Moving Beyond Toxic Workplaces with Allison Twede
Beth talks with Allison Twede about her journey through nursing – from toxic workplace environments to admin positions to finally finding her calling to help other nurses heal. It’s a powerful conversation as they explore her path to healing herself while also following her calling to heal others.
Allison Twede is a registered nurse, teacher, podcast host and creative entrepreneur. Allison has been on a spiritual journey for years and is passionate about helping others on their journey as well. As a nurse, Allison discovered how many people struggle with self-love and resilience. Allison's hope is to share what she has learned through education, employment and her personal practice to bring others along on this journey of love and self discovery.
LINKS
Allison on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube
Allison’s podcast From Weeds to Wildflowers on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon
Learn more about supporting the Don’t Eat Your Young Podcast with a membership — visit Don’t Eat Your Young’s membership page!
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Intro/Outro:
Welcome to Don't Eat Your Young, a nursing podcast with your host Beth Quaas. Before we get started, we have a few quick notes. Don't Eat Your Young is a listener supported podcast. To learn more about becoming a member and the perks available to you for becoming a patron yourself, visit patreon.com/donteatyouryoung. You can learn more about the show, share your story to join Beth as a guest, or connect with our wonderful community in our Facebook group. You can find all those links and more at donteatyouryoung.com. And now on with the show.
Beth Quaas:
Welcome to Don't Eat Your Young. I'm your host Beth Quaas. Today I have Allison Twede with us. I'm excited to talk to her. She has a way of working through her own burnout and following her calling, so I'm excited to have her on the show today. Welcome, Allison.
Allison Twede:
Thank you so much, Beth.
Beth Quaas:
I'm so excited to have you and for you to share your story because you've kind of figured out how to come back from burnout.
Allison Twede:
I guess if you can call it that way.
Beth Quaas:
You found a way to move forward, I'll say.
Allison Twede:
Absolutely.
Beth Quaas:
So tell us a little bit about yourself.
Allison Twede:
I am 50 years old. I'm a mother of four. All my kids are grown. They are from 21 to 30. I have one grandbaby. Funny enough, I am 50 years old and finally feel like I am following the path I'm supposed to take in this life.
Beth Quaas:
That's fantastic. So tell us a little bit about what you've done in nursing.
Allison Twede:
I was first a hairdresser for 21 years and then knew I was going to be getting divorced so ended up going back to school and getting my nursing degree. While at school, I also taught labs for anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology. I have a great passion for teaching and had thought at first that I wanted to maybe go into nursing as a teacher rather than actually working in a hospital or whatever. But I decided to choose the hospital route. I wanted to have some experience under my belt and such. So anyway, I got a job at a local hospital. Beginning, I worked on the float pool. I wasn't sure where I wanted to land. I wanted to see what there was out there. I'm also a Gemini. I think that has something to do with it. So I kind of wanted to see what the different floors had to offer.
So I did my stint in medical and surgical. And then there was a time when I was approached by others to put in for a position in the cath lab. So I did, I ended up getting that position. That was a couple years of awesomeness and hell all at the same time. It was a male environment. There was two male nurses and the rest were techs. I had no idea that it could be so toxic. They were cruel. I was threatened multiple times with my life by one of the male nurses. He told me he wanted to cut my throat, things like that. It was toxic.
At that point in time, I was just going to leave the hospital, just put in my two weeks and leave. But I had a couple close friends who were not nurses there, but nurses regardless. And they said... Actually it was a guy I was dating and a couple friends, let alone a couple family members because I had reached out to them at times. I'm a type of person like I can kill them with kindness, that sort of thing. Well, it didn't work. I don't know. I don't what the deal was whether I was a threat or whatever, but they said, "You have got to go report this."So I actually went to into HR. And I knew HR, I knew the head of HR, and so I just said, "Hey, can we have a conversation?" and I went in and told them what was going on.
She was a nurse and then had gone up in administrative ranks. I can't remember what her title was. But anyway, she sat in and they had me take a few days off with pay and they went in and talked to them. I had gone in for an evaluation with my boss and my supervisor actually right before I went and told HR about this and recorded it. And it was quite telling. So yeah, that was that experience. And then they wanted me to stay and I became what was called a resource nurse in the hospital and I worked on every floor.
