Danika Chevalier (00:01.774)
Hello, welcome back. We are back. So too. So thank you for joining me again. This obviously means you have gone through episode one, I hope. And that we have a little bit of a foundation together. So I'm excited to dive in today. I have dubbed this one once a nurse, always a nurse.
because today I want to talk about why that title means something a little different to me now. And I want to take you alongside my journey to becoming an RN and where I kind of sit with that designation today, what I've learned on the inside, why I chose to take that career path, why I chose to walk away from it, because I think it's going to help
lay some foundation for future episodes because this platform is one that I really want to use and utilize to create some awareness and some positive, informative discussion around certain, I'm going to call them taboo topics, and maybe some certain hot topics that have been circulating in the social media world, the headline world of the news lately.
And I just feel it's important to kind of set up the foundation of who I am, what my value systems and what my kind of belief systems are around health wellness and our mainstream medical system and those kinds of things. So just think it's important to really let you guys in on
kind of the backstory and a little bit of behind the curtain of who I am, because some of these topics and some of these views, for some of you who may know me, depending on which walk of life you know me from, might be a little bit surprising or might come as a little bit, you might want to cancel me immediately when you hear me start talking about some stuff. But I just want to invite you to, as always in these episodes and in any
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platform that I am using to share consciousness that's coming through me. I just want you to have an open mind, just no prejudgment or no prejudice upon anything and just kind of just take it as it is. And I hope it gets you thinking about some stuff, if nothing else. let's dive into it with this episode and I'll get right into it.
So I come from a family of many holistic practitioners. I have, I think about a dozen chiropractors in my close family circle, like aunts, uncles, cousins, and then even more so in my extended family. So I mean, I've been adjusted, like chiropractic adjustment since I was a few days old. I've also maintained that practice with my kids. And it is a really fundamental piece of my...
health and wellness, you know, self-care practices. It's kind of a non-negotiable. It's something that I have always taken part in. I mean, I could probably have a few guest episodes with some family members where we could dive into the chiropractic philosophy. So if that's something that you guys would like, maybe let me know. So I won't spend too much time on that right now, but I mean,
I had the extremes within my family where some of my relatives had never been to a medical practitioner, never taken a Tylenol, never done any of that. Whereas I, in my family circle with my parents and myself, I did utilize Western medicine when it was time, but I also got regular chiropractic adjustments, energy work, naturopathic appointments, those kinds of things if those were more suited to
what we were dealing with, but I grew up kind of being really submerged into all modalities of the health wheel and really understanding from a young age that they all have their role, their time, their place. There's no one that is yay, more than nay. They just kind of all have their function for when they're best suited type of thing. So growing up, this was,
Danika Chevalier (04:49.774)
This was my ideology. still very much practice this and believe this in the root of who I am. But I remember being in my teens, 16, 17, when I started going to visit some of my family members. Most of them went to the college in Atlanta, Georgia to take their post-secondary chiropractic degree.
And so we would go and visit for graduations and whatnot. And so I got to go visit the campus. I got to go do a tour and I was really, I could just feel that like spark inside of me. And I was, I think too young to really understand how big this mission was that was being placed on my heart. But I remember thinking like, like I could become a chiropractor and I could help at a clinic.
and I could work with a medical doctor. And like this was in 2002, 2003, 2004. holistic integrative practices were really not in yet. But I remember having this vision of like someone could come in, they could get an adjustment. And also we could like give them some supplements or like give them an Advil or something so that they can go back and do their, finish their work day. But also we've treated like the root cause of
addressing the subluxation and addressing like what was really bringing on this headache type of thing, for example. And I started taking steps to pursue this as a career. So I actually took my SATs when I was in grade 11 or grade 12 so that I could apply to go to school in the States. And I was like, all systems go to do this with my cousin actually. And then I chickened out and I don't really remember why.
But knowing what I do about myself, I think I got overwhelmed. And I think it felt really too big that this mission was placed on my heart. And I think I felt like I was maybe a little ahead of my time and it was just, I couldn't see how I was gonna make this work. Anyhow, I ended up not pursuing that and sticking around and working after high school and going into business school. I was trying to get into the...
