The End but Not Finished

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?

 My psychological score from unit 3 was a 10 and now that I look back on it. I think that I over scored on this for my own psychological benefit. I think that maybe I thought that if I rated myself anything less than a 10 than maybe I would be admitting to myself that I had far more things to work on han I was willing to do. I think that a reasonable score from then would have been a 7 and now I think it is still the same but I am working on it and much more aware of my needs in this area. The score of my physcial well being from unit 3 was a 5 now I would have to say that it is a solid 6

. I think that it is slow progres but its still progress. I am working on my core pyscial strength and learning how to use my the other areas in my integral health that are stronger to improve this area. One effects the other. The spiritual score form unit 3 was a 3 and now I'd say that it is a 5. I have been much more active in prayer and learning meditation that brings me closer to my religion. This has helped greatly

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

My unit 3 gaols were physical -45 minutes of yoga every morning . It has actually only been 20 but I do 10-15 minutes of light stretching before bed each night. My psychological score from unit 3 was 10-15 minutes of meditaton daily. This I have actually been sticking too and it has reduced my daily anxiety greatly. The spiritual goals from unit 3 were to 10-15 minutes a night in deep thought and silence this has been implemented into my meditation and has been improved since.

 

I have implemented each of the things I said I would in each area of my life. The time I spend on each does vary from my goals but I am still aware and doing the best I ccan in each.

 

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?

My personal experience taking this classs has been great. I learned so much about myself and my many levels of health that I have the responsibility to  heal. It has been rewarding to see that I am getting closer to the goals that I have made for myself. I also have gotten closer to choosing a profession. I have always been so undecided and with this class I have been able to evaluate everything in this field that I have a passion for. It has been difficult to understand some aspects of myself and all of the layers that I have on my journey to human flourishing. My journey will help others in my future on th same journey because all of my hardships and the more I have and overcome will stand as a testimony for my future patients.

Final

 

Introduction:

As I scrolled through the pages and course descriptions looking for my next course at Kaplan I tried to find something that was a break from the black and white pages of my usual classes. I needed something I could enjoy but also a course that would still relate to my medical professional goals. I found a perfect class, Creating Wellness: Psychological & Spiritual Aspects of Healing. In the beginning of this course I thought that maybe I made a mistake. I wasn’t familiar with human flourishing or consciousness and healing, nor did I understand what it meant to have true health, happiness and wholeness. It is now week 9 and my class is coming to an end. As I think of what I have learned I am excited. I not only understand what this class was all about but I see how my own health and wellness is impacted and how I have complete control to change anything negative in my life and replace it with positive. This isn’t human flourishing, it’s me flourishing.

Why is it important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually and physically?

I think that it is very important for health and wellness professionals to be In sync with the relationships of the mind, body and spirit at all times. True healers continue to grow in their craft over a lifetime. Each of these aspects has a cause and effect relationship with one another. For example, a psychological illness or stressor can alter the physical well-being of a person greatly. Healers should first love and nurture their own bodies psychologically, spiritually and physically, “for without an intact self there can be no true healing of another” (Schlitz, Amorok & Micozzi, 2005, p.36, para.2). Health and wellness professionals should be able to come from a point of experience when teaching & healing. This also creates a strong bond & trust between the patient and healer and when there is already inner knowledge from experience the outcome to heal will be more of an instinct than an action in question (Schlitz, Amorok & Micozzi, 2006).

 What areas do you need to develop to achieve the goals you have for yourself?

The areas that I need to develop to achieve the goals I have for my own health and wellness journey are psychological and physical. For me the two are reliant on each other greatly and to alter or improve one so must the other be altered and changed. I am still learning how my mind takes on stress and transfers it to my physical being. I am continuing to explore the many different meditation techniques such a loving kindness, the subtle mind and visualization techniques

Assessment:
How have you assessed your health in each domain? Since taking this class I have learned to examine closely my own health in each domain. When each domain is closely looked at I can start to piece together a map of how my health and wellness in all domains compares to one another. Then from the techniques and teachings I have gained from this course I can apply them to my lifestyle how I see beneficial.

How do you score your wellness spiritually, physically, and psychologically?

On a scale from 1 to 10 (1 being the weakest and 10 being the strongest) I would rate my spirituality an 8. I feel that even when other areas of my life and health have fallen short my spirituality has always remained on a strong foundation. I have a close relationship with my spiritual beliefs and have used spirituality to help me through other hardships that I have experienced in my life. I do feel that if other aspects of my life were stronger I could flourish much more in this part of my life.

In the physical aspect of my life I would have to rate this at a 5. I do not have problems with weight or serious health complications but I have struggled with chronic pain for the past 6 years now and I just turned 30. This has been a huge part of my life and also a massive obstacle hat I have still to overcome. The pain keeps me from doing many normal activities that most 30 year olds can do just fine. I have been practicing yoga now for a few months and this has helped in some ways. The main focus of the yoga was for me to strengthen my core and become stronger as a whole. In this way it has actually had a cause and effect relationship on my psychological wellbeing which I now rate at a 6.

