Unit 10 Conclusion

Not much has changed since I did the assessment in Unit 3.  I still rate myself an 8 when it comes to physical well-being since I continue to exercise and eat a healthy diet.  I am doing yoga randomly through the month but am nowhere near the 3 days a week that I set for a goal.  I rated myself a 7 for spiritual well-being.  I have continued to go to church and have met my goal of praying nightly but do not feel that is enough to raise my score to an 8.  My psychological well-being was rated a 7 but now I would say I am a 7.5 due to increased meditation.  I still am not meditating as much as I would like especially because my son borrowed my IPod with my guided meditations and I have not gotten it back.  I will make that a priority once he returns from his dad’s house. 

Now that I have revisited my Unit 3 blog,  I noticed that I had not set any measurable goals concerning my psychological well-being.  I believe that meditating 4 times a week for 15-20 minutes would be a good goal for me and would improve my mental health.  I believe to be successful you need measurable goals.  I will record when I perform the activities that I have set for myself in each area.  I plan to review these entries monthly to see where I stand on reaching my goals.  I will then need to modify or continue to work towards the goals each month. 

I have had an amazing experience with this class.  Even if I do not end up working in the Health and Wellness field the information that I have learned is invaluable for my own personal well-being.  I recently was able to help a friend going through a divorce by sharing the reading on Forgiveness.  I am also trying to get my father who suffered a heart attack last year to start meditation or yoga.  I really think it would help him with his stress level.  I see where I have room for improvement in all aspects of integral health and plan to work towards human flourishing in the years to come.

Unit 9 Project

Unit 9 Project

       I.            Introduction:
It is crucial for professionals in the health and wellness field to incorporate integral health practices into their own lives so that they know what is possible before they try to teach others (Dacher, 2006).    Dacher states that it is not only through book learning but through hands on experience that we become agents of a more expansive health (Dacher, 2006).  By incorporating the integral process into our own lives we will discover the profound possibilities of integral health and healing (Dacher, 2006).  We need to lead by example since our clients are not going to want to follow our direction if it does not seem that we are flourishing.  No one is going to take dietary advice from a overweigh person or addiction advice from a smoker.  You need to live it to help others learn it.  I need to work more on my psychological aspect of health.  Although through this course I have decreased my stress levels.  I still have a tendency to stress out.  I find myself clenching my fists and have to force myself to relax.  I believe that through meditation I will be able to achieve a less stressful demeanor. 

    II.            Assessment:

I rate myself an 8 on physical well-being. I am 39 years old, 5’4” and weigh 117.  All my blood work is in range.  My doctor said you could not ask for better numbers.   I work out at least three times a week and eat a healthy diet. I would rate myself higher if I was more flexible. I tend to take classes that are high impact like kick boxing or circuit training and these do not do enough for your flexibility.   Flexibility is important as we age since it decreased the chance of injury and movement limitations (University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, 2005).  I would rate myself a 7 on my spiritual well-being. I attend church but do not feel that I pray enough. I have started to make daily prayer a priority.  I also would like to incorporate gratefulness into my prayers.  “Moments of gratefulness very often bring a sense of being connected-acknowledged, recognized, present to existence in a richer sense (Schlitz, 2005)”.   My psychological well-being would also be rated a 7. I feel like I am a well-adjusted and well grounded. I am kind and loving to my family and friends.  I am a giver but tend to get overwhelmed and stressed when I take on too many tasks.   I need to work on incorporating more meditation into my life to be able to raise my score in this area.   Meditation is beneficial and by practicing it you can also be happier and calmer (Allen, 2003).

   III.            Goal development:
My goal to increase my physical well-being is to add yoga and Pilates to my work out routine to increase my flexibility.  I have yoga and Pilates DVD’s and I need to make it a priority to do them at least 3 times a week. I would like to add more prayer and gratefulness to my life to increase my spiritual wellness. My goal is to pray nightly before bed and to include what I am grateful for in the prayer. To increase my psychological wellness I would like to start incorporating meditation and visualization into my life.  Loving-Kindness, skillful action and silence and stillness are the steps that Dacher outlined in the reading. Adding these to my life will help eliminate some of the negative junk. “Cultivating what brings us happiness, health and wholeness and abandoning what keeps us stuck in stressful and unproductive life patterns (Dacher, 2006).

 IV.            Practices for personal health:
Obtaining my goal of adding yoga and Pilates to my exercise routine three days a week will help me achieve my goal in the physical domain.  Also remembering to pray nightly and to be thankful for all that I have will benefit me greatly spiritually.  Meditation and visualization will be a great help to me psychologically and will help me to quiet my chattering mind.

