Introduction: Why it is important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, physically, and spiritually. Describe areas of need for personal development to achieve my goals.
Developing my integral health empowers me with the knowledge and skills to work toward the goal of increasing the flourishing of my health, happiness and wholeness. It also challenges me to work toward alleviating suffering personally, interpersonally, and professionally. It allows me to have empathy and connectedness to others as they journey along their own path toward integral health. Professionally I can become a mentor to someone by continuously working to grasp and grow in my understanding of all the aspects, lines and levels of physical, mental and spiritual development. This course has exposed me to material to nurture, enrich and integrate my mind, body and spirit. It has challenged me to evaluate areas of need to bring awareness to knowing my inner self. I still need to cultivate my own state of health, happiness and wholeness before I feel qualified to reach out to others professionally. However, over the past few weeks I have internalized and adopted some new behaviors to promote peacefulness in my life. I am hoping that my newfound wisdom can assist others to reduce their own stressfulness since this improves the quality and perhaps quantity of life.
Assessment: Assessing and scoring myself in each domain using a 0-10 scale.
Physically 7/10. I am proactive in my healthcare. I feel healthy, am well-nourished, work to maintain my weight but lack routine in exercise. I have a physically active job that helps me to stay strong. Acknowledging that I need to accept the physical changes of aging is a necessary kindness to allow myself to age gracefully.
Psychologically 6/10. Being more of a Type A personality gives me a mindset of practicality that seeks to find order out of the chaos of my lifestyle. Worry creates insomnia as I try to solve problems. Emotionally I struggle as I seek to travel through life on the other side of divorce and am transitioning into the empty nest stage with grown children. Cognitively I have grown tremendously since I started over a year ago to obtain my BS in Health and Wellness at Kaplan University. This has been a test of patience and perseverance as I allow myself to open my mind to learn once again.
Spiritually 8/10. I am a Christian and have a strong faith in God. I appreciate His presence in my life and rely on my beliefs and prayer life to give me inner strength and wisdom. I have a daily inner dialogue with the Lord and want Him to direct my steps. I am often sensitive to the “kindred spirit” that exists between believers in ordinary daily encounters. I am always amazed at the ways that He makes His presence known to me.
I do appreciate learning about the diversity of different spiritual practices and maintain an open mind for the ways that people connect with their soul.
Goal Development: List at least one physical, psychological and spiritual goal.
Physical: Incorporate one hour of exercise either walking or working out at the gym two to three times per week. Ascend the steps (66 total) at work at least three times per day. Pay attention to how I feel after I exercise. Literally take body measurements to motivate me to tone and perhaps even lose a couple of inches from my waistline and hips before Christmas of this year. The winter temperatures always make me seek to be more consistent with gym workouts that give me quicker results for toning.
Psychological: Acknowledge an area of concern (name and not blame) to try to overcome worry that produces insomnia. Objectively try to problem solve by detaching from the emotional components of the problem at hand. Writing down possible solutions helps me to sort through options. Practice a relaxation technique at bedtime to produce peacefulness as I release the cares of the day. I have enjoyed the Loving-Kindness, Subtle Mind and Aesclepian practices of this course at bedtime when I give myself permission to shut the world out to concentrate on my inner being.
Spiritual: Seek solitude daily ten minutes minimum to purposefully meditate. Shutting my bedroom door has significance as I detach from the world and enter my own sanctuary space seeking God’s presence. I like my “prayer closet” and sometimes light a candle to acknowledge the presence of Christ with me. I have learned how to quiet my mind more effectively with the contemplative practices from this course. When I feel like I am in the calm-abiding mind I begin to feel my communion with my soul emerge.
Practices for personal health: Strategies and two examples to implement in each domain. Explain how each example will be enacted.
