Nurturing the Nurturers: When Taking Care of Others Exhausts Us

In this episode, we dive deep into the heartwarming and enlightening journey of Jacqui O'Connor, a dedicated New Zealand nurse with a remarkable 29-year career, who transformed her personal battles with agoraphobia and anorexia into a source of inspiration through the founding of Heart Place Hospital. Join us for:

• Jacqui's Personal Revelation: How her struggles led her to realize the importance of self-care for caretakers.
• Insights into Caregiver Burnout: Discussion on how societal norms and disregarding natural biological rhythms contribute to caregiver exhaustion.
• Innovative Healing at Heart Place Hospital: Explore Jacqui's unique approach integrating nervous system regulation and mindset shifts.
• Empowering Women in Healthcare: Highlighting the need for systemic changes that prioritise understanding and support over symptom treatment.
• A Blueprint for Change: Offering solutions for a supportive and sustainable future for those who spend their lives caring for others.

Tune in to hear how Jacqui's story is not just about overcoming, but about empowering and enlightening everyone involved in the caregiving process.

www.heartplacehospital.org.nz

Your host:

Tarisha Tourok is the founder of the Sexually Empowered Radiant Woman movement where women learn how to become radiant, confident and own the power and beauty of their sexuality no matter their size, shape, age or race.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Eight years ago, I found myself experiencing agoraphobia, claustrophobia, anorexia, panic attacks. It was through that crisis, through that pain, that I found my purpose, and that is Heart Place Hospitals.

Speaker 2: 0:16

Welcome to the Radiant Woman Podcast, where women learn how to become radiant, confident and own the power and beauty of their sexuality, no matter their size, shape, age or race. Your host is Talisha Turok. Visit our website at wwwradiantwomanconz to join the Radiant Woman movement. I would love to have you with us.

Speaker 3: 0:42

Welcome to this episode and today I'm happy to introduce you to Jackie O'Connor. She's got quite a story to tell us. She's quite a mystery, so I really want to find out more about her and what she does. Jackie has been a New Zealand registered nurse for 29 years, with experience in health psychology and whole health medicine. With experience in health psychology and whole health medicine, she now created a hard place hospital and it's QCAT in 2017, and you're really trying to see what you can do, see the health crisis for the frontline professionals and how you can support them. Welcome, jackie, it's so nice to have you here. Thank you, great to be here. So you've been for 25 years. You've been a nurse and then something happened and things shifted for you. Can you tell us more about your journey as a nurse and where it takes you now?

Speaker 1: 1:38

Sure can. So being quite reflective. So four years ago, obviously, the whole world went into lockdown through the pandemic, and then I was reflecting on four years ago, obviously, the whole world went into lockdown through the pandemic, and then I was reflecting on four years this time, four years previous to that, so eight years ago from now and that's when I had what I figuratively call a mat-trap moment. So I was 42 years young and I felt like I was hit by a mat-trap, and it was through that crisis, through that pain, that I found my purpose, and that is Heart Place Hospitals. By then I was, I'd been a nurse for 21 years, so now I've been registered for 29 years, so straight from school and into my nursing training.

Speaker 1: 2:21

And so eight years ago I found myself experiencing agoraphobia, claustrophobia, anorexia, panic attacks, and it was through my own healing journey that I really realized that what was on offer wasn't, it wasn't simple and it wasn't sustainable. That's when I turned my pain into a purpose of creating a more simple and sustainable support, and that will ripple effect off to so many others, to our entire society. I was looking for a real soft land, and so that is Heartplace Hospital. It's a real soft land for those who are in the front line of our most vulnerable citizens. So we talk about front liners being nurses, midwives, doctors, emergency services and teachers, but it's also those who are ultimately in front of our most vulnerable citizens, which are our children, our sick and our elderly and our dying.

Speaker 1: 3:22

That was the role that I'd had in my whole professional career, and so I was, I know, and now we've been going for nearly seven years now I have seven years and so we've been able to support thousands of frontliners to really heal their boundary wounds. So we're all no one's immune to that We've all got boundary wounds. So heal their boundary wounds. So we're all no one's immune to that We've all got boundary wounds. So heal their boundary wounds, really Be able to understand why they've been guided to work in these roles, to be able to advocate for themselves and others and then craft a life that best suits them, so that we can keep them in those roles and support our society to thrive.

