Unit 9 Final Project

It is important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually, and physically because it is hard to trust and follow what a person is teaching if they are not practicing what they are teaching. Actions speak louder than words and when trying to motivate others to make mindful choices it helps if you are making those mindful choices and have knowledge in those areas. A person may find a health and wellness professional a hypocrite for saying one thing but doing another, they question the credibility of the professional, they become disinterested in the professional’s services, and it is much easier to teach when you are experienced in the topic first hand. A hypothetical health care professional that participates in routine exercise, nutrition, health, and activities fosters a sound sense of wellness as opposed to a health care professional that eats poorly, lacks physical activity, and partakes in negative activities and choices such as smoking cigarettes. When seeking out a professional of any kind the main objective is to find someone that is affordable, highly skilled, proficient in their line of work, and trustworthy. In order to be a skilled and proficient health and wellness professional you must first be knowledgeable with the methods, practices, and components not just through books but also with hands on experience.

When assessing my health in each domain I analyze to see if I am in balance or if there are imbalances, what areas are out of balance, what is working, what needs to be improved on, and what options I have. When it comes to my wellness physically I would say that I am a 10 out of 10 because I go to the gym 1-3 times a week for an hour and a half, I am at a healthy weight, I drink plenty of water, I eat a lot of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, I no longer smoke cigarettes, I have not been sick in a while, I take my supplements every day as well as a Emergen-C especially when people around me become sick to prevent illness. One of the fitness accomplishments that I am most proud of since quitting cigarettes is the ability to run, at the gym I run at a 5MPH speed for 40 minutes straight at a 10MET level. All my life I have never been a runner or could only do bursts of running. Another physical goal is to be better about eating breakfast because this tends to be a meal that gets skipped quite often. I feel I have a well balanced level of fitness, nutrition, as well as strength, agility, flexibility, endurance, a great sense of body awareness, prevention, and health promotion, and can always improve upon self regulation from subtle mind and body practices for spiritual/mind/body abilities (Dacher, 2006 p.108). When an imbalance occurs it is usually in the form of low blood sugar from needing to eat, too much coffee while working on school work, not enough food or frequent enough meals, migraines and restless sleep from stress. I have found many helpful tools such as Kava and Tranquil Yogi brand tea, Bach’s homeopathic sleep medicine, melatonin, creating an hourly/daily/weekly schedule, a daily/weekly/monthly meal calendar, a list of school assignments and designated days to complete each cross referenced with the hourly/daily/weekly schedule, and planning sleep based on 90 minute sleep cycles. Mentally, I would say I am currently recovering to an 8.5-9 out of 10. This time of year is very stressful for me, I hit a very rough spot, and became overwhelmed with stress and stressful events but I have been determined to push forward and be aware of what is stressing me out and staying in control of my life. There are specific stressors such as finances, bills, and starting a new job, but my attitude is that I am going with the flow, trusting the process of life, shooting for the best, and hanging on! Spiritually, I would give myself a 9.5 out of 10. I feel that I am doing well spiritually because I always feel like I am connected with the universe and I participate in personal activities that make me feel in harmony with the universe such as the colors of the day, planets of the day, celebrating the seasons, using aromatherapy, color therapy, crystal therapy, card readings, and other activities. There is always room for development though and areas in spirituality that I can develop are exercising the witnessing mind and observation for “the ability to determine the character of our life rather than live unconsciously and reactively (Dacher, 2006 p. 40).” I tend to go through cycles of going about my life consciously and periods of time where I get wrapped up in the chaos and drama and get stuck in a cycle of reactivity. When I am in charge I labeled it “Momentary Moments of Clarity” when I am being reactive or those around me are being reactive instead of active I call it being “half asleep bumbling about.” What I found inspiring is that during our psychospiritual development we are motivated first by fear, instinct, reaction, and is ego centered, the second motivation is vision and values, and the third motivation is wisdom, unity, loving kindness, and compassion (Dacher, 2006 p. 106). My goal is to mostly motivated by wisdom and unity and be the least motivated by fear because I have realized that much of my stress is caused by fear and much of those fears are irrational or can be overcome.

