Connecting to Inner Guidance: Mindfulness Meditation and Transformation of Professional Self-Concept in Social Work Students

This paper describes a unique technique of training social work students: self observation via guided meditation. A workshop was conducted with two groups of students: one participated in a single-session mindfulness meditation; the other participated in this as well as three additional sessions. The workshop trained students in creative focusing while facilitating connection to inner guidance (inner voice). Tuning in to inner guidance is presented as a developmental process and an important source of knowledge about the "self." Students' experiences included various bodily sensations, interactions with a guiding figure, verbal messages or advice, and significant insights. Messages and insights were content analyzed; examples presented illustrate transitions in students' personal and professional self-concept.

Meaning and existential givens in the lives of cancer patients: A philosophical perspective on psycho-oncology

Objective:Many cancer patients report changes in how they experience meaning in life and being confronted with life's limitations, understanding themselves as being vulnerable, finite, and free beings. Many would like to receive psychotherapeutic help for this. However, psychotherapy for these concerns often either focuses primarily on meaning in life (e.g., meaning-centered/logotherapy) or on existential givens (e.g., supportive–expressive therapy). The relationship between meaning in life and existential givens seems relatively unexplored, and it seems unclear how therapists can integrate them. The present article aims to explore the relationship between meaning and existential givens.Method:Martin Heidegger was a founder of existentialism, inspiring both meaning therapies and supportive–expressive therapies. Therefore, we systematically apply his understanding of these phenomena, elucidated by four elements in his central metaphor of “the house.”Results:(1) Walls: In everyday life, we construct ordinary meanings, like the walls of a house, to protect us from our surroundings, wind, and rain. (2) Surroundings (“existential givens”): Confronted with cancer, the meanings/walls of this house may collapse; people may start seeing their surroundings and understand that they could have built their house at a different location, that is, they understand the broad range of possibilities in life, their responsibility to choose, and the contingency of current meanings. (3) How to design, build, and dwell: People may design, build, and dwell in their house in different ways: they may lock themselves in their house of impermeable “ordinary meanings” and deny the existence of existential surroundings; they may feel overwhelmed by all possibilities and be unable to experience meaning; they may build the house as their true home, use life's possibilities, and listen to their true self by building permeable “existential meanings.” (4). Navigator: People may experience inner guidance to navigate in designing, building, and dwelling in this house.Significance of results:Meaning in life and existential givens are intertwined. Therefore, we suggest that it is necessary for psycho-oncologists to address both. Further clinical validation is required.

Inner Guidance: A Conversation With Christiane Northrup, MD

Nurses have an innate power to create vibrant health by tuning in to their inner guidance, which is synonymous with intuition. This means paying attention to our emotions so that they can no longer influence us unconsciously. In this interview, Dr. Northrup provides strategies for tuning in to our inner guidance, balancing our personal well-being with our high sense of responsibility to and for others, and finding space for self-care in our busy, stressful lives as we care for others.