Unit 10 Creating Wellness

Hello everyone!  Wow, how time flies when having fun.  I can hardly believe that this term is coming to an end.  We were asked to reflect on our psychological, physical, and spiritual well-being and score ourselves between 1 and 10 in each area.  In unit 3, I rated myself at a 7 for my physical well-being, 8 for spiritual well-being, and 7 for psychological well-being.  I don't really know of a change in any of the areas that we have studied.  It's not that I haven't made changes to improve my well-being, but I think that it's going to take some time to make a noticeable difference.  I haven't been able to successfully add a 10 minute yoga practice into my daily routine.  However, I have been able to successfully add a 30 minute exercise routine, three days a week, to my life.  I have increased my prayer time and scripture reading, because of my own personal desires to grow closer to God and because my children have a love for hearing about God.  Psychologically I am trying to focus on positive thoughts, use breath and find quiet time.  Every step has a long way to go, but I believe I can reach my goals.

Unit 9 Creating Wellness

Introduction:

It is important for the health and wellness professional to become psychologically, spiritually, and physically developed.  When you, as a health professional, participate in integral health practices, your mind can be freed from clutter.  This freedom then brings healing to all aspects of your life.  With mental freedom comes spiritual growth and release from stress, which then brings physical healing. The health care professional can then have the mental clarity, spiritual strength, and physical capabilities to best assist clients (Dacher 2006).  I definitely know there are areas that I need to work on to reach my goals.  I want to spend more time using meditation (prayer) to get more spiritually connected with God.  I also need to strengthen myself physically.  I want to work on freeing my mind from clutter so that I may be less stressed and more likely to show loving-kindness towards others.

Assessment:

After taking a long hard look at myself, I can see the work I need to do to reach a flourishing health.  I have paid attention to the things that affect me to see how I respond and although I try to be optimistic, I find the things that overwhelm me come to the forefront.  I allow those overwhelming moments to take control of me way too often instead of me taking control of them.  I find in my observations that I don’t make time for me to release my mind from all the daily clutter, or the time to grow spiritually.  My physical well-being then suffers as the stress builds up, my body aches, and then my health depletes. 

My spirituality probably rates the highest at an eight, because I do focus and depend on God for my strength.  As in all areas of my life, my busy life can draw me away from spending time with God.  My vision can become blurry and my time spent in the bible can become minimal until He reminds me that time with Him can make life smoother.  Though I pray every day, it is usually at meal times and before bed.  I know without a doubt of my mind that I should be praying more often and praising God at every opportunity that He lays at my door. 

My psychological well-being is probably a seven.  I wouldn’t consider myself unstable, but the stress of everyday builds up within me.  I’m not the kind of person who allows tension to take control of me in a way where I would hurt others.  The truth is, I’m a people pleaser and often times take on more than I can handle, because I want to help others.  I become overwhelmed where I can be a bit testy, but usually I can see what’s happening and as soon as I can find an opportunity, I find a way to release.  Once I have been able to release, I can refocus and go back to the task at hand with a clearer mind and calmer demeanor.

My physical wellness, however, rates about a five.  I know a lot of my physical is because of my psychological well-being.  I have MS and when my stress level becomes high, my body aches and I deal with muscle spasms.  My mental thoughts have to remind me that what I eat effects the way my body feels.  I also have to mentally remind myself that physical activity keeps my muscles from tightening up on me.

Goal Development:

My physical goal is to develop strength in my shoulders so that they don’t dislocate every time I try to use them.  I would also like to lessen the muscle spasms that attack my body each day.  My goal psychologically is to lessen that clutter that builds up in my mind causing stress.  I would like to learn to focus more on positive thinking (Dacher 2006).  My spiritual goal is to grow a closer relationship with my Heavenly Father.

 

Practices for personal health:

Since physical is my weakest area, I feel it very crucial to concentrate on its development.  I want to develop a daily yoga routine, which will not only help me physically, but also mentally.  Yoga can release my tensions that have built up throughout the day and build up within my muscles.  Focusing on my breath throughout my practice can help me release my tensions with each exhale.  Yoga also strengthens and stretches the muscles.  We recently got a membership at our local YMCA.  There I will do aquatic exercises, because they are low impact and gives comfort to the muscles being used.  Psychologically I will practice subtle mind and focus on my breath so that I can release the clutter that tries to overtake me when I want to sleep.  This will help me to relax and fall asleep easier.  I would also like to practice thought control where I look at the good in a situation to be able to get through without feeling stressed or overwhelmed ( Dacher 2006).  Spiritually I want to spend time daily meditating or praying.  Prayer can release and bring healing to the mind, body and soul.  I also want to spend more time in the bible.  Reading the scriptures can bring strength and understanding.  There is clarity of the soul and freedom from many things such as fear when one reads the scriptures.  Reading the scriptures actually give the blueprints on how to live life to the fullest through love, grace and forgiveness.

