On to the next phase of my journey (Unit 10 post)

Reviewing my unit 3 post was an interesting reflection exercise.  It is hard to believe that we completed those assessments over 6 weeks ago.  That seems like enough time to make some changes but I did not really change too much.  My ratings for psychological and spiritual wellness are the same, 7 and 8 respectively.  I would increase my physical wellness score from a 5 to a 6 because I have improved in this area.  I believe my physical wellness has improved because I have made small changes to my exercise routine and my eating habits and they seem to be making a difference.  Though I feel as though I have improved in my awareness for psychological and spiritual health, I do not feel like I made any significant steps that would increase my score.

Goal review – self-honesty time… this is the toughest part because goals are set with the best of intentions…

Physical – I regret to report that I have not implemented the activity I chose and thus have not made great progress toward my goal.  This is the thing I struggle with most!  I know that if I log my food I will benefit in the end, it is just so time consuming.  I have improved though because I have started drinking more water, reducing my snacks, and reducing my dinner size.

Spiritual – I do feel as though I have made a little progress toward expanding my spiritual knowledge.  I have also had the opportunity to do some additional reading and to talk to others about their spiritual beliefs.  This has helped me to be more mindful of my own spirituality and I have actually started to pray more often.

Psychological – Though I have not started keeping a journal as I had hoped, I have made progress toward reaching my goal.  I have definitely improved my confidence and reduced the negative self-talk.  I have accomplished this by stopping myself every time a negative thought pops into my head and forcing myself to come up with a positive instead.  I then repeat the positive over and over again and I begin to believe it.  I know it sounds simple, but this has helped me a lot!

I have certainly developed an improved well-being.  Though it may not show in my ratings from week 3 to 10, I am certain the ratings have improved from week 1 to 10.  The course provided so much information to digest and tools to try.  I believe increased awareness on the mind, body, and spirit and their connection is improvement all by itself.  It has been rewarding to be able to identify an issue that I struggle with and use one of the tools learned in the course to help me deal with the issue.  The difficulty is probably in finding the time to devote to continued learning and practice.  I know this experience has improved my ability to assist others simply by the knowledge I have gained.  I have also gained awareness and openness toward the individual needs and desires of others, which will assist me in my profession.

My journey continues... the plan for the next leg (Unit 9 Project)

Introduction

            Psychological, spiritual, and physical development is important for integral health.  All three aspects, though related, do serve a purpose in a whole individual.  An integral approach to health and wellness requires focus and intention to develop in each area.  As a health and wellness professional, the importance of developing psychologically, spiritually, and physically is even greater.  As a professional, it is important to lead by example regardless of your profession.  This particularly important for health and wellness professionals because you are trying to help people improve their health and wellness and you have better credibility if you have been and are continuing to do the same.  In addition to building credibility, the journey you take to develop each aspect of yourself will provide exposure to tools, exercises, and resources that you can recommend to your clients.  Finally, the more you develop yourself, the better place you will be to help others do the same.

Personally, I need to develop in all areas to develop the goals that I have for myself.  On the journey to integral health, I believe that a person should never stop developing in all three areas.  My long term goals are to become a health and wellness professional and to be the best person I can be, psychologically, spiritually, and physically.  I set out with these goals in 2009.  Though I have made great progress and will be graduating in 6 short months, I still have some internal development needed in order to achieve my goals.  One major area I need to work on is physical.  I am overweight and though I am in good shape, the first impression people get when they see me is not healthy.  I believe that I need to improve in this area in order to gain the credibility of my future clients and to demonstrate that the focus should be on individuals.  My goal is to be the best me I can be and to be proud of that.  Once I make some improvements in the physical area, I know I can.

Assessment

            For me, the best scoring system to rate my spiritual, psychical, and psychological health is to use a word rating system.  I choose the ratings of unacceptable, needs improvement, acceptable, and excellent.  The reason I choose these adjectives for the rating is that it helps me to know what area I need to focus on most.  Unacceptable is something that needs immediate attention.  Needs improvement to me means that focus is needed and a game plan for improvement should be in place.  Acceptable is a good place to be but excellent is even better.  I added the excellent rating to give me something to work towards, though I do not truly believe I will achieve that rating since development should always continue. 

