Firm Water Road
Selfcare for Healthcare
ONLINE ACCESS FOR ALL
Vision, Goals, Programs, What We Believe, Note From Founder
Adaptability refers to your ability to change your actions, course, or approach in order to suit different conditions or environments. Adaptability implies a sense of personal choice, of purposefully
navigating—rather than being driven by—changing
circumstances.
Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. Resilience gives you the ability to bounce forward with new insights and learning you can carry into the future.
Both adaptability and resilience include the ability to assess an evolving situation from multiple perspectives, to shift thinking and viewpoint, and to choose the best response. Adaptable people flourish amidst chaos while inflexible people flounder. Adapters find openings in situations where others only see closure.
– Laurie Cozart, Professor UC Davis
Definitions
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.
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From 2003-2016, suicide was the largest source of fatal injuries (52%) in healthcare workers (Braun et al., 2021).
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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).
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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.).
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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.
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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…
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57% of healthcare workers experienced acute stress
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48% depression
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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
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.
There are 5 stages of motivation:
Goals
Because our founder is a healthcare provider, our specialty is selfcare > resilience for healthcare workers. With the healthcare workers onboard, we plan to expand into US businesses and communities. Once established in the US, we will promote our programs to global healthcare communities and their patients.
Teachers’ Content
Staff
All of our staff members are handpicked for integrity, charisma, passion, and loyalty by our founder. Chosen for their exemplary career skills, each person who works with FWR is motivated from their heart. Everyone here would contribute to FWR without pay if asked and at the beginning many did. Our teams are dedicated to the welfare of people, and it visibly shines through in our customer care as well as in our products.
Our teachers are giants in their industries. We are uberizing the world’s gurus. We dovetail the information from these great holistic healers with groundbreaking scientists, researchers, historians, and medical specialists by editing them together into exciting medical-grade video courses.
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.
We embraced the researched Montessori style of free choice as opposed to a linear course progression. People tend to choose what is familiar or intriguing to them first. We build people’s trust during their course, so they feel safe enough to branch out and try less familiar topics, fueling motivation to continue. The textbooks our clients use are a stimulating combination of innovative positive psychology textbooks and landmark philosophical wisdom-art literature.
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).
How We Are Different
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Positive psychology-based
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Created by an experienced healthcare professional
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Profession education curriculum developers
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Medical level safety
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Personalized life coaching service
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Comprehensively bio-psycho-spirit-social
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Time tested holistic arts
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Variety: Vetted and superlative teachers and historians
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New positive psychology and classic wisdom-arts textbooks
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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
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.
Note From the Founder
“Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” -Nelson Mandela
I too fall down repeatedly but I have learned selfcare skills that help me get back up again. I am Kim Byrd-Rider, a licensed medical expert in pain and suffering. I have spent my lifetime in the academic world searching for answers to the plight of pain and suffering, like many seekers throughout history. I am not alone nor unique.
During the lengthy time it took to earn four healthcare degrees in academia, I expanded my search into the world of holistic healers and wisdom-arts teachers. I have participated in all of the wisdom-arts listed in FWR’s curriculum and am certified in many. My journey has not only been time consuming and expensive, but the resources have been difficult to find and scattered worldwide. My perseverance, tenacity, and grit (developed along the way) helped me to overcome these hurtles. My mission is to simplify this learning process for everyone while still preserving the information quality.
“There is no more neutrality in the world. You either have to be part of the solution, or you're going to be part of the problem.” -T. Siedner
As an authentic healthcare provider, I cannot watch the madness of powerlessness devour people’s lives any longer. I must act from what I know. Firm Water Road is my action solution.
In addition to monetary discounts, our competitors leverage people’s superficial desires to stay pretty and young forever as motivation to continue selfcare practices. This type of motivation works from a foundation of guilt and shame: guilt of being fat and shame for getting old. I guarantee that people will never be young forever and time demands this reality. That is where our competitors have failed, and where we succeed. Our goal is to build lasting resilience for whole health, not beauty and youth. We go deep into positive psychology for motivational solutions, leaving guilt and shame behind.
Motivation > Selfcare > Resilience > Adapt to Change
We focus on psychological hurtles like motivation for learning, relapsing, and universal human needs. People need something more meaningful than just thin pretty girls in tights to motivate them to the whole health level of permanent resilience and adapting. We provide that.
Resilience work also develops clarity of vision, and I am very aware of my life’s purpose. I will most likely oversee this project until the end of my days. My dream is for others to easily obtain what I have arduously struggled to find. I want to offer others the opportunity to experience what I now know: physical pain can be dampened, or even eliminated, and chronic mental suffering is unnecessary.
Kim Byrd-Rider,
Doctor of Physical Therapy, Boston Univ.
Harvard Trained in Psychology