When Change Comes Full Circle

It’s no secret that I love audiobooks.

If you’ve followed me for a while, you already know my car has become less of a vehicle and more of a mobile classroom — or maybe a therapy session on wheels. I listen to multiple audiobooks a week on my commute. Typically, my mornings are filled with voices that challenge me to grow — personally, professionally, and emotionally. Self-help books, leadership insights, stories about resilience, or strategies for navigating the very situations I find myself knee-deep in at that moment.

Lately, though, my focus has shifted toward one simple yet complicated theme: embracing change.

Now, when I say “embracing change,” I know that’s a broad statement. Change has so many faces — loss, transition, reinvention, letting go, or even rediscovering who you are beneath all the versions of yourself you’ve had to be. And for me right now, I’m standing on the edge of something that feels like both grief and growth — a collision that’s both beautiful and devastating at the same time.

This morning, my audiobook of choice was : Learning to Let Go. And honestly, it felt like the universe placed that one in my queue for a reason.

What struck me most was how each chapter — deep, reflective, sometimes painfully honest — ended with a guided meditation. A pause. A moment to breathe and actually feel what had just been said before rushing on to the next thing. It reminded me how rarely I give myself permission to do the same.

And it brought me back to a memory.

A few months ago, I was sitting in my car after a particularly heavy day at work. The kind of day where emotions ran high, and leadership felt more like carrying the collective weight of everyone else’s pain on top of your own. I remember turning off the ignition, but not getting out of the car. I just sat there, staring at the steering wheel, feeling everything I’d been trying to suppress — grief, exhaustion, and maybe even a little guilt for not being able to “hold it all together.”

Out of habit, I opened my audiobook app, looking for something — anything — that could help me make sense of what I was feeling. The title that popped up was Letting Go Is Not Giving Up. I hit play.

The narrator’s voice said, “Sometimes, release is the most courageous act of strength.”

And for the first time that day, I exhaled.

Maybe that’s why these morning drives and meditations have become so important to me. They’re not just about learning; they’re about remembering. Remembering that even in seasons of uncertainty, there’s space for grace, for grounding, for gratitude.

And then, recently, I had a full-circle moment.

I was once again sitting in my car — but this time, I wasn’t weighed down. I was reflecting, planning, and realizing how far I’ve come. Lately, I’ve been conducting a lot of interviews, meeting nurses from all walks of life. Periodically, I pause between questions, taking in the stories being shared.

The first question I always ask a nurse without hospice experience is, “What brings you to hospice?”

The answers vary — work-life balance, a shift in focus, a search for meaning, a personal connection — but every once in a while, you get that one response that makes you stop and say, “This is a hospice nurse.”

Recently, I had one of those moments. The nurse sitting across from me began sharing her story — and suddenly, it felt like I was looking into a mirror of my younger self.

She told me she’d always wanted to be a hospice nurse but was discouraged right out of school. People told her she needed to “build her skills first,” to try something else before she could “handle” hospice. I smiled because I knew that script by heart.

I was her.

Fresh out of nursing school, everyone told me hospice wasn’t the place for new grads. I shadowed in the emergency room, labor and delivery, psych — trying to find that spark everyone said I should feel somewhere else. But then, one night on a quiet hospice floor changed everything.

The calm. The peace. The presence.
I knew right then and there that nothing could push me away from my passion.

Someone, thankfully, took a chance on me — believed in my heart and my why enough to open a door that’s rarely opened for new nurses. I had applied to be a case manager, but there happened to be an opening on the inpatient hospice unit — the ICU of hospice care. It was the perfect place to learn the true art of hospice nursing in a supportive setting, surrounded by mentors who cared about both skill and soul.

And as I sat there listening to this nurse share her own dream, I realized: I’ve come full circle.

I’m now in a position to be that person for someone else — to take a chance, to create the same kind of safe space that once shaped me.

Because leadership, at its core, isn’t about filling positions. It’s about building the future — especially in fields like hospice, where compassion and courage intertwine. It’s about recognizing the ones who are called to this work, even when they don’t fit the mold.

That’s where growth lives.
That’s where change becomes clarity.
And that’s where I’m reminded — once again — why I do what I do.