Are you interested in integrating self-care practices into your daily work? Dana Valley, the director of quality management at West County Health Centers, shares her own journey, as well as the short, fun rituals that help her staff and wider community to engage in mindfulness.
Are you interested in integrating self-care practices into your daily work? Dana Valley, the director of quality management at West County Health Centers, shares her own journey, as well as the short, fun rituals that help her staff and wider community to engage in mindfulness.
Here’s where you can learn more about the people, places, and ideas in this episode:
Dana Valley, Director of Quality Management, West County Health Centers
Sonoma Community Resilience Collaborative
The Center for Mind-Body Medicine
CCI Peer Workshop: Taking Time for Self-Care During the Workday
© 2021 Center for Care Innovations. All Rights Reserved.
This is an automated transcript. Please excuse any errors or hilarious mistakes.
Sometimes it can bring up emotions, people cry. I know the first two days I did the shaking and dancing exercise. I got tearful, you know, with what was going on. I wasn't even feeling that emotional state
welcome to the health pilots podcast presented by the center for care innovations. This podcast is about strengthening the health and wellbeing of historically under-invested communities. Every episode offers new ideas and practical advice that you can apply today.
Welcome everyone to this peer workshop. On taking time for self-care during the Workday. And we are so, so thrilled to have Dana Valley from West County health center is to share a little bit about their organization's journey into integrating a variety of self-care practices into their Workday. So. We would just love Dana, if you can say a little bit about yourself and why this work has become so important to you and to West County.
Thanks for having me. Yeah. This is so exciting to get to share some of this with a broader audience. I love how you called it. Richful because in the work that this is all based off of rituals, actually very, very important. And that's what separates the mundane from the special. And I think, you know, when we get into mind, Body mindfulness type of things.
Creating that container of specialness is super important. I have a personal story, which I won't go into too deep, but I got really sick in 2009. And you know, I work in healthcare and I, you know, went to my friends that are doctors and. I was left with basically, you know, being told there wasn't anything that anyone could do that was supposed to monitor and my symptoms and manage my symptoms.
And I started seeking alternatives and that really put me on this whole path of getting into alternative medicine, but also opened up a lot of spirituality, which is intertwined with medicine. And that was surprising. And I didn't understand that didn't realize how important that was. When I talk about spirituality, it's not religion, I'm not talking about religion.
We're talking about our connections, our connection to ourselves, our connection to each other, our connection to our place in the world. That's what gives us meaning. It's what gives us purpose. And I think what's so in our face right now in the current state, is that connection being cut. And for us and for our patients and the communities we serve in going through this, my own personal experience, the thing that's been in my real job, working in healthcare, the thing that's been so in my face is how as healthcare leaders and that's all of us on this call.
We've done such a disservice to our patients, to our families, to ourselves, to the communities we serve by eliminating spirituality from whole person care. And I we're, we're going to see the repercussions of that. We already have my organization, Santa Rosa, community health center, and several other community-based organizations formed the Sonoma community resilience collaborative in response to the fires in 2017.
And. Part wanting to develop resilience in our communities. We were absolutely just devastated by those fires. Since then we've had another fire and floods, and now this, and, but what the collaborative did was brought in the center for mind-body medicine, which is based in Washington, what that organization has done is they've taken all of these sacred practices is.
You know, traditional practices around mindfulness meditation, so many tools and skills that have been used for eons and taught the science behind that. And taught the evidence. They are evidence-based practices and then packaged them made really, um, was able to articulate the language around it. So there's a shared language.
And I say that because, you know, when you dip into, you know, some of those spiritual practices as mindfulness things, you get into the woo and the language kind of gets a little funny. So, for example, a healing arts practitioner might use the word someone's ungrounded, where a psychiatrist would use the word.
Psychologists would use the word they're just associated. And they're both saying the same thing. So the center for mind, body medicine really packaged things in a way to show the effectiveness of these skills and these tools, and then designed, um, and absolutely effective way to get that stuff into a community.
