When I started the second quarter of nursing school, I was not happy with how the situation turned out. It seemed like I was losing control of my life and I was desperately trying everything to regain that feeling and stability. To this day, I still vividly remember the talk I shared with my mom over the phone. She practically told me to stay hopeful and have faith, reminded me that each person has his own journey set with distinguished paths. I realized that she was trying to tell me that each person has STOP& GO points, the important lesson to get from this was to stop comparing my progress to others, which is what I was impetuously doing at the time. My friends from high school had already graduated and had proceeded to land their dream jobs. This did not help me at all. On the contrary, it made me feel a lot worse and worthless to be honest. My anxieties and self-doubt started becoming more common. Oftentimes, I found myself talking to my inner voice and it was not pretty. It mostly consisted of negative self-critics that further reminded me of my mistakes and my failures which really fueled my anxieties to take over my body. To this day, I still don’t know how I managed to keep going in the midst of everything I had going on. But I did notice it affected my work ethic and school work. I was really struggling, not having adequate rest between my job and school responsibilities, having unexpected panic attacks during my exams. It carried on to the point I started second guessing, even the day to day tasks I would effortlessly carry out.
This was the tipping point for me, I started wondering when my “go” moment would come into effect. I remember those nights where I would find it hard to sleep because I could not stop thinking about my future, or the nights I would suddenly wake up from my sleep drenched in sweat. It was hard for me at the time to find that same drive I had within me before to study the material because I felt tired all the damn time, and again it felt pointless because I could not do clinicals, just my theory class until a spot opened up for me. I ended up having a long talk with my brother and told me what was going on, although it did take some time for me to swallow my pride and ask for advice. He helped me realize that I had to find ways to get creative in my learning, more importantly to stop victimizing myself in a self-pity party because it was not going to get me anywhere. Another goal I set for myself at this particular time was to restraighten my relationship with God because I was starting to lose faith in everything, myself, my future and my family. For some time, I was really feeling like it was me against the world except that I was getting my ass kicked. I then decided to temporarily close all my social media accounts to prioritize my responsibilities and take care of my most important objectives since it seemed like I was about to blow my second chance.
Making this move was quite promising even though it was hard to do it at the time especially with how I had to reiterate my reasons for doing this to my friends, peers, and coworkers. But I was glad that my immediate family and trusted mentors were really supportive of my decision. After some time, I became used to not have to repeatedly check my phone for notifications, seeing posts that made me inadvertently compare my progress to all the great things that were happening in my friends’ lives. I was really having time in the day to meditate, reflect, and search for meaning in all the things that were happening in my life. I started going to bed more satisfied with how productive my day had gone. I learned to truly appreciate all the subtle blessings in my life. To top on that, I ended up finding my clinical spot back after finishing my 2ndquarter theory class. When my teacher told me about it, I was so ecstatic and felt alive again, more alive than I had felt in the past few months. It seemed like I had found my light at the end of the tunnel again. Right there and then, I told myself to make it a worthwhile experience and spark up that same drive I once had within me before. My clinical experience ended up being amazing, the staff was awesome, helpful, and very engaging as well as the patients which significantly helped me regain that confidence and belief in myself. This was something I dearly needed to truly see how much this dream meant to me. As the quarter went on, I found myself answering questions based on my intuition and really developing my critical thinking. The first time I made this realization, I was quite astounded, but it also made me realize that I definitely belong. I started to find more therapeutic ways to channel all the energy and vibrations into some light that can help me become a better person and get in harmonious vibration with the universe. This quarter was definitely not easy as sometimes I would go on my clinicals on two hours of sleep or even none, but somehow once we would get to the hospital a higher power would take over me and suddenly I was locked in, ready to embrace everything going on around me and learn more cool things about medicine. These past few months were undoubtedly the hardest I have had to endure; I was really pushed to my limits and I wouldn’t change it for anything in the whole world. I am now at peace with everything going on in my life and am confident that the sky is the limit from now. I have big dreams and aspirations, and it is my time to pursue them.
I want to end this story by saying that no matter how dark and rough the tunnel may get, know that there will always be a light. You just have to dig deep within you and harness it, you’d be amazed by how powerful your inner voice is. I have a great deal of lessons these past few months and I intend to abide by them for the rest of my life.
Levitate and Radiate 