Its a work in progress...

1.       Review your unit 3 personal assessment of your psychological, physical, and spiritual well-being. Reflect on these areas . How did you score yourself on a scale from 1 to 10 in unit 3? How do you score yourself now? Has the score changed? Why or why not?

In week three of this course I ranked my overall well-being as 6 out of 10. This was a result of the negative, self-defeating talk I do to myself. I would say I am still about a 6 or a 7. Only because I tend to still talk negatively about things about myself that I am ashamed of, such as my post baby weight. I feel that when I lose the weight there will be less negative self-defeating talk or I will move on to my next issue with myself.

2.       Review the goals and activities you set for yourself in each area. Have you made progress toward the goals? Explain.

My goal was to think more positively. I would say that I have improved in this area. I have become more aware of myself (and when others do as well) when I am bad-mouthing myself.

3.       Have you implemented the activities you chose for your well-being in each of the three areas? Explain.

As far as my intended goals, I have not implemented any of the changes listed. However, I spoke to a friend at work about my goal, she understood my wanting to change this and found a jar that we call the bad-mouth jar.  Whenever I am bad-mouthing myself I will have to put change in the jar. I would like to use a journal as a fitness tool and a way of monitoring my stress and overall well-being.

4.       Summarize your personal experience throughout this course. Have you developed improved well-being? What has been rewarding? What has been difficult? How will this experience improve your ability to assist others?

This course has been great! I have learned a lot about mind, body and spirit health, especially my own. I would say I am a work in progress. However, I am more conscious of my overall well-being then I was before taking this class. The most rewarding part of this class has been the hands-on learning with being able to do the exercises and techniques taught within the reading. The most difficult part has been making the time to complete everything to the best of my ability. This experience will certainly aid me as well as help me motivate and encourage others to achieve their integral health.

The end of one chapter is only the beginning of another...

Unit 9: Integral Health Plan

I.                   Introduction:

Why is it important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually and physically? What areas do you need to develop to achieve the goals you have for yourself?

It is important for health and wellness professionals to develop themselves psychologically, spiritually and physically, so that they can lead by example. “Our vision of integral health transcends the limitations of all our current approaches to health and healing.” (Dacher, 2006) The vision sought is one that is much more than diet and exercise. “Its goal is far-reaching: a flourishing of body, mind, and spirit that when fully realized will lead to an expansive and sustained health, happiness, and wholeness for ourselves and for humankind.” (Dacher, 2006) When looking for a professional to treat health and wellness issues it is important to look for a professional that is psychologically, spiritually, and physically fit because they are going to be able to provide advice, support, and trusted information in these areas because it has been gained from experience.

I am embarking on a new journey to heal the damages I have inflicted upon myself by not taking care of my overall health (psychological, physical or spiritual health). Changes will be implemented within each aspect.

II.                Assessment:

How have you assessed your health in each domain? How do you score your wellness spiritually, physically, and psychologically? Describe what scale used to score myself in these areas.

Taking a careful look at our current circumstances, identifying the aspects of our life that require attention, determining the specific changes we wish to address, and establishing a program, of integral practice needed to promotes these changes. (Dacher, 2006) Upon reflection, I would consider my current physical well-being to be 5 out of 10. I recently had a baby, and I am still carrying around my baby weight. I work 40-hours a week in an office, where the duration of my time is spent sitting in front of a computer. Nutritionally, I tend to eat a lot of easy-to-fix meals that are not always the most nutritious. Between my kids, work, and school I tend not to have much time for exercise either aside from on the weekends when the kids and I will go for walks or bike rides. I feel if I continue on this path my health will slowly start catching up to me.

Spiritually, I would consider myself 7 out of 10. I do possess some spirituality in my life. I am a catholic and I do believe in a higher power (God). I am compassionate about the welfare of others. I donate to charity (Ronald McDonald House) in what little ways I can regularly. I do not attend church regularly, nor do I pray as much I should.  However, I am aware of my faults and am looking to correct them.

Psychologically, I would consider myself 5 out of 10. I am a down-to-earth, calm-natured and compassionate person. I tend to get along well with others and enjoy making people smile with my sense of humor. For the most part, I am a relatively happy and positive person. At times, I am rather hard on myself (self-doubt), which brings me down.

After taking inventory of the aspects in my life that need changing. I am now ready to define my goals for improvement. “We use this opportunity to envision our most far-reaching possibilities and assess the obstacles to attaining them.” (Dachr,2006)

III.             Goal development:

Be very specific so you can measure. List at least one goal for yourself in each area: physical, psychological (mental health) and spiritual.

