You have burnout if…
Updated: Jan 10
These are the burnout statistics for frontline workers.
Problem: What We Know
Many people don’t know how to generate the resilience qualities needed to adapt successfully to change, leaving them feeling powerless. Buddhist texts describe feeling powerless as a living hell. Powerlessness also contributes to stress, anxiety, and depression.
Today, feeling powerless is becoming an epidemic. Globally, people must cope with Armageddon events like Covid 19, war, and nuclear bomb threats. Evolving technology also generates psychological stressors. In America, the disintegration of traditional social, political, and financial templates is currently requiring people to adapt to epic size changes. The traditional societal templates now collapsing include lifetime job security, banking integrity and stability, police reliability, government
leadership integrity, ethical religious leadership, a male dominated society, reliance on white supremacy leadership, normalcy of objectifying women, planet climate health, fossil fuel dominance, the nuclear family, male and female only genders, in-person classroom education, health insurance coverage, and healthcare competency. In a desire to avoid change, some people are clinging to and violently fighting for the re-installment of these archaic traditional templates. As a society, we must adapt to the new normal first, then restructure new societal templates aligned with the truth of who we collectively want to be.
In the process of looking for resilience to adapt to these stressors, people fall prey to false solutions. Alternative realities falsely offer the much sought-after solution to powerlessness like social media, computer relationships, gambling, internet trolling, pornography, shopping, video games, binging on TV shows, conspiracy theories, trying to stay forever young, drugs, alcohol, and addictions.
The evidence and negative fallout of false solution seeking is clear. Our society has never been more drugged, more suicidal, more depressed, and more addicted. Drug overdose deaths have risen 20% every year for the last five years and 11% of Americans are taking prescription depression medication.
In 2015, the most extensive study to date, 36% of Americans were prescribed pain relievers, 14.7% tranquilizers, and 6.9% direct sedatives. This means possibly 58% of the population is taking a prescription sedative compared to 6.4% taking stimulants (samhsa.gov). Marijuana (18%, 2019) and binge drinking (25.8%, 2019) both qualify as mentally numbing sedatives, too (nih.gov). We are literally becoming the numbed-out zombies that we love to watch on TV.
Selfcare is considered a self-indulgent luxury by many, but according to research, selfcare empowers people with resilience qualities, and helps them avoid life in false alternative realities.
Problem in Healthcare: What We Know
In 2020, America watched healthcare workers collapse mentally and physically, but the typical healthcare workers’ mental state was already crumbling before the Covid 19 pandemic. Hospitals were an extremely stressful place to work BEFORE Covid 19.
From 2003-2016, suicide was the largest source of fatal injuries (52%) in healthcare workers (Braun et al., 2021).
In 2009, an average of 40% of nurses nationwide had diagnosable Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from their job (Mealer et al.). Only 10% of the general population has PTSD and just 20% of combat veterans have PTSD (King et al., 2017).
In 2014, 76% of all hospital nurses personally experienced stress producing mental and/or physical VIOLENCE on the job while 88% of emergency nurses experienced it. Abuses were believed to be under reported due to workers making excuses for patient behavior (Speroni et al.).
In 2017, According to the Journal of Clinical Nursing, approximately 20% of all nurses struggle with an addiction to drugs or alcohol. 10% of physicians will become drug or alcohol abusers. These are the reported addicts. There are many more in hiding. The general public has a 6% drug and alcohol addiction rate, 2017.
In 2018, Healthcare workers accounted for 73% of ALL nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses due to VIOLENCE (US Bureau of Labor Statistics). Workplace violence creates stress and affects job performance, job productivity, job morale, job retention, and job satisfaction and ultimately patient care (King et al., 2017).
Pandemics worsen these conditions. During 2020’s Covid 19 pandemic…
57% of healthcare workers experienced acute stress
48% depression
33% anxiety
Healthcare workers DID NOT show a baseline knowledge of habits, practices, and rituals for mentally processing stress nor for possessing stress coping skills. Healthcare workers succumbed to the epic pressures of Covid 19 stressors because they were not mentally equipped (Shechter et al., 2020).