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commerce at University of Manitoba and taking all the prerequisites and I failed. Well, then fail. got a D in calculus. So I was rejected from my application to business school. so I had to pivot. I had some courses under my belt and I went the nursing route because it, I did really well in like biology and then in nutrition and stuff. And I still really was passionate and about the human body and about wanting to, you know,
have this vision of merging the two. So I thought, well, maybe if I'm on the medical side of things, maybe I can have an impact on, you know, creating more awareness around the holistic practices and all of that. So I was really gung-ho and really, again, excited about this mission on my heart, but from a different angle this time. And truthfully, I had no clue what nursing was. I remember getting accepted into the program and people were excited for me. And the first question, always,
or the first comment was always like, but the shift work. And I was always like, yeah, whatever. It's fine. Like, no big deal. I had no idea what they meant by shift work, truthfully. I didn't really understand the concept of night shifts. Like, I kind of did, but I really didn't. So that's kind of a funny thing to think back on. But I didn't really realize how
much of a black sheep I would feel among my peers until I really got into it. And back when I got into my program, was 2010-ish and like everyone and their dog wanted to be a nurse back then. Like I had to apply to a school two hours away from where I was living because it was so, so, so competitive. And like I did all of the equations and stuff. And I was like, there's no way I'm ever applying and getting into this faculty. So I sought out
and the universe provided. So I obviously was meant to take this path. I obviously don't regret this career choice that I went on, but it's turned out to be very different than what I had set out to. So I went through my nursing school. When I was in my second year, had one of my, what do you call them? Like when we were doing our clinical placement. And so she was like my lead, my clinical instructor, I guess.
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So we were doing a rotation on this long-term rehabilitation floor and I hated it. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. It was awful. It was a bunch of old people who had like hip replacements and stuff and they were immobile because they didn't take care of themselves. So they were on this ward trying to rehab to a point where they could go home. And she took me aside anyways after this one long grueling 12 hour shift. And she was like, essentially,
Like I don't think this is for you. You do you think this is for you because I don't know that you should continue doing this. So I don't know what I exuded in that clinical or I don't know what I was giving off if I was like really obviously hating what I was doing and I wasn't doing a better job of hiding it and keeping it to myself. Um, but obviously she picked up on something and I was so taken aback. was so insulted. I was so
I think it was a lot of fear. Now that I look back on that moment, I think my ego was just terrified. I was like, no, I've worked so hard and like I've, I've risked a lot and I left everything I knew to come, you know, move two hours away by myself to make this happen. Like, what do you mean? Like, I don't have a plan B. This is it. Like I didn't get into business school. Like I didn't go into Chiropractic college. Like this is it. So.
That was really hard. And I think I took it upon myself in that moment to prove that I belonged there, that I, yeah, yeah. Like I wanted to be a nurse. Like I was going to be a nurse and I was going to be a good nurse. so that was kind of my, my driving force from that moment on to complete my degree and to make it happen and almost kind of fake it till I make it a little bit even more so that people didn't think that I didn't belong there. So I started
you know, suppressing a little bit more of myself after that moment. And really made it my goal to figure out, okay, well, obviously, this kind of nursing is not my bag, but like something has to be right. there's, this was one of the reasons I went into nursing as well was because I knew that there was so many opportunities within this designation. I did have my heart set on business. So I thought, well, with an
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I could get into management, I could get into roles where I'm not necessarily doing frontline nursing, but maybe making a greater impact and in a business kind of way. So I kept my eye on the prize. I kept moving through, moving forward. I did find a love in labor and delivery. I did my final practicum. I was blessed to be chosen for my final practicum in labor and delivery and I loved it.
And I think I loved it because it allowed me to be in a capacity in the nursing role where people came in for a certain life event. We handled that life event and then they moved on, they went home. So I liked the kind of revolving door aspect of it, I guess, in some respect and being able to be a support person in such a monumental life event for these women and their partners and their families.
And I felt really good in that capacity. But again, the shift work was rough. I ended up moving into a setting where it wasn't really feasible to be doing that kind of specialty all the time because of being in a rural remote setting. So when there was no one in labor, I had to help out with the regular medical ward. And that was truly soul sucking for me.
to put it lightly, for many reasons beyond the logistics of the nights and the lifting and carrying and the, it was just a really sad, it just made me really sad. The more I worked in that environment, just really, I felt like my bubble was really burst to put it in plain terms.
And in nursing school, I remember learning about the word autonomy and I had never learned that word before, but that word stuck out so much. They really hammered it into our curriculum. And I just pulled up the definition here. I'll just, so autonomy is self-governance or the capacity of an agent to act in accordance with objective morality rather than being under the influence of, of, of desires or of others.
