Episode 5: Reflections — Healing Trauma Through Writing

Cara Lunsford, RN (00:01.422)
Right. Hi, everyone. I'm really excited to get started with both of you. I have Leilani here. I have Lori. I have had the privilege of working with both of these amazing women on a project that was brought to me. And so I just feel like I've gotten to be part of this amazing experience. And so I'm really excited to introduce both of you. I'll start with Leilani. Leilani, welcome to the Nurse.podcast.

Leilani (00:37.993)
Thank you, Kara, very much. Glad to be here.

Cara Lunsford, RN (00:41.39)
So I would love for you to just give us a little bit of like a bio around this project that you started with Lori and then I'll introduce Lori. But tell us a little bit about how like your history with writing and...

work that you've done with soldiers and then how that kind of translated over to what you're doing now with nurses and frontline workers.

Leilani (01:11.701)
Okay, I'm a playwright and a writer and I have, through my own experience, come to realize the power of writing to help heal trauma and wounds. I've established a nonprofit called Returning Soldiers Speak in 2017. It became a nonprofit, but I've been working with veterans since 2010.

helping them tell their stories through the written word and also in front of giving readings to the public because it's one thing to sit around a table and write, which is great, but the real healing happens in community. When we tell our stories to others and others listen, there's a bridge that is built and the process of being embraced and understood within community.

Leilani (02:08.015)
is very powerful. I met Lori at a veterans conference and that morning I was determined to sit next to someone who I could engage with and who I would get along and somehow I walked in and there was a solitary woman sitting in the big conference room and I said, well there I'm going to go sit next to her and she and I hit it off and we were both interested in what each other is doing.

Lorie Judson (02:11.984)
Okay.

Leilani (02:37.767)
And then we met and came up with this idea of having a writing workshop for nurses on the front line during COVID and then a public reading. So for me, this is a new demographic for me, nurses. I've been on the other side of nurses being hospitalized myself. So that is my experience with nurses. So to be...

Leilani (03:04.905)
To be with nurses is a new language for me and it's been incredible, but there's similarities being on the front line. COVID was a battle. there's same kind of, some issues are the same, but it's a little different too. Did that answer your question?

Cara Lunsford, RN (03:28.462)
Absolutely. Yeah, it's been really wonderful working with you and I'm excited to kind of get into that a little bit more, what that experience has been like for me personally and kind of where I hope this will go and how it'll reach even more nurses. I would love to see.

Lorie Judson (03:36.451)
Okay.

Cara Lunsford, RN (03:52.302)
more nurses experience the type of healing that I've been able to experience just in the last month and a half or so, or however long we've been doing this. But I'm gonna introduce Lori Jetson who is also a nurse, but is also running that school of nursing over at Cal State LA. So I'm gonna let Lori...

jump in here and introduce yourself.

Lorie Judson (04:23.819)
Sure.

Actually, I did run the School of Nursing at one point, but right now I'm running the Institute of Nursing, Chin Family Institute.

Cara Lunsford, RN (04:33.996)
That's right, that's right, the Chin family, that's right.

Lorie Judson (04:37.167)
Yes. I'm a long-time professor at the School of Nursing and thought I had retired in 2016 after doing two years of directing the School of Nursing. And we had a philanthropic gift from Dr. Patricia and William Shin to begin an Institute of Nursing. And the Institute's mission really is to, in LA, to work with

diverse underserved urban populations, but at the same time to educate, continue to educate nurses no matter where they, what level they are, where they graduated and to also advocate for leadership and action in Los Angeles. So we've done quite a few symposiums already.

Initially, we did one on homelessness. We actually did a symposium back in 2022 looking at caring caregivers in COVID. So I've been interested in that topic for a while. And we had a speaker from the University at Purdue. Purdue University talked to us about psychological trauma.

And so I became interested also in working with that population. I also am a veteran and I was in the Army Nurse Corps for 20 years. So I ended up doing triage in Germany for our soldiers as they were coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq. So I...

I was at this conference where I met Leilani because the University of Southern California had just done a study on veterans in Los Angeles and I really interested to hear what they had to say. And as Leilani said, she sat down next to me and we discovered that we had some things in common and that this might be a great endeavor to do. And so we actually wrote a

Lorie Judson (07:01.944)
proposal because I have a board at the Chin Family Institute. And so we ran that proposal by them and talked about just what Leilani mentioned, the fact that how therapeutic writing can be for someone who's suffered trauma. Also looked at the piece about reflection and what, after five years now of COVID, what

these nurses might discover about themselves as they reflect on what happened during COVID.