A physical goal that I am working on currently is regaining back my lean muscle tone that I lost from being severely depressed, bedridden, and atrophying for an extended period of time. An extension of this goal is “sculpting” through the exercise program I created for myself and have been working on for the last six months in the hopes of buying myself a new bathing suit this summer once I feel I have met my goal. Another physical goal would be to maintain being a non-smoker, the end of this month will be exactly six months since I quit smoking and I know this will be a lifelong challenge of maintenance. Another physical goal can be to eat breakfast more often than not instead of the other way around. Some psychological goals are to continue to work on decreasing my stress levels, decrease negative thinking, increase positive thinking, staying in charge, active instead of reactive, and focus. As I mentioned previously, much of my stress I have found to be rooted in fears, some of which are rational such as flight or flight response and others that are irrational such as emotional induced fear. When faced with a stressful situation I ask myself, “what am I afraid of? Is it fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of the unknown, fear of death? Often times I can break the stressor down into manageable pieces and determine if it is a rational fear or an irrational fear and overcome the situation. My goal when it comes to fear and anxiety is to overcome a fear one at a time, such as dealing with crowded areas, driving anxiety, trying new things, going to new places, and making myself do something even when I am scared. A spiritual goal that I have is to trust my intuition more, trusting life more, practicing and mastering the witnessing mind, the calm abiding mind, and the unity consciousness to decrease misunderstandings, confusions, doubts, and needless mental stress (Dacher, 2006 p. 74). I believe that working on the witnessing mind and the calm abiding mind will bring me closer to the unity conscious and towards a fuller human flourishing.

Spiritual strategies that I can implement to foster growth in my life is to include breathing techniques, guided meditation, and bring back listening to Omharmonics on a daily basis. Three breathing techniques that I found that I can try, learn, and integrate into my daily schedule called the Stimulating Breath/Bellows Breath, 4-7-8 Exercise/Relaxing Breath, and Breath Counting (Weil, 2013). I very much enjoy breathing techniques but I have not as of yet made them a part of my daily life, I have used So Hum contemplation meditation during times of stress or unrest but not consistently as a daily habit. This spiritual technique will also be beneficial for me physically because it will help to lower my blood pressure, heart rate, release of the stress hormone cortisol, improves circulation, decrease fatigue, insomnia, headaches, and gastrointestinal issues linked to stress levels. Another strategy that I can put into action for mental health is focusing and improving my concentration, which tends to lead to procrastination that can lead to stress. I have created tools to become better organized although there are still many things that I can add and improve upon. A great tool that I came across defined concentration into four components; duration of focus either sustained or brief, direction of focus such as internal or external focus, intensity of weak or intense focus, and width meaning how broad or narrow your focus needs to be (Dallaire, 2012). I found this resource to be greatly beneficial to understanding focus better as well as a mental technique to visualize focusing on the important topics and tasks at hand. Dr Jaques Dallaire describes a mental technique that has you visualize your focus as a flashlight beam of light from your forehead and you are in control of the “beam of concentration” and the four components of intensity, width, duration, and direction of the concentration to consciously manage your concentration (2012). From here on out I am always going to automatically think of concentration as a flashlight beam of light coming from my forehead, I may even get silly from time to time and come up with a laser to blast away chores, assignments, tasks, and other responsibilities that need to be done that I am having a hard time focusing on. I think this will be a great mental/visual technique that can easily be incorporated into my daily life that I can also share with others to try. Lastly, a strategy that I can use to eat breakfast more often is to start using my monthly calendar to create meal plans, and I have also bookmarked a Daily Food Plan Worksheet so I can track and analyze my food to really make sure I am getting everything that I need (United States Department of Agriculture, 2013). Even though I already eat healthy I know there are days when I do not get enough food which causes my blood sugar levels to drop, my blood sugar levels to be inconsistent, which leads to not enough energy for my brain as well as negatively affects my mental, emotional, and physical state.

Coming up with a way to track and assess my progress or lack thereof is important because the tools and resources discussed, taught, and learned in this class on integrative health are not only important to my education it is also essential for my own health, my future careers, and those around me that I influence. I find that if I make myself lists and calendars I am more apt to actually do the tasks so that I can cross them off my lists as well as visually see the reminder each day that I have not gotten the tasks done yet. Making lists and calendars also helps me to be more organized on all of the things that I have to take care of. I have used lists and calendars for quitting smoking, creating a sleep schedule, juggling work, school, and exercise, meals, and finances, in addition to basic daily tasks or to do tasks. One of the biggest and most helpful strategy that I can put into action to make my life easier, more manageable, more fulfilling, and help me towards my goals of human flourishing is to revise my hourly/daily/weekly schedule now that I have my new work schedule and I can make time to try new meditations and work on goal of working on meditating every day of the week. I am going to need to keep a schedule since my new job has me traveling to different stores in different cities, I am going to have to be well organized with my time, calculate my mileage, trips, and gas, and most importantly make time for myself for exercise, sleep, meditation, and breathing techniques, listen to Omharmonics music, and so forth. I can track my progress not only by my lists and calendars I can also get back into journal writing and keep track that way as well. When I used journal writing in the past I was able to revisit previous journal entry logs to see if my frame of mind has changed, if I have improved, what areas were unproductive or counterproductive, and obtain a realization of where I was to where I am in the present.