Danika Chevalier (14:22.956)
And so again, we were taught in nursing school that like, is up to you to like, be autonomous and like, stand in your morals, stand in your values and do the same for your patients. Do be, you know, the moral compass and advocate for your patients. and what I found in your life was there was no, there was no need for this because no one seemed to really care about standing up for themselves or
asking more questions than they needed to or dealing with any kind of root cause. Like I was really miffed because day in and day out when I wasn't dealing with a labor and delivering patient, I was on this other side of the board and we would be dealing with, you know, a foot amputation for a diabetic who didn't manage their levels properly. So now they're losing their foot, but so they're in a hospital room, having just had surgery, have this big wound.
and they're popping a big gulp and cheese it. And the physician shows up for rounds once a day and, yeah, okay, well, we're going to pump up your insulin levels because obviously your sugars are out of control as evidenced by your foot needing to be amputated. But let's not address what you're putting in your body, how you're moving. let's maybe ask you to quit smoking. Like none of these things. Let's just bandage you up, get you in a state where we can send you home so that we can have.
the next person into this room. Like it was just, I was like, what the F is going on here? Like I just, could not even put it into words at the time because I just was so miffed by what I was seeing. And it was just not what we were taught and not the, guess, I don't want to call it a lie, but like we were taught this and it was such a big part of our curriculum of being this
beacon for people, excuse me, and being this, you know, light and person of authority and person of integrity and person of values, when really we didn't have a say in any of it and people didn't care either. So it was really, it was really tough for me morally and inside myself. And so I became really shut down.
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And I became really angry and really apathetic being in this situation day in and day out. And even though was getting, when I was getting to do Lambert delivery, it was great, but like it was still, there was so much sadness and the systems are so broken and the families were so broken. like, now that I'm a mom and having lived three postpartums,
Like I look back at a lot of these women that we sent home with these babies and I'm like, my God, what did you guys do at the two months? The four month regression. Like I, my heart aches thinking back on so many of these young women that we sent home in unsupportive environments with unsupportive partners to navigate this stuff. Anyways, I could go on, but I just really had my eyes open in a really big way and in a really hard way of what
it meant to be a nurse and I knew that my mission and my vision was just like so far away from where I was. And I knew I could not go on doing this for the next 40 years because I was going to be so hardened and so mean had I kept going that route, I think. And I mean, I showed up every shift with
I really had to talk myself down every shift and being like, okay, just show up and be of service, show up and be of service of the highest good, like just show up and do your job and like get through this shift. then, you know, but it took a lot of, a lot of internal pep talk in that phase of my life. And thankfully I came across, you know, other things and then my yoga teacher training and that all kind of started to take form at some point, but
I am.
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when I was near the end of like just before the studio was all kind of coming together, I couldn't see the light at end of the tunnel, but my body was just screaming at me. I had high blood pressure. was having my heart rate was like in the one twenties at rest, like notoriously. I was 29 back then. I wasn't overweight. I wasn't like I was
mindful of what I was eating. was meal prepping, but my body just was screaming like something is out of alignment. I would do my best to get through my shifts. Night shifts, I barely slept, so my anxiety was always at a 10. I was coping in unhealthy ways. I was leaning to alcohol when I wasn't on shift and seclusion.
And then one night there was a pretty traumatic code blue on my night shift and it just kind of snapped me. this woman was young and dying of liver failure and she was just so sad and her death was really traumatic and I kind of snapped from there and, my world kind of imploded after that event and I had to take a little bit of time away from nursing. had to take a few shifts on leave.
I ran myself to the ground and got really belligerent at a wedding and that led to me and my boyfriend at the time breaking up and me completely actually quitting drinking for a while and really refocusing on myself and that was a really hard time. But in that time, a miracle happened, a couple miracles happened and
I was able to find myself a place to live. bought an acreage and I got the green light for the studio. We got a space. so boom, boom, boom, all of a sudden things just flipped and
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I realized that there was a bigger picture to all of this.
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So opening my studio really saved me in a lot of ways that I haven't really shared about publicly before, but it really saved me from a career, any path that was really self-destructive because it was really hard for me to
to exist in that environment. So.
And it was even harder when I opened my studio to let go of the nursing title, which I wasn't expecting. And I found myself months into opening my studio and having kind of gone down to part-time and gone down to casual as a nurse, because I really went all into my studio and in my mission and vision of creating this space of health and wellness where people became accountable. That was the thing that was, I think the hardest for me was that people were just not accountable.
in their roles as patients or as being on the receptive end of receiving healthcare.
