Unit 10

My spirituality has been raised to an eight or nine. I have never been touched more by the spirit of god than I have lately. With the recent findings of breast cancer I am so glad I have my spirituality to cling to. Psychologically I am becoming stronger and stronger. I no longer feel the need to have another person in  my life. I am able to self southe and talk myself through difficult situations. My scores had radically changed from the beginning of the course. I have been practicing meditation for thirty minutes every day since the course started. I am able to quiet my mind and listen well to others now. Before I just heard people now I actually listen to people and try to see their point of view without personalizing it. Utilizing the breathing exercises recently assisted me during the two biopsies that I under went. My care takers were caring and loving though my medical procedures. Practicing loving kindness through positive acts has made a difference in the way I see people.  This class has changed the way t hat I see the old and how the world envisions me. I frequent involve my children in my meditation even though they think I'm somewhat crazy. Crazy or not it has provided an incredible sense of peace and relaxation. 
 julie Pierce

personal assessment and goals

     My role as a health professional is to fully develop my own skills regarding my psychological, spiritual and physical health.  The attainment of these skills will allow me to incorporate internal peace and love into my daily nursing practice. According to Dacher (2006), We are learning that our psychological and physical life are not predetermined and permanent, our ability for health is flexible. As a health care professional it is my duty to lead a life style that is conducive in flourishing and transforming my inner being . Positive integral enlightenment through mediation and the practice of mind-body exercises will lead the way to better personal health. I now see my success as a healer and care taker differently. My success is based on reaching out and touching patients and making them feel loved. The Dalai Lama once stated “ The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds”.

   Having a strong mind and training my brain will allow me to reach a place of robust health. To reach the highest level of health I can not just actively pursue my physical health but must also pursue my inner self and acknowledge my inner capacity to heal others. "If we want a more profound health and life, we must believe in the possibility and then learn how to develop our consciousness" (Dacher, 2006). My personal emotional distress can affect my spirituality therefore leading to the inability to create an atmosphere of loving kindness to those around me. My goal is to develop my mind at a higher level of consciousness so that I may obtain a natural wisdom that will allow me to experience happiness on a daily basis. By developing the outer and inner self I can be more aware of the anxiety, stress and mental factors that can impair my integral development. I believe as my mind-body connection becomes stronger I will be able to achieve all over health wellness when a higher level of love, positive nutrition, and mental peace are reached and sustained. Peaceful loving actions and positive mind set through the subtle mind will allow me to reach my highest potential thereby influencing the lives of all that touch me.

    Having an open and honest assessment with myself is a difficult task. I think all four areas of my life psycho spiritual, biological, interpersonal and worldly need to be personally focused in on and worked on. Looking at each level with an open and honest assessment means that I need to dig deep to discover what areas that I am lacking in. An honest assessment of my health during the course has led me on a trans formative process that has affected every relationship in my life. Weekly assessments of my spiritual, physical and psychological wellness have been accomplished through writing exercises, reading, performing mind body exercises. My weekly assessments led me to realize that I lacked discipline in each area and therefore chaos was ensuing where it need not exist. An honest self assessment through reflection in meditation led me on a path to find a level of spiritual enlightenment that would positively influence every aspect of my life.

     My physical well being I would rate as a 4. I have not devoted as much time as I once did regarding my physical health. This year I lost 45 pound by cutting out junk foods and eating only real foods such as fruits, vegetables and meats.  The first week was so difficult but as time went on it was a challenge to see how many days I could do this for. I owe to positive thinking and imagery for my loss of weight in the last year. Positive rewards included choosing to drink glasses of water and choose something that was healthy instead of eating sugary snacks. Guided Imagery allowed me to see myself as a thinner and healthier person.

   My spiritual well-being I would rate at a 6. I practice calming behaviors that help to regulate my inner being. By having a positive helpful attitude I believe that you can bring about positive life choices. Growing spiritually for me is a difficult process. My parents did not instill any spiritual beliefs. They were very self centered people who held materialism as their god. Neither one had a strong moral base from which to operate from. In turn I feel that I have largely taught myself how to be spiritual. A spiritual belief is important for me because it places a power higher than me in charge. I find I am most out of balance in this area. By not being in balance spiritually it makes all the other areas in my life become out of balance.                                                                                                           

 I am working extensively and actively on my psychological well-being through therapy with myself and with my daughter. Last year I began taking Wellbutrin due to my severe anxiety and my life has changed. I no longer have feelings of extreme anxiety and I am able to cope with family crisis much easier.  I would score my psychological health as an eight because I feel that I have made huge strides regarding the calmness of my thoughts.