References

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

Basic Health Publications.

Dallaire, J. (2012). Focusing on concentration – concentration skills and improving techniques.

Retrieved January 14, 2013 from http://www.performanceprime.com/performance-

focusing_on_concentration.php

United States Department of Agriculture. (2013). My daily food plan worksheet. Retrieved

January 14, 2013 from http://www.choosemyplate.gov/food-groups/downloads/worksheets/Worksheet_2200_18plusyr.pdf

Weil, A. (2013). Breathing: Three exercises. Retrieved January 14, 2013 from

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART00521/three-breathing-exercises.html

Unit 8

If I had to choose just two guided visualizations that I find to be most beneficial out of the Loving Kindness Practice, Meeting Aesclepius, and Subtle Mind Practice my choices would be Loving Kindness Practice and Subtle Mind.  I believe that these two are easiest to understand compared to Meeting Aesclepius.  All three of these guided visual practices are highly valuable in achieving human flourishing, although if I had to choose I would say that utilizing the Subtle Mind practice to help in quieting the mind and Loving Kindness for love for the self and others would be a great start for a person in integrating guided meditation into their daily life.  For myself personally it will be beneficial to add these guided meditations into my daily schedule especially since I am partially a Type A personality trait and Codependent personality trait that are stress prone, however, since I am also the the Survivor personality trait that is stress resistant I need to keep this in mind and utilize the tools, information, and resources that I have access to.   With integrating changes it takes practice to make it a habit, which is something that I would need to do.  I can retrieve the practices onto my phone so when I am at the gym I can start off with listening to them first before I listen to my regular music.  I can create a portion of time of each day to sit and listen to the practices.  If I can create time in my daily/weekly schedule for working out I can make time to meditate especially such simple guided meditations such as these ones that don't take up much time.  I think by far though, the human flourishing practice is my favorite.  Even though I read this practice instead of listening to an audio version I found that I was able to focus more, reread if I needed, and go at my own pace, and I feel that I became more involved in the guided visualization.  I also like how the Human Flourishing practice consisted of three parts that bring about such a wonderful sense of connection, happiness, and stress relief.  I think something that I could specifically do is type out the Human Flourishing practice and make it look really creative, print it off, and hang it where I will look at it and read it every day.  I could also do the same for the other practices as well!  

