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Furthermore it is the relational aspect of reflecting which makes the
process dynamic.
Bourdieu (1990 p.73) argued: ―What is learned by the body is not
something one has, like knowledge that can be brandished, but something
that one is‖ and is shaped by the interplay between the field and habitus of
practice. While de Beauvoir (1973) suggested the body was ―a situation‖
endowed with cultural meanings. I will show embodied reflexivity can
become an established aspect of a nurse‘s habitus and thus part of the
nursing field.
Previously, when considering the art of poetry I suggested through
performance it is possible to shed new light on one‘s practice. Similarly,
Schon (1983 p.130) described reflection-in-action as an ―artistic
performance‖ responding to the complexity of the experience ―in what
seems like a simple, spontaneous way‖. Here I suggest by considering
nursing as a performance we may become aware and question the
complexity involved in nursing practice and the systems and politics
underpinning it. Consequently, I present embodying reflexivity as a
process that tunes into this while noticing our emotions, behaviours,
physicality, spatial awareness and thinking in the context of caring for
others.
Knowing our whole body is not just an understanding of our emotions or
sense of agency or political actions but is dialectic with the context, and
those we work with. Marion Milner writing about diary keeping in the
1930s, described two ways of looking at oneself: a narrow focus which she
saw as a blinkered view ―with the centre of awareness in my head‖
representing the ―way of reason‖ and a wide focus ―which meant knowing
with my whole body, a way of looking which quite altered my perception of
what I saw―(Milner 1986, p.15). Consequently, I argue embodying
reflexivity is a process of situated social learning and inquiry enhancing
compassionate and collaborative practice, notwithstanding the historical,
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