unit 10 reflections

In unit 3 I raged physical well-being at an 8, spiritual at a 10 and psychological as 8-9. Now at the end of this class I would rate my physical well-being at 7, this is not a surprise it is now winter and the cold weather prevents me from being outside as much as I would like, this happens every year since I am very cold natured and do not tolerate the cold and indoor activities such as gyms cannot keep my attention. My spiritual well-being remains at a 10 and continues to slowly deepen as time goes by and my meditation practices increase. The psychological has also decreased to a 7 which at this time of year is only to be expected. The holidays add stress and while it has gotten much better over the years the dark winter months do cause a slight case of seasonal depression. I have not experienced improved well-being during this course and did not expect improvement during the winter,   the best that I can work towards in the winter is remain static and not to fall back into any  bad habits and undo any accomplishments made during the spring, summer and fall. It’s a good thing that here in Georgia winter only lasts 4 months. This class has reminded me that people have the ability to heal themselves all they need is encouragement to believe in themselves.

unit 9

 

The importance for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually and physically so that they can lead by example cannot be exaggerated. A health and wellness professional will not be able to provide guidance that others will follow if that professional is psychologically unbalanced. Psychological unbalance can be illnesses that require medication to irrational dislikes and prejudices. This is the same with physical development, that is not to say that health and wellness professionals must be in the best shape that they can, but that they continue to evolve their physical fitness and by example encourage others to try new things and improve their own physical fitness. Spiritual development can be an intensely personal, however spiritual development does lead to psychological and physical development and balance between the three. Spiritual development may lead to a calm and reasoned personality leading greater understanding of the obstacle that others may face when trying to achieve health and wellness. For myself to achieve health and wellness I must continue to develop all three areas. The practice of meditation and increased physical activity is the path that needs to be followed for increased physical health as well as spiritual and psychological wellness.

To assess my personal growth in each domain I have had an honest look inward and outward. Spiritually I need to continue to commune with the world around me through meditation. Increased awareness of the world around me brings peace and comfort in the knowledge that there are other more important things in this world than the day to day stressors of life. Psychological health or balance is good but must be maintained through meditation, understanding and forgiving. Understanding that no one is perfect and forgiving ourselves for not being perfect. Once we understand ourselves we can begin to accept others for who they are.  Overall physical health has always been very good, but there is always room for improvement. Improvement in weight management and nutrition. The only way to improve on these issues is to increase physical activity and a change of eating habits. The challenge to physical activity is the cold winter months where outside activities are limited and workouts on machines do not seem to get the job done. The nutrition issue is an ongoing one. Changes in habits take time and understanding to make changes permanent. Understanding is required because it is important to understand and forgive yourself when bad habits resurface. The overall grade for each area is good but needs improvement. It is my belief however that it is the journey to balanced overall health and excellent health in each area is more journey important than the destination because it is on that journey that we learn and grow.

The goal for physical health is to improve the cardiovascular, increase lean muscle mass and to improve nutrition. To meet these goals increased winter physical activity is a must.  To increase mental health practicing the technique of calm abiding will help to decrease stress and accept others as they are.  Spiritual health goals include increased meditation. To foster growth in the areas of physical, psychological and spiritual health increased physical activity and better nutritional choices will increase the physical health while supporting better psychological and spiritual health. Increasing physical activity during the winter months is difficult when outdoor activities are not really viable. Still increased physical activity can include parking at the farthest edge of a parking lot, taking the stairs instead of elevators or escalators and incorporating simple calisthenics into the daily routine until outdoor activities are possible.  Better nutrition is as simple as making better choices. The better food choices began six months ago and except for a few minor setbacks continues to this day. The better physical shape will support the increased psychological and spiritual health. Increases in spiritual health can be achieved through increased community involvement and increased participation in a spiritual community, such as a church. Volunteering in the community and increased participation in the spiritual community will bring balance and increased understanding and acceptance. Psychological health can be increased with better health and meditation. Meditation will help with decreasing the stress of modern living. Meditation will need to made part of the daily schedule.