    V.            Commitment:
I keep a detailed calendar/journal of appointments and commitments.  I believe the best way for me to assess my progress or lack of progress in the next six months would be to record when I practice yoga, pray and meditate in my planner.  If I am reaching the goals I have put in place then I am successful if not then I would need to reassess the goals and try again.  They now say doing something for sixty six days makes it a habit (University College London, 2009).  I would think after six months these behaviors would be second nature.

References:

Allen, Colin.  (2003). The Benefits of Meditation.  Retrieved February 20, 2012 from  http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200304/the-benefits-meditation.

Dacher, Elliot. (2006). Integral health: The path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health.

Schlitz, M., Amorok, T and Micozzi, M.  (2005). Consciousness & healing.  Integral Approaches to Mind-Body Medicine.  St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Inc.

University College London. (2009). How long does it take to form a habit?  Retrieved March 4, 2012 from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0908/09080401.

University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.  (2005). Flexibility and its importance.  Retrieved March 4, 2012 from http://www.uihealthcare.com/topics/exercisefitness/exer3104.html.

Unit 8 Assignment

The two practices that I found most beneficial in this class were the Loving Kindness and Subtle Mind.  The Loving Kindness exercise helps me with people in my life whose actions annoy me.  It is hard to stay annoyed when you are sending out loving kindness to the person.  It makes me think about the fact that they have reasons or issues that lead them to act the way they do and that my being annoyed only damages myself.    It also helps me to be led less by my ego in my life.
The Subtle Mind exercise has helped me be less reactive when it comes to my children.  I used to yell at them when they would argue with each other.  Not just a normal yell but a high pitched freak out yell.  I let them drive me to madness.  I now am able to calmly get them to stop without having to freak out on them which is so much better for my metal health.  I do not have the guilt of having yelled at them and also do not have my blood pressure and cortisol levels raise from the episode.  I also have a ton of mental chatter going on all the time.  This exercise has allowed me to reduce the chatter.  I am far from a subtle mind but I am at least working on a witnessing mind at this time.  Wish me luck!

UNIT 7 Meeting Aesclepius

Well, the meditation started off on the right track.  I chose my Nana (maternal grandmother) as the loving and wise person to focus on for the meditation.  I spent the summers with her in San Diego and always had a wonderful time.  I was devastated by her death.  She is the only close person to me that has passed away so I could not think of anyone else.  Later I listened again to the meditation and realized you could use a person that was still living as well.  Anyways, like I said the meditation started off well but then I started to think about the fact that she had been an alcoholic and not a very good mother to my mom.  This got me totally off focus.  I guess I should have not picked such a controversial person but I really loved her.  Once I came to terms with the fact that she was human and made some mistakes but for as far as I was concerned made up for it by being a great grandmother I started to focus again.  That was when the dog started to scratch at the door.  He was very persistent but I got through the meditation.  Next time I think I will use Mother Teresa as my person to focus on and put the dog outside!  This meditation did not do much for me since I was not able to properly focus but meditating in general has seemed to really slow down my over reacting at my children which I used to do in the past. 
The statement "one cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" means to me that you need to lead by example.  How can you help your clients experience human flourishing when you have not experienced it yourself?  Like with most things you kind of need to be able to know how to do something to be able to teach someone else.  Plus to be the best health care professional possible you need to be at a level of optimal health.

Unit 6 Loving Kindness and Integral Assessment

It was really difficult for me to concentrate on the Loving Kindness meditation since I needed to keep my eyes open to read the phrases.  I much prefer closing my eyes and listening to someone narrate the meditation.  The Integral Assessment showed me that I am really well developed in the biological area.  I am fairly strong in the interpersonal and worldly but I have a lot of work to do on the psychospiritual realm.  I am far from arriving at the understanding of the ultimate reality of self and world (Dacher, 2006).  I really need to work on being less reactive. I also rely too  heavily on logic.  I am a Capricorn and have a tendency to need to see things to believe them.  I like facts.  There is so much in this world that can not be explained.  I need to open my being to the essential truths.
I can improve my psychospiritual self by participating in contemplative practices such as meditation and prayer.  I have downloaded the Loving Kindness exercise and the Subtle Mind exercise onto my Ipod and have been listening to those on occasion.  I also downloaded several more meditations and plan to try and meditate daily.

Reference:

Dacher, Elliot. (2006). Integral health: The path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health.

Unit 5 Wandering Mind

I really enjoy the meditation exercises although it is hard to explain to my family how laying on the couch with my eyes closed was actually homework.  This weeks Subtle Mind exercise was a lot more difficult for me then the Loving Kindness exercise.  I found that instead of a witnessing mind that I tend to have a wandering mind.  It is going to take a lot more practice before I get this exercise down.  I do better with constant instruction during the exercise.  This one had a lot of time with out narration and I kept thinking random thought and kept starting to compose my blog in my head.  Geez, who ever thought trying not to think would be so hard! 
I am really learning a lot in this class.  I had always focused on my biological wellness and I am super fit and eat a really healthy diet.  I now see how biological, mental and spiritual wellness are connected.  They all have to be in balance or you will not get to the higher level of human flourishing.  Before this class I thought I was at the top level of fitness.  Now, I see I am just a beginner and have several areas to cover.  I guess it is good to always be growing as a person.  This class has helped me do just that.

