Reducing Your Stress Through Calming Calligraphy with Angie Bailey
After struggling with the ever-shifting challenges of nursing during the pandemic, Angie Bailey realized she’d had enough. That’s when she retired from the profession and moved to a focus on the art of calligraphy. She found an incredible peace with it and now teaches it to help others find that sense of calm.
Angie joins Beth in this episode to talk about her struggles in the nursing field and how this shift has led to a more positive, peaceful life for not just her but also for the people taking her classes.
About Angie
As a 33-year veteran RN, Angie understands the mounting stresses of working in a demanding and intense hospital environment. After struggling to practice meditation as a form of stress reduction, Angie rediscovered the therapeutic benefits of the art of calming calligraphy, a love from her childhood. Now it's her mission to share this revelation with other nurses, healthcare workers, and hospital staff so they can enjoy the same relief she has obtained from this restorative practice.
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Intro/Outro:
Welcome to Don't Eat Your Young, a nursing podcast with your host, Beth Quaas. Before we get started, we have a few quick notes. Don't Eat Your Young is a listener supported podcast. To learn more about becoming a member and the perks available to you for becoming a patron yourself, visit patreon.com/donteatyouryoung. You can learn more about the show, share your story to join Beth as a guest, or connect with our wonderful community in our Facebook group. You can find all those links and more at donteatyouryoung.com. Now, on with the show.
Beth Quaas:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Don't Eat Your Young. I am your host, Beth Quaas. Today we have Angie Bailey. She's an RN from Canada. She's worked for many years as an operating room nurse, and she has recently started helping nurses by bringing them back to the arts, so I'm excited to have Angie here today. Welcome, Angie.
Angie Bailey:
Hi, Beth. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. I'm very excited to talk to you today.
Beth Quaas:
Well, you kind of have a unique thing that we're going to be talking about for you to offer nurses, but tell us a little bit about yourself.
Angie Bailey:
Sure. I am a 33 year veteran nurse. I've always worked in the operating room, always loved the OR, went straight from nursing school. My last seven weeks of pre-grad were in the OR, and I loved it so I was there for 32 years, and then actually, yeah, I say that I'm a 33 year veteran RN because I still am holding my registration, but in April of 2021, I actually resigned.
Beth Quaas:
Yeah. What brought you to that?
Angie Bailey:
The stress of being redeployed due to COVID, because of course surgeries were slowing down and then we were being sent to other places, and you know, one might think well, how hard could it be going from the OR to a ward? Well, it was actually very frightening to me. I had suffered from anxiety, and I have always, I think, a little bit of low level anxiety happening.
But when I was sent to the ward, I had a full blown panic attack that has never happened to me before, and it was so frightening. I thought I was going to die. You know, I've heard people talk about panic attacks, but I actually had one myself and it was so scary. I thought to myself you know, I was going to retire within the next couple years anyway, so I decided to resign early, and then I could focus more of my energies on what I really wanted to grow, and that is my business. My side business is now my full-time gig.
Beth Quaas:
That is fantastic, and I will say, for the people that questioned you about how hard can it be, well, those people have no idea what nurses do or what we go through, and when you've specialized for so long, moving anywhere outside of your specialty will be anxiety provoking. But to do it amidst a pandemic, no one knew what was going on, they changed our policies every five minutes some days, it seemed like, so can you tell us a little bit about how you felt? Were you at work when you had that panic attack?
Angie Bailey:
Yes, I was, and we arrived that morning. My manager met with all of us in the lobby of the downtown hospital, so I worked most recently, I've worked in the OR my whole career but I have moved several hospitals over the years, and I'm really excited to say that I've done every type of surgery imaginable, except I have not taken part in organ transplants. I've done organ donations, but never a transplant, so that's the one piece missing. But I've moved all over in order to do heart surgery, plastic surgery, pediatrics, everything, and loved it.
I was most recently working in the smaller community hospital where we did little lump and bump surgeries, and mainly cataracts and cornea transplants, and things like that, so technically I really have done transplants because I've done cornea transplants. But anyhow, from this little community hospital we were all sent downtown to the big house we call it, and so we all met that morning, myself and my colleagues and my manager, and my manager said, "Okay, Angie, you're going to this ward. Heidi, you're going here," sent us all over. She said, "Don't worry. They're expecting you. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, and whatever they need you to do, you will be trained."