Commitment:

To be able to assess my progress in six months, I could make a questionnaire that I answer before I start and again six months later.  This will enable me to see whether I have made any progress with my health and well-being over six months or if I need to find other approaches.  To help me maintain my long-term practice, I could start a journal.  This will help to hold myself accountable.  I will also allow me to see what I have done to improve my well-being, what changes I may need to make, and the progress as well.

Unit 8 Creating Wellness

Hello everyone!

We were asked to decide two practices we would find most beneficial for us.  The number one practice for me would be the Subtle mind.  I find myself quite capable of emptying my mind and focusing on my breathing.  This practice releases my stress and often times causes me to fall into a peaceful sleep.  The second practice I found beneficial was meditation.  My form of meditation is in the shape of prayer.  However, this practice is actually more important to me than the Subtle mind.  I find my time in prayer crucial, uplifting, calming and releasing.  Talking to my Heavenly Father brings me such a closeness, love, and freedom from the things that trouble me, that I find it necessary to be applied to my daily life.  I believe that I can implement these practices daily to help bring peace, strength, release and health.  I believe when time seems to be overwhelming, using the Subtle mind practice will help me to breathe and refocus.  However, when times appear stressful or sorrowful, prayer could bring me strength or freedom.

Unit 7 Creating Wellness

Hello everyone!
I cannot say that I enjoyed this week's meditative practice.  Although I spent time focusing on God, there was too much moving around on my already stressed out body and mind to be able to focus and relax.  I can't say that I would be able to find release with any of the visionary practices.  I prefer to clear my mind and focus on my breath instead of visualizing something.  I can say that my practice with breathing, my use of yoga, and the use of my piano has brought forth the greatest increase of my psychological and spiritual well-being, as well as prayer.  I believe that if I want to increase my health and wellness even more, I should continue these practices on a daily basis, especially when I become stressed or overwhelmed.

The saying: "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself," means that if  you haven't experienced something, how can you teach or show someone else that thing you haven't experienced?  This applies to the health and wellness field in the way that you can't lead a client to freedom from stress and mental torment if you yourself can't find that freedom.  I think it would be very important for the client if I made it my priority to develop my own psychological, physical and spiritual wellness so that I may be able to help my client without any distractions.  I want to practice quieting my mind on a daily basis by using yoga, breathing techniques and my piano.

Unit 6 Creating Wellness

Hi everyone!  The exercise process was to repeat certain phrases over and over.  This was to help me to be able to believe that I may be able to help myself and others find health, happiness and wholeness.  The assessment process allows us to look deep within ourselves to see what is causing us difficulties and suffering.  This look enables us to care for those issues and free ourselves from them.  I've found that I often times take on more than I can handle.  I have decided that I will focus on only those things that are the most important at that time.  Limiting the things on my plate and focusing on fewer things would release my stress.  For me, breathing and learning to say "no" would greatly help me in increasing my health.  I also use my piano to release and refocus.  If it wasn't for my piano, I would be a stressed out mess.

Unit 5 Creating Wellness

The subtle mind activity was wonderful.  Concentrating on my breath allowed me to release my stress from the day and gave me the opportunity to relax.  When comparing this activity to the loving kindness activity, I found it to be much easier to relax with the subtle mind.  I was able to release and quiet the mental activity through the focusing on my breath.  When you can bring calmness to the mind, it can bring physical wellness to your being.  Spiritual wellness is the basis of both the mind and body.  If the spirit is not healthy, which people use as their strength in troublesome times, then their mind and body become weakened which then in turn weakens the spirit further.  The spirit, body and mind are all interconnected and when one becomes weak it affects the other.

Unit 4 Blog Creating Wellness

Wow!  My experience with the loving kindness was not beneficial at all.  I found myself unable to relax and to focus.  My spirit was putting up red flags and I had to quit.  As a Christian, I could not implement this practice into my life and I most certainly would not be able to recommend this to others.  My beliefs and the bible strictly forbid it.  Because you are being asked to allow pain and other feelings to enter from other people, you are opening your mind up to allow evil to enter.  I cannot do this practice nor ask others to do it. 

The concept of "mental workout" is to train the mind to think positively and to let go of the non-positive.  The proven benefits of a mental workout is a more psychologically sound mind.  I can implement mental workout by encouraging myself and treating others tenderly and lovingly the way I would like to be treated.