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What happens when a nurse with 36 years at the bedside, 22 of them in the ICU, certifies to teach other nurses to feel their feelings and complete stress response cycles?
In this episode I sit down with Terri Petroff, an ICU nurse leader who came through The Fluent Human Certification™ and is now building an evidence-based program to reduce nurse burnout from the inside out. Terri has spent her career being with people on the worst day of their lives. She has also watched what that costs the people giving the care.
We get honest about the parts of nursing nobody trains you for. The death and dying. The violent procedures. The moral distress. The workplace violence that Terri says makes nurses more likely to be assaulted than police officers, most of it going unreported because nurses are taught it is "just part of the job." For 22 years Terri was told to never process any of it. What she learned is the thing so many high-capacity, caring people learn too late: what you do not process shows up sideways.
This is a conversation about what it actually looks like to get trauma-informed and put it to work. Terri walks through the tools from the certification that landed for her: the four lenses, the trauma responses (freeze, fawn, flight, fight, and frenzy) and how each one shows up on a real shift, and the self-compassion work that lets a nurse who made a med error write a new story instead of carrying the shame. She shares the 30-second pause her team takes after a code, the end-of-shift huddle where nurses name what was hard and who they are grateful for, and the moment she watched an entire unit exhale.
Then she tells us what she is building. An eight-week cohort program for bedside nurses with validated pre and post stress measures, designed to prove it lowers perceived stress, protects nurses, and saves hospitals the roughly 83,000 dollars it costs to replace a single nurse. Terri did not just take the certification. She is running the experiment to show it works.
If you have ever thought "that sounds great, but I am too exhausted to add one more thing," this episode is for you. Terri's answer to that is the whole point: you do not get your energy back by resting harder. You get it back by learning to process what you are carrying.
Her closing line is the reason this show exists. "To be fully human is to be fully fluent in all of those emotions."
What you will learn
- Why the tools nurses actually need are science-based, not "just go do more yoga"
- The real scope of workplace violence against nurses, and what prevention can look like (risk scoring, safety huddles, staffing two nurses to a room)
- The five trauma responses and how freeze, fawn, flight, fight, and frenzy show up on a shift
- How a 30-second pause after a code and a simple end-of-shift huddle change a whole unit's nervous system
- Why "I am too exhausted for coaching" is the exact reason to start
- Who the certification is really for, and how to know if that is you
Timestamps
- 00:00 Meet Terri Petroff
- 00:57 Nursing roots and burnout
- 01:36 ICU trauma and COVID
- 04:04 The reality of workplace violence against nurses
- 06:02 Preventing nurse assaults
- 08:12 What landed most from the certification
- 11:06 Debriefs, the pause, and gratitude huddles
- 15:32 The identity and agency shift
- 17:57 The eight-week nurse program she is building
- 20:09 "I am too exhausted for coaching"
- 24:23 Who should get certified
- 25:33 Final message and where to find Terri
- 27:06 Closing
Lindsay’s current program offerings:
- Feeling the pull towards a new career? Ready to layer these tools into your already existing one? Become a Certified Trauma-Informed Coach through The Fluent Human Method™... the certification that teaches you to hold the whole human: nervous system, neuroscience, body, intuition, and soul. Join now to be a part of our upcoming LIVE cohort!
- Not here to get certified, here to learn about yourself? The Fluent Human Course™ walks you through all 8 pillars at your own pace, with live debrief calls every fall and spring. Get the course.
- New to all of this? Start free. 10 Things to Know About Trauma includes ten short emails that will change the way you see yourself... and everyone around you. Send it to me.
- Want a certification above + PRIVATE MENTORSHIP from yours truly? I have limited spaced available. Apply here.
Check out her website here: Website.
Find me on Instagram : @lindsaypoelmancoaching
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Meet Lindsay:...
