What Did It All Meeeeeeean :)

In unit 3 I scored myself in the three categories of physical wellness, spiritual wellness, and psychological wellness. In physical wellness I score myself as a 7/10 and today I would say that is about where I am at still. I still consider myself to be in good shape and I am carrying out the activities I made for myself by being on a running program and cross training with my co-worker. My goal was to complete the tough mudder in may but unfortunately they moved it so it is no longer going to be around where I am so that is out lol...BUT..I do plan on doing another 1/2 marathon instead called the Rock'n Roll half marathon. In the spiritual wellness area I scored myself as a 6/10 in unit and now I would score myself as around an 8-9/10. I am more spiritual than I have ever been since starting this class, whether it was the result or just crazy timing idk because my co-workers I would say had a lot to with it also in helping me grow in that area. I am still reading the Bible and actually I am most days surpassing my goal of 4-5 chapter per day. In the psychological area in unit 3 I scored myself as a 5/10 and today I would score myself at around an 8/10. I have come a loooong way throughout this course when it comes to reacting to other people and my emotions. As far as my goal goes, I started out just paying attention to how I felt and why and just trying to be reflective but also not reactive. Then I worked on my loving kindness toward people. I still have a lot of work to do in this area though actually...so maybe my scoring is a little off but I feel so different and so much better about how I deal with daily issues.

Throughout this course I do feel like I have improved my wellness greatly. I feel more at peace throughout the day. I used to let people get to me so easily or get offended or defensive if someone said something disagreeing to me and I'm so happy because this class has shown me to accept others opinions and uniqueness by the loving kindness activities and learning to accept them instead of looking at them like an opposition to me or something, which now just sounds ridiculous as I'm saying it lol. I have to say the meditation has been the hardest part for me of this class...at least some of them. I loved the first one we did but some of the ones that followed I had a hard time with. But at the same time, it helped me realize how busy my mind really is and how that that is an area that I need to work on. So in the least they made me aware of my weakness.  This course has made me realize in my job that I am treating people who are in depth and unique and not just people with an illness or injury. It has helped me treat my patients as a whole by even just listening to them and how they were injured, how it has effected their lives and how they personally get better with their time and resources. My job is much more fulfilling to me now.

Jerrica

Last Hoooraaaaah

The last project of this term! :) Hope you have enjoyed reading my blog this term...Good luck to everyone in their studies!! :))

Introduction:

Why is it important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually and physically? What areas do you need to develop to achieve the goals you have for yourself?

I think it is important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually and physically because, as this class has emphasized time and time again, if someone that is advising another person on the proper way to live and on how to become healthy and prosperous, then that person better set the example and live what they are preaching, otherwise, what incentive does the other person receiving the advice have. The biggest area of concern that I personally need to work on developing is my worldly section of the integral health model. Right now I have that innate feeling of wanting to help others and be more connected to my community and the world for that matter. I have such compassion for those areas in our world that have nothing and are struggling so much and I have a deep desire to help them, to the point to where I wish I had the courage to sell all my worldly possessions and live for the sole purpose to help out those in need in areas much, much worse than mine. Unfortunately I very rarely act on these emotions and my ego and selfishness take over and I start to think about myself and what I would be losing if I gave to these people. My goal at this time is not that extreme as the selling everything thought I have on occasion though. If you start small and take mini steps to the bigger picture, it will not seem like such a shock once you get there. So, having said all that, my goal right now is to do two things; stop buying things that are really unnecessary, and also give the things that I have now that I don’t need to charities that exist for those people in my community who have less than me or can’t afford the everyday things like I can. In the future, once I have accomplished this first goal, my hope is to travel to other places in the world that could benefit from my help, whatever that my entail.

Assessment:

How have you assessed your health in each domain? How do you score your wellness spiritually, physically, and psychologically?

I have assessed my health in each of these three domains by assessing the way I feel. I am going to start with my spiritual wellness and score it as 9 out of 10. Nobody is perfect in any one area in my opinion because there is always room for some kind of improvement. I give myself this high score because I have never in my life been as connected with my spirituality as I am now. I have learned to let go of my stresses in life much more effectively and put that trust in God. The result has been amazing. I have seen the changes in myself, and it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders because I know in my heart that God has a plan with every happy event, every sad event, and every life altering event. Next, I score my physical wellness as 7 out of 10. I’m scoring myself as this because even though I feel like my fitness is pretty good right now, going off of the way I feel and the way I look, I still feel like I could improve my motivation to be healthy physically when it comes to exercise and eating the right foods. Sometimes I get a little off track with that and start to eat the greasy fried foods again which just bog me down and stop exercises because of my laziness. Fortunately right now I am not in that phase and I exercise regularly and am eating pretty healthy. I’m not eating as healthy as I usually do, but it’s not terrible. Finally, for my psychological wellness, I score myself as 8/10. I think with my spiritual and physical wellness combined, this helps with my psychological wellness, or maybe it’s the other way around and my psychological wellness helps me improve my spiritual and physical wellness. Either way, I’ve been working toward and improving my outlook on life and health. I am striving to achieve the loving kindness toward everybody, no matter how I want to actually feel about them or my relationship with them. This is turn, I think, has improved my outlook on life and my relationships in general.