To assess progress over the next six months a system of checks will need to be implemented. Looking inward during meditation will allow me to assess the strength of the physical and spiritual changes in daily life. Improvement in the physical area will be evident in an increased level of general wellbeing. Meditation can also be used to assess the level of psychological wellbeing. Daily meditation will decreased stress allowing for increased psychological health. The assessment of increased spiritual health can be assessed through meditation and looking inward to assess increased involvement in the community.  If one is honest with one’s self it is easy to see where improvement is needed and the areas where improvement has been made. The most important part of the journey to health and wellness is the ever changing journey, lessons learned, successes and failures.

Unit 8

The two practices that I have found the most beneficial are the visualization and meditation. Meditation helped me to look inward, let go of those things that really don’t mean much, but in our hectic lives and things oriented culture all the unimportant things seem to take over and this exercise helped to refocus on the important thing. Well the things that are important to me anyway.  The addition of wholeness to the visualization exercise really helped to reinforce the good feelings and balance.  I have at times in the past visualized happiness but this was the first time I have tried to visualize health and that brought me back to remembering a time when I was still young enough to run in high heels without caring about breaking a heal or an ankle, I really like that feeling, young and excited about life and all the possibilities that it has. If you have forgotten this feeling or never experienced it just throw your head back hold  your arms out at the sides parallel to the floor and twirl in circles until you are dizzy doing this with your eyes closed helps.  Doing both of these exercises on a regular basis will help to keep me focused on the important things in life and decrease my stress level. With a decreased stress level I can remain calm and balanced.

unit 7 meditative practices

Unit 7 meditative practices.

My meditative practices for this week have been very good at pushing me accept that I cannot please my mother. Psychologically I understand that I must live my life in way that is balanced and productive for the person that I am and that my mother has expectations that do not apply to my life or the person that I am. I have accepted these facts and am happy psychologically and spiritually about this, the conflict is how to deal with a mother who does not understand why her values/expectations do not fit into my life and to stop changing who I am to please her when she is around. Changing yourself to fit someone else’s expectations/beliefs even for a short time causes a lot of stress and stress related illness. To foster greater health and wellness I must continue to be myself even around my mother and accept that her goals/values are not mine and while she will always find fault and try to change things to the way she believes is right I can only acknowledge the way she feels, understand that she is not trying to hurt me but make me happier and accept that while she will not change I cannot change just to please her even for a short time because that is only hurting myself.

The saying “one cannot lead another where one has not gone himself” is self-explanatory. If you have never eaten ice-cream you cannot describe the taste or texture to someone else. If you have never changed a tire you cannot teach someone else how to change a tire. The blind leading the blind only leads to trouble ok by some very lucky coincidences you may get the tire changed correctly but they instances of that happening are very few and far between. When applied to a health and wellness professional if you have not gone looking for health and wellness you will not be able to lead someone else to the path of health and wellness. If you are a health and wellness professional it is your professional obligation to your clients to be the example and lead by example. I can implement psychological and spiritual growth within my personal life by increasing my meditation to a daily practice, as it is now I only meditate about 4 times a week and practicing loving kindness daily, that is all day every day.

 

wellness and healing unit 6

As I have stated many times before these exercises really do not do much for me. Already having a system in place I find lead mediations tedious, they do not really take into account my temperament, needs or where I am in my own path to integral health even thought I have learned that I started down this path many years before I even knew that integral health had been given a place in the popular culture.
 That being said I have looked at the areas of my life and have come to the conclusion that I need to spend more time developing my connections to the community and social activism. Why I need to do this is because it is time, I have spent the much needed time on the personal and self-regulation that now it is time to move to areas that have been neglected in favor of areas in need of immediate attention. In order to do this I will join a community group, one that does volunteer work in my area. The other way I plan to improve this area is to join the local slow food movement. This is a movement that really needs a greater voice and representation in the mainstream because I truly believe that if our government continues on the path it is on this country will fall further and faster than anyone can comprehend.

Unit 5 blog---warning this may be lengthy due to the prescribed subject matter.

