Summit On Happiness Science – I Can’t Believe This Is Real
For years I felt like an outsider in nursing. I was jumping from hospital to hospital searching for something beyond the status quo.
The truth is, I don’t think I ever found my tribe until I discovered Nurse Coaching, and I’m honored to help facilitate the progression of this revolution in our care paradigm.
Yet because transformation never occurs within a bubble, I’ve been reaching out to see what the other healing professions are up to.
I began looking for others who are fully aligned with our mission at The Nurse Coach Collective:
Transforming the way in which nursing is perceived, delivered, and received.
And as it happens, one email led to another, and a few weeks ago I landed in the great state of Texas to represent our profession at the first annual Summit on Happiness Science in Healthcare.
Yep. You read that right.
A summit with some of the smartest and well-intentioned people from around the world came together for one purpose:
To crowdsource the best and brightest ideas in order to propel Happiness Science forward.
Heavy hitters such as Dean Ornish (the first doctor to reverse heart disease with a plant-based diet) and Barbara Frederickson (a leader in positive psychology) were in attendance, along with 75 of their peers.
Dean Ornish
Barbara Frederickson
To say that I was in the company of giants is an understatement.
Some of the people at this Summit on Happiness Science had literally cured heart disease, completed incredible research that altered the way in which we think about mental health, and founded Lifestyle Medicine.
Other’s had private integrative practices, worked for leading healthcare companies, or wrote incredible books.
One woman even worked to get free yoga classes for her entire city.
Now, why was this Summit on Happiness Science so important?
Research has indicated with certainty that our emotional and relational wellbeing is incredibly important to our health. In fact, our social relationships have more of an impact on our longevity and vitality than anything else.
And at The Nurse Coach Collective, we believe that each person is a fully integrated being of mind, body, spirit, emotions, and environment.
What this Summit focused on was this:
How do we make our clients’ emotional wellbeing an integral part of the healthcare paradigm?
How do we bring the incredibly well-researched methods of positive psychology into the limelight?
Because the evidence is irrefutable, many of us are working tirelessly to integrate happiness science into healthcare.
As a Nurse Coach, I was honored to present a snippet of the work that we are already doing in this field.
And perhaps even more so, I was ecstatic to learn that a great majority of the topics discussed at this summit we already integrate into our practice and trainings at The Nurse Coach Collective.
Sometimes it can be easy to feel like an outsider. Like you have to keep quiet and simply go along with the flow, even when it doesn’t feel right.
But you don’t have to stay quiet. Together, we can challenge the status quo and create a nursing paradigm that enhances the wellbeing of nurses, our patients, and our planet.
My greatest learning from this Summit on Happiness Science reinforced this simple truth:
A small group of committed people can change the world.
When you commit to a nursing practice that feels right for you, and you find the people who align with your vision, healthcare transformation becomes an inevitability – and your passion radiates into every moment of your work.
