Final Project My Path to Integral Health

My Plan to Integral Health

I Introduction
The reason why I believe it’s important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually and physically is because they are the professional and there job is to help those that come to them for what ever they need. I see a professional as someone who knows all about a certain subject. My health is not just biological but integral, mind/body/soul. And I want to be able to trust that the professional I am seeing for my health is going to be able to help me on all levels. Not just prescribe a drug for me and send me on my way.

The areas I need to develop in my life to achieve integral health are physical and psychological. I wish to improve on my physical/cardio activity. I am at a high risk for diabetes and heart disease. I also feel I need to develop more psychologically to improve my boundary issues and foster healthier relationships. Through meditation, this class, and the books I have read I have learned that there are areas in my energy field that are much weaker than other parts. I know through consistent meditation and improving my mental fitness I will be able to over come those challenges. Spiritually I feel that I am a healthy individual. I am emotionally grounded when it comes to my faith. I have a strong belief in God and his son Jesus Christ. That knowledge has got me through the most difficult times in my life.
II Assessment

I assess my health in each domain by my ability to deal with the challenges I face in each area of integral health, spiritual, physical and psychological. In each domain I will give myself a score of 1-10, ten being the greatest. Spiritually I feel that I am at a 7. There is a lot of room for improvement and that I look forward to, yet I have a strong sense of who I am and why I am here on the earth at this time. My faith continues to grow with my increasing challenges. Physically I would have to give myself a 4. I am capable of taking care of my family and working full time with limitations due to back pain. However, my activity level is limited because of my weight. It keeps me from enjoying life to its fullest. Psychologically, I would have to give myself a 6. For the most part I have healthy relationships and I believe in always seeking the truth and to remain open minded. Due to my weight I know that I have psychological issues to work out and because I rate my spirituality at a 7 I am able to stay clear from depression and other self defeating actions.
III Goal development

I have set a goal for myself in each area of physical, psychological and spiritual. My first goal in the physical domain is to get more exercise and cardio workout to prevent disease and improve my endurance. My second goal in psychological is to meditate more and be more aware of my actions and words to improve my relationships. And to improve spiritually, in my faith we are taught to read our scriptures daily and pray always. In turn this gives me the desire to serve and help others and be a Christ like example.
IV Practices for personal health

I plan to implement strategies to foster growth in each of the following domains of physical, spiritual and psychological. First, to reach my goal of becoming more physically active and fit I have decided to enroll in a gym to motivate myself to be more productive. This gym is very close to my new home and will be convenient. I have also purchased new cook books to prepare more nutritious meals for my family. Next is my psychological goal to create healthy relationships wherever I go. I love to help people and in doing so I sometimes am not sure of my boundaries, which can be unhealthy and in turn, I can be easily taken advantage of. I know through meditation and visualizations done daily I will be able to see clearly the areas I can psychologically work on to improve my skills for creating healthy relationships and limitations. My goal to spiritually improve myself is much like my psychological goal. To meditate more and find time to be alone with my thoughts whether it is through nature or some other means that provide peace and tranquility. When I find time to feed my soul then I can feed those around me with more service, kindness and loving actions.
V Commitment

To assess my progress I will keep a journal of my weekly activities and a calendar of my daily activities. The calendar will provide me a visualization of my progress and my journal will help me to be reminded of my goals and progress. Another thing that I have done to help myself reach my goals is I have purchased 2 books that will help me further my meditation practices and balance my chakras through nutrition. “The Inner Peace Diet” by Aileen McCabe-Maucher and Hugo Maucher. The other book is a cook book called “A World of Wisdom” by Amy Cox Jones. It is a seasonal, grain based low animal product whole foods cookbook. I am really excited to try these exercise and new recipes to better my health and improve my quality of life. I know through testimonies I have read by those who have gone before me doing exactly what I am attempting to do, have testified what a wonderful life changing experience they have felt by improving these areas in their life and creating integral health of mind/body and soul.

My 2 Favorite Practices

The two meditations/visualizations I liked most would be the loving-kindness meditation and the meeting aesclepius visualization. I also enjoyed the meditations we did in class. However I like these 2 best because I felt direct results from them. In the loving kindness meditation I was able to express forgiveness to people who have wronged me in my life. and in the meeting aesclepuis meditation I was able to feel a desire to serve others and be more compassionate. I can use these practices to foster mental fitness simply by doing them consistently and being aware of myself and my surroundings so that I can continue to help myself grow in mentally positive way.

