When a bushfire tore through the Wild Soul Winery on the Granite Belt, southern Queensland in 2003, it not only decimated vines and devastated the local community ~ it sparked something unexpected. For Maree Taylor, a seasoned nurse and world traveller, it lit the path to a new life.
Maree had come to help her sister after the fire. What she didn’t expect was to fall for the handsome raspberry farmer across the road – Scott, a former sound engineer from Sydney who had swapped foreign assignments on Foreign Correspondent for the quiet rhythm of rural life. It could’ve been an episode of Farmer Wants a Wife, and as it happens, that’s exactly how it played out.
After decades of nursing in places as far-flung as Alice Springs and Cornwall in the UK and deepening her passion for yoga during time spent in India, Maree traded city life for a quieter, grounded existence in the Southern Downs.
Fast forward to today, and Maree is not only a Rural and Isolated Practice Nurse (RIPRN) and experienced nurse educator, but she is also owner/director of a yoga studio in Stanthorpe and the heart behind one of the most popular wellbeing programs in the Southern Downs region.
Having worked at Stanthorpe Health Service for over 20 years, Maree has witnessed firsthand the challenges faced by rural nurses in her area, including droughts, bushfires, water crises that saw tankers supplying town water for 15 months as the town water supply dried up, and an agricultural downturn that hit local families hard.
When a staff culture survey revealed that many health workers were approaching burnout, Maree with the support of her Director of Nursing, created Self-Care for Health Care Professionals, an 8-hour workshop designed to support the very people holding their communities together.
“This day is about giving something back to the staff who give so much,” Maree says. “It’s a space where we can acknowledge the stress, we’re under, talk about real strategies to manage it, and begin to reconnect with what keeps us grounded — things like breath work, mindfulness, restorative yoga, and just having the space to slow down.” Staff create a self-care plan for themselves, and are supported to attend through their professional development leave.
Since its launch in 2015, the workshop has become a fixture on the Southern Downs Health Service calendar. What began as a simple initiative to validate how hard staff were doing it has grown into a widely respected program that’s changing how self-care is viewed in our healthcare setting.
“I think we’ve moved beyond the idea that nurses and health workers should just grin and bear it,” says Maree. “Rural professionals face a unique set of pressures, limited resources, staff shortages, and more complex patients. That ongoing stress doesn’t just go away, it adds up.”
Maree is a passionate advocate for the science behind wellbeing. She often shares the work of renowned psychologist and neuroscientist Professor Martin Seligman, whose research shows that happier staff means healthier patients.
“It makes perfect sense,” she says. “When our staff are rested and have resilience strategies in place, they think more clearly, make better decisions, and can bounce back more easily after tough shifts. Our work is grounded in kindness, but that must include kindness to ourselves, too.”
Maree continues to blend her healthcare experience with the wisdom of yoga and mindfulness, offering practical, compassionate support to those who need it most.
“The best part of my job is the people,” she says. “It’s a privilege to be able to work alongside them, and to offer tools that can support them to be not just great clinicians, but healthier, happier humans.”
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