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Journey With Coach Gwen: Wellness From Within, 315 Lakepointe Drive, Altamonte Springs, FL (2025)

11/03/2025

🍀 Life’s Little Pranks: How I Became Everything I Never Planned🍀

I never dreamed of becoming a nurse.
As a child, the word “nurse” never made it into my daydreams. In high school, I stood at the edge of possibility, weighing futures as a doctor, psychologist, accountant, or agriculturist. I had options. I had ambition. I had a plan. But life, with its quiet mischief, had other ideas.

Without fully realizing it, I found myself enrolled in nursing. Not by desire. Not by design. It was as if life had gently nudged me into a current I hadn’t chosen. And I resisted. I resisted with everything in me.

During those college years, I carried disappointment like a second skin. Frustration, resentment, bitterness—they became my companions. I mourned the path I didn’t take, the dreams that didn’t unfold. I questioned why nothing went according to plan. I grieved the life I thought I was supposed to live.

And then, life surprised me again. I became a nurse. I worked as one. And still, I never dreamed of coming to the United States. That common aspiration among nurses—the “American Dream”—was never mine. Yet here I am. Not because I chased it, but because it came for me.

I always thank God for not giving me what I initially wanted—because I have found profound meaning in my life as a nurse. In chasing what I thought I wanted, I nearly missed the quiet beauty of what was unfolding. I missed the laughter between clinical rotations, the friendships forged in exhaustion, the sacred privilege of caring for another human being. I missed the grace in the detour.

I’ve come to understand that when we fight the current of life, we suffer. We miss the sweetness of the season we’re in because we’re too busy resenting the one we didn’t get. I spent years mourning a version of my life that never existed. And in doing so, I missed the miracle of the one that did.

We spend our lives trying to control outcomes, people, timing. We grip tightly to our plans, believing they are the key to happiness. But control is a mirage. It promises safety but delivers suffering. The tighter we hold, the more we miss. The more we miss, the more we ache.

There is something wiser than our plans. Call it God, the universe, divine timing—there is a higher intelligence that sees beyond our limited view. We wonder why life unfolds differently than we imagined. But maybe it’s because what we imagined wasn’t the best for us. Maybe the detour is the destination.

Just because we want something doesn’t mean it’s meant for us. And just because we don’t want something doesn’t mean it won’t bless us. Our desires shift. Our priorities evolve. What we chase today may feel hollow tomorrow. So why waste our lives chasing after what was not meant for us?

Let us release our grip on control and yield to the masterplan—trusting that life knows the way, even when we don’t.

Reflection:
What isn’t meant for you will quietly slip away, no matter how tightly you cling to it. But what is truly yours will find its way—gently, persistently—even through your resistance.

Hello and welcome! I’m Gwen Renee Gallarde, a registered nurse and board-certified nurse coach. I help adult men and women create lives of meaning and purpose through inner work. By building a strong foundation for holistic wellness, we cultivate lasting transformation—from the inside out—crea...

11/01/2025

🍀 The Beauty of Not Knowing🍀

There is a wildness to life that no map can chart.
It arrives unannounced, dances to rhythms we cannot hear, and unfolds in layers we often try to rush through. Yet, in our striving to predict, control, and decode its every twist, we risk missing the very thing that makes life breathtaking: its mystery.

We are taught to seek certainty—to plan, to prepare, to know. But life is not a spreadsheet. It is not a formula to be solved. It is a living, breathing mystery. And mystery, by its very nature, is not meant to be solved but savored.

Still, we try. We grip tightly to our plans, our timelines, our expectations. We try to bend life to our will, to force clarity where there is only becoming. And in doing so, we often trade wonder for weariness. We become so consumed with managing the future that we forget to live the present. We miss the scent of the season we’re in. We overlook the quiet beauty of what is, because we’re too busy bracing for what might be.

But what if the very thing we fear—the unknown—is the doorway to the life we’re aching for?

There is a sacredness in not knowing. In waking up and not being sure what the day will hold. In loving someone without guarantees. In stepping into a new chapter without a script. These are not signs of recklessness—they are acts of courage. Because when we stop demanding answers, we start discovering wonder.