Beth Quaas:
Was that person able to keep their job?
Allison Twede:
Ridiculously enough, yes. Nothing, nobody lost their jobs. Even with the things that were admitted on the audio, nobody lost their job. There was no, punishment isn't the right word, but disciplinary action. So I really felt very much like it was a waste of my time.
Beth Quaas:
I hear that over and over again. I've had the same experience.
Allison Twede:
I know.
Beth Quaas:
I've been called into HR not because I made a complaint, but because someone else made a complaint about one of my coworkers and they called me. I had to corroborate everything that that person said and nothing was done about it. That's why we can't change toxic culture because no one's willing to do what needs to be done, which is very sad.
Allison Twede:
To step up and change it. I said nobody has the balls to actually do it.
Beth Quaas:
Right.
Allison Twede:
I don't know if it's still a paper pleaser mentality or what it is, but it's so bad.
Beth Quaas:
Usually what HR says to the person that is causing the problems is they say, "Now you go back to work, but there can be no retaliation." Well, you know that there's retaliation. Once that person knows that someone is not happy with what they're doing, it happens all the time.
Allison Twede:
And there was. There was retaliation. Part of it is my fault because I stayed at the hospital. They're like, "What floor do you want to work on?" I'm sure that they did all of this so that I wouldn't have any legal action taken, because I could have. With the things that had been said, the things that had been recorded, I definitely... But that's not who I am. But there are some days where I'm like, "Hmm. Yep, maybe I should have." But I mean it's neither here nor there now, but that nothing was done in the irony of it all. I mean, I was still in the hospital and they still needed me here and there.
And so I still had to go down and work in that environment here and there. But you know what? I'm a big girl and I could do it, especially I could do it knowing I wasn't going to be staying there. You know what I mean? It was going to be a day, but I was working there or hours. There was a couple traumas that had come in and they needed my help because they needed another nurse because we were the ones that could administer medication and do certain things.
Anyway, so I went from that to being the resource nurse, being doing midlines and working throughout the hospital. When they had a big drama come in, I'd go down and work in the ER. Or when they got overwhelmed or they'd call me when they needed me down there or in the ICU or whatever. That was fun for a bit, but again, it was much like being in the float pool. It was I didn't have a home, right? I didn't have a place to say, "My God, I didn't even have a place to hang my coat or put my purse." And that was the same with the float pool. And I'm like, I just want a home, a space that I'm like, "This is where I am." So I ended up leaving the hospital after years and getting a job in hospice. So that's where I actually finished my active nursing career, actively working in nursing that way.
Beth Quaas:
Did you find that working in hospice was a lot different than working in the hospital?
Allison Twede:
A lot different. I don't know that that toxic environment necessarily went away. I never felt like anyone had my back. And you could ask any of the nurses in the field. That was really hard. It's like once the nurses got into administrative work or whatever, then they were drinking the punch of administration and no longer gave a flying fart about those of us in the field. Do you know what I mean? No, they didn't care how many hours we were working. It just did not feel like you were ever supported. And that was the sad thing. After four years of doing that, I decided I wanted to try to go into administration so that I could be the change that I wish to see. Oh, the irony in that. But it's a matter of when people let you. But I also realized I am not an administrator. I cannot sit behind a desk and just push papers. That isn't me.
I mean, even if you look at my background as to job history, I've never had a job where I just did computer work, sat behind a desk. I was the change that I wanted to see. Funny thing is the company that I'd gone for, they didn't bother telling me they were in the middle of a Medicare audit. And so that had been going on for three years. And now we were at the culmination. The gal that trained me that didn't really do much in the way of training, I mean she was a young gal, nothing against her per se, but they were swamped and they were so short staffed that I didn't get that training. She went a month early to have her baby so I'd just barely gotten there. My title was supposed to be clinical supervisor, so going from a hospice case manager to clinical supervisor. And within a month, I went from clinical supervisor to director of hospice
Beth Quaas:
With no training, hardly any training?
