RN Hive Resource: Emotional Safety in Nursing

Emotional Safety in Nursing

Nursing is one of the few professions where you’re expected to be calm, kind, alert, and composed — even in the middle of crisis. New nurses quickly learn how to chart, give report, and start IVs. But no one teaches you how to protect your heart.

Emotional safety is not a luxury in nursing — it’s survival. It’s what keeps you grounded, compassionate, human, and still yourself at the end of a hard shift.

What Emotional Safety Really Means in Nursing

Emotional safety is the feeling that:

  • You can ask questions without being judged
  • You can speak up when something feels wrong
  • You are corrected, not humiliated, when you make a mistake
  • You’re allowed to be learning without being belittled
  • You can say “I’m overwhelmed” without being labeled weak
  • You are treated as a human being, not a machine

In emotionally safe environments, you grow faster, think more clearly, and feel more confident.

In emotionally unsafe environments, you begin to shrink. You doubt yourself. You hide your fears. You stop learning out loud.

Emotional safety is the difference between surviving nursing and finding your place in it.

Signs You May Not Feel Emotionally Safe at Work

Sometimes, the workload isn’t the only thing making your shift feel heavy.

You may be in an emotionally unsafe environment if:

  • You feel afraid to ask questions because of the response you might get
  • You’re criticized in front of others instead of coached in private
  • You feel like you must hide mistakes instead of reporting them and learning
  • Comments from coworkers linger in your mind long after your shift
  • You feel like “a burden” or “in the way” when you ask for help
  • You dread working with certain people more than certain diagnoses
  • You start questioning your worth instead of your environment

These are not signs that you’re too sensitive. They are signs that something in the environment is unsafe.

How to Build Emotional Safety for Yourself

You can’t control every personality or every cultural problem on a unit — but you can protect your heart and create pockets of safety for yourself.

1. Pause Before You Absorb

Not every tone is truth. Not every harsh comment is a reflection of your ability.

Sometimes, someone’s reaction says more about:

  • Their burnout
  • Their stress
  • Their guilt
  • Their lack of emotional tools

Pause before you let someone else’s wound become your identity.

2. Name What You Need

Emotional safety grows when you start expressing what helps you learn and function.

Examples:

  • “I learn better when I can ask questions as we go.”
  • “Can we slow down through this once so I understand it, then I’ll try it?”
  • “I want to make sure I’m doing this correctly — can we walk through it together?”

This is not being needy — this is advocating for your learning and patient safety.

3. Find Your Safe People

Every unit has them:

  • The calm nurse who doesn’t panic
  • The patient nurse who explains instead of shames
  • The tech who quietly teaches you tricks of the workflow
  • The charge nurse who says, “Come find me if you’re unsure” — and means it

These are your “hive” people. Find them early. Stay close.

4. Separate Learning from Judgment

Being corrected is part of nursing. Being shamed is not.

When you receive feedback, ask yourself:

  • “Is this helping me grow?”
  • “Is this about patient safety or about someone’s frustration?”

You can accept the lesson without accepting unkindness as truth about who you are.

5. Remember: You’re Allowed to Protect Yourself

You do not have to:

  • Absorb bullying as “how nursing is”
  • Stay silent when something crosses a line
  • Accept sarcasm as your only form of feedback
  • Pretend that everything is fine when it’s not

You are allowed to need support. You are allowed to ask for better. You are allowed to protect your emotional wellbeing.

What Emotionally Safe Nursing Environments Look Like

Emotionally safe environments are not perfect — they still have stress, high census, and tough moments — but they handle them differently.

Healthy environments often have:

  • Preceptors who teach instead of intimidate
  • Leaders who listen and follow up
  • Teamwork where people step in without keeping score
  • Questions being asked openly — not whispered in corners
  • Staff who check on each other emotionally, not just clinically
  • Debriefs after difficult events

If even a few of these exist where you work, you have something worth building on.

Practices to Support Your Emotional Safety

Here are small, realistic practices that help protect your emotional wellbeing over time:

  • Micro check-ins: Take 10–20 seconds in the med room or bathroom to breathe and ask, “What am I feeling right now?”
  • Post-shift release: Journal a few lines, talk to a trusted friend, or sit in quiet before jumping back into life.
  • Boundary phrases: “I hear you — but I don’t agree with talking about myself (or others) this way.”
  • Limit ruminating: When you catch yourself replaying a comment or moment, gently tell yourself, “I’m allowed to move forward.”

💬 Sisterly Advice from the Hive

Nursing will ask you to be strong — but it should never ask you to stop being human.

Not every day will feel kind. Not every interaction will feel fair.

But you are allowed to:

  • Need emotional safety
  • Seek emotionally healthy coworkers
  • Say “This doesn’t feel okay”
  • Protect the parts of you that make you a compassionate nurse

You can be both sensitive and strong. You can care deeply and still have boundaries. You can be new and still contribute to your team.

You are not here to struggle in silence. You are here to learn, grow, and belong.

And when the world feels loud, heavy, or unkind — remember: You are not alone. You have a Hive. 🐝💜