#1 Introduction: Why we Say We're Fine (When We're Not)

What happens when the people who dedicate their lives caring for others forget to care for themselves?

In this introductory episode, our Host Jayne Ellis opens up about her own journey through compassion fatigue, a difficult exit from a career in Healthcare that she loved and the moment she realised that emotional health and safety in the workplace wasn't just overlooked - it was barely there! 

This inspired Jayne to write her first course to bring awareness for others who were suffering without the proper support in place and EF training was founded. She's on a mission so that everybody has access to the skills and tools needed to build sustainable emotional resilience.  

Join Jayne and her weekly guest as they bring conversations from healthcare, social care and beyond - voices of those who know first hand the workplace pressure and trying to find the balance within everyday life.

Each guest will be asked the question we so rarely answer honestly, "how are you really feeling?"

Because "I'm fine" is rarely the whole story.

EF training exists because nobody should have to pour from an empty cup. Founded by Jayne Ellis who learnt the hard way so you don't have too.

If today's conversation resonated with you, please subscribe, share and leave a review - it helps more professionals who care find this community.

If you or someone you know would like to join the conversation and be a guest on our podcast, please get in touch. 

Connect with us at info@eftraining.co.uk

Visit us at http://eftraining.co.uk for more information about Jayne Ellis and learn about our Compassion Fatigue and Emotional Resilience Training for Organisations and Individuals.

Please note: This podcast is intended for education and supportive purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health support. If you are struggling, please reach out to a qualified professional or contact your GP. 

The views and options expressed by guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views, values or position of EF training Ltd. Guest content is shared in the spirit of open conversation, learning and intended as a safe space for honest dialogue. 

Transcript

Jayne Ellis 0:00

Hi, my name is Jayne Ellis, and this is the first I'm Fine Podcast. Having worked as a nurse for over 30 years, I'm very aware of the emotional toll that it has taken on me, and I'm also painfully aware that I've got very good at hiding how I feel. Hence the title of this podcast for me, it took having panic attacks. Before I realized the emotional impact of the job. I was working at the time as a clinical nurse specialist, and I had a massive caseload of patients, but I just kept going, and if you'd asked me at the time, if I was okay, I would probably have said, I'm fine, or I'm okay. It wasn't really until my body started screaming at me that I realized that I was in trouble. The first panic attack I had was in, a Boots store just before Christmas. Christmas always puts a lot of extra pressure on us all, doesn't it? Because we have to make it all perfect. And it was at that time that I realized that I really wasn't feeling very well. I was going way beyond the boundaries that I was comfortable with. I was trying to prove all the time that I was Superwoman, that I could do everything, that I was able to look after this huge caseload of patients really effectively. But I knew that I wasn't really, I knew that I was. You know, being the old swan and paddling like mad underneath and trying to stay calm on top, and it just wasn't working for me. And so I'd stopped sleeping well, I wasn't eating properly. I really wasn't doing anything properly. One of the things I remember the most was that my memory was really bad. I would forget just even the smallest things would just completely go out. And when I went back to work after I'd had time off sick, I had all these post-it notes all over my desk trying to remind me to do things. I did end up being signed off sick with stress, and I remember my GP saying to me, Jayne, you know, this is just a job. Your blood pressure is really high. You're obviously really unwell. And I didn't want to stop because to stop felt really scary. It felt like I was letting everybody down,, including myself, but my patients and my, the rest of the team. And I just couldn't imagine what I was gonna do if I couldn't do this job. But I did take time off and during that time I did start to feel a bit better. I was diagnosed with a generalized anxiety disorder, which I never really understood, but actually looking back on it, I was experiencing compassion fatigue, which is what we now talk about in the training that I run. When I went back to work, I really wasn't supported properly. I was supposed to have gone back to work in a phased return, and that didn't happen. I was just literally chucked back in and expected to carry on where I left off and I just couldn't do it. So after a while, I began to spiral back into where I was before and I left, which broke my heart because I'd spent a long time training for that role, and I loved it. There were parts of the job that I absolutely loved and had I had a realistic caseload, I probably never would've left. I also had a very unsupportive manager, and that doesn't help either. I did different roles after that. And then eight years ago I set up EF training and I wrote the course, the Headline Course, which is about compassion fatigue. And I did that because at the time I was in another role and I could feel myself starting to go back into that place again, and I became very concerned. And I reflected on the fact that we really don't have any emotional health and safety training doing this role in, in health and social care roles right across the board. We don't get the training that helps us to proactively support our emotional wellbeing. There is counseling available for us, but that's waiting for things to go wrong before they do anything about it. Whereas what we really need is to have this proactive support so that we don't get ourselves into that situation. As healthcare professionals and as people who really care about the job that they do, individuals tend to be very hard on themselves. I know I was. I had a very high expectations and we always have to remember to take care of ourselves as well, but we feel guilty when we do that. In the training, we call it responsible selfishness. It's the idea that, you know, you can look after yourself and you can look after other people. And if you don't do that, that you end up pouring from an empty cup or not being able to have emotional energy that you need to be able to look after yourself. And other people. So in this podcast, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna talk to people from lots of different backgrounds. I'll start with, health and social care professionals because obviously they're very dear to my heart. But within the EF training sphere, we also now. Teach our course and the resilience courses to other people as well. People from different backgrounds who experience different kinds of stress or vicarious trauma or compassion fatigue or moral injury because they care an awful lot about what they do, which always puts us then at danger of over caring and putting ourselves last. And when somebody says to us how we're feeling, it's always really tempting to just say, I'm fine and move on. So I'm gonna ask my guests why they say they're fine when they're not, how they care for themselves, and ask them to give tips to other people about how to care for themselves. So please join me for the conversation I really look forward to your company and of course, your feedback.