Beth Quaas:
Right.
Angie Bailey:
I'm thinking in my head okay, whatever. This is going to be an adventure. I get up there and the girl who was supposed to be in charge that day was actually not there. She wasn't going to show up until later, and the person who was in charge had no idea I was coming. She looks at me and she says, "Well, are you an experienced nurse?" I said, "I'm experienced in the OR, but I don't really know what I'm doing here." She's like okay. At first I was a little uneasy, because she wasn't even expecting me, and she didn't know what to do with me, and she said, "I'll hook you up with one of the other RNs."
Okay. I get hooked up with this RN, and he says to me, "Can you give out this medication?" Then it started, and I'm looking and I'm thinking okay, I know the OR medications, but I don't know anything about these medications that they use on the ward, and as you know, a doctor can give an order, but it's our duty as nurses to say, "Oh, Doctor, this is incorrect." But I could not look at that and say whether it was correct or not correct because I had no clue. I just all of a sudden, my heart was in my throat. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe. I had the palpitations happening and I was like crazy frightened.
I'm like I've got to go to the washroom, and I went to the washroom and I was hyperventilating. You know what? I can't even breathe just thinking about it. I was hyperventilating, so it happened right then and there. I thought to myself they're short because their colleagues, those experienced in the ICU, were sent to the ICU who really needed help. Here they are, they're short on the floor so they're taking anybody they can, and I was a fish out of water, and I just could not handle it. I was in the washroom for a bit, and somebody came and knocked. Are you okay?
I'm like I really don't feel that great, and why don't you go for a break, and you know, it was like an hour into the shift. For somebody like me, I've worked in trauma ORs and loved it, loved it. I haven't worked in trauma ORs since the year 2000, but then in this most recent job, when something critical had happened, which was not very often, all of a sudden I'm ready. It just came back. It always came back to me and I was always on top of it, because I was in my own environment. But there on the ward I couldn't deal with it, and I guess because I'm getting a little bit older, whatever. I just couldn't do it.
Beth Quaas:
Well, that also comes with experience when you know I don't know this and it's not fair to our patients. It wasn't fair to you or any of the other nurses, and that happened everywhere.
Angie Bailey:
Yeah.
Beth Quaas:
I know that you are not alone in what happened to you.
Angie Bailey:
Yeah, I know. It's true. It happened to so many, and so many are leaving the profession. So many are on the verge of burnout, so many burned out, and so many are leaving, and it's just leaving our whole healthcare system in major crisis, sadly.
Beth Quaas:
It really is, and then in the state I'm in, I'm in Minnesota, and we just had our big nurses union vote to strike. On top of already being short-staffed, and I support everyone that is fighting for the profession and for their work environments, but again, we were short-staffed and now what? I'm supporting them.
Angie Bailey:
Now I've got goosebumps.
Beth Quaas:
Yeah, so we'll see what happens. They just voted on Monday. We'll see how this all plays out.
Angie Bailey:
Interesting. Well, I'm in Canada, in Ontario, Canada, and nurses are not allowed to strike here.
Beth Quaas:
Very interesting.
Angie Bailey:
It's part of our union contract, yeah. We cannot strike.
Beth Quaas:
I hope great things come. Nurses need to be looked at differently. We have not been respected for what we know, what we can do, our experience, and so I think this is a real time for change.
Angie Bailey:
I agree, and here in Ontario, our wages have been capped at 1% a year for a couple years now. The government has capped it, and you know, it's like teachers, nurses, we are all very undervalued and I have to say that, not by our patients. The patients, they just are so appreciative and the general public at large love and appreciate nurses and see how hard they're working, but sadly, our government in Canada, and especially in Ontario, Canada, it's not a good situation. A lot of the times, also the institutions like the hospitals, sadly, don't put a lot of value on the nurses.
Beth Quaas:
Yeah. I would hate to be in administration right now, because I know they have it hard too. They're trying to keep things floating.
Angie Bailey:
True.
Beth Quaas:
I feel for them, but a lot is being exposed as far as their salaries go, and any raises that they have gotten, and so I think short staffing is nothing new to nursing. What we go through isn't new, but the pandemic certainly shined a light on it, and so I think that things are coming out and I'm hoping that we're moving in the right direction.