Speaker 3: 4:05

So it's almost like I know you talk about the professionals, but if we just take it to women right to us as women, because that's how, as women, we're so good at taking care of other people but actually not taking care of ourselves, and that's what you actually do, right, how do we take care of ourselves? And if I hear that in your own journey, it's almost like you were taking care of other people to a point where you forgot yourself. So I wonder what was that journey for you? It's kind of really putting everyone else in front, huh.

Speaker 1: 4:33

Yeah, so my journey, hence HeartPlace. I was born with a cardiac condition, so I'd opened heart surgery as an eight-year-old, so I accessed healthcare from the age of four years old. Well, and the breadcrumbs that I followed was, you know, that was the nurses that were. They were my biggest support, or part of my biggest support, and so it felt like a no-brainer to go into that, into that profession also. I'm a highly sensitive person, so highly empath, empathic person, so it just seemed like the right, like me and like many others, and I thought I was alone. But I've since discovered that there's many of us, many of us were alone, guided into these roles and we hadn't really addressed the reasons why.

Speaker 1: 5:19

So for me, as a kid who'd experienced healthcare, I owed therapy. There was no play specialist, my parents couldn't stay the night, there was no sovereignty or body autonomy or consent appropriate for my age. So I really was carrying my boundary wounds and my awe-inspiring body had created protector and firefighter manager parts so that I would survive. But it got to a point where they no longer served me and my body and my mind were the messenger and they put me into what society would call burnout.

Speaker 1: 5:57

I know, for me it was my Mack trip moment. It was my do or die, it was my wake up and that's when I started my own healing journey and couldn't believe what I was remembering, couldn't believe what I was repowering, what I was repairing, couldn't believe what I was repowering, what I was repairing and what I was and I just started, like literally just started sharing it with others, just through conversation. I started having some workshops in my lounge. It really I really didn't see where it was going, but I just kept following the feelings of what it feels like to hug a puppy and that's what it feels like to hug a puppy, and and that's what's led me- yeah, and and it was then.

Speaker 1: 6:45

I look back at the years previous to that and I feel like there's this real void. It's almost like a black hole, whereas now, the last eight years, I feel like it's just this, just bright colors and and just full of just so much knowledge and knowing, and I can see the benefits of me doing that healing journey to my family, to my friends, to people I walk past on the street, to people I see in the shops, and I just know that we are doing the same. Heartplace Hospital is doing the same for those who are in the front line. So when we've got really rejuvenated, repaired, remembered, repowered front liners, it just ripples off so much faster.

Speaker 3: 7:31

Also, I wonder wasn't it like a moment? Because it's almost like, in a way, was it an experience? You turned away from yourself the place where it was so dark and void? Is it almost like the experience of turning away from yourself? What shifted that I actually need to do something about it?

Speaker 1: 7:49

My whispers returned. So I was a girl who experienced quite an out-of-world experiences, real inner knowing. As a little girl, I was able to manifest things really easily. I remember being at school, fears and knowing I was going to win the raffle and I had a. I had an in a knowing of when car accidents were going to happen or when when people were pregnant before announcing it, and and so I had this real unknown. I had a real connection with nature as a little girl, and it was eight years ago that, because I wasn't, didn't have my defense mechanisms available to me, literally being not over onto my knees, my whispers returned so you lost them somewhere.

Speaker 3: 8:37

So you had them when you were younger and then you lost them somehow. So it has something to do with you not being connected to yourself or focusing on everyone else but yourself. What is that? If we think about women who are not necessarily working in the profession, but I'm sure we all have that experience huh, when we're not connected to ourselves, we can't hear those voices that guide us.

Speaker 1: 8:58

Yeah, it's exactly what happened. I switched it off. I used busyness, people-pleasing perfectionism. I used alcohol. So I switched off to those and because I didn't feel safe to share those gifts and I felt they were a curse at the time.

Speaker 3: 9:16

Okay, so kind of judging their ability, yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Yeah, yeah, the breadcrumbs that I followed to begin with. It was mindset, work and self-care and I'd really had very little of that. I didn't have it modelled as a nurse. We didn't see each other taking up opportunities of self-care, it was just go go, go, give, give, give and we were kind of given badge of honors for that.