Life does not promise only joy. It offers the full spectrum—ecstasy and ache, clarity and confusion, beginnings and endings. To embrace life in its purest form is to say yes to all of it. To let the tears come when they must. To laugh without needing a reason. To hold space for both the test and the reward. Pain is not a punishment. Joy is not a prize. They are both teachers. Both sacred. Both necessary.

There is a rhythm to life that is not ours to dictate. Seeds bloom in their own time. Storms pass when they are ready. Healing unfolds not on command, but in whispers and waves.

When we stop trying to force clarity, we make room for revelation. When we stop grasping for control, we begin to dance with life instead of wrestling it. And in that dance, we find something deeper than certainty—we find presence.

To live life fully is to live it as it comes—without resistance, without control. To let it freely unfold with a steady and excited heart. To meet each moment not with fear, but with curiosity. To trust that even the unknown carries beauty, and even the unexpected holds meaning.

We don’t need to figure everything out. In fact, what would life be if we could? If every event, every encounter, every outcome were known before it arrived—would it still hold meaning? Would it still move us, shape us, surprise us? Or would it become a lifeless script, predictable and dull, stripped of wonder and joy?

The truth is, it’s the not knowing that gives life its color. The mystery that gives it weight. The unfolding that gives it meaning. To live this way is not to give up. It is to wake up. To lean into the mystery with open hands and a curious heart. To let life surprise us, shape us, and show us who we are becoming.

Because maybe the point was never to solve the puzzle, but to marvel at its pieces.

So pause here, and ask yourself:
What beauty have I missed by demanding control instead of trusting the mystery of life?

Let this question linger. Let it unsettle. Let it soften the grip of needing to know. Because the beauty of not knowing is not emptiness—it is the quiet doorway to everything that matters.

Hello and welcome! I’m Gwen Renee Gallarde, a registered nurse and board-certified nurse coach. I help adult men and women create lives of meaning and purpose through inner work. By building a strong foundation for holistic wellness, we cultivate lasting transformation—from the inside out—crea...

10/31/2025

🍀The Great Mistake: Building Our Lives on What Can Be Lost🍀

We spend our lives chasing shadows—titles, trophies, approval, and appearances—believing they will give our existence weight. But in truth, much of what we call “living” is a performance for a world that forgets us the moment we fall. We trade our precious, finite time for things that cannot hold meaning, cannot offer peace, and cannot honor the depth of our soul. We build routines around survival, not presence. We strive endlessly, yet rarely pause to ask: Is this truly living? In the end, the life we lead—if built on what is fleeting—does not do justice to the miracle of our time here.

In this modern world, our identity has been outsourced. Our worth is tangled in things that live outside of us—titles, relationships, possessions, appearances. We chase the dream house, the perfect job, the ideal partner, believing they will anchor us. And for a moment, they do. Until they don’t.

We tie our happiness to the comfort that wealth and material possessions promise—believing that the right house, the right car, the right lifestyle will finally quiet the ache inside. But comfort is not the same as peace. And possessions are not the same as presence. One unexpected moment—a market crash, a natural disaster, a personal loss—and the illusion shatters. Along with it, our sense of self.

We pour our soul into careers, spending decades climbing ladders that can be pulled from under us in a single layoff. We cling to relationships, sometimes sacrificing self-respect just to keep them alive. And when they end, we feel like we end too.

We mistake these things for life’s foundation. We believe they give us stability, meaning, and security. But they are sandcastles—beautiful, impressive, and tragically temporary.

And all the striving, all the stress, all the sleepless nights spent chasing what we think will finally make us feel enough—it’s fleeting. Shallow. And in the end, it doesn’t matter. Not in the way we think it does. Because none of it can touch the part of us that is real. The part that is eternal. The part that was never meant to be defined by what we do, what we own, or who we’re with.

No matter how successful we become—how admired, how wealthy, how accomplished—there will always be a quiet hollowness if our life is built on the wrong foundation. Even at the acme of achievement, something inside us whispers: Is this all? Because life was never meant to be a summit we reach. It was meant to be a depth we explore. A truth we embody. A presence we live from. Without that, even the highest peak feels strangely empty.