 

 

This exercise is a compare/contrast of the loving mind and subtle mind exercises. Before I start than I want to say something about this week’s reading. Specifically the reading on forgiveness I personally found that much more informative than the exercises that I will compare/contrast shortly.  The reason I think that the forgiveness reading is more beneficial than the exercises is that I believe that forgiveness is a building block for everything that Dacher is trying to convey. Without first forgiving ourselves none of the rest of this is possible just as liking yourself is a building block the basic foundations of integral health.  So with that said the loving mind and subtle mind exercises. While I did not find them personally helpful I would definitely recommend them to anyone who is willing to try something new as a way of improving themselves. As I have said before both exercises were a trial in patience and tolerance. The reasons why are many for instance the voices are distracting and vaguely disturbing in a don’t make the dangerously unbalanced person way upset. Another more important problem that I have with this type of lead exercise is that while the narrator is trying to help you focus they really are not.  Listening to the narrator tell you what to do and when to do it takes the focus off the relaxation, peace and connection to the inner world that is you and the natural world we are all connected to by learning to let go of the distractions all around us.

Now I am supposed to cover how all this fits together in my life. Since that can be an intensely personal discussion I do not feel comfortable sharing at this time in this way. I prefer such talks to be with actual people not a computer keyboard and screen. I will simply cover the highlights. When my mental processes are healthy I am able to connect with the natural world around me and my inner self and the physical is healthier as well. I know that these exercises are supposed to make one understand that physical health is linked to both the mental and spiritual health. Personally I can attest to the fact that even when my mental and spiritual health are not optimal my physical health has always been that way, although that is not to say that unbalanced mental and spiritual health has not tried to negatively affect the physical just that it has not happened at this time. I can say that physical health does lead to better mental health from experience. I know that for me I feel much better mentally when I am physically active and healthy. An example of this is when I broke my foot. And no this was not caused by an imbalance in the mental and physical just running across the room in my socks the foot slipped because socks and wood floors are not the best combination and hit the wrought iron bakers wrack. This caused the Doctor to place me on restrictions for 8 weeks. Spending more than 2 hours a day with my foot in the air is a guaranteed way to make me very unpleasant to be around. The mental and spiritual practices were started many, many years ago and these exercises have not helped or hindered the ones I have been using.

The loving kindness exercise was confusing. One of the confusing things was the loved one who is “suffering” is this suffering mental or physical or a combination and what if I think the loved one is suffering but they think that they are happy and healthy? I practiced loving kindness in the physical and mental at the same time by demonstrating love and kindness and silently sending the same thoughts as the exercise lead. Another confusing thing was taking in the suffering of a stranger and extending loving kindness. If the person is a stranger how do you know what they are suffering if indeed they are suffering at all. A stranger is by definition some one that you do not know. I find it extremely egotistical to think that I should know how some one that is a stranger is feeling or that some stranger may think that they know how I am feeling while sitting comfortably in my home.  Daily I pray and meditate on happiness and health for the world in general but never have I presumed to know what a specific individual is feeling.

The only part of this exercise that I found beneficial was the beginning when loving kindness was projected toward the person doing the exercise. I have practiced this in a very different form without the irritating distraction of static that is meant to sound like the ocean. I think that an exercise like this should be undertaken without distractions especially if someone is new to such a practice. I personally did not find this exercise beneficial. I would encourage anyone to try this exercise but caution them that while this particular way of doing this exercise may not be what they need that they should keep trying until they find the way that is beneficial to them since no 2 people are alike there is no right way to find an inner path to loving kindness just the way that works best for you.

According to Dacher (2006) “Mental Workout” means utilizing contemplative practices to help tame the mind’s constant mental activities and train it along with opening one’s heart, expanding consciousness, and progressing towards psychospirtual flourishing.  The goal is for progressive development of an expanded consciousness and healing within the mind, body, and spirit.  There are two contemplative practices; they are loving-kindness and subtle mind.

The concept of mental workout is the use of contemplative practices to tame the mind's constant mental activity, open one's heart, expand the consciousness and move toward psychospiritual flourishing( Daches2006). For me this means that to achieve this goal it is necessary to spend time working on the muscle that is the brain with mediation aimed at expanding the subconscious mind in awareness and accepting while challenging the conscious mind with new and challenging tasks very much like mental calisthenics. The research has shown that those who do this increase the neural pathways increasing the brains abilities and prolonging mental health or at least delaying processes such as dementia. This is the same as exercising the muscles of the legs so that you can walk or doing cardio so that the heart remains strong.