Goal development:

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

A goal that I have for my physical wellness is to go on a fasting diet. Now, when I say fasting and diet, I don’t mean to say that I’m going to deprive myself of food like a lot of fad diets these days, but what I do mean is that I am going to re-train my mind and taste buds to crave more healthy foods. When I was deployed to Afghanistan, there was no fast food to eat and I ate pretty healthy with what was available. When I got back home from there, I found that I didn’t even crave fast food at all and in fact the thought of eating it sounded gross to me. Of course after having been back for almost 2 years now in combination with the convenience of fast food and a busy schedule, I have slipped back into the fast food eating more than I would like. So this “fasting diet” is actually not fasting of all foods, but of those greasy fat foods. Now on to my psychological goal, and this is to meditate! I want to achieve that calm mind because since starting this class I have become increasingly aware of how busy my mind really is and it’s ridiculous. I have such as huge hard time focusing on one thing for any extended period of time and I know it’s because my mind is just too busy. I know that by calming my mind, it will improve so many aspects of my life because I will be able to focus more, which I have noticed is so much more out of my control right now than I used to like to admit. I’m ready to admit it now though and to work on controlling my mind instead of letting my mind control me. Lastly, a spiritual goal I have for myself right now is to finish reading the Bible. I have always considered myself a Christian since I was younger but I never really knew the true meaning of it until recently. I started to read the Bible about a month and a half ago and I’m a third of the way through it. How it has helped me to get to know God and Jesus and how that in turn has changed my life is hard to even describe but it is something that I don’t want to lose ever again. So my goal is to not only finish reading the Bible, but to also understand it and grow from it with a major emphasis on understanding it because if you don’t understand what you are reading then what is the point in reading it at all.

Practices for personal health:

What strategies can you implement to foster growth in each of the following domains; Physical, Psychological, and Spiritual. Provide at least two examples of exercises or practices in each domain. Explain how you will implement each example.

For physical wellness the two strategies I am going to implement in order to foster growth is first to get to know my body better by keeping a journal and second is to constantly set goals for my fitness by committing to things such as 5K runs and half marathons. With the first strategy I am hoping that by keeping a journal of my diet and exercise each day in combination with my overall feeling as far as energy level and mood are concerned, I can get to know my body better and what kinds of foods fuels it most effectively. I already have a slight idea that dairy is not one of those fuel foods for me at all, and that was discovered with no journal at all. So, imagine the possibilities with a record of my habits that doesn’t let me forget, or lie to myself about my habits. The second strategy I am setting because I have found that when I have a goal that is a commitment to someone or something other than me, I have much more motivation to meet that goal. In the psychological area of wellness, my two strategies will be to meditate every other day for 15 minutes to start, and continue developing my loving kindness in each situation throughout my day. The first strategy will I hope clear my mind and help me to focus more on everyday tasks and improve my memory or recall abilities. As time goes on and I complete the meditation every other day for 15 minutes, I can increase either the number of days I do it or the amount of time I do in each session. The second strategy, I will accomplish by being cognitive in situations throughout the day and using that to work on my loving kindness. I feel like I get much more out of doing that than I do with the meditation practice we did in this class because I just don’t have a still enough mind to concentrate on that one. And finally the two strategies for spiritual growth that I could do are to finish reading the Bible as I stated earlier, and going to church weekly. With the first one I have committed myself to reading at least a certain amount of chapters per day in order to finish within the year and sometimes even more if I have time. The second strategy of going to church is not just to simply be able to say that “hey I go to church, I’m a good person”, but rather to help me learn about things in the Bible that are hazy to me and also to worship the Lord which will bring me closer to him.   

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?