Allison Twede:
Practically none. And I'm like, honestly, I wanted to quit right there, but I couldn't leave them hanging. So I stayed at that job for six months until she came back, got her feet underneath her a little bit, and I said, "This is not for me." I knew this whole time that I have a calling that is actually calling to me, a calling in this life. I kept pushing it down because I'm single and there's no support. That way I can't figure out my calling and have somebody financially support me in the interim. So I couldn't just quit my job.
And nursing, as you know, it takes up all of your hours. I don't care if you're a nurse at the hospital and you only work three days a week, they're like, "Well, you'll only work three days a week." Okay, well, it takes you an entire day to actually recover from those three 12-hour shifts. And they never put them 1, 2, 3, right? They go 1, 2, and then you takes you that full day to recover and then you work another one and then you still have part of a day you have to recover. So you really only get two days off in the long run.
Beth Quaas:
Right.
Allison Twede:
And then I'm an empath, and so it engulfed my mind all of the time. Hospice was no different. Well, and then hospice, the hours of hospice were literally almost 24/7 because you have patience that need you and you have... Even though we have an on-call, and on-call does things, patients and all their family members have your number. We weren't given an additional phone, so we had to use our personal cell phones as our work phone.
Beth Quaas:
And you really never can get away.
Allison Twede:
No, I never felt like I could get away. So I went from administrative work and I'm like, "Well, I still got to figure out my path, but I can't give up benefits." I can't just live off the land basically. I mean, I had a house and everything, but I'm also a type 1 diabetic, so having no insurance was frightening. And so I decided to go back to case management with a different company because I had moved quite far away and bought a house to be doing this administrative work at this different company. And then I went back to case management with a different company. It was Otter Hill.
Beth Quaas:
So what brought you to making the decision to leave nursing and finally following your calling?
Allison Twede:
My calling has to do with healing. I am a healer. I can't get away from that. It is who I am. But I've felt that nursing is not the path of healing for me to help people heal. My whole trajectory is that yes, I am a healer and I want to help people to heal, but what I really want to do is I want to teach people how to heal themselves because I feel that we live in a world where we've lost the ability to be resilient. A lot of it.
A lot of the reason we've lost the ability to be resilient is of ease and we want everything right now. "Give it to me now" and that's the life we've kind of live. "Give me a pill to fix that. I don't want to be ugly, so give me a pill to fix that. I don't want to be fat, so give me a pill to fix that" instead of putting in the work and actually realizing that all of the power, all of the things that we need actually come from within. And I want to help people unlock that for themselves, give them ideas, give them proverbial tools to use in their toolbox. That's the reason for my podcast, right?
And so I want to love people and I just want to help them heal. I want them to see what is actually inside them and realize that they are the magic, they are the drug that they need. Then they have it all inside them. If they could just only see what I see from the outside and realize all of that is inside, they don't need to look any further.
Beth Quaas:
So how are you doing that for people? How are you helping them?
Allison Twede:
Well, I'm still figuring all of that out. I feel that I'm supposed to do some traveling. That hasn't happened per se quite yet. Right now, I do a podcast.
Beth Quaas:
Talk to us about that.
Allison Twede:
It just dropped in January. January 3rd was the first episode. It's called From Weeds to Wildflowers; The search for resilience. And so every other episode is a solo episode. I'm still figuring everything out, but every other episode is I have a guest, revealing other people's ideas of resilience, what it means to them, how they've had to figure that out in their own life. And then even on episodes that I'm doing, what is resilience? And just kind of musing myself as to what that means to me. I get very raw, I get very personal, but that is again, who I am. I've never been one to hide my feelings. I've never been one to hide my, what somebody would call mistakes. I will put them right out there. I live my life on my sleeve. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes that might not be as good.
So through that, I'm hoping to do some good. I'm in the middle of a breath work course through a company called Pause. I could have been a breathwork facilitator already because they've got short little courses that other people are putting out there. But as a nurse, I wanted something that I felt bred safety, because breathwork can bring up triggers. It can be very triggering at times depending on the trauma that people have gone through. And whatever I did, I wanted to do it with a trauma informed lens. I said, maybe that is just the nurse in me, but this Pause course is a six-month course. I'm just going to be starting practicums where I'm going to start breathing people.
