Unit 10

I rated my physical well-being at a 7, my spiritual well-being at a 9, and my psychological well-being at a 9 during our unit 3 assessment. I re-assessed myself during my unit 9 final. I rated my physical well-being at a 7, my spiritual well-being at an 8, and my psychological well-being at a 9. Yes, the score has changes, because my ideas of what this well-being meant has changed. My ideas about well-being have expanded and are not as general as it used to be. I have made some progress in every area I set goals for. I do have a bit to go before I will reach them, but that is because they are long-term goals. The following is my goals from our unit 3 blog.

I plan to stay about the same as I am in each area. However, I will start adding a healthier meal at-least once a week and skip desserts. I will also add an extra 10 minutes of cardiovascular exercise to each of my daily workout routine. In my spiritual and psychological areas, I plan to add at-least one extra time a week of doing either an extra 20 minutes of meditation or self-hypnosis. I believe this will help make a little bit more of a difference. However, the trick I noticed is keeping a balance. I have implemented my plans and have headed closer to my goals. However, since they are life-long goals I am still achieving them over and over, which gets me closer to the other goals I made in our unit 9 project, because they help set the stage for everything else.

I think the most difficult thing for me is doing some things more simply, like our meditations. I just seem to notice how some of the things we do simply can be made more effective by adding a couple of things or altering it slightly. However, I have noticed that I have gotten much better at doing things much more simple than before. I believe this class has helped me with helping others even more, because it is not about how much change we do. It is rather just the right amount of change, because it is the journey that is the destination and everything along the way teaches us something.  

The Grand Finale Unit 9 Blog

The following paper is written in the third person as per the requirement. I hope everyone finds usefulness in it.

Introduction

Integral health is achieved the development of our inner healing abilities and inner life. As a health and wellness professional one will help lead people in developing themselves. It would be rather hard to teach someone how to develop psychologically, if one has not developed themselves psychologically. Part of psychological aspect of integral health is identifying destructive emotions and dysfunctional patterns. Once one identifies them, then one can replace them with new healthy behaviors and attitudes. This step is referred to as the witnessing consciousness in integral health. Psychological development leads one to spiritual development (Dacher, 2006).

Exploring our deeper nature we uncover peace, loving and kindness, which lead one to develop more spiritually. In integral health this process is called developing the calm abiding consciousness.  During this process one intention grows and develops, which causes it to become clear, confident, focused, and unbiased. Through this one develops even future into what integral health refers to as the subtle mind. All of this also helps one to develop physically (Dacher, 2006).

The mental transformation that occurs, because of mental training, which helps develop an enhanced resistance to mental distress, physical disease, increases one’s ability to heal, and helps promote well-being. In the 1970’s Candace Pert discovered proteins, which are called neuropeptides. These proteins carry messages to our entire body. Candace Pert’s follow up study discovered that thoughts, feelings and other mental activity can produce specific neuropeptides that alter our physiology, which means a mental change leads to a physical change (Dacher, 2006).

Another study by Schnall helped reinforce the finding of Pert’s study. Schnall identified managers who suffered from job related stress and those who did not even though they were put into similar circumstances. The results showed that those who responded in a healthy way mentally dealt with the issues and those who did not respond well mentally developed several health issues (Dacher, 2006).  This means what one thinks does become reality to a degree, which means perception is definitely a variable and one can control it if they notice it first.

Assessment, Goal Development, and Practices

It is important to do a self-assessment, because it gives one a way of knowing what one needs to work on. The self-assessment includes how one is doing spiritually, physically, and psychologically. In integral health there are two aspects of doing a self-assessment one want to identify.  These are which parts of our life are the most significant source of distress and what parts has the greatest possibility for growth and development? One must make the distinction between short-term relief and long term relief. This involves understanding the deeper sources of conflict. One must also recognize the difference between immediate pleasure and long-term flourishing. Psychological and spiritual developments are an essential part of integral health, which should be includes as part of the assessment. The assessment requires one to be in a mental state that is free from the bias of random thoughts, feelings, and visualizations. The assessment addresses the parts, levels, and development that are relevant to our current situation (Dacher, 2006). 

Spiritually, Ricky would rate himself at an eight out of ten. Ricky says this, because he knows that he needs to vary the techniques he has been using to explore the deeper levels of himself. Ricky does a lot of exploration and he is at peace with himself, he has experienced love, and kindness, but he believes it is possible to experience these at even deeper levels. Physically, Ricky says he is at a seven out of a ten. He knows that he could eat better and exercise more. Ricky is still finding new ways to balance himself, which he believes is the key to help keep things together. Ricky knows he could do some more than what he currently does in this area, but he also knows he needs to make sure the rest of himself stays in balance as well. Psychologically, Ricky says he is at a nine out of a ten.