I plan on assessing my progress or lack of progress in my future by using other people. People are my motivation and if I have a companion going on the journey with me, that person can hold me accountable. I have my husband partaking in the physical domain of my growth as well as the psychological, and I have two of my co-workers helping me grow in my spiritual domain. It’s hard to stop and give up on something when other people are right there either needing you to motivate them, or there to remind you of what you aren’t doing that you should be doing. Fortunately, that is what I have in my life and I am very lucky and thankful for them. I love those that are helping me through my journey and the last thing I want to do is let them down, and that is best motivation I could have. 

Lifetime Commitment!

The two exercises that I feel like were most beneficial to me throughout this course and will continue to be the most beneficial to me even after are the loving kindness and the visualization exercises. I really enjoyed the loving kindness exercise even though it was difficult to focus my mind and wrap my head around it at first.  I'm noticing myself thinking about this technique pretty often though and trying to use it throughout my day as well. I will continue to do this exercise as well as trying to look at the good side of each person and treat them with loving kindness as best as I can no matter the circumstances. When it comes to the visualization exercises, it is something that I can do even without the audio guiding me along. I really believe that if you see yourself winning and believe you will win, you are more likely to win. In the case of integral health, if I can see myself showing loving kindness and carrying out acts of kindness among tons and tons of others things, I believe I will be more likely to do it from day to day. If I imagine helping out those in need, or imagine myself staying physically fit, or imagine myself recycling, I will eventually fall into a lifestyle that will mimic that...or at least that is my hope :) 

The Beam Of Light!

This assignment was interesting this week. When I got started initially, just like the lady said, I couldn't think of anyone really that I considered super wise so I made someone up. Then as we it progressed I realized all the things I was thinking about this person...loving, all knowing, compassionate, giving....and it clicked. Who better to think of as my mentor than Jesus himself. So after that I really liked the exercise and the thought of transferring these qualities to myself. I can't explain how really but I could feel a difference in myself afterward...more at peace with not just myself but everything around me too. I think this brought me closer to my spirituality just for the fact that I used Jesus as my focal point. If I didn't I'm not sure if it would have? I guess it would because any person I regarded as wise and loving would bring me closer to His way of doing things. I think I could continue doing this...maybe not everyday to start but every now and then when I feel like I'm going off track from the integral mentality I think this a good way to get in the right mind again.

"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" to me is a credibility thing. I know if I was the one being told to do something I would much more likely listen and respect someones opinion if they have gone through or done what they are telling me to do themselves. I work in a physical therapy clinic helping to rehabilitate injured soldiers and one of my co-workers has always said to me since I started working there that you can't expect one your patients to do an exercise that you can't do with them. So a lot of times we will get down with them and do the workout with them...and it motivates them so it's a win win. I think the same applies to any healthcare, mental or physical. I feel like if someone is telling someone else to live a certain way and isn't doing it themselves, it's hypocritical and to me I would think, well I obviously it's not that great of a thing to do because he's not even doing it. So yeah I definitely think we as healthcare professionals would owe it to our patients to live out what we are telling them to do.  

My Self Assessment

During the loving kindness exercise, which I like much better than following along with the audio, I focused on people in general, not just people I love or people I dislike, but everyone. I thought about the needy, and the suffering especially though because I think I just have such compassion toward them and really feel like I should or need to help them.
Afterward I did the self assessment exercise and determined that my area that is lacking the most is the the worldly. I found that I am also lacking quite a bit in the interpersonal area as well, but definitely the worldly is the worst for me. I'm actually pretty good in the other two areas though. I care a lot about my fitness and nutrition and I feel like I am pretty good at expressing my emotions not just to myself but to others. Back to the worldly area though. I think I'm lacking in this area because I really don't do much in my day to day to impact my community or environment as a whole. I don't recycle, I've given to charity a few times but not nearly enough I'm sure, I haven't done much to help with global warming or social issues or health policies either. I'm pretty much lacking completely in this area I've found. So I've decided that my first step should be a small one just to get the ball rolling. I've chosen recycling! I could just start with cans, then once I've made that a habit get more into it with paper and glass. Just for a reminder I think it'll be a good idea to go get those little division bin things! Then if I don't recycle at least those will be staring me in the face making me feel guilty for not lol. 

The Subtle Mind...Not So Subtle

I have to say I liked this exercise much better than the last one. I still couldn't calm my mind, but I felt like I was making progress as it went. I definitely noticed how easy it was for anything and everything to grab my attention. I wasn't able to progress through all the stages along with the audio but I didn't really care because I felt like I was getting better at the first stage by the end of it. I tried focusing on my chest rise and fall at first but found that focusing on my breathing in and out was more natural and I could actually semi-not think about other stuff when I did that.

