Toni Gilbert

As a holistic nurse with twenty years experience, the author looks back at her career. With an eye toward change in health care, she voices what she sees with honesty and proposes changes in the workplace and in nurse’s lives. As a practitioner of the healing arts, she gives you a parable to demonstrate creativity in the art of holistic nursing.

Something happened to me as I neared my fiftieth birthday. I began having a clearer vision of the path I was on. On this path all I knew, my talents, education and skills, which before seemed to be separate interests, were coming together on one strong path, a path of holistic nursing.

Twenty years ago, I had noble ideals and I entered nursing because I wanted to help people. The philosophy of holistic nursing was taught at nursing school and I understood it to be the higher values of this caring profession. Holistic nursing was and is distinguished by concern for patients’ spiritual as well as physical, emotional and relational needs. From traditional nursing school through undergraduate and graduate school I aimed my education at becoming a holistic nurse.

Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, expressed the essence of holistic nursing when she wrote:

“ Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires as exclusive a devotion, as hard a preparation, as any painter’s or sculptor’s work: for what is the having to do with dead canvas or cold marble, compared with having to do with the living spirit---the temple of God’s spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts; I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.”

When I began nursing in the real world I was not only sobered, but sadly disappointed. In the hospital setting, not only had holistic been taken out of healing but healing had become wholly big business. Worse yet, everyone had become so used to this tightly controlled economic structure that few questioned it. Even though there have been changes being made in some parts of the country, the present health care system still remains in crisis. One reason for this is that the body mind and soul of insurance companies is the dollar. They are reluctant to pay for mental and spiritual health. Isn´t it time to teach them to look at health as evolving consciousness where injury and illness is embraced and learned from not just let them treat our bodies and ignore the rest? I don´t understand why we continue to allow this one-dimensional system to dominate health care.

Holistic health is an attitude toward well-being that honors the whole self--- nurturing the heart and soul as well as the mind and body. Any sane person can see that healing requires that honoring the mind, the spirit and the body because, as we all know, they are inseparable.

Another part of the problem is that many hospital administrations cannot imagine a cost-effective holistic department. They worry about where they would get the money for equipment and space not currently utilized in standard medical practice, then there is the cost burden for staffing education, and possibly the increased liability for providing treatment modalities that have not passed the rigors of scientific investigation. Moreover, they are reluctant to fund research in these areas lest they appear less than scientific. Another interesting thing is that every holistic modality that I offer is completely within the scope of nursing practice. Now, I hope you are asking: “ Why are holistic modalities not offered in the hospital setting?” The answer is simple… “market place thinking dominates.”

We are taught early to give up our power to an authority outside ourselves who ostensibly knows more than we about our bodies. For most of us this means our trusted physician because this is what we grew up with and it is the easiest path to follow. Traditional medicine is a very good system---reputably the best in the world has to offer when one is considering surgery and pharmaceuticals alone. Unfortunately most physicians and primary care providers are taught a materialistic or mechanistic form of medicine and are not taught holism outside of theory. They, themselves, are limited not only by their scope of practice but by their belief in the sanctity of a mechanistic Newtonian science, which research in quantum physics is proving to be outdated. Most have never been taught to implement holistic modalities. I suspect most primary care providers not only don’t know how to integrate holistic modalities but our medical system doesn´t require integration. Some may feel that they can make their salaries without holistic modalities so why bother.

This attitude and limited thinking is a symptom of our inheritance. This focus upon the material world is not something that is ours but has been handed down to us generation after generation. In the beginning of human history the world was thought to be wholly sacred. The objects of nature, animate and inanimate were felt to contain the spirit of the creator. Our ancestors knew the creator was not out there somewhere. They experienced the world as interrelated and interdependent---an essential unity. Their world was holistic.

Somewhere a separation happened, --- a dualistic thinking. The body became one thing and the spiritual another. Mental and spiritual health was relegated to care once a week. A symptom of this thinking is that some cannot think about the spiritual in terms of their everyday work, family, school and so on. In other words, the mindset while relatively new in human history is deeply set and that sees us primarily as physical flesh and blood beings. If we are one of the lucky ones, we begin to see our wholeness.

As a healing artist, I felt in my heart that I needed to practice at a holistic level. I needed to feel I was really helping--- that my helping had meaning. After several years, I left the “real world” of the hospital work place and blissfully moved more fully into my work. I moved into a world of creative and noble ideals…holistic nursing.

