Donna Frost

Discussion and conclusions 257 8 artistry. Our process focused instead on uncovering and coming to understand what was actually happening in our work and creating the conditions in which something more could happen (cf. Rowan & Reason, 1981 ; Parse, 1998 ; Senge et al., 2005 ; McCormack & Titchen, 2014 ). The CCCI process itself helped us to redirect our energy and create room for other ways of being. While professional artistry was certainly present in the practice of expert nurses within situations inwhich they felt very competent and confident, it was also evident in the practice of less expert nurses and during situations in which the nurse, expert or otherwise, was struggling to know what to do or facing a particular practice challenge. The inquiry showed the development of professional artistry to be, then, both incremental and sudden. A suddden insight could feel overpowering and stop us in our tracks. Yet before the new insight was embodied and had become part of the practitioner’s newway of being, there needed to be chances created and taken, conditions created and help or support from self or others to push at boundaries and create a new habit of action. Learning to intentionally develop professional artistry required a commitment therefore, beforewe began seeing results, to embracing different ways of being and viewing the world, and being willing to work consciously with the body. Openness to and engaging in these kind of processes meant taking risks and running up against boundaries, often boundaries we had unknowingly created and maintained ourselves, as illustrated in in the account in Chapter 5 of not wanting to look foolish in front of our colleagues. This process often felt like a struggle, for example with respect to recognising the professional artistry in our own practice and feeling confident enough to claim it – the first milestone described in Chapter 7 . In this and other respects we experienced the changes in our embodied experience of practice and of our professional artistry as incremental. Being incremental in nature suggested to us at the time that the alterations were not really that profound. Yet when we re-visited the data from early in the inquiry it became evident to us just how far we had come and that we had become transformed. The changes were evident in our practices and ways of being and doing, as demonstrated in Chapters 5 , 6 and 7 . At the same time we came to recognise that the potential for these ways of working, doing and being was carried within us from the first moment. We were therefore both the same and changed. This was a paradox.