Meeting Asciepius

This exercise was fairly easy compared to a couple of the others. I did it twice, the first time I envisioned my grandmother who is the most spiritual person I know and keeps me grounded when I need it. She is very good and helping me to refocus my mind on the priorities . As I envisioned her and the white light it felt calming and peaceful. Then I decided to do the exercise again but this time with someone I believe is my ultimate example, Jesus Christ. This time I tried to focus more and really envision the light that came from him. I wanted to get more out of this exercise than I did the first time. As I went through the exercise. I felt my whole body relax and my whole heart and mind fill up with the desire to serve others. I felt more compassion and love for people. This was a good exercise and didn't take very long to do.

Subtle Mind Exercise

As I completed this subtle mind exercise as described on pg 75 of our text book Dacher (2009). I was able to focus on the breath for probably 3-5 mins before interruptions started coming in. After that is was a struggle to keep my mind from wondering to different aspects of my life, things to do and all the other mindless chatter. I can see where more practice will help me to become more focused in my life and help me with patience as well. What I noticed to be the difference between the two exercises is one is focusing our energy on quieting the mind while the other one focused more on opening our heart to more giving and compassion of others. I enjoyed both exercises, I would have to say the loving kindness exercise was easier to do then quieting the mind. I am not sure how to describe the spiritual wellness and mental/physical wellness as Dacher did in his book. But for me to personalize it I would say that my spiritual wellness is what makes me who I am. My spirit, breaths, recognizes and interprets what I need in my life and my mind therefore thinks it and my body react to what my spirit as witnessed to my mind. I do not always act accordingly, to demonstrate a controlled human being who is trying to ascend to a higher state of awareness, but I know that through constant acknowledgement of where I am emotionally and mentally, I am on the right path to achieving my higher goal. To be at peace with my self and the world around me.

Loving Kindness Exercise

I thought this practice was very interesting. As I envisioned the people I hold dear and breathing in the love I have for them, a smile came upon on my face at a relaxed state. When it was time to think about a loved one being ill and breathing in those feelings and exhaling love , peace and joy. I felt it truly working. I saw myself breathing in this dark cloud that hung over their presence and as I exhaled the love I envisioned them in, it became much more clear. I know this exercise really helped me especially when it came to the people in my life who are not so kind and loving. ( enemies ) As I breathed in their distress and unloving actions and allowed it to dissolve in my heart, I automatically felt at ease and was able to exhale the peace and love into their life. This exercise helped me with forgiving those who have wronged me and helped me to be more aware of the love I show those that I care deeply about. I would recommend this exercise to others because I think it will help remove blockages in our mind-body-spirit, that stops us from progressing to a much higher level of consciousness.

I believe the mental work out concept means to practice everyday to control our thoughts whether it be through meditation or some other means to quiet the mind. Our mind/brain is a muscle that can be developed even further by being consciously aware of our thoughts and actions. I am dedicating myself to a mental work out everyday and through that I know I will cultivate the desire to work out more physically. Because our mind-body-spirit is connected to react to each of its own sensations.

"Crime Of The Century"

Crime Of The Century is the name of the relaxation technique I had to complete for class. It was very relaxing. I was suppose to focus on the colors of the rainbow with each color associated with a certain part of my body. If you know what Chakra meditation is then that is basically what we are meditating on. Meditating on each chakra and its color. I was so relaxed it almost put me to sleep a couple times. Normally when I am done I am more refreshed then before but with this one it made me sleepy. Maybe because of the time of day? ( Evening time)
I am suppose to rate where I feel I am in each area; physical well being, spiritual well being and psychological well being on a scale from 1-10 ten being the greatest. Physical-3 Spiritual-7 Psychological-8. Physical is a 3 because I am not in shape as I would like to be, therefore I have recently started working on it. And I have improved my eating habits. No more sugar! My diet is much better now I just need to get in shape. Spiritual is a 7 because I have a lot of faith in my God yet I have a lot of room for improvement, I give a lot of service and take time for my self, not enough but I am working on it. Psychological is an 8 because I have a lot of healthy relationships with friends, family and I have learned to not take things people do personally so I am not attracting that negative thinking. I feel pretty confident in my abilities and I try to lead by example. Some of my goals would be to work out and get fit physically. My goal for this would be to exercise 2-3 times a week. My spiritual goal would be to spend more time in meditation and reflecting on my day and how to be better. This I can do daily. And last is psychological. To improve in this area, I will work harder at understanding people around me better. Also consistent study with my education is a goal I have.

Meditation for Health

I am in a health and wellness class. We were asked to do a meditation and post our results. I am very pleased with my results of this perticular meditation. I did feel relaxed and my arms and hands were the focus of the exercise. My hands and arms felt very heavy and some what warm. Not as much warmth as heaviness. Even after the meditation my hands and arms continued to feel relaxed. I enjoyed the results from this meditative exercise. I will use it again but next time on my neck. I feel a lot of my stress in my shoulders and neck area. Thank you Professor!