I am going to add another resource that has to do with projects I have undertaken in the community. These projects have been designed with specific community groups in mind, and the language and practices recommended reflect these differences. In the past six months, I have worked with a youth group at a local church that is promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion through the “Missing Voices Project.” The youth minister running this project and I collaborated to prepare a mindfulness training for these youth. I also collaborated with a close friend and colleague who works in the hospice setting to provide a training for hospice nurses that applied the mindfulness of touch to nursing care. In both of these projects, I am adapting the concepts of mutual recognition as an ethical framework with an appreciation for embodiment as an often taken-for-granted resource that grounds our care and provides a means for deeper connection with ourselves and others. Once we gain a foothold in accounting for how our body shapes our care for the better, this then increases the likelihood that we can feel joyful and grateful in our caregiving.
I am not in a position of recognized leadership in a health system yet, so I cannot use these tools to make significant reforms in healthcare delivery. I am working on developing the financial analysis tools in a masters of health administration program to gain recognition as a leader. That being said, if I were in the position to make changes, I would emphasize the need for caregivers to connect with and ground in embodied experiences as a way to regularly re-affirm the reasons why they provide care in the first place. This would highlight their personal and collective narrative as caregivers who are responsible for caring for themselves and others. It provide the means by which to hold onto the meaning of the work of caring for others. And it would also provide a basis from which to advocate for greater equity in caregiving for those who do the work, while at the same time serving as a basis for practicing mutual recognition in a way that prevents the dehumanization of persons in healthcare.
