WIMBLEDON, N.D. — Nicole Haugen’s career as a nurse brought her to the bedside of the dying through hospice, and the successive deaths of her parents in 2019, all while raising six young children. Eventually I caught up with everything.
“I was constantly facing death and dying,” she said. “It was very intense.”
The fallout came just before the coronavirus pandemic, when her marriage began to suffer. “We’re stuck together now, but we didn’t like each other,” Ms. Haugen said of spending more time near her husband, Will.
But solace came when I discovered life coaching. That, combined with her Christian faith, helped revive Haugen’s exhausted and despairing spirit.
“At first I just wanted to lose weight,” she says. “But when I lost 40 pounds in a few months, I realized, ‘Oh my god, my thoughts have consequences in my life.’ And that changed my life.”
She says her new way of thinking has given her a new look in her marriage. Haugen said she was inspired to help other Christian women in the health care field find balance, including her own mothers.
Guilt, she says, is one of the obstacles women, especially mothers, face working in the medical field, or any field. She says, “I feel guilty when I’m working because I’m not with my kids. And when I’m with my kids, I feel guilty that I can’t help with work when I need it.”
Additionally, many health care workers struggle with perfectionism and people-pleasing, she said. She says, “If you keep taking on more and more jobs and saying ‘yes,’ you get stuck and don’t have time for yourself.”
A lack of self-care will eventually prompt a spiral. “We’re so busy giving, we feel good when we’re doing it. But when we have time for ourselves, we don’t even know what will fulfill us. ”
Having benefited from life coaching, Haugen pursued a certification with a special focus on reaching people struggling with work-parent balance in the health care field. She received her certification in October 2022 and is currently primarily doing initial consulting to assess her individual needs.
Participants will then be able to participate in six one-on-one sessions via Zoom. She also hosts her podcast, Catholic Nurses Her Coach, in which she initiates group coaching sessions aimed at Catholic nurses twice a month and discusses the unique challenges within that subset. Masu.
This month, Haugen will lead a spiritual retreat for women in the healthcare industry, where spirituality is key. “If our thoughts don’t have truth behind them or are not rooted in the sacraments and Scripture, we can become off-kilter,” she says, adding that by being firmly rooted in our faith, However, he added that it can prevent “floating”. “(Faith) becomes your anchor.”
Finally, she added: “There is no point in doing any work at all if there is no love in it and God is not calling you to do it.”
Will eagerly observes the changes and wholeheartedly supports her pursuits. “The biggest thing is that she has an outlet for her stress,” he said, noting that in the past he had tended to be the outlet.
“I work at a grocery store, so I walk in, I leave, and I don’t think about work until the next day,” he said. However, in the world of nursing, “there is always a system in place, whether you are nursing or not,” and you often deal with life-or-death issues. “Once a rift occurs in a family relationship, there is nothing you can do to stop it.”
Contribution / Jaycee Joe Photography
Whitney Bruins, a practicing dentist, was trying to become a mother to young children, but she was beginning to feel like she was failing.
“I kept making mistakes at work, falling behind in grades, and forgetting little things (at home),” she said. Things like snack days at school and other “small” things that seem big. “It just eats away at me.”
Bruins had known Haugen since they were friends and “neighbors” growing up in rural North Dakota, but when he noticed a post on her Facebook page offering life coaching, he decided to give her a try. I decided to try it. “She just helped me put things into perspective, because in reality, these little balls that you drop aren’t as big as your brain realizes.”
Haugen, she says, has given her mental and spiritual tools to help manage her daily life. For example, they helped her understand that her stress, anxiety, and all her emotions were not “bad” in and of themselves. “If I didn’t care so much about how well I did this filling, I wouldn’t have been a good dentist.” If I don’t, I might get angry at my children or my husband.”
Haugen also helped her regain what she had given up to pursue a career: running, playing the piano, and reading. She said, “Nicole helped me get back to what I loved, which made me who I am today.”
Bruins, a Lutheran, said he is also grateful to Haugen for helping him become more in tune with God. “I still make mistakes and miss some things, but she made me understand that it’s okay. We live in a flawed world.”
Betty Gemmill previously worked in marketing, but returned to nursing school around 2018. “I fell in love with caring for people,” she says, first earning her associate’s nursing certification, and then last year, she earned her registered nurse certification. .
Contribution / Betty Gemmils
But as stress mounted, Gemmill began to seek support, especially desperate for connection with other Christian health care workers. “I was looking everywhere and then I found Nicole and realized she was right there,” said Gemmill, who also lives in rural North Dakota.
In addition to the work-family balance issues, Gemmil, a mother of five, faces the challenges of being asked to provide medicines and procedures that go against her beliefs, and the moral challenges of “standing up for them.” He also talked about the challenges faced.
“Nurses and physicians of the Catholic faith need a space to talk about these things, and how to overcome nursing burnout.”
Haugen offers “a huge space to speak openly, lean on God, and focus on prayer before the day and at the end of the day,” she said.
She helped her see things in a new light, including how draining she was taking care of people all day. “I realized she was going to work with this openness and positive attitude and take care of others,” Gemmill says. “But that would lack a relationship with her husband and her children.” She realized that in a sense she needed to become “a new mother and her spouse.” Ta. “It was a wonderful thing revealed to me.”
After discovering this and going through a medical trial within his family, Gemmil says he experienced a newfound peace, comfort and faith in his profession.
She says that God created us to be in fellowship and community, but we often think we are on our own. Haugen was her gift, as she had “researched and prayed for good, structured ways to survive work-life burnout.”
“It’s a great way to bring us closer together, to share our stories and our lives, and to bring our faith lives into our lives, both at work and at home,” Gemmill said. It brings us closer to God and to each other. ”
“Find new hope, reconnect with the Lord, and rest,” Haugen said of the upcoming retreat, which is open to all women in the medical field seeking spiritual renewal.
what: Catholic Healthcare Retreat for Women
when: May 30th (Thursday) – June 1st (Saturday)
where: Maryvale Retreat Center, 3150 116 Ave. SE, Valley City, ND.
contact: www.catholicnursecoach.com/in-person-retreat/
