Tuesday, October 23, 2012

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.

No comments:

Post a Comment