Unit 10 - On the Road to Integral Health

At the beginning of the class, I rated myself as the following:  physical well-being at a 7; Spiritual well-being at a 5 and my psychological well-being at a 9.  After the class, my final project scored myself lower in each of the above areas.  I must believe that because of the class, I gained a new awareness of what  it means to be whole physically, spiritually and psychologically which contributed to the lower score.

The goals that I had developed for myself in each area (physical, spiritual, psychological) are seeing some movement towards meeting them.  I had a doctor’s appointment regarding my knee pain which accessed again the need for me to lose some weight.  I also began attending the Y’s water aerobics class-yaaeh!!!

Regarding my spiritual well-being, I have been spending more time meditating and reading the Bible and really working towards not allowing distractions to come in my life by learning how to center myself and strengthen my most inner self.

I wrote on the discussion board this week the things that this class has done for me.  I wrote “I have learned how to control my responses to the things that I can’t change better than before the course. I am learning how to practice loving-kindness to myself along with extending it to others. I have also am learning how to practice silence and stillness to the racing thoughts that I am sometimes plagued with by learning how to cultivate what brings me happiness, health and wholeness and learning how to abandon what would keep me stuck in “stressful and unproductive life patterns” (Dacher, 2006). I know have new keys to life to continue to practice with and hopefully be able to share with people that I come into contact with. The best thing would be for them to “see” these things operating within my life”.  I would say that I am on the road to Integral Health.

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

 

Changing for the Better - Unit 9 Final Project

Most of my adult life has involved working with people.  I have worked in the healthcare field, volunteered and worked for nonprofit organizations and held places of leadership within my church from teaching classes to youth and adults to directing choirs for years within my church.  I would say that the gift that God has given me is to serve others. 

My educational goal is to eventually receive a master’s degree and become a social worker in the Employee Assistance Program (EPA) of the hospital that I now am employed with.  This program is developed to help employees who are dealing with some type of life stressor which began to affect the employee’s quality of life and job performance.  These issues could include substance abuse, anger management, grief, divorce or death of a spouse etc.

To be able to help the individuals that I will serve, it is critical for me to incorporate and develop myself psychologically, spiritually and physically so that I am not just telling others about the benefits of integral health practices, but have actually partaken and received the benefits myself.  I realize that I need more growth in some areas than others, but I realize that there a level of development needed in all areas of my life.
           
Spirituality is a concept of consciousness and intention and I have assessed myself spiritually simply by the fact that prior to this class, I had not spent time in prayer and Bible reading as I had in the past.  It seemed that I had allowed the busyness in life to take me off the path that I used to walk which was daily Bible reading, meditating over what I had read, and time spent in prayer to ask how to apply what I had read to my daily walk.  Through this class, it has become crystal clear that I have allowed some hurts and disappointments to come into my life that has hindered my desire to spend time to strengthen my spiritual life also.  Through the activities of practicing loving-kindness, I realized how I needed to let go, forgive and desire only good to those who I felt had betrayed me. Things and people that I thought I could not forgive, I learned that forgiveness begins with choosing to forgive.   On a scale of 1 – 5, with 5 being excellent, I scored myself in this area of my life with a 2.5.

In assessing myself physically, I realize that some health challenges from not eating healthy and exercising is causing my body to experience some of the health issues that I am experiencing.  On a scale of 1 – 5, with 5 being excellent, I scored myself in this area of my life with a 2.

Psychologically, there is a need to learn how to process information in a better way is needed, because I sometimes stress over things that I really do not have control over which then leaves me feeling anxious and frustrated.  On a scale of 1 – 5, with 5 being excellent, I scored myself in this area of my life with a 3.

 My goal development involving the above areas of my life are as following:

Spiritually – I need to go to bed earlier than I have, so that I can get up and have scheduled time (45 minutes) in the morning to have quiet time before starting my day while the house is quiet and spend that time to pray, read the Bible and meditate on the word that I read. 

Physically – I will re-join the YWCA and participate in the water exercise program twice a week.  One day on the weekends and one day during the week on evenings that is not school nights.  I will need to schedule actual days to complete homework and studying task instead of trying to crowd them in on the weekends. 

Psychologically – I tend to over-extend myself and at times I become frustrated and overwhelmed.  Dacher stated that “we cannot give to others what does not yet exist within ourselves - we must turn this loving-kindness inward, then outward” (Dacher, 2006, p. 51).  I need to turn loving-kindness towards myself first setting aside time that is dedicated to myself, and learn how to respond to unique challenges that I face on a daily bases. 