Unit 4 Assignment-Loving Kindness

I enjoyed the loving kindness exercise.  I was relieved once the women started to narrate.  I do not think I could relax with Dacher speaking.  His voice is not exactly calming.  I thought about my handicapped sister who has some addiction problems when it asked me to think of someone close that was in need of healing.  It was a bit more difficult to think of a group of strangers since I kept giving them my friends faces.  I see how this exercise is a mental workout since it took a lot of concentration to keep thinking of the subject matter for the period of time that was directed.  I was getting really sleepy at the end.  I really need to devote at least 20 minutes a day to the loving kindness exercise or something similar.  I do not see how I could do an hour as the book suggested.  I would definetly fall asleep then!  Maybe it is something I need to work up to doing instead of trying for the hour right away.

Burning all sorts of new neural connections with this class.

Unit 3

It would have been nice if there were some surveys we could fill out to rate ourselves in these categories.  I feel this would give us all a better reference point.  Anyway this is where I rate myself.  I rate myself an 8 on physical well-being.  I am 39 years old but I am the same size as I was in eleventh grade.  I work out at least three times a week and eat a healthy diet.  I would rate myself higher if I was more flexible.  I tend to take classes that are high impact like kick boxing or circuit training and these do not do much for your flexibility.  I would rate myself a 7 on my spiritual well-being.  I attend church but do not feel that I pray enough.  I just recently started to make daily prayer a priority.  My psychological well-being would also be rated a 7.  I feel like I am a well-adjusted and well grounded.  I am kind and loving to my family and friends (except for that one week of the month when I tend to lose patience).  I need to work on incorporating integral health into my life to be able to raise my score in this area.

My goal to increase my physical well-being is to add yoga to my work out routine.  I have a yoga DVD and I need to make it a priority to do it at least 3 times a week.  I would like to add more prayer to my life to increase my spiritual wellness.  My goal is to pray nightly before bed.   To increase my psychological wellness I would like to start incorporating the three steps to preparation to integral health into my life.  Loving-Kindness, skillful action and silence and stillness are the steps that Dacher outlined in the reading.  Adding these to my life will help eliminate some of the negative junk.  “Cultivating what brings us happiness, health and wholeness and abandoning what keeps us stuck in stressful and unproductive life patterns (Dacher, 2007)”.   

I just finished listening to the relaxation exercise The Crime of the Century.  What a weird name for this exercise.  You wonder who comes up with these names.   I had also heard this exercise in another class but it was very relaxing.  I almost fell asleep several times even with the dog scratching the door to get in and the phone ringing.  It was a bit strange to imagine windows in your body.  I found it interesting that during the exercise I felt really sleepy but once he said that you would not feel sleepy then I no longer felt at all tired.  Wow the power of suggestion really works.  Maybe I am just getting the feeling of relaxation confused with sleepiness.

Reference:

Dacher, Elliot. (2006). Integral health: The path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health.

Unit 2 Assignment- Warm Hands, Cold Feet!

 I started to listen to the relaxation exercise and  I realized I have heard it before in my stress management class.  I had in fact uploaded it to my old mp3 player in the past along with some other meditation exercises.  This was during my short phase of trying to incorporate meditation into my life.  It lasted a couple of weeks but I grew bored of the handful of exercises I had uploaded.  In listening to the exercise again I was reminded of how relaxing it is to do these exercises.  It also is amazing how much power the mind has over the body.  I truly felt my hands get warmer as the blood moved to them.  I wonder if this type of exercise has been done while thermal imaging was being performed at the same time.  It would be interesting to see if those areas actually showed the blood moving to different areas of the body.  After the exercise was over I noticed my feet were kind of chilly.  Could I use the exercise to warm my feet?  It did actually work but only for the time that I was focused on moving the blood.  Once I stopped my feet became chilly again.  Guess I better put on some socks.  I know meditation and relaxation exercises are something I need to add to my life.  This was another reminder.  Maybe I will load some of the exercises on to my new mp3 player. 

Trying to figure out this blog thing.

I have never created or participated in a blog before.  I have heard lots about blogs and know that some people even make a living from blogging.  Seems like a pretty cake job if you can get it if you ask me.  You get to work from home and just write about what interests you.  I am currently pursuing a BS in Health and Wellness and I created this blog as an assignment.  Nutrition and exercise has always been an area of interest for me so, I am looking forward to learning more in this class. (Geez, I hope I am typing in the right box, lol.)