Angie Bailey:
I hope so too. I really do.
Beth Quaas:
How long after that first day that you were deployed elsewhere, how long then did you stay?
Angie Bailey:
That was it. That day, and I spoke to my manager because at the beginning of the day she said, "Please let me know how things go on the wards today," and everything. I called her right after and I said, "Oh my gosh. I had an experience. I've never had that experience before, and I'm questioning what I'm going to do, what my next steps are." I never went back.
Beth Quaas:
Good for you. Good for you for realizing that.
Angie Bailey:
Yeah. It was hard. It was really hard. It was a very hard decision to make because you know, as with any profession, it becomes part of your identity, but you know what? It's the best decision I've ever made. It really is. Didn't feel like it at the time. It didn't feel like it for a few months, actually.
Beth Quaas:
I'm sure you had guilt with that as well.
Angie Bailey:
Major guilt, feeling like I'm leaving them to hang, you know? A lot of that. I think it's a nurse thing, a caregiver thing, a woman thing. We do feel a lot of guilt, and I did, but I don't anymore.
Beth Quaas:
Good.
Angie Bailey:
Yay.
Beth Quaas:
I was just going to ask how long did it take until you didn't, because truly it's all about you.
Angie Bailey:
Yeah, it took a few months. I would say summer time, maybe September, from April until about September, and then I was good, yeah.
Beth Quaas:
Good for you.
Angie Bailey:
Now I'm so happy.
Beth Quaas:
Absolutely. Well, I know that when we spoke before, and I love this analogy, you said as nurses we need to put our own oxygen mask on first, just like in the airplane when you're listening. Tell us about that and tell us what you're doing now.
Angie Bailey:
Yeah. Actually, before I resigned, it was about 2018, I think it was, I retaught myself calligraphy that I had learned when I was young, because actually my doctors were like you know, you're stressed out. Do you do anything for yourself? As a working mom, when my kids were young, it was all about the family and all about work, never about me. I was like, "Yeah. I love art." My doctor was like, "Why don't you get back to it? Start taking painting lessons or something."
I thought calligraphy, I should start doing that again, so I was looking for my supplies and I just could not find them. Eventually I did find them, but those were kind of ancient, so I went out, I bought new supplies. I started watching videos and I taught myself again, and I started practicing, and I was a little rusty at first. Then it started coming more naturally and I felt like wow, this is so calming. But I didn't put the connection together, and then I spoke with my sisters and I said, "Oh my gosh. I'm doing calligraphy and it's just making me feel so good. I'm so relaxed," and they said, "No kidding?" I said, "Well, what do you mean? You don't do calligraphy."
They said, "Well, when you were 10 and we bought you that calligraphy kit, you would sit down for hours where most of the time you were running around like a Tasmanian Devil. Then we bought you this thing." There was a little booklet inside and I taught myself and I would sit there for hours. I didn't put that connection together, but I found wow, this is really calming. I started actually on the whiteboard at work, the assignments, I started doing my calligraphy, and people were taking notice. They were like wow, that's cool. Can you teach us that?
I started teaching in person workshops at the hospital, and then when COVID happened, I started teaching Zoom workshops. They were finding it very helpful as I did, as a calming practice. I just loved that something that I kind of discovered for myself that was helping me, because I would get home from work and you know, you have those crazy days. I would come home from work some days stressed out and then I would just sit down, put myself in my little art room, practice my calligraphy and it would just bring me right down. It made me feel so good that it helped my colleagues as well.
Beth Quaas:
I love that. I love that you brought it out to more people. You recognized what helped you and like you mentioned, you have to buy supplies, but it's not crazy expensive, right, to get started?
Angie Bailey:
No, and actually you don't even have to buy supplies because with modern calligraphy, it can be created with the pointed pen and ink. You've probably seen that. You dip this crazy looking thing into ink and then you write with that, or it can be created with a brush pen. It can be created with a paintbrush. You can do iPad calligraphy, but with faux calligraphy you can get the exact same look of any of those I just mentioned with any writing implement, with simply a pencil and a piece of paper. I have traceable worksheets and I have a faux calligraphy quick start guide that all you need is a pen or a pencil or any kind of marker, no fancy utensils, and you can create the same look.
Beth Quaas:
Wow.
