second assessment

After reviewing my physical, psychological, and spiritual wellness from Unit 3, I have made some progress.  However, I kind of changed my scoring for psychological wellness.  In Unit 3 I scored myself at an 8 and have since changed it to a 5.  I do not feel that I have regressed, but rather gained a clearer understanding of true mental wellness.  Mental fitness has always been a struggle of mine, most prominently negative self talk, little confidence, and a constantly wondering mind.  My physical health has improved as I have come closer to my goal weight--I am now just 30 lbs away!  A score improvement of 1 point.  I also earned 1 point more for spiritual wellness.  I believe that I have made progress in each area, have been implementing the exercises/activities that I planned on doing, and am getting closer to reaching my goals.
Throughout this course I have learned a lot about myself, both good and bad.  I truly believe that I have improved my overall health, and this is just the beginning.  The hardest part of this course for me was learning how to love myself.  I know that this is an important step in Integral Health, and I am committed to developing this for my overall health.  It is also important for me to develop this for the sake of those whom I will be working with.  I want to be an example of what I am teaching.  I hope that I can continue to develop my physical, spiritual and psychological health.  Now, I have a clearer understanding of what I want to do as a health and wellness professional and I am so excited to being my new career!

Haddie S.

the finale!

Introduction

          A leader is someone who guides others; someone who others follow.  As a leader it is important to live or act out what you are teaching.  This is especially true for health and wellness professionals.  An integral health healer’s goal is to heal their patient through helping them develop psychologically, spiritually and physically.  In order for them to help others to develop these areas, they must first develop these areas in their own life.  This is a life long journey with no “final destination” of perfect health.  Rather, it is a lifetime devoted to growing, changing, and gaining wisdom and understanding. 

          I think that I need to develop more in all three areas: psychologically, spiritually, and physically.  I have just begun on my integral health journey.  I have made a lot of slow progress, but the changes that have been made are ones that will stay with me for a long time.  I believe that there is always room for improvement.  Having said that, the area that I most need to develop further is psychologically.  I let my thoughts control me instead of controlling my thoughts.  I hope to gain a better understanding on how to control my thoughts and quiet my mind so that I can focus better and have a more positive mindset.

Assessment

          My overall spiritual, physical, and psychological wellness is pretty average.  My strongest area is spirituality. On a scale of 1-10, I would score my spiritual wellness at a 9.  Over the past year I have made great strides in my physical wellness, so I would rate it at a 7.  Psychological wellness is the lowest scoring area.  Currently, I would score myself at a 5.  I am aware of the changes that need to happen and am working on them, but they are just taking longer than the other two areas.  The assessment results are no surprise to me.  Mental weakness has been a lifelong struggle.

Goal Development

Physical—My physical wellness goal is to reach my target weight by the end of the year.  It has been almost 3 years since I started and I am so close!  I am finally starting to believe in myself and have the confidence that I can do it!

Spiritual—My spiritual wellness goal is to live in freedom instead of fear.  I was raised in a religious home and there was a lot of pressure, guilt, and fear.  I felt afraid to do many different things because I didn’t want to make a mistake, disappoint anyone, or feel like I was sinning.  I was afraid of failure and I was afraid of success.  Living in fear has led to most of my problems in physical wellness, spiritual wellness, and mental wellness.  I came to the realization that I have been living my life in fear, and I want to break out of that.

Mental—My mental wellness goal is to learn how to control my thoughts and not let them control me.  This has been the biggest struggle for me my entire life. 