Leilani (07:41.349)
And if I might, I'd like to add that also not only for the nurses reflect on what happened during COVID for them, but also having their stories be heard out in the public, out in the community for the community to understand or try, you know, come to a, hopefully a new understanding, new perception of what the nurses experienced because we were all inside the pandemic and hopefully

some new language or new relationship between the nurses who are on the front line and within the community can be built. Yes, I think so. Part of it.

Cara Lunsford, RN (08:23.212)
Yes. Yeah, it's-

It really has been, you know, just to speak personally, it's been probably one of the most profound experiences. I have spoken with Leilani about this at length that I wish I had found this years and years earlier into my career. I'm hopeful that a lot of these writings will make their way into an anthology and into a book. I think that some of that should be

Lorie Judson (08:57.837)
Okay.

Cara Lunsford, RN (08:58.34)
required reading for students who could really benefit from some of these types of experiences and help prepare them for the.

the emotional side of nursing, which I just don't think that we're well prepared for. In nursing school, it's very clinical. We're looking at the pathophysiology of disease. We're making care plans and we're learning about leadership or we're learning about...

Cara Lunsford, RN (09:38.696)
even some of like the dynamics of just patient care, right? But I don't think that we're really well prepared for what we're gonna feel like. Like how is this going to feel? And that's what I think that the both of you are offering to this generation of nurses into seasoned nurses and new nurses. And that's what I think is really amazing is that

Cara Lunsford, RN (10:08.502)
the group of nurses that we have in our writing clinic are varied. They vary from someone who was just a brand new nurse going right into nursing during COVID to nurses who have been around for 20, 30 years. And so I think that that's so, so unique. And I wanted to ask both of you going into this process,

what were you most surprised about? Like what did you anticipate happening, but then at the same time, like what surprised you?

Leilani (10:49.343)
Laura, you wanna go first?

Lorie Judson (10:50.06)
I don't think I was real surprised at any specific thing, but I think that I'm just amazed at the ability of the nurses to communicate in writing what they did feel and how they feel now and how it affected them.

I, because I think we watched the news and we knew what, at least at some level, what nurses were experiencing, most of what they tell me, I think that I heard at one point or another.

I'm always surprised, I guess, by the sense of humor that can come out of something like this, particularly with someone who also can describe something very sad and poignant. So I think that's kind of my understanding of what I've seen happen. But I guess I've been most surprised about the level of writing.

that I've seen among this group. And of course, we asked all the medical centers, we sent the flyer to all the medical centers. So we knew that we were gonna get people who were very interested in writing about what they saw and felt and heard. But that's been, I think, the most amazing part.

Cara Lunsford, RN (12:40.064)
I love that. I couldn't agree more. I am constantly blown away by the people in our group and the ability.

to convey in the most beautiful of ways. And they're all different. Everybody is so unique in their writing. None of it is the same. feel like if one of you were to read me a piece of writing, I could tell you who wrote it because everyone is so unique. it's just, I'm just so excited about this because I think that this has the potential to be something that really grows

across the nation and maybe something that gets adopted by

Cara Lunsford, RN (13:28.172)
large health systems or other nonprofits that want to keep doing this. Or even Leilani's nonprofit, if she wants to pushing this across the nation, I'm very excited about it. Leilani, what about you? Is there anything that you were anticipating, expecting, surprised about?

Leilani (13:51.253)
Yes, and I like your vision. So keep that vision growing. So for me, when I have an idea of a project and then working with Lori with this idea, I'm going to be really honest. I never know if it's going to work. I had an idea years ago of a veterans writer play. I wanted something challenging. I had no idea it was going to work. We wrote this wonderful play. It was great. So I came in with this again, wondering.

Leilani (14:21.649)
if it was going to work. is what surprised, has surprised me, not only what Laurie was saying and also what you were saying, Kara, is it not only works, but it's gone beyond my expectations. The authenticity of the writing is incredible. It is so authentic, the writing, and there's times of pure poetry and the stories are heartfelt, they're poignant.

And for me sitting on the other side of the nursing world, there are stories I've never heard before. And because of that, I have a much more, I have a deeper understanding, a deeper respect. And I now call you angels. For me, you are angels walking this earth. That is surprises. That has surprised me. Another thing that is,

Leilani (15:19.477)
One of the great surprises is the relationships built between the participants, the nurses sitting around the table, all of us, know, Lori and I are there, but the relationships between the nurses, how one will say something, because there's a lot of dialogue. We need to dialogue as we go through this process. One will say something and the others will nod yes, there's an understanding.

