Unit 10

In Unit 3 I was not feeling well.  I had returned from vacation with a cold, behind in my schoolwork and starting a new job.  I do feel better now, I do not have a cold, I caught up on my school work and might even end this class with a decent grade and since I have been at my job a couple of months I am feeling better about it because some of the things are more natural for me now and although I am still learning, I don’t feel so overwhelmed with what I need to learn and I even feel comfortable with most of my job and don’t second guess myself all of the time.  I have not consistently exercising or doing my devotions but my meditation practices have improved.  This course and my experience with it has given me more knowledge about myself, tools to improve myself and the support and plan to do so.  This experience will give me first hand experience that in the future allow me to help others because I have had a similar struggle and been able to overcome my struggles.  

I have enjoyed learning to blog and look forward to continuing with my blogging.  Thank you professor, this has been a great class.  To my classmates, good luck with your future goals, it has been great being in class with you.

Final Project, My Health and Wellness Goals

I Introduction:

            Jane, an obese woman who smokes, went to the doctor and the doctor informed her that she needed to go on a diet, exercise and quit smoking.  Jane asked her doctor what diet she was on and what she is doing to quit smoking so Jane could avoid those methods since they are not working for her two pack a day, overweight doctor.  The goal of health and wellness professionals is to help people develop their health and become well; if a health and wellness professional is not striving for their own optimum health the clients they see may think that they are being a hypocrite.  This is not to say that a health and wellness professional has to be at their optimum health to help others; part of the journey is the experience that gets them there, and while they may be on their own journey to wellness they can help others begin their path to wellness.  The health and wellness professional has the education to know what should be done to help others and by taking the journey they also have their own experience to share.  It is important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually and physically so they can help others with their journey of development.

            I am getting my education in health and wellness so I can help others obtain their optimum health.  I began my journey in health and wellness about 12 years ago when I became interested in natural remedies.  At that time I began to change my diet, eat healthier and eat foods and use herbs that would help me stay healthy.  My journey has continued I went back to school to get my degree in health and wellness.  Through my education I have learned more about nutrition, physical fitness, alternative medicine and meditation.  Prior to my education I did not know much about meditation but I have enjoyed learning the many benefits of meditation, including the psychological, spiritual and psychological health of meditation.  My education has taught me how to meditate and I have begun to reap its benefits; although I still consider myself to be a beginner with meditation I do believe in its many benefits. 

            I have to say that exercising is my biggest struggle.  I know the benefits of exercising, I have experience the benefits of exercising but I do not exercise on a regular basis; I am still sporadic with my exercising.  I will be good one or two weeks and then I will slip and not exercise or do very little exercising; it is getting better because it is getting easier and faster for me to get back into the exercise routine and have more good weeks than bad.  The goals I have for myself as a health and wellness professional to develop my psychological health is to continue to meditate, learn other meditation methods so I have a variety and get to unity consciousness.  My goal for my spiritual development is to grow my relationship with God.  Having goals as a health and wellness professional is part of the journey and by following their journey they can truly be a guide to others and help them with their journey.

II Assessment:

            Assessing and scoring a person’s development in spiritual, physical and psychological wellbeing can be challenging because it is based on their perception of how they are and how they compare themselves.  I have spent the last two years at Kaplan University in their health and wellness program.  I have taken many health and wellness classes including classes on nutrition, fitness, and alternative medicine.  Many of these classes have had me assess myself as a way of practicing how to assess others.  Through these assessments I have learned that I am not good at exercising, although I have gotten better I would say that on a scale of 1-10 I am about a 4 with regards to exercising; I am pretty good with nutrition but that could improve too so I would put my nutritional habits at a 7.  I only learned basic meditation a year ago and have learned more on meditation with this class so my meditation skills are still at a beginner level an I would put them at a 2; and my spiritual well being could always improve.  Although I consider myself to be a spiritual person I continue with struggles with my spiritual life and I would put myself at a 5 right now.  I have spent the last couple of years assessing and scoring my spiritual, physical and psychological wellness; it is my perception that a person can always improve and will never reach total spiritual, physical and psychological wellness.  I feel that because of my education I know more about where I should be than I did before and know that there is much more to strive for in whole health wellness.  My education and this class have given me the tools and now my goal is to use these tools to come as close as I can to whole health wellness.

III Goal development:

            Whole health wellness is being well, physical, psychological and spiritual.  In order for a person to obtain whole health wellness they need to set goals.  My goal to reach whole health wellness is for my physical wellness to exercise on a regular basis doing 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise 5 days a week and weight or resistance training 3 days a week.  I would like to reach this goal by the end of December.  Although many people tell me I eat well I would like to daily meet my nutritional goals by getting the majority of my vitamins, minerals and necessary nutrients from my food and not from supplements.  I am working on this goal but I do find it difficult to obtain this when my husband is away because I do not like to cook for myself so it is easy for me to make a bowel of soup rather than cook a full meal.  I would like to meet this goal and figure out ways to get most of my nutrients from my food by the end of December.  The goal I have for my psychological health is to get into the habit of meditating on a daily basis and to reach unity consciousness.  Although this goal is going to be more of a time management goal, I would like to be meditating daily by the end of December.  I believe these goals are realistic for me and having goals to obtain will help me with my journey of health and wellness.