Anyway, I really feel called to do this throughout this course. It's a gorgeous course. Honestly, it has been put together so beautifully, six months. The first three months is figuring out yourself, right? It's healing your own trauma. You are embodying what you're going to be teaching, which is first and foremost important to me. That is why... I mean, I'm a diabetic, right? And so my endocrinologist, I love him with all of my heart. He is a diabetic and he has two boys that are diabetics. I'm not saying that you always have to be what it is you do, but I will tell you that when you do, it changes everything.
Beth Quaas:
Absolutely.
Allison Twede:
Right? I can go into my doctor and I'll say, "This is what I'm dealing. Does that make sense?" And he'll be like, "Oh, absolutely." He knows just what I'm talking about. I used to have an endocrinologist that she'd be like, "Oh no, I've never heard of that. That's not in the book, basically." And I'm like, ""I'm sorry. You can ask about 10 other diabetics and they'll tell you the same thing. So same thing. One of the reasons for the podcast, I've lived the need for resilience. I continue to live the need for resilience each and every single day. I think people just sometimes don't realize that they do too. Sometimes it helps to realize that, "You know what? Somebody else has not always got their shit together."
Beth Quaas:
You said something very important. You said you work with people to find out how to work on what they need for resiliency, which is one thing that hospitals get wrong every single day. Their resiliency training is a joke. They put something out there. It is not what people need or what they asked for, but they don't know because they've never asked the questions.
Allison Twede:
Agreed.
Beth Quaas:
I think until organizations... Just what you're doing, ask the people what they need, because everybody comes from a different place.
Allison Twede:
Everybody comes from a different place. And it means something different to everybody. I even talk in one of my episodes, I said resilience can look so different to every person. And each situation is different, right? So it's got to be cultivated differently. It's got to be tailor-made. But one of the things I want to do with my breathwork is I would actually love to bring it back to my nursing community because I feel that nurses need healing. We are so taught to heal other people and yet not taught how to heal ourselves. The job in and of itself is tough, right?
Beth Quaas:
Right.
Allison Twede:
It is emotionally, spiritually, physically taxing and mentally taxing. All of those things. And then all of our efforts, all of our energies are put out in helping other people, and we come back and just feel so drained. What I would love to do is teach these people, these nurses, these healthcare workers, that they have the ability to fill their own bucket, even though they feel like their bucket has been emptied and dry as a bone?
Beth Quaas:
And it has and it is.
Allison Twede:
It has. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. But I've often found that anytime we are looking outside of ourselves for something, it's because we can't find that within ourselves, and so we need to look inside. So when we're asking somebody else to fill that bucket, we actually have the ability to fill that bucket. Yes, I'm not saying that other people don't need to help, but what I think we need to do is we need to teach people to heal. And I think bringing breathwork back to the nursing community can help them in releasing things that they need to release, letting go of certain things that they need to let go of, and working through traumas that they experience in their job each and every day. I just think it can go so far. If we don't start doing something to heal our nurses, we are going to be screwed.
Beth Quaas:
Yes. We're getting there. We're already getting there.
Allison Twede:
I know we are. I have been shamed by I can't even tell you how many people for the fact that I have quit mainstream nursing. They don't listen to the fact that my goal is to bring healing back to the nurses, which is fine. It's fine.
Beth Quaas:
It's not fine actually. This is exactly why I wanted to have you on as a guest, because the people that shame you have no clue-
Allison Twede:
No idea.
Beth Quaas:
... what goes on in the hospital with sick patients. And we become attached to our patients and they're very sick. They may not have the best life outside of the hospital and we know that. Or when a patient dies, no one comes and says, "Are you okay?"
Allison Twede:
Exactly.
Beth Quaas:
They say, "You got four other patients, five other patients, six other patients, whatever-"
Allison Twede:
You don't have time to mourn.
Beth Quaas:
"... move on. You have an admit coming now that that bed is open, so just move on."
Allison Twede:
Right. As I said, you do not have the time to mourn. You have to move on. The problem with that is that becomes stuck within you. And then you get so many of those things stuck. I said no wonder that nurses have a problem with drinking, divorce, obesity, all of these things. We've even had problems with suicide in the recent year or so. And I'm like, "If that does not speak volumes, I don't know what does." I mean, listen to that. The people we want taking care of us are not being taken care of.