Psychological Assessment – A few weeks ago, I rated myself a 7 out of 10.  Today I would rate myself as acceptable.  I do believe I have grown mentally over the last few weeks.  I am in a good place with my mental fitness and I continue to challenge myself and strive to achieve the excellent category

Physical Assessment – A few weeks ago, I rated myself a 5 out of 10.  Today I would rate myself as unacceptable.  For people who know me, they would probably say this is a bit harsh, but I know I can do so much better.  It is important for my long-term health to focus on this area and to lose weight.  From a fitness perspective, I am in great shape.  Most people with my weight cannot do half the stuff I do; however, I know how much more I could do if I lost weight.  It comes down to the best me I know I can be and the example I want to set for future clients.

Spiritual Assessment – A few weeks ago, I rated myself an 8 out of 10.  Today I would rate myself as acceptable.  Again, I do believe I still have work to do, but I am comfortable with where I am right now based on the goals that I have set for myself.

Goal Development

Psychological Goal – Stress management is a huge mental challenge for me.  One goal that I have for myself is to keep things in perspective and not let myself get worked up over little things or things that I cannot change.  Though this is a tough goal to formalize and articulate, I know it is something I need to do.  In order to achieve this goal I am going to remind myself that I am one person and be more realistic with the expectations I have for myself.  I am also going to be more open to assistance from others who offer to help and not be so particular if they do not do things they way that I would do them.

Physical Goal – I have a goal to lose 55 lbs before my wedding in August of next year.  This is a realistic goal for me since I have 10 months ahead of me.  I have set a goal of 7 lbs per month between now and then, which should support achievement of my goal early.  I will continue with my physical exercise routine 5 days per week and add in a cardio workout on Saturday.  The biggest key to my success is setting an appropriate caloric goal and logging my food to ensure I achieve that goal.

Spiritual Goal – Though I am satisfied with my spiritual wellness, there are always opportunities for improvement.  One goal that I have for myself is becoming more aware of the various spiritual and religious choices of others.  This is important to me as a health and wellness professional because it will allow me to be more open and understanding of my clients’ spiritual practices and needs.  In order to achieve this goal, I will find books and resources to read about the various spiritual options that I know of.  On my search, I am sure I will find some options that I was not aware of.

Practices for Personal Health

            It is difficult to categorize the strategies and exercises under physical, psychological, and spiritual because all three are interconnected.  I have chosen two exercises for each domain, but struggled a little because I know the exercises will benefit all domains. 

Physical Growth Strategies – In order for me to grow physically and improve physically, my current focus is on my weight.  Two strategies that need to work together to grow in this area are exercise and nutrition.  I already have an exercise routine 5 days per week for one hour each day.  I alternate cardio and strength training on those days.  I will be adding a 6^th day to my routine so that I have three cardio workouts and three strength-training workouts per week.  I will also look for other ways to be active during the day such as playing with my niece, taking a leisurely walk at lunchtime, and taking breaks from my work desk to move around.  The second strategy, nutrition management, is a tough one for me.  However, I will use the information I have learned from other courses and set a daily calorie goal.  In addition, I will plan meals, go to the grocery store regularly, and log my food in MyFitnessPal.

Psychological Growth Strategies – I would like to grow in the area of stress management and compassion.  I am naturally a caring person but the loving kindness exercise has given me motivation to improve in this area.  I will complete the loving kindness activity 3 times per week.  I will schedule this time and include some extra time to journal my thoughts and feelings after each session so I can reflect later.  The subtle mind exercise is one that I will do daily to help train and calm my mind.  I will complete this exercise every evening in an effort to relax.  I will also use the strategy throughout the day, as needed, if a stressful situation arises.

Spiritual Growth Strategies – Exploration is the greatest spiritual growth strategy that I will pursue.  This is important to me because I want to learn about as many religions and spiritual beliefs and cultures as possible.  I will do this by talking to people openly about their beliefs, reading literature, and conducting online searches for information.  In addition to my exploration, I will also include prayer in my daily routine.  This will allow me to develop my own personal spirituality.  I will do this by praying every morning and throughout the day, as I feel compelled to do. 