IV Practices for personal health:

            Having health and wellness goals is the first step in achieving the goals.  Knowing how a person will implement these goals is the next step to reaching them.  The strategy I will use to reach my goal for my physical wellness is that I will go to the gym on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s and do 30 minutes of cardiovascular training and use the machines to do the weight training.  On Saturday, I will use my stair stepper at home to do 30 minutes of cardiovascular training along with my hand weights to get a combination of weight and cardiovascular training along with my workout ball and other resistance exercises I can do at home.  On Monday and Wednesday I will use my treadmill at home to do my 30 minutes of cardiovascular training.  By following this schedule I will get my 30 minutes of cardiovascular training 5 days a week and my 3 days of weight/resistance training.  To obtain my nutritional goals I will utilize my Nutritrac to follow my food intake and whether I am getting all of my nutrients from my food and when I am low on a nutrient I will adjust my diet so I get the proper nutrients from my food.  The strategy I have to reach my psychological goal is to meditate each day before I go to bed.  This will help me relax and get a good night’s sleep.  I will utilize the music I currently have, my meditation CD from this class and I will do some research and find other meditation tools by utilizing the internet and asking friends what their favorite meditation tool is so I will have variety of meditation methods to use so I do not get board with my meditation.  These are my strategies for meeting my goals for achieving whole health in mind, body and spirit.

V Commitment:

            Tracking a person’s progress can be done a variety of ways; some may keep a journal or mark a calendar, there are a variety of applications that can be used on a person’s phone, and there are many other ways to track progress.  I will utilize my journal, my phone and my computer to track my progress so in six months I can see where I was and where I would like to be now and where I am.  I am going to put my goals in my journal so I can look back at my goals and see if I have met them.  I am going to use my Nutritrac program on my computer to track my nutritional intake, and fitness, along with a nutrition program on my phone that also tracks my nutrition and fitness.  I find it helpful to use both because I am not always at my computer and I can input it into my phone and then later into my computer for other data reports that my phone does not provide.  I will also journal my meditation goals and as I meditate I can write down my experiences so I can evaluate when I have met my unity consciousness.  Changing a person’s habits takes several weeks before they become part of a person’s regular routine.  Tracking those changes will help a person stay on target and reach their goal and in six months they can look back and see where they started and how far they have come and grown.  I am hoping that in six months I can look back at the goals I have set today and that I have met those goals and making new ones.

VI Conclusion:

            As a health and wellness professional I want to be able to help my clients with their journey to obtain health and wellness through my education and from my own personal journey of health and wellness.  I can do this by setting realistic goals for my spiritual, physical and psychological wellbeing.  Assessing where I am today, developing my goals and having a way to track my goals so down the road I can see whether I am meeting my goals or straying form them.  I have set some time guidelines to meet these goals and I have a plan for tracking my goals.  I believe that it is important for a health and wellness professional to practice what they preach.  I know that they are also human and may not excel in all areas of health and wellness, but the struggle is part of their journey.  I am hoping that my struggles and journey will help me be a better health and wellness professional, enjoy whole health and so I can help others along their way to obtaining whole health.

Unit 8

The two practices that are most beneficial to me are subtle mind and meditation.  Although I have not implemented them in my daily life I do practice them several times a week. Meditation helps me relax, decrease stress and refocus.  I prefer to meditate to nature sounds sitting in a comfortable chair or on the sofa. The subtle mind practice is nice because I can use it anywhere because it focuses on breathing.  I used it the other day when I had a hectic day at work and I went to my car on lunch and took 5 minutes to do the subtle mind practice.  It helped me refocus and have an enjoyable, calmer afternoon. 

"Meeting Asciepius"

The "Meeting Asciepius" exercise at first made me a little sad, I couldn’t decide between my father or my grandmother for my wise person and both are not near me.  My grandmother is with the Lord and my father is in MN and I do not get to see him as often as I would like.  The exercise in the end made me feel closer to them because it had me bring them into me.  This is another exercise I am looking forward to doing more often and implementing into my life on a regular basis.

Mindfulness or meditation has fostered an increase in my psychological or spiritual wellness.  I notice nature more; I enjoy the quiet where before I needed something on like the TV or the radio.  I now enjoy walking through the woods and taking my time looking at the trees and the world around me.

The saying: "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself” (P.477) applies to the health and wellness professional and any professional trying to guide someone to a new place in their life.  If a person does not practice what they preach then why should others listen to them.  I feel that if I do not practice health and wellness then I cannot properly guide someone because I have not changed my lifestyle I would be a hypocrite.  If I am asking someone to exercise or eat nutritionally or do meditation and I do not practice it I truly do not believe in it for myself and would be a hypocrite.  Yes I do believe we have an obligation to our clients to develop our health psychologically, physically, and spiritually and I can implement my psychological and spiritual growth in my life through the practices we are learning in this course.

Week 6

The exercise and assessment process that Dacher talks about on page 116 is very interesting.  Although I did my reading this morning and my exercises I do think that it will be beneficial to do this exercise throughout the week.  I know that I need to work on my psychospiritual flourishing because when I do these exercises I continue to get distracted when I have a lot to do.  The area that I choose to focus on and grow is my psychospiritual and I am going to do this by continuing to do these exercises and my meditation.