Gretchen - Profound Healing: Answering the Call

Gretchen -






What does it mean to be a nurse? I no longer work as a nurse in the traditional sense, but feel I do more nursing now than I’ve done in some previous conventional settings. I operate at the root of nursing, which is nurturing–I’m helping people with profound life changes. To me, that is the essence of nursing.

After working for a number of years as a nurse, while I was in the midst of graduate school, I was invited to apply to the first nurse practitioner program in the State of Washington. It was a brand new field then, and the focus was on nurses getting training to provide primary care.“I’m helping people with profound life changes. To me that is the essence of nursing.” Darrington, a small rural community in the North Cascades, was the site of the first pilot FNP program in Washington. Another nurse and I were selected as the first two trainees. The training was seven weeks and very intense followed by years of on-going Cont. Ed and lots of “on the job training!” After helping the Darrington FNP clinic get started I returned to the UW to complete my masters in the nurse practitioner program and then was on faculty for seven years, working mostly with students in rural areas.

In the early 70’s prior to entering the nurse practitioner program, I had an epiphany that came to me in a dream while on a trip to Europe. I had a wonderful meditation that gave me the sense that I needed to one day create an educational, recreational and therapeutic community. At the time I didn’t know what that meant. I envisioned some sort of wellness center, but I wasn’t sure. I started getting my masters in social work because I thought I could combine that with being a public health nurse to have more skills for whatever this calling was. Even though I had received this calling, I was not ready to do anything about it at the time it came to me.

After teaching at the UW for seven years, I got exhausted and depressed. There was a lot of pressure to do high-level research and publish as well as teach. I loved the teaching, but the rest was more difficult. I felt out of balance because I was putting my work above everything else in my life, not taking care of myself and getting depleted at many levels—and I was in an environment where working intensely long hours was the norm.

I began feeling I didn’t belong in that setting. I went on a research expedition to Nepal with hopes of pleasing the tenure committee. I realized while on that trek I wasn’t willing to put myself in a position of potential harm to meet the requirements of the university. It was a wake-up call. I resigned when I returned from Nepal.

The next couple of years were spent healing myself and focusing on the question, “What is my life all about?” It was a dark time—I was in an uncertain place. Sure, there were lots of things I could do with my nurse and nurse practitioner skills, but I wanted to know what my calling was. What is my passion? Who am I and what is uniquely mine to do in the world?

I went on a retreat and became aware that I was being called to revisit the dream I had while in Europe. I surrendered to divine sources, trusting there is a guidance we all get if only we’re willing to listen. Sometimes you have to be broken before you can be renewed and ready for a new path. Hopefully it doesn’t go that far for most people, but it did for me. I finally found a way to listen for guidance in my meditation, and then take action to follow my calling, noting the signs that showed me the way.

The culmination of my quest was Harmony Hill. In the beginning, Harmony Hill was the vision from my earlier dream, an educational, recreational, and therapeutic community. It became a retreat for people seeking wellness in their lives.

A major turning point occurred in the early 1990s when I discovered the internationally acclaimed Commonweal Institute Cancer Help Program when viewing Bill Moyer’s PBS documentary, Healing and the Mind. As soon as I saw the program I was intrigued with the prospect of helping people with cancer learn coping tools to get through their journey. I participated in Commonweal’s first training for other centers, and soon after that Harmony Hill offered our first five-day residential cancer program. We’ve now provided more than 80 cancer retreat programs serving over 800 people since 1994. Each retreat is quite magnificent.

The cancer program lets me use my nursing perspective and all the self-care knowledge I built while trying to heal myself. Stress management is the bottom line, as is diet and exercise. However, a person doesn’t have to have cancer to come to Harmony Hill. We also offer space for group retreats, and provide wellness classes for those interested. For example, some of our weekend retreats are labyrinth workshops, which provide spiritual renewal. We also offer a lot of yoga classes. Business groups have an opportunity to listen to their own calling and connect deeply with their mission in ways that aren’t possible in the thick of things.

Because of my background, I encourage Harmony Hill to provide renewal resources for health professionals. A group of volunteers who are nurses, physicians, and other health providers serve as “house moms” for the cancer programs. That group has become support for each other, and is now developing burnout prevention programs for people in the helping fields.

Harmony Hill isn’t conventional in its approach, and for a long time it was considered “out there.” Even though we didn’t change, times have, and we’re now considered “leading edge” with our body-mind-spirit integration focus, as alternative and holistic health approaches demonstrate their value and are embraced more and more by the mainstream.

I’m fortunate for the opportunity to follow my calling. Because of past experience, I’m committed to living life fully and joyfully, and continuing to listen for my next direction. I’m passionate about reaching out to others and helping them in whatever way I can. I want to provide people with tools to take good care of themselves, their families, and the people they work with. I want to help them move toward wholeness.

Power Strategies: Nurture, Leadership, Wellness, Healing
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