ScribeBytes: Creativity and Resilience with The Reflective Nurse, Natalie Lu
By: Katja Manrodt, BAN, RN, Freelance Nurse Writer with The RNscribe, LLC
Image Source: Pexels
Join The RNscribe to tap into the insights and creative journey of The Reflective Nurse, Natalie Lu, MSN, RN, CPPS, founder of The Reflective Collective. Natalie’s story demonstrates how we can harness the creative process to enhance our current work or explore new career paths.
(Teaser: keep reading for an amazing, tangible, opportunity for creative expression and journaling! Start the New Year on a reflective note with Natalie’s help, right in time for holiday giving season…)
Image Source: Natalie Lu
My name is Katja Manrodt and I am a writer… Boy, do I love being able to say that! Before expanding my career into The RNscribe freelance health writing, I spent over 15 years at the patient bedside.
Our interviewee, Natalie Lu, also has worn multiple hats during her career. She and I first met around 2012 as hospital staff nurses helping families bring new babies into the world. What a joy that has been! However, Natalie’s aspirations didn’t stop there… One of the things I look forward to highlighting through my ScribeBytes blog is the work of innovators like Natalie who have found a creative outlet for their passions.
Today, Natalie works as a Quality and Patient Safety Coach at a pediatric system in the metro area, a professional role she finds incredibly rewarding. She also founded an online community of innovators called The Reflective Collective. The process of obtaining a masters degree—and eventually the COVID-19 pandemic—inspired Natalie to lean even more heavily into what inspires her: connection, creativity, resilience, and helping others achieve their personal and professional potential.
What strikes me most about Natalie is how even in the face of changes or challenges, she has always remained person-centered and reflective. This natural gravitation toward continuous learning has been a theme throughout Natalie’s career.
In this blog article interview, see how Natalie has used the following specific principles in her nursing journey of self-discovery:
Social connection
Reflective practice
Creative expression for resilience
Kaizen Muse Creativity Coaching (KMCC)
Image Source: Pexels
Some readers here at The RNscribe may already be fellow entrepreneurs, health writers, editors, educators, thought leaders, or otherwise living out their professional dreams. Others may be considering changes in new directions, wherever our creativity is whispering in our ears to follow along…
In many ways, we all benefit from inspiration and guidance as we answer our various callings. This journey, my friends, is for all of us!
Interview between The RNscribe (❤️) and The Reflective Nurse, Natalie Lu (💚)
Career Beginnings and New Paths
❤️ Where did your educational and nursing journey begin?
💚 I found the longest, most expensive way to become a nurse! My first degree from Concordia College is communication with a minor in English writing. Ten years into my adult life, I was inspired to go back to school to become a nurse. I completed my associate degree in nursing from the University of Saint Catherine in 2008 and graduated with a master of science in nursing education in 2013.
❤️ How did your drive emerge to start something deeper to augment your nursing profession?
💚 After I completed my masters degree, I knew that I would need a creative outlet in my nursing practice to remain resilient in this profession. In 2014 I started a blog. In 2015, I grew that blog into a small business with a mission to create spaces and places for health care workers to find social connection in reflective practice: The Reflective Nurse, LLC. Ten years later, I’m so thankful to have joined hundreds of fellow health care professionals in memories made in social connection and creative expression:
Conversation salons
Speaking engagements
EMS retreats
Creative journaling workshops
…and more!
❤️ What has it been like exploring an entrepreneurial role after working for years at the patient bedside?
💚 Exploring an entrepreneurial role after working for years at the bedside has helped me to expand my footprint in my professional endeavors. My small business is not an escape route from my full-time work as a Certified Professional in Patient Safety. Rather, the passion projects of my small business complement my practice and fuel my inspiration.
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
Guidance for Professionals Looking to Branch into New Areas
Image Source: Natalie Lu
❤️ What advice would you give to other nurses or healthcare professionals who feel called to do something creative in their careers?
💚 Answer those calls of creative expression! In 2023, I had the opportunity to attend an intensive seminar on moral distress consultation. I learned a definition for resilience that really clicks with following endeavors of creative expression. True resilience comes from the capacity to speak up and to speak out!
Flexing our creative muscles in spaces beyond our practice will ultimately improve our practice of becoming more of who we are, personally and professionally! After all, personal development is professional development. Anything that makes you a better person will make you a better nurse, doctor, teacher, etc…!
“After all, personal development is professional development.”
Image Source: Natalie Lu
❤️ Are there any creative processes you might recommend as people learn more about exploring a new calling?
💚 If you are considering a new calling, I recommend considering creativity coaching! Five years into honing my small business, I discovered Kaizen Muse Creativity Coaching (KMCC). Four sessions of 1:1 creativity coaching fueled the engine that helped me move my entrepreneurial endeavors from hobby to business.
Image Source: www.creatorsprocess.com/blog/jill-badonsky-interview
The KMCC approach applies mindfulness, intuition, and creative self-talk to make continuous improvement through small steps in any creative endeavor, including the creative process of being alive and living deeply.