My psychological wellbeing is a 6 because although I am continuing to gain a better understanding of how I can control my mind the physical stress and obstacles in my life continue to be a problem and in turn affect my way of holding stress mentally.

Goal development:
List at least one goal you have for yourself in each area, Physical, Psychological (mental health) and Spiritual.

Goals for my physical well-being: yoga session for 30 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening 6 days a week. I need the morning session to focus on core strength and the evening session to focus only on slow stretching and breathing. I hope that this can reduce my pain and increase my energy levels. Another goal I have is to try and get to sleep earlier by implementing a nightly routine. I hope that this will reduce my fatigue and insomnia episodes during the week. 

My goals for my psychological health are to implement a daily 10 minute meditation session once a day and at least 15 minutes in the evening before bed. I want to use the day meditation to help me establish better relationships with those around me. I hope that I can stop my mind completely, stop all mental chatter and distractions. By doing so I may be able to keep negative emotions from snowballing and possibly transferring onto those around me. The evening meditation I hope will calm me and keep my anxiety down so that I can focus on sleep and keeping my mind still.

Spiritually my goals are to pray often in my times of stress. I also want to remember to not only pray in times of stress but also happiness as well. Be thankful often and use prayer to induce meditation and relaxation during my sessions. I hope that prayer will help me to in progress in my other goals as well.

Practices for personal health:
What strategies can you implement to foster growth in each of the following domains?

Physical- Exercises that I can implement for my physical well-being are yoga and seeing a chiropractor to try and help manage my pain. Yoga will help me to strengthen my core muscles which are the most important part of supporting your spine. Spine health is in a way another aspect of my health I must keep in mind because it does relate so closely to my chronic back pain. Remembering to practice the yoga in the right form is just as important as frequency.  I have seen a chiropractor last week because I have never explored this field of medicine for my pain before. During my consult I learned that spinal manipulation for chronic low back pain has many positive outcomes. I will be seeing this chiropractor again for my first adjustment next month.

 

Psychological- The meditation exercises that I like the most and that helped me achieve a sense of relaxation during times of great anxiety were the Loving Kindness exercise. For loving kindness I have been practicing this when I feel overwhelmed by either my environment or others. I try this when I know that I may start to get extremely angry at someone else. First I find a quiet spot to relax and open my heart to the thought of love to those around me and to myself. I think of how deserving these people are of being loved and how opening my heart to kindness. I try to engage this open heart of loving kindness for as long as possible during my relaxation. I let my heart fill with happiness towards others and genuine care. If I practice this often I may be able to implement loving kindness more often and instinctually. I hope that this will make my heart bigger and my love greater. The second meditation exercise is the visualization exercise. This helps me to focus on calmness and stillness in my mind and heart especially before I sleep. I start this exercise by lying down on my bed just like I am going to sleep. I close my eyes and start to focus on my breath. I use the deep belly technique because it reduces stress and brings more oxygen into my body as well. Once I focus on my breathing I first think of a time in my life that brought me great happiness. Then a time that brought be great wholeness and lastly a time that I felt vitality and healthy. For each of these moments I must consume each precious moment in my life as it was. I must focus on each moment as I am an observer. I engage every sense in each moment what did I smell, what did I hear? Did I remember a specific food? Every detail matters in this exercise. I take my time with each moment. When I am done I then put all three moments together and meditate on them as a whole. I often feel grateful, happy, and relieved. This clears my mind so that I can sleep with a still mind as well.

 

 Spiritual- For my spiritual exercises I often incorporate prayer into my breathing exercises during yoga. It is a way for me to focus my mind and body together with my spirituality as a whole. I also use prayer when I meditate and often during other forms of meditation exercises. For example, during the Loving Kindness exercise I revert to prayer often and throughout to help me stay focused and calm. 

 

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

To make sure I stay on track with my goals I would like to make myself a calendar and have each activity or goal that I am supposed to be doing listed for each day. If I can fulfill all of the required activities during my week then I will reward myself. It shouldn’t be anything big and nothing that would defeat the purpose of an activity. For example, no splurging on unhealthy food since health is kind of the goal. I could buy a new shade of nail polish or go to a special place on the weekend with my son. However, I do feel that the main goal is going to balanced health. If I don’t progress I am hurting myself and I will definitely know that even without silly rewards. This is something that I have to want deeply and care about very much, which I do. It should not be a “diet” type attitude the person making these goals should want to reach them more than anything because it’s worth it.

 

Reviewing Meditation Practices

After practiceing all of the exercises for meditation, even the ones I did not like as much I found that my two favorite were the Loving Kindness practice and the visualization meditation.  Loving kindeness took me a little while to settle into but once I did I began to understand that I could change my perception of the dynamic surroundings and relationshiops in my daily life. I could understand how to cope without anger and stress.The loving kindness exercise will allow me to learn patience not just with close relationships and interactions I have with others but my self as well. I can learn how to be patient with the expectations I have for myself. At times I can be very hard on myself and this often increases stress and anxiety.  The visualization meditation practice was my favorite and it brought me incredible peace and calmness. My mind did not wonder as much as it did during the other practices and I was extremely focused. Even for hours after the exercise I remained mellow and my mind still. i think that  visualization meditation will become a daily practice and be a huge part of my journey to integral health. This exercise will help me to maintain a daly sense of true happiness. It will remind me of the things in my life that make my soul happy and to forget about the things that have no true substance in my life.

