Unit 7 Meeting Asciepius

It was easy to come up with a wise person. My Grandmothers, my great Uncle Oliver, my childhood hero, General Robert E. Lee. It was easy to imagine a comfortable unspoken conversation, my mind with theirs. What was hard and probably needs practice is to imagine the white light from their head, mouth, and heart, attached to me, bathing me with their wisdom, goodness, and strength. I could only be distracted and think of the movie, "The Day the Earth Stood Still", with Michael Rennie and Patricia Neal, with the robot with the light beam out of its head. I can honestly say that the interaction of these people has already occurred. I believe I walk this earth with a little bit of all of them inside of me. They all exhibited outstanding ethics and morals, with kindness and humility. Maybe in a daydream or just thinking as I sat next to my Grandmother shucking corn or preparing green beans for steaming. Or, I walked in my Uncle Oliver's shadow in the Summer of 1968 at the airshow and contemplated how amazing, how thoughtful, how kind he was taking my brother and I to see the aerial exhibits, not knowing of his suffering with cancer. That cancer took his life in December 1968.
In the last couple weeks, I have sat in my car, eyes closed, and listening quietly to Hawaiian music. I was trying to catch my breath or trying to understand how to approach my patient, or how to diminish the distractions from the previous patient encounter. I also found my mind settling into a positive understanding of how to talk with my wife, versus sitting in solitaire approach.
My patients have already benefited from information from the article "5 Paths to Peace."As a wound and ostomy nurse, recently I have had several patients with severe wounds or colostomy issues that required anti-anxiety medication. If at all possible, my patients need to be alert in order to participate in their own independent care. I found the basic breathing meditation very useful for one ostomy patient, who couldn't look at her wound, more or less touch the wound for wound care. Today, we no longer use Xanax and she is on her way to independence with her ostomy.
As a nurse, I need to have the 100% confidence of my patient to be successful. They need to respect my professionalism in order for the health promotion and education that I provide, to be absorbed and demonstrated back, as confirmation of independence. As I approach them with non-conventional treatment and homeopathic solutions, as I explain aromatherapy or visual imagery, I can't be reciting this info as if I'm reading a book. Last quarter, I was pleased to have had the CAM course with Kaplan. A lot of treatment modalities were finally discussed completely and I have incorporated them into my interventions. I now understand that meditation is more than just "close your eyes, and breath deeply." My patients depend upon me to have a full library of interventions for all those thousands of patients I have not yet met. The better I'm trained in spiritual well being, the better my patients will handle their stressful issues.
In my personal life, I hope to turn around the negativity that currently flows in my house. I know that "mindfulness meditation" will open up my wisdom in order to solve my current crisis, and to minimize its occurrence in the future.
Respectfully, Steve Tardy