Heart Ground Woman — Harpreet Gujral DNP, FNP-BC
HARPEET SHARES A GLIMPSE INTO BECOMING HER MOST AUTHENTIC SELF over the years and along with her days serving others as a leading nurse practitioner trained in integrative medicine.
“It’s just recognizing that everything is temporary. When it is a challenging time to recognize that, it will pass. When it is a wonderful, pleasant experience, then I just remember to savor it and know that this is also fleeting. Just taking that in as well, which has really helped.”
HARPREET GUJRAL
DNP, FNP- BC
She went to George Mason University for master’s and then studied at the University of Minnesota to receive her doctorate in nursing practice with focus on Integrative health and healing. She has worked as a family nurse practitioner in a variety of settings that includes the liver center, weight loss surgery department at Johns Hopkins Sibley Memorial Hospital and Inova Health system.
She has held several director positions at various hospitals and American Nurses Association. Most recently as a Director of an inpatient surgical unit. This was amidst the COVID pandemic — needless to say, the last few years have brought a lot of wisdom and grace in how things are not permanent.
Harpreet shareD so many pearls of wisdom in our conversation.
As a woman who at just barely 22, found it was important for her to fit in as quickly as possible when she moved to the United States from India. She recognizes that being a science-driven health care provider was important for her to believe in science, but also realizes adopting American ways created a juxtaposition over the years that stopped her short.
In her late 30s, early 40s, she admits that she was just showing up halfway. She wasn't fully present with her most authentic self, what she understands now as the experiences and heritage that shapes her, having lived in two different continents in Asia for 22 years and then more than half of her life in the United States.
She started looking for answers and that led her to mindfulness, meditation, time in nature, preparing whole foods meals, savoring poetry, relooking at yoga, and exploring Qigong. Her insight and knowledge is not only an inspiration, but a revelation in how we might begin our days with more presence.
INTERVIEW
What serves you throughout your days?
A personal takeaway that feels heart-led, that feels good to share with the collective.
First, given that every day we start over, every day is an amazing opportunity, as Mary Oliver will ask us, "What do you intend to do with this beautiful day or with your one beautiful life, while alive?" Every day is an opportunity. I start my morning with a brief spiritual practice. This could be either reading a poem and just pondering over a prose. I am eager to open the blinds in the morning and look outside and make the connection with nature and just spend a few minutes just looking outside without purpose. It's not part of my schedule, but it's just looking to see what's going on with Mother Nature nowadays.
It's just so wonderful. As John O’Donahue talks about nature, and he says that Mother Nature conspires to be working all through the winter for spring. She's been working. She's been hard at work all week long to let us see the beauty in spring. It's just amazing when I wake up and I'm able to appreciate the flowers, the daffodils that are blooming, and the trees that are just beginning to start budding now. Then the sky, just the colors of sky, whether it's Azure blue, as he calls it. Right now, it's like gray clouds with the sparse blue in between.
It's just so easy to do and it doesn't require a lot of time. In the mornings, I notice, this is a peaceful moment as long as I don't pick up my phone first so that I can stay in that trance state of just waking up from sleep and my connection with nature and not having the full on cognitive mind just yet and being in that magical space is wonderful. I also do 4-7-8 breathing, and I tell my clients/patients it's very easy to do. I am happy to share here as it is something I do with all my patients is teach 4-7-8 breathing.
So let’s try —
breathing in for A count of four
holding for a count of seven
breathing out for a count of eight
The tongue is behind the top teeth. We breathe in from our nose and we breathe out from our mouth, but the tongue stays there, so it makes a whoosh sound when we breathe out.
I share this with my patients and note that our Autonomic nervous system has both the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. Sympathetic nervous system is the one that wakes us up to alarm and helps us to get done with all our checklists, gives us the energy to go do things that we need to be done and get our goals accomplished. Parasympathetic nervous system is where rest, digestion, and repair happens. This is where we know we're in a safe place, there is peace, there is safety. Our gut works better when we are much more relaxed and we know we're in a safe place. Most chronic health conditions start with unmitigated stress or imbalance between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems leading to inflammation.
