meditation: dampening the work echo.
By impactEDnurse • Feb 9th, 2008 • Category: reflective practice.Our lives begin with an inspiration and end with an expiration. Every breath in between meters their touching.
You may be surprised at this, but I think that most emergency nurses probably run on equal parts passion, adrenaline and fear.
In an effort to resolve the resulting constant internal momentum, we all need to find some way to dis-engage, to dissipate this momentum once the shift is over. You might think of this carry-over energy as the work echo.
Meditation is one tool you can use both to help separate the signal from the background noise when at work, and to develop a spacious, open internal environment. Free from those hard surfaces that reflect the work echo so well.
Meditation may not be for you. It is boring, it is difficult, it is confronting. But it is also a few other things, things that I will leave up to you to experience.
Yes life is short, but it is deep.
“What we call ‘I’ is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale.
When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door, and we are purely independent of, and at the same time, dependent upon everything.”
::Shunryu Suzuki::
Below you will find on of the most useful introductory clips on beginning a sitting practice:
impactEDnurse is also known as Ian Miller, a nurse with over 26 years experience working in a busy emergency department in, Australia. This site in no way reflects the opinions of that hospital.
All stories (although based on actual experiences) have been changed to protect patient confidentiality.
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thnx heaps, gonna give meditation another go now that I discover that it CAN be boring….thought I was always doing it wrong.
Good to pay a brief visit and see you have put in a plug for meditation. I particularly like “Yes life is short, but it is deep”. Thanks for your writing.