Santa Clara Meditation The Meaning of Life – I Became A Better Nurse To My Patients Through Meditation
Mi Han Kim / Kyung-Il University, Department of Nursing Professor
I became a professor at the relatively young age of thirty. At the time, I was so happy that I was able to achieve my dream of teaching on a college level so early in life. But that happiness was short-lived and soon I was dissatisfied with my life once again. I’ve always envied those around me and I’ve always found myself looking for more and more goals to achieve. I couldn’t really become satisfied with anything I did because I lived constantly competing with and comparing myself to others. I thought this can’t be what life is all about. Then, when I was in graduate school, a fellow professor gave me a book about meditation at the end of the semester and I began meditating during that summer vacation.
I was an arrogant professor who forced students to follow the way I Taught
I always made a weekly and a monthly plan. Even when I was working three shifts as a nurse, I had all 24 hours of my day planned out with work, sleep and study. When I became a professor, I continued to plan the same way. I had class preparation, school work, student counseling and so much more which created my whirlwind lifestyle. To me, the job of a nurse is to dedicate yourself to others, but I became frustrated that I wasn’t getting as much recognition as the doctors were. I began dreaming up a plan to become a professor, thinking that job title would give me the respect I was seeking.
As a professor, I was frustrated because my students didn’t listen and follow my teaching very well. I used to tell them that they had to have good grades to stand out and get a job in a decent hospital. I wanted my students to live by my standards of status and honor. I always assumed I was right and forced my ideas on students. In my mind, I thought my lectures were great. I had little patience and less humility.
When I began this meditation that summer, I started to realize how I’d lived and treated others. I started to feel ashamed that I lived and behaved that way. But now, through this meditation method, I could begin to throw away all of my minds of arrogance and competitiveness.
This meditation is absolutely essential course for nurses who need humility and composure
After meditating that summer, I realized that I’d lived my life only thinking of myself and that I was hurting those around me. This became my daily repentance. If you think about it, nurses are usually the first patient contact in urgent care situations. So, above all, I realized how important it was to dedicate myself to ignoring my self and only focus on my patients’ needs. If I am tired, that should not be something the patient should sense. A patient’s needs always comes first. For this very reason, I realized that no matter how anxious or irritated or angry I may be, I have to have
The best thing about practicing this meditation to me is that when I really enlightened, I knew that everyone is the oneness, so now I always have the confidence to resolve any fundamental problems with my working relationships. I’m more than just a nurse who is technically good at nursing care, I’m also a nurse who can accept patients as they are.composure.
After all, the reason that we’re here on this earth isn’t just to eat and live and then die. We’re here to live for others. I want to be a person who helps people. That’s the real meaning of life to me. If we developed a nursing program with this meditation, nurses would be able to help patients with a truly pure heart and give them the best comfort during their most difficult moments.