This year I went deeper in my Kaizen Muse journey by pursuing certification as a Kaizen Muse Creativity Coach. I’ve learned countless tools that have been immediately embedded in how I practice my profession in quality and patient safety, and I’m looking forward to further exploring the journey of using these tools in my own creative endeavors, as well!
❤️ What role do you see the creative process playing in helping people build resilience in the workplace and at home?
💚 At its core, I see creativity as a form of problem-solving. Once you start flexing your creative muscles more, your intuition and expressive potential find new depth!
❤️ From the perspective of employers and workplace administrators, what benefits are there to facilitating resilience and creativity in staff?
💚 Early in the pandemic, I read an article about how “the great resignation” could be boiled down to four words: feedback that goes unheard! Making space to creatively express provides for us to get back in touch with our voice. When employers and workplace administrators prioritize creative expression as a means to resilience, it shows they are really listening.
Image Source: Natalie Lu (pictured: desk calendar for creative journaling)
❤️ What’s coming in 2025 for The Reflective Nurse that you’d like to share with our community at The RNscribe?
💚 I would love to invite the community at The RNscribe to join me on my joyful journey of creative expression!
Here are three ways we can stay in touch:
It’s a dream come true to see my artwork scaled and shared in my second annual *Creative Expression for Resilience desk calendar! With the purchase of each calendar comes the invitation to participate in a monthly creativity coaching virtual workshop. Or, you can simply enjoy (or gift!) this desk calendar, featuring 12 original pieces of artwork by me. 🎨💛🗓️
You are invited to join my caregiver community on Facebook: The Reflective Collective! I post regular invitations to live and virtual events in this community forum, to include all kinds of evidence based approaches to well-being. The Reflective Collective is a community started by multidisciplinary healthcare workers in response to the Surgeon General's Advisory on Health Worker Burnout, but is for all persons who consider themselves caregivers in all fields and functions.
Come join me and about a dozen other creatives at my Creative Expression for Resilience Retreat at Big Raven Farm, April 10-13, 2025! 2025-04-10 Creative Expression for Resilience – Big Raven Yoga
Reach out if you would like to explore the possibility of arranging a personal or group creativity coaching workshop; virtually or in-person!
Feel free to send me an email at thereflectivenurse@gmail.com to request to be added to my mailing list and/or to learn more about Kaizen Muse Creativity Coaching packages in 2025.
Find out More: 2025 Creative Expression for Resilience Desk Calendar (and Virtual Workshops)
Image Source: Natalie Lu (pictured with her creative expression desk calendar)
This year's calendar edition is 6”× 8″, printed on premium card stock with a wood stand, featuring inspiring quotes and original artwork from my sketchbooks.
Each calendar is hand-gift wrapped and priced at $29, (or $25 each when you buy more than one). Cost includes shipping or delivery and access to monthly virtual workshops with The Reflective Collective, guiding you toward a creative expression practice.
Perfect for personal use or as gifts for teachers, caregivers, and teams, these calendars offer a year-round reminder of inspiration and creativity. It’s in all of us!
With research showing that brief creative engagement reduces stress and boosts longevity, treat yourself and others to this life-enriching gift. Order now and enjoy free shipping/delivery, with a special virtual workshop offer just for your team, family, or friends with purchases of 10 calendars or more.
To order, feel free to reach out: thereflectivenurse@gmail.com 💌
Bringing It All Together…
Why is Natalie’s inspiring story as a bedside nurse-turned-entrepreneur so valuable to hear? It represents the lifelong endeavor toward purpose, calling, and community to which so many can relate.
Sometimes this career change is complete turnaround, a 180-degree pivot in a different direction. Other times—like in Natalie’s story—the shift simply enriches an already-existing, meaningful professional role.
Image Source: Natalie Lu
In starting a new freelance nurse writing business as The RNscribe, my own career pivot required me to similarly “flex my creativity muscle.” Instead of shying away from the unknown, I chose to dive with purpose right into the mystery!
This meant embracing the vulnerability of starting something new. I was no longer “just” a nurse who provided patient care (though this title holds tremendous meaning as well); I also became a nurse who writes!
It also became clear through this process that bedside nurses, through the exceptional patient care they provide every day, are also natural built-in critical thinkers, teachers, and leaders… For anybody reading this, you ARE already capable of doing new things, bigger things, creative things!
People like me, Natalie, and perhaps also you need not complete this work in a vacuum. As you saw from Natalie’s interview, there are so many tools available to guide the process.
Reach out to Natalie if you’re in need of inspiration or support! Also, I’d love to have you follow along with The RNscribe to see how other entrepreneurs choose to reach for the stars. ⭐
Happy creating!
The RNscribe, Freelance Nurse Writer
If you’re interested in learning more about hiring a skilled freelance nurse writer, The RNscribe, LLC has you covered! My name is Katja, the experienced nurse writer behind The RNscribe.
Find out more about me and reach out to see how we can work together on your next project. You can also further explore my services, portfolio, client testimonials, and blog.
Together, let’s bring the right health information to the right people!