Ratings and Reflections

 Reflecting on the areas of psychological, physical and spiritual well-being from 7 weeks ago shows some changes.  Looking at the physical aspect of my life, things are about the same.  I will have to keep myself at an 8, however today was one of the best workouts I’ve had in a long time because of planning that I put in place in unit 3.  This is the one of the three I am confident in.  I plan on coaching this part of people’s lives in this area and understand what regression is and how temporary it is to tend to overriding responsibilities. Still have to leave it at an 8 though.

     Seven weeks ago I rated myself at a two for spiritual well being.  I’ve come a long way with the exploration that I set out for myself.  It’s hard to rate myself for something I’m not completely sure of at the moment so I will leave myself at a two with sensing strength of moving out of the two very soon.  I’ve proudly approached friends of mine who are strong in this area which was part of the goals and activity part I had for exploration.  I understand more than I have in previous days.

      Psychological health I placed myself at a seven. The contributor and tool of my education continues to fuel this part of my life.  At the beginning of each term I feel a good nervous about the knowledge I will be gaining.  I feel I may have advanced some into an eight.

     I feel that I have developed improved well-being from this course.  There has been reinforcing words and concepts that I have come across about what I know of health and wellness.  What has been rewarding is the laying out of the four quadrants of integral health.  This makes so much sense.  Knowing that development within psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal and worldly experiences can bring about a high level of health and wellness has become a focus.  Just knowing what each entails are tools that are useful for a long time with development.  The only thing that is difficult for me is becoming overwhelmed with information.  I will definitely back off and let what I have learned soak in.  Upon review I just know things will look better and different which will only let me help others succeed with improving their overall health and wellness.

Thanks,

Ron

Integral Health Plan

Integral Health Plan

     When asked, why it is important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually and physically many reasons come to mind.  We need to have professionals in our culture that understand the potentials that can be reached with health and healing.  For too long we have left larger parts of our populations to go along with bad habits of what sound bites and observations lead them to do.  Those of us lucky enough to experience a life changing event that brought us to discover psychological, spiritual and physical wellness need to reach out to express what is possible towards human flourishing.  Let us be the new observations they make and hear the sound bites we produce and lead them on a better path; a path to human flourishing. 

     Next, what I see as obvious observations is how unbalanced it looks and feels to have someone not living a partial truth promoting what we do for the wrong reasons, maybe solely for financial gain?  We need practical representation to bring our populations to experience what we know to be possible.  Without ourselves developing psychologically, spiritually and physically, how can we support others to develop in the same way?  It could be possible, but see it to produce average results at best.

     Anyone that has read Integral Health; The Path to Human Flourishing by Elliott Dacher can spend substantial amounts time highlighting numerous occasions that tell of why it is important to have a developed health and wellness professional.  Within one of our last reading assignments for the term says it well of why.  By using an integral approach to achieve these developments is a great road to take because … “It is practical, comprehensive, and well developed, and will take us to the next level of healing” (Dacher, 2006).  Why wouldn’t “we” want to be at this level of healing?  It can only let us serve members of the community better.

    The evolutionary principle plays into the question of what areas do I need to develop to achieve the goals I have for myself.  All of our goals need to be at levels of human flourishing with these domains.  I maybe more developed in one area than another but the answer to the question is that I need to develop in all areas to reach human flourishing to meet my goals because … “Each leap in our development unfolds a new and more expansive level of existence that embraces what came before and transcends its limitations” (Dacher, 2006).  I’m not a level of human flourishing.  When I begin to arrive there I will better be able to know which aspects need to be more developed than others.  Until then, I will continue to learn, practice and serve with my development of psychological, spiritual and physical parts of my health and wellness. 

     Until my experience from the last nine weeks of my life, I have not spent much time to critically think of how to assess my psychological and spiritual health and wellness.  I have unknowingly assessed my physical health and wellness in the past which lead me to the path of diet and exercise practices.  This assessment of my physical wellness came from a poor medical visit at the young age of 32.  Doctor advised me of high blood pressure, bad levels of cholesterol being overweight etc.  At this point in my life, I can score myself high on my physical development of my health and wellness.