And they've done work in, you know, they went in after nine 11, post-war Kosovo. They'd done big. You know, gone into communities that have had huge tragedies and their technique is to train thousands, to heal millions. So by training leaders, in these community based organizations to then train the people that they serve.
So it's a really effective way, kind of a train the trainer really effective way to like, get these skills out. And then they've also packaged the skills so that they can be delivered in a really effective model. And the delivery is also the medicine and the healing. So it's typically taught in a two hour, once a week session for eight weeks with a small group.
And so that group really forms this connection and it's very, very powerful. Some of you on the call have been through some of the groups. Beautiful, beautiful. So I was honored to go as one of the people in our organization to go through the training and then be charged with. And of course this is, this is also kind of wrapped into trauma informed care and wellness initiatives.
So wasn't like some fun thing to go do to be able to become a trauma informed organization, a healing organization. For our staff and our patients. And so I was then tasked with delivering those eight week sessions to our staff on our organization has committed to having our staff go through these trainings.
And at our organization, we've done a total of six, eight week sessions. We had to cram it from two, yeah. To an hour and a half. And our staff was doing this on the clock. So they actually got paid to attend these, these sessions. Fantastic. Fantastic. Then all this stuff happened, right. And immediately like a two-week session doesn't fit anymore.
And if we can't take them, those tools that all of this mine and body tools and integrate them both for ourselves personally, and get them into institutionalize them in some way, then what's the point. So I personally, totally selfishly, like I needed reminders to meditate and breathe and do my own personal practice at work.
And so started the caring for the caregiver series. Yeah. Uh, I have a question. You said that you started, you were doing it for yourself. So was it only on your calendar at first or did you the very first? Yeah. And then I did my friends at . I was like, I'll just do, I'll use your mill. And then I went through my outlook and like anybody I knew.
Like I didn't do all my contacts. I thought that'd be a little rude, but I started adding other people because as we, as we went in through the first week of shelter in place, it became really apparent in the healthcare system. Like we need some support, we need some serious support. So I just, you know, cold email to people to join in.
And I've, you know, Some people declined. Some people come to client a few times, but that's okay. And I've had some people email me back, you know, the time slots don't fit in, but I really appreciate the reminders what's happened since you started, it sounded like you've got some, it sounded like there were people from other organizations and things that are, you have attending.
Yeah. There's quite a few people on the call who's attended to, and there are a few people who attend literally every single day. I have a retired nurse at home. Who's in that older category age category basically like wants to help, wants to do something. She's sewing masks at home and she gets on the dance priority every single day.
And that's her method of connection. What would be awesome is to be able to do things like this for our patients. I think there's a, you know, there's an acknowledgement that we in healthcare, first of all, need to take care of ourselves and to recognize that these skills are really powerful and these skills have a place in self care in healthcare.
And how do you put meditation into the healthcare system? You know, for patients, how do you put some of that into our healthcare system, where it would ultimately benefit the community? If we're not doing those practices ourselves. Dana, could you describe what you do? The types of sessions you run? Yeah, sure.
Sarah. So every morning, 10 o'clock I open up a zoom room, I play soft music. I'm actually recording every one of those sessions. And then we're going to edit and archive and actually just started a website where we're going to start posting those things, to be able to get out to the broader community as well as our patients.
So as a participant, you would log in. You just hear soft music. And then at 10 o'clock, either I, or, or some of our behavioral health providers have been jumping in and doing a quick 10 minute mindfulness session. So there's, there's like a plethora of meditations out there. There's so many. So it depends on what day and who's doing, it could be some guided visualization.
It could be a body relaxation technique. It could simply breathe, be just being aware of your breath. And you know, a lot of us, we're not in our bodies all day, right? Where up here in our brain working or stressing about things, I can go. All day long and not realize I have to go pee because I'm just sitting here at work.
So there's, there's really value about taking that moment to bring yourself back into your body, gearing you up and you're more productive. You're a better person. You're able to regulate your nervous system better. So that's the 10:00 AM one. And then, you know, there's also something about making things fun.
One of another type of meditation is active or expressive meditation. There's many different types. You may have heard of forest spading, for example. Kind of been a popular thing recently where you walk in the woods and you like walk in a mindful way. So you're like super, you heightened all your senses.
