Page 64 - Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring

C a ri ta s P r o C e s se s : e xT e n si o n o f C ar a T i v e f aC T o r s
ideas and question for ourselves how this work speaks to us as a dis-
cipline and a practice profession. Each person is asked, invited, if not
enticed, to examine, explore, challenge, and question for self and for
the profession the critical intersections between the personal and the
professional.
This revised work calls each of us into our deepest self to give
new meaning to our lives and work, to explore how our unique gifts,
talents, and skills can be translated into compassionate human car-
ing–healing service for self and others and even the planet Earth. It is
hoped that at some level this work will help us all, in the caring-healing
professions, to remember who we are and why we have come here to
do this work in the world.

VALuE AssumPtIONs Of Caritas
(AdAPtEd fROm WAtsON 1985:32)
• Caring and Love are the most universal, tremendous, and mys-
terious cosmic forces; they comprise the primal and universal
source of energy.
• Often this wisdom is overlooked, or we forget, even though we
know people need each other in loving and caring ways.
• If our humanity is to survive and if we are to evolve toward a
more loving, caring, deeply human and humane, moral commu-
nity and civilization, we must sustain love and caring in our life,
our work, our world.
• Since nursing is a caring profession, its ability to sustain its caring
ideals, ethics, and philosophy for professional practices will affect
the human development of civilization and nursing’s mission in
society.
• As a beginning, we have to learn how to offer caring, love, for-
giveness, compassion, and mercy to ourselves before we can
offer authentic caring and love to others.
• We have to treat ourselves with loving-kindness and equanimity,
gentleness and dignity before we can accept, respect, and care
for others within a professional caring-healing model.
• Nursing has always held a caring stance with respect to others
and their health-illness concerns.

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