Practices for Personal Health

          To reach my goals I will implement different strategies for each area.  However, I believe that since the physical, mental, and spiritual aspects are interconnected, the strategies will also overlap.  For physical wellness it is important for me to fuel my body with the right foods.  Exercise is also important, but I enjoy exercising, so it is not as much of a concern for me.  Food, however, has posed an issue in my life.  Life can get busy with work, school, kids, etc., and it is easy to grab a pizza, or a frozen entrée, or to skip meals all together.  My strategy is to keep healthy foods at hand.  Have snacks and meals prepared in advance to make it just as easy as ordering a pizza.  My other strategy overlaps with the other areas, and that is to get mentally fit.  I think the best way for me to do this is through physical exercise, such as yoga, and meditation.  I plan to exercise at least 5 times a week (my current routine), and incorporate time for meditation in my daily routine.  Getting mentally fit will help me have a clearer mind, have more control over my thoughts and in turn my actions.  I think that if I could develop further mentally I would make healthier lifestyle choices easier.  Meditation would also help me develop spiritually.  “This practice teaches us to tame and stabilize the moving mind, develop a witnessing consciousness, sift into calm-abiding when possible, and experience unity consciousness when the earlier stages have been mastered” (Dacher, 2006).  Another strategy to help develop my mental wellness is focusing on breathing.  The mind follows the breath, so peaceful breathing leads to a peaceful mind (Dacher, 2006).  The last strategy is practicing the loving-kindness exercise.  This exercise is very important to my overall health because I still need to learn to love myself.  Loving others, letting go of past hurts and forgiving are all much easier to do when you love yourself.  All these things lead to a better overall health.  I plan to practice this exercise during my daily meditation time a few times a week.

Commitment

          I am committed to reaching these goals.  All of my goals are interconnected with one another.  To help me reach my physical goals, I need to work on reaching my mental and spiritual goals; it’s a cycle.  I already do a physical assessment monthly, so I will just implement a mental and spiritual assessment with that.  This will allow me to look back at the last 30 days and see if I have made any progress or not and the reasons why.  A lot of my goals are part of a lifestyle change.  My hope is that after 6 months that most of the changes will become part of my new lifestyle which will make it easily maintained.  As I mentioned earlier I think there is always room for improvement.  There is a destination to my physical goal—to reach my goal weight, but there is no final destination to mental and spiritual wellness.  It is a lifelong practice of dedicating yourself to integral wellness.  By teaching integral health, this will also help keep me in-check and help me maintain my new lifestyle.  I want to be an example to others in all aspects and a source of wisdom and encouragement.

 Haddie S.

Reference

Dacher, E. (2006).  Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing.  Basic Health Publications, Inc.: Laguna Beach, California.

healer

For this weeks meditation practice I really had to, well, how do I say it. . . focus on focusing.  However, I do appreciate the purpose of this practice.  Throughout this course I have learned a lot about myself.  Some good and some not so good.  Through meditation/mindfulness I have been able to change some of those "not so good" things.  I feel like I have an increased awareness of my thoughts and actions.  I am now acting with intention rather than reacting.  I hope to continue practicing meditation and mindfulness to even further increase these aspects in my life.  I have just begun and have already seen improvement, so imagine what a few years could do?!?

"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself"
This saying is talking about effective leadership.  This saying is very applicable in the Health and Wellness field.  For me personally, it is a lot easier to trust someones teaching when they themselves have experienced the things that they are teaching me.  For example, (sorry I seem to always mention my weight issues : / ) I feel that I will be able to help and encourage people who are trying to lose weight, struggle with poor self-esteem, have no confidence in themselves and feel like they aren't worth the effort--because I HAVE BEEN THERE.  I can not only encourage them and teach them the knowledge that I have on diet and exercise, but I can empathize with them.  I know what they are thinking.  I know what they are feeling.  Someone who has not experienced these things may not be as effective as someone who has.  Yes, I feel that I would have an obligation to my clients to develop my own physical, spiritual and psychological health.  As a leader/teacher I should be the example to my students/clients.  Actions speak louder than words.  How can I hold a client to certain expectations when I do not hold myself to the same expectations?  I can implement psychological and spiritual development into my life by continuing to practice yoga and meditation, as well as, prayer and a time of reflection.

Haddie S.