We are investing our most sacred currency—our time, our presence, our inner value—into pursuits that promise joy but deliver dread. We trade our days for status, our peace for productivity, our soul for survival. And instead of meaning, we find exhaustion. Instead of joy, anxiety. Instead of fulfillment, fear and doubt. We are pouring ourselves into a life that was never designed to hold us.

We suffer not because life is cruel, but because we built our identity on things that were never meant to hold it. We anchored our existence to what is fleeting, forgetting that we were never here to perform—we were here to live.

This is not a call to abandon ambition, love, or beauty. It’s a call to reorient them toward what truly matters. To stop building a life that looks good and start living one that feels true.

There is a ground beneath all the noise. A place untouched by layoffs, breakups, illness, or failure. It’s the part of you that existed before you had a name, a title, or a role. It’s the part that knows what matters. The part that remembers why you’re here.

When we begin to build our life from the inside out—anchored in clarity, compassion, and conscious intention—we stop trading our soul for survival. We stop investing our time, our presence, our sacred energy into pursuits that leave us empty. We begin to live in a way that honors the miracle of being here at all.

Because in the end, the only life worth living is the one that justifies our time on this earth. Not by how high we climbed, but by how deeply we connected. Not by what we built, but by what we became.

So, ask yourself:
What parts of me have I traded away in pursuit of things that never truly mattered?

Hello and welcome! I’m Gwen Renee Gallarde, a registered nurse and board-certified nurse coach. I help adult men and women create lives of meaning and purpose through inner work. By building a strong foundation for holistic wellness, we cultivate lasting transformation—from the inside out—crea...

10/30/2025

🍀A Perfect Guide to Live: Letting Truth Interrupt the Chase and
Lead You Home 🍀

We weren’t built for this pace. The constant alerts, the endless striving, the pressure to curate a life that looks perfect but often feels hollow.

In a world that demands more while delivering less meaning, many of us are left wondering: Is this it?

We chase stability, clarity, and control — hoping they’ll anchor us.
But the anchors don’t hold. And maybe they’re not meant to. Because beneath the noise, there are three truths that don’t just endure — they guide. Not with answers, but with clarity.
Not with comfort, but with awakening.

Change. Uncertainty. Death.

They are not enemies.
They are not punishments.
They are the compass we forgot we had.

Change is the interruption we try to avoid — but desperately need. It breaks the trance of autopilot. It shatters the illusion that life can be controlled, predicted, or preserved. When everything shifts — when the job ends, the relationship dissolves, the identity no longer fits — we’re forced to ask: What was I really chasing? And more often than not, the answer is something hollow.

Change doesn’t just disrupt our plans. It disrupts our attachments to what never truly mattered. It invites us to stop performing and start becoming. It is the daily invitation to realign with what’s true.

Death is the final interruption — and the most honest one. It strips away the noise. It reminds us that time is not a guarantee, that love is not a luxury, and that presence is not optional.

In a culture obsessed with legacy and likes, death whispers a quieter truth: You don’t take any of it with you. Not the titles. Not the trophies. Not the curated image.

What remains is how deeply you lived, how honestly you loved, and how fully you showed up.

Death doesn’t just end the chase — it exposes it. And in doing so, it teaches us how to live. And then there’s uncertainty — the space between what was and what will be. We’ve been taught to fear it. To fill it. To fix it. But uncertainty is not a void. It’s a current.

When we stop resisting it, we begin to flow with life instead of against it. We begin to notice beauty in the in-between — the way a conversation unfolds, the way a moment lingers, the way something unexpected becomes the very thing we needed.
Uncertainty frees us from the tyranny of needing to know. It teaches us to trust the unfolding.

To breathe. To listen. To live.

These three truths — change, uncertainty, death — are not abstract. They are daily. They are personal. They are the quiet companions behind every decision, every emotion, every moment we choose to be real.

So if you’re searching for a perfect guide to live life — don’t look for formulas. Look for truth. Let change interrupt what no longer serves you. Let uncertainty carry you into something more honest. Let death remind you that now is all you ever truly have.

And before you check your phone, your planner, your reflection — ask yourself:
If everything you’ve built, chased, or clung to vanished by nightfall… what part of you would still feel true?

Hello and welcome! I’m Gwen Renee Gallarde, a registered nurse and board-certified nurse coach. I help adult men and women create lives of meaning and purpose through inner work. By building a strong foundation for holistic wellness, we cultivate lasting transformation—from the inside out—crea...

