Nursing is in need of a revolution. A revolution of thought and a revolution of how nursing is learned and practiced. Now seems to be a “good” chaotic moment in time and history for the revolution to begin and perhaps to expand: as our healthcare systems become less well funded, less well-staffed, and as more and more of the population (in theory) begins to seek healthcare due to “Affordable Care Act”, the stage for change and growth have been set. I do predict that some major changes are ahead for nurses and our roles in healthcare, and if we as a profession and as individuals do not create our own revolution in nursing, the revolution will be dictated to us by others.

Dovetailing on my last post about nursing and the media, I feel confident in stating that the nursing revolution will not be televised. The following is video-recording of Gil Scott Heron’s work on the revolution not being televised:

What Gil Scott Heron really meant he explains here:

We as nurses can learn a great deal from this song and the revolution of the civil rights movement to begin to plan how we each can and must forge a plan to change our minds, our consciousness, to move toward the right page, and find the right note as Mr. Heron encourages us to do. Each of us has within us the power to create the environment and practices of nursing that best serve our patients, our colleagues, and ourselves on this human journey of life, healing, and love.

And it begins within; we cannot televise the changes in our consciousness that we create, but we can begin our own efforts focused on healing and creating stress resilience practices that support us in moving toward others, instead of remaining in fight-or- flight mode and running from ourselves and others. We can each create a personal brain bio-psycho-neuro-immunological (mind-body-spirit) revolution movement that can change the face of healthcare as we empower ourselves and others toward healing and supporting our evolution of consciousness personally and professionally.

In future postings, I will discuss a bit more about how this is possible and the amazing tools that we have at our disposal to make this revolution a reality.