Physical: I want to nurture my body by eating a more balanced diet consistently and improve my physical fitness level. I want to establish short-term and long-term goals for each of these areas for my physical being. I need to create a weekly meal plan to grocery shop once a week instead of wasting time every couple of days wandering in the store thinking of a dinner menu. I know how to create a balanced diet and know how healthy I feel when I pay attention to my nutrition. My long-term goal would be to cook in bigger quantities and freeze meals to become more organized to reduce time in the kitchen on a daily basis so that preparation to eat healthy does not seem like such a chore. My short-term physical fitness goal is to plan one-hour exercise sessions three times a week for one month. Realizing that exercise releases endorphins is a good motivator to put the effort into working out. My long-term goal is to go to the gym for enough visits to redeem half of my membership fee for the year. Money is definitely the motivator but in reality I will reap the benefit of becoming more physically fit if I change my lifestyle to incorporate my workouts as a part of my weekly routine. Returning to college online has consumed the time that I used for exercising and I feel more deconditioned physically because I have lost my gym routine after work. I want to feel better about my body.
Psychological: Improving my mental fitness will allow me to develop my inner self and seek to develop my mind-body connectedness. Learning to implement contemplative practices has allowed me to train my brain to embrace its expansiveness to work at identifying ways that are helpful to traverse from the untamed to the subtle to the still mind. I find that diaphragmatic breathing is a conscious effort to allow my parasympathetic relaxation response to achieve the release of physical tension so that I can dwell on the inner journey of my mind. I enjoy visualization or guided imagery with soothing background music or nature sounds that allows me to relax. I also find that creative endeavors with crafts or gardening allow my mind to develop a vision as I work and it nourishes my integral health.
Spiritual: I enjoy walking or working outside listening to praise music. It reinforces my body-mind-spirit connectedness. Prayer is just an ongoing daily dialogue that I have with the Lord. My Christianity is at the core of my being and I actively seek a daily communion to be in God’s presence. Singing praises or hymns are my offering of love and admiration towards Him. I lift up my heart and voice each day. My joke is that scripture says to “make a joyful noise unto the Lord,” so I am not intimidated by the fact that I sound awful when I sing. My attempt at the Aesclepius meditation with this course always finds me envisioning my wise and loving healer as none other than God. My spiritual journey is what keeps me centered and able to find peace in the midst of the storm of life’s circumstances. I seek spiritual transformation to become more Christ-like as I walk on this side of eternity.
Commitment: Assessment strategies for progress or lack of progress over the next six months. Strategies to use for maintaining long-term practices for health and wellness.
The basic characteristics of Aesclepian healing are to seek holistic, evolutionary, intentional, person-centered, and dynamic health and wellness. This course has exposed me to a newfound enthusiasm to pursue my personal integral health. I need to embrace this positive healthy adaptation to journey toward healing and wholeness on a personal level. Maintaining this as my way of life is the challenge to transform my mind-body-spirit connectedness. Once I become transformed the fruits of my labor will flow from within me to touch the lives of the people who cross my path. This is a process and I need to strategize my journey from the present to assess it six months from now to realize how I will incorporate practices and behavior changes to promote a flourishing life. I think journaling would be the best avenue for reflection in this area to assess progress or regression to my familiar former self. I find the Internet to be a valuable tool to allow myself to explore ways to seek my inner development. There are so many sources to tap into for contemplative or meditative practices, so many sites for relaxation music and images. Long-term maintenance for me means that I am going to adopt ways to inhabit a new consciousness that allows me to easily center myself from my outer to inner to innermost dwelling. From my grounded being I can then release the gifts of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control that flow from within my inner communion with my soul. Allowing myself the freedom to develop my triune being from body to mind to soul, outer to inner to innermost, will cultivate my own state of health, happiness and wholeness. It is from this source of being that I can extend myself to touch the lives of others who cross my path. This course has taught me to first seek personal wholeness to journey from the inside out so I can serve others with an attitude of gratitude. The initial week of this term required me to set up my blog and my title stands strong at the completion of this course “Healing from the Inside Out” as it encompasses my mission for long term maintenance.
