🌿 Why I Do This Work

My path to becoming an integrative psychiatric nurse practitioner didn’t begin with textbooks or clinical protocols. It began with a moment of stillness—and one very scared man.

I was a brand-new nursing assistant on a cardiac unit, wide-eyed and eager to learn everything about medicine. I wanted action. Procedures. Diagnoses. Interventions.

When one of my first assignments was simply to sit quietly with a man struggling to breathe, I didn’t expect it to be memorable.

He was scared, anxious, short of breath, and asked me to sit with him. So I did—no machines, no medications, no heroic gestures. Just presence. After receiving a few doses of medicine, his breathing, and his anxiety, eased. After about an hour, he squeezed my hand and said, “Thank you.”

I was stunned—because I hadn’t done anything.

That moment didn’t make a difference at first, but it stuck with me. Going forward, from then on, I knew in the back of my mind that “being with” instead of “doing to” is a major part of being a healer.

Over the years—as a paramedic, cardiac tech, nurse, and now psychiatric NP—I’ve seen this truth play out again and again:

Sometimes, what heals us most isn’t found in a prescription pad or a lab result.
It’s in being truly seen. In being met, not managed.

That’s the philosophy behind OptiMind Mental Health & Wellness: evidence-based care that honors your story, your body, and your inner capacity to heal. Yes, we can talk meds. But we’ll also talk meaning, embodiment, trauma, hormones, creativity, and what joy looks like now.

Because healing isn’t just clinical. It’s relational. And you don’t have to do it alone.

Lisa Hardy, APRN, PMHNP-BC, CNM