Whether you are a nurse or not, tune in to this important conversation on The Inspired Nurse!

Through honest conversations and the stories of inspiring nurses, The Inspired Nurse celebrates the people, purpose, and moments we’re grateful for — while creating space for the conversations that can change healthcare for the better.

ABOUT Nurse Jenn:

Jennifer Johnson, BScN, RN, CEN, is an emergency nurse with over 18 years of experience, an author, speaker, and nurse entrepreneur. As the founder of NurseAssure, she is passionate about improving nurse retention, supporting early-career nurses, and creating meaningful change in healthcare. She is the author of Nursing Intuition: How to Trust Your Gut, Save Your Sanity and Survive Your Career and speaks nationally about nursing intuition, nurse grief, workplace challenges, and innovation in nursing. Drawing on real-life experiences from the front lines, Jennifer brings honesty, humour, and heart to conversations about the realities of nursing and the future of the profession. She is a wife, mother of two, and lifelong advocate for nurses feeling supported, valued, and understood.

Sam met Jenn a couple of months ago at the Canadian Nurses Association Conference, and after reading her book, Sam knew she had to get her onto the Inspired Nurse Podcast to discuss sensitivity.

enJOY!

Join Sam as she hosts Destiny Johnson, an emergency nurse and volunteer firefighter, as they discuss mental health advocacy, the reality of rural healthcare, and strategies for frontline resilience. Destiny, who also founded the organisation Forward Frontline, shares her experience navigating burnout at age 26 and her efforts to change the "I'm fine" culture in high-stress environments.

Destiny utilises sensory grounding techniques to manage the unpredictability of emergency and fire services. Her protocol includes:

• The 5-4-3-2-1 Technique: Identifying five things she can see, four she can touch, three she can hear, 2 sh can smell and 1 she can taste

• Physiological Readiness: Prioritising breathwork and ensuring a substantial meal before 12-hour shifts to prevent early-stage burnout.

• External Processing: Writing out negative thoughts or speaking with a supportive partner to clear mental space before starting work or at the end of a shift.

The discussion highlights a shift in public interactions and institutional strain:

• The "Uber Generation" Effect: Patients and the public increasingly expect instantaneous, perfect service. This leads to verbal abuse toward first responders when response times or care delivery are delayed by systemic issues.

• Rural Staffing Bottlenecks: In North Alberta, rural emergency departments often operate with a single physician. Staffing shortages create "turning stomachs" for nurses before they even enter the building.

• Retention Crisis: Statistics indicate approximately 60% of nurses leave bedside care within their first five years, a trend Destiny attributes to a burdened system and lack of early-career support.

• The "Two In, Two Out" Philosophy

  Drawing from firefighting safety protocols, Destiny applies the "Two In, Two Out" rule to nursing. The core thesis is that no clinician should enter a high-trauma situation or a difficult shift alone. This necessitates:

  • Mandatory Debriefs: Sitting down days after a traumatic event to process emotional impact, not just clinical performance.

  • Active Monitoring: Learning to spot signs of burnout in others, such as jigs/goofiness being replaced by irritability or absenteeism.

  • Shared Responsibility: Rejecting the "people-pleaser" urge to shoulder excessive loads individually.

Destiny advocates for moving beyond performative check-ins toward tangible peer support. She is an emergency nurse, volunteer firefighter, nursing student, and advocate dedicated to supporting frontline workers and their mental health. Grounded in her experiences across emergency services, she speaks and builds initiatives focused on peer support, collective mental health, and workplace education. Outside of her career roles, she is a performer, a runner, a pageant titleholder, and an all-around creative soul.

Contact her via her website: www.forwardfrontline.ca

Join host Sam Bell as she adds another powerful conversation to this series. Today's Inspired Woman is Michelle Minke, who, in her own words, committed 'brand suicide' as she left a successful stage career as an opera star and followed her intuition to become a spiritual medium.

Michelle emphasises the importance of women supporting each other and the power of intuition in guiding our life decisions. She explains that her work as a medium focuses on healing grief and teaching others about their own intuitive abilities. This powerful conversation touched upon the themes of the mother-daughter relationship and death as a part of life, and the connection we can choose to have with our loved ones even after they have passed.

ABOUT MICHELLE:
In demand as an inspirational speaker, author, podcast host and spiritual mentor- this award-winning opera singer, entrepreneur, community builder, and recording artist wants to connect you with your loved ones.