Leilani (15:48.027)
And then the quiet moments of them, that humanity, the shared humanity between each of the participants, again, that goes back to sharing our story within community. It's a small community when we sit around the table, but nevertheless community. And my hope is that that shared.

Leilani (16:16.405)
humanity that shared story and understanding. It is, I don't know, gift for each one of you. There's a gift there. I think I can speak for Lori and me. It's a gift to us too. What we're experiencing, what we're witnessing, yes, it's witnessing. What we are witnessing is a gift. It's precious.

Cara Lunsford, RN (16:30.197)
Absolutely.

Cara Lunsford, RN (16:46.234)
Yes, and I'm going to call Lori out because in the beginning she would write but she didn't necessarily always want to read. And then this last time she read and all of us were like, that was the best thing we've heard. Like that was so great. And I think that sometimes we underestimate. I personally, you know, I went into this

Lorie Judson (16:52.645)
Okay.

Cara Lunsford, RN (17:14.582)
really uncomfortable about writing. I'm very comfortable with the spoken word. I clearly am a podcast host. I'm always happy to talk about things and I feel comfortable doing that. I feel comfortable communicating how I feel. But I have never felt comfortable about my writing. And

Lorie Judson (17:21.417)
Okay.

Cara Lunsford, RN (17:42.238)
even as much as to write a greeting card. Like if I have to write like a few sentences in a greeting card, I've always caught myself and thought, how do I want to say this? Or does that sound authentic? does that sound, do I have enough space to write what I want to write? And...

I've just never felt comfortable. so walking into that space, although maybe the other people who were in the room felt a little bit more comfortable about writing or had written in the past, whether it was journaling or story writing or poems, but.

Cara Lunsford, RN (18:23.146)
I was not that person. So if you're listening to this podcast and you're thinking, well, that's nice for people who, who are comfortable writing, I'm going to tell you right now, I was not that person. So, but I found my voice and it was through something that you said, Leilani, like really early in the process where you said, don't edit while you, while you write.

Cara Lunsford, RN (18:51.682)
You know, so just, you know, pen to paper stream of consciousness. Don't think about your grammar, your spelling, your punctuation. just write what comes to you and, don't judge it.

And I realized that in the past I had always really judged my writing. I would write a sentence and then I'd go back and read it and be like, that the sentence I want to write?

And it helped me so much to be able to write that way. something just, I felt like it just came from a part of me that was not really connected to my, I don't know how to say this, like it feels a little bit more like I was like just channeling from a part of myself.

Cara Lunsford, RN (19:50.604)
that I had not really had access to or did not realize I had access to before.

Leilani (19:57.181)
If I might, Lori and I were, as we talked about this project, we were very, we wanted you to experience something that you felt, in an environment where you felt safe. Because within a safe environment and a nutritive environment, the...

Leilani (20:20.661)
The creator can come out. It's like a little rabbit. It's a scared rabbit. Can I come out? Is it safe? Yes, it's safe. I can come out and explore, right? So that's one thing, but also there's power in story. you say, know, channeling. Yes, that's true. But when we go, you know, the whole thing about left brain, right brain, all of that, creative, the imaginative, the creative process, the imagination is powerful and it's, it's you, it's us. So when we tap into that or

That's not really the word. When we open ourselves to that, then wonderful things can happen. But for you and with the others, these stories are inside. They're there. What you experience at the bedside, what you experience with your patients are inside. They're there. All we're doing is giving a space.

and a place to mind that, to let that come out through language and story. Right? You're doing the work.

Cara Lunsford, RN (21:30.72)
Absolutely. And Lori, for you as a veteran nurse, as a seasoned nurse.

How has this been for you going, because you sit there with us and you do all the writing also, even whether you share it or you don't, you sit and you participate and you write your stories. And how has this been for you from like a cathartic healing perspective?

Lorie Judson (21:41.062)
That's a great question. You're right. I haven't ever written before probably from the heart.

And I love the way that Leilani elicits that from people, from our group. So soft spoken gives us a prompt, gives us an example of writing, and then a prompt. And it's such a safe space, I guess, that even though I felt uncomfortable doing that initially,

felt better about it. I'm probably still not completely comfortable with all of it, but I certainly opened up a bit more than I thought I would.

Leilani (22:53.215)
You're getting better, Lori.

Cara Lunsford, RN (22:56.46)
Like I said, you opened up the last time we had our clinic and I was really astounded at how good it was. And I was like, man, she's been holding back on us. But it's really interesting because I...

