Posts Tagged 'Kris Harty'

A New Year, A New Yesterday by Kris Harty

Posted by kbuxman on January 10, 2012

Yesterday was what it was. Or was it?

If your memory is like mine, I can’t remember where I parked my car an hour ago. How can I possibly think that my memories from a year ago – or a decade ago – are accurate?

Next question: How much weight do memories of past events color your present relationships and viewpoints?

I don’t know about you, but as I thought about that for myself, something inside me went…flooop.

With some necessary humbleness, I confess there have been times when I’ve carried more than my weight in animosity toward certain individuals who – as they’d say in the Old West – done me wrong. Some of their actions were undeniably nasty, even when taking a faulty memory into account. But did their nastiness justify my present-day bitterness?

Maybe I contributed to the situation back-when more than I realized. Let’s hope whatever it was, that I’d handle myself better today than I have in previous years. I’d like to think I’ve learned something along the way.

And perhaps, just perhaps, they have, too.

While not every situation calls for a ‘let bygones be bygones’ approach, far more qualify for it than don’t.

For those that do qualify, the need for the bygones approach is especially evident when I’ve allowed a past experience or person to affect how I view other similar but unrelated situations and people today.

Not all car salesmen are slimy. Not all leaders need remedial classes. Not all exes deserve the finest in paybacks.

Former friends, colleagues or family who let us down or betrayed us once made our lives better for being in it. Whatever the reason for their more negative action, we can’t allow it to color every relationship we encounter going forward. We need to remember the good times we had with them, learn from the bad, and know that new relationships don’t automatically carry the same destiny within them.

Whether or not amends can or should be made with people in our past, we’re able to look at our own past behavior and see how we might handle it differently now. In that way, we can use a less than ideal past experience to positively affect our present relationships. It might help us listen closer and interpret less. Clarifying misunderstandings right away goes a long way toward diminishing long-term conflicts.

Sometimes what we heard wasn’t what was said. And sometimes what wasn’t said, truly wasn’t said. It’s way too easy for many of us, myself included, to create a message where none existed.

As we go into the blank canvas of a new year, let’s let our future speak well of our past.

This column first appeared in NurseTogether

Tags: Kris Harty, nurse inspiration

Posted in: Inspiration

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The In ‘N Outpatient by Kris Harty

Posted by kbuxman on October 28, 2011

“I’m a band-aid ripper-offer.”

“And what does that mean?” I asked Pamela, my book’s editor, over coffee last week.

“It means I’m decisive. I make a decision, quickly, and then dive in and put plans in place to make the decision happen. I’m not much on looking back and second-guessing once the decision is made. Full throttle ahead.”

I’m a band-aid ripper-offer wanna-be. There’s been a few times when I have been, and I admit, it felt good. I’m working on making it more a part of my regular routine.

I’m more of a cautiously-lift-up-the-corner-of-the-band-aid-and-ouch-realize-this-is-gonna-hurt-and-oh-I’m-so-not-quite-ready-but-I’m-sure-I-will-be-after-I-think-about-it-just-a-little-bit-more kind of person.

Owww.

Sometimes time doesn’t help at all. The resulting decision is usually the same whether we decide it now or later.

We often know the direction we need to go long before we commit to it. We don’t need time to re-consider; we need time to adjust to the new direction before saying it is so.

This I do a lot.

Yet some of the biggest decisions of life I’ve made quickly. They often seemed so clear cut, so right, so on track. Something pushed me toward that direction as the obvious choice although it may not have seemed likely to other people.

Other decisions, typically smaller decisions, are the ones I hem and haw on before finalizing the next move. They can be excruciatingly difficult and time-consuming. What flavor ice cream, for example.

So many choices, so few taste buds.

Most of us probably remember our mothers tugging off band-aids from us as small tikes. I, for one, would wince and look, then look away. Then look, then grimace, then yowl.

Looking back, it was no doubt far more painful for her than for me.

YANK. Off it came. No more dreaded anticipation. No more imagining it worse than it really was.