Speaker 3: 9:44

Because it's celebrated. That's the piece. It's celebrated when we sacrifice, kind of ourselves and completely turn away from ourselves.

Speaker 1: 9:52

It's celebrated in our society, yeah, yeah it is, and the breadcrumbs led me really into all the rites of passage.

Speaker 3: 10:00

Okay, we'll talk about that again.

Speaker 1: 10:02

Rites of passage yes, true, the first one I really dived into and everything making sense, of everything makes sense now, of all the rites of passages that I've been through. So I've been through menstruation, my sexuality, motherhood and now I'm transitioning into menopause, and each one of them have been massive, significant events, and but done in silence, done in secrecy, done without celebration, without ceremony. And once I discovered them and the power of them, the truth behind them and what and how much of it is being well, I just felt, I actually bloody felt duped, I really felt duped and I just couldn't not do anything about about it. So I started crafting events so that more people could discover what I was discovering, and and so I had mother-daughter menstrual cycle workshops and they were called yeah, they were called the nurse Jackie empowered period workshop. I had women's, I had young women's circles called be useful. That was before I'd even been to my own woman's circle. But it was my innate nature and my inner knowing that was, as I was doing, my healing. What was being replaced with that dark void was all this knowing and this knowledge that was within my DNA, within my, within my knowing. And, yeah, and then I was really reflective of my motherhood journey and how much of that has I'm raising two teenage daughters, so how much that has affected their life journey, and it's been significant. So for many years I did have these what I call taps on the shoulder or 4x4s in the back of the head, and I would access, look around for support, but I could never find it it.

Speaker 1: 11:54

But when I had my mat track, it was literally it was do or die, like I was in rough. I was in a rough state and and my only choice was I had a prescription for an antidepressant in my hand and I'd had talk therapy and the therapist had told me to pull the hair tie on my wrist every time. I ruminated and I just thought, is that it? After like 21 years of service, is that it? And so I fed back. I fed back to the service providers. I was like, look, that was not good. And they said, well, can you do better? And I said, yeah, I can. And I gave a good damn bash. I think it was before my time. And then, of course, four years ago and four years after that, all that event COVID hit and people were starting to realize, oh, actually, but it's more than just clapping for these heroes. It's actually valuing and respecting and giving them opportunities, like I said, to heal these boundary wounds and advocate for themselves and others and craft a life.

Speaker 1: 12:58

As women, we've had to fit into a circadian rhythm life when we actually are in an infradian cycle beings. Tell us more about that. So, as women, we've been shown that we are to fit into circadian rhythm, so day and night, whereas the way we're actually designed is infradian, so moon cycle, monthly cycled. So we've experienced burnout because we actually don't show up the same every day our energies, our appetite, our mindset. And a good reason for, for a great reason, because we are incredibly powerful and we need to have these opportunities for rest and to go low and slow, to experience in the downloads, like I talked about, the whispers, the opportunities to hear some where the breadcrumbs are and where to hug the puppies, and then opportunity in the other half of the cycle to actually do what we've been shared.

Speaker 3: 13:58

So by here what you stand for actually, how do we turn towards ourselves and how do we respect our own rhythm and how do we take care of ourselves and then we can bring more of ourselves to the world. But we try to suppress what we need and go into the functions and it's the same. The cost, as you talk about it, right, even as mothers, it's not, as it's not a job, right, it's not as valuable. Somehow teachers is not as valuable. But actually that's what sustains the humanity and how can we take care of ourselves or fill ourselves up and then we can bring something more for ourselves to the world. So it's not just a function, but it's, it's the heart calling, like being a mom, it's. It's not just a function that I'm serving here. It involves so much more, but that needs to be respected and that needs to be supported, which our society is missing.

Speaker 1: 14:58

We're leaders, those in the front lines, so those who are parenting, those who are who are providing health and education. They're leaders, they're examples, they're models, and if they're if they're not functioning at full capacity, then how are those that they're serving going to see what is needed? And so you're absolutely right as individuals, we have a responsibility to actually take care of ourselves, so that then we're in a better position to support others. A lot of our conditioning and education is quite contrary to all others. A lot of our conditioning and education is quite contrary to all that. So that's what Hunt Place Hospital is about. We're system disruptors. Nothing's changed. I'm still doing that. We're system disruptors.

