Show Notes: Reclaim Your Health, Your Happiness, Your Joy What this episode is about This one steps away from the usual ground of career, burnout, moral injury. It turns toward the person living inside the nursing role. The whole episode rests on a single premise: you are a human being first, a nurse second, deserving of the same attention you hand out all day to everybody else. Who inspires you The episode opens with a question meant to be sat with, not answered quickly. Not who inspired you today. Not who inspired you yesterday. Who inspires you now, in an ongoing way. The reflection moves through a chief nursing officer who modeled transformational leadership, floor nurses whose practice set a standard, then a more recent influence who prompted a whole change of direction into coaching, Substack, this podcast. Your version of that question: who makes you a better human inside the frame of the nursing job you hold? The human being inside the role Nurses define themselves by the caring. Hospital, long-term care, home health, wherever the work happens, the role tends to swallow the person. This segment asks you to look past it. How is your health? Your blood pressure? Your cholesterol? Your cortisol? Those questions land uncomfortably for a reason. Nurses give everything to everybody around them, rarely to themselves. That gap shows up in diet, in physical activity, in the twelve, thirteen, fourteen-hour shifts spent running nonstop that do nothing for cardiovascular health. There is a light moment here worth keeping. Stand up, say out loud, “I’m a nurse, I’m stubborn.” Resilience, stubbornness, both true. Naming it clears the way for honest reflection. One degree of change The central idea of the episode. Transition in your life does not have to be dramatic. One degree of change, compounded across a year, leaves you somewhere entirely different. That works in both directions, which is the warning inside the encouragement. Ignore what is happening in your life, focus only on the work, the bills, the lunches, the kids, a year still passes. The challenge posed to you: define one degree of change. A health goal. A relationship goal. A personal fulfillment goal. Your choice. Stories from the coaching room The remote nurse. She had worked remotely through COVID, stayed remote afterward, felt terrible at the end of every day. Her words: brain warped, body having done nothing. She named what she wanted: better core strength, more movement. Her one degree of change arrived in pieces. First a sit-stand desk. A couple weeks later, an under-desk walking treadmill. Then goals for how often she would use both. By the end of the coaching sessions, she had lost weight, built core strength, gained better control of her hypertension, and found a way to metabolize the stress of the day. The nurse who quit soda. One decision, no more soda. It sounds almost too small to matter. It is harder than it sounds. That single change changed everything for her. The nurse who called it mumbo jumbo. High-caliber, highly responsible role, blood pressure well managed, stress still enormous. Asked what breath work, what meditation she used during stressful moments, she looked straight into the camera: none of it; it is a bunch of mumbo jumbo. Her one degree of change became five minutes of breath work between encounters. Supply room, linen closet, at her desk, anywhere. Deep in, slowly out. Five minutes of mindfulness can turn a whole day. Do not ignore the warning signs A frank stretch of the episode. Fatigue. Blood pressure climbing. Type 2 diabetes. Nurses carry a third sense about their own bodies, the self-assessment nobody else can run. Ignoring the result is easy. Moving on is easier. The ask here is direct: today is the day to commit to the change you already know you need. Plans worth looking forward to Health is one piece. Life is the other. What are your plans for the next thirty days, three months, six months, a year? The story offered here comes from single fatherhood: kids need something to look forward to, a flight to visit cousins, a trip to Disney World, a day at Six Flags, a family gathering. Adults need the same thing. This is also where the show’s name gets explained. After you clock out, your second shift starts. The days blur. On the rare day off, when nobody calls at four in the morning to cover a shift, you want the couch, the bathrobe, the coffee, the iPad, nobody bothering you. That is understandable. It is also not a plan. Nobody gets to steal your joy The anchor story of the episode. Thirty years ago, a nurse author, known for speaking about joy, kept a small hand puppet on the podium during her lectures. She said one thing that has framed a career, a fatherhood, a life since: never let any situation, any person, steal joy from your day. Plenty of things will try. The invitation is to make a plan for joy the way you would make a plan for anything else that matters. In this house, that looks like the podcast itself, connection with nurses who need help, fulfillment that runs both directions. It looks like a camper van pointed toward a daughter in Minnesota, a mother in Ohio, dear friends in Michigan. It looks like the coach who travels in an airstream with her husband, two dogs, coaching from the road, sharing her joy publicly. Whichever nurse you are today, the one who strips down in the garage after a fourteen-hour shift then stands staring into the refrigerator wondering why she opened it, the academic who gave everything to the next generation of nurses then came home to a second shift with no joy in it, the message holds. You deserve joy. Make a plan for it. The closing invitation Your inner knowing, your wisdom, your resilience are real. Sometimes a partner still helps. Somebody who will call you on your b******t. Somebody who holds a space where you can say out loud what you have never said before. Somebody without judgment, letting you be you. That is what coaching is for here. Reclaim your health. Reclaim your happiness. Most of all, reclaim your joy. Reflection questions from this episode * Who inspires you? Not today, not yesterday. Who inspires you? * When did you last look honestly at your health as a human being rather than as a nurse? * What would one degree of change look like in your life right now? * What plans do you have, outside health, outside work, that you actually look forward to? * If you have none, why not? What is happening on Substack * Meditation series launches September 1, for paid subscribers. Three sessions on launch day at 10 Central, 11 Central, 12 noon Central. A new meditation video drops every week after that. * Two gifted coaching sessions in September for upgraded paid subscribers. * The Break Room meets September 11, the monthly live gathering for paid subscribers. The first one drew nurses talking honestly about their lives, some already on the other side of a change, some still naming what they want. The link is available on request. Take the Next Step Each step is defined. ☕ Schedule a Conversation, Nurse to Nurse: thirty minutes, real, honest, no fancy frameworks. 🚪 The Break Room: Community. Your way in. Once a month, we gather live. There is no agenda and no toxic positivity. This is just real talk with nurses who understand where you are, led by a nurse who has spent many years standing there too. 💬 Join the conversation: leave a comment on this post. 🔔 Subscribe to The Second Shift for a new essay plus episode every week. ☕ Upgrade to the paid tier. The paid tier is a space that provides you with resources and support as a premium member of The Second Shift. These resources include: * The Break Room, a monthly gathering space for nurses. * Interactive Nurse-Driven Workshops designed for nurses in transition and nurse managers, provided at no additional cost. * Nurse Resources - all a part of your premium membership. * First to hear about gifted coaching opportunities. Something new and exciting: About The Second Shift The Second Shift is a newsletter plus podcast for nurses who carry the weight of caring for 12 to 14 hours, then come home to begin a second shift - this one is for their families. This is the shift no one sees, one that is equally important. As a nurse, this is my story as well. As a coach, I create space for nurses built on real, honest conversations: a plan that moves you from chaos to a life you feel alive inside of again. Patrick LaRose, DNP, MSN/Ed., RN, NC-BC Board-Certified Coach | Life Coach lifenursecoach.com The Second Shift is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Second Shift at simplypaddy.substack.com/subscribe