Don’t we still sometimes carry out that process as adults when making choices? We agonize over making the right choice. This or that? That or this? In actuality, it’s rarely going to turn out badly either way. We simply need to make a decision and move forward.

Yet we putter with the band-aid, looking at it, then looking away. We almost start ripping up the corner, and then we stop and think about it some more. Seriously, what are we waiting for? Decisions usually involve change, and while change certainly can be painful, we often prolong the pain far longer than is necessary.

If we would simply make the decision and the change all in one quick fluid motion, life could move on and we’d be the better for it – much sooner and with much less suffering.

Do we ever learn? For some of us – ahem – it takes a lifetime.

I’m determined to be more like Pamela, more of a band-aid ripper-offer than a band-aid-putter-offer. Next time there’s a band-aid on my body, I’ll be yanking it off in one fell swoop, as my mother used to say. Or maybe in two fell swoops. Or three…

I’m so excited that my first book is now a published reality! A Shot in the Arm and A Strong Spirit: How Health Care Givers Help Patients Persevere…No Matter What! A Lifelong Patient Opens Her Heart and Journal. I wrote this book out of respect, love and admiration for YOU – the professional health care giver. You’ve kept me alive and walking through four decades of Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. That’s worthy of a medal, but alas, medal-making is not my skill. But I can write a book. If you’d like an insider’s view of how you can and do make a difference to your patients, then I humbly suggest snatching up a copy while it’s hot off the press. Packed with inspiration and application, it’s a quick 2 ½ hour read that I hear can be life-changing. Available on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0983226806?ie=UTF8&ref_=pd_irl_gw&s=books&qid=1308278518&sr=1-109) and wherever books are orderable in stores or online.

Tags: how humor helps, Kris Harty, nurse inspiration

Posted in: How Humor Helps

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The In ‘N Outpatient by Kris Harty

Posted by kbuxman on June 28, 2011

“What’s the oldest you’ve ever been?”

A fair question, although it may be obvious chronologically. Personally, I can’t attest to having lived or acted my physical age. Many would agree. Mentally, I don’t feel it.

My friend and speaker colleague Bob mentioned a funny age-ism recently. Bob and his family were enjoying a meal together when his little granddaughter piped up. “Grandpa, how old are you?”

“Why, I’m 71.”

“Wow! Did you start out at 1???”

Out of the mouths of young whippersnappers.

This granddaughter still counts her age in years and half years. When do we start counting down instead of up?

Why do we look forward to ‘getting bigger,’ and shortly after we do, we stop looking forward to how our bodies will next change.

It’s not typically for the better.

I was at my annual check up with my ophthalmologist to make sure 40 years of arthritis hasn’t messed with my eyes. I noted that in the last six months, my eyes don’t seem to adjust or focus quickly when the TV screen changes. There’s a blurry three seconds before the image clears.

When it first started happening, I was concerned. The old ‘oh no, what now’ syndrome. But then a sneaking suspicion snuck in that it was normal…for my age.

I first mentioned it to my neurosurgeon this spring. He looked at me, a half grin creeping across his face. “It’s an age thing, isn’t it?” “Uh, yea.”

My ophthalmologist was no less sympathetic. “You are middle aged.”

Did he have to be so brutal about it?

Why is there no manual for aging? There are books to tell pregnant women what to expect during pregnancy and during that child’s first year, and what’s normal, and what’s not. Why are there no books for those entering middle age? With all us boomers venturing there, it would have to be a best seller. Maybe that’s my next book.

It could be that those of you in the medical professions have a primer on this stuff. I’d say that’s an unfair advantage. The rest of us slog through, wondering if something is wrong or if our peers are falling apart, too – but that they’re smart enough to keep mum regarding the small horrors coming our way.

We shouldn’t have to stumble through blindly. My slightly younger friends tease me that they’re well equipped to enter middle age because they know from my experience what’s coming their way. I’m glad I can be a beacon (she said wryly).

The pre-school niece of an old boyfriend, when she thought we should know better, often asked, “What are you – new??”

It reminded me of Bob’s granddaughter.

