We recently connected with Christianne Jensen and have shared our conversation below.
Christianne, appreciate you joining us today. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.
I graduated from nursing school in 2013. My very first job as a nurse was working night shift in the burn intensive care unit (ICU) at a level one trauma center. I was also accepted into my hospitals year long ICU nursing fellowship program, which meant that I would be rotating and training through the surgical and pediatric intensive care units as well. That first year working as a bedside nurse was the hardest year of my life up until that point. There isn’t much that can prepare you for what being around so much sickness, death and human suffering is actually like. I learned very quickly, our health is our greatest asset in life. Nothing else matters if you don’t have your health. Looking back, I burnt out really quickly. I didn’t have the language back then to articulate what I was experiencing, but within only a couple of short years into my career , I found myself exhausted, anxious and if I am being totally honest, completely jaded by our current medical system. I eventually found a day position in the post anesthesia care unit which is where I spent the last seven years of my bedside career. Very early on into my journey of being a nurse, I felt something was missing (and I mean REALLY missing) when it came to patient care. I often describe the feeling as putting Band-aids on bullet hole wounds. Now, don’t get me wrong, while acute care medicine plays a crucial role in our healthcare system, it’s essential to recognize that the majority of care provided in hospitals—and the staggering $4 trillion spent annually in the United States—focuses on managing chronic health conditions. We are doing very little in the way of helping people achieve true healing. Instead, we manage chronic conditions that are primarily driven by lifestyle with pharmaceuticals and invasive surgical procedures. In my heart, I knew there was a better way. I knew that staying in our traditional medical system was becoming increasingly out of alignment with my values and the way I wanted to be able to care for people-mind, body and spirit. That was when I discovered Functional Medicine. Functional Medicine is root cause medicine. It focuses on understanding the whole you. Instead of just treating symptoms, it digs into what’s really causing your health issues by considering your lifestyle, your genetics, and environment. The goal is to create a personalized approach to true, long lasting healing that helps you feel better and live healthier. In 2019, I describe the “simmer” of burnout I had been experiencing over my career turning into a “boil”. It just wasn’t something I could ignore anymore. That’s when I found mindfulness and meditation. I committed to 30 days of meditation, 10 minutes a day. I ended up sitting for 306 consecutive meditations in 306 consecutive days. It was my discovery of functional medicine and meditation that ultimately changed the trajectory of my entire career and in a lot of ways, my life.
Now, here we are in 2020- enter, the COVID-19 pandemic. There is so much that I can say about working bedside nursing during that time. A lot of which is still difficult to talk about even to this day. But I can distill the turning point in my career down to these two lessons (lessons I had been learning over the better part of the decade I spent bedside nursing) that the pandemic really underlined. The first one is that our healthcare system is broken and in desperate need of change. The second is that life is fragile and incredibly short- and to spend it doing anything other than what lights our heart on fire is a waste of this one precious life that we are given here on earth. In 2021, I left my job at the hospital to pursue my dreams of completing my master’s degree in functional and integrative medicine and becoming a board certified holistic health coach and certified meditation teacher. In the fall of 2022, I opened my health and wellness coaching practice, Love This Life Wellness.
Christianne, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
When I left bedside nursing to pursue my dreams of opening my own health and wellness coaching practice, Love This Life Wellness, I had little more than a dream and a vision. A vision of walking alongside people, guiding them on their wellness journey to achieve whatever goals they have their hearts set on. Holistic health and mindfulness coaching allows me to do just that. My core mission is to empower you to recognize your inherent wholeness and innate ability to heal. I help my clients diminish stress, anxiety and burnout through mindfulness and healthy lifestyle behaviors that foster holistic wellness and create the foundation for them to achieve their happiest, healthiest and most fulfilling life. I think that I bring a really unique blend of medical expertise and holistic insight to my health and wellness coaching. The time I spent working in traditional health care, coupled with my training in mindfulness, meditation and integrative medicine helps me to bring a whole person perspective to my coaching. Hundreds of hours coaching incredible human beings has allowed me to create The Love This Life Wellness Method. While my method is highly individualized and fluid, it provides an incredibly effective framework which empowers my clients to achieve their health and wellness goals. I am really passionate about getting my clients back into what I call the “emotional driver’s seat” of their lives. So many of us are walking around on autopilot, just going through the motions, allowing societal expectations, stress, anxiety and burnout to run the show. I know this feeling firsthand, because it was my lived experience for so, so long. I am here to tell you, there IS a better way. I’ve witnessed remarkable transformations in my clients—mothers becoming more present with their children, nurses rediscovering their passion for their work, individuals stepping into leadership roles and pursuing promotions, clients letting go of years of perfectionism and people pleasing, clients that have embraced sobriety, lost significant amounts of weight after years of feeling stuck, clients who have called deep, meaningful love into their lives by first learning to love themselves. I’ve guided clients through significant life transitions, such as divorce, retirement and the loss of a loved one. I have helped clients achieve health goals and stop or decrease prescription medications. Honestly, there isn’t any “problem” I can’t help my clients solve. Because when you come back home to yourself, your wisdom and learn to slow down long enough to really listen to your needs, wants and desires- you become unstoppable in life. Yes, I am incredibly proud of building a 6 figure coaching practice, but the real pride I feel for my work comes from watching my clients boldly go after and achieve their dreams. This “work” is more fulfilling than I could have even imagined it to be. It is truly the work that God has created me for. And I am so proud of the bravery, resilience and relentless pursuit of my dreams that it took to get here.
If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?
There was a time in my life when I questioned whether I should leave the nursing profession altogether. My intention in going to nursing school all those years ago was to pursue a career that truly allowed me to help people. There were aspects to bedside nursing that I loved-caring for people in their darkest moments and giving comfort to patients and their families. But over the decade I spent working in traditional healthcare, I lost sight of that intention through the haze of burnout and moral injury. When I found the master’s program in functional, integrative and lifestyle medicine and the board certification program in holistic health and wellness coaching for nurses, I found my answer-and it wasn’t to leave nursing altogether. It was to find a way for me to utilize my skills, talents and original intentions. It required me to step out of the traditional box of healthcare, and lean into so much courage in order to make the decision to leave my job and pursue my dreams of owning my own practice. If I could go back, I would absolutely choose nursing all over again. It’s part of who I am, and it has lead me to an incredibly fulfilling career in which I am able to help empower people to live their happiest. healthiest and most fulfilled lives in a way I have always dreamed of.
Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?
The only wilder ride than being a bedside nurse in the ICU is being an entrepreneur! I will tell you, entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. Other than the skills and knowledge I possess through my training, experience and schooling, the biggest contributor to my success has been to cultivate the skill of being comfortable with discomfort. There is SO MUCH that is extremely challenging and uncomfortable about owning your own business. As an entrepreneur you wear a lot of different hats. Difficult feelings of fear and self-doubt really have the potential to crush your dreams and stop you before you even get started. If you don’t learn to grow your capacity to hold all those tough feelings- become comfortable in the uncomfortable and invite all those challenging emotions to the round table discussion of “ok, what are you trying to teach me now?”, success (in any field) becomes much more challenging.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lovethislifewellness.com
- Instagram: @lovethislifewellness
- Other: Email: [email protected]
Image Credits
Janine Spillane: Owner of Salted and Zen