Angie Bailey:
What's great about it is no matter which type of calligraphy you're practicing, what kind of utensils, the strokes are the same with any type, and then the more you recreate these strokes, the strokes combine to form letters, and then you build a muscle memory for it. It becomes a really calming activity because you're doing stroke by stroke, and you're focusing, intentionally focusing on what you're doing. It's not like when you're writing grocery lists, for example, where you're writing really quickly and you're just getting down there because you've got to make this list quick and get out to the store. You're doing it slowly and intentionally, and that's how it becomes a mindful exercise. Another thing I want to say is that you don't have to have good penmanship to do calligraphy.
Beth Quaas:
That's good to hear.
Angie Bailey:
I wish I had something to show you. Of course, people online won't be able to see it, but my writing is not great. Yet I can create some pretty nice looking calligraphy.
Beth Quaas:
Wow, and you can do that for so many things. You can make your own cards. You can make prints. You can do so much with that. I love that you said it's not like making a grocery list. You're truly focused on the art of it.
Angie Bailey:
Yes, and that is why it is a mindful activity because with mindfulness, you need intention, attention, and attitude. You make the intention to sit down and practice. You have focused attention on what you are doing, and most importantly, this is the hardest part for people, is the attitude. You need to have a non-judgemental attitude towards yourself and what you're creating.
You don't want to compare your work to others, and it's a learning process, right? Some people with really beautiful penmanship, when I first go to teach them, they are like, "Oh, this is awful," because they expect that it's going to be beautiful right from the start because their writing is so beautiful. Actually I find people with messy handwriting like myself to catch on even quicker. I say 10 minutes a day, just practicing these strokes, really adds up over time and the muscle memory you build, you see improvement rather quickly.
Beth Quaas:
What are you offering now for people?
Angie Bailey:
A few years ago when I started the calligraphy again and started teaching at the hospital, I thought I want this to be a little side business, so I started that and then I started getting corporate clients, mainly hospitals, that I will teach and so far it's only been Zoom since the pandemic. But now things have opened up so quickly, I'll get back into places, but mostly hospitals where I'm teaching. I do a little PowerPoint presentation about calligraphy and mindfulness, and then we do an experiential kind of practice.
Plus I also have my own company. It's called Angie Bailey Art and Soul, and I teach calming calligraphy. I have a Calming Calligraphy Academy membership where I have a nice little group of ladies. We have a really good community, so it's all about being with like-minded people. As we were talking about before, about we know we need to put on our own oxygen masks, but what would really happen when we're actually in a plane and we have our child there with us or whatever, and nurses, it's like we're always busy looking after everybody else.
Would we actually put on our own oxygen mask even though we know we need to? With this group, we've put on our oxygen masks and we're standing there waiting for others to join us and say look, it's okay. We'll help you and we're here for you, and we want to support you, and we have fun. We're learning the calligraphy, and I'm just so happy that I can now spend all of my time doing this because I was that person that did so much for others, and I still fall back into that. My mom calls and I'll drop everything.
Beth Quaas:
Yep.
Angie Bailey:
You know, she's elderly and whatever, but she is so awesome. She'll say, "Oh, Ange," and I'll, "Yep, Mom, what? What do you need?" She'll be like, "Oh, I would like this, but please." She's never like, "Drop everything." She's like, "Please, do what you have to do and then," because she knows that, and she's very much like that too.
I'm a lot like her in those ways, but yeah, I'm just so happy now because my anxiety level was like this when I was working, even before being sent to the ward, especially with the pandemic, right? Our level should be here, at a neutral, and then we have the fight and flight and it goes up. But then it's meant to come down, but my level was always raised. I had never gone back to that default level. But the more and more that I practiced the calligraphy, it allowed for lots of time, like white space in my head, and it allowed that increased anxiety set point to calm down. Eventually it came back down, because I was at this elevated level for years, honestly.
Beth Quaas:
That is so important for people to hear. This is the picture I get in my mind when you tell that story, and we talked a little bit about how you got into this. It's like a pebble. You're the pebble and you've dropped into this water, and now the ripple effect, because you say you've created the community. Now your community wants to bring more people in to help them, and you're just rippling out and helping so many people. How important is that?
