Did you always want to be in a Caring or Giving role? A nurse, teacher, social worker, parent …Did you want to make a difference in other people’s lives?
I did!…because I’d been cared for by these amazing beings who I thought were angels.
They made me laugh when I wanted to cry, they hugged me when I needed oxytocin and they held my hand when my people went home because they weren’t allowed to stay the night with me. I was 4 years old and my carers were helping my broken heart to mend.
Not a day went by where I didn’t think I would be in the position to do what those angels did for me, for others.
So when I was able to, I studied. I studied how to take a blood pressure. How to fold a fitted corner.
However, I never studied how to care for myself or for other Carers so that we could effectively care for our most vulnerable citizens.
I never learnt how to put boundaries in place so that my gift of caring and giving wasn’t taken advantage of.
I never addressed my own trauma which lead me on this giving path.
I gave away my power every single day because I had an imbedded belief that I wanted to make a difference to other people’s lives- no matter the impact on my own.
There were numerous times where I would have a tap on the shoulder or a 4x4 in the back of my head that not all things were well in my body and mind.
Like many other Carers I would lean on vices like alcohol and 'busyness' to block out the warning signs. Then the inevitable Mac Truck moment would arrive. Where my body and mind would crash.
There were no obvious wrap around support options for us Carers when this occurred- there still isn’t.
In fact we were judged to be weak and not strong enough to be in these roles. We were led to normalise being in a martyr/victim mentality, that over working was a status and guilt was how they filled the roster.
As Carers we often had our own lived experience or unresolved trauma that guided us to the Caring role.
We ate lots cake, slept poorly, embodied the victim mentality, gossiped, accepted the lack of value of our role and lived in constant guilt.
I know so many Carers who have had gastric surgeries, Cancers and other significant health issues. Yet we continued to enable it.
My BIG Mac Truck moment was 5 years ago. It started when I had my first general anaesthetic on the anniversary of my Open Heart Surgery at the same hospital.
I woke from that surgery without any of the tools and behaviours I had developed from a young age to survive.
Perfectionism and people pleasing– because I believed that if I did everything good and right these scary things wouldn’t happen to me anymore.
Busyness – if I kept my mind and body busy I wouldn’t have to feel my trauma. Seeking validation – I’d been exposed to validation at the age of 4 years old when my parents (only in their 20's) had to convince me and themselves that being hospitalised and having surgery was the right thing for me to do.
So without these tools and behaviours I had relied on for almost all of my life I had to find another way – oh that makes it sound so easy.
It was really rough especially because I took on the task on my own.
My busyness was ripped away and replaced with silence and stillness and this is where I gained my biggest messages.
I followed them and the many synchronicities which led me to others who had had similar experiences and they were able to help and guide me back to wellness, then my soul driven purpose and reason for the lessons.
Heart Place with Nurse Jacqui (previously BeYOUtiful Young Women) was born after a mixture of self-discovery, and thoughts of ‘if only I knew then what I know now.’ There was so much about ourselves including the menstrual cycle, really important things
about us as Carers that we’d never been taught.
Not at school, not from our mothers, nor from our friends. So many people still don’t know this information.
It’s my mission to teach all Carers including our future Carers to understand and celebrate their body and mind so they can create UNSTOPPABLE inner- confidence, self-belief and their own self-worth.
I believe this is fundamentally a life saving need for Carers and the recipient of care. So much so that I’ve invested in Lissa Rankin MD course Whole Health Medical Institute for Health Professionals commencing next week.
Lissa Rankin, MD, is a mind-body medicine physician, author of 7 books, founder of the Whole Health Medical Institute and mystic who researches radical remission, trauma-informed medicine, and spiritual healing. Her TEDx talks have been viewed over 5 million times, and she starred in two National Public Television specials-
Heal Yourself: Mind Over Medicine and The Fear Cure.
Lissa’s interest in the link between loneliness and disease led her to spearhead her latest project, Heal at Last, a non-profit organization which aims to bring effective trauma healing and spiritual healing methods to anyone ready for the deep dive of healing.
Whole Health Medical Institute support practitioners not only in applying these healing methods to themselves, (“See one, do one, teach one”) but also in building a thriving healing practice that allow practitioners to integrate Whole Health with whatever other expertise is offered to patients.
I think you’ll all agree that now more than ever the world desperately needs truly empowered and healed Carers and future Carers who are fiercely aware that everything about their body and mind happens for a reason.
These wonderful individuals are the people who deal with our most vulnerable citizens – our children, the sick, and the elderly. I believe that with holistic support our Carers and future Carers will be better equipped to handle the demand of their vital roles.
And how much better would that be for both the Carer and the recipient of their care?