Solution: What We Believe at Firm Water Road
We can’t stop change. We don’t want to stop change. We must cope with change. Firm Water Road believes there is a better system of coping:motivation > selfcare > resilience > adapting to change.In the book “On Death and Dying,” world renowned psychiatrist Dr. Ross wrote that avoiding pain and suffering is not possible nor even advisable but rebounding from them is. She describes resilient people as beautiful people:
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful People do not just happen.”- Dr. Elizabeth Kubler, author of one of Firm Water Road’s many landmark textbooks.
Our name, Firm Water, literally means a desperately needed water supply that is released during a repeat of the most severe droughts on record. Metaphorically, our curriculum is the firm water supply needed to rejuvenate the people of our time, so they can thrive again. Our first target population has great critical need: healthcare workers. Our second target is everyone else.
Vision and Mission
“Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.” -Margaret Mead
Firm Water Road’s mission is to diminish the pain and suffering of ALL by offering them an online resilience-building education curriculum that revolves around lifestyle medicine concepts. Our courses integrate biological, psychological, social, and spiritual health domains for a fresh and comprehensive solution approach to the current mental and physical health crisis. We deliver accessible online selfcare for healthcare.
Technique
Firm Water Road’s selfcare > resilience curriculum tools are a dynamic combination of mindful physical wisdom-arts courses and positive psychology-based education, all viewed through a scientific lens. The result is people with less stress, anxiety, depression, and stronger abilities to adapt. Firm Water Road overcomes motivational obstacles to ensure success.
Curriculum
Firm Water Road’s motivation > selfcare > resilience > adapt education system is built to reflect educational excellence, medical science expertise, historical wisdom-arts accuracy, sound psychological foundations, speed, convenience, and student success support. Firm Water Road’s professional curriculum developers present a comprehensive integrative program covering biological, psychological, social, and spiritual domains. If the student gets stalled, we offer a live coaching system option for help to ensure motivational success.
Our coursework developers not only follow university level curriculum guidelines for objectives, learning style accommodations, and optimal motivational strategies, but our curriculum developers are also healthcare workers. They are the target population, improving the coursework’s motivational and medical accuracy.
How We Are Different
Positive psychology-based
Created by an experienced healthcare professional
Profession education curriculum developers
Medical level safety
Personalized life coaching service
Comprehensively bio-psycho-spirit-social
Time tested holistic arts
Variety: Vetted and superlative teachers and historians
New positive psychology and classic wisdom-arts textbooks
Affiliate with exercise Mirror Co. for daily practices
We weave together the DIFFICULT TO FIND Masters
Clinicians: cutting edge medical professionals applying holistic arts with results.
Researchers: world-renowned medical journal article researchers and historians.
Ancient Arts: comprehensive assortment of global wisdom-arts teachers.
Healers: diverse, exceptional, global, and local
Motivational Coaches
We treat our coaching clients as partners in health, not as experts with students. The expert approach is traditionally established as a standard authoritarian or educator approach. The expert defines agendas, feels responsible for client’s health, solves problems, focuses on what’s wrong, has the answers, interrupts if off topic, works harder than client and wrestles with the client (Moore, Jackson, & Tschannen-Moran, 2015).
This is contrary to the partner mentality of our coaching approach. We are facilitators of change and elicit the client’s agenda. The client is responsible for health outcomes and co-discovers solutions while our coach fosters possibilities, focuses on what works, and learns from the client’s story. The client works as hard as coach in the partnership. It is a dance not a wrestling match (Moore, Jackson, & Tschannen-Moran, 2015).
Over the Past Decade
We found through research that the most powerful resilience solutions were in mindful physical wisdom-arts and positive psychology-based education. According to our research, these two activities are exponential game changers for quality and fast selfcare > resilience skill development.
Fix Burnout:
Strengthens mental health
Builds solid relationship skills
Boosts physical wellness
…for frontline workers, empowering them to create social change by sharing these skills with the communities they serve.
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