     My spiritual and psychological assessments I have chosen to measure against parts of the integral assessments we have learned about.  I place my levels of development up to the statement to … “alleviate needless suffering” … and move to recognizing … “the distinction between short-term relief of needless suffering and permanent relief” (Dacher, 2006).   I score myself lower tier at this point in my life with my recent findings of psychospiritual development tactics and knowledge.  With what I have learned, I know I have not achieved this statement as of yet.  I have not ever been introduced to any of the content that I have spent time learning recently.  I owe considerable gratitude to my educational pursuit in making me aware and to assess my underdeveloped spiritual and psychological development.  Without this particular class introducing me to integral health, contemplative practices and a previous term introducing me to Dr. Wayne Dyer and his teachings, I would not be on a road to an expanded consciousness through psychospiritual development.

     I have to admit that I have a long way to go to arrive at a solid level of psychological and spiritual development.  However, learning what I have the past several weeks has ignited an exciting feeling knowing what is possible.  This goes along with personal exploration listening to Dr. Wayne Dyer daily and the lessons towards health and happiness he has.  What I do have, is a solid knowledge on is my partial truth of diet and exercise.   I can confidently say I have developed well in this area of my physical health and wellness and can represent us with confidence.

     Goal development towards arriving at a flourishing level of the physical domain as with the other domains will continue to be evolutionary.  Having a goal to continue to learn and fill the gaps of where I have arrived with diet and exercise with my health and wellness curriculum is a priority.   I will have a solid foundation with nutrition electives to accompany my study curriculum for personal knowledge gain and to share with others.       

     Dacher tells me and I now believe it that … “we know less about the mind and how to use it than we do about our car or any household item” (Dacher, 2006).  This is directly become my goal with psychological health, to know how to use the mind to develop my health and wellness.   Lastly, with developing the spiritual part of my life, a goal is to continue what I have learned, to look inward towards wisdom, inner peace, loving kindness that give way to a sustained mind, body and spirit (Dacher, 2006).

     My educational pursuit will partially fulfill my goal of leading myself and others to wellness through this partial truth of learning diet to supplement exercise.  Additionally, these goals have brought me to wanting to continue on after this curriculum to gain mastery of my partial truth of nutrition science.   Personally and on a serving level this has become a tactic to know nutrients in detail necessary to join with exercise and physical activity.  The fuel we place in our bodies has become a passion of mine.  Strategies will change with knowledge and the best thing that will happen is me sharing what I discover.  Then, to formally become certified in personal training is my second tactic leading myself and those I will come to serve in the physical domain.

     Strategies to learn to use the mind are going to begin again with simple yet powerful words I learned from Dacher.  I am going to make every conscious effort to remember the words on p. 61 to recognize destructive thoughts and patterns.  When these thoughts and emotions are produced, once realized I will replace them with a new set of attitudes and behaviors (Dacher, 2006).   Next, what stood out greatly from Dacher’s book was learning that … “A mental event can lead to a physical event” (Dacher, 2006).  The stress management tactic of controlled breathing when needed at work at the event of a stressful mind turn I will begin this practice to calm my mind.  I will be reminded of these two strategies because they will be written down in front of me on my desk until they are instilled within my daily routine.  Then I will place them new guiding words.

     Excitingly, strategies to develop my inner self towards spiritual development are going to begin with contemplative practices that I learned this term with Kaplan.  I say begin because the more I move into reading more of spiritual development, there are of what seems like endless opportunities to seek out to achieve this goal.  The contemplative practice of the subtle mind will be one example of what I will do.  In addition to this practice will be the taste of human flourishing as my second example of what I am going to do to develop within this domain.  Each of these will be executed daily by reminders that are with my psychological supports located on my desk. 

     My wife and close friends are already a large part of my development towards this new found avenue of life I am on.  Pam, my wife recognized this shift early last term and noticed an acceleration this term.  Also, two close friends of ours are already at what I can say a higher level of flourishing.  They have played a big part of recognizing and supporting this change of view I am experiencing.  I am going to share this project with Pam and my two close friends to help gauge and measure my progress mentioned above.  Strategies will come my way at the turn of each day and at the turn of each page.  My educational journey is the strongest strategy I have in my life now.  Without my desire to explore health and wellness, I would not be where I am today with what I have discussed.  My assessment partners and my desire to learn more are sure ways of instilling long term practices for my health and wellness to bring me towards my highest and best capacities of flourishing.

