Completion of this instructional unit denotes a basic understanding of the role spiritual direction has in the personal and professional lives of health care professionals and the ability to engage in personal discernment regarding spiritual direction as an avenue for personal spiritual formation.
Challenge 1 I Challenge 2 I Challenge 3 I Challenge 4
Upon completion of the challenges required for this instructional unit, you will be able to:
- Cite the benefits of working with a spritual director in your current role as a nursing student.
- Cite the benefits of working with a spiritual director as a nurse in primary care settings working with underserved populations.
- Determine if spiritual direction is a spiritual practice you feel called to pursue.
Challenge 1: Spirituality – What Does It Mean to Me?
Close your eyes and think, what is spirituality? What appears in your mind’s eye when you think of the word “spirituality”?
Think about what appears in your mind’s eye…is it in color? What images appear?
Draw a picture of the image that appears in your mind’s eye when you say the word “spirituality.”
To complete this challenge, produce an artistic and verbal expression of your current understanding of spirituality and and explain your drawing by answering the following questions. Feel free to describe stories that exemplify your point. .
- How does this picture describe spirituality?
- How do you live out your spirituality in your life?
- How is your spirituality lived out in your nursing practice?
Challenge 2: Self Care for Nurses
Self Care serves as a foundation to providing spiritual care. It is imperative that nurses employ a routine of self care in order to provide optimal care to others.
Strategies to Enhance Personal Spirituality
Journaling is one technique suggested for ongoing personal spiritual engagement. In this module there are other strategies that are offered. Spiritual Direction and use of the Jesuit practice of the Examen are two additional means of enriching one’s own spiritual life and well-being. Whether it is journaling, spiritual direction or use of the Examen, all require an intentional commitment to tending to one’s own spiritual growth and development. Through working at committing time and intention to one’s own spiritual growth and development, each is establishing a foundation for their ability to be more proficient in the care of the spirit and thus the whole person of the other.
The Daily Examen
To complete this challenge, list the five steps of the Examen as explained in the video and comment briefly on how this prayer practice can be helpful for practicing nurses.
Challenge 3: What is Spiritual Direction
Spiritual direction is a very good method of fostering personal spiritual growth to strengthen a nurses foundation for providing care. You might be wondering what exactly spiritual direction is and what is involved in this practice. Click on the image to view a website that offers insights into what spiritual direction is. While you are browsing the site, begin thinking if spiritual direction is right for you.
Now let’s review terms associated with the practice of spiritual direction to add further clarity to your understanding, starting with the two words that are put together to describe this practice of fostering and deepening a relationship with the Divine.
Spiritual
What does the word spiritual convey to you?
Spiritual as part of the practice of spiritual direction is concerned with the inner life, the “heart.” According to Spiritual Directors International, the personal core out of which comes the good and evil that people think and do. The “head” is a part but the term spiritual points to more than reason and more than knowledge. It reminds us that another Spirit, God’s Spirit is involved.
Direction
What does the word direction convey to you?
In our understanding of spiritual direction, the word “direction” suggests something more than advice-giving and problem-solving. Giving direction implies that the person who is receiving direction is headed somewhere and is seeking to talk to someone on the way, on their journey…It also implies that the talk will be purposeful and not aimless. Sometimes the word “accompaniment” is used rather than direction.
Other ways of describing spiritual direction include:
- Holy listening
- Spiritual friendship
- Saced journeying
In spiritual direction encounters people tell their sacred stories. Spiritual direction is not a new practice. It is actually an ancient process of accompanying people in their spiritual journey toward freedom and peace. Spiritual direction is available to people of all faiths and people who are spiritual but have no religion.
Meeting regularly with a spiritual director fosters the spiritual formation of the directee. Let’s take a closer look at these terms that are typically associated with the process:
Spiritual Directee
- A person who chooses personalized support for the spiritual journey of growing in relationship with God
- May also be referred to as:
- seeker
- disciple
- spiritual student
Spiritual Director
- A historic umbrella term that describes a role of accompanying a spiritual directee who listens for the true spiritual director in the relationship, God.
- A trusted companion who supports spiritual formation and transformation
Spiritual Formation
- A process of building a relationship with God that leads to peace, justice, and living in right relationship with all creation
To complete this challenge, consider whether or not you think spiritual direction is something you would seek out now or at a later point in your life.
Challenge 4: Spiritual Direction and the Health Care Professional
Spiritual Direction can be efficacious for nurses, physicians, and other health care professionals. Some of our esteemed Health Sciences faculty at Loyola University Chicago share their stories about spiritual direction and offer their encouragement for you to seek out spiritual direction for yourself.
Fr. David DeMarco, a physician and Jesuit priest, shares his thoughts on Ignatian Spirituality and Clinical Medicine. Spiritual direction is an integral part of faith formation in the Ignatian tradition.
Dr. Catie Poronsky, Associate Professor, Chair, Department of Health Management and Risk Reduction, and Interim Director Adult Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Programs, offers spiritual direction and is, herself, a spiritual directee. Dr. Vicki Keough, Professor Emeritus and Former Dean at the School of Nursing also has experience with spiritual direction in the Ignatian tradition.Both nursing faculty share their accounts of the value of spiritual direction in their personal and professional life.
In addition to hearing from practitioners about how spiritual direction has benefited their work with patients, you are encouraged to listen to a story about a physician who brought God in with him to visit a patient prior to surgery.
You have heard from others about the influence spiritual direction has had on their personal and professional lives. You even heard how having an inner awareness and a faith-lived life impacted encounters with patients and family.
Now, to complete this challenge, reflect on what you have learned about spiritual direction and what you have learned from others using the following prompts to guide you:
- Discuss the benefits of spiritual direction for you as in your current role as a student, practicing nurse, or other health care professional.
- Imagine how spiriutal direction might benefit you in the role of a primary care nursing working with underserved populations and share your ideas, or even a story.
- Is spiritual direction something you are inclined to pursue? Now or later? Why or why not?