   My goals are all inclusive for all three areas: Physical, Psychological and Spiritual. The goals would be to incorporate integral medicine in each one of the three areas. Exercising the brain and the body simultaneously will bring about positive changes to all three areas that will be mutually dependent upon each other. My goal for my spiritual health includes exercising my brain to remain still and quiet with meditation. Exercising the right to shut out the world is a difficult for task for me to accomplish. I have learned to train my mind to focus on the task at hand and to shut out the electronic world in order to accomplish that task. My goal is to increase my meditation time from ten minutes a day to thirty. This quiet time alone will allow me to perform the self reflection that is necessary in order to continue my positive progression forward in attaining inner peace.  

   My main physical goal is to start working out at the gym at least four times per week. When I was on a regimented schedule of exercise I felt much better about myself and made overall life choices much easier. I need to make it a scheduled appointment to work out at least four times a week doing exercises that I enjoy so that the gym is not a horrible experience that I dread. 

My psychological goal involves developing a sense of independent thinking that frees me from co-dependent relationships. Continuing to take the Wellbutrin that has been prescribed to me will help to reduce my depression. Enabling myself to flourish into a loving independent person who loves herself will enable me to become a more productive person for everyone in the world. The anxiety that have experienced in the past can be controlled with positive imagery and through meditative exercises which calm the mind. Removing toxic people from my life has been helpful to decrease the amount of negative energy that I receive.
   Dacher (2006)  makes an excellent analogy about the preparations needed to incorporate integral health: the analogy of a garden.  Our inner-self is like an integral health garden waiting to be planted and cultivated.  In order to get the most out of this garden, we have to do a little prep work.  The skills that are needed for this prep work are: loving-kindness, skillful action, silence and solitude (Dacher, 2006).

The first exercise that I will be practicing daily will be to open my heart up to others with kindness, care, patience, and generosity. These actions continue to be a difficult task for me to perform. When I practice loving-kindness to others I begin to focus on others instead of myself and I begin seeing the happiness and fulfillment of others which makes my heart full of happiness. Respecting other peoples sensitive feelings enables me have a warmer heart. Loving-kindness is an attitude that is expressed through our actions towards ourselves and others.  “Loving-kindness includes sensitivity and openness to others and their differences, a warm heart, and the qualities of respect, fairness, honesty, patience, and acceptance” (Dacher, 2006). In order to show loving-kindness to others, I must first show it to myself.  Performing acts of loving-kindness directly relates to my personal health because it becomes the framework from which my thoughts and actions spring from. Loving myself and respecting myself will allow me to respect others.

 The second exercise that I can actively perform each day is to strive to create silence and stillness within my head. Creating an atmosphere of silence and solitude allows me to have the opportunity to quietly reflect on what I am trying to accomplish in my daily journey.  This moment of reflection is a necessary part of my daily personal health.  Reflection allows me a chance to look back over my day and assess whether my actions helped me remain calm and positive or did it they cause me harm and stress. Skillful action means to be mindful of my daily actions, especially those that tend to be more negative and harmful.  Negative actions build on one another and onsets you on a negative thought pattern for the rest of the day.  Being more aware of my negative actions gives me an opportunity to change my negative actions into more positive ones. My daily activities now include taking ten minutes out for silent reflection. Some days this seems like an impossible task.  I am only in control of my actions, and my mood can influence many people that surround me. I have the knowledge and understanding now that the only person I can fix is me. This core knowledge makes me feel empowered to make positive changes for myself.