Holistic Nursing

Caring for oneself is the foundation of holistic nursing. Health is the harmony of mind, body, and spirit. Maintaining health is learning to tune into the many dimensions of ourselves and opening to our potential. We come to understand how self–nourishment and self-development results in better care giving.

In my own self development, and to find meaning in my life, I started from the inside out with inner searching and inner healing. Although I had growing pains, I feel I have gained a deeper connection in myself and to those in my care. My life is rich, full and has meaning. When we find in ourselves the pure, authentic being that we truly are (some call it soul), only then can we guide others in their search for meaning. I found holistic nursing to be a way to walk this sacred path in the world.

Many of us know that we are divinely important. I have to ask you, shouldn’t we hold the workplace to a higher standard of care for ourselves as well as for those in our care? Nurses need to stand up for improved environments to heal the nursing profession and ourselves. We should envision a hospital that adopts a holistic framework and, while were at it, a progressive administration that was capable of creating a holistic department. Imagine multiple disciplines coming together and a broader role for nurses. In my mind, this would take the form of more independent professional nurses and direct reimbursement for nursing care.

As some of us know, illness can be a special time for self-development. In our culture, illness and injury are not entirely understood and are, therefore, not fully appreciated. Many people are finding that the need for healing brings with it a unique opportunity to learn more about themselves mentally, physically and spiritually. They have discovered that their own insight is the driving force behind the growth that occurs when one is ill or injured. What clients need in order to facilitate healing in this way is a holistic nurse included in their plans of care.

The Healing Arts

Usually, the holistic nurse is trained and mentored in the art of one or more holistic modalities (meditation, guided imagery, Therapeutic Touch, etc.). These modalities are more than technical skills; they facilitate intuitive insights. I´ve learned healing arts with the help of mentors and extensive intellectual training, but most importantly through my own empirical experience of them. Likewise, I do not want people to take my word for the effectiveness of the holistic healing arts but to do the work necessary to verify the phenomenon in their own lives. The novice holistic nurse should practice these arts and gain insights relevant to who they are and the particular gifts they bring to nursing.

I wanted to tell you what it feels like working in the healing arts. But I was in a quandry about how to tell you about being a holistic practitioner. How could I demonstrate the healthy harmony with oneself, the creativity, and the conscious participation in life---as co-creator of health, wholeness and freedom for and with another? As I was thinking about how to do this I went for a walk to the building site of my new home.

Because it was under construction there were many places for birds to get in. Once in, they usually beat themselves to death on the window trying to get out. My husband and I found several of their battered bodies lying just inches from freedom. This distressed us and made us sad so we tried to take measures to keep them out. Still, once in a while a flying friend got in.

This time, I went into the house and saw that a robin was trapped inside beating against an upper window. Little did the anxious bird realize that just twelve inches below him the door was open to freedom and the open sky. I realized that all of our efforts and best intentions had failed once again. My heart went out to the poor thing. How could I help it escape? I looked around and picked up a long piece of wood decking that was lying nearby. My intention was to scoop the bird out the open door. As I gingerly slid the decking along the glass behind the bird, he surprised me by leaping onto the edge of it. Slowly and gently I lowered the bird and he flew to freedom.

You can imagine how ecstatic I felt when I saw that robin fly away. I knew I had the answer to my quandry. I saw at once that this experience was akin to what it feels like to practice holistic nursing effectively. Let me explain. When the soul of man is trapped in an ill or injured body, the solution may not be obvious. Holistic nursing and holistic practices provide perspectives and tools with which to skillfully help others seek freedom from the negativity of illness. And like that robin, we help them move through negative conditioned thinking to a new perspective and healing. To the freedom of the open sky.

REFERENCE

Shames, K. (2000), Should Every Hospital have a Holistic Department? "Holistic Nursing Update: A Guide to Complementary and Alternative Therapies". 1, 46-47.

Toni Gilbert is a certified holistic nurse and member of the American Holistic Nurses Association. She has a private practice in transpersonal counseling. Her new book "Messages from the Archetypes" is due out in September through White Cloud Press. Contact information: (541) 327-7749; e-mail toni@tonigilbert.com; and a web site www.tonigilbert.com