unit 10

In unit 3 I rated myself a 6 in psychological wellness, 6 in physical wellness, and 6 in spiritual wellness.  Due to some personal and family issues I would say that I have slipped a bit.  I would score myself a 5 in each area.  Mainly because of lack of time to spend on each of them would I say that I have slipped.  I am back on track now and with the break from school I would say that I’m going to start advancing.  My goals are still there and I am going to work toward them now that some of the personal and family situations have become less.  Also with the week off of school I want to get to them and start.  Starting is the more difficult part, however, I just have to do it.

Throughout this course I enjoyed learning about the studies that have been done on meditation and prayer.  I have done many meditation exercises with my shaman group, so working on peace within and meditation is something that I try to do.  With school I have lacked in this area but it is a part of my life.  Rewarding is making it through this class and learning all of the studies, the difficult part was listening to the guy speak on the meditations and sometimes getting the work done.  I will be able to pass along the information of the studies and introduce some new meditations to people.  I did not really like these over others I have done but another person might like them, so they are just something to have in my bag of healing.

unit 9

I don't know how this is going to sound, but here is a part of my final project.

In looking at all of these areas for myself I have found that I am on a path to integral health and healing. There are areas that I struggle with more than others. There are times that I struggle with my spirituality and psychologically. In achieving success in these areas, along with keeping up with my physical, I should become a healthier person and can relax a little more than I do now.

For a personal assessment I used the chapter by Dasher on “Our Personal Assessment”(2006, p. 111). I started with some of the suggestions that he gave and wrote them down in my journal. From there I took some quiet time to reflect on each of the areas and to determine where I was.

At this time with so much going on I would rate my spiritual wellness as being a 5. I have not had a lot of time to do my meditation practices and I have not had a lot of time to spend talking with my guru. I was able to make it down for our weekly shaman class and after that class I felt much grounded. There has been a lot of energy shifting the past few weeks and this has taken a negative effect on my sleeping habits. I have enjoyed my dreams from this time and have learned a lot from them.

My goal for this area would be to get back to my normal routine of nightly meditations. I would also like to find more time during the week to seek out my fellow shamans and talk with them. I would also like to get back to a place where there is more intent behind what I am feeling and what my reactions and thoughts are to different situations.

For my nightly mediations I like to use a variation of the charka mediation. I start at my feet and feel what color they would be. I see that color and then thank my feet for the work that they have done that day. I do this as I work my way up my body. Seeing each part in a color and thanking each part for the work that it has done for me. I end with my head and by this time I have very relaxed and can only think of happy thoughts to put me to sleep.

While at work, if I encounter a stressful situation, I like to leave my office and find a quiet part of the building to be in. Here I can let my feelings go and work on calming myself down by doing some breathing exercises. I also work on a gratitude prayer and the combination of the two relaxes me enough where I am able to return to work fresh. At this point I am able to sometimes find solutions to the problem that I was not able to see before.

My physical wellness has also taken a back seat to some of the personal events going on in my life. I am going to rate myself at a five here also. I do keep up with my weekly personal training sessions; however my long distance running is not where it should be right now. I have only logged two, six mile runs for the month. If I want to turn in a personal best for my half marathon the first weekend in June, I should be running longer distances than I am now.

My goals for this area would be to increase my running distance and work in some more training sessions. I would also like to take some time to prepare some healthy meals for myself that I can freeze. This will allow me to take those to work instead of leaving the office to find a sandwich shop. Making my own food will also help with my mental state when worrying about financial situations.

For me to keep growing in my physical fitness area I need not let myself make excuses for the different situations that come up. There is always time in the day to fit in just ten minutes of walking. To help with my nutrition I would like to make a meal plan for the week. This will help to make sure that I get in a balanced meal for the daily activities that I will be doing to reach my running goals. To make sure that I keep on track with my running I will use the online tool by Garmin in combination with the running watch to help make sure that I am where I need to be.

My psychological or mental state right now is stressed. Here I am also going to rate myself a five. Work has been really busy and trying to finish up school, has taken a toll on my stress levels and mentality. I have found myself increasingly in a bad mood at work and have noticed that there are some people that make it worse than others.

By working on both my spiritual and physical health my mental health will also improve. One goal for me in this area is to keep up with my reading for classes. As I improve my knowledge, I will feel more relaxed talking to people about why I am going back to school and what I am going back to school for.

To keep up with my reading I will set aside time each night to read. I will leave the book next to my bed to remind me of my goals. The nightly mediations and the work meditations will also help with my stress level in this area.

To help me keep track of where I am in each area I will use a combination of my journal and a calendar. I like to use my journal during my meditations, so that any information that I might receive during that time can be written down and revisited if I need to. Putting a date and time next to each entry will help me keep track of when I am doing my mediations. Adding a date will also help me keep track of why I might be missing meditations of if I had missed them for an extended period of time.

I like to use a calendar and online programs for keeping track of my physical fitness. Marking on a calendar with an “X”for the days that I did workout will help me see over the course of the month how many times I went to the gym or ran outside. I use the online programs to keep track of how many miles I ran in a given time. This will help me reach my distance goals for each run.

I will also use journal writing to keep track of my mental wellness. Journal writing will help my write down everything that I am feeling that day. This will help relieve my stress and put it on paper where I can let it out. Meeting up with my friends every once in a while will also help with my mental stress. When I have support group that I can talk to, I am able to get everything out and forget about it.

After six months I would gather all of my journals and calendar and sit in my peaceful place. Here I would reevaluate where I am. Have I flourished in the last six months or have I fallen behind. I would take a look at my journals and calendar and figure out what happened in the last six months and try and relate them to what I had written down in the journals and calendar. Looking at these tools I should be able to see where in my life I needed a little extra help and why I might have fallen behind. I would make a new plan based on what I saw in my life, so when a similar situation came up I would be able to handle it in a more productive way so that I may learn from it and flourish

References:

Dacher, E. (2006). Integral health: the path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach: Basic Health Publications, Inc.