Nursing Essence:Spirituality

Spirituality in Nursing Practice

In the light of a different nature of service provided by nurses in the healthcare setting, it is no doubt, a vocation and profession in one.  It is a vocation in the sense that kindness and spirituality are important aspects of care. Spirituality in the practice of nursing is beneficial in two ways: first, it enhances a therapeutic nurse-patient relationship and secondly, it lightens up the nurse’s heart as she attends to the most personal level of care given by a stranger to a sick individual, without any relations at all.

 

NursesCare: The Art and Science of Healing

Phases of establishing nurse-patient relationship

 

Physical

Nursing, as a job and profession, was created to make nurses as special assistants to doctors, “to make sure that the doctor’s orders will be followed to treat a patient”. Nurses take vital signs, interview and make records, feed and bathe patients, give medicines and perform routines as basic in an organized environment of healthcare setting. This first contact is special because subsequent or continued relationship will ensue and could make or break a therapeutic nurse-patient relationship.

 

Remember the movie “Titanic”? When Kate Winslet was about to jump to her death, Leonardo DiCaprio spoke to her. What a scenario to start a relationship! However, through Leo’s positive approach, he was able to break a barrier of being strangers and develop a beautiful relationship of friendship and ultimately romance and a beautiful love story. Fiction or not, it’s very feasible. It’s about human nature.

 

Psycho-emotional

In another level of nursing, nurses go beyond the physical. This is when the nurse uses her other skills to start a therapeutic relationship, that is, when the nurse looks at patients as the persona behind the records and the patient responds to look at the nurse as somebody who will take care of them at this time of imbalance between them and their environment, an advocate to them and their health. They’re beginning to appreciate each other ready to start an interpersonal relationship.

 

Spiritual-Metaphysical

This is the ultimate relationship, when the physical and psycho-emotional phases are met appropriately and the relationship gets past behind the physical. They become more advance in the nature of their discussions and interactions. They are now capable of planning together for health and life issues. There is more than trust and respect. There is a metaphysical bond that has been established and they are ready to talk about spirituality, ethics and other idealisms.

 

 

 

Nurturing the hands that care

 

As nurses become more caring, they become more therapeutic. They become healers in one way or another, by either healing a wound or healing a “broken heart”, they can heal! The purpose of this program is to help nurses develop and nurture their healing powers which are not purely innate but a combination of being nurses in a healing environment and their own kindness and spirituality.

 

Searching your own mission

 

After a while of that most active phase of your life, when your career is at peak and your family is growing, you will one day slow down and look for answers to questions that you only know in silence.

Questions will pop out like: How do I pray? What is my mission in life? Is there anything special I want to do? Like most of the leaders and doers, you will search for the answers you would like to know and act upon them.

 

One nurse, my friend Chad, was an ordinary one, very simple. I did not see nor hear of her for thirty years since graduation from college in Manila. When I saw her for the first time, she has definitely changed. She is a picture of a truly acculturated and full-blooded New Yorker; I almost did not recognize her.

 

Again, to me that change is nothing, until I found out what had Chad transformed into. She became very spiritual as she discovered a special relationship with the Virgin Mary of Vailankanni, The Lady of Good Health and how she pursued her mission.

 

Today, I am happy that I met her again, not only as a friend but an alliance to the mission of promoting and nurturing the healers in nurses. We have been doing ministry to the sick and promoting devotion, prayers and unity through the Ministry of Holy Eucharist.

 

 

 

Healing Through Spirituality
Sajid Ali Khan: How to become wise

SAJID ALI KHAN:

In the company of wise men

 

A colleague, who did not know about me before, once said to me as I stop and enjoy taking shots with my camera, “you are like a child, you are fascinated in everything”. Indeed that is how I feel. As I become older, I see things differently and want to find or give meaning to everything. Did I miss these things before or what? 

 

My wisdom tooth may have long erupted and gone, but did it really matter? I have not found the reason yet, I have to ask the tooth fairy in my musings.

 

Life is beautiful, if you can only stop, look and listen to everything around you and become philosophical. Wisdom is a wonderful feeling and state of mind. It is not about yourself, but it is your beautiful mind. Why and how do you seek wisdom?

