How Can My Nurse Help Me Flourish?
🌳 Your health is affected by more than a diagnosis.
🥦 Food matters. 🚶 Movement matters. 🌙 Sleep matters. 🧘 Stress matters. 🤝 Relationships matter. 🏡 Your home and community matter. 🧭 Meaning matters. 🏥 Access to healthcare matters. And sometimes the biggest barrier to health is something nobody has asked about yet.
Flourishing Nursing is a way of helping nurses look at that bigger picture and connect you with realistic next steps.
🩺 Your nurse may help you…
- 💊 understand your health, your medicines, and warning signs to watch for
- 📝 prepare questions before an appointment
- 🚧 name what is getting in the way
- 🎯 choose one realistic goal instead of fifteen
- 🧺 find community resources for food, transportation, or support
- 🤝 recognize when another professional could help, like a dietitian, therapist, pharmacist, physical therapist, or social worker
- 🔁 build routines that fit your real life
- 🗺️ communicate with your care team and find your way through the healthcare system
Celebrating Chef AJ
Good food. Shared laughter. A moment worth keeping.
Chef AJ, thank you for the joy, encouragement, and love of whole plant foods you have shared with me. This memory from TrueNorth Health Center in 2023 still makes me smile.
Nathanael & Chef AJ · A carotenoid-scan moment · Tap the video to play or pause.
Thank you, Chef AJ, for being part of this chapter of my flourishing journey. Here’s to nourishing food, human connection, and making room for joy.
Stay connected with Kitchen Monk™ & Flourishing Nursing™
KEEP THE JOY GOING · CHEF AJ’S OWN YOUTUBE CHANNEL
Keep watching Chef AJ
Enjoy the recorded celebration below, then explore Chef AJ’s own uploads, newest first.
On YouTube, choose Play all to start at the newest available upload and continue through the collection. Use the playlist menu to choose another video; turn shuffle off to keep the order.
The collection opens on YouTube because its current player restricts playback on other websites. Continuous playback depends on YouTube, video availability, and your browser. YouTube updates the uploads list as new public videos become available.
Our vision: make nourishment visible — read Nathanael’s story
Our vision: make nourishment visible
“An ultimate goal of Flourishing Nursing™ and Kitchen Monk™ is to help everyone enjoy God-made whole plant foods so consistently that their nourishment is reflected in their carotenoid scores.
Thank you, Dr. Alan Goldhamer, for making the scanner available to help people learn about their carotenoid status. My hope is that more healthcare organizations and certified lifestyle medicine clinicians will explore carotenoid screening as a routine nutrition measure alongside traditional vital signs. That’s this lifestyle medicine nurse practitioner’s vision.”
Nathanael Elijah Smith, MSN, APRN, FNP-C, DipACLM
Skin carotenoid scores can help estimate carotenoid-rich fruit and vegetable intake. They do not measure overall health or prove someone’s complete dietary pattern; this vision is not a claim that carotenoid screening is an established vital sign. Read the research.
More about this memory
This is what Flourishing Nursing™ aims for
This joyful 2023 moment with Chef AJ captures what Flourishing Nursing™ aims for: nourishing food, compassionate encouragement, human connection, and room for joy. We want people—and the nurses who care for them—to have the support they need to flourish.
Watch the video and read the TrueNorth 2023 story →
A personal memory and an expression of our aims. The scanner reading is one part of the story, not a measure of whole-person flourishing.
💬 Things you’re welcome to say
- ⏰ “This plan doesn’t fit my work schedule.”
- 🛒 “I can’t afford the foods I was told to eat.”
- ❓ “I didn’t understand what happened at my last appointment.”
- 🫂 “I’m taking care of someone else and I’m worn out.”
- 🐢 “Could we go one question at a time?”
🔒 You don’t have to share anything you’re not comfortable sharing. And none of this means your health is your fault. People make health decisions inside real lives, with real limits.
🌻 You can flourish while living with illness, disability, grief, or hard circumstances. Flourishing isn’t about being perfect.
The goal is not a perfect garden. The goal is a living one.
ℹ️ General education, not personal medical advice. Kitchen Monk does not provide clinical care. Please talk with your own nurse or clinician about your health. In an emergency, call 911 or your local emergency number. In the United States, call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
👩⚕️ Are you a nurse or healthcare professional?
🩺 Scripture for the whole nursing team
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
Mark 12:31 · KJV
Excerpt from Mark 12:31, part of Jesus’ answer on the greatest commandments (Mark 12:28–31).
“Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.”
Romans 12:15 · KJV
“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
Galatians 6:9 · KJV
🌿 Nathanael’s reflection: Compassionate care takes many forms: helping someone eat, protecting rest, noticing a change, explaining a treatment, advocating for assistance, teaching a skill, or remaining present when words are difficult. Every nursing role contributes to the care people experience, from nursing assistants, LPNs/LVNs, and registered nurses to every advanced practice, education, leadership, research, coaching, and public health role, and every student. Perseverance in doing good also includes rest. No one should have to give care at the cost of their own health.
Written by Flourishing Nurse Ninja Nathanael Elijah Smith, FNP-C, DipACLM · Last updated October 2, 2026.
