Guest Post & Giveaway Basket from Jordyn Redwood!

It's my pleasure to welcome back to the blog suspense author Jordyn Redwood! Her latest release is Fractured Memory. Also an emergency room nurse, she's sharing with us today about the important topic of resilience. Stay tuned for your chance to win this amazing fall basket of prizes at the end of the post!

(Blog susbribers, if the formatting is still wonky, please click the title of the blog post to read it on the Web instead of in the email. So sorry!)

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What Is Resiliency?

by Jordyn Redwood

If you’re like me, then you’re busy. Not just days upon days of a full agenda but balancing a myriad of tasks and responsibilities. A spouse. Children. Aging parents. More than one career. Stressful jobs. And your down time is used to catch up on life—housecleaning, doing laundry, and maybe squeezing in a volunteer activity or hosting a play date to try and ease the guilt of how you’re burning the candle at both ends. 
    I’m an ER nurse. It’s my “day job”. Though I will say sometimes writing can be just as hard as nursing can be just on a different level. Over the past several months, our emergency department has gone through a little bit of a rough patch. Staff turnover. The overall experience level of the nursing staff as a whole decreasing (which puts added stress on us old timers), and several patient deaths. In reality, a death in the ER isn’t necessarily a surprise but it is a rare occurrence. 
    You could just see it in my coworkers’ eyes. In my eyes after a shift. Bone weary tiredness. But nurses are a proud bunch. We put ourselves in stressful—even risky situations—to care for you and your loved ones, but when it comes to us we’re the last on the list. Some of it (okay, maybe a lot of it) is pride. We consider it a badge of honor almost to not need anyone else. If our patient dies and we turn around and take the next critical patient without batting an eye then we’re strong. We’re still standing. We’re resilient. 
    What I learned is standing up after a crisis—just pushing forward—is not resiliency.
It’s merely survival. 
    The morale of our staff became a concern for the management team of our unit and they invited one of the chaplains to come and do a one hour talk on this very issue. He said imagine an adolescent lost his hand in a tragic accident, but what he really wants to do is play guitar. His father, realizing this is a passion of his, comes and asks him if he wants to keep playing. The conversation might go something like this. 
    “Son, do you still want to play guitar?”
    “Dad, hello, do you see I don’t have a hand anymore?”
    “That’s not what I asked you. I asked you if you wanted to play not if you could play.”
    After thinking it over, the son responds. “Yes, I still want to play, but—”
    “Great. Then we’ll find a way.” And he did.
    In the chaplain’s terms, resiliency is coming through a tragedy better on the other side—not merely standing up, brushing yourself off, and going through the motions of life. But what we know about resiliency is that it’s connected to passion. That in order to lead a resilient life we have to connect with what we’re passionate about to help us through those periods where we are merely surviving. 
    What are you passionate about? Can you think of a way to connect with that passion a little bit every day? For me, though I love writing and sharing my stories, I am passionate about needlework. I know, crazy right? Truly, it is the one thing that relaxes me—where I don’t have any extra expectations from others.
    I’m curious to know what you think. What would you say the difference is between surviving and resiliency? Tell me something you’re passionate about? Does it help you deal with life on more solid footing? 
 

About Jordyn:

Jordyn Redwood is a pediatric ER nurse by day, suspense novelist by night. She hosts Redwood’s Medical Edge, a blog devoted to helping authors write medically accurate fiction. Her first two medical thrillers, Proof and Poison, garnered starred reviews from Library Journal. Proof was shortlisted for the 2012 ForeWord Review’s BOTY Award, 2013 INSPY Award and the 2013 Carol Award. Poison shortlisted for the 2014 INSPY Award and the 2014 Selah Award. In addition to her novels, she blogs regularly at Redwood’s Medical Edge and the WordServe Water Cooler. You can connect with Jordyn via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, her website and via e-mail at jredwood1@gmail.com.

Give-away!

Jordyn is generously offering a loaded basket of prizes celebrating all things Pumpkin and Pumpkin Spice! Only her newsletter subscribers are eligible to win. To subscribe click here. This prize will be given away via her newsletter on November 30th, 2016. Here's what's in the basket:

1. Hand stitched (by Jordyn!!) Pumpkin Sampler Decorative Pillow.
2. One print copy of Fractured Memory.
3. One package Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte packets. 
4. Bath and Body Works Salted Caramel Pumpkin Ultra Shea Body Cream.
5. Pumpkin Spice scented candle. 
6. Pumpkin Spice Candy Corns.
7. Brach's Autumn Mix Candy.

***Pumpkin Basket Not Included***

You are welcome to leave a comment on this blog post, answering Jordyn's questions and joining in the conversation. We'd both love to hear from you! But remember, to be entered for this prize package, you must sign up for Jordyn's newsletter. Again, that link is here.

Happy Fall everyone!