And it was really empowering for me to create a platform where people were completely accountable for showing up for themselves, their mood, for their bodies, for their mental health, for whatever the reason was. But I encountered some really interesting identity crisis in that too, because if you were from the area, you kind of knew
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maybe had heard the buzz about this business opening. But when I would meet people or if I was coming back home and they were like, what are you up to? And I would try to explain that I opened this space where people are riding stationary bikes in a dark room. They kind of looked at me like I was growing a horn off my head. So then I would be like, but I'm also a registered nurse. And then they would be like, big smile, head nod, like good for you. You know, and then I was like, okay, okay, you're still okay. Like, you're still good. You're still doing the right things. Like, you're still in the box. Like you're good.
but it took a long time to really break up with that identity because I wanted that approval from people. And like, I also was like, not sure what to call myself because I didn't go to business school. So I wasn't really like a business person. I just, you know, wanted to make the world a better place. And this was how I knew how to do it at this time. And it ended up saving my life too. So, yeah, it was a really interesting.
was a really interesting time and I am still very grateful that I've had my nursing designation to fall back on because during the times of COVID, for example, I was grateful to be able to still earn a wage and be able to find a role as a nurse, a clinic in a capacity that felt really good for me at the time doing intravenous vitamin therapy. So, I mean, it hasn't been all bad. I have...
been able to really and wholeheartedly say I have given nursing my all. I even before opening the studio for that year prior when I was really looking and really searching and really digging into some personal growth and personal development, I worked in the operating room. took a job working home care. I took a job doing public health at one point. I had my ACLS and was an Emerge nurse.
I mean, I really, really gave it the old college effort. I really tried all of the things thinking maybe it's the night shifts that are at, maybe it's this, but no, it was the whole system. It was all of it. And it's been a lot of entanglement with my identity and this role and my personal values. And then when COVID happened, I feel like, my goodness, that was a whole other layer of like
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WTF who am I that just got added onto it because now I had a business that focused on health and wellness and again, accountability, autonomy, really like the real root of the autonomy. and, and there was some big medical stuff going on in the world that I really didn't agree with, but I really couldn't outwardly not agree with it because I was a nurse. So I was playing for the team technically that was supposed to be all for this.
Yeah, so that was like really, that was really tough. Maybe I'll get into that again another time, but I just, I digress. I just want to keep this relevant that the mission on my heart is still there. I still feel like I am meant to be a leader in the space of bridging the gap between all of the worlds in the health and wellness space and bringing awareness to root cause and foundational wellness.
So I've tried to pursue this and explore this in the past years by taking some courses in functional medicine, which is making a pretty big name for itself. Functional medicine is really looking at the root cause. So looking at the root cause of the systems, why they are maybe breaking down. And in the courses that I took for that, it was a lot about inflammation by means of like diet exercise.
Sometimes medication, sometimes supplements. But it was still very vague to me. And yes, I believe that changing what you eat is very impactful. Like what you input to your body will give you a different output. But I felt like there was more to it than that that I was longing for. So I actually just have now since I've released the studio.
and have been able to free up some more time, have taken registration into a certification course for Primal Health. So it's a Primal Health nutrition and full coaching certification, which I'm really looking forward to completing. already getting my feet wet pretty good in there. And really, it's something I really love learning more about.
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the premise behind this, I don't want to call it a modality, but it's just that we are primal beings and kind of going back to the roots of how did our ancestors do it for millions and millions of years? How did, like, what were the fundamentals that the human body were designed for and optimize? Like, what conditions do we optimize and thrive in? So,
I'm excited to kind of break out and share more about that because I feel like I.
Don't let myself shine this part of myself because I'm like, who am I? I don't know anything. I'm not an expert in this field. What do I know? So this is why I am seeking more training so that I can really feel sure and confident in putting this material out there and sharing this information, this super viable information and continuing to be this bridging resource for the world in this time.
So with this, I actually had let my license go a couple of years ago, because I was always having babies. And it's very challenging to go back to work at nursing capacity when you have young children at home, a husband who works shift work, a husband who works away, a business, et cetera, et cetera. So I didn't think I had the hours to keep up my nursing license. And lo and behold, last year I was doing some digging. And I found out that I did have enough hours because they changed so many of the parameters during COVID.
So I reinstated my license kind of sneakily last year and thought I was gonna do something cool with it, but didn't. And so this last month, it's just been like, your license is expiring. Hey, your license is expiring. And every week getting emails, like your license is expiring. And so again, I'm like being faced with this whole identity crisis of like, man, like, do I want it? Do I want to lean back into the nursing role in a different capacity? Do I want to?