Unit 7

Well the person that came to my mind was my best friend who is like a brother and who was like a teacher and mentor to me about many of the mysticism beliefs that we both share. He guided me get more in touch and in tune with the universe and the capabilities, power, and strength of the mind and soul. For him much of what we have learned in this class is second nature for him, he can meditate at the drop of a dime, switch to the witnessing mind, calm abiding mind, and unity consciousness like it is a piece of cake, and he can channel the power of his mind over matter like no other. I know that I have the capability of being a wise and caring healer that is much of what I do in life. I have always been a life coach for people, I care for, respect, and nurture people, animals, and even things. I share my love, energy, and emotions with people with the intention of helping them to be happy and healthy. I have come a long way towards loving and taking care of myself also. By nature I have always been a care giver, most times I feel like a psychologist or therapist, a nurturer of those in need, and a leader of example. Mainly this exercise made me think about my best friend whom we had a falling away because we had differences of opinions on my life path and his life path took him to far and busy places. I am sure he was very frustrated with where I was going because it was not a conducive path towards where I want to go, the path was filled with heartache, depression, hurt, and abuse, and mainly it took away from my integral path towards human flourishing. It was actually quite the opposite, so I can understand why my friend was upset with the choice in direction I was taking. Although, I do believe that people need to figure it out for themselves, sometimes they need to go through experiences, learn the hard way, learn in their own way, and so forth. There have been many times where I had people ask me advice but they didn't take it and learned the hard way instead of taking my advice so they could achieve what it was that they wanted. I learned that in that circumstance you just need to be there for that person and help them when they need help back up, and support them. I think the mindful practices have had great information to offer and talk about. I did not have very good luck with incorporating these exercises into my life but I would like to search for ones that I do like that I could incorporate into my daily life. On my Youtube meditation playlist I not only have Omharmonic meditative music, I also have subliminal message music, and also guided meditations that I have found to be more pleasing and easier to listen and pay attention to. Mainly the information that has been presented in class are things that I already knew about so it has given me an opportunity to refresh, be consciously aware of the information each day, and work towards applying it more, perfecting what I already do, work on incorporating more, and improve where I falter. The saying about not being able to lead somewhere where you have not gone is a very simple concept. It would be like teaching someone how to snowboard but you yourself don't know how to snowboard, that doesn't make much sense. You can learn together, but that is learning not teaching another. People also do not appreciate being given advice from someone who does not know first hand about what they are trying to teach. I am the oldest of 20 grandchildren on one side of the family, taken care of my friend's and family's children, worked in day cares since I was young, have a natural talent with children, but I do not have any of my own yet so I would never expect to get a job teaching parents how to deal with their children. As soon as people found out I don't have any children they would walk out of the class. It wouldn't matter how much experience I have with children, I am not a parent, therefore I do not completely know or understand. I absolutely believe that I have an obligation to develop my health psychologically, physically, and spiritually! Lead by example! My quitting smoking cigarettes has been an inspiration to many people around me. Going to the gym and talking about it has lead to many people around me to check out gyms, use the temporary passes the gyms offer to check out their gym, people getting gym memberships, and getting people who have memberships to start going more often. Talking to people about ways to decrease stress, sharing information about what I know and what I have learned impacts those around me in a positive way. I talk about eating healthy, being healthy, active, happy, and so forth and people want to hear about it, discuss it, they ask me question that I look into and get back to them about if I didn't know or misconceptions that they heard about that aren't true. I have been implementing psychological, spiritual, and physical growth in my life, so what is on my agenda is to maintain, perfect, and incorporate new things when the opportunity presents itself. I realized today that much of my life I was telling myself to go with the flow, go where life took me, but since I took back control of my life I have realized that wasn't really the right way to look at it. My mind set now is that instead of going with the flow of life I am the one in charge of the flow of my life. One of things that I emphasize when talking with people about the changes I have made in my life and where I have come from to where I am now, is that every day takes work, every moment of the day takes effort, it does however take the simple thought of deciding that it is time to make the change.

Unit 6 (super long)

I don't think I need much improvement in the loving kindness department.  For the most part I tend to put everyone else ahead of myself & I am always thinking about others & how my actions affect those around me.  At my work I always stay late because I don't want to leave the manager high & dry when there is still work that needs to get done.  In order to make things easier on the manager who has to do the schedule of about 40 employees, I told them that I had a completely open & available schedule, which has not worked in my favor at all...  I used to have a major problem telling people, "no" when the needed something from me, because I always wanted to help & be there for people.  However, too many people started taking advantage of me & I was burning the candle at both ends, stretching myself out too thin, & leaving nothing left for myself.  I'm usually the life coach that people turn to because people perceive that I always have myself together & I am a stable person for them to turn to.  Even when I am wronged by a person I justify why they did what they did by understanding that they are only human, no ones perfect, I try to understand what made them the way that they are, something from their childhood, their environment, a past trauma, their own self esteem issues, etc.  I do not wish ill on others, & I try very not to speak negatively about others.  I am only human too though I yell swear words in my car while driving on the road with other drivers & I do get upset when someone hurts me.  The loving kindness exercise is very important message though.  We are all interconnected so if we wish ill on others then we are also wishing ill on ourselves, because when others are suffering we are affected by their suffering & if we are not compassionate to others, then why would people want to be compassionate towards us.  It is also an important concept about selflessness & being more of a selfless person.  

