Unit 7 Reflections

Unit 7 Reflection

I think mindfulness or meditation has fostered a greater health and wellness in me by bringing my thoughts to my inner self giving me a chance to make peace with them and move on. This has made me more focused and gave me the ability to calm my mind and bring myself back to the present when my mind wanders to negatives.

It is an ongoing process and I have a long way to go, this is not something learned overnight, but with practice and discipline it can get easier and just second nature. I think by training the mind in this way I can avoid the extreme emotions of a disruption in my life and take things as they come instead of seeing things as an end and more of a beginning. Each problem can become a lesson and can be taken on as chance to learn and let it go.

“One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself”

This phrase is one I believe in completely, to me it says that there are no better lessons learned or taught then the ones we survive. How can you give advice or guidance when you have not experienced the very thing you are trying to teach, you can try but the best teacher is life and the experiences we encounter. This knowledge can then be processed and the message received so that we can pass it on. There is no class or book that can teach or translate human life experience. I think the best teachers are the ones who lived what they teach.

This applies to the health and wellness professional because you really need to practice what you preach. How are you suppose to tell someone about the benefits of integral health and wellness if you are not practicing the same wisdom? In order to help someone else you must help yourself first, this is where passion in what you do comes from, you have to believe in what you say and do to be an effective teacher and healer. I feel this is the obligation of the professional to be truly knowing of what they speak so the professional should develop their psychologically, physically, and spiritually.

I have been trying to implement this psychological and spiritual growth into my personal life since I have been taking this class. I have come to accept I need to come to terms with my psychological issues and nurture my spirituality to become the person I want to be and be able to help others. By doing an integral assessment periodically I can look at where I am lacking and make changes to balance all these aspects out. There has to be a well rounded balanced lifestyle to feel my best and I can achieve this by tending to my personal needs in the areas outlined in this course. Life is a journey but on this journey we need to grow and flourish through body/mind/spirit with the ultimate goal of unity of consciousness and oneness with all.

Unit 6 Reflection

Integral assessment exercise: This exercise is about taking a look inside at the aspects of our being and find what needs work. Looking at psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal, and worldly, I feel at the top of my list of what to work on first is interpersonal and worldly running a close second. Dealing with interpersonal I have been cut off from community and outside life too long, I have focused on personal and family for so long it is consuming me. Because of many life altering events I find myself shutting the world out for fear of more hurt and anguish, but in the process am robbing myself of the good that can happen also. It’s not easy to open myself up after building so many walls around myself to keep things out, but I realize that by keeping things out I am also not letting new things in, things that I am missing. So I need to work on my growth and development in the area of community and getting out into the world.

Some specific exercises or activities that I can implement to foster greater wellness in this area would be to get involved in things outside my home and personal sphere. Join a group, volunteer in an area that I am interested in, take steps to put myself out in the world. Try to overcome fears that have held me back, this would be where the exercises such as loving kindness and subtle mind may come in handy so I have an inner peace and calm to take these steps. I need to build my confidence and not be afraid of what may happen but embrace it as more life lessons that lead me to greater understanding and wisdom, which I hope to share with others.

Dacher, E. (2006). Integral health the path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach, Ca.: Basic Health Publications.

Unit 5 PowerPoint

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BzfbEGtLMUoeODlkM2E3MzQtNDgxZS00ZDJhLTg0NTYtNzY1MDI3Njk1YWYz&hl=en

When you open it and click on the "slide show" tab at the top of the page then click "from the beginning" top left corner and watch slide show.

Hope you enjoy :)

Unit 5 Reflection

Comparing the contrast between the Loving Kindness and Subtle mind exercises I think one (Loving Kindness) is more about projecting and bringing the “in” (love) out. Whereas the Subtle mind exercise is a focus on calming the inner self and releasing what is trapped and burdening our mind. I feel like the Loving Kindness exercise was about the build up and feeling of love inside the self and then emitting it out around you. The Subtle mind exercise feels more like a centering of mind and self as well as learning about our own mind.

My experiences with the exercises have been good in the fact that I find them very calming and fascinating when you really focus on what is going on within. There is a realization of self and that there is much more to know beyond what we already think we know. I enjoy them but I do find myself getting impatient or distracted easily but I guess that’s why they are to be practiced regularly.

The connection between spiritual wellness and mental/physical wellness is that it is another aspect of the whole that is us. I feel that being alive is a culmination of physical, mental, and spiritual, with spiritual being the essence of life. You hear the phrases about death as they passed on, left the body, the light went out of their eyes, etc. all connecting that spirit, life force, energy, whatever you want to call it, being what is life itself. So the wellness of spirit is integral to the wellness of the physical and mental, it is all connected. This connection is manifested in my life by faith and knowing that no matter what happens to me physically or mentally my spirit will go on. Energy cannot be destroyed, a scientific fact, and the spirit or life force is energy, it may be released or disbursed from the physical body but it survives and goes on. The big mystery is where it goes and what of ourselves it takes with it. I believe in the afterlife, the paranormal, ghosts, however you want to say it because I have experienced it and just know in my deepest self that the body is just a temporary home to something beautiful, powerful, and forever.

Dacher, E. (2006). Integral health the path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach, Ca.: Basic Health Publications.

Unit 4 Reflection

My experience with the Loving Kindness exercise was good, of course these exercises are to be done regularly and focus must be used to get true benefits long term. But it is what you want to get out of it that determines the capacity of the exercises.

Some of us have a hard time with these kinds of meditative type exercises but it is worth the effort because if you at least learn the way we hold tension and a bound up existence as you relax various muscles helps. It identifies the stress in our lives and in our body/mind in turn teaching us to relax and clear our minds and body of tension and stress. So even a little effort with these exercises can bring benefits; I would recommend them or some type of relaxation techniques because I think this is an important aspect in overall health.

The “Mental Workout” that Dacher talks about in his book refers to contemplative practices and using the mind to reach further into ourselves in order to give (2006). By “working out” the mind it is similar to working out your body, use it or lose it in more ways than one, and with time and endurance we can reach greater consciousness and healing capacity (Dacher, 2006).

I can implement mental workouts to foster my psychological health by taking even a few minutes every day to relax my body and practice one of the techniques we learn. By practicing even a little you feel the difference which makes you want to feel more, like physical exercise you become dependent on it because you like feeling good. We all need that and through healthful ways we can achieve optimal wellness.

Dacher, E. (2006). Integral health the path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach, Ca.: Basic Health Publications.