Six years into my nursing career I had a panic attack that changed my life forever. I had seen people in the ER with panic attacks and I never paid much attention to them or what the underlying cause was. All I knew to do when I was hit with one, was tell my husband to drive fast and get me to the doctor because I was going to die. The doctor diagnosed me with anxiety and sent me home with Xanax. Fortunately, during this time I had just started seeing a therapist for work stress. Georgeanne my therapist told me to “throw out the pills and learn how to breathe”. This was the beginning of my 
awakening. I had gone into nursing to help to pay back the care that was given to my father. I actually had hated hospital since I was a kid but somehow I felt that I was being called to this profession. Unfortunately, I was burnt out and dying on the inside way too early in my career. My body and my mind gave into the unrelenting stress and I had no one to help me but me. That panic attack ended up being a gift that led me on a journey of personal work and awakened me the dark side of the nursing profession. During this same time a gift of riding lessons was presented to me and it was the piece that I started on my journey to heal. The picture accompanying this blog is the opening journal entry when I started to do the real work of healing. The picture says it all!
Let your trouble transform you- I say this because I want you to relearn how to stop and breathe and take care of your self. Reconnect with what you love and in the process you will start this beautiful process of loving yourself more. I want you to feel again…how peace feels, how being connected to your heart and your mind and your spirit can inoculate you from the downfalls of this profession. I want to sit with you and hold your hand and breath with you and let that breath carry you to a new place of knowing yourself and loving yourself. You are worthy of much more than you ever imagined.
Vivian Thwaits~ Art Soul and Horses