Reflections

Developing my psychological, physical, and spiritual well being has become a priority  starting this class. Although I have been actively trying to improve all three of these aspects of my life for years now, the meditations and exercises I have learned in this class have helped me to accurately assess my progress in these areas. I have also discovered that it is possible to treat these areas at once and that integral healing is dynamic in it's approach. 

During unit 3 I assessed my well-being in these areas and I rated myself:

Physical well-being: 7

Spiritual well-being: 8

Psychological well-being: 7

I still rate myself the same in each area in Unit 10 although I have gained more knowledge on how to progress in these areas because I have not started my Yoga practice yet for my physical well-being. I have taken the first step to achieving my physical wellness by signing up for a gym membership to start my weight training. I am also in the middle of a move to a bigger home where I will have my meditation and yoga designated area. This will help further my spiritual and psychological well-being as I will be able to practice the exercises I have learned in solitude on a more consistent basis with my own personal space again . 

Throughout this course I have been able to categorize the different aspects of the human experience and what I need to do to accomplish my goals of full human flourishing. I can now explain integral medicine better and I have a better understanding of the goals I need to accomplish to achieve maximum health, happiness, and wholeness. This class has brought about a sense on calm in my spirit and has helped me master witnessing my mind more often than I used to. I now understand the true meaning of meditations and how I can apply different forms of mind-body therapies and practices to constantly evolve into the state I wish to be in. 

Unit 9 Final Project

I.                   Introduction.

It is important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually, and physically to develop a fully integrated life and experience full human flourishing in order to lead others to their goals of integral health. Health and wellness professionals should live and practice what they teach in order to foster trust in their clients and to gain wisdom about the dynamic of integral health care. As I have learned in Dacher’s book Integral Health (2006), human flourishing is ultimate goal of integral health behaviors. Professionals in the health and wellness field should understand full human flourishing through experience to coach someone into a happy, healthy, and holistic lifestyle. An integral healthcare model heals through these three human dynamics and in order for a professional in the health and wellness healthcare field to thrive; they must fully develop their lives in these three areas.

II. Assessment

I have assessed my health using a scale of:

 Great -OK-Needs Improvement

In each are of my life physical, psychological, and spiritual I feel ok in what I am currently doing to develop these aspects of my life but am not fully happy with where I am in each area. (SO I am in the middle of OK & needs improvement). Physically I know I am healthy and strong but I know that I am not 100% happy with my body weight and shape and that I want to improve upon adding more lean muscle to my body. Psychologically I still let these that I cannot control upset and anger me at times but there are also times where I can find myself in control of my emotions and reactions. Spiritually I do not feel as aware and present as would like to be. I would like to be able to recognize others energy and vibrations and become more less reactive and more intentional with my words and thoughts.

III.             Goal Development

One goal I have to develop myself psychologically is to control my anxieties. I often find myself over analyzing situations that have not occurred and over thinking situations. This has lead to self-doubt, fear, and anxiety often. One of my main goals to develop my psychological life is to stop myself from mapping out bad ideas for my life and to immediately turn fearful thoughts into positive ones. My goal for my spiritual life is to gain more awareness of different energies that people give off and to learn how to react accordingly. My ultimate goal in psychological awareness and spirituality is to become more reactive with my thoughts, feelings, and actions daily. A physical goal of mine is to become more efficient in my yoga practice and breathing techniques. I have not practiced yoga in a while since starting my job and I have not progressed as I would have liked to in the past year. I have found that I am losing my muscle mass and strength and that I am not doing the applicable things to keep my body healthy and in shape.

IV.             Practices for Personal Health

In my physical life, I am going to include more self practice of Ashtanga yoga at home and weight training in the gym to maintain my muscle mass. I plan on practicing yoga 5 times a week at home for 20 minutes a day starting. Since I will be moving into a new home at the beginning of the year I will dedicate a space and time to practice yoga in the convenience of my own home so that I cannot have any excuse as to why I am not practicing yoga daily.  I also plan on buying free weights and setting my Wii U game console in my garage for strength training and physical activity weekly. The Wii U console has a great software for strength training and physical activity that I can do right in my home. I plan on ensuring that I get at least 30 minutes of physical activity and strength training 2-3 days out of the week. To develop my psychological life I plan to continue my meditations daily. My goal is to meditate twice daily and to make sure that on my busy days at work, I take a moment on my lunch break, or 15 minute breaks to incorporate some type of quieting of the mind. Another exercise to develop my psychological life is to spend less time on social media. I have already started the process deleting certain applications from my cell phone to make it harder for me to access them but although I do need to have a few for business purposes I plan on making sure I am only using my social media for important business needs only. This will help me procrastinate less as well as to stay more aware of the present moment. Exercises I will use to develop spiritually will be to meditate and to continue to educate myself on energy and chakra healings. Since I am not a religious person but do believe that each individual of this world is a spiritual energy being I will use meditation to develop my own energy awareness and educate myself on ancient spiritual healing techniques. I like to educate myself on different culture’s spiritual traditions and to develop my own based on my findings.

V.                Commitment

I will assess my progress in each spectrum by logging my practice times and writing short reflection blogs. I plan on using this blog to continue my logging of integral exercises and to keep myself focused on the goals I have set here tonight. A strategy I will use to continue to develop psychologically and spiritually would be to keep setting small goals for myself to challenge myself to continue to evolve. Knowing that integral healing is dynamic and that one never quite stops learning is enough for myself to keep aiming the bar higher in every aspect of my life. Physically I plan on keeping optimal health as my overall goal for staying active an healthy and out of conventional doctor’s offices. Keeping the goal of total human flourishing in my mind is also a strategy I will use to stay active and continue to develop my spiritual and psychological life.