Now that I have taken inventory of the aspects within my life that need change, I am ready to define my goals for physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being.

My physical fitness goal is to start by adding 10-15 minutes of exercise into my daily life. I plan on doing this by doing exercises throughout the day. Nutritionally, I would like to add more fruits and vegetables into my diet by snacking on these throughout the day, instead of snacks with refined sugars and saturated fats. I would also like to utilize my skills in the kitchen by cooking one meal from scratch weekly. I would also like to incorporate getting back into yoga classes and learn qui gong.

My spirituality goal is to incorporate more spirituality into my life by reading my daily devotions, continuing to us the relaxation techniques (loving-kindness practices) learned in class, and lastly, attending church at least once a month.

My psychological goal is to do something once a week that makes me feel good about myself by incorporating things that I enjoy doing into my life (taking bath, reading a good book, getting a massage, etc). Lastly, I need to stop my negative mental chatter and change it into positive thoughts.

 IV.             Practice for personal health:

What strategies can you implement to foster growth in each of the following domains: Physical, Psychological and spiritual. Provides at least two examples of exercises or practices in each domain. Explain how you will implement each example.

Physically, I would like to start by implementing 10 -15 minutes of exercise into my daily life. I plan on doing this by incorporating exercises throughout my day. The types of exercises I will include are:

Sitting exercises:

·         Tummy tightening- while sitting up straight, suck in my tummy tightening ab muscles for 25 seconds and releasing.

·         Gluetus maximus- while sitting squeeze the gluteus maximus muscles and hold for 25 seconds and release.

·         Arm toners- prop elbow to comfortable height. Using a water bottle or one pound weights curl each arm 20 times.

Other things that I will incorporate into my daily life to promote physical fitness include:

·         Parking in the back of the lot

·         Taking the stairs as much as possible

·         Walking instead of driving whenever possible

·         Working out in shower doing squats

·         Working out during commercial breaks

I would like to start incorporating a more regular yoga practice once weekly and gradually adding more practice per week as I increase in my strength. Lastly, I would like to learn qui gong by buying a DVD beginners guide. Eventually, as my time eases up I would like to take classes in both yoga and qui gong.

Nutritionally, my goal is to implement more fresh fruits and vegetables into my diet. Instead of snacking on snack foods filled with refined sugars and saturated fats. I would also like to cook one meal a healthy mean once a week from scratch.

Spiritually, I would like to incorporate reading my daily devotions every day. As a way to reflect on how different aspects of my life relates to other aspects. Continuing to us the relaxation techniques (loving-kindness practices) learned in class as a way to reduce stress and anxiety and improve mental fitness:

·         Find a comfortable private place

·         Close your eyes and relax

·         Concentrate on  inhaling and exhaling deeply

·         Image a loved one

·         Experience loving-kindness towards yourself and the loved one

·         Turn the love outward to strangers

·         Experience loving-kindness towards yourself and the stranger

·         Picture someone who is ill and suffering

·         Breathe in their suffering

·         Breath out releasing the suffering

·         Experience happiness, peace, and love

·         Practice this exercise for 15-minutes a day

Lastly, I would like to eventually incorporate going to church more regularly, at least once a month to begin with. As I believe that attending more regularly is an opportunity to receive godly advice within difficult areas in my life. 

Psychologically, my goal is to incorporate doing something that makes me feel good about myself once a week. Doing things to improve my mood on a regular basis and making them part of your lifestyle will more than likely improve my quality of life.  I have listed some feel good ideas below:

·         Read a book

·         Take a bubble bath

·         Get massage

·         Learn something new

·         Volunteer

·         Take mini-vacation

·         Go whole day only eating healthy stuff

Lastly, I need to stop my negative mental chatter and change it into positive thoughts. I plan on journaling to help get rid of the anger.

V.                Commitment:

How will you assess your progress or lack of progress in the next six months? What strategies can you sue to assist in maintain your long-term practices for health and wellness?

Upon completion of this project and the end of this class nearing, I will use this as a commitment to myself to improve my physical, spiritual, and psychological well-being with the techniques and information learned from this class. I plan on reassessing my progress with each goal ever 3-4 months. I believe that ultimately as I grow and evolve so will my goals.

The most rewarding part of this course has been learning new tools and techniques to stay balanced in all areas of my health. This course has undoubtedly helped me in my ability to improve my overall health and will professionally when assisting others in finding theirs.