Commitment:

            Assessment of progress is the easy part of the process.  The bigger challenge is motivation to achieve the goals and maintain the long-term practices.  The greatest assessment tool that I have for myself is tracking of goals.  I like to document the goals I set for myself and the timeframe allotted to achieve them.  After a certain period, I go back to the goals and see how I am doing.  This provides me with an opportunity to adjust strategies if necessary and see the progress along the way.  I also enjoy documenting the journey in a journal because it allows for more detail and provides a clearer reminder of the journey.  Finally, time management and planning will be critical to my long-term success.  Setting aside time to complete the exercise or strategies that I have outlined is critical.  If I schedule my time accordingly, I can ensure I allow sufficient time to complete all tasks and not get lazy.  I am excited about my continued journey to the best me I can be.

Useful tools for my continued journey (Unit 8)

Over the course of the last eight weeks, I have learned some great techniques, practices, and tools to help promote integral health.  My journey is far from over and I am certain all of the tools will come in handy at one point or another in the future.  However, two have really made an impact on my journey.  The first is the Subtle Mind practice.  This is a practice I have incorporated into my life on a planned basis, but I have also used it spur of the moment as well.  I utilize this tool in three different ways.  First, I use the subtle mind practice to continue to train my mind.  It has helped me to have clarity and focus and though I still have work to do, I can fell a difference in the way I handle situations.  The second way I use the subtle mind practice is to calm down.  If I am in a stressful situation or find myself overwhelmed, I stop and take a few minutes to utilize this practice and it helps me restore the productive mind.  Finally, I use the subtle mind practice for relaxation or when I am having trouble sleeping.  I will continue to use this practice throughout my journey as I have mentioned above.  The other tool I have not had as much experience with, but it was impactful and something I know I will utilize in the future.  It is the human flourishing visualization.  Visualization is a powerful tool because it helps you to see the result.  It forces you to put yourself in the situation and feel like you are experiencing the result.  This tool will help me because it is a motivator.  I now have something to turn to when I feel like I am falling off track or when I am struggling with what to do next.  The visualization exercise walks me through remembering experiences in health, happiness, and wholeness so that I can take those reminders and continue to work toward achieving them once again.

The mindfulness way to spiritual wellness (Unit 7)

For this week, I used a variety of meditative practices.  Each one served its own purpose in my focus on increases psychological and spiritual wellness.  Some were planned, and some were called upon spur of the moment at a time of need.  First, I took some time to complete the meeting Aesclepius exercise.  This exercise was an interesting experience for me.  It is an exercise I would like to try a few times, but with different focal individuals in order to see if I have a different experience.  I did enjoy spending time focusing on my father, who I chose as the focal point, but I found it difficult to keep my mind focused because I wasn’t sure what I should be focusing in regards to him.  I also used the subtle mind exercise several times though out the week.  I tend to have an active mind and I enjoy the calmness and the focus I can achieve from the subtle mind exercise.  In fact, the other night I was lying in bed, trying to get tired and my mind was racing.  I stopped myself, started the subtle mind practice, and was able to clear my head and sleep peacefully within 10 minutes.  Another mindfulness exercise I utilized this week was reframing.  I like to use this practice in order to gain control of emotional situations and focus on the positive.  All of these things help me to be in a better place psychologically and spiritually, which in turn fosters greater health and wellness.

One of my goals for this journey is to feel my way through the many aspects of wellness and find a future career for myself.  The saying “One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself” has significant meaning for me personally because that is how I feel about finding a new career.  I want to help people improve their health and wellness but I feel like I need to take the journey myself in order to set an example, speak from experience, and be a better supporter of others.  I believe that the best person to teach or lead another is someone who has been there.  That does not mean that everyone has to follow the same path, but someone with experience and an open mind can provide guidance and support.  Another example of this is with teaching.  I have found professors who have served their entire lives in academia as knowledgeable, intelligent individuals.  However, the professors who have real life experience from a non-academic environment have given me additional insight, support, and perspective that the others cannot.  I believe there is a continued obligation to clients, regardless of industry or subject, for the ‘teacher’ to continue developing.  Life is a process and a journey, reaching the end is the end of life.  As long as we continue the journey, we continue living.

