Before we can become “unbroken”, many of us will break first.
This breaking comes in small moments. It is not dramatic. It comes quietly, gradually.
It manifests in the extra cup of coffee, the snooze button one more time, or the lies we tell ourselves. The ” I am just tired, I will catch up tomorrow.” As those “tomorrows” slowly become “this weekend” or “this summer.”
The part where you are still functioning but something inside of you isn’t the same anymore. The unanswered texts. The unmade plans. Till suddenly one day you find yourself unable to go on.
It happens somewhere between the patient you didn’t have enough time for……
The corners you were forced to cut……and the moment you realized the system expects you to accept things that just don’t sit right in your gut.
That is the part the system does not prepare you for.
Broken Doesn’t Always Look Like Collapse
Broken nurses don’t call in. They don’t refuse assignments. They keep showing up. They keep taking the “tough” group or the new grad. They stay late and come in early.
From the outside they look like they have it together. They look strong.
But inside something has shifted.
Compassion takes EFFORT. Every request feels personal. Patience is harder to find. Exhaustion just feels like “part of the job.”
You begin to think this is just what happens when you become a nurse. You rationalize because working with people (especially sick people) is hard work. You rationalize not being able to function the day after a 12h shift. You rationalize why you are short with your spouse or family. You swallow down the irritation of noise in your home. You begin to drive home from each shift in silence.
We Learn To Hide It
Nurses are experts at minimizing their own strain. The entire profession is built on it. The current culture is built on not taking a break for 12 hours. For gutting down your own basic needs to place a patient’s above yours. It’s the norm.
We also tell ourselves “everyone’s tired” or “this is just healthcare.”
So we continue to push through. We normalize the exhaustion.
We normalize the emotional weight.
We normalize the feeling that something inside of us is slowly wearing down.
When enough people accept it, the brokenness starts to feel normal.
But normal and healthy are not the same thing.
The Moment You Realize It
Eventually there is a moment.
It can come as a fleeting thought you didn’t expect. “I can’t keep doing this.”
Or it comes from a spouse or loved one. “You aren’t the same.” Suddenly you begin to hear those rationals that became your mantra everyday before a shift.
The realization can feel uncomfortable. But it is honest. And in honesty is where the change can start.
This is Not Just Burnout
Burnout sounds like fatigue. Like we need a day off. Where we need a better self care routine.
The truth runs deeper than that. The exhaustion is real. But what is hurting more is the conflict between what you know as good care and the system that won’t always allow it.
That is moral strain. That creates moral injury.
Naming It Matters
Before we can begin to lead differently, we have to be honest about what’s happening.
Some nurses aren’t just tired.
They are wounded by the gap between what care SHOULD be and what the system allows it to be.
Naming it is clarity.
Nurses become unbroken by acknowledging it and deciding they will not let it erase the values that brought them here in the first place.
That is where real leadership can begin.
Why I Built Nurse Unbroken
It came for me at the top of a stairwell in Albuquerque, New Mexico on a difficult shift in the Emergency Room March 2021.
We were in the post Covid era where the threat had calmed a little bit but the systems were still overwhelmed. I had been traveling for 2 years at this point.
People were sicker. The emergency rooms overwhelmed everyday. Prevention was unheard of.
We were carrying more than we should have been.
We were absorbing things no one taught us how to process.
We were holding systems together with sheer endurance.
That does not make us weak. It makes us human.
This is why this conversation matters.
Because nurses don’t become unbroken by pretending they were never broken. They become unbroken by facing it.
Lead the shift-Unbroken