You're super aware of your surroundings. There's all different types of walking meditations. And the one that was promoted quite a bit through the training that we did was shaking and dancing. So indigenous cultures. Thousands and thousands of years ago used shaking and those types of movements sometimes to get into a trance state, very effective for that, but also it breaks up holding patterns in our body.
You know, we're crouched over a desk all day, also holding patterns around emotions. And so taking. Five minutes to literally just shake your body. We all know how good exercise is. You're getting your juices moving around your physical body, but also your emotional state. Sometimes it can bring up emotions, people cry.
I know the first two days I did the shaking and dancing exercise. I got tearful, you know, with what was going on. I wasn't even feeling that emotional state. So shake things up and move things out. The second part of that is then dancing. So you get things, moving, feel how you feel in your body. And then you put on music and you dance.
And the dance requests for music are all over the place. Um, there's something very joyful and then being liberated and being able to move super powerful. And I know for some of the people who joined the dancing, that's the only physical exercise they're getting really, really powerful. Um, and then once a week I've been doing, uh, eating meditation, but not as popular.
Um, but it's an opportunity to use. You've probably heard the phrase, chop wood, carry water. That's uh, you know, everything we do through our day is an opportunity to be mindful, being mindful, just being super aware. And so you could mindfully wash the dishes. You could mindfully vacuum your floor. So you're just taking the opportunity of eating your food, being fully immersed in that experience of eating your food.
So some of you have been on a few of those. So I invite people to bring their lunch and I just guide them through that process. That's pretty, pretty interesting. Sometimes you're not even really hungry, but you eat because it's noon taking a moment to reflect on where your food came from. There's a whole, you know, just being able to sink into the feeling of gratitude is medicine.
You know, what does it feel like to fill your body up with that emotion? What does gratitude actually feel like? We could go into the science behind, you know, all the beautiful things that triggers in your body. We often don't take a moment to experience gratitude. So using your lunch in front of your desk, whether you're at your kitchen table right now, or the office to just take literally 10 minutes and sink in and feel that.
Tina is the lunch one guided or do you give prompts or something? Like where do your food came from and all of that? That's the whole, whole guided thing. Okay. So do you eat your lunch during that? I don't. And just to be clear here we get through one bite of food in those 10 minutes. Okay. Okay. Got it. Oh, I had no idea.
Yeah. I didn't know what it was. So have you heard any thing? I know you said people were like, I really appreciate the reminders. Are there other things that folks have shared? I mean, no, I've gotten nothing but positive feedback. I've had several of our soap. The other flip side of this is we have a lot of talents within our organization around some of these skills, a lot of.
You know, a lot of our medical providers, some of our nurses, certainly our behavioral health providers often teach their patients. Some of these things when they're in the room with them. And so I've been utilizing now these times slots to record other people. It can't just be me, right. Other people. And some of the things that they're teaching and what I'm really excited about is to be able to package that in some way for our staff.
For our patients and for our bigger community around, you know, there's something, you know, we've got all of these patients right now that are stuck inside. They're stuck in their homes and there's medicine. And just hearing the provider that they have a relationships with voice. And, you know, is there a way to capture that and have that available to patients?
So we just brought on someone who's designing a blog style website, just got some editing software will be, I've been recording all of those morning things and then doing some one-offs with individual providers and then packaging that. So there's super quick, 10 minutes. People can't fit and listen for anything much longer than that.
Even in a, in a good state. Then, you know, being able to get that out to our patients, we have, um, patient portal, right. A link to videos can go out and that's cool. Yeah. Our social media. Engaged to this say, you know, we've got, we have at our organization, we have our wellness center. So we have integrative services built into how we're delivering care.
And you know, we've got heart math, we've got yoga instructors. She gone, we got all this stuff in there. So there's a way to like, squeeze that out and get that out to a broader audience. So kind of beyond the mind body package skills that we learned through the collaborative, but you know, going bigger.
Awesome. Dana, thank you so much for sharing with us. Take care of everybody. .