I've discussed this on here previously, but my mental health took a serious hit with beginning my nursing career and now that I've watched other friends on their own journeys I've realized it's not so uncommon to feel anxiety, depression and burnout, when beginning really any sort of career!
After many, many tearful episodes and horrible, hopeless days I realized I had to come up with some sort of coping mechanism to help me deal with the insurmountable stress I was feeling.
In fact one of my nursing school friends tells me all the time that the only difference between me and you and the people at the nut house is that we have better coping mechanisms than they do! Ha!
It really is so true. It's a fine line between sanity and craziness and the only thing keeping you from crossing that line is how you deal with life's stressors.
My coping mechanism of choice was to immerse myself in different hobbies and interests so that NURSING wasn't the only thing that defined my life. I needed other pursuits to help me realize that I had more purpose than just being a 'nurse'.
I think that goes with any type of career or life situation. Stay at home moms get burnout too and I think it's because they become so immersed in being 'mom' that they lose sight of all the other aspects of their life!
Each of us are individuals that have MANY talents and passions and interests and 'hats' to fill so to speak. We cannot be defined by one singular angle of our lives. There is so much more to us than "Oh she's a good..."fill in the blank". It's oh she's good at "fill in the blank" but also great at this, this and this!
So I'll hop off my soap box now, but just saying, the way I found best to cope and deal with my anxiety was by pursuing different hobbies to help me take my mind off of work.
It kind of happened randomly, but I stumbled across different tutorials on Pinterest on 'needle felting' and kind of fell in love with the idea of it! I also made little felt gardens for my nieces for Christmas and realized felt was such a cheap and fun material to use to make things with.
Thus Petunia Felt Co. was born (follow me along on instagram @petuniafeltcompany).
I want to open an etsy shop once I get some more inventory to stock it with, but here are some of the projects I've been working on :)
Farm animal baby mobile!
And little felt baby shoes! Go to my instagram to see more, if you're interested :)
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I am DYING at how adorable these are. that little CACTUS????? HELLO???? I am so excited to see what else you create! also 100% agree with everything you said about coping mechanisms and pursuing hobbies. i am definitely the same way. It's so easy to get burned out on a demanding job but if I define myself by more than just my career it's much easier to stay sane.
ReplyDeleteYou are so talented! I love how open and honest you were in this post about mental health too. I definitely had a harder time with the mental side of things/ feeling depressed throughout this last pregnancy. Now that the baby is here I am feeling a lot better, but really want to start blogging more and even make time for more sewing projects because you are so right that hobbies help big time! I would love to see your etsy shop when you get it all set up!
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