I that I was very scared to remember and to write. I know I spoke about this a little bit when we met for the very first time. I kind of felt like there was this room, you know, and it was labeled...

you know, grief and any other words you could think of. And it was padlocked and caution taped off. And I had no desire to go in there. I wanted to leave nearly two decades of nursing. I wanted to leave those experiences behind that closed door. And, but what I realized is that

You can't really... You can think that you're leaving it there and that it's not affecting you and that it's behind this closed door, but it's really not.

Cara Lunsford, RN (24:25.334)
And I think that that's what I had discovered is, is how much of leaving that there and not tapping into it, not addressing it, not looking at it was actually affecting my life and affecting my ability to connect with people and to be a good nurse and to connect with my loved ones, you know, and now

having opened that door, it's hard. This is not easy work. I don't want to make it sound like it's easy work. It's been challenging, but I can see the rewards of it every single time I write. I can see what's changing in me and how I'm healing. And so that's what...

I'm really excited about. And we have a reading coming up, which is also so exciting. So we've all been writing for how many, how many weeks have been writing for us?

Leilani (25:34.131)
started when.

Lorie Judson (25:34.441)
I think six or eight, I think, yeah. We started.

Leilani (25:37.205)
Tomorrow, you know, tomorrow will be the sixth workshop, the sixth time we've met. Mm-hmm. We've met every other week. Mm-hmm.

Cara Lunsford, RN (25:37.763)
Yeah.

Lorie Judson (25:42.743)
Yeah.

Cara Lunsford, RN (25:42.806)
Yeah, so six weeks. have, right, so we do it on Tuesdays. It's about three hours. And it's honestly like therapy for me. I feel like it's like going to therapy.

Lorie Judson (26:00.472)
Yes, and it is very therapeutic. It's been cited in the literature many times by different psychologists as to how therapeutic writing can be. But I do think you've listed some things that you know about where we are and how we conduct the writing, which is led by Leilani.

makes it more therapeutic, I think, than it could be, you know, than if you were in a classroom or somewhere like that, or in an intimate space, or were laughing, crying, and releasing emotions, and listening, as well as writing. So I think all of those things contribute to that.

Cara Lunsford, RN (26:53.602)
Yes.

Leilani (26:54.197)
And also if you mentioned it's not easy, absolutely. Real writing, real writing, and this is what we're doing, is not easy. It takes courage. It takes courage to go into that room, into those stories that we keep inside. But then again, once that door is open or once we walk through, for some there's...

I don't think there's any turning back. because of that, also, if we don't, if you don't tell your story, if that letter, we had a writing prompt, write a letter to a patient, if Lori hadn't written that letter that she wrote that still resonates, I still resonate, we lose.

think, you know, there's something lost. There's something lost by not listening and hearing our story. And I keep going back to story in a Native American. There's a with all due respect, you know, story, story is medicine. It's medicine. But but I want to since you mentioned the reading. So now our challenge, our challenge is to take these stories that we've written in the safe place, right?

and put them out into a theater space where an audience is gonna come and listen. And again, remember in the beginning, I said that's where the real healing takes place is in community. Because again, there's another.

The whole thing about how, you know, the therapeutic writing, right? How do we take that and take it to the next level of art? There's this whole, the transformation will happen. So that's gonna be an interesting process for all of us, I think.

Cara Lunsford, RN (28:55.438)
Yeah, it's the part that I'm really, I'm really excited to see how you put all of these stories together because they're each of them is powerful in its own right. And then you put them together and you create a story of the stories, right? And it's its own. Now it's its own thing. And

I don't think, like, I'm excited to experience it from that perspective, to hear all of these stories woven in a way that create like kind of this beautiful tapestry. And we get to experience it like that. So I'm really, this first one that we're doing is pretty intimate and we only have about,

room for 45 people to come. But I'm really hoping that eventually we have the opportunity to do this on a bit of a larger scale so that we can reach more people because I think it's really healing for nurses, but I also think it's really healing for the public.

for society to know that this is how the people that are caring for them, this is how they feel. This is what's happening. They're human and a way for the public to understand.

the impact that this has had on nurses is really profound also.

Cara Lunsford, RN (30:53.442)
Where do you, go ahead Leilani.

Leilani (30:53.493)
Can I, can, yeah, so.