One goal that I have identified is to strengthen my abilities in how I process information, feel about myself and my environment and act in response to my thoughts and feelings. I will need to strengthen my psychological fitness by taking time for myself, learning to quiet my racing thoughts through the practice of meditating to give myself the ability to cope with stress, improve my decision-making skills and social engagement and interaction with others.

When you think, feel and act positively, you help protect your psychological health and build overall strength and stamina.

My commitment to assessing my progress or lack of progress will be monitored by keeping a daily journal of my progress and reordering my life to incorporate these changes that I desire.  I will spend time at the close of my day to journal and record my day.  Journaling my feelings after practicing silence and stillness, meditating, teaching myself how to examine the various activities that I participate in to see if this is what I need to be doing at this time in my life; is it fostering inner peace or agitation within my mind and emotions.  I have had much success in the past with journaling and watching my life progress in areas and revisiting processes in other parts of my life that have not changed and developing new strategies. 

Keeping a food journal is another way that I can monitor my eating habits.  I have already begun doing this and I was shocked to learn how much snacking I was doing between meals.  
I have also asked my fiancée to help me be accountable to going to the gym.  He has decided that he will join so that I will have an exercise buddy.

I recognize that this is just the beginning and as I grow and self-develop, new things will come to the surface for me to work on and to lead me to living a self-generated and self-cultivated life of integral health, authentic happiness from within and a genuine wholeness that interconnects my life to universal loving-kindness and a light that will automatically attract others to have the desire to have in their own lives. 

Bibliography

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

Unit 8 - New tools for life!

Unit 8

Learning to live in a state of loving kindness and meditation seem to be the two practices that I found to be the most beneficial to me at this stage of life.

Throughout my life I have experienced some life changing events such as betrayals within my marriage and with a very close friend that sometimes caused me to have difficulties in forgiving and letting go of the memories that I held onto.  Throughout this course, I was challenged to walk and live in loving-kindness, because I really began to understand that holding onto these negative feelings against individuals were doing more harm to myself than to them.

According to Dacher, "this is our most powerful antidote too destructive emotions like anger, intolerance, jealousy, pride and greed that agitate our mind and make it unavailable for further development" (Dacher, 2006).

I have made a choice to to open my heart with kindness, care, patience and generosity towards those who I feel have harmed me and I pray for them now.  I find that it is surprising that forgiveness really begins with you making a choice to forgive.  It has nothing to do with the person deserving forgiveness, it really focuses on the fact that if you want peace and wholeness in your life, you must choose to let go and forgive.  It is true that the mind drives our outer actions!

I have also increased the time that I spend meditating through prayer.  I have found that the time that I spend praying and focusing on the goodness of God in my life, and praying for others and their needs leaves me less time to focus on negativity.  In my attempt to foster a state of mental fitness, I will schedule more time to spend praying and meditating in an effort to to cultivate this new behavior and to lessen my responses to the challenges that will come in my life.  I will also keep a self awareness, strong motivation and an ongoing goal to keep me on the path of human flourshing!


Dacher, ES (2006) Integral Health:  the path to human flourshing.  Basic Health Publications, Inc.

Unit 6 Blog Entry
May all individuals gain freedom from suffering.
May all individuals find sustained health, happiness and wholeness.
May I assist all individuals in gaining freedom from suffering.
May I assist all individuals in finding health, happiness and wholeness

I attempted to practice the above exercise this week and felt like I truly meant each of the words that I spoke - until a few days ago, after a confrontation with a person that I have been good friends with.  I was angry at some of the words that she spoke and since I don't like the feeling of anger, I focused on her when practicing the above.  I found it very difficult at first, but I then decided that I wanted to choose not to be angry and wish her all the best.

Normally, I would say that my capacity to extend loving-kindess is something that I practice often in my life.  If I pass an accident, I pray for whoever is in the car asking God to provide them healing and safety.  If I pass an ambulance in front of a home, I normally will pray for the individual who is receiving care.  But this situation really upset me and I really had to make a choice to say the words and really mean them.  I actually could feel the anger go away.

Designing my integral practice revealed an area that I need to develop immediately involves my body.  I am having some health challenges that are ready for growth and development.  Some of my thoughts of actions are to plan out my meal choices and commit to an exercise program as my physician has recommended.  While I was doing this assignment, I got a call from my physician's nurse with my lab results which stressed to me again - this is the area that I must focus on to promote integral health.
Barbara

Unit 5 - Lovingkindness vs Subtle Mind

Hi everyone,

Last week, I reported that I really struggled with listening and practicing the loving kindness mind state.  My mind was like a run-away train and I could not WAIT for the recording to end.