Best Practices

There have been so many useful words, phrases and techniques that I have come across during this term.  Having to choose two practices that I determine the most beneficial is seen as almost difficult (in a good way).  Prior to enrolling with Kaplan I struggled finding who I am and what purpose I will have.  These questions brought me to Kaplan and the Health and wellness program.  It was a quest to help myself and also knowing that I wanted to help others that may feel the same way by becoming credible with my wellness degree.  This particular class is seen as a pivotal turning point that is leading me onto an entire new type of journey.  A journey that now can be made by seeing everything on the way and not just thinking exclusively on the end.  It taught me about not having an end.  We need to be in a right now frame of mind right?  Everyday needs to be a new beginning in a way?

     Meeting Asclepius has been a practice that has been one of the more useful for me.  I mentioned before, I spend a lot of time listening to Dr. Wayne Dyer and reading his books.  During not all, but most sessions, especially before work he is my image of a very wise man.  Right after indulging is his words or recorded seminars is the best way for me to implement this in my personal life having his voice and wisdom close at hand and fresh in my mind.  I feel more positive the rest of my day after doing this and revisit when I feel as if I am becoming distorted.

     The next practice I found beneficial was one we recently have done.  The taste of human flourishing and the three different qualities that are summoned I see as easy to mold together at times of need.  Depending on experiences, at a moment’s happening of either a time of great happiness, sense of wholeness or exuberant vitality can be a trigger to engage in this and implement in our personal lives.  Even if it is just one, the other two can be dug up for a great experience of the combination.

     It is nice to have choices for us to lead ourselves to these levels of a better mindset.  As our book says, We would agree that everyone, not just our loved ones, wants happiness and wishes to avoid pain and needless suffering” (Dacher, 2006).  These are two ways for me to begin to achieve this motive.

Resources

Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral health: The path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications Inc.

Aesclepius

Who I thought highly of at one time and can consider a person to look up to and apply towards the meditative practice I think I only feel partial of after going through this class and referencing other books.  The more time passes, I think there is a collaboration of people that I can apply this towards.  For instance, the one person I work with I look up to greatly, but now I do not hold the same values as the company that I work for has.  However, his choice of words and motivational tendencies I take in with speech.  So now comes the time I need to create a figure as time evolves and my values evolve to keep me on the path to health, happiness and wholeness.  Overall, I have been able to effectively apply these meditative practices decently.  As our directional does explain, this will be something to adapt to and learn.  Continued practice is the only way I will be able to effectively foster great health and wellness by these means.

     The saying “one cannot lead another where one has not gone himself” has a lot to offer.  What I see that can be concluded from this is maybe how can we tell people to engage in a certain behavior if we do not do it ourselves?  I like the map statement right before that in our book of how having a map of Hawaii is not like actually being there (Schlitz, 2005).  I’m going to try and explain what I go through a lot.  With our time frame at this time in our lives, we plan many trips in advance.  Once planned I become obsessed with map applications on my phone (I know..Technology has gotten a hold me a little).  I zoom in to see what Google maps tracked last and try to get an idea of what things look like before I get there.  Then when we go and come back and do the same thing, I have a different solid knowledge of what is actually there.  So when we tell people to develop their psycho spiritual parts of their lives and we don’t, what do we have to back up what we say?  We have an idea about it from our book.  So now let’s do it and once we go and stay instead of come back, we will have a lot to offer.

My integral path

 Completing the universal loving kindness exercise in our textbook generated many thoughts.  The first realization is that I need a lot of work towards selfless thoughts.  The initial thoughts I had were of me gaining freedom of suffering.  I apparently still have many obstacles I need to overcome.  However, I was able to quickly shift my thinking towards gains I’ve made even before coming across these techniques for loving kindness.  There was a time while seeking out support with some troubles I had inside that I was described as a people pleaser.  I was directed to not do away with this quality but to treat myself well to.  This is where I think my suffering comes from.  I still do not know how to take time for me.  The first time I did something for me in a big way was actually arriving here at Kaplan.  When I did this, I felt guilty of some things I had to leave behind.  Some, not all causal friendships for example were some things I felt I needed to maintain but couldn’t.  The universal loving kindness exercise eventually brought me to wanting to go back and reestablish some of these relationships.  But that would not leave time for this right now.  If anything, the exercise made me think of the details of conversations that I have to have on a daily basis and how those can transform into more valuable outcomes for all parties. 

