Unit 10

1. Physically, I rated myself at about a 5 in unit 3. Since then I have had an anaphylactic reaction to some bee stings that required me to take 5 days of steroids; and the steroids caused me to eat an enormous amount of food. The effects of the steroids lasted well over a week. However, since I have been walking about 4 miles a day, I did not gain as much weight as I would have expected. I did make a concerted effort to eat things that were relatively good for me so I really did not gain any weight. In addition to all of that, I am still having trouble finding a doctor and I have not yet been able to get refills on my medication. Due to all of this, my physical well-being is now rated at about a 4. Even though my rating has gone down slightly, I am still feeling better due to the amount of exercise I am getting; so all is not yet lost. As for my spiritual well-being, I have lost ground there too. I had started going to a new church when I did my first assessment, but that did not work out so well; right now I am in the process of looking for one that I am more comfortable in. I am doing better about depending on God for what I need, but I have not been able to improve my bible reading. All in all I would rate my spiritual well-being as at a seven, which is slightly lower than where I was. Psychologically, I am at a six which is where I was before. I have talking to my sister about my nephew to be helpful, but I am still dealing with my mixed emotions. On top of that, the twenty-first anniversary of my son's birth and subsequent death is coming closer and closer. As I mentioned before, this is a very hard time for me and I am still looking for a good way to deal with it. I feel like I have made progress on each of my goals, but I still have a long way to go. I have implemented most of the activities I set for myself and I will continue to try to improve.   I personally had a difficult time with this course. I found the meditations to be beyond me and I felt like I was really struggling to do some of the exercises. However, I found that through perseverance I could accomplish the tasks and I felt good about myself for continuing to try. I feel that I have improved my overall well-being through my hard work and I am looking forward to helping others to do the same. I feel like the fact that I had  a hard time will allow me to help others to keep on trying if they experience difficulties in trying to make some of the recommended changes. I will be able to understand if they get frustrated, and I can talk to them about my own experiences and struggles with the material.  

 

 

Unit 9

Introduction:
                It is important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually, and physically because they need to be at their best in order to be able to help their patients. I need to work on all three of these areas, but I am making improvements and feel like I am going in the right direction.

Assessment:
               I have assessed my health in each domain, and these are my scores. My spiritual wellness is scored at a 7. I have a close relationship with God and with Jesus Christ, but I need to work on my church attendance and on my bible reading. I am learning to spend more time each day in prayer; which is very good.

My physical assessment is about a 5; but I am expecting that to improve soon. I have run out of all of my medications because of my move, so I do not have the medications I need for my diabetes and my chronic pain. I am walking at least 2 miles each day, and I am trying to work out whenever I can. As soon as I can get back on my medications, my physical health should improve dramatically.

Psychologically, I am at a 3. I do not have my friends available to help me with my issues as much; and I am dealing with some pretty tough situations in my life right now. I am looking for a counselor, and I need to get back on my medication as well. I have not given up hope, though and I know that life will get better.

Goal development:
            I have a couple of goals for my spiritual development. I want to improve my church attendance to at least 3 times a month; but I would rather be going 4 or more times each month. I also want to increase the time I spend reading my bible each day. Physically, I need to get back on all my medications. I would also like to spend at least 2 hours each week at our work-out room. Psychologically, I am a mess. I need to make finding a counselor a priority.            I am already practicing stress relief through meditation and prayer, but I need to find more time for myself. I need to spend at least 30 minutes each day in quiet solitude so that I can get my head back on straight.

Practices for personal health:

            To improve my spiritual health, I am going to make reading my bible a priority. To accomplish this, I am going to start getting up 15 minutes earlier each day and then spend those 15 minutes reading my bible. I also want to improve my church attendance to at least 3 weeks each month. To do this, I am going to start going to bed earlier on Saturday nights, and setting out the clothes I want to wear in the morning before I go to bed.

            Physically, I need to get back on my medication, and exercise more. I am going to start walking at least 3 miles each day, and set aside at least 30 minutes each day to work out in our exercise room. I plan to use the stationary bike, the free weights, and some of the other weight machines in the exercise room. I am also giving serious thought to joining Weight Watchers. They can help me to meet my weight goals much faster and easier than I can do it myself.

 Psychologically, I need to make finding a counselor a priority. I need to have someone I can talk to about some of the stuff that is going on in my life. I also need to set aside at least 30 minutes each day to spend in quiet solitude. I can spend that time meditating and/or praying; but I will not allow myself to dwell on my problems. Since I have not really found the guided meditations to be all that useful, I will probably just relax and work on my witnessing and calm-abiding mind.

