Unit 9 Final Project

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?

Health and wellness professionals must have the knowledge, the training, and the personal experience of developing psychologically, spiritually, and physically. We hold this responsibility for a few reasons. The first reason being to provide visible credibility and trust that our patients can see and even feel. Like Dacher (2006) mentions, just having a map of a particular place does not even compare to having been there personally. The second reason is that we must develop our mind, body, and spirit in order to obtain the integral relationship necessary to full connect with a patient and creating the bond needed to properly assess, diagnose, and prescribe with an integral approach. Deep listening requires a still mind and an open heart, as we all know these two components of health and healing can only come with the development of all aspects of the human experience through contemplative practice. The third reason is simply because the practitioners in this field are at the leading edge of change. We as health and wellness professionals will need to live the practice, to play a part in the evolution of the integral approach and expand to new possibilities for health and healing.

I myself before taking this class have never seen large voids that I thought needed to be developed in my own personal life. Before the past couple months I had always taken the western approach to my own health where all my focus was completely on my physical body to maintain health, but inadvertently I was feeding my mind and spirit without the intention. I now realize that for me to reach my goals, I will need work towards developing my mind and spirit and maintain my current physical health.

Assessment

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

As we have learned from this class, the goal in the integral approach to health and healing is to end needless suffering and to promote human flourishing. This being said, the assessment looks a two things; which aspects of our lives need development due to signs of needless suffering and which aspects of our lives have the greatest potential for growth and development. As I said before, I had always been very health conscious or so I thought but only towards my physical health. For the last ten years or so I have for the most part watched what I eat, strength and endurance trained, controlled my weight, stayed physically active and maintained free from injury and illness. Physically I would score myself 8 or 9 out of 10, always room for improvement. The integral approach is very new to me and I now see that there are aspects of my health that need development. I can even remember as a young kid, I would get overwhelmed with a waterfall of thoughts in my head and at times I have no idea what to do with them. I was the kind of kid that asked questions about everything; I just wanted to learn how everything worked and reasons for everything. I would say that as long as I can think back, I remember  just about daily taking some time to myself, lying in my quit dark room, not sleeping, but focusing my attention to one thought, whether it was strategizing for the baseball game the next day or as simple as replaying a great time of my life. Never did I realize that I had been training my mind this entire time by organizing my thoughts and silencing others. I just thought it was the way that I dealt with stress. I came to this conclusion during the subtle mind practices; instead of breath as a focus in silencing the mind I had been practicing this in a way with using a single concept and pushing away all other thoughts that entered my mind. The psychological aspects of my life still needs much development to expand my consciousness but I think I have begun to head in the right direction, I rate my progress at this time 6 or 7 out of 10. Like many people that have followed the western approaches to health and healing, the spiritual aspects of my life have become ignored and are very underdeveloped. This is where I find needless suffering within myself. This in turn affects my state of mind, my interpersonal relationships, and even my work life. I now see the importance of developing this aspect of my life and in turn will help me to grow in all the other aspects of my life. Spiritually at this time I rate myself 3 or 4 out of 10.

Goal development

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

As we mentioned, the goal is not to fully develop in all aspects of our lives. Where one person may find the need for developing an interpersonal relationship with friends, the next person may not find this aspect of his or her life important at this point in his or her life. I personally have goals in all aspects of my life for this point in my life. Each goal is not set in stone; they can be changed depending on my needs. Physically my goal would be to maintain physical health and fitness but keep an open mind for further development once I am able to further develop my psychological and spiritual life. The goal in the psychological aspect is to continue to train my mind through contemplative practice and eventually this will also lead me to my goals of developing spiritually; reaching unity consciousness and ultimately promotion in human flourishing within myself and the people around me. Spiritually I would also like to discover my true calling, I feel there is somewhere in this world where I can make a difference even if through one individual life at a time.

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.

Physical

·         Maintain a physical fitness routine where I strength train at least 3 to 4 days a week and set aside a half-hour to an hour every day for cardiovascular training but allowing myself one day during the week for rest and recovery.

·         Maintain a healthy diet. I try to limit my calories to about 3500 calories and usually stick to the 40-40-20 rule. The 40-40-20 rule is the ratio carbs, protein, and fat in my diet, it is not always accurate but is a guideline that I follow and seems to work.  

Psychological

·         The Subtle Mind practice- the subtle mind practice is my favorite exercise that I have learned not only from this class but maybe as the best tool to progress my life at this time. At times it seems like the world is moving so fast and I just can’t seem to keep up, this exercise has helped me to just focus my attention on the tasks at hand and clear my mind of negativity and unclear thinking.

·         Yoga- I have given yoga a try at the gym in the past, let me be honest, I didn’t give it a chance. I went through the motions but did not really know why or what yoga could do for me other than a good stretch and some core strengthening. Now I have the knowledge that I can now kill two birds or even three with one stone, so to speak (mind-body-spirit).

Spiritual

·         Loving-Kindness Practice- The loving-kindness practice to me was the one most difficult practice. I believe that it was so difficult to me and continues to be so is because of the fact that this portion of my life remains to be the most undeveloped aspect of my life, an aspect of my life that I have ignored for years. The loving-kindness practice will allow me to open my heart not only to others but also to myself. With continued practice, it will get easier and it already has from the first time to this current day.

·         Prayer- Prayer can be one of the best tools for spiritual development regardless of your beliefs. Just acknowledging that there is a higher power with total control even when things seem to be out of your control will become helpful in many aspect of your life and will lead you to fulfillment of your life.

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?

Assessment of my progress can be done on my own or with the help of others. On my own I can use daily or even weekly journal entries where as we had been with our weekly blogs, I can write down in that journal a reflection of my experiences in my daily exercises using the strategies that we have discussed. I can also enlist a support team to help me in my assessments (friends, family, coworkers, ect) and to keep me motivated to assist in maintaining long-term practice for health and wellness. In the end it will be my own choices that will keep me motivated and to maintain long-term practice, a practice that I truly know will lead me to a happier, whole, fulfilled, and healthier life; the path to human flourishing.

References

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

Schlitz, M., & Amorok, T., & Micozzi, M. S. (2005) Consciousness & Healing: Integral Aproach to Mind-Body Medicine. St. Louis, Missouri: Elsevier