My connection specifically between the mental and physical wellness and the spiritual wellness is my reliance and faith in God. Knowing that someone else has it all figured out and has a plan for everything that happens to me, good or bad, is such a reassuring and relieving feeling. As soon as I start to grab on and hold tight to something that just isn't working out or going my way, I stop and learn to let go and take it as God telling me it just isn't in His plan. I've noticed in myself such a change for the better. I'm less stressed, I'm more positive, and, with the help of this class as well, I've learned to develop a greater loving-kindness toward others. 

Loving Kindness

Ok so this week's exercise was...not very beneficial for me unfortunately. The other exercises have mostly been for calming and relaxing and I definitely got that again with this one but with all the picturing and "moving" things in and out of my heart and breathing things in and out...I found it difficult. I couldn't calm my mind well enough to think about moving images and when I would try it was like they didn't want to listen! My mind is even stubborn against itself! It really made me realize how much I don't really have control over my mind yet. I thought I was getting better with the loving kindness, and maybe I am but as far as controlling and calming my mind...It's not great at all. I don't know if I would recommend this to others..but I'd say it'd be worth a shot because you never know if it will help you or not.
I think the concept of a mental workout doesn't have to be a calming or a relaxing one like this exercise. I think anything that challenges your normal way of thinking is a mental workout. In all of our readings it is clear that with mental workouts you see great benefits. They give you a more positive outlook on life, which tends to reduce stress, which will in turn improve your health both mentally and physiologically. The ways I've been trying to reduce my stress are more like mini workouts for my mentality and I also like to reflect on things which prepares me better for the next situation. When I'm in a situation I try to not react instinctively and instead try to step back and be calm...even if that's not exactly what I'm feeling at the moment. I find that in the end if I lighten up toward the other person and try to show compassion and understanding instead of judgement or hostility, the other person becomes easier to deal with and kind of lightens up themselves too. Afterward I try not to dwell on the situation too much, but I do briefly reflect on what I could have done differently to help the situation or to keep myself calmer.  

Rating My Wellness in Unit 3

1. 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?

Physical Well-being- I would rate myself at a 7. I'm in the best physical shape I have been in in my life and I feel great. Of course there is always room for improvement and I'm working at bettering myself. 
Spiritual Well-being- I would rate myself at a 6. Although I've more recently become more spiritual, I'm still learning a lot and trying to incorporate it more into my life. 
Psychological Well-being- I would rate myself at a 5. I'd say I'm pretty psychologically healthy but I still let some people get to me and do have some self esteem issues I'm trying to work through. 

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

Physical Goal- Complete the tough mudder in May. The tough mudder is not only a long distance run which would require good stamina, but it also includes numerous obstacles which would challenge my agility.

Spiritual Goal- Finish reading the Bible. I've started and am about 2 months out of 12 into it. 

Psychological Goal- Do not let others get in my head so much that I act out on it. 

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

Physical Activity- Get into a running program or schedule, and do cross training on the off run days. 

Spiritual Activity-  Read at least 4-5 chapters a day out of the Bible in the mornings and reflect on them the rest of the day.

Psychological Activity- Focus on myself and my values and try to develop that loving-kindness toward everyone, even if they put me down or I disagree with them. 

4. Complete the relaxation exercise The Crime of the Century. Describe your experience. 

My experience was not as good as the first exercise, but I liked the idea behind it. It was kind of hard to wrap my head around the whole concept of light coming out of me and it meaning different things. I think if I ever did this exercise again I would try to focus more on the feelings than the light because that kind of distracted me. That and my mind kept wandering in this one. It was still relaxing though. 

Relaxation Exercise

So I tried the relaxation exercise, which just so happened to be my first time ever relaxing by means of a guy telling me how to on a tape, and it turned out to be pretty cool. When he was telling me to consciously think about moving the blood to my arms and away from my core, I felt what he said I would. My hands got warm to the point they started to sweat a little bit even. Even more cool than that is when he told me to do the opposite and think about moving the blood back to my abdomen, it was almost like I could feel my digestive tract pick up again....or maybe my stomach just gurgled lol...but either way it impressed me. I definitely felt relaxed throughout the whole exercise and toward the end I felt like just passing out for the night! All in all...great experience :) I wouldn't mind all of our assignments being like this one c(:

On My Way!

Hello everyone!
This is my first time ever having a blog and I'm actually pretty excited about it :) For the past couple months I have really been working on myself when it comes to my fitness, spirituality, and mentality, so this class really couldn't have come a better time than now!