I barely remember being new. Heck, I barely remember much of anything some days. But I’m glad I’ve had the luxury of learning what it is to age, to forget, to have mal-adjusting eyesight.

Without it, I would never have lived past new. And I’m grateful I’ve gotten to be the oldest I’ve ever been.

It’s bad form to shout it from rooftops, but I’m so excited that my first book is now a published reality! A Shot in the Arm and A Strong Spirit: How Health Care Givers Help Patients Persevere…No Matter What! A Lifelong Patient Opens Her Heart and Journal. I wrote this book, out of respect, love and admiration, for YOU – the professional health care giver. You’ve kept me alive and walking through four decades of Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. That’s worthy of a medal, but I’m not that talented. If you’d like an insider’s view of how you can and do make a difference to your patients’ perseverance, then I humbly suggest snatching up a copy while it’s hot off the press. Packed with inspiration and application, it’s an intentionally quick read (2hours) that I hear can be life-changing. Available on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0983226806?ie=UTF8&ref_=pd_irl_gw&s=books&qid=1308278518&sr=1-109) and wherever books are orderable in stores or online.

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The In ‘N Outpatient by Kris Harty

Posted by kbuxman on June 21, 2011

“Maybe I’m an exception to the ‘rolling stone gathers no moss’ adage.”

I’m feeling pretty darn moss-covered myself some days, especially when work and life seem to be rolling downhill. It’s overwhelming at times. It happens far more often than I’d like. Needless to say, I’m a mite suspicious of the proverb about a rolling stone gathering no moss.

Prove it.

The faster the downward tumble speeds up at a breakaway pace, the more moss - the more yuck, the more issues – I seem to accumulate. I can’t shake it. Its fuzziness is annoying. Get this stuff off me!

Perhaps that wasn’t the original intent of the phrase. Still, I beg to differ with it – as sometimes seems to be my nature.

Do you ever feel that way, about the rolling downhill part? That life is rolling along at its own merry clip, and all you can do is attempt to merely match the same pace, while all the while gunk is building up on you, instead of falling away, off to the side, where it belongs?

I’ve felt that way in the past as a patient, I sometimes feel that way as a professional, and I certainly feel that way in my personal life.

My neighbor Jeanette and I meandered onto the topic of overwhelmingness this weekend. She’s the busy mom of two young boys whom she homeschools and the mom of one husband – who, of course, she doesn’t.

Although we live lives that are more dissimilar than similar, we both feel it. The ‘it’ being the weight of all we carry, all we’re responsible for, all that the world throws at us. It’s never-ending and no matter how much we do, more keeps getting added to the list.

In the midst of our commiseration, Jeanette stopped me when she offered a game-changer, a brain-changer. She said, “We can’t stop from rolling downhill. We can only learn to roll downhill better.”

Ooooh.

Huh.

She’s right. We can’t stop more and more stuff – activities, obligations, requirements, messes, muck and miscellaneous – from entering our lives. But we can determine that we’ll handle them all better. We’ll learn to juggle. Not by juggling nine pointy knives at one time, but by juggling two or three soft foam-like balls.

No rush to learn or perfect the craft. We’ve been dealing with green muck attaching itself to us all our lives. It’ll take a little while to intentionally step back, take a breath, and figure out how to deal with the muck that needs to be dealt with, and how to apply muck-repellant for that which doesn’t.

Identifying the muck and green moss that we don’t need to put up with in our lives is half the battle. Once we learn to identify it and handily repel it so it doesn’t stick to us, our downhill roll will be much less encumbered. Less overwhelming. Much more freeing.

We might even be able to relax and enjoy the ride – sans our green mossy selves.