Most of my stress I would say comes from work, schoolwork, & driving.  When it comes to work, I feel like I am working myself to death for an extremely small paycheck.  I may still be young at 25 years old but my back does not feel young at all.  I like my job but I do not like working so hard thinking that I am going to get a decent paycheck & I end up crying instead.  I've been contemplating the last couple days about looking at different job that is tipped based as well as hourly & has a more consistent schedule.  This term has been the most chaotic term I have had since I started going to Kaplan.  I have had an easier time moving across state & still doing school work than working & trying to accomplish the work load of assignments.  It feels like it is non stop each week of so many assignments for both classes.  I am grateful that I am not taking more than 2 classes or else I would probably lose my mind.  My grades are highly important to me so with the heavier workload and chaotic unstructured work schedule I have been stressed out everyday of each week.  If I was working full time instead of part time & a half I would surely be more stressed out trying to get the school workload done each week.  As it is I have to manage & budget my time hour by hour day by day, I am lucky if I get 4.5-6 hours of sleep a night, which is not enough for me because I need 7.5-9 hours to be able to optimally function.  When I am not getting enough sleep I start to make minor mistakes that increase my frustrations because I am such an overachiever & perfectionist.  Everyday when confronted with stress from work or school I have to talk myself through it by telling myself that it isn't the end of the world, it is only a couple points, I am doing the best I can with what I have to work with, and I can still achieve my 4.0 term.  Pretty much my life has been revolving around getting ready for work, driving to work, working, driving, school work, & maybe a little bit of sleep if I am lucky.  There is no time for me & so far I don't feel like I am getting back nearly the amount of effort, energy, & sanity that I am putting in.  When it comes to looking at what is the source of difficulty in myself is the constant mental & emotional refinement that I put myself through.  This includes being conscious & aware of when I am having destructive behaviors, thoughts, & attitudes such as being angry, stressed out from mainly fears, speaking or thinking mean/negative thoughts that are not constructive or positive they are just reactive.  Pretty much psychoanalyzing myself on a constant basis, holding high expectations for myself, being very critical of myself because I know I can always do better but get frustration when I don't do well.  Not long ago I had an epihany about the timeline of my life an a pivotal moment that forever changed my life to why I have been where I have been & why I am at where I am at.  That everyday is a struggle to make the best out of my life despite the choice that changed my life that was not of my doing but has altered all aspects of my life & who I was, who I am, & who I will be.  One of the major things that this has affected is my relationships with others, & apparently I have the worst luck, I don't know how but I attract all the wrong ones.  I have counteracted this by being very particular, having standards & expectations that I don't compromise on, I trust my gut instinct, & I am very clear that I will know what I am looking for when I find it.  I just get very frustrated with people's perceptions and misconceptions that I am a right instead of a privilege.  Moving on to what line of development is most important I would say being on top of my stress levels with positive affirmations, keeping up with my exercising & active meditation, & being actively aware & deciphering my stressful situations in the moment.  Such as stopping, thinking, asking myself what is it that I am really stressed about, what am I afraid of, why does this anger me, what can I do about it, is it in my control or not, and telling myself I am in charge of my attitude & I choose to have a good one & make the best out of the situation & do the best I can.  I don't know what label I would give my level of development on a scale of 1-10 or a F-A grade.  I would like to say I am higher up on the scale, but every time I look back on my life timeline I think to myself man I did not know what the heck I was doing, or thinking, where was my mind at!  Maybe I would go with a B- or an 8, that I know a lot but I still have lots of improvement because let's face it I am only 25 & I have a whole lot of life left to live & a whole heck of a lot of experiences to experience.  I would say that sometimes though I am a 7 because there are periods of time where I get caught up in the chaos of reacting & not being in control of my own life, or going down dead end roads creating more work for myself by having to back track & get back on the main road.  What areas of my life are ready for growth & development?  I would say all areas of my life!  Physically, I am still in recovery mode from being so depressed I was bed ridden & sick for over a year losing a lot of lean muscle tone.  I am also only 4.5 months quit from smoking cigarettes after 10 years of smoking.  There are also needs that need to be attended to most importantly going to the chiropractor because I know my hips are still out of alignment causing pinched nerves, difficulty working out, & work takes a physical toll on my body.  I have my gym membership & my routine is an hour & a half but I need to include Pilates for lower back function & I would love to make yoga a part of my daily lifestyle.  Belly dancing is also on my bucket list.  Meeting my own personal nutrient needs is still not completely down pat, I eat healthy but I tend to not be able to get enough from forgetting or not having enough time for breakfast, forgetting to pack a lunch for work, not having the money to buy groceries or stop & get food, & most places are closed when I am out & about.  I was doing really great but then my schedule changed once I got a job & since my work schedule is never consistent I have had a hard time adapting so far.  After the holiday is over I want to put in a request at my work for no less than 20 hours a week, Monday & Tuesday off for school work, & to work only from afternoon & after.  Working night, then morning, then afternoon, then double shift, then this, then that, there's just no rhythm or reason!  Spiritually there is always room for improvement.  I am very spiritual & it is a part of me & my life everyday with how I think, behave, treat others, see the universe, & how we are all interconnected.  I feel there is room for improvement because I don't participate in some of the activities like I used to that made me feel more in tune with the universe, I haven't studied any of my spiritual books in a long while.  I bought a short book last term about dreams & I only got a couple pages in & it hasn't been touched since.  With the weather being so cold I don't ever want to go outside even bundled up to participate in contemplation in nature.  Mentally & emotionally I will always have room for development, that will never stop needing attention.  For me this is one of the aspects that becomes out of balance affecting the other aspects on a regular basis.  There are many hereditary traits, environmental learned behaviors, many major traumas throughout my life, & the tendency to be a codependent stress prone personality type as well as type A, luckily I am also the survivor stress resistant personality type so I always preserver no matter what.  An area that could use healing aside from my back needing chiropractic attention & probably a massage wouldn't hurt I could afford it right now, would be my mental & emotional state.  A major goal that I have really been taking action on the last handful of months has been decreasing my stress levels, not being unhappy or depressed, & being happy.  For the most part I have been doing very well except when crazy work hours like Black Friday, over-night floor shift project which is an intense redo of the entire store, & midterms or finals.  I have terrible luck with timing, usually everything will land all at the same time & I drink way too much coffee to keep up, not enough water, not enough food, not enough sleep at all, and mental drainage ha ha!  I would say that the same areas in my life that need healing also have room for growth & development.  I also believe though that every aspect has room for growth & development because there is no end to transcendence  it keeps going to the next stage of evolution.  What would the next level of development look like?  That is a really good question.  I think the next level of development would be having many of the positive lifestyle choices be a part of my everyday life, that it will be second nature, I would just do it without thinking about it.  I think I skipped a few levels though.  Some things are in the pre-contemplation stage, some in the contemplation, others in the preparation, and some in the action stage.  My goal is to be in the maintenance stage.  For example, my gym membership & exercising is in the maintenance stage, I went from the contemplation stage of thinking about a specific gym, I researched some information, I went straight into the preparation stage by deciding that week on a specific day before work I was going to go in & talk to the people.  I even signed up for a week pass but I knew that the times that I was allowed to come in to the gym weren't going to work, I was going to be better off getting a membership.  Upon going to the gym talking to the person & having a tour I told her to sign me up & I went 3 times that week!  Sadly I didn't get to go this last week because of work & school work.  Quitting smoking is in the maintenance stage so is taking my supplements & drinking more water.  Yoga & Pilates is in the contemplation stage, school is in the action stage, and going to the chiropractor is in the preparation stage to name a few examples.  So, I guess it depends on what area I am looking at to know which level of development I am at.  

