Today I got a call from the hospital staffing office asking me to work a day shift tomorrow from 7:30 am to 7:30 pm.  I accepted the shift because I had the intention I wanted to make money for myself and wasn’t able to do so since I had been sick for the past 2 months.

I was immediately overwhelmed with the sense of anxiety as soon as I had accepted the shift.  I call this the “Nurse Anxiety”.  This feeling is quite common amongst the nurses I work with and it is characterized by a sense of tention and nervousness prior to showing up at work.  I have spoken to fellow nurses who would often feel terrified the night before coming to work.  Many of them complained of insomnia and one nurse event told me she had nightmares.

I began noticing the nurse anxiety phenomenon as soon as I started clinical rotations in nursing school.  I found it difficult to sleep the night before work and I had feel great resistance in actually showing up to work.  This consequently resulted in many, many sick calls the morning I was supposed to show up to work because I felt so anxious about going to work.

The work itself is very difficult, I work on a crazy acute medicine unit in a large metropolitan hospital where the patients are often very sick and lacking the ability to take care of themselves.  Due to the high acuity of patients on the medical floor, they are often unable to control their bowls and bladder — leaving the nurses scrambling to clean them up while trying very hard to manage their medical care.

When I learned more about how I could create my own reality I began to apply this to my nursing practice.  Seven months ago I experimented with the idea that I could “create my ideal shift”.  Each morning before I left for work I would set the intention of having a nice and relaxing day at work.  I began to notice that I was often assigned patients who are less acutely ill.  If I had patients that needed a lot of attention I had great Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN) assigned to help me.  I also began noticing an interesting trend — my patients would often get better or even discharged while I am caring for them.

I would like to conclude this post by setting the intention to create a very relaxing and fulfilling shift tomorrow.  I am asking the universe to assign me patients with great attitude who can walk and talk.  I would like the universe to send me great people to work with.  Lastly,  I ask that I would be grounded and vibrating with a high frequencey throughout the day; as well as feeling healthy and energized after I have completed my shift.