Beth Quaas:
Right.
Allison Twede:
That's not fair.
Beth Quaas:
It's not fair. And we just keep piling more and more on.
Allison Twede:
People are like, "Oh, well, you're a nurse. I'm going into nursing," and I wish that I felt joy in my heart for them. But when they tell me they're going into nursing, these cute little girls, my heart almost drops. I know what it looks like from the inside, and it is not pretty. It starts at the head and all the way down to the foot. It doesn't matter.
Beth Quaas:
I agree. And I know that our nursing education needs a major revamping-
Allison Twede:
Overhaul.
Beth Quaas:
... completely. And how are we going to get there? I want to be part of the solution, but how do we get there?
Allison Twede:
Right. That's me.
Beth Quaas:
You healing the people that are already there is going to help because we need the experienced people. We need the people out there working now. But I do not blame one person for leaving healthcare, whether it's nurses, physicians, anybody that's working in there. I can't imagine the people that come in and clean the rooms, they finish cleaning one and you probably have a sense of accomplishment, and then there's 16 others, "Get moving. Keep going." And in the days of COVID, trying to do their best, we're all scared of whatever germ this is out there. It's a crazy time. I am happy for anyone that finally says, "I've had enough and I need something better for myself" and leaves. I'm so happy that you did that. And I'm happy-
Allison Twede:
It took me years. It took me years.
Beth Quaas:
There's guilt. There's guilt. And like you said, shame. You've been shamed.
Allison Twede:
Huge amounts of guilt. Well, and then I'm like, "Oh, I put all of this time, all of this effort, all of these years, all of the money I spent to become a nurse." And so I'm like, "How could I not be a nurse?
Beth Quaas:
Right.
Allison Twede:
I've decided my health, my life is worth more than whatever it is I spent on that. And if I can do more good with what I'm doing, then I feel it's a win.
Beth Quaas:
So where can people find you?
Allison Twede:
I'm on Instagram. I'm on Facebook just as Allison Twede. You can look that up. It's T-W-E-D-E. Looks like tweed, but pronounced as tweedy. But my podcast is on any platform where you find your podcast. It's From Weeds to Wildflowers. Soon I will be putting out there, my breath work stuff. As soon as I become a certified facilitator, I will be creating a business around that as well. But yeah, I hope to keep things going. Like I said, I write children's books. And in my children's books, I try to do healing things, trying to bring healing to our children as well. If we can get it in when they're young, how much better off we'll be in the long run. So things like that.
Beth Quaas:
Well, I'm excited to see where you go. And I am so happy that you're still here healing people. It doesn't matter where you are doing it, I'm glad that you're doing it especially for nurses. What would you like to share with nurses out there still trudging along?
Allison Twede:
I want to tell my nurses first and foremost that I love them. I cherish them and I know what they're going through. I want them to know that there's not just light at the end of the tunnel, there is light every damn step of the way. It's what you find. It's how you find it. I want them to know that there is healing, but they need to think about their own emotional, mental, spiritual, and their physical health. They need to care for themselves and make that a priority every damn day. Every damn day.
Beth Quaas:
That is so powerful. Hear that people, you're worth it. You're all worth it.
Allison Twede:
Oh, you are so worth it. So worth it. Thank you.
Beth Quaas:
Allison, I so appreciate you coming on today and being so vulnerable, because that means a lot to me and the listeners as well. So you keep doing you.
Allison Twede:
Thank you.
Beth Quaas:
And I'm so excited-
Allison Twede:
And you keep doing you, Beth.
Beth Quaas:
I'm going to keep doing me.
Allison Twede:
I love what your doing.
Beth Quaas:
Thank you so much. Allison, it was a pleasure to have you on today, and I hope people can find you. Go listen to her podcast and heal yourselves.
Allison Twede:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Thanks so much.
Intro/Outro:
Don't Eat Your Young was produced in partnership with TruStory FM. Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music by The Lighthearts. Find the show, show notes and transcripts at donteatyouryoung.com. If your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show. But the best thing you could do to support the show is to share it with a friend or colleague. Thank you for listening.