10/28/2025

🍀The Burden Behind the Brag: The Mask We Wear to Survive🍀

We live in a world where pretending has become a quiet form of survival. Not because we are dishonest, but because we are afraid—afraid of being seen as struggling, afraid of being labeled “not enough,” afraid that if we show our truth, we’ll be rejected by a society that worships the illusion of perfection. And so, we wear the mask.

Social media has become the stage where this performance unfolds. We post smiling selfies while battling anxiety. We share vacation photos while skipping meals to pay rent. We upload stories of laughter while crying in the bathroom between shifts. We show the world our “best life” while quietly wondering if we’re falling apart.

A corporate worker posts about earning six figures, celebrating promotions and “wins.” But behind the screen, he’s drowning in deadlines, waking up with panic attacks, and silently wondering how long he can keep up the pace. The money looks good on paper, but the cost is his peace, his sleep, his health.

A man buys a house—not because he’s ready, but because his neighbor did. He smiles for the photo, keys in hand, knowing deep down the mortgage is a mountain he can’t climb. The debt will swallow him, but the fear of being left behind is louder than reason. He’d rather suffer in silence than admit he’s not “there yet.”

A woman enters a relationship—not because she’s in love, but because she’s terrified of being alone. She posts couple photos, anniversary captions, and romantic reels to show the world she’s desirable, wanted, chosen. But behind the scenes, she feels disconnected, unseen, and unsure if she’s truly loved—or just tolerated.

Teenagers risk their safety chasing viral trends—not because they’re reckless, but because they’re desperate to belong. They crave the dopamine hit of likes, the fleeting validation of being noticed. They’re not just following trends; they’re answering a deeper cry to be loved, seen, and accepted.

A man shares a gym mirror selfie, flexing his progress. But behind the muscles is a heart that feels hollow. He’s not chasing health—he’s chasing validation. He’s hoping someone, anyone, will say, “You’re enough.”

A woman flaunts her designer bag, her curated outfit, her “day in the life” vlog. But she’s working three jobs, skipping meals, and crying herself to sleep. She doesn’t want the bag—she wants to feel worthy. She wants to be admired. She wants to believe she matters.

A student shows off her “study aesthetic” while quietly battling burnout and self-doubt. A mother shares a photo of her spotless living room, kids dressed in matching outfits. But she’s exhausted. She hasn’t showered in two days. She’s overwhelmed, under-supported, and terrified of being labeled “not enough.”

These aren’t lies. They’re survival strategies. They’re quiet cries for acceptance in a world that equates worth with wealth, happiness with aesthetics, and success with spectacle.

At the root of all this pretending is a deep, human longing: to be seen, to be heard, to be valued. We chase material symbols of success because we’ve been taught that simplicity is failure and authenticity is weakness. We fear that if we show our real selves—messy, uncertain, unfinished—we’ll be rejected or forgotten.

But the truth is, the more we perform, the more we lose ourselves. We become strangers to our own hearts, exhausted from the effort of keeping up. We trade rest for relevance, joy for aesthetics, connection for comparison. And in doing so, we miss the very essence of life.

Because in simplicity, there is freedom. Freedom from the pressure to impress. Freedom from the burden of debt, comparison, and constant striving. Simplicity invites us to breathe again—to find joy in the ordinary, to savor the quiet, to live within our means and within our truth.

And in authenticity, there is beauty. Not the kind that fades under scrutiny, but the kind that deepens with time. When we show up as we are—unfiltered, imperfect, real—we create space for others to do the same. We stop performing and start connecting. We stop chasing and start living.

True life is not measured in possessions or posts. It’s felt in the warmth of a genuine conversation, the comfort of being known, the peace of living in alignment with who we really are. It’s found in the messy kitchen where laughter echoes, the long walk with a friend who listens, the quiet moment where we realize we don’t need more—we just need real.

So maybe the invitation isn’t to do more, buy more, or be more. Maybe the invitation is to come home to ourselves. To strip away the layers of performance. To choose presence over perfection. To live simply. To love honestly. To be seen—not as flawless, but as fully human.