 Commitment:

            In order to assess my progress, or lack thereof, in the next six months; I am going to use a calendar to mark down what I did towards each goal, each day. To assist me in maintaining my long-term practices, I can focus on what my goals are and how to reach them. I can also make myself accountable by keeping track of how I am doing and how often I practice each step. If I join Weight Watchers, they will help me to be accountable to them for my weight loss goals. If I feel like I am losing sight of my goals, I can talk to someone about them and what I am trying to accomplish. My husband is a great listener, and encourager.

           

Unit 8

After reviewing the exercises and practice sessions we have completed in this course, I find that the only one that I found to be at all useful was in unit 3; The Crime of the Century. This was the only practice in which I could actually feel like I accomplished anything. I did manage to block everything out that was going on around me with this exercise, and I found the phrases he had me repeat to be somewhat helpful. However, I truly feel that I will be at my best if I just practice meditating on keeping my mind witnessing and calm-abiding. I am going to start setting aside a few minutes each day to do this.

Unit 7

I did not find the Meeting Aesclepius mp3 to be the least bit helpful or useful. I found the spaces between her instructions to be too long and I found my mind wandering all over the place. I found it to be so unhelpful that I only listened to it once. I did try to spend some time this week meditating by myself, but I was very busy and my daughter was sick. I am not really sure that meditation has increased my psychological wellness at this point; but I am hoping that will change as I learn to practice it more.

The saying: "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" means that we cannot lead others in practicing something we don't practice ourselves. We need to practice meditation before we can teach someone else to do it; this is true with anything that we might want someone else to do. This applies to the health and wellness professional because no one is going to listen to a doctor who smokes tell them to quit. In the same way, we cannot teach our clients to meditate for better health and less stress if we don't practice it ourselves. I do have an obligation to my clients to be developing my health psychologically, physically and spiritually; because I need to be at my best to be able to help them be their best. I can implement psychological and spiritual growth in my personal life by continuing to practice meditating and praying.

 

Unit 6

I am still having difficulty with this exercise, although it is much easier and I am getting a lot more out of it now than when I first started with it. I am having a hard time with the suffering of my loved ones; this has always been a hard thing for me to deal with. It is as if I can physically feel what they are going through, and I wish I could take it away from them. It does help when I send them loving and healing thoughts.

As for my assessment, that was pretty easy, the area of my life that is giving me the most trouble and that needs the most work are the same one; biological. I am having a hard time with some of my illnesses, and I really need to find a doctor who is willing to work with me on these areas. My psychological wellbeing could also use quite a bit of work as I am facing not only the possibility of yet another serious illness for myself but the possibility of losing my child. In spite of all of this, my spiritual wellbeing is at a pretty good place; I am working hard to put my faith in God and know He is always there for me, and He is in charge.

Unit 5

To be perfectly honest, I did not find either Loving Kindness or The Subtle Mind to be very helpful. Apparently, I do better when someone is telling me what to focus on and then continuing to speak. I think part of the problem may be that I am still not doing very well with visualization, and I need more help maintaining my focus. I found my mind wandering all over the place with The Subtle Mind and this was very frustrating.

Spiritual wellness is totally connected to physical and mental wellness. If you are spiritually unwell, you are going to have more problems both physically and mentally. I find that the more I have my spiritual life in order, the better my moods are and the more I am able to focus on whatever task is at hand. My mind is clearer and I am better able to complete everything I need to do each day. I also find that the better my prayer life is, the better I feel physically. Although I still have several health problems, the better I am doing spiritually the less I focus on those problems and the better I feel in general.

Unit 4 Loving-Kindness Exercise

I must admit I found the Loving-Kindness exercise to be the most frustrating one of all. She kept pausing so I could visualize whatever she was talking about, but I could not visualize anything. I found myself wanting her to hurry up and finish so I could go on with my day. Perhaps with practice this will get better for me, but I am not holding my breath. I would not recommend this to anyone because I don't recommend things that I personally don't find useful.
A mental workout, or contemplative practice, is the method and the tool we use to explore our inner selves; our inner minds. Research indicates that learning to explore our minds and train them to allow ourselves to be calm and caring we can improve our own health as well as that of others. You can implement mental workouts by meditating daily and beginning to train your brain to achieve calm and loving-kindness.

Unit 2

Hello everyone, and thanks for checking out my blog. I am still learning how to do this, so please bear with me. Anyone who has a comment is welcome to post; and please feel free to respond to anything I, or anyone else has to say.

As for the exercise in listening, I was not very successful. I did not feel anything that he said I should feel; my hands and arms did not get heavy or warm, and I had no trouble lifting my arms up. I have found that I am not very good at creating a mental image, and am wondering if that simply isn't the way my brain works or if I am somehow failing in an important aspect of life? When I took another course, we were read instructions to imagine that we were sucking on a lemon; everyone else in the class was complaining about the sour taste it left in their mouths, but I didn't experience anything like that.