Unit 5 Subtle Mind

I really enjoyed this guided meditation out of all of the other ones that we have done in this class as well as the ones I have done for other classes. The only problem I had was my patience during the extremely long periods of times of the lady not talking. I tried so hard to stay with it through the whole thing but I broke the concentration 16 minutes in. The first 10 minutes I was all about it, enjoying it, concentrating on my breathing, and clearing my mind, and then the 5 minutes of silence crushed me. I am so exhausted after not sleeping well, trying to get school work done before work, working 10 hours from 8pm to 6am and then going straight to Denny's after work to work on the bazillion school work assignments for both of my classes. Many of the thoughts that ran through my head were work, school, I want to be working out, I am so utterly tired, my back is killing me, I need a chiropractic adjustment and massage so terribly, I want to be sleeping in my warm bed with my cats.... I was able to refocus back onto breathing and also let these thoughts dissolve into nothingness and when asked what was left, there was just me saying in my head to myself, "there is just me." I really liked this guided meditation but the moments of silence are just way too long for me. Compared to the loving kindness guided mediation I feel that they are two totally different types of meditation. One focuses on love and kindness for one's self, those close to us, and everyone and everything else. This meditation focuses on clearing the mind. I had an easier time with the loving kindness guided mediation that I did the subtle mind guided meditation. I am not surprised by this considering I am terrible about shutting my mind off and if I am successful I usually just put myself to sleep.