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Like, what do I want to do with this? Because it does feel not like a shame to let it go, but kind of. But then there's a part of me also that, you know, that autonomy, it just wants to come out and be like, no, wait a minute, like, you don't need to be paying 600 plus dollars a year to this governing body for what so that you can say that you're registered with whom to work under what to live, which
fundamentals and which values. I want to pull up this screenshot because it triggered me so much. Last night I got around the 30th, I got an email saying, okay, like your permit is now expired. And then in bullet point, it says, you can no longer work as a registered nurse or nurse practitioner or use the following protected titles in Alberta. Like this is fucking news to me, pardon the language, but like I didn't realize that spending
60K on a degree and having a degree meant that I could then not actually utilize my degree and not actually use these terms. So I am not allowed to use the protected titles, apparently. Nurse, registered nurse, nurse practitioner, well, I'm not a nurse practitioner. Certified graduate nurse, graduate nurse practitioner or graduate nurse. So I'm not allowed to call myself a nurse, even though I have a Bachelor of Nursing degree. Like riddle me that, I don't know.
So I'm just amiss by this, but again, I'm a lot because of what I am learning about the systems in place. So I'm just feeling a lot of emotions with this. So I have decided to let go of my license. I probably could reinstate it for one more year because I still have enough hours by their parameters, but I have chosen to not.
I've chosen to really lean into this extra educational support that I'm going through and learning and just going to use my platforms and my voice and start really being able to share with the masses about this information and my own health journey. Because I've gone through a few major, I don't want to call them crises, but like significant health
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events in my life as well. a lot of these principles that I am relearning about are what got me through and what healed me in the past and have continued to heal me. I really do think there's power in addressing and taking care of the physical self as a like fundamental base layer of deeper healing and of showing up in the world in full capacity of who you're meant to be in this life. So yeah, so I just really wanted to give a little
background, where I'm at, who I am, my philosophies, my background. And I really want to, you anything out of this episode, really want to emphasize that I will always preface anything that I share on here with using and empowering you to use your own discernment and make your own decisions that feel aligned in your body.
If you're sitting in your doctor's office and all they can tell you is, you're feeling this and this. Okay. Well, let's, let's do this. And it really doesn't sit well with you. Listen to that. Like I'm here to just be your little cheerleader on the side. Maybe I can't call myself a nurse anymore, but I can still be that person for you that maybe you, you look to for guidance in this stuff, but I want you to take the torch back and stop giving away your power to even to me, even
to anyone, just stop and listen within yourself because your body holds so many clues and it's so wise. So I am going to be having some maybe controversial topics and discussions in this space, but I always want to bring it back to the full circle of authority doesn't come from the person with an active license or the person with a title or a permit. It comes from you. It comes from
lived experiences, hard choices, comes from integrity and being willing to tell the truth even if it's not the popular opinion. And when I say truth, mean truth in what I feel to be true, truth in, you know, so again, don't come at me. Take it. Use your discernment. If this platform, if this podcast is, I hope, going to
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create anything, it's different thought processes or curiosity or asking different questions and remembering that we are powerful and we are here for a reason and a purpose and moving forward when I do talk about health, wellness,
those kinds of topics that like, yeah, like I have spent a lot of years of my life learning about the human body, practicing the human body. And I am the, like, I am the ultimate guinea pig. I will never come on here and talk about something that I don't have a close connection to or personal investment in, in some respect. Okay. So know that it always comes from a place of love. It is never coming from a place of
right or wrong or should and shouldn't. And really my goal and my intention is always to just create more awareness, more empowerment and more consciousness in general. So I'm going to end with this. I'm going to invite you to reflect after this episode. I'm always going to invite you to reflect on something after each episode because it's who I am.
So like I talked about clinging to my nursing identity and really being kind of in this murky place. So like, where are you maybe clinging to old identities that are maybe no longer serving you or like, why are you holding onto those different identities and have you outgrown them or are you defaulting into them out of fear of not being accepted or out of fear of really being uncomfortable in not knowing who you are?
and where, where are these identities afraid of telling their truth? Like where, where are you not standing in your own truth? And why are you kind of hiding behind an identity maybe? So yeah, that's where I'm at. The system might tell me that I can no longer quote unquote call myself a nurse, but I mean, I'm still going to throw that sling that term around because I have a nursing degree. I have worked as a nurse and I mean, come at me. I am who I am.
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You can't take those things away from me. I am just in a season of really looking to speak my truth and the truth that I've lived. that's all the authority that I am standing in today. That's where I'm at. So I hope you are well. I hope this finds you well today. And I look forward to connecting with you next time. Until then, I love you so much. I wish you all the best.
chat soon.
