Identity Shift

I wake up each morning feeling a mixture of emotions. Soon, in a matter of 11 weeks actually, I will move through the final transition of becoming a registered nurse. My identity for the last four years has been ‘student’ and that identity will soon be challenged in a most pivotal way. I have viewed myself as a student, I have breathed the life of a student and felt how others looked upon me as a student…..and in just weeks from now, I will have to shift how I view myself. I will have to learn to re-identify myself apart from my school, my instructors and my classmates. Who am I as Running Wildly the RN? I have a figment of an idea, but only time will truly tell.

I am experiencing a time of uncertainty, a fear of the unknown, a time when I will be pushed into independence to test whether my wings will extend an impressive length of span and soar, or if I will spiral downward to the ground only to find myself injured beyond repair. I have to believe I will spread my wings and soar like an eagle, but how am I to know for sure? The uncertainty shreds me from the inside out. I am a confident woman, I have excelled in nursing school attaining honors and gaining prestige from scholarships for clinical excellence.......and yet I remain timid with fear when thinking in such a short time I will take upon me a yoke of grave responsibility that weighs heavily on my shoulders.

I have felt this before and I’m sure if you reflected back, you’d find you have as well. I distinctly recall being very large and very pregnant just weeks before my due date. Although I was extremely excited to bring a child into this world, I was frightened by the prospect of new found responsibility surrounding a little human wholly dependent on me. Although I was beyond ready to end the sharing of my uncomfortable body and birth a beautiful baby, I was paralyzed by the fear of the unknown: what was labor & delivery like, what if I’m a bad mother, what if I couldn’t do it…….what if, what if, what if? But once my little man was delivered and took his first breath of air, all my fears seemed to fade away. My identity had forever changed and I became a mother.

I realize this is just a temporary phase and my fear will ebb as soon as I rely on myself as an independently strong nurse. My confidence will increase with experience just as it did along this journey of motherhood. I will learn from my mistakes and make changes to my practice as appropriate. Intellectually I know I can do this, but I still sense the fearful grip of woefully uncharted territory.

Change is hard and even more so is the challenge of an identity shift. I will have to redefine how I view myself just as I have in the past, and just as I will likely do in the future time and time again. I suppose this is part of the human condition where we must learn to continually adapt, become a novice and finally evolve into a form of coveted mastery. But what’s even more interesting about that is, any nurse out there will undeniably tell you that even after 25 years they still don’t know everything. I suppose that true mastery is merely unattainable and now that I am thinking a little more linearly about this, it’s not a bad thing. I mean, we should all attempt to improve, to progress and become better individuals. This lesson can pass on into life as well. We can all start a journey with frail, shaking legs just as a fawn learns to walk shortly after birth, only to gain confidence with every successful step. In time, we’ll all be running wildly in the meadow.

So there’s the answer. In spite of my own insecurities I’m chosing to become Running Wildly, the nurse who knows her limitations, recognizes her weaknesses but chooses to push through her comfort zones in the name of personal progress and growth. This can be done. In fact, it will……and I can choose to avoid the inevitable or instead, run wildly in the meadow when I’m released on my own for the first time.