 

My coach to wisdom is not an ordinary coach: he is Sajid Ali Khan, Grand Master Wizard in the Cloud, Inventor, Author, Creator of a whole new 'wisdom industry' ( How to become wise?) http://knol.google.com/k/sajid-khan/-/2whdi0jnjfq1x/0#

 

If wisdom can be learned, come and follow me. Let us become wise and enjoy what there is in life that matters, to share and lead the world in peace, beauty, and happiness. After all, aren’t these the ultimate reasons for our being?

 

Potri at the breaking of the Fast

Ramadan, Midnight Shift and a Muslim RN

By Myrna D. Santos, RN

 

Potri Ranka Manis, RN is a practicing nurse in NY. She is a Bai Labi a Gaus (Queen) of the 15th Pagawidan of Pat Pangempong ko Ranao.The Meranao people  or people of the lake is one of the 13 indigenous people of Mindanao  who embraced Islam during the 10th to 14th century of the pre-colonial Philippines.

 

Potri is currently living in NY where the number of Muslims and Mosques has increased dramatically within the past decade. She has witnessed the historical destruction of the World Trade Center in NYC on September 11, 2001. She has openly embraced her faith and wore her hijab (headscarf) since then to show support to her people, the Muslim community.”I want to see how many people will cast their stones on me… and nobody has indeed, so far”, Potri says.

 

She works as a night nurse three times a week at Bronx Lebanon Hospital. The midnight shift has contributed to her gentle sustenance during the month of Ramadan as she religiously and unfailingly observed fasting as her dedication to God.

 

She has previously served in the Chaplaincy of the Cabrini Medical Center.

 

Source:

1.877. WHY.ISLAM

www.whyislam.org

 

A Short Story

BURNED BISCUITS By Maria Carlota Recacho, RN

When I was a kid, my mom loved to make breakfast for dinner every now and then.  I remember one night when she had made breakfast after a long, hard day at work. She put a plate of eggs, sausage and extremely burned biscuits in front of my dad.  I remember waiting to see if anyone noticed! Yet all my dad did was reach for his biscuit, smile at my mom and ask me how my day at school was. I don't remember what I told him that night, but I do remember watching him smear butter and jelly on that biscuit and enjoy every bite!

When I got up from the table that evening, I remember hearing my mom apologize to my dad for burning the biscuits. And I'll never forget what he said: "Honey, I love burned biscuits."

Later that night, as I kissed Daddy good night, I asked him if he really liked his biscuits burned. He said, "Your Momma put in a hard day at work today and she's real tired. And besides - a little burnt biscuit never hurt anyone!"

You know, life is full of imperfect things and imperfect people. What I've learned over the years is that learning to accept each other’s faults - and choosing to celebrate each other’s differences - is one of the most important keys to creating a healthy, growing, and lasting relationship.

"Don't put the key to your happiness in someone else's pocket - keep it in your own."

Are you okay?

 By Myrna D.Santos, RN

 

As I was parking my car, from a distance, I noticed somebody curled up and lying by the alley, in the midst of a chilling winter night. I parked my car and then walked towards the apparently human figure. With few steps back, I called to him and asked,” Are you okay? ” Surprisingly, I heard a man, speaking clearly and asked me in return” Who are you, where did you come from?’ He does not sound sick nor in distress, so I told him “Get up and go home!” I don’t know if I sounded authoritative but he got up and started to walk away, I assume to his home. I did not leave just to see if he will fall down or anything at all. Then I saw him turn back towards me and waved his hands as if to say goodbye or perhaps, to say thank you.

 

As I walk towards home, I felt some kind of relief, knowing that I made a difference as simple as that. Could it be that this man was merely seeking attention? Whatever was in his mind, as I felt that all of us, in one way or another needs to be asked sometime.

 

Are you okay?

A Way of Life

This prose written by Max Ehrmann (1872-1945) in 1927, gives us wisdom in our daily lives by describing the way on how we should live. 

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater
and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble,
it's a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit
to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

 

Author - Max Ehrmann (1872 - 1945)

TIDBITS

Stephen W. Hawking (1942)

A Brief history of Time

 

The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.

 

NY Public Library