Resources:

Dacher, E. (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing. Laguna Beach: Basic Health Publications, Inc.

Review the exercises and practice sessions you have completed in this course. (Loving Kindness, Subtle mind, Visualization, meditation etc.) Choose two practices that you have determined to be most beneficial. How can you implement these practices in your personal life to foster “mental fitness”? Provide specific examples.

Throughout this course we have been practicing the meditative exercises and practices, some I enjoyed more than others. Visualization and the loving kindness practices were the ones I was able to identify with the most. This is because I could definitely see these as being valuable to my well-being. The loving-kindness exercise encourages me to simply love others and myself…for I am not perfect nor will I ever be. At times I become so hung up on “if only I were this way or that way maybe my outcomes would be different”. I do know this isn’t so, sometimes I let the self-defeating thoughts get the best of me. However, through I am learning to be kinder to myself and to love myself as I am. The visualization exercise is also very beneficial because it allows me to visualize what and where I want to be in my life. I feel without a vision I would be nowhere. So, I visualize what and who I want to be in hopes that I will make it real little by little within my life. I am convinced these exercises are and will help me form the vision of whom and what I want to be.

I have been implementing these practices approximately 2-3 times per week, sometimes more. I tend to do the loving kindness exercise more because I feel I need to love myself before I can blossom into the vision of my fullest potential.

 Simply just closing my eyes and breathing is more beneficial than I ever imagined it would and could be.

Breath in and out..

1.       Complete the Meeting Aesclepius mp3 (located in the Doc Sharing area). Describe your meditative practices for the week and discuss the experience. Explain how mindfulness or meditation has fostered an increase in your psychological or spiritual wellness. How can you continue to apply these practices in your life to foster greater health and wellness?

After completing the meditative practices for this week, I find myself finding other ways to incorporate mental fitness into my life more.  Just taking a few moments to breathe in and out throughout the day really helps and does wonders for my mood. I never knew how much mental fitness could have such a positive impact in my life. There definitely has been a noticeable change.

2.       Describe the saying: "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" (p.477). How does this apply to the health and wellness professional? Do you have an obligation to your clients to be developing your health psychologically, physically, and spiritually? Why or why not? How can you implement psychological and spiritual growth in your personal life?

I believe this is implying that, you cannot teach someone something that you have not done for yourself.  In regard to my profession, it would be hypocritical to teach someone health and wellness principles when I have not learned all of the principles myself. In order to teach others how to develop health and wellness in their life, I need to apply what I have learned to developed health and wellness in mine.

Am I forgetting someone?

Describe the exercise and assessment process.

For this exercise we were asked to practice the universal loving-kindness exercise and complete the integral assessment from our reading this week.

What did you discover about yourself? What area have you chosen to be a focus of growth and development? Why? What are some specific exercises or activities that you can implement to foster greater wellness in this area?

This past weekend, I have had sometime to reflect and what I am realizing is that I do not take very good care of myself. I take care of everybody and everything else before I even think to take care of me. I find it hard to take care of myself when I have two kiddos (7 years old and 12 months), full-time job, school, etc. I make sure my children's needs are taken care of (school, childcare, homework, snacks, lunch, extracurricular activities, etc.). I make sure the housework is done each and everyday. I make list of all the things that need to be accomplished and I work hard to complete them. However, upon reflection during meditation I came to the realization that me and my needs are nowhere to be found on these lists I make and live by.

So, I have decided to lighten up my list load not so much with the kiddos, but specifically around the housework and take sometime for myself 1-2 times per week to go for a walk, take a bubbe bath, a massage or give myself a manicure or pedicure.

If anyone has any thoughts or suggestion please feel free.

The Subtle Mind vs. The Loving Kindness

1. Compare and contrast the Loving Kindness exercise and the Subtle mind exercise. Explain your experience including the benefits, frustrations etc.

In contrast to last week, I found the subtle mind exercise to be not as helpful as the loving kindness exercise. Unlike the Loving Kindness exercise where there was more guidance from the speaker throughout, I found this exercise to have rather long wait times in between speaking.  I guess, I would of preferred to have more guidance between each of the level, as I did not find it easy to focus my mind for that amount of time, so much so that I wanted to speed up the recording to get to the next speaking part. I even found myself forgetting what level I was on given the long intermission between each level of the psychospiritual flourishing method. With practice I am sure my untrained mind would perhaps be better and not so anxious but as is I would have preferred to listen to the loving kindness exercise over this one or perhaps a cd of just some relaxation music.

2.Discuss the connection of the spiritual wellness to mental and physical wellness. Explain how the connection is manifested in your personal life.

