How much better do you feel when the window is open and the fresh air is flowing?

My name is Lane Therrell, and my personal mission is to help people take responsibility for improving their health. As a family nurse practitioner and integrative wellness coach, I support people of all ages in finding effective ways of feeling better in body, mind, and spirit.

A wide range of work experiences came together to prepare me for fulfilling my personal mission. My first career in public relations for agriculture taught me how to help people understand where their food comes from. Now, as my second career in health care unfolds, I like to describe the work I’m doing as helping people understand where their health comes from.

I felt drawn to study nursing when I chose to return to school at midlife because the nurse’s way of thinking seemed inherently compassionate to me. While doctors focus on treating their patients’ health problems, nurses focus on evaluating their patients’ responses to the treatments. To fully, deeply, and meaningfully understand those responses, the compassionate nurse must take a walk in her patients’ shoes.

My journey to become a nurse practitioner showed me plainly that good health doesn’t come from a pill, a procedure, a device, a plan, or a process. While all of these things can be valuable tools for improving human health, true healing comes from within. There is an inner well of wellness deep inside each of us, and this is where our true good health, our wellbeing, resides. Learning to access our inner wellness is an important key to enjoying better health. One of the quickest ways to open a window on this concept of better health is by practicing compassion through acts of kindness.

My guiding inspiration for all of this comes straight from nursing history. Even before I enrolled in nursing school, I greatly admired the compassionate acts of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. In one particularly memorable story, Nightingale marched into a building that was being used as a field hospital during the Crimean War, and immediately began opening the windows for her patients so they could have fresh air. Her action was simple, kind, and profoundly effective for better health. Nightingale’s numerous, practical, sanitation and hygiene efforts significantly improved the chances of survival for thousands of injured soldiers and set the standards for many of the procedures still used in hospitals around the world today.

Common sense, kindness, and the awareness of human response are skills we can all build upon as we learn to practice and cultivate compassion in the name of better health. My monthly blog posts for Think Kindness will explore how compassion and kindness can affect health and the quality of care we provide to ourselves and to each other throughout all stages of human development and during any circumstance of life. You might want to think of me as the “Compassionate Care Catalyst.” Meanwhile, thank you for opening the window.

Lane is committed to supporting your better health. Read more at www.lanetherrell.wordpress.com.