The Short Chick with the Walking Stick’s upcoming book celebrates professional caregivers as the StickSpirits they are. For four decades, they’ve helped Kris Harty Stick To It – No Matter What! Kris provides a patient’s perspective that is educational, inspirationa, and insightful. Part memoir, part application, Kris helps student nurses, newer nurses and not-so-newer nurses remember why they joined their giving profession in the first place. She shares how they positively impact patients’ lives, with minimal time and effort. Kris is the Thought Leader on People Helping People Persevere. She leads the conversation regarding Patient Relationships and Quality of Care from the patient perspective. A 40-year veteran of the medical industry – on the receiving end, Kris Harty is the Stickabilities Specialist at Strong Spirit Unlimited. If you’re looking for an effortless and meaningful way to lead your team toward continued quality caregiving, contact Kris. Call 877.711.STIC(K), email Infot@StrongSpiritUnlimited.com, or visit www.StrongSpiritUnlimited.com.

Tags: Kris Harty, moss gathering stones, stickability

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The In ‘N Outpatient by Kris Harty

Posted by kbuxman on June 14, 2011

“I can’t do this anymore.”

“What?? You have to keep going. You can’t quit. You’re needed. You’re fantastic at what you do.”

“No, it’s too hard. I’m exhausted. There’s too much to do and never enough time. I’m fighting on every front and I have no more fight left. I’m tired of being responsible, tired of doing it all and doing it well. Really, there’s barely time even to do a lousy job at the required basics.”

My friend was struggling in her job and at home. I didn’t like what I was hearing, but I understood. I’d previously slid down a similar slimy slope.

There were no grab bars, no traction, no hay bales to cushion the landing along that slope. It was all downhill, like a runaway sled careening down an icy hilltop.

Has your sled slipped down that same slippery slope of overwhelmingness?

I’ve been there more times than I’d like to admit to anyone, most especially myself. I’d wanted to quit workplaces in the past, I’ve wanted to quit my own business, I’ve wanted to quit as a patient, I’ve wanted to quit watching loved ones as patients.

I’ve wanted to quit. But it’s been seldom when I’ve followed through on that desire.

There’s much I have to learn, but this I know: the ‘how’ of how we keep going when we can’t keep going, might be found in a simpler answer than we realize.

The how lies in hope. Consciously or unconsciously, we hang on to hope. We hope for a better day, situation, outcome. We know it can be better than it is. We wait for the day when it is just that. We do what we can to bring it on, and if there’s nothing we can do, we patiently plow through the days until the sun glints through the clouds.

Along the way, we hold on to the hope of the heartfelt relationships of our lives, the intrinsic value and purpose our relationships and work bring us, and the unexpected humor that catches us off-guard.

There is funny in almost everything, including overworked, underappreciated, ‘get me the bleep out of here’ workdays. During some past jobs, I had been known to keep going merely by telling myself that the workplace, in all its messed up unglory, was there simply to entertain me. And not only that, but I was paid to be an interactive audience! I silently voiced a ‘bravo’ for true-to-form stellar performances from colleagues, administration and customers.

I could choose to be either annoyed or amused by their antics and interactions with me. When I chose to become detached and amused, the day was not as bleak as it had been. There was reason to chuckle and smile. From there, I could pass on the good humor, so to speak, to others and be re-energized by it myself. It might be an unorthodox coping mechanism, but sometimes unorthodox is what survival requires.

You can so do this, too. Bravo, you!

The Short Chick with the Walking Stick’s upcoming book celebrates professional caregivers as the StickSpirits they are. For four decades, they’ve helped Kris Harty Stick To It – No Matter What! She provides a patient’s perspective that is educational, inspirational, and insightful. Part memoir, part application, Kris helps student nurses, newer nurses and not-so-newer nurses remember why they joined their amazing profession in the first place. She shares how they positively impact patients’ lives, with minimal time and effort. Little things matter. Kris is the Thought Leader on People Helping People Persevere. She leads the conversation through writing, speaking, coaching, and small group discussions. A 40-year veteran of the medical industry – on the receiving end, Kris Harty is the Stickabilities Specialist at Strong Spirit Unlimited. If you’re looking for an effortless and meaningful way to lead your team toward continued quality caregiving, contact Kris. Call 877.711.STIC(K), email Infot@StrongSpiritUnlimited.com, or visit www.StrongSpiritUnlimited.com.

Tags: funny nurse, Kris Harty, motivation for nurses, nurse speaker, optimism

Posted in: The In 'N Out Patient

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