Because freedom isn’t found in the applause. It’s felt in the quiet courage to remove the mask. To stand in our truth, unfiltered and unafraid. That’s where real life begins—not in pretending we’re okay, but in finally allowing ourselves to be.

So what’s your story behind the mask you wear—and are you ready to let it fall?

Hello and welcome! I’m Gwen Renee Gallarde, a registered nurse and board-certified nurse coach. I help adult men and women create lives of meaning and purpose through inner work. By building a strong foundation for holistic wellness, we cultivate lasting transformation—from the inside out—crea...

10/27/2025

🍀Your Life, Your Timeline: Reclaiming the Journey That’s Yours
Alone 🍀

We live in a world that glorifies the chase. From the moment we wake up, we’re already running—toward deadlines, goals, expectations, and the ever-elusive feeling of “enough.” We’re taught that to be valuable, we must be busy. To be respected, we must achieve. To be fulfilled, we must accumulate. And so we strive, endlessly, believing that if we just do more, be more, have more… then we’ll finally feel whole.

But this is the great illusion of modern life.
We’ve been conditioned to believe that our worth is earned through effort. That success is found in the hustle. That rest is a luxury reserved for the accomplished. And so we chase—titles, possessions, milestones, validation. We climb invisible ladders, hoping the next rung will bring peace. But it never does.

This pursuit is rarely about joy—it’s often about proving. Beneath the surface of ambition lies a quiet fear: the fear of not measuring up. And this fear is amplified by comparison. We look around and see others succeeding, advancing, glowing with curated perfection. We measure our pace against theirs, our milestones against their timelines, our worth against their applause. And in doing so, we begin to doubt ourselves—not because we’re failing, but because we’re not “keeping up.”

Comparison fuels the compulsion. It convinces us that we’re behind, that we’re not enough, that we must catch up. And so we push harder. We fill our calendars, chase promotions, accumulate possessions, and perform for approval. But no matter how much we do, it never feels like enough. The finish line keeps moving. The anxiety deepens. And the exhaustion becomes chronic.

In this cycle, something sacred is lost. We forget how to truly live. We neglect the present moment, trading it for future validation. We postpone joy, defer rest, and delay connection. Life becomes a checklist, not an experience. We become passersby in our own story—busy, productive, and profoundly disconnected.

But here’s the truth: your worth is not something to be earned. It is not tied to your output, your pace, or your performance. It is intrinsic, unshakable, and whole. Like a diamond buried in the mud, your value remains untouched—no matter where life places you, no matter how messy things get. If a stone can remain priceless in the dirt, how much more sacred is the human soul?

There is no point in striving endlessly to prove your worth. Because your worth is not up for negotiation. It does not rise and fall with your achievements. It does not diminish when you fall short or slow down. It is not threatened by someone else’s success. You are already enough—right here, right now.

This realization is the beginning of intentional living. It’s the moment we stop running someone else’s race and begin walking our own path with reverence. It’s the shift from chasing to cherishing—from measuring life by milestones to experiencing it moment by moment. Intentional living invites us to honor our journey, not for how fast or far we’ve gone, but for how deeply we’ve lived it.

You don’t need to outrun anyone to be worthy. You don’t need to catch up, prove yourself, or match someone else’s timeline. Your life is not late. It is not lacking. It is uniquely yours—unfolding in its own rhythm, rich with meaning that comparison could never capture. When you begin to trust that your worth is unwavering, no matter where you are in your journey, you reclaim the freedom to truly live. Not to perform, not to compete—but to be. And that is where life begins.

Hello and welcome! I’m Gwen Renee Gallarde, a registered nurse and board-certified nurse coach. I help adult men and women create lives of meaning and purpose through inner work. By building a strong foundation for holistic wellness, we cultivate lasting transformation—from the inside out—crea...

10/24/2025

🍀 Inner Peace Is What Remains When We Release🍀

There’s a quiet wisdom in watching a balloon rise.
Hollow. Light. Unburdened. It floats effortlessly into the sky, untouched by the weight of expectation or control. It doesn’t resist the wind. It doesn’t cling to the hand that once held it. It simply lets go.