Spiritual, mental, and physical wellness are all interconnected, meaning if you poke one the others will also react. If one is out of balance the others will become out of balanced as well. If our mental health is low this state starts to manifest physically with problems such as lowered immune system, headaches, high heart rate and blood pressure and stomach problems. Alternatively, if our mental health is high then physical well being is high and this shows physically with a higher immune system, shorter healing time, lower heart rate, and so forth. I think many people forget or not think about spiritual health although I believe that spirituality is ingrained in our nature. Being spiritual to me does not mean being religious or being affiliated to anything religious, although for some religion is a constructive focal point for spirituality. For me spirituality means being in touch with our own soul, what we know to be right and wrong, how we want to be treated and how we believe others should be treated, our compassion, kindness, thoughtfulness, and being in touch with the universe and everything in it. In my life personally I have had many imbalances with these areas of wellness. I believe I have always been spiritual ever since I was a child with vivid dream, great intuition and foresight, a connection with children and animals, a love for smells, plants, and crystals precious and semiprecious, the seasons, the elements, the planets, and so on. However, my mental health and well-being has always been out of balance causing major imbalances in my physical health and well-being and in part affecting my spiritual well-being. I come from a family of mental health illnesses such as depression, bipolar, manic depression, chronic anxiety, worry, and panic. Major bouts of depression, stress, and anxiety attacks have been the biggest troubles that offset my balance because they cause me to go into a hibernation mode where I don't want to eat, I have no appetite, and a revulsion to food, I sleep for 10-15 hours at a time, become bedridden with apathy, I let my hygiene go, my immune system would crash, I would have constant never ending migraines, chronic stomach pain, and the inability to leave the house to accomplish simple tasks like checking the mail or picking up milk. These mental and physical imbalances affected my spirituality by making me question what I believe in or feeling like I was losing faith in humanity and the universe, wondering if I was being punished for something I did in a past life, and wondering why it was necessary for me to go through what I was having to go through. On the other end of the spectrum, taking back charge of my life, I chose to quit smoking and get back to my love of hiking, which opened the door for me to start going to the gym, and I just got my own membership all by myself at a gym of my choice. I have chosen exercising to be my new healthy addiction to release stress hormones and to release beta endorphins for happiness, pain relief, boost my immune system, and a whole plethora of beneficial mental and physical benefits. With stress and my smoking habit I not only had a high heart rate, at 25 I was at a pre-hypertension level! What!? Pre-high blood pressure at 25 even though I am a completely healthy aside from that one bad habit!? Now that I am not in a constant reactive state with stress and anxiety I am able to be more aware and witnessing of my life. I can ask myself why am I stressed, what am I afraid of, is that a reasonable fear, why am I so angry about this particular thing, is that a reasonable anger, are other people in charge of me or am I in charge of myself? I make my own happiness. I take myself out to dinner, I take myself to the gym, I take myself out for a drink, I do not rely on someone taking me out or wanting my time. I also started setting boundaries with people and putting my foot down about what I will and will not tolerate when it comes to how I am treated by others. I am also a lot more proactive when it comes to stressful situations by coming up with constructive and productive strategies and plans such as creating hour by hour day by day weekly schedules of work time, school time, sleep time, and so forth. All in all though, I am only human and I am not perfect but I do strive for evolution of my self everyday, not to become better or worse, just more me, the true potential that we all hold.

Unit 4 Mental Workout

When asked to think of a person the first people I thought of were my best friend Juanita who lives where I live in Washington and also my friend Jessica who lives in California that I have not gotten to see for a few years now. Both I adore wholeheartedly and value their true friendship. I thought it was very cool and surprising that the guided meditation said to turn those feelings of love and kindness of those loved ones towards oneself, I really enjoyed that. I found this guided meditation to be a lot easier than the other ones of this class and ones I have done for other classes. I think maybe that is because I caught up on cleaning, sleep, and relaxation. I don't think I really understand how I am supposed to just observe my thoughts and feelings but not think or feel them, this might be why I have such a hard time with exclusive and inclusive meditation... When told to give oneself to the higher state of mind I visualized me being 2 people much like in the movie What the Bleed Do We Know. The person I thought of that is suffering is my grandmother, she has a heart of gold and is a wonderful person but she suffers from chronic stress and anxiety that causes chronic physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual problems for her. I also visualized blowing away the metaphoric black cloud surrounding my grandmother with every exhale breath. For the circle of strangers I visualized my coworkers, because I work with a very large number of employees many of which I only briefly know. I think it is important to include them because how they think and feel affects me as well because we all work together. After a while the sound of waves started to make me very sleepy even though I slept for 11 hours today! I would recommend this guided meditation to others because it is beneficial, it is very relaxing, and it has you think not only about yourself but those around you. The concept of a mental workout is to workout your brain much like you do the body with exercise and conditioning except instead of physically your are doing it mentally and emotionally. This is important because what we think and feel affects our body physically as well as sets us up for thought process patterns that affect our well-being on all levels. Mental training focuses on a person becoming an observer of their own life, as well as calmness, peace, tranquility, and stillness, which paves the way for health and happiness. Mental training such as meditation, visualization, guided imagery, and breathing technique are proven to be beneficial mental exercises because they decrease negative thoughts, emotions, and physical effects such as high heart rate, blood pressure, and increases memory function. I use self affirmation statements, I use active meditation while I exercise, I use aromatherapy, and when I am stressed I ask myself what am I really afraid of or what is really making me angry.

