Self reflection, doubt, lessons and a cup of tea

So in the last four weeks I have learned a great deal about myself through self reflection, of which I have been spending a plethora of time doing because I get frustrated at myself when I am not perfectly good at something.

Now you can probably imagine that I am not perfectly good at my new job… yet. Listen, I 100% do the best thing for the patient and family but I am still getting my feet wet, still learning my voice, still trying to find my own way instead of just following in others’ footsteps. A product of my education? Possibly. More just a product of myself. When I was a kid, I read etiquette books. I needed to know the differences between how you address a Queen versus a Duke. Why? Well because I was obsessed with Jane Austen. While getting my first degree, I felt it necessary to participate in both theatre and dance productions even though I was told by a professor that it would better to focus on one, the course load would be too much. Why? Well, what kind of a performer am I if I don’t study all the facets of my field? During nursing school, my buddies and I would rent out library rooms with white boards while carrying our own dry erase markers so that we could draw Swan-Ganz catheters from memory. Mini side-bar, it’s kind of hilarious now that we did that because they aren’t really used in pediatrics. Oh well.

Back to the reflection!

I have been frustrated at myself more in the past four weeks than I have for a while. Not because I don’t understand it, but more because this is a different kind of nursing. Triage, on-the-go medicine, communications and having the skills of one of those telephone ladies in the 50s who would shout out “how may I direct your call” into the telephone, and so much more. I’m at the point where I just need to jump in now and make this kind of nursing my own. But the point of this post isn’t to go on and on about the frustration, it’s to reflect on what it means and what lessons can be learned from it.

So for the past few weeks, I’ve journaled on it, and I’ve decided that the frustration IS NOT HELPING. I need to push past it and accept the greater lesson which is to love this time of learning. To embrace the fact that in my field, there are an infinite number of challenges that come from all the different types of nursing out there. It’s to love the CHANGE, move with it, and accept that I cannot build Rome in a day. How can I make myself a better nurse in this role? How can I maybe work towards bettering it? My plan is to use that energy to change what’s around me.

It’s taken me a while to quantify these feelings. So as I sit here now in my kitchen words flowing from my fingers, drinking the fanciest cup of home bombai chai tea you can imagine, I’ve finally figured it out. I have to forgive my learning self. She needs to be given room to breathe and time to grow.

Also, I should bust out my fine china more often.

Tea is the magic key to the vault where my brain is kept.
-Frances Hardinge