I’ve come to believe that life, at its most authentic, should feel like that balloon.
But modern life teaches us the opposite. We are conditioned to grip tightly—to our roles, our routines, our ambitions, our image. We are told that safety lies in control, that identity lies in performance, and that fulfillment lies just beyond the next achievement. So we hold on. Tighter. Harder. Longer.

We call it responsibility. We call it success. We call it being realistic.
But what we’re really doing is clinging to illusions.

Buddha’s teaching—“Attachment is the cause of suffering”—is not just a spiritual idea. It is a piercing diagnosis of the modern condition. We are attached to everything: to outcomes, to identities, to the stories we’ve been told about who we should be and what our lives should look like. And we mistake that attachment for stability. But it’s not stability. It’s a cage.

We chase productivity to feel worthy. We accumulate to feel secure. We perform to feel seen. We control to feel safe. And all the while, we drift further from ourselves.

Attachment shows up in subtle, insidious ways. The craving for more that keeps us in motion, even when our soul begs for stillness. The identity we wear like armor—“I am a nurse, therefore I must…”—even when that role no longer fits. The belief that if we do everything right, life should unfold exactly as we planned.

But life doesn’t work that way. And neither does inner peace.
Inner peace isn’t found in the perfect plan or the polished image. It’s not the reward for doing life right. It’s what remains when we stop gripping so tightly. It’s what rises when we release.
Letting go is not weakness. It is the most courageous act of all. It is choosing to trust the unknown over the illusion of control. It is choosing to be real over being right. It is choosing to float.

The balloon doesn’t ask, “Am I enough?” It doesn’t strive or perform. It simply exists in its natural state—hollow, light, and open to the sky. We have that balloon within us. But we’ve wrapped it in layers of fear, expectation, and societal conditioning. Letting go isn’t about giving up. It’s about peeling back those layers and returning to our essence.

I’ve lived this truth. As a nurse, educator, and coach, I’ve felt the tension between who I am and who I thought I had to be. I stayed in roles that drained me because I believed I had to. I chased outcomes that looked good on paper but left me hollow inside. I clung to identities that no longer reflected my truth.

But the deeper I journeyed inward, the more I realized: inner peace doesn’t come from holding it all together. It comes from letting it fall apart—so something truer can rise. Letting go of the need to control outcomes, to maintain a fixed identity, to chase external validation—it’s terrifying. But it’s also liberating. It opens the door to a life that’s guided not by fear, but by truth.

Letting go is not a one-time act. It’s a daily practice. A moment-by-moment choice to release what no longer serves and return to what’s real.

So I invite you to ask yourself:
What am I holding onto that’s weighing me down?
What identity, expectation, or craving is keeping me from inner peace?
What would it feel like to float—to trust, to surrender, to rise?

You are not the roles you perform. You are not the story others wrote for you. You are not the weight you’ve been conditioned to carry. You are the breath beneath the balloon—the quiet force that lifts when you stop clinging. You are the stillness behind the striving—the part of you that doesn’t need to prove to be worthy. You are the soul that remembers how to rise—the one who knows that freedom isn’t found in control, but in surrender.

Modern life tells us that attachment is safety. But it’s not. It’s a trap dressed as comfort.
True safety—true peace—comes when we release what was never ours to hold.
Because inner peace is not the reward for surviving life.
It is the price of a life truly lived.

Hello and welcome! I’m Gwen Renee Gallarde, a registered nurse and board-certified nurse coach. I help adult men and women create lives of meaning and purpose through inner work. By building a strong foundation for holistic wellness, we cultivate lasting transformation—from the inside out—crea...

08/30/2025

🍀“Just a Nurse”: The Voice You Didn’t Know Was Saving You🍀

One day, I was walking through the park when a stranger stopped me and asked, “Are you a nurse?” I said yes. A smile spread across his face—gentle, knowing, almost relieved. Another day, a different stranger asked what I did for a living. When I told him I was a nurse, he said, “I knew it!”

I couldn’t help but wonder: What did they see in me? Was it something in my posture, my eyes, my energy? Those moments stayed with me. They felt like quiet affirmations of something deeper—something I hadn’t fully understood myself.

At the time, I brushed it off. But now, I realize they saw something I was still discovering: the quiet strength, the emotional depth, the invisible weight that nurses carry every day. They saw the imprint of a profession that leaves its mark not just on the body, but on the soul.