So really, like scales, just measuring scales of sympathetic and parasympathetic and making sure that they're always matched up and not one is higher than the other. Generally, as society, our sympathetic nervous system is much more active, cognitive. Brain is in this body where the body is numb, we can be oblivious to what's going on in the body. So the body seems like a vehicle for the brain to be carried around. I did use that for quite some time.
I thought, "I don't need to listen to this body as long as my brain can go where it needs to go," and then to wake up and learn self-compassion skills, the work of Kristin Neff and Chris Germer. I attended their training on Mindful Self-Compassion twice. It was profound to really appreciate and start to notice that self-compassion has to be cultivated before I can be present with my patients, with others. So now I can sit in, like you said, in the room, how do I cultivate that? How do I generate that energy for people to feel in a safe space where people might share things that they have not shared with others or bring awareness to themselves.
Waking up to their intuition in a sacred space
that needs to be created and cultivated.
So it's constantly checking in with how I am doing, checking in with my own practice. I prqctice mirror technique taught by. Robert Holden, Going to the bathroom looking in the mirror, you look in your eyes and you ask, "How are you? How are you, dear?"
In the beginning, it was like, "Oh my God! Look at this face, it's asymmetric, the nose isn't right. The eyes were like this or, that." Now, over several years I am at a place where I can look in my eyes and go, "Harpreet, how are you? I love you, and I'm so proud of you, and I'm here for you." It takes just 30 seconds extra in the bathroom before brushing our teeth, grooming ourselves, and just 30 seconds of connecting with the body, for the body to know that it's being listened to, it's being attended to, where the body doesn't have to create symptoms to get our attention.
The body can just whisper and we can pay attention versus it has to yell at some point, which is a big manifestation of a medical condition. 70% of chronic conditions happen because of our lifestyle. Whether we're not sleeping well, not eating well, exercising, moving, the thoughts, how the mind works, the lack of self-compassion. All that can result in chronic diseases, close to 70% of diseases are secondary to our lifestyle. Self-compassion is part of our lifestyle. It has to be. Right?
Absolutely, and knowing that it's okay if we're not ready to just say that I love you to myself in the mirror. It's okay. Take some time. But every small progress is progress in the right direction. Humble beginnings, starting small, and it's okay. It's a work in progress. It's just a reminder because a lot of us are walking around telling ourselves about being imposters and imperfect and not being okay with it. I am called to help clients cultivate self-empowerment, being present with them, they are listened to with minimal interruptions This allows people to feel empowered to make lifestyle changes, and they're able to speak their truth. Okay, so I start to feel better about myself. I can put these, install these small things in place, like 4-7-8 breathing, looking in the mirror and saying, "Hello” to myself with compassion.
I don't have to say I love you if I'm not ready. I can just smile like a fellow person in front of me, and that's enough. But being okay with where we are in this moment and not wanting to be like when I am that 10 pounds lighter, when I am loving myself fully is when I'm going to be happy, when I'm going to start life. Starting with where we are today and saying, "You know what? Yeah, this is a great start. I'm here. I'm satisfied. I'm empowered by the changes I'm making."
Gratitude is another favorite practice . You can sit just before starting a meal and look at the food and just be grateful for all the colors and how the food has gotten here. With your abundance and with so many people who are involved in getting this food on the plate that we're eating now, that we're savoring now, that's going to feed the body and feed the gut microbiome and get us healthier.
Just savoring that, it could be a moment for 4-7-8 breathing, a time for practicing gratitude and saying, "I'm so grateful." Then we know our gut is much better aptly at receiving the nourishment and take it from there. So there is a huge component of how we sit to eat and what is the narrative when we are sitting to eat?