Care for COVID with Compassion

Compassion Woman with her hands over her heart

Compassion, the practice of kindness, is contagious and has many immediate benefits including reducing your own suffering by improving your outlook and perspective and increasing your feeling of connection.  The specific value for healthcare organizations is well documented in Compassionomics by Dr. Stephen Trzeciak and Dr. Anthony Mazzarelli. Here are 5 ways you can take…

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What Are You Willing to Do to Feel the Way You Want to Feel?

When I was showing our 5 year old granddaughter how to operate the shower after swimming, she asked very seriously, Should I wash all the body parts? I answered, Yes, all the body parts smiling inside and thinking about the parts of our bodies and lives we often don’t take care of, in other words,…

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Lessons from Bali

[su_spacer] Bali is a magical place filled with ritual, beauty, and challenge. The rice fields are green lush works of art, the temples are intricately designed and beautifully decorated and the beaches are largely undeveloped and uninhabited. In contrast, as a third-world country, the water is not drinkable, the sanitation standards are relaxed and most…

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Breathing Space to Lead

I was honored to be a part of the VHAtv Nursing Leadership Series a couple of months ago to discuss how mindfulness can help us be better leaders. As it turns out, the traits that contribute to excellence in leadership are the same qualities cultivated with mindfulness. They include: – Presence – Focus and creating…

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Boulder Community Health Decreases Employee Stress 20%!

In the midst of all the transition in healthcare today, with 2 out 3 healthcare providers reporting feelings of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion, Boulder Community Health (BCH) wanted to offer their staff relief and support them in preparation for moving their hospital to a new facility. Administration wanted to give staff practical tools and…

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The Compassion to Care

Last month I had one of the highlights of my speaking career by opening the Emergency Nurses Association Conference in Indianapolis for 2500 nurses. I felt I had really come home, not only because I worked as an emergency room nurse for 23 years, but because I also grew up in Indianapolis. In contrast, we…

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Trust the Mud

Many years ago when I first got into the speaking business, my mentor and now dear friend, Mary LoVerde told me every time you want to get to another level, you have to go through the mud—that period when everything seems confusing, overwhelming, and downright impossible. I am feeling that way about my current project,…

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Practice Compassion

Compassion is the desire to alleviate suffering by expressing fundamental loving kindness toward yourself and others. We need compassion because life is hard, unfair, and impermanent—for all of us. There are now studies confirming practicing compassion improves health, well-being, and relationships. Compassion makes us feel good by activating pleasure circuits in the brain. It can…

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Silence is Loud

I had the privilege of leading several Your Mindful Year trainings and retreats last month to a variety of groups, from high school and pre-school teachers, to therapists and healthcare providers. I am happy to say they were very well received and the most powerful part of each program was re-discovering silence is loud. Your…

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Its Not Too Late!

I was interviewed last month for the Healthy, Wealthy, and Enlightened Success Telesummit and one of the questions asked by Sylvia Coleman was, What would you tell your younger self about success and mindfulness that you know now that you didn’t know then? My immediate response was to enjoy the ride, the ups and downs,…

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