integral assessment

I really like the universal loving kindness exercise. Today, through technology our world has shrunk.  We can talk to people halfway around the world, or fly there in less then 24 hours.  Our own "personal" worlds have also shrunk.  We are more connected with our electronics than we are with our own relationships.  We barely listen to our own bodies let alone other peoples needs.  This exercise is a great reminder that people need people.  We are very different, but in essence we are all the same.  We want to love and be loved; we want to give; we want freedom; we want health and happiness.  This exercise made me think of how I was inspired by others to get healthy, and my hope and prayers are to be an inspiration to many others.
The integral assessment is a good tool to use to do a "self check".  Life changes, we change, so it is important to do an assessment more than once in your life!  My assessment showed that I am very good at loving, serving and listening to others, but it is easy for me to put myself down, and push my needs aside.  Over the past couple of years I have changed a lot of my lifestyle behaviors.  I used to enjoyed working out, but when I reached 250 pounds it became very difficult.  Its been a long and hard journey (that I am still on), but I have learned a lot!  I have made it past my 50 lb mark (woohoo!!!) with a bit more to go.  More than struggling to stay motivated to exercise and choosing the right foods to eat, I have struggled the most with loving myself.  I really need to develop this more so that I can reach my goal and stick with it.  I want to be an inspiration to others for them to live their best life and in order to do that, I need to first learn how to love myself.  I think I good way to help me in this area is by doing the loving kindness meditation exercise.  Also, just keep working toward my goal and keeping a positive mind-set.  Sometimes I look back at pictures and measurements and physical abilities to do a "self check" and to also show myself how far I have come.  I need to learn that being proud of who I am and what I have accomplished doesn't mean that I am a prideful person.  Loving yourself is probably just as important as the right amount of calories...

Haddie

Unit 5 Project

Unit 5 Project

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15uUAM8tDxactTHZNoUmNJzXPUmjjFZX4-BgM4OsWDsU/edit

suBtle mind

This mental fitness exercise was very interesting and much easier for me to do than last week's Loving-Kindness exercise.  I didn't get frustrated by my lack of control of my thoughts.  I acknowledged my thoughts and let them pass.  I had to "bring myself back" several times, but as the exercise went on my focus and control got better.  It was interesting to be witnessing my thoughts instead of being attached to them.  This is what made it so much easier to let the thoughts go; I wasn't attached to them.  This is an exercise that I can see myself continuing to do.  I struggle with an ever-wondering mind and often am so overwhelmed by the amount of mental chatter that I cannot accomplish anything and I don't sleep. 
Spiritual, mental and physical wellness are all interconnected.  As I have talked about before, this can be seen in my life with my weight "issues".  Its a vicious cycle: I felt a spiritual darkness and was very depressed and anxious, this triggered my mind to find comfort and happiness outside of myself.  I responded to this with food and material possessions.  I would eat food that wasn't good for me and feel guilty, then get more depressed, or buy something that I couldn't afford or didn't need, and regret it, and so on and so forth.  The cycle must be stopped!  By focusing on healing the spiritual darkness within myself, I no longer felt the need to comfort myself with things and food.  Without that, there was much less guilt and stress.  By being able to control my actions I felt more in control of my thoughts.  I felt more fulfilled spiritually, made better choices for myself physically, and my thoughts were much more positive.  These three aspects are what makes us human; there is no separating them.  Finding a way to balance the mind, body and spirit will lead to a healthy, flourishing life!

Haddie

loving kindness

Doing the Loving-Kindness exercise was fairly easy for me until I had to direct the same loving and accepting thoughts onto myself.  This is a practice that I still need a lot of work on.  However, I have come a long way in the past couple of years.  I guess I would say that this practice was both beneficial and difficult.  As I just mentioned, I am still learning to love and accept myself.  It was beneficial in that it made me very grateful for my loved ones.  I got a chance to sit in peace and quiet and think about all the things that I love about this person and all the way that I am blessed by them.  It also made me think about how much I have changed as a person because of their love and acceptance of me, and I am truly a better person because of them.  I would recommend this practice.  I know that I am not the only one who struggles with loving themselves and this would be a good way for some people to learn how to do that.
The practices that we have been doing each week, for me, are a mental workout.  It is very difficult for me to slow down and relax.  To make myself sit in quiet and listen intently and try to follow the instructions while allowing the practice to actually work isn't an easy task.  This is one way to get a mental workout.  It is challenging me to do something that is difficult, but at the same time very beneficial to my health.  And if I allow myself to relax and listen and focus my thoughts, I feel good afterwards.  It is the same concept as pushing yourself beyond (what you think are) your physical limits.  I workout regularly and sometimes I am able to push myself really hard, and other times I am content with just putting in a little effort.  When I focus my thoughts and push my body to work hard, I get a mental workout and I feel SO much better afterward (mentally and physically)!  Part of me is saying, "STOP! You're gonna die!", and the other part is saying, "Don't stop!  You can do it!  You are strong!".  In order to keep going, I have to shut out the negative and focus all my energy on the positive.  As I have practiced this it has gotten easier not only in challenging myself physically, but in other aspects of my life too.

Haddie