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References

 

Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral Health: The path to human flourshing . Laguna Beach: Basic Health Publications INC.

 

Beneficial meditation exercise for me!!

Good day all!!! The 4 meditation exercises that I have been practicing since the start of this class are

1. Loving kindness

2. Subtle Mind

3.Visualization meditation

4. Transcendental Meditation (TM)

The loving kindness meditation required me to sit in quiet and focus on someone or something that made me feel overwhelmed with love. This helped me hone in on compassion and happiness throughout my days.

The subtle mind practice helps you to progress towards psychospiritual flourishing. (Dacher, 2006) The subtle mind practice uses the breath as the focal point and allows you to raise awareness of your thoughts but releasing them as you notice them. This practice has helped me be more intentional with my actions. It has also helped me become more aware of mood changes and to redirect them accordingly. 

The visualization practice was an interesting one for myself. This meditation made me bring into awareness times in my life where I felt extreme happiness, healthiness, and wholeness and to observe and take in the feelings I have when I think of these things. The elation I felt from this exercise carried with me throughout my days and has been efficient in allowing me to be more positive throughout my days. 

The type of TM I practice is completely quieting my mind and focusing on the breath or ambient music I am playing at the time. I practice TM daily for a minimum of 10 minutes a day. This practice has helped relieve the stress and anxiety I may feel about my life. 

The two practices I feel suit my life the best are the subtle mind and TM. Although the visualization practice was a great experience I feel as if I need to master a subtle mind and TM before I can fully reap the benefits of visualizing health, happiness, and wholeness without any distractions. 

The Mind, Body, Spirit paradigm

My meditative practices for the week have included quieting my mind whenever I am doing work that doesn't require attentiveness like washing the dishes or folding clothes, as well as not listening to music while driving and practicing staying present in the moment. Mindfulness meditation has fostered my psychological wellness by helping me stay aware of toxic thoughts. I have become more aware of thoughts that arise which produce fear and which make my mind wander into the unknown. I have begun to notice when I am upset for reasons beyond my control and have been able to stay calm in otherwise seemingly stressful situations. I plan to sit and meditate more transitioning into transcendental meditation where I can sit and think about nothing.

"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" means that one cannot attempt to teach someone something they have not yet learned or experienced themselves. One can know about the benefits of meditation yet cannot expect to show or teach someone else how to meditate without doing so themselves. As a wellness coach, I have an obligation to practice what I preach in order to understand how holistic healing works. If I cannot heal my own mental distresses with integral medicine, I cannot heal others through integral practices. I am trying to implement more yoga practices and meditation to foster psychological and spiritual health as I would like to teach yoga & meditation in the future.

Exercises for Mind-Body-Spirit Wellness and Healing

The loving-kindness practice focused the mind on others and healing others through my thoughts and affirmations. This practice focused on the natural feelings of love I have and projecting them outwards into the world and to others. The integral assessment promoted internal development. The integral assessment had me focus on my inner development and helped me determine what area of my life I needed to work on developing more. As my thoughts of myself began to surface I observed that they are mostly filled with fear of the unknown. I need to develop my psychospiritual life and stay more present as to not allow my thoughts to control the outcomes of my experiences. My fears hold me back from achieving more than I do although I firmly believe that I can achieve all that I put my mind to. I am going to practice for mindfulness meditation and make sure that I take moments out throughout my days to stop and do some breathing exercises. I have also since implemented making sure I stay present throughout my days asking myself "Where is my mind" when I am feeling any type of anxiety, stress, and fear to foster greater awareness throughout my days. 

The key role of thought in wellness and healing

As a mother I try to remind myself that I am my daughter's first and most accurate healer whenever she is not felling well. The loving kindness exercise helped me exercise my level of compassion and led me to reflect on the amazing ways I can help heal others without the intervention of the person or conventional medicine. The subtle mind exercise focused on quieting the mind as well as staying aware of reactive thoughts that may hinder that healing process learned of in the loving kindness exercise. I find it hard to control thoughts of doubt in myself although I do understand that thoughts of doubt are unproductive,
Spiritual wellness is important to the mind and body as the spirit leads the person. Taking note of our mental state can help keep the mind clear of unproductive thoughts which can hinder the spirit and body from their optimal states of flourishing.

Person-Centered Wellness

On a scale from 1-10 I rate my well-being as follows in the following catagories:

Physical well-being: 7
Spiritual well-being: 8
Psychological well-being: 7

A goal  i have set for my physical well-being is to get better at my Yoga practice and to practice at least  5 days a week. I want to get better so that I can teach free Yoga lessons in my community to help others practice applicable mind-body therapies.

A goal I have set for my Spiritual well-being is a daily goal of at least 20 minutes of meditation. I try to make sure I get at least 20 minutes of silent time daily but I would like to become more in tune with my subconscious by listening to my thoughts and practicing intentional thinking and quietness. This will help me achieve a goal of mental wellness for my psychological well-being and allow me to properly control my emotions better than I currently do.

The exercise helped to relax me and actually helped me to sleep better. I was able to completely relax my mind with the breathing techniques introduced and it gave me a few new mantras to complete each day which will remind me of the relaxing feeling I felt while completing this exercise which I have over 3 times already.

"My life has a meaningful Purpose"

http://www.kushs.net/kaplan/HW420/TheCrimeOfTheCentury.mp3 

(You can listen to the exercise here)