When I was a nursing student, I romanticized the profession. I imagined healing spaces, meaningful conversations, and the satisfaction of helping others. But once I stepped onto the floor, I met the reality: Chaos. Complexity. The kind of exhaustion that seeps into your bones.

And yet, within that chaos, I found something profound. I found the human experience—raw, vulnerable, stripped of titles, wealth, and prestige. I saw people in their most fragile states, longing not just for treatment, but for dignity, for connection, for someone to truly see them.

That’s what nurses do. We see what others overlook. We hear what others dismiss. We care when others walk away.
Still, there are moments when someone says, “You’re just a nurse.” And it stings. Not because it’s offensive, but because it’s powerfully ignorant.

That “just a nurse” is the one who kept you breathing. Who kept you safe. Who made sure you were heard and cared for when no one else did.

It’s easy to complain about what a nurse didn’t say or didn’t do. But those complaints are often the final echoes of a situation where that nurse was wrestling with chaos just to keep you alive. You saw the surface. You didn’t see the storm beneath it.

There were days I wished I could vanish—like a bubble on the floor, pop, and disappear. Because people forget that nurses aren’t robots. We’re expected to do everything, all at once, perfectly, without pause. And even when we finally leave the hospital, we don’t truly leave. At home, we still carry the beeping of monitors in our minds, the echo of patients calling out, the voices of family members pleading for updates, and doctors asking, “Where’s the nurse?” Our bodies may rest, but our hearts remain on the floor. The role doesn’t end when the shift does—because being a nurse isn’t something we turn off. It stays with us, quietly woven into every part of our lives.

And yet, even in those moments of wanting to disappear, I’m reminded why I stay. Because nursing holds a beauty rooted in its intensity—in the emotional depth, the constant motion, and the deeply human encounters that unfold hour by hour. It’s a discipline built on connection, resilience, and presence. We don’t just see diagnoses—we see people. We don’t just give medications—we give pieces of ourselves.

And in many ways, nursing mirrors life itself.
Life, like nursing, is messy. It’s unpredictable, overwhelming, and often unfair. We juggle responsibilities, navigate relationships, endure heartbreak, and chase meaning through the noise. We’re expected to hold it all together, even when we feel like falling apart.

But just like in nursing, there’s beauty in that mess. There’s grace in the struggle. There’s purpose in the pain. And there’s something sacred in showing up—again and again—even when it’s hard.

In both nursing and life, the essence lies not in perfection, but in presence. In the quiet moments of care. In the resilience to keep going. In the courage to love, to listen, to serve. Even after patients are discharged, something stays with them. A touch. A word. A moment. Because we are not just nurses. We are the watchful heart at the bedside.

We know when something’s wrong, even if we can’t diagnose it. We are your go-to for 12-hour shifts, 3–4 days in a row. We are your voice, your educator, your advocate, your family. We use critical thinking to keep you alive. We use our clinical eye to catch what others miss. We give you our time, even when our day is falling apart. We give you our ears, even when we’ve gone deaf from listening. We give you our smile, even when we’re holding back tears.

We ease your pain while our own backs and feet scream. We assist you with meals while our stomachs growl from hunger. We drop everything when doctors round, just to speak for you. We skip our meals to call your family and ease their worry. We hold our bladder to meet your needs—yes, even your whims.

So to those who say “just a nurse”, I say this:
We are not just nurses. We are the heartbeat of the hospital. We are the ones who stay when others leave. We are the ones who know you, fight for you, and carry you—sometimes literally—through your darkest hours.

To my fellow nurses: Be proud. Stay steadfast. You are not invisible. You are not replaceable. You are the difference.

And maybe that’s what those strangers saw in me. Not just a profession, but a way of being. A nurse isn’t just what I do—it’s who I’ve become. And in both nursing and life, I’ve learned: The mess doesn’t erase the meaning. It reveals it.

Hello and welcome! I’m Gwen Renee Gallarde, a registered nurse and board-certified nurse coach. I help adult men and women create lives of meaning and purpose through inner work. By building a strong foundation for holistic wellness, we cultivate lasting transformation—from the inside out—crea...

Journey With Coach Gwen: Wellness From Within

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