So I've been thinking about that and one reason we wanted the intimate because we hadn't done this before and also there's something that stories are intimate and the intimacy of a small theater, right? But I've been thinking about what you're saying about the public, the community, not only to hear the stories of the nurses and the nurses to tell what they experience, but I've also, we all, again, we all experienced.

the pandemic and in that audience there's going to be people who lost people from COVID. And so for me, I don't think as a society we have collectively grieved and this I'm hoping that this will be an opportunity for that in a small sense. That's one thing that I hope happens.

and how powerful that will be. have no idea what it looks like, but I just have a sense it's needed. I think it's needed as a society for us to collectively grieve.

Cara Lunsford, RN (32:14.126)
How do you feel about that, Lori? What are your thoughts on that, just around the ability for this to help nurses to heal? But then...

maybe the transformative nature of how that extends out to the public and how when the nurses heal, it's also an opportunity for the public to heal. there's, does that make sense? Like I, how does that resonate with you?

Lorie Judson (32:42.369)
Yeah, I think, no, it does. I think it's kind of a full circle concept almost. the fact that obviously many people lost family, friends, and so on during COVID. And they probably grieved at the time. I think what Leilani mentioned though is that

they may not realize that the nurses also grieved and that that was traumatic for them. And this is a way of expressing that and that they now perhaps will have a better understanding of that whole process, you know, that

comes out of caring for someone. Obviously, some of them have had instances where they've had to care for someone who is ill. But I think it puts it in a different perspective for the audience. And I've been to one of Leilani's readings in a play already. And I could see in the audience

this kind of eye-opening experience when we were listening to soldiers, for instance, because, you know, we see the footage, we hear their stories, but we don't really hear that part of their stories. And this will, I think, elicit that from the audience. you know, some nurses were upset, actually, that they were called heroes because they didn't want

you know, they said this is what we do. We're not super women, we're not supermen, this is what we do. But this will be a kind of an inside view, I think, if you want to call it that, of what they perceived happened during this time.

Leilani (34:58.355)
And also with the experience, not only with the perceived, but also with the experienced. And also there's going to be after the reading, I do want to say that the right we've we've gotten writings from most of the participants, most of the nurses. There's so much wonderful work. The challenge is going to be now to select what to what to weave into this tapestry that you mentioned. It's like.

The reading could actually be four hours long, but that would be a little bit too much. So that's the next challenge.

Cara Lunsford, RN (35:31.054)
You

Cara Lunsford, RN (35:38.35)
Well, I guess having more content for future readings is always a nice thing to be able to have. And one of the things I wanted to ask both of you as well was,

I think that we look at COVID and we say, this is like a distinct period in time where nurses experienced a lot of trauma. And then it got a lot of recognition. historically what I've, I've well, now what I've heard from some nurses as feedback is going, I've had trauma for years. And

I wasn't processing it.

it's only been through a global pandemic that there was a light that was really shown on this area, specifically nurses who are also 90 % women. So that's something that's unique in its own right, which I would like to explore in a second, is about the fact that

You've worked with two very different demographics. You've worked with a demographic that's historically been very male with the soldiers. Not that there aren't female soldiers. Clearly there are, because Laurie's here. But they've been primarily men. And then with nurses, it's been primarily women. It's like a 90%, 10 % men.

Cara Lunsford, RN (37:31.318)
And so I did want to just address quickly how, what is, because I know personally I've brought in stories from well before COVID that affected my life. And was that something that you were anticipating happening coming into this, this writing workshop or, and how has that affected things kind of moving forward?

Leilani (38:00.991)
Larry, you want to answer that?

Lorie Judson (38:05.444)
Yeah, I think that we weren't expecting that necessarily, but I think there's some universal feelings and thoughts that come and experiences that come from caring for anyone who's either terminally ill or very ill. And so much of that of those experiences can be

can be compared to or equal to what was, you know, what it was caring for a patient with COVID. So even though that wasn't an expectation necessarily, we can certainly see the parallels there.

Cara Lunsford, RN (38:51.308)
Yeah, it's COVID had its own dynamics to it for sure, where there was a lot of uncertainty. There was a lot of policies that were changing and you almost couldn't keep up. We didn't have access to supplies that we would normally have access to. So it was definitely like a different level of stress.

So even if you have worked with people in a high stress environment, this was a whole new beast. But I think it's really important to note that these, it's almost like this demographic of people, these professionals, they've been slow boiled for a long time. So it was like somebody just turned the heat up on them.

during COVID. Does that seem like a fair assessment?

