Introduction:

                Health and Wellness professionals have the unique role of working in a field that is contently changing in all aspects. This would include in study, treatment and progression. Psychologically the professional needs to stay on top of new studies and materials that are being published and breakthroughs are occurring in on a daily basis. This information could help in the treatment of patients and the critically thinking of the professional. Spiritually these people need to be strong and fulfilled to be able to deal with an open heart with the mew problems they will face on a daily basis concerning their patients. Physically needing to be fit and stay as healthily as possible in order to treat and experience treatments that could help their clients. The areas of most concern for me would be psychologically and physically because there are always new things to learn on a daily basis. Physically because optimal health is a ever changing goal that needs to be exercised and practiced every day, it is also something that may take a minute or lifetime to achieve.

Assessment:

                Assessments are an important part of daily life and are something that we do within most moments of the day, realizing it or not. When assessing myself I look at many different aspects including the goals that I have set, the routes of progression that I have taken to further myself in each area and the lessons that I have learned from each step or “bump in the road”. This is important for me because I set goals for all aspects of my life. If a goal has not been set then there is nothing to be working towards or for. The options that each one has on how to achieve these goals can be very different, trying to find the right way is important and can be completely different for each scenario. Learning form mistakes is the most important lesion I believe in life, this is because human life is about making mistakes no one is perfect. I feel my assessment has changed somewhat from our unit three assignment. Back then I felt that spiritually was my highest score however, since then I have seen that no one is perfect in gods eyes and improvements needs to happen on a daily basis to be a better christen. I now see myself around a 5 trying to be the best person overall that I could be. Psychologically I see myself now being still around a si this being because I still lead a very hectic life working as many hours as I do, trying to be the best family man that I can be and still but getting ever closer to finishing up my school work and earning my degree. Physically I feel much better about myself, would rate it about a 6 or 6.5, because I have done things, and made improvements to my lifestyle including getting healthier.

Goal Development:

                I have started many goals for myself since beginning this class. One physical goal that I have set for myself at the beginning was to get healthier. I have since started a running regimen and now have set a goal to run in my first 5k. Psychological goals I feel are harder to obtain then others because of the variables that are surrounding them. For me at the beginning it was to figure out the best way to deal with the workload that I have put on myself. Now it is to find time for myself to meditate or visualize because I have found these actions keep my mind healthy and myself on point and sane. Spiritually I have found that my goals from 8 weeks ago have not changed very much. I still try to find any time that I can to have a personal conversation with the “big man upstairs”. However, now I feel that instead of a personal conversation I try to have that connection within a group because “being a fisher of men” (Luke 12, (1-25) is the way that the lord has taught us to communicate with him as disciples of god.

Practices for Personal Health:

                “Practice makes perfect” is what my father has instilled in me since a child and it is a lesson that I am trying to instill in my children. Physically I have started to exercise, this includes running at least three times a week around three miles and each time trying to better my time then the run before. I have also started to use the employee gym. Working on a cross training program with a coworker that I am going to participate in my first 5k run with coming up in two months. Psychological exercises I have learned are just as important as physical exercises and are important to keeping mental health. I have learned through this course that meditation and visualization are two ways that I feel comfortable and that have helped me gain my mental composure. Spiritually I want to share my two favorite exercises, the first is to participate in prayer every day. The second would be participate in Christian fellowship at least once a week, this would include using my time to counsel other member of our church or members of the community that are having general issues including their faith, abuses of all sorts and mental issues such as compassion and or comprehension of life activities.

Commitment:

                I feel that assessments need to be consistent otherwise; it is very hard to judge withier the progress is being made or not in any aspect. So in 6 months I will asses myself the same as I did in this assessment with the first being what goals did I set and have I completed these goals. Second taking a long look at either what path I took to accomplish my goal or what went wrong on that path that prevented me from completing my goals. Third would be to look at the lessons that I am taking from this journey. Are they the right lessons to be taking? Are they important to my goal or goals of the future? What I could learn for future paths and goals from this goal? By assessing myself in this way, I can conjure what is important and learn the appropriate lessons from these goals.

 

 

 

 

 

References

                Dacher, E. (2006) Integral Health- The Path to Human Flourishing, Basic Health Publications, Laguna Beach, Cal.

