Rural Nurses ‘let their hair down’
I spoke at a great conference last week for the Australian Association of Rural Nurses. These are the guys who work as sole practitioners in the ‘outback’ or the ones who work in small counrty hospitals or the ones who drive their cars ‘all over our wide brown land’ to deliver care to people in their homes.
There guys KNOW HOW TO PARTY!!!!!! We had a fantastic conference dinner, then learned how to Latin Dance……….then left the dinner and put it into practice……………what a rage! But we did do some work!
I had the great joy to give a session on ’self care’ which these guys are notoriously bad at!!!!
Mind you most people who work in the ‘healing professions’ are so busy looking after their clients, they forget to look after themselves………hence the crisis in recruitment and retention in caring professions world wide!
SO THE LESSON IN THIS………………..AND HERE IT COMES…………….
just as I told them!
You cant expect to spend your whole life looking after other people if you don’t look after yourself first!
NO, this is not selfish……………this is actually extremely generous, because if you look after yourself first, you become resilient and more capable of giving MORE to others.
If you don’t look after yourself and give away all of your energy, care and compassion to others………….you become an ‘empty shell’, you ‘burn out’ and can help NO ONE, not even yourself!
So, the next time you feel the urge to have a massage, to leave the office and go for a walk, to sit in the bath for an hour………………stop what you’re doing and LISTEN TO YOURSELF……………..NURTURE YOURSELF and you will find that the hour you spend on ’self care’ will translate into hourS of capacity for you to care for others!
AND SO ENDITH THE LECTURE FOR TODAY!!!!!