Speaker 1: 15:43

You're a jover, yeah, we support the frontliners but, like I said, we repower them so that they can then go back into the frontline or they can many of them actually start creating their own movements and own businesses. A lot of the frontliners that we've coached and have been to our workshops and satellite clinics and accommodation they now contract back to us. We absolutely see them as an asset, not a cost. We meet their value and we respect and value and care for them so that we can ripple that effect off to others. Just such a fast way to get the message out, to really get the message of the power of being self-healers, of being self-lovers, and that the way that we've had for many, many years of being told what's wrong with us and what to do is, you know, we can be in partnership agreement with that and equally with our education system as well.

Speaker 1: 16:39

Our future generation they're the people, so include them in it and and doing this will provide a simple and sustainable health and education system. But at the moment we're symptom controlling, whereas heart placement school is about root cause, getting to the root cause, shifting it through. We've got kick-ass cutting edge healers and most of them have had traditionally trained educate like teaching or educational health, and then they've now got these cutting edge modalities on top, so most of them have got lived experience of, of living through this time. So they're bridges of the two worlds, so living through an infradial, a circadian cycle, like a very patriarchal, masculine world, and bridging over to a more feminine feeling, being able to deal and reveal and heal, so normalizing that feeling, being able to deal and reveal and heal, so really normalizing that.

Speaker 3: 17:34

So I wonder, jackie, if you connect to the last words for the women, like if you imagine a woman feels built out who is really functioning, doing all the roles, and she stopped listening to her whispers, what would be a message to her? What can she do?

Speaker 1: 17:48

Yeah, ah come to Heart Place Hospital for fun.

Speaker 3: 17:53

But that's open, just, that's just the professionals, right?

Speaker 1: 17:56

it's not actually for the moms, no, it's open to everybody, but we provide funding where we can to our frontliners.

Speaker 3: 18:03

Yeah, it's actually open to everybody so if there's a mom who's just feeling really burnt out and she doesn't know what, to do, I know.

Speaker 1: 18:11

so yeah, yeah, we can, we support her. So it's very bespoke, so it would. It's hard to generalize because part of our triaging is that we feel into them and see where they're at. But there tends to be kind of three ways. So first step is are they self-caring, are they creating space? And self-caring supports that nervous system, so we can really start regulating that nervous system. The second step would be mindset, like what sort of beliefs and knowings are coming up for them. And then the third step is energy. So really energetically installing those new, the new way, the new, the new world, it New Earth. It's a real soft land, there's no judgment, whereas what's available now is people are still very like 90% of frontliners don't access mental health support because of the stigma that is associated with it, whereas here all of us have had mental health decline, we've had lived experience, we've seen it as our mat-trap wake-up calls.

Speaker 3: 19:14

So yeah, Beautiful, yeah, and so maybe if you can just tell where people can find you and specifically again who are you for, so they can really know, like, if this is me, that's where you can get the help, the support.

Speaker 1: 19:28

Right. So we're actually for all humanity. We're for every single person, young and old. Our mission is to have everybody understand and celebrate their body and mind, so we're actually for everybody. Where we can we fund any of our events, our satellite clinics, our accommodation for those who are in the front line, so those in health, so nurses, teachers, doctors, midwives and emergency services and anyone in between. If anyone's can confused, they can connect with me. So heart place hospital on instagram and facebook and on linkedin, and then we're on youtube and spotify heart place hospital podcast is there anything else you feel like you need to share?

Speaker 1: 20:13

No, no, I guess the only thing. We've got our biggest fundraiser coming up, so it's at the Mangafai Golf Club on the 9th of June. So we're looking for sponsorship and donations of prizes and, of course, people to play. It's about creating fun, raising awareness and fun so that we can support more of our frontliners, because there is no one else doing this. So, yeah, Beautiful.

Speaker 3: 20:37

I love that there's no one else doing this, and this is my purpose. That's what I'm here for. Thank you so much, jen. Happy primary, thank you so much, and thank you so much listeners, and we'll see you next week. Bye.