                New Testament (NA) The Holy Bible, Saint James editions, retreved from http://biblescripture.net/Bible.html

Unit 8 Loving-kindness and subtle minds

Prof and class, after looking back at all the exercises that we had the opportunity to try I found that the loving-kindness and subtle mind exercises were 1. the best fit and was the most comfortable with and 2. were the only two that I found benefited me mentally or benefited my life the best. I lead a very hectic life between my three little ones and working around 70 hours a week. Then trying to commit the proper time to my school work. The subtle mind exercise really helped me relax and decompress and some days decompression is all that I need to wipe the stress away. Loving-kindness is what I feel makes me a better person to everyone that I meet and a better person to my self and my children who are looking up to me. I have found that using the subtle mind exercise before bed on a daily or every other day basis really helps me awake refreshed and the loving-kindness I practice in the car on a daily basis. Thanks Sam

Meeting Aesclepius

Prof and class, during this week after using the Aesclepius exercise I felt confused and not at peace at all. I could only think of the mentor I had chosen and the effects and life stories that I had the time to hear or experience. The one mindfulness practice that I had to enjoy more this week was my running. I have been leisurely training for a breast cancer 5k at the beach. I find that when running my mind is clear and that it does not wonder. I just take in the sounds and concentrate on my breathing. I have started to see the difference in my mood and attitude before and after these alone times. "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" (Schlitz, Amorok, Micozzi, pg. 477). When I hear this phase I think that the true meaning is that you do not have to actually experience the event but have to be educated and possibly even serving toward helping curing, preventing and caring for the people and places that have experienced them. An example would be an Oncology doctor. These people have committed there life’s work to helping and curing these cancerous diseases even though they have not or may not ever experience one. I still feel that yes as a healer to gain respect from your peers and your clients you need to foster in yourself the psychological, physical and spiritual aspects of being a healer. I have started to inquire more about what I can do in my current position as the patient chef to encourage nutritional healing and what specific sections of the hospital require special nutrients to promote this gastronomic healing. Thanks Sam

 

Schlitz, M. Amorok, T. Micozzi, M. (2005) Consciousness and Healing-Integral Approaches to Mind-Body Medicine, Elsevier Churchill Livingstone

Prof and class, in completing the universal Loving-Kindness meditation and the Integral Assessment on myself I found that the meditation exercise had an effect on my mood and personification of my surroundings. I found in the assessment that the biological aspect needs the most attention. I feel that this is my greatest need for improvement because of the current schedule I process. I work too many hours and have no time to take care of myself and the health of my body. In the effort to help get back into shape I have started parking at the back of the lot at work and walking to the door instead of taking the shuttle. I have also decided to cut the sugary drinks and coffee from my routine and start drinking more juice and eating three balance meals a day. Thanks Sam

Unit 4 exercises

Prof and class, wow this has been a crazy week. Sorry for my tardiness, I have started a new undertaking this week called employment. It is much different then what I am used to; I am now currently working in the dietary department at my local County hospital. The goal is to change the institutional outlook of the department and innovate a new one that has the purpose of great tasting, nutritional food that enhances the experience of the hospital stay. Never less, it has been like literally pulling teeth. I have used the exercise that was discussed during the loving-kindness exercise and I can say at the beginning I thought it was not for real but as I look at the week, I feel that it was a great success. It had helped me stay calm in the face of hostility and fear. It has made me more excited and I believe a better person for it. The mental workout is used to make a person sharper, more focused and much more attentive. These workouts not only increase the capacity of the mind but also has been shown to improve the short and long term memory while decreasing the chances of developing a mental related disease like Alzheimer’s and dementia. I have been using a training method like memory matching but not, it involves words, phrases and or quotes that have meaning increase the mental capacity and are uplifting to me. Thanks Sam.

Unit three blog post

Prof and class, physical, psychological and spiritual wellbeing is very important to most people, especially if you are a holistic healthcare professional. There are many of us that wish we were in better shape and most of us wish we were in better shape in all of these categories. I myself see my spiritual wellbeing as my most important and my strongest. I rate it around a 7. Physical, maybe a 5 this is because I work a ton of hours and really want to work out but with family and work I really have no time in my day. Psychological wellbeing is also important and considering I have been in college classes for the last couple of year I would rate that at around a 6.  The goals that I have set for myself have been long standing in all of these categories, 1 to get into better shape by becoming more active and quitting smoking. 2, is to finish my BA in Nutritional Science; which I am getting real close too accomplishing. And 3, is to talk to god every day in my own way, this would include prayer and going to church on a weekly basis. To accomplish these goals I have first started parking at the back of the employee parking lot, which is around a quarter of a mile from the entrance to my job and walking this every day. Next would be to continue to take as many classes as I can per term to finish my degree and 3 is to find some time by my self without distractions to have a daily chat with the big man upstairs. As I followed along with the relaxation exercise for this week, I was lost and confused. It was too much for me to take on and I felt overwhelmed through most of it. I think for me there was to many aspects going on and too many instruction to follow, I mean seven different colors was a lot of different meditation techniques and I really was not as impressed as I had been with the first ones. Thanks Sam

Reflexion post

Therefore, I know I am a little late but after completing the relaxation exercise, it did feel weird to me. I guess this is because I have never done any type of meditation before this. I have experience a spiritual meditation through outlets like prayer but not like this. It was nice but again I had the overwhelming sensation that it was odd. Anyone else feel like this? Through the reading and during this I am interested in how much control our minds actually have over the rest of the body and am looking forward to learning much more about this. Thanks Sam.