Lorie Judson (39:52.695)
Yeah, I think there was a that element of confusion and uncertainty lack of knowledge similar to

you know, the AIDS epidemic. And we see a lot of parallels there. And the fact that some people were afraid to care for those patients. Some people were afraid to care for COVID patients, rightly so. Because no one knew exactly initially how it was transmitted and what might they be bringing back to their family or to themselves. So there were...

There's very many parallels there.

Cara Lunsford, RN (40:35.106)
Yeah, that's such a good point. I'm glad you brought that up because that's like an element of PTSD. So for nurses that had been around during the AIDS epidemic and then found themselves working at the bedside.

and on the front lines of COVID, I think that there was a lot of PTSD that many of those nurses and physicians and people were experiencing. So that's why I find it so fascinating that we have such a mix of nurses.

in our writing group because there are nurses that have a long history and remember working specifically with patients during during HIV and AIDS. So I'm really glad that you brought that up because that's it. I think that's an important parallel. Leilani, what about you? What do you think?

Leilani (41:36.181)
I'm going to come from another angle because you've already said it. What I find interesting about your question and about the dialogue that you and Laurie have just engaged in is what would it be like to, with the nurses, to go back to the childhood? And again, I'm not a therapist, so that's...

I'm that's beyond my capability whatever but it's through the writing to talk about your childhood or whatever that whatever experience or whatever you hold on because it didn't just happen when you I'm sorry I'm trying to formulate my thoughts here going you know writing about the childhood writing about adolescence writing about young adulthood writing about this and that

And then somehow, and then in the present age, know, how old, wherever you are in your life, and through that journey, taking, you know, an honest, gentle, embrace of look at that journey, where you are. And then for me, it would be, I'm not sure if reframing is the right word, but coming to a sense of wholeness and balance at where you are right now.

in life as now as the nurse. I'm curious as to how that would affect one's looking in the past but also more what one's relationship in the present.

So I'm not sure if that made sense, but.

Cara Lunsford, RN (43:22.924)
It does make sense. think that personally, Leila, I think you have such a beautiful way with words. I love your writing. I love listening to you write. I can almost hear you writing when you're talking, you know, like I can, I can hear how you're formulating and thinking about things and people in the world.

I think that's what's made you so successful at what you've been doing. I would love to know your thoughts because you've been working with soldiers for a long time. And like I said before, much more of a male demographic, nurses much more of a female demographic.

What have you seen as the differences in how people process their trauma? How have you seen men and soldiers process their trauma and women and nurses processing their trauma? How have you seen that being similar and different?

Leilani (44:37.766)
That's a complicated question. think, I think

Leilani (44:53.972)
cheese.

There's more tears sitting around the table with the nurses. And that's wonderful. I think there's an understanding with the veterans too. I'm not sure that I, I think I have to think about that, how to answer that. there is a difference. Laurie would say there's, I'm just going to say if I might, you know, there's more of anger in the men, more of.

I think defense or something, maybe it takes them a little bit longer to get through the layers of whatever they need to get through. With sitting around the nurses, but you see there's difference because you have the veterans who were in the military, they were trained to kill, they were trained to go out and do all of that stuff. That's a different world than a nurse who is trained to take care of.

I would say another one, I would say one of the main differences is empathy. The nurses in the group have just an incredible capacity for empathy. It's astounding that the heart, how it is open to caring. the two worlds are very different in that respect. I have to think about...

Cara Lunsford, RN (46:20.428)
I imagine they would be. I imagine they would be. was talking to my sister about this. My sister, my nephew was going back and forth. He was going to join the army, then he wasn't going to join the army, then he was going to join the army, and now he's not going to join. But I was talking to her and I thought, you know, he has such a big heart. You know, my, and I,

don't want this to ever come across as, you know, if you're working as a, you know, if you're as a soldier working, so that somehow you don't have the same, the same kind of heart or you're, it's different, right? You're, you're, have maybe a love for your country, right? You have a love for the people of this country, a wanting to protect the people of your country, right? And that that's what you're, you're fighting for and you're fighting for freedoms. 

So that's its own passion, right? And that's its own heart. But I was going to say with regards to my nephew,

He has always, he's worked as a lifeguard. He has worked as, you know, he wanted to save lives, right? Like that's what he's always, he even say like his teacher in high school was having like an event and he was the one that like raised his hand. said, you don't look good. Can I help you? And it ended up that she was having a cardiac event. And I, and so I had said to her, said, you know, I feel like he,

he's in the business of like really wanting to save lives. And I think that that could be very difficult for him to be in a position where he had to take a life. And I cannot even imagine.