This week while listening to the subtle mind recording, I found myself more willing to listen, and go through the process.  It seemed that my patience lasted longer and I could actually visualize the mind chatter and not get pulled into its enticement as much as in the past.  This experience encouraged me to go back and listen again to the lovingkindess recording. 

I have a friend who died last week after several years of battling a cancerous brain tumor.  I was not aware of how much his passing was weighing in on my subconscious mind until practicing the loving kindess recording.  I finally had a sense of letting go and accepting his passing, while releasing fear, doubt, anger about why he had to die.

If you never gain control of your mind, you miss out on opportunities to access what is really going on within you.  Why are you feeling anxious, experiencing emotions that end up affecting how you respond to your daily activities.  It is important to not just want to exercise the physical portion of our body, but to exercise the mental state because carrying around negative thought patterns and emotions can eventually affect the workings of the physical body. 

Unit 4

After listening to the Loving-kindness mp3 and the mind practice mp3, I found it very hard to concentrate and to quiet the mind chatter.  I tried to make my grandmother the focal point, but it seemed like everything that I needed to do or just the most odd things found its way to my mind, so it was truly a battle to focus.  Concentrating on my breathing seemed to work the best for me, and it actually seemed to slow down my thoughts and felt very relaxing. 

I do agree that this is something that must be practiced and you would get better doing it after a while.  I have always been leery in doing any type of meditation or visualization because of hearing negative stories about “opening up your mind” to spirits.  I still struggle with this concept so the only time that I feel comfortable about doing this is when I focus my thoughts on thinking about the Lord or scriptures that come from the Bible. 

I must admit that after participating in the above practice, I felt more at peace with the quietness that I felt and even when I returned back to my daily tasks at work, that same peaceful feeling was with me for the rest of the day.  I am not sure if I would recommend this practice to anyone yet – I think I need to learn more myself and see the results in my own life first.

The concept of mental workout consist of exercising your mind just like you work out your body to make it strong through stimulating activities, quieting the mind from chatter, worries, cares of the day.  Participating in cognitive activities can help to maintain your mental alertness and reduces the distractions that come to rob you of your time and talent. 

I joined a website called Lumosity and I use the many tools that help to give you a mental workout.  According to Lumosity there is “a possible link between lifetime cognitive engagement and Alzheimer's.  Each day counts when it comes to the fight against cognitive decline, according to a 2012 study from Berkeley University. Researchers analyzed 75 older individuals' brains for signs of beta-amyloids, which are linked to Alzheimer's Disease. Participants who engaged in cognitively stimulating activities had lower levels of beta-amyloids.  But of these participants, those who stimulated their brains in early to middle life had the lowest levels of beta-amyloid accumulation — and this association held true regardless of age, sex, and education”.

Visit the website – I really enjoy the various cognitive workouts that help to strengthen your mind and memory.  www.lumosity.com

 

Unit 3 Blog Post

Question 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?

I would rate my physical wellbeing at a 7; Spiritual well-being at a 5 and my psychological well-being at a 9.

For the past year, I have had some physical health challenges due to a knee replacement that did not end up as expected.  I am possibly facing additional surgery in 2013.  My spiritual well being is not where it use to be with my personal relationship with God.  My psychlogical well being is in the best condition because I continue to have hope for possible change.  I trust and beleive that things are going to get better next year.

Question 2:  Develop a goal for yourself in each area (physical, spiritual, psychological).  At the end of every year, I always do an assessment of the current year, and this week, I have been looking at my successes and things that I were unsuccessful in accomplishing in 2012.  In regards to my physical well being, I have made an appointment to see my physician to work on a plan in regards to the knee pain that I am suffering with on a daily bases.  Part of the plan will call for me to loose weight and to go to the Y for water aerobics. 

My spiritual well-being goal is to strengthen the personal relationship that I have had in the past with God.  I have allowed distractions to come into my life which took my eyes off God.  This will call for additional Bible reading and prayer on a daily bases.  My psychological well being will improve with implementing the above goals, but I would like to continue to learn how to settle my self, center myself and strengthen my most innerself.

I attempted to complete the Crime of the Century exercise, but found it very difficult to silence the chatter in my mind.  I have always been leery of excerses like these, but am trying to be open to them.  I did complete the exercise but did not feel that rested, I think I was allowing my brain to wander too much lol!!