limiting the eternal and it's no longer eternal. Something eternal has no words and with that there's this expansiveness and lack of control. That I think what you're saying about people not following this practice of spirituality. That is proven to change our DNA. It's proven to change how our body functions. When you go into these spiritual places, I think that that transcendent, eternal element can be so overwhelming for people, especially with the backdrop of the psychology of an enlightened society.
Speaker 1:Totally yeah, that was a lot.
Speaker 2:My goodness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's deep, but it does make sense. And so for people who are what's a spirituality? It's a level of higher consciousness really. So you know, a lot of people really go through life living kind of unconsciously. They're very habit driven. They do the same thing every day, they take the same way to work, everything is very habitual and it doesn't leave a lot of room for your brain and your conscious to like, play and be happy and and choose and and do that because you've got it set in these ways and and that is usually the way that you've kept yourself safe for a lot of years and it only feels safe within that construct of doing the same thing because it's very safe.
Speaker 1:And if you are unstable emotionally or you have a lot of unstable things in your environment, that's sometimes the only way you can move through. Life is is like that. But something will happen at some point to make you question like this what, what am I doing? You know, it's that question of like, what does this all mean? Some some time I hope for everyone, maybe, maybe it doesn't for some people, and actually it probably doesn't but that just means you'll come and you'll come back and you'll have to just do it again. That's my thoughts. Yeah, you don't get it done this time, you'll just come back and do it again in a different body. You have to start from scratch. You have to learn it all over. Actually, you will have your karma there, but either way, you know, I think that allowing yourself to become conscious in your own life which involves being present, being open, looking at people with loving kindness and loving eyes that you would look at yourself, giving a lot of grace to everyone else because they have their shit, just like you have your shit and to try to just to do things differently, to change the brain connections that sometimes are so set almost in stone because we've been, we have needed to protect ourselves for so many years. So we've done the same thing. We've done the same thing and I think that's why it makes me nervous to go back to nursing, like at the hospital, because that was always my safe thing.
Speaker 1:And so then when I was like, oh no, I'm, I'm, I'm healing, I'm getting better, I don't, I don't need that safety anymore, and so I just kind of like I'm not doing that. Plus, I needed out of the toxic environment for a while. I had to heal and breathe. But going back is almost. I've had time to breathe and do some things with my conscious mind, to really open up my world that I see inside my brain of what what things are, and so it's like I questioned it. I had to run away and I'm not going back. That that's kind of where I was going. I'm not going back for safety, I'm going back because not back, but I'm picking up more shifts and just going to kind of do that for a while. Uh, because, because I'm choosing to, I'm choosing to do that to make money while.
Speaker 1:I'm choosing to do that to make money, while I still have a lot of space to work on myself. Family, be here with Joey, you know, while he continues high school, and and that that's okay, whereas before I was like, oh my god, if you do that, you're totally going back on all everything that you said about it. You're, you know you'll go back to living unconsciously again. But that's just not it. Once you, once you open your eyes to see that there is more and you start experiencing more in life than your routine, it's just breaking out of the routine is so hard, it's scary you know yeah but once you're out you have more, you don't?
Speaker 1:it's kind of like being at worlds of fun in those Do we talk about this one time at worlds?
Speaker 1:of fun in those buggy cars, those old fashioned, you thought you were driving, you were fucking driving, you were on a track and it wasn't going to take you anywhere except for the track. But by God, you thought you were driving. But that's, that's kind of how I saw and felt my life. It was like I thought I was driving, I was literally sitting behind the steering wheel, but I was on a track and and I needed that for safety, for for protection, because if not things would have felt too out of control.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but once you start to kind of heal that stuff, you can, you can go back to some of those things without the same experience. You know kind of I guess it's kind that stuff you can. You can go back to some of those things without the same experience. You know kind of I guess it's kind of PTSD, you know. You kind of get over it a little bit, you work through some of that and so, whereas you know, maybe at one point you couldn't hear an IV pump go off without literally having a panic attack and sweating, oh, God, oh, I still.
Speaker 2:when I, when I come across on social media and I see a ventilator or an IV pump, immediately I blood pressure anxiety.
Speaker 1:You know, I have the same thing, so I had a COVID patient the other day and I haven't had a positive COVID patient since COVID since I left and I've had patients turn COVID in the ER but like we sent them home they weren't really sick. This was a sick one in the in the ICU so I had to wear a 95. I don't think I've put one of those on a long time. The smell of it when.
Speaker 2:I put that on.
Speaker 1:I literally I felt my cheeks get like hot. I was standing at the cart at the door and I had to like set my stuff down and like take a couple breaths because I was like, oh my God, this, this mask it just I can feel it in my stomach right now. It just flooded, flooded back and this man by no means was I think. He fell and had a hip fracture but then subsequently was COVID positive, so he wasn't like super sick and really the fracture and the getting around was the mobility was COVID positive, so he wasn't like super sick and really the fracture and the getting around was the mobility was the issue. But I still had to put the mask on to go in the room. It's crazy.
Speaker 2:But what I?
Speaker 1:was saying is you, you're so sensitive to some of those things in the beginning but then, like, as you kind of slowly expose, you, slowly heal, then they're, they're not such. They're not such triggers anymore Like the trigger lesson, not the trigger, the reaction lessons. You know and you're not so reactive.
Speaker 2:That's where, if you remember, in our earlier sessions, we talked about the idea that Piaget's object permanence that every day the binky gets dropped, the caregiver picks it up and gives it back until the child no longer questions whether or not the binky exists Right, it has established object permanence. Someone goes through something traumatic and they develop PTSD or PTS. It is that fundamental to me. This is my thought is that it is a fundamental regression of object permanence that the reality that's been created in their mind has been shattered and it has to be rebuilt through very consistent structures. And it does exist.
Speaker 1:It does exist.
Speaker 2:It does exist and I think relationships are that way. I think having the faith that it's going to exist beyond this moment or this day or this week or month or year gives the sense of object permanence. So PTSD gets into all of those realms because once your reality is shaken sufficiently, all of those relationships, everything comes into question. It can all fall away. Yeah everything comes into question, it can all fall away. Yeah, and and rebuilding those structures and rebuilding your confidence in them is what heals PTSD.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So build your structures.
Speaker 1:Well, so today, yeah, we just talked about kind of what we're, what we're going to do in 2025 on kind of a personal level, and I would encourage everyone to you know, think about it. Think about, rather than writing a list of you know things. You know the usual I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to diet, I'm going to do it and change and you know, whatever it you know, just just choose to be nice to yourself. Like, just be nice to yourself and talk to yourself and and get to know who, who you are. You know just through daily. You know we've talked about things we do. I do, I meditate and I ground with my feet, even when it's fucking cold, I go out and you know, whatever, whatever kind of resonates with you to keep you out of that robot mentality is is where, is? That's where I'm going to focus this year. Yeah, well, this was fun, it was good, yeah, so I think, coming up next, hopefully, we'll get our hospice series going. I think that's going to be very, very exciting and very applicable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we also need to do Night at the Museum.
Speaker 1:We do. I was thinking about that the other day. I think I'm going to watch that when I'm at work this week, this weekend. Okay, yeah, I was thinking about it last weekend and I didn't have enough time, but I'm going to watch it. I think it's on Amazon Prime. I looked it up, okay, cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, be good too. All right, well, have a good week. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1:We hope you've enjoyed this week's episode. Remember the conversation doesn't end here.
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Speaker 1:Together, let's continue to redefine nursing and shape a brighter future for those we care for. Until next time, take care, stay curious and keep nurturing those connections and don't forget to be kind to yourself.