Cara Lunsford, RN (48:20.076)
The amount of empathy that I have for soldiers and anytime I see a soldier, say, thank you so much for your service. I also say the same thing to nurses, but I always say to them, thank you so much for your service because I can only imagine the amount of sacrifice that they have had to make, you know, in terms of going, leaving their family.

enduring some of the most terrible of hardships like in different countries, having to stay in deplorable conditions in some situations, being exposed to horrible chemicals, and then being tasked with almost the impossible job of having to take a life when that comes, when that...

when that is necessary or part of their job. And so I imagine that processing that grief has got to be very different. And I imagine that there is a lot of anger. I would say that for nurses, there's probably a lot of anger too. It's interesting how they express it.

So that's why I wanted to just bring it to the surface because I imagine that some people are listening to this and saying, wonder where the similarities are. I wonder where the differences lie. So that's why I wanted to bring it up.

Leilani (50:06.485)
The similarities are we're That's, you know, loss. I don't mean to, maybe I'm saying something dangerous here or, but, you know, loss is loss. Grief and sorrow is, you know, trauma is trauma. And the depth of the trauma, don't know. can't judge another person's trauma.

Cara Lunsford, RN (50:09.933)
Yeah.

Leilani (50:35.605)
But I think, again, I'm going to go back to the process of discovering what lies underneath and expressing it into language and into story is the same, pretty much. The process is the same. How one deals with it, how one accesses it is individual. And what happens is individual. But it's, you know, again, it's the power of...

of language is the power of story and the power of humanity and communication. I'm curious as to Lori, she actually has, she's a better candidate to answer your question than I am about the question that you asked.

Cara Lunsford, RN (51:25.908)
Yeah, mean, Laurie, so you've worked, you've been in the military and you've worked in nursing and.

I mean, I really loved what Leilani said is that, you know, we're all human and exploring our humanity and getting in touch with that. And we're more similar than we are different. And...

Cara Lunsford, RN (51:56.216)
But I find it fascinating. People fascinate me. And so I was curious, like from your perspective, like if you put your veteran hat on versus putting your nurse hat on, what have those experiences been like for you?

Lorie Judson (52:16.48)
Well, yeah, mine are fairly similar to being nursing because I was a nurse in the military and obviously was working with soldiers who were wounded and ill in the service. I think when Leilani said that I might have a different opinion than her about

the expression of those experiences. I only listened to one of Leilani's podcasts with the soldiers. At that time, there were a couple of soldiers there who understandably, I think, were bitter in anger about what happened to them as well as to other people.

We haven't really seen that among the nurses that we're talking to. But I'm not sure that that's not an underlying theme as well sometimes. Particularly, I would think with the topic of the fact that there wasn't enough equipment and there was so many conflicting stories.

about what was happening and what should be done. So there's definitely some parallels. And I don't think we can necessarily delineate it by male versus female. I think, like you mentioned, the situation was a bit different or is a bit different for someone who's out fighting in the jungle or in being hit by

IEDs and so on. I think both expressions that either of them feel are all justifiable.

Cara Lunsford, RN (54:25.612)
Yeah, absolutely. Any and all the feelings are valid, right? Whether you're leading with anger, resentment, denial.

you know, or, or sadness, you know, what, whatever it is, it's, it's okay. You know, that's where you are in that process. And that feeling has to be explored, before you have an opportunity to maybe move to a different feeling. And so I think that that's, that was a, it was a good call out.

Leilani (55:06.357)
And I actually as we're talking, what an amazing project this would be or an encounter, a dialogue between the soldier and the nurse. Oh my goodness, what an amazing dialogue. There's a play there. I might have to write that play.

Cara Lunsford, RN (55:30.678)
I think it's a really, I think it's, I think you're right. I think that because you know, what was really interesting is that during COVID, I had done a survey of nurses and did actually the first nationwide nurse survey. It was on NBC nightly news.

and it was in April of 2020, so just a couple of months in. So it was definitely a moment where every there was a lot of uncertainty. There was a lot of conflicting information. There was a lot of fear. And so one of the things that

happened during that time was that there were some nurses that were coming out very candidly on social media and they were talking about their experiences and some of them were angry and some of them were sad and some of them were crying and there was a viral moment where this one nurse and they she was called the crying nurse and it went viral and

She ended up having to close her account. She was getting all of this terrible feedback and comments and, you know, really chastising her for, you know, how dare you come on here and cry. You know, there's other people who have...

Work. I even had veterans that were saying, you know, I, you'd never catch me on here crying. This is your job. this is what you signed up for. And I would love to see where different, different groups who experience trauma as a part of their jobs.