Professional Timeline:
With her boundless vitality and powerful voice, Michelle performed operatically throughout Europe and North America before returning to her hometown of Calgary where she was the founder and artistic director of Calgary's Cowtown Opera for a decade. Michelle's heartfelt excitement for contributing to the cultural identity of her city earned her a place among arts champions.

Michelle was named as one of Calgary’s Top 40-Under-40 by Avenue Magazine, was a recipient of the Mayor's Enbridge Emerging Artist Award, and was named one of Alberta’s 25 Inspiring Artists by Alberta Foundation for the Arts for her commitment to the arts community of Calgary.

Michelle has been named Cultural Ambassador for the Canadian Women of Inspiration Award by the Universal Women’s Network and was nominated for Female Artist of the Year by the YYC Music Awards in 2018.

Michelle holds a Master's in Vocal Pedagogy from the University of Toronto and is a graduate of the Opera School at the Royal Academy of Music in London, England, as well as the Solti Te Kanawa Accademia in Italy.

Career highlights include creating her two albums; Expect the Unexpected and M.O.M- Opera for Kids, performing La Boheme in the piazza in Anghiari, Italy, singing back up for Sarah Brightman, Headlining in the Calgary Stampede Grandstand Show, Performing with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra with Rupauls Drag Race winner, Thorgy Thor, and performing her opera/hip hop single, Carmen Remix nationally.

After many changes in life, she is now an international medium, shares her story publicly through speaking engagements, and builds community for developing intuitives and wellness retreats. She is just finishing her national tour from Newfoundland to Yellowknife to B.C.

She now only performs from the heart and for fun with her son Max and his friends

To connect with Michelle, take a look at her website www.michelleminke.ca

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Carrie Montgomery is a trailblazer in leadership transformation, blending neuroscience, somatic intelligence, and sovereign self-expression to help visionary leaders create sustainable success. With over 25 years of business expertise, Carrie guides her clients to scale without burnout, transforming stress and overwhelm into calm, aligned authority through Sovereign Presence™.

Carrie has reshaped industries through achievements like selling $100M + in real estate pre-sales and revitalizing New Mexico’s film industry. Her clients—many of whom grow from six to seven-figure businesses—credit her with helping them expand their leadership capacity while maintaining well-being.

Her work has been featured in Forbes, Hay House, and Coastal Living, and she is sought after for her ability to bridge science and embodied wisdom, empowering leaders to build legacy-level impact with ease and alignment.

Find out more about Carrie or Contact her via https://www.carriemontgomery.com

Join Ssm as she introduces a lady who inspired her many years ago as she turned her own experience of pregnancy loss into a mission to assist others....

ABOUT ADITI:

• Aditi Loveridge (she/her) is the Founder and CEO of the registered charity, Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support Centre. She is also the co-founder of Seeds of Growth, Grief Education Inc., a Grief & Loss education program, and the creator of the Microdose Method —an evidence base approach to grief support that steps away from outdated grief processing models. Aditi is also Board Co-Chair of Skipping Stones Foundation, a registered charity empowering trans and gender-diverse youth and adults.
  
  Through her work, Aditi has supported thousands of families on navigating loss and grief. As an expert in the field, Aditi has been asked to speak on the topic frequently and has advocated for systemic and social change at the government level.
  
  Aditi’s fierce dedication to intersectional restorative social justice and equality for all has made her a trailblazer within the bereavement community. Aditi has received given the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal in recognition of her outstanding service and was recognized as a finalist for the RBC Women Entrepreneur Social Change–National Impact Award, celebrating her as an exceptional leader, dedicated to her unique brand of social change, at a national level

Join your host, Sam Bell, in conversation with Psychologist, Angela Normand. They share their own personal journeys through estrangement (no contact) with their family and their personal perspectives on how this has assisted them to understand and know who they truly are at their core. Angela shares her why and how she healed her own religious wounding and cast aside the fear she had lived with all her life.

Look out for Angela's upcoming Memoir "The Fire I became - A memoir of Silence, Rupture and Generational Healing", and contact her via her website www.Infinitypsychology.ca

More about Angela:

ANGELA NORMAND is a writer, registered psychologist, and mother whose work centers on healing generational trauma, religious wounding, and the silence passed down through families. Her forthcoming memoir, Becoming the Fire: A Memoir of Breaking Silence and Reclaiming Voice, explores her journey through estrangement, embodied healing, and the sacred repair between mother and child. Angela’s approach blends psychology, spirituality, and storytelling to support the full integration of body, voice, and humanity.