Healing through self-reflection

Today, women have an enlightened view towards their life cycles, which is evidence of their healing potential. Women need to share their insights about their healing potential gained through self-reflective processes. Their voices must be heard so that we can benefit from their collective wisdom. The process of healing through self-reflection has begun as a group of nurses share their insights. Documenting the perspectives of these nurses provides the opportunity for other women to learn from and apply this knowledge to their lives.

Through purposive sampling, eight registered nurses, all women, were selected to participate in in-depth, personal, semi-structured interviews. The purposes in this paper are to describe a three-stage (i.e. awareness, critical analysis, and new perspective) reflective-thinking model and discuss the application of this model to women's expressed inner knowledge and wisdom across personal and professional life cycles.

Three themes, signifying their ability to heal themselves, were labelled: Spirituality, Be-ing Versus Do-ing, and Eustress Versus Distress.

Essentially, self-reflection results from both personal and professional stimuli and signifies the need for change so that healing can begin. Recommendations are offered for nurse educators and researchers.