Cara Lunsford, RN (57:31.496)
that those two groups be explored and bring them together. And so I think you really have something there, Leilani. That could be a really wonderful thing to dig into a little deeper and help each group find that commonality between them.

and maybe even exploring the differences and how, but empathy, right? Empathy and compassion, creating empathy and compassion for the purposes of like shared humanity. so I think that's a great idea. I love that.

Leilani (58:19.061)
So continuing with that, on June 7th when we have our reading, there will also be a dialogue between the nurses and the audience. as you're talking, again how we talk about them, we try to create an environment of safe and nutritive environment for the nurses to write, to explore and discover through their writing. As you're talking, also to create that same

kind of environment for the audience and the nurses for the audience to be able to experience them what the nurses are saying and and the dialogue because right now with that's what we're doing we're dialoguing and dialogue is so important now I'm convinced more than ever so the dialogue between the nurses and the audience within the community I'm I'm very interested and curious as to what's going to happen on both sides

right? That's an important part of this project that Lori and I, we discussed, having the dialogue.

Yes.

Cara Lunsford, RN (59:30.454)
I love this, I love this. I'm so excited. I'm gonna, what, I wanna make sure everyone knows how they can learn more about this project. We are having the live reading, as you said, on June 7th.

There will be an opportunity to register to come, like we said earlier, it's kind of a small and intimate gathering and probably lots of the people that are reading are inviting their friends and family and loved ones or co-workers to join. But if people who are listening to this feel like they want to reach out, they want to learn more, they want to know

Lorie Judson (01:00:06.647)
You

Cara Lunsford, RN (01:00:17.656)
How do I bring this to my school of nursing? How do I bring this to my hospital? I want to do a workshop too. What would be the best way for them to reach you?

Leilani, you want to start?

Leilani (01:00:37.269)
I was going to pass it on to Lori. I don't know. I'm not sure. Lori, you want to answer that?

Lorie Judson (01:00:39.026)
Well, yes, well, my email is good to start with. Al Judson, J-U-D-S-O-N at calstatela.edu. We will be circulating flyers with the Eventbrite address. The event is free.

Cara Lunsford, RN (01:00:41.326)
you

Lorie Judson (01:01:05.462)
And so if you go to Eventbrite and look for reflections on the front lines during the pandemic public reading, you can sign up there. I'm just going to make it public today actually because I did allow the participants to have the weekend to invite who they'd like to. So it's going to be held at the Ensemble Studio Theater in LA in Atwater Village.

And it's going to start at 7 o'clock and end at 9 o'clock. So we'll have an hour of reading and an hour of discussion.

Cara Lunsford, RN (01:01:42.978)
going to be so so wonderful. We're going to aim to have this episode launched prior to, we're kind of getting right up against the deadline, but we're going to try. And if you're interested in learning more, can also go to nurse.com forward slash podcast and listen to this episode.

Cara Lunsford, RN (01:02:09.454)
And we will make sure to have the information for the Eventbrite on the landing page. So in case you were driving in the car and you couldn't write that down, you can always go to nurse.com forward slash podcast and we will make sure that all the information and contact information is tied to this episode. Leilani, what else, what do you have?

Leilani (01:02:31.413)
You can also go to ReturningSoldiersSpeak.org because we'll have a little bit of information up there and the flyer for the information that link to the event, right, too. So you can do that. ReturningSoldiersSpeak.org.

Cara Lunsford, RN (01:02:50.99)
Perfect.

That's great. And we will make sure, you know, as a part of nurse.com and the nurse.podcast audience, we'll make sure that if there's any other opportunities to learn more about the work that Leilani and Lori are doing, that we'll make sure to communicate that with our nurse.com audience so that you can get involved.

that this is an incredible opportunity for healing within this industry and sustainability of the profession. So I'm so grateful.

Leilani (01:03:33.395)
And I want, I'm sorry, I just want to say keep writing, Kara, your writing is amazing. Both Lori and I are just in awe of what you're doing. So just keep going no matter what. Just keep going.

Cara Lunsford, RN (01:03:49.844)
Thank you. Thank you so much. I will keep writing and I will keep preparing tomorrow. We have another workshop. I'm really looking forward to being there. And so I will see you ladies tomorrow.

Lorie Judson (01:04:08.336)
Great, thank you so much for having us.

Leilani (01:04:08.533)
Thank you very much. Thank you.

Cara Lunsford, RN (01:04:10.83)
You're welcome, thank you. All right, don't leave yet.