The personal, integral assessment (Unit 6)

I am always looking for ways to increase my awareness about my reactions and be more open and selfless.  The universal loving-kindness exercise was a quick, easy way to take a few minutes and think about others.  I found the exercise calming and helpful.  This was a little easier for me than the previous exercise where we had to think about the suffering or pain of a loved one.  I found this exercise to be a good reminder that we are all human and on this earth together and it is important to be conscious of our self as well as others around us.  I have discovered that I have a longing to help others, I just have not figured out the best way for me to do that. 

The integral assessment process is a bit more involved.  While I enjoyed the activity, I found it difficult at times because the true honesty required is tough.  I liked that the assessment walked us through various questions, but they were challenging questions to answer.  Because of the exercises over the last few weeks, I do not feel like I learned anything new about myself this time.  I feel like I have solid perspective about where I am and where I need to develop and grow, for now.  I anticipate completing this assessment again in the future and learning more about myself and my growth during that time.  I have chosen to focus on the biological and interpersonal aspects of my growth and development at this time.  My reasoning is twofold.  First, I need to focus on my nutrition, fitness, and overall health in order to ensure I am not hurting myself for the future.  Second, is that I am going to be finishing my degree in approximately 7 months.  I need to focus my efforts on my community relationships and work toward figuring out what my next career will be and how I will use that to help people.  Now that I have these focus areas in place, I can include various activities in my daily routine in order to help me grow in these areas.  First, is to continue to practice the mindful meditation exercises from this course in order to help me gain clarity about everything.  Another exercise I will use is a food journal to track my meals and the physical reaction I get from them.  This will help me focus on my health and address issues that are currently challenging.

The not so subtle mind

Those who know me well would say I have anything but a subtle mind.  I have had many people make a comment about the way my mind works, the amount of stuff that is in my head, and my inability to ‘turn my mind off’.  I am ready to prove these people wrong, and ready to learn how to train my mind!  I found the subtle mind exercise to be relaxing and empowering.  It was much easier than the loving kindness exercise.  I did have many random thoughts that pulled my focus away from my breathing but once I acknowledged them and returned my focus to my breathing, they went away.  This was a great feeling for me.  I know I still have a lot of work to do, but I feel like I am making progress.  I have also found that I am more focused throughout the day because function with more intent than reaction.

As I continue on my journey, I continue to be amazed by the connection between the mind, body, and spirit.  True wellness addresses all three aspects because they are all related to each other.  Spiritual wellness and development is probably the most difficult for me.  Because of this, it is the aspect I spend the least amount of time developing.  I have recently learned that this is also the area where I gain the most.  The spiritual wellness focus has provided me with a renewed feeling of success and motivation about my physical and mental wellness.  I will continue my journey focusing on each of the three aspects and knowing that improvement in any area will help all three because of their connection.

Loving Kindness, practice, and mental training

Last week I was away on my family vacation.  This was a perfect time to practice loving kindness because many people I love surrounded me.  While it was easy to make time for the daily activity, it was much more difficult to force myself to do school work!

I found the exercise to be helpful to me.  At first, the timeframe provided to reflect on each section seemed a bit long.  In addition, I spent the majority of the time trying to figure out what I should be thinking about and trying to decide if I was thinking about the right thing.  As the week progressed, I was able to settle in to the practice and was more comfortable with the time allotted for thinking.  Another interesting observation was that as the week progressed, I noticed subtle differences in some of the decisions I made.  I do not see myself as a selfish person, but there were times when I wanted to do something but I did not because I decided it was more important to be with everyone else. 

The concept of a mental workout is not new to me; however, I think there are different types of mental workouts.  The loving kindness practice is more of a personal, psychological mental workout.  I think religion or meditation are more of a spiritual mental workout.  I also think there is an educational mental workout (i.e. schoolwork, Sudoku, research).  Each is important to the holistic picture but each is very different.  Research has proven that mental workouts can improve every aspect of a person.  They can improve mood, stress management, health, disease, wellness, and every other aspect as well.  The best way for me to foster my psychological health is to continue to practice and remain persistent.