Final Post

As this class comes to end I have come to the realization that I have made progress. Although I may not have done as good in this class as I have in all of my previous classes I am still very proud at what I am bringing out of this class. I loved that the things I have learned are going to benefit my future in many different ways. Not only will it benefit me but benefit the people around me that I try to pass along my education.

My goals were not necessarily met due to the fact I feel growing physically, mentally and spiritually is a forever on going thing. You can never truly be done growing. I would however rate myself higher in those categories from then to now.

Unit 9 Project

I.                   Introduction        

In order for practitioners to practice good medicine, they should be taking their treatments and diagnoses into consideration for themselves as well. Having a practitioner who is not healthy themselves, try to tell you what to do in order for you to be happy and healthy is really hard to listen to and try to live by. If a practitioner is living the life that they think you should be living, you are more likely to follow their suggestions and instructions. We as people like to see results of something before we take the time to try it out for ourselves. If we can see a good and positive outcome of something it makes us a lot more eager to do it. After all, a practitioner that tells you not to smoke but they smoke, you would ask yourself why on earth you should listen to them. Practitioners need to set good examples, not just for their clients and patients but for others that know what they do for a living. The more you can spread the word and educate about health and happiness, the more people will start to live their lives that way. It is also easier for the practitioner to teach and educate on spiritual, physical and mental health when they are practicing it themselves.

            Goals that I have for myself are ones that I hope I can reach someday sooner rather than later as I feel they will help me with my schooling. I feel I really need to develop my mental health a lot more. I am always thinking about my physical and my spiritual but I tend to forget my mental. Having suffered from depression I also feel that although it has improved majorly over the years, it still has a lot of room for growing. Not only am I looking forward to the results of my mental health flourishing for myself but for my family as well.

II.                Assessment

For assessing my health in all three domains; spiritual, physical and mental, I have looked into my past to see how they have changed through the years. I think that from my past my physical health was probably the best. As I have grown and life has changed in so many wonderful ways there have been some bumps in the road but overall it is still not bad. I would score my physical health as being the lowest now compared to the highest a few years ago. I would also say that my mental health scores higher now than it did before. Depression is no longer and I am so happy and positive with my life. I have always been a pretty spiritual person but I do believe that part of me has grown as well.

III.             Goal Development

Having goals in life is something that should never come to an end. Always having a goal in life is something that everyone should strive for. It gives you a sense of accomplishment which everyone likes to have every now and then. It also makes you to continue bettering yourself. My physical goal is going to be getting back into a workout routine. Although I hate to admit it, I have been that mom that has used the, “I just had a baby,” excuse as to why I don’t work out anymore. I use to love working out, and actually my husband and I use to enjoy working out together, which we don’t get to do anymore. Either way my goal is to get back into it, no matter how slow I may start out, something is better than nothing. “The spiritual process aims at penetrating the deeper layers of the mind to uncover the natural wisdom, inner peace and loving kindness that are the pivotal causes of a sustained well-being of body, mind and spirit.” (Dacher, 2006). With that, my spiritual goal is to find that inner wisdom and peace that I know is inside of me which will help to better myself and to help me better my family. Mental goal for myself is learning how to become at peace and to do so by doing more mental exercises.

IV.             Practices for Personal Health

My physical health goal can help be reached by me giving myself rewards when I go workout like I plan to. It doesn’t have to be anything to big just a little something that is a little bit of an incentive for me to reach my goal. It can help get me in the habit of working out and soon it will be just another part of my day. Another way to obtain my physical health goal is with motivation. Nothing is more motivating than having loved ones tell you how great and healthy that you look. I am not up on a high horse or think that I am better than anyone but lets face it, when someone tells you that you are looking really good and fit, you feel really good and fit and want to keep at it.

My spiritual health goals will be obtained by continuing to look at and educate myself on how other religions and countries do things. There are some things that I learned in this course from other religions, such as budhism and the way they relax and pray. Many things can be learned from other religions and it is great to learn them for your overall spiritual health. Another way to increase my spiritual awareness is to try and pray more. After reading the famous prayer study by physician Randolph Byrd, it really opens my eyes to just how powerful prayer might be. Whether it is used for something major like health reasons, or for something smaller like getting a good grade in your class. Praying can’t hurt anything so why not give it a whirl, I will see if it works at the end of this class.

Mental health can take a lot more work and I feel is never really finished worked. I want to continue to use the mental exercises that you provided and I have also went on youtube.com to find some more. I want to practice those more often and make them a bigger part of my life. From what I have experienced in this class it has really helped so far. With those mental exercises I want to also practice how to control your mind better. I am one that has a million things running through my mind all at once. Being able to take that mental chatter out and focus on what needs to be focused on can really make a big impact on life.

V.                Commitment

I will be able to assess my progress with my goals just by how I feel overall and how my lifes track is running. When things seem to be running smoothly it is very noticeable and I can thank the things I have learned in this class for that. As mentioned before suffering from depression in the past and being at the great place I have been lately, I can really tell a difference and will continue forward with my goals since I know the great feeling that I can have. Knowing how both ends of the spectrum for mental health feel really gives me more motivation to do right for myself. Sitting back every now and then and looking at the bigger picture at how things are going, taking in the good things in life and staying positive are all things I find helpful to keep me on track. 