Ricky spends more energy on his psychological development currently more than anywhere else. He is attempting to learn to be able to keep this balance psychologically, but in less time. This will allow him to focus more on the other areas, which hi believes will assist him psychologically as well. Ricky believes this step is important to develop him further psychologically. This leads on into naturally developing goals, which need to be defined in terms of what we are going to do to solve these issues.

Ricky believes that starting to develop himself more spiritually will have a direct impact on him psychologically. Ricky will start this by using different forms of meditations that he is not used to using, because his primary focus has been solely on psychological wellbeing. For instance, Ricky has started using the loving-kindness meditation in various forms, which he has noticed has had a direct impact on his subjective experiences since starting them. Physically, Ricky plans on exercising more, but by combining meditative practices with his additional exercises. Ricky believes this will help him develop more physically and spiritually, which will also help him develop psychologically.

For instance, while Ricky is jogging he can use the loving-kindness meditation or simply the subtle mind meditation. This is basically working on two issues at once, but it does not hurt to do more than that. So, to further help himself spiritually he plans to lean at-least one new meditation and self-hypnosis exercise a month. This will have an effect on both his psychological and spiritual wellness. However, without a proper way of measuring change, then one is simply just doing different things and hoping it is making a difference in the ways we want.

This includes making goals that are measureable, which are specific, and can be observed in some way. For instance, happiness can be observed and measured. Another thing that can be measured is emotions and our health. So, Ricky plans on using a questionnaire, which addresses the basic goals he has laid out and the emotional aspects that are relevant as well. Ricky will do it monthly to find out, which self-hypnosis and meditations help me develop, so Ricky can look into finding more of them that are similar. This makes it so Ricky can see his progress and make adjustment as necessary. Ricky believes this will also provide himself with reinforcement for doing said things to head towards my goals. Even some improvement is heading towards ones goals. So, as long as Ricky is heading towards his goals, then he is maintaining a long-term practice towards health and wellness, but he also knows how he is doing it to getting there and developing even further. 

References

Dacher, E. (2006). Integral Health: The path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach,CA: Basic Health Publishers, Inc.

Unit 8 Loving Kindness and visualization exercises

I found the Loving Kindness and visualization exercises to be the most useful. The loving kindness exercise makes us re-think how we might respond to something. It also helps us start with the perspective of love and kindness. If we start with that perspective, then we create a positive environment, which is beneficial for both us and others. This mean we actively make our lives better by making others’ lives better. This makes sense, because the variable we always control to some degree is ourselves, but sometimes we have to notice what we are automatically doing. Below is a summary of the visualization exercise I did for this week.

Find a comfortable spot, relax, then close your eyes and remember or imagine a time with a significant amount of happiness. Remember or imagine this experience as vividly as possible. Allow the feelings to intensify. Pay close attention to all the details, like what would you smell, what would you see, how would it sounds, how would it feel and did you not notice anything else in it yet? Now, bring up an experience or imagine a time where you felt a sense of wholeness, connection, and flow. Pay close attention to all the details, like what would you smell, what would you see, how would it sounds, how would it feel and did you not notice anything else in it yet? Allow the feelings to intensify. Last, but not least recall or imagine a time where you experienced vitality, radiant health, and well-being. Recall or imagine a time where you are filled with energy and life. Pay close attention to all the details, like what would you smell, what would you see, how would it sounds, how would it feel and did you not notice anything else in it yet? Then allow all three of these experiences to come together so they become a single experience, but a new experience (Dacher, 2006). How does this affect what you bring to others in this world?

I can imagine using these along with my normal daily meditation and self-hypnosis exercises I do. I know what I already do helps, but I also know going out into doing something slightly different than what you are used to as something that is useful and is sometimes exactly what one needs to do. As for being specific, I do not know how I can be any more specific than I already am, because otherwise it would speculation. I do know that I will include it at-least once a week specifically the way it is without any alteration. However, I have a modified version to use as a way to combine the feeling, which I find to be more useful. Below I will give an idea about how this modification works. I pick some sense and create a metaphor for each feeling. For instance, a normal practice is to associate some color or colors with a feeling or even a sound or a word, then associate it until it triggers some of that feeling. Then we amplify it until it is at-least as strong as the original feeling or more. If you are interested in learning more about this method, then research submodalities.

References

Dacher, E. (2006). Integral Health: The path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach,CA: Basic Health Publishers,Inc.