My Psychological & Spiritual Wellness Thus Far

Since this class mindfullness and meditation has helped me find a part of myself that I  never knew or understood before. The health of my mind. I have been able to understand what stressors in my life make me feel overwhelmed and anxious. Instead of bundling everything up into one thing and saying to myself "oh its just stress" as a generalization. I have now been able to carefully examine each stressor as an individual. I can now be aware of what it is that makes me feel unhappy and anxious. I can then take that knowledge and focus on removing these thoughts as individual units and carefully replacing each one with positivity and happiness. I no longer feel the need to brush off everything as stress. I can actually take a closer look at my spiritual and psychological well being and condition my mind to block out negative and bring in positive. This is a great way for me to examine other things in my life and helps me to do the same in my physical wellbeing and health.


The saying"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" means that you must be aware of your own integral health journey before you can beging to help other on theirs. I think that this can apply directly to the health and wellness field as a professional because it is very important that we understand the road and journey that our patients will be traveling on their journey. I feel as though I do have a veyr important obligation to maintain and continue developing my health psychologically, physically, and spiritually. This is so that we may teach other about the hardships and obstacles that they may come across on their journeys. We can be a mentor to them and prepare them for what they may experience. We can relate to them much easier and have a better doctor patient relationship.

Thoughts on Unit 5

 

Loving Kindness VS Subtle Mind

 

Both exercises emphasize the importance of relaxation and the clearing of your mind. The Loving Kindness exercise seemed to be a bit more technical and the instructions were somewhat complicated and distracting. I had a difficult time on this one. I was trying so hard to concentrate on the directions that when I didn't understand them I became frustrated and anxious. The second exercise, Subtle Mind was very much different in that its instructions seemed to be much easier to understand and follow. Unlike the Loving Kindness exercise where you explore your many levels of consciousness, the Subtle Mind exercise focused primarily on your breathing and a focal point during the relaxation. This kept much of the distraction out of my head and helped me focus much faster and longer a well.

 

The Importance of the Spiritual Wellness Connection

 

The connection of spiritual wellness between mental and physical wellness is so much greater than most of us realize. For me personally it connects my heart and soul to my mind and body. Without these connections our life would possibly be without faith or hope, without love or grace or compassion. These are just a few things that I would be left without if I had no spiritual wellness.  It is different for all of you I'm sure. But there is undoubtlably an importance of spirituality in all of our lives no matter what belief you have.

Figuring Out Loving Kindness

As I played the first mp3 I was immedietyly looking for the fast forward. The introduction was pretty short Im sure but by my time perception it was like being in an 8:00am lecture back in college on a Monday morning. After the introduction I got to the Loving Kindness mp3 and the womans voice was much more relaxing. I was able to understand a little of what was being asked of us during that time of meditation. But I soon found myself confused with all the different levels mind and thought.Chaseing thoughts through my "subtle mind "and "finding deep aspects of my mind" had me almost more anxious than having kind love.I then found myself just praying during this time about those thoughts,feeling and  images. So I guess that was beneficial but I most likely would not listen to it  again. I would recommend other try it though because I do believe in the individuality aspect of intergral health. What cures you may not cure me and vice versa. I did like the flute though. I would actually listen to that to relax if no one was talking. Yeah, definetly no one talking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where I am on My Journey to Integral Health

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?

   Since reflecting I would rate my physical well being as a 5 I have suffered from chronic back pain for five years and it has exausted me physically and emotionally. But for the past 3 months Ive taken my healing into my own hands and am doing much more yoga, eating better and trying to understand what it truely means to have a spiritual well being. I still have a long way to go. My spritiual well being is rated a 3 becuase I am only now trying to integrate it into my life more often with meditation and relaxation. My psychological well being I would rate at a 10. I have recognized where in my life I need to make improvements. The process of making these improvements makes me happy and encouraged.

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

Here are some goals for each area of my life

Physical- I will practice yoga for 45 minutes every mornig. Before coffee, before the sun, before the family even gets up. First is Yoga

Spiritual- I will spend 10-15 minutes every night in silence and reflect on my day and how I can improve areas of my day that elliminate strss and worry.

Psychological- I will do more things in my day that make me laugh, smile or feel happiness. They dont have to be big things just holding my husbands hand while watching tv, or reading to my son or talking to him about funny things. Just add those things in my day.

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

Activities to help me get there are Yoga, music therapy, meditation and prayer

Complete the relaxation exercise The Crime of the Century. I find it very difficult to do relaxation tapes like this because of peoples voices. I can only truley relax and find calmness in silence and serene surroundings. It is hard to focus when someone is technically still telling you what to do. I dont want to hear that after i have gone the whole day with people at work telling me what to do, my family and kid asking me for stuff and telling me I need to do stuff for them. I just want quiet to be honest.