     While completing the integral assessment, I think I may have loosely began the process of betterment with my worldly flourishing over a year ago.  I say this because as time progressed and I got older, I felt my contributions to the world could be better.  This is how I arrived at Kaplan with you guys!

     Given the formal process I now realize that this is work in progress and can use support with my psychospiritual quadrant.  As we all have learned, this is the most underdeveloped part of many of our lives right?  Meditation to bring me to a higher level of consciousness to strengthen this line will be an effective practice to start with.  I also discovered that I am pretty good with fitness and nutrition with my biological quadrant.  Having strength in this quadrant has possibly integrally brought me attending to the other quadrants though.  I tend to be a big believer of most, not all, most of how we fuel our bodies can influence the rest of the parts of our lives (A partial truth).                       

The Subtle Mind

     The importance of controlled breathing to bring out the results intended from the two exercises is the most beneficial to me.   Because of the overload I have placed on myself with family, school, work etc I tend to be uptight.   I find myself worked up and breathing shallow at times. I’m thankful and it is certainly helpful that I am a Wellness major right?  In addition to receiving the benefits from the exercise and physical activity I participate in, I now have two techniques brining me closer to psychospiritual flourishing.   The only frustrating thing I can come up with is being able to execute sessions on a consistent basis.  Once I wake up and begin my day, before I know it the sun is going down and the day is quickly coming to an end.

     As I continue on my journey through the Health and Wellness curriculum, just when I feel that there couldn’t be much more that can be amazing information, the next term comes around and here it is.  How I see the connection to spiritual wellness to mental and physical wellness is that for sure all are connected but the mental and physical activities are more of “called upon” attributes with spiritual wellness being the ultimate foundation supporting it all.  The more we neglect the mental and physical parts of our being the more we wreak havoc on our spiritual selves.  Just as our subtle mind exercise has begun to teach us to slow down the mental and physical parts of us to finally see what we have neglected and have let go unnoticed until now (Dacher, 2006). 

 Resources

Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral health: The path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications Inc.

Mental workouts

Hello to all!

     For those of us that are deep within the Health and Wellness curriculum, do you remember getting a book for one of our class called Fundamentals of complementary and alternative medicine? Within the book, a simple yet powerful statement taught me that … “Human culture is learned that also has adaptive value” (Micozzi, 2011, p. 11).  This means so much to me.  It applies completely to a transformation that I must learn and adapt to doing with contemplative practices, learning to manage and allow loving kindness to happen within me and to give back to others.

    The specifics of the coaching experience were beneficial.  Experiences as this I feel I have been searching for.  I do not think the exercise was difficult, but again necessary to repeat as we just found out that everything we do is learned right?  If there were a time or when it comes time when I cross a path of someone in need of releasing anger, fear, greed, I would definitely suggest doing this practice.  It helped me.  The practice has begun to move me forward to a better place.  I am in an environment and planning to remove myself from it soon because it fosters negative thoughts from our group (my work).  In the meantime, I have just discovered a mental workout that changes the way I can deal with and approach what I come across everyday in the environment that I have to go to everyday.

   A mental workout is going to be learning to manage a specific thought process that will let us be on the road to human flourishing such as our newly introduced contemplative practice of loving kindness.  From learning to perform a mental workout on a regular routine … “can have a positive impact on attention, memory, perception, imagery, and a host of other mental functions” (Dacher, 2006, p. 63).  To implement a mental workout routine can be to discover a technique such as our loving kindness practice.  Doing this can definitely foster psychological health, it already has begun for me!

Thanks!

Ron

    

Resources

Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral health: The path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications Inc.

Micozzi, M. S. (2011). Fundamentals of complementary and alternative medicine. St. Louis, MO: Saunders/Elsevier.