on reflections: loving green.

i'm currently on the verge of finishing my 3rd term of nursing, i have less than a year before i emerge from school as a full-fledged RN.

it's weird. i'm unsure whether it's nursing, or if it's mcmaster, but i feel the past 10 months have been the most in my entire university career that i've spent, FORCED, to reflect on myself.

the RNAO best practice guidelines teaches nurses that in order to be a good nurse and perform proper, appropriate therapeutic communication a nurse must know themselves well, where their values and beliefs lie, and be comfortable with themselves. it's only when a nurse reaches this point can they reach out to others fully. this makes sense right? if you can't even love yourself how can you love others?

this last point is something i've always struggled with - loving myself. but with all this reflecting i've had to do, i think there's been more and more time to learn things about myself. i thought i would be afraid of what i'd find, and want to turn away from it, but it's been absolutely liberating.

i think my entire life i spent being who i thought i should be. Because of this, i created a person that i thought people expected me to be. that doesn't make that person i 'made up' any less 'me', but at the same time there were a lot of things i didn't let myself define. and discovering some of these things for the first time are exhilirating. even if it's something simple, i feel like i'm learning about myself... and then learning to love those parts of myself.

random fact #1: my favourite colour is green. 
i used to tell everyone my favourite colour was blue because my sister said her favourite colour was blue. i used to also say i liked yellow because well i wanted people to perceive me as a happy person. i DO like blue (this whole blog is blue -.-) and i do like yellow (it's quite a happy colour), but i think i'm naturally drawn to green. i'm still unsure whether if this is because it has such a natural feel to it, or whether it's like this one book told me that green is a representation of 'life', and because i'm naturally drawn to green, i'm naturally drawn to life. It's also said that green is the universal healing colour as it soothes the eyes and calms the nerves.
either way, i now know i CHOOSE to love green.