Unit 3 Psychological, Spiritual, and Physical Well-Being

I think I would give myself a 9 for well being, physically, psychologically, and spiritually.  I believe that I am at a 9 because I have always been pretty in tune with all aspects of my well being, I am aware of my strengths and weaknesses and I strive to evolve, I am deeply connected with my personal spirituality, I have always lead a healthy life and continue to further that, but I give myself a 9 because there is always room for improvement.  No one is perfect and nothing is completely perfect.  I am always learning more information, seeking more knowledge, absorbing more insight, my perceptions are always adapting each day as I experience more.  I know that I constantly am working at bringing things into balance in my life and paying attention to when things are out of balance, which is a constant daily task.  It is not something you can just do once and be fine, you have to work at it everyday.   I eat healthy, I exercise and am active, I stay away from chemicals such as MSG, high fructose corn syrup, and non nutritive sweeteners, I actively meditate while exercising, I enjoy sitting in silence and having alone time, I only partake in a select few "junk" foods a couple of times a year (literally), I make and take time for myself, I got rid of smoking cigarettes, I partake in aromatherapy daily, I use crystal therapy, I do things to feel in harmony with the universe, and many other positive well being activities.  Hmmm.... Some goals for each area...  I would say one of my goals physically is to do Pilates for lower back function, much of my stress is carried in my back and I have also had a lot of back injuries for being young and Pilates is one of the best exercises for back function.  My mom has a whole DVD set of Pilates, she just can't remember where she put them, and I am pretty sure she forgot about looking for them for me and I have not reminded her because I have been so busy with work and I just recently got a gym membership since I was not having enough daylight to go hiking outdoors with my schedule.  I'd also like to get into yoga and belly dancing is for sure on my bucket list.  Another goal is to exclusively meditate by silencing everything out and quieting myself.  I am fantastic at actively meditating while exercising, but I do not take much time to actually sit down and exclusively meditate.  I do enjoy the silence frequently but I do not think it is the same as exclusively meditating.  Psychologically, I am still working on my stress levels, I have come a long ways in just the last 4 months of taking back charge of my life, but I am far from my goal because many things have continued for many years and it takes a while to change things that have been around for years and years and years.  One of the major things that I have been working on is my tendency to be a codependent stress prone personality type, although I am also the survivor stress resistant personality type sometimes the scale is not balanced.  Therefore, I have to consciously make an effort to not let things in life overwhelm me, consume me, or bring me down, and stress me out.  For instance, I ended up getting scheduled to work for a week straight, which left me no time for school work.  I was so stressed out I started to cry, instead I stopped myself and decided I need to do some serious time management, so I wrote out a schedule from Saturday to Saturday hour by hour each day and highlighted in work hours, getting ready and drive times, sleep hours based on sleep cycles (90 mins), what time I had to do school work each day, and lastly a little tiny bit of me time.   I also make a list of school work for each week and I marked on my list days for each assignment and task.  So far everything has gone according to planned, this blog ended up being spread out over a few days because every time I would work on it I would only get a little bit done at a time due to being so exhausted from work.  Tonight I will be up till 6 am writing 3 papers because I have to work all day tomorrow through till the time everything is due.  My ex husband asked why I am staying up till 6 am?  I know myself, I have already been jacked up on caffeine, I am a night owl, and I know that I will sleep instead of getting up early to work on school work so it is better to just stay up till I get it all done.  I guess the answer for psychological stress would be to be proactive, constructive, positive, and turn debilitating stress into facilitating stress.  As for the relaxation exercise, I will admit that I was multitasking while listening to it.  I have already heard this one in my previous class, Stress: Critical Issues in Management and Prevention.  Right now though it is extremely difficult to get in tune with the exercise mainly because  I do not want to be relaxed right now, I just want to get my papers written so I can go to sleep so I can go to work for 9 hours...  After I get off work tomorrow is when I can relax, but right now there is no time to relax...  When I listened to this video the first time I did feel very relaxed, I altered a few things such as the grounding root chakra is brown not red.  I do like this guided relaxation because I do believe in chakras, chakras being focal points of energy for specific things, chakras being out of alignment or blocked, and chakra healing.  I have done chakra healing with crystals placed on each chakra as well as listening to meditative music with different frequencies each specific to each chakra.