Loving Kindness and Subtle Mind

These are two mental practices that I feel I should and could implement into my everyday life. I have even been making my husband do some with me and he enjoyed them as well. After doing these practices I felt the most relaxed and like it really did something for me. Living a busy hectic life and working a job that is very stressful and very busy it would be great to continue these exercises to help get me through the days and also to help me overall health wise. I can honestly say that these exercises will be brought with me when this class ends. There is just something about waking up refreshed with a clear, relaxed and positive mind.

Unit 7

I have to say that I really enjoyed this exercise. I pictured my grandmother who passed away about 7 seven years ago. I have no grandparents left and with this grandma inparticular I had a special bond with her. Being able to picture her again and in such a great light was awesome. Thinking about her was just a positive and relaxing feeling. She was such a calm person too so it was perfect for this meditation exercise. Sometimes through the busy hustle and bustle of your everyday life you seem to forget the greater things in life so having a reason to look back at someone who has passed and have such a great exercise with it was awesome. I think that trying to remember and instill this in your busy life can make you feel better. I do often think about my grandma or even just other positive people that I have in my life. In certain situations I sometimes try to think about what they would do in a bad predicament so that I can try to stay level headed and positive about the whole thing.

So for the saying "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself," I think that it also goes with the saying, "practice what you preach." It is really easy for me to sit and tell someone how they should live their life but unless I am following the same rules and guidelines why should they listen to me. If I can show someone a better way of life by showing them my own life, they are more apt to do what I am trying to teach them because they can physically see the results from me. If I sit and tell someone not to smoke because it is so bad for your health, yet I sit and smoke, they probably won't take me to seriously. So as a health and wellness professional, they should live their life the way they tell others that they should. Practice meditation, exercise, eat healthy and all the things that they are trying to teach, they should do. That way their clients can see themselves how it looks. If an obese person says eat healthy and exercise, you won't probably listen to them or take them serious. So, yes I do believe you have that obligation to be the person you are trying to teach your clients to be.

Subtle Mind vs Loving Kindness

I honestly have a fairly easy time with both of the practices. I think the subtle mind one may have been a little more helpful but I did enjoy both. I like having the different kinds to change it up a little bit. They do work for me in relaxing and really focusing on what is at hand. I get really easily distracted in life and I think these mental exercises will slowly help with that. I again like the ocean sounds (although it does tend to make me sleepy) they are very calming and relaxing to me. I could listen to the sounds of the waves alone and just pretend I was at a beach. I think that when I practice these more and get better at being able to get the mental chatter out and focus on my thought at hand it will come in handy throughout all aspects of my life.

Spiritual and physical wellness go hand and hand when it comes to the mind I can catch myself trying to talk myself out of feeling something bad physically. I have had times where I get dizzy or light headed and I just breath and talk myself out of it and it really has worked for me. I also have a little anxiety that I feel mental practice helps with and by being able to control that it will probably help with blood pressure, heart disease, stress etc.

I like these exercises a lot and am keeping them saved on my computer so when class is over I can still go back to using them.

Love and Kindness

              Well I must be honest in the sense that I did fall asleep during this exercise towards the end but I did get a good listen to it. I have been really sick lately so really I can fall asleep anywhere it seems, that and along with a baby up all night : )  I would really recommend this to others and I have already recommended that my husband give it a try. I have told him since we tried the very first exercise to try them. It really just gives you a sense of peace and love. I can honestly say that today was a super busy day (I listened to it last night) and I want to say it was the reasoning behind my energy and awesome mood that I had all day! Any little things in life that might stress you out just seem to float away. I liked in the exercise when it said to open your heart and let any good feelings and emotions in. I pictured in my head almost a waterfall into my heart that is open. Allowing all good in and all negative and bad out. As I pictured that I got a sense of calm and like I said, I still felt it today.

                Mental workout to me means really focusing on what you are thinking and feeling. As humans we don’t often enough look into how we are feeling. We may think about how we feel physically, tired, achy and so on, but we don’t block those physical feelings out and focus on how we feel inside mentally. Letting go of the day and focusing on that alone can really give you an overall sense of peace. Since I did this exercise before bed last night I feel like it really stuck with me when I went to sleep. If for that reason it worked so well I think that implementing it into my nightly routine could be beneficial. Not to mention it obviously relaxed me making me drift off at the end : ) 

Unit 3 - The Mind Body Connection

I would say that my physical wellbeing would be at an 8, my spiritual well being at a 7 and my psychological being at a 6. I am a pretty physically healthy person, I like to work out (although lately I have to admit I haven’t done it as much, not having enough time…) Spiritually I think that I am really connected with my inner self and I actually do a lot of spiritual thinking to myself. I commute to work and I am always talking to myself (in my head of course) as I am driving and it is actually kind of great. Psychologically I think I am pretty good but could be a little better. I can sometimes get down on myself about the littlest things and forget to focus on what is important in life like my family. I stress too much over little things at work and at school but I need to remember and think to myself that I am doing the best I can and that it is going actually really well.

                I would like to be able to one day just be totally ok with myself and my life and not just say that I am but really truly feel it. A honest to gosh true feeling of happiness where I can be honest with myself and learn how to just relax and let go of things both outside and in.

                I think that if I were to keep doing meditation exercises I could continue to learn how to relax my body and my brain a little better. That way when I am stressing over little things in life I can tell myself to chill out and perhaps just slip into my own meditation right then and there nipping that negativity in the butt.

                This exercise was great like the other one. Again I was already in my comfy clothes and in a comfy spot. I have to admit that my baby was next to me so I was AS relaxed as the other one but all in all still a pretty good outcome of total mind and body relaxation. The whole colors thing was kind of interesting as well.