    Personal assessment regarding my progress will be through self observation from the changes in my life as a result of the principals taught in this course. Continuing to follow the integral path of health over the six months will help to foster a better understanding of my strengths as well as my weaknesses. Building on my strengths is the positive action to take for my inner success.  Minimizing yet acknowledging my weaknesses will help to aid my quest in flourishing spiritually and psychologically.  “We are discovering that our mental and physical well-being are not predetermined and fixed, and our capacity for health is flexible, dynamic and expansive. Therefore we know that the brain is trainable and that robust health can result from the systematic training of our mind through planned, systematic inner development “(Dacher, 2006). Continuing to actively participate in the exercises that I have down loaded onto my computer will help me to reach my goal of inner peace and overall happiness by strengthening my mind.  

      Cultivating warm loving relationships will to enable me to maintain my own independence and not allow others to make life choices for me. It is through this independence that my self esteem will begin to soar and growth opportunities will present themselves accordingly. These opportunities will be recognized immediately by myself and acted upon in a timely basis. Through out the course I have come to the realization that I have total and complete control over my happiness and my misery.  This course has been more meaningful than any other course that I have taken at Kaplan and has truly changed the way I think and live my life.  

References:

Dacher, E. (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications, Inc.

 

I have found that meditation and visualization have been the greatest tools for me this term. With meditation I am able to calm my overly active mind to a calm place of tranquility. Feeling positive energy run through you is as addicting as any drug that I have tried. I have tried lots of different drugs by the way. None has ever made me feel as good as just concentrating and my inner peace. While it seems like such a simple concept to sit and concentrate on your breathing while closing your eyes, it is amazing how it can truly change your life.

  Through visualize I have learned to see myself in a more positive light. I have lost 35 pounds in the last year and when people ask me how I did it I am almost embarrassed to say I mentally willed it away. That is the reality though of how I accomplished it. I simply chose to see food as a energy source instead of a delicious treat. While changing my eating habits to visualize myself and food differently it was am,amazing how easy it was to allow those positive feelings to translate into every part of my life. Implementing visualize has allowed me to keep the weight off since August. I began my mental visual diet on May 16th weighing 198 pounds. I am now 153 pounds and have been so since August the 10th. Whenever I catch myself slipping into the bad habits that I once I had I stop myself and examine why I am doing that. It is usually to reward myself. I now have a different reward system. Through focusing and concentrating willfully I have made a positive change in my over all being.

 The practice of meditation and visualization have helped me to develop my mental fitness by keeping me accountable for my actions. By making me accountable to me I no longer cheat on my eating habits. I am the only one who loses when I do not utilize the control over my mind that I know exists. I enjoy the calming feeling of peacefully slipping off into a state of bliss that I find within the Meditation practices that I have been taught in this class.

During the meditation I keep thinking of a old charter from the hobbit. I envisioned Gandolf sitting on a hill living meagerly. I choose to envision that person teaching me about the lessons of life. I have no wise people in my life. I did see a mystic environment that was filled with light and good smelling plumarias. Mediation with scents can help to invoke positive images and senses in order to relax you. I enjoy the smell of plumeria because it reminds me of my childhood in Hawaii. I felt a great sense of calm during the exercise. I hope one day I can become that level of leader or obtain the wiseness that this person has obtained.

    Leading by example is extremely important to me as a single mother of three children. Children only know what you teach them. It is my job to evolve and grow so that they can emulate this by embracing learning. Through out the time of this course I have grown tremendously my meditative practice. Now that I am able to obtain calmness from meditation,  I can better advise my children and my patients the benefits of meditation. When I now advise my labor patients to breathe deeply, it has taken no a whole new meaning because I have come to appreciate the benefits of deep breathing. Utilizing your breath to control pain is a method that people have used for century's. The new generation does not feel comfortable experiencing any pain at all. I have had patients complain that a blood pressure cuff pains them. We have eroded any pain coping responsibilities by not teaching people how to naturally resolve their pain.

   As a health professional it is my example that needs to be followed. I do not smoke, drink and I eat a healthy varied diet. I do not exercise the way that I should and this is an area that I need to improve. I do believe in the benefits of exercise however I make a million excuses why I can not exercise, no time, housework ect...Teaching my patients healthy habits will insure that they experience the highest level of integral health care.

   By examining the personal areas in my life I can help to reduce stress from unnecessary people and noise clutter. As my mental paradyme changes so will the care that I give to my patients.