Angie Bailey:
Yeah, and it makes me feel so good. It's funny because you know, when I worked in the OR, I felt like it was an important job. I had that. As a nurse, I felt a lot of maybe I took things too seriously at times. I think maybe it's because I worked in trauma ORs and it was life and death a lot of the times, right? I think that's when my stress level increased and it never really came back down. But maybe I took myself too seriously at times, honestly, looking back, and thinking things like I love art, but how can that be important? Well, it is important.
Beth Quaas:
It is.
Angie Bailey:
Even if I'm not teaching it, even the art hanging on the wall, because somebody looks at it and that painting just makes somebody feel good. The flowers growing in the garden make you feel good, so you know what? Everything is important.
Beth Quaas:
Yes, absolutely. I am so happy that you've found what you love to do, that you're sharing it with others, and you're not just sharing it with nurses. Anyone is open to take your classes, right?
Angie Bailey:
Absolutely, yes. Yeah, actually in my membership, I have a couple of nurses. I have a physiotherapist, I have a surgeon in there, a grief counselor. Then other people that are not in those types of professions, but you know, they identify as caregivers because their moms, or they're taking care of their elderly parents or whatever. But really, it can help anybody. It can help with stress reduction for anybody who needs it.
What's great about calligraphy is if you ever tried meditation, because you know meditation is good for you, but you just tried it but you're banging your head against the wall and you end up more frustrated because you don't understand what it's all about and you just can't do it, calligraphy is such a great entry point into that. You reap the same benefits with this mindfulness practice, reduce stress, better sleep, all sorts of things.
Beth Quaas:
You have something coming up, so the timing of talking to you couldn't be better right now. Tell people what you have coming up.
Angie Bailey:
Yes, thank you. As I had mentioned, I have this Calming Calligraphy Academy membership, and it's a closed membership, so I open it up a couple of times a year. At the end of September, I'll be opening the doors again, and I would love for anybody in your community who would be interested in joining, I would absolutely love for you to check it out. I do have a discount code for you, and since the podcast name is Don't Eat Your Young, the discount code is DEYY, and your listeners can get 15% off of the membership. Right now, actually I will give you links to this, that you could add perhaps to the show notes, so they can click on the wait list and they can get themselves onto the wait list for this. Then when it opens up, they can get this 15% off, and I would absolutely love to have your community members join us.
Beth Quaas:
Thank you, and I think anyone that is listening that wants to join thanks you as well, because that is very generous of you.
Angie Bailey:
Oh, you're welcome.
Beth Quaas:
Like you said, meditation is hard. It is so hard to shut our brains off, but if you just have this task to focus on, that is just for you, it's for no one but you, I can see what you mean about how that would be a little easier.
Angie Bailey:
Yeah. Exactly.
Beth Quaas:
I am so happy that you came on because I know that you're doing great work, and you are really showing people how to, like you said, calm down, bring your stress levels down. What would you share with nurses through all of your experience and everything? What ideas or tips would you like to share with nurses right now?
Angie Bailey:
I want to let them know that it is okay. If they are going to stick it out and stay at their jobs, bravo. But please do take time for yourself. On your days off please do whatever you need to do to decompress. For those of you who cannot take it any longer, give yourself permission not to feel the guilt, and if you need to pivot, if you need to move to another ward or another position within the hospital, or if you need to leave hospital nursing altogether and do something else, you know what? You've worked hard and you are appreciated. You are so appreciated by the public, by your patients, and for those of you who are sticking it out, thank you, thank you, thank you, and do refill your cup, so that when you do go back to work you can give from your full cup to your patients.
Beth Quaas:
Well, you are living proof that you can leave nursing, at least hospital nursing, and still help others and heal others, so I thank you for what you're doing and what you're bringing to other people.
Angie Bailey:
Thank you so much, Beth. I really enjoyed our conversation.
Beth Quaas:
I did too. Thank you, Angie, and again, you can find all of Angie's information in our show notes, the link to get into her academy and how to find her. I appreciate you coming on, Angie.
Angie Bailey:
Thank you so much. I appreciated having this time to speak with you.
Speaker 4:
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Intro/Outro:
Don't Eat Your Young was produced in partnership with True Story FM, engineering by Andy Nelson, music by the Lighthearts. Find the show, show notes and transcripts at donteatyouryoung.com. If your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show, but the best thing you could do to support the show is to share it with a friend or colleague. Thank you for listening.