Progressing through the subtle mind three levels of the psychospiritual flourish: witnessing consciousness, to mind of calm-abiding, to the unity consciousness. Since I have started this class, I have found myself taking many breaks throughout my day to just breath to tame and stabilize my mind more, especially at work as the pressure of work tends to be stressful for me.  I know this is going to sound silly, but I tend to get really sad when I see dead animals on the roadways, so much so that I have incorporated from the loving-kindness exercise  breathing in the pains and sufferings of these deceased critters and breathed out wellness and good-will.

Does your mind feel fuzzy?

Describe your experience. Did you find it beneficial? Difficult? Why or why not? Would you recommend this to others? Why or why not?

OK, so for the first time I was able to devote my full attention to this exercise. I laid down in shavasana (dead man’s pose), ignoring every itch, twitch, tinge of pain within my body. Aside from the recording, everything was quite, yet I could hear everything (the kids breathing, the cat licking her fur, the toilet bowl water running in the bathroom). My body was still but my mind was busy thinking of thoughts, most unrelated to this exercise. The recording lady said, to acknowledge each and every thought and let it pass. I though am I doing this right? I almost forgot the instructions each time until she would interrupt my thoughts. I breathed in others suffering and breathed out wellness. I took a breath for my enemies and breathed in for myself. I felt as though my body was at ease but my mind was a mess of thought after thought throughout this exercise.

What is the concept of "mental workout"? What does the research indicate are the proven benefits of a mental workout? How can you implement mental workouts to foster your psychological health?

Research indicates that we can keep our brains working optimally though mental workouts.“Mental workouts,” are tools to boost brain power. Such training might include–meditation, relaxation, yoga, tai chi, mental imagery, cognitive therapy, and biofeedback. These workouts can have many benefits including:

• memory

•focus

•depression

•problem solving

•our reactions to emotions and stress.

•overall health

If anyone has any other thoughts our ideas please feel free to share.

The demise of negativity!

1.Based on your reflections, and on a scale of 1 to 10 (ten being optimal wellbeing), where do you rate your A-physical wellbeing, B-spiritual well-being, C-psychological well-being? Why?

I would give my overall well-being a 6. The problem is that I have negative self-talk. These negative thoughts influence my emotional, physical and spiritual well-being bringing me down sometimes.  I do an effective job of keeping my negativity to myself, however, it takes its toll on me bring me down from time to time.

 2.Develop a goal for yourself in each area (physical, spiritual, psychological).

 So my goal is to think more positively. Hopefully, I can think my way into having positive self-talk. Of course, I would also like to eat healthier, exercise more regularly, get plenty of sleep and do things that are part of a healthy lifestyle but first and foremost I need to adjust the way I feel about myself. And let’s be honest I can’t really be healthy if I’m not happy within my own skin.

3.What activities or exercise can you implement in your life to assist in moving toward each goal?

I have come up with some things I enjoy doing that I would like to implement in my life because I believe these would impact some of the negativity:

·         Engaging in feel-good activities (such as volunteering an organization.)

·         Spend time with others.

·         Exercise more.

·         Keep a journal.

·         Watch funny movies or read funny books daily

These are just a few suggestions that I came up with to boost my mood, and get more enjoyment out of life. If anyone has any other suggestions/feedback please feel free.

4.Complete the relaxation exercise The Crime of the Century. To hear this exercise, click here. Describe your experience. (What it beneficial? Frustrating? etc.) Participate in the Blogs of at least two other students.

During the exercise, I was able to articulate and envision some of the things that were being talked about in the exercise. It did a good job of putting my mind at ease. After finishing the exercise, I was extremely sleepy. Going forward I am going to make a mental note to listen to these exercises for class when I am not quite so tired. Also, why is it called the crime of the century??

Relaxation...is nothing more than a joke in my life!

It seems this class is a lot about creating a stress-free lifestyle for yourself. Relaxation is not my best trait. I admit, throughout the relaxation recording I found myself dozing off into a nice state of much needed sleep. However, it did give me motivation to start thinking about some practical stress and relaxation techniques I could use on a more regular basis in my life.

Here are a few  ideas I have come up with:

·         Go on a mini get-away

·         Gardening    

·         Exercising (yoga, quigong, walk, jogging)

·         Listening to music

·         Reading

·         Bubble bath

·         After snooze

Please feel free to add any suggestions you may have. Thanks for reading!

“Don't take life to seriously. You'll never make it out alive.” ---Bugs Bunny