Personal Application of the Psychological
and Spiritual Aspects of Healing
Introduction:
Why is it important for health and
wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritual and physically?
What areas do you need to develop to achieve the goals you have for yourself?
Part of the course
we studied our health psychologically, spiritually and physically and we
learned that our health is dependent on each of these aspects. Our physical
health depends on our psychological and spiritual health and they work in
conjunction with one another. I learned that with a healthy mind I can
personally develop a better biological health and even reduce my chances of
illness. The integrated approach is a new and forever evolving approach for the
unique individuals who we are. The inner health is a comprehensive perspective
of positive influences. As we learned in the class, practices of each of these
aspects in our life are better integrated together. As a whole we have certain
needs and goals to be met, and to reach these goals it takes an open mind that
integrates all aspects of our life. One example of professionals to experience
integral health and complementary medicine is to think of a professional who
has suffered from a car accident and had lost full strength in his vision and
his leg, handicapping his physical well being for a couple years and meditation
bringing back that strength through the long years. For this experience to grow
in the professional he also practiced to give to those who need integral health
in their life. It doesn’t take an accident to make a professional to actually
experience a personal inner development but as an example I can trust this
person not only because he/she has the degree to prove it but because the
integral health is already a part of his/her life.
As fragile our
biological self is and how short our life span is we must choose the right path
now and the right goals to help reach optimal health. It is a real pleasure to
know that facing the facts and knowing the present to be a pure vision and
perspective can bring someone to a right decision. I agree that all aspects of
life have room for improvement being that we all are imperfect and humans have
to make room for error if they are truly professional. Psychologically I have
explored positive training and know that consistency and balance will help keep
my psychological well being at its peak, knowing that all aspects are under
control and aware of in order to advance to a higher consciousness. As
meditation deepens and practice thickens the mind strengthens I find
consistency is my only enemy that will allow me to weaken. The mind is fragile
and in order for myself to be true to others I must be true to myself about
where I am in life and where I want to be. Spiritually, I continue to find
happiness and expand my giving attitude to strengthen myself in spirit. I enjoy
loving-kindness and understanding my role in life as I can reflect and
contribute to integral practices. Lastly, I know I must improve my physical
well being, I have fell off the wagon so to say when it comes to my physical
conditioning due to the fact of my injuries in my wrists and sitting the
sidelines for the past year. I want to be back in the game with new exercise
approaches, better strategies and positive influences that coach and understand
that I am in control. I don’t like to guess whether or not my day is going to
be a good day in the gym. Its awkward at times when my mind is not in the game
or my body is strong but my mind is not, it’s that balance that I am looking
for and that 100% awareness of how my day is going to be before I start and
when I finish.
II Assessment
How have you assessed yourself in
each domain? How do you score your wellness spiritually, physically, and
psychologically?
My rating system
is comprised of low as being an area of need in improvement and medium being an
area of comfort but can still improve towards perfection and high as being an
area that has been consistently rising and positive for some time. Reevaluation
of my own health is of high importance due to the fact I am constantly pursuing
perfection in mind, body and spirit to optimize my well-being. Health is a
priority that should not be overlooked; it is your main source of strength and
allows you to live your life without complication. My scoring system is based
on self evaluation throughout this course and high being the best I could be at
this time, medium being good and not a complication but not superb and lastly,
low which is in need and complicating my life. We have been participating in personal
training and this is part of the command preparation for the physical testing
we participate in for evaluation of our physical health. As we all know, our
physical health depends on our psychological and spiritual well being and we
must integrate one another in order to receive optimal health. Explaining my
physical assessment is like a wave on a grid. Sometimes I am on fire, fast and
focused with positive inner strength and good performance. This is the top of
the wave but it dives at times and this is where I am in high gravity, I am heavy
and fighting myself to reach normal goals and to keep up with coping techniques
and positive decisions. This is the sticky situation I battle by the book in
order to balance and reach optimal physical health. I rate my physical health
low and my body evaluation low as well because of lack of strength training by
myself and injury. I would like to be back in the gym and confident with
knowing I am back where I started when I was fit and active. I have made
alternative routes like exercising with my fists on the ground for pushups,
being that I cannot extend my hands all the way back without causing further
injury. I also can do butterfly curls and work out my chest that way, and that
was the way I used to work out and it worked a lot of secondary muscles causing
a positive result on my physique. When my mind is in the game, I get things
done and I am motivated to make myself look and feel better, and when I can’t
cope and focus and achieve it is a rippling effect. I admit this error and
approach life with positivity. Spiritually I am doing well, I haven’t had felt
this good spiritually in a while. I have learned so much to help correct my
spiritual path and it was so easy, almost embarrassing I couldn’t have used
this technique years earlier. I reached a pinnacle of spiritual health when I
learned that meditation was really improving me. I changed my perspective and
worked hard on finding a balance in my life. I score myself as high in spirit
and acknowledge my belief and values as strong and straight forward. Lastly,
psychologically I am on the way to a good place. I have been through
deployments, marriage, stressful and life changing decisions that are a great
toll on my psychological well being. I understand that I am full of anxiety
from fear of the unknown and hesitant to approach anything because of
traumatizing situations. The inner strength that I hold and the ability to
withstand long and negative situations and to avoid negativity, overwhelming
situations, unpleasant relationships and difficult times all with mental health
complications has shown myself the balance I have learned in my psychological
health. If I am working on one area more than another it is only because it is
in need of more help. This is balance and in order to balance it takes help,
time and positivity and at the end of the day life is good. Its like a dish on
the food network, if you want to plate food in front of a top chef then there
better be some balance on your plate or you cannot trust your technique and
decisions. So I have been working on plating the best dish consistently. I rate
my psychological well being at medium and rising to high.
III Goal Development
List at least one goal you have for
yourself in each area, physical, psychological (mental health) and spiritual.
Goal I Physical Health
I am eager to
develop a strategy to avoid my injury in the gym with my wrists. I have cable
crossover exercises that can focus chest exercises without further injury to my
wrists. I also have seated fly and decline and incline seated fly, kind of like
pulling up and pulling down but all a focused workout. The next important step
is consistency and this will allow me to feel comfortable with myself. A plan
to evaluate my workouts as they are finished in order to tweak and adjust for improvement
and a tracking system to adjust reps and sets to advance strength. The ability
to repeat this strategy is a warming feeling if it is similar and routine and
allows me to just do it rather than be in fear of my injury and changing the
plan. A stimulated mind with pre workout and post workout supplements will
improve my attitude and stamina at the time of workout especially because I
know the effort is always there and 110%. I will continue to keep a well
balanced diet as my wife and I choose healthy ingredients for our foods. To set
a specific amount, I would like to lose a centimeter around my waist at a
gradual pace, possibly every week and to tone up and define those areas of
improvement. So, continuing healthy sports and practice as well as personal
cardio sessions and staying active will all contribute to this small goal that
is attainable.
Goal II Psychological Health
A clear mind is
good for the stability of your physical and spiritual health. My goal is to
move my personal assessment of good to high for psychological health. I can do
this with imagery and visualize myself achieving and believing to build
confidence and achieve my goal. I am not negative in my perspective but I can
improve when striving for excellence. With meditation I really feel rejuvenated
and refreshed as well as clear which allows a healthy balance in my life and a
better understanding of where I am at. My main goal is to be happy and to get
there is time, effort and achievement. As I am accepted in society and I have a
comfortable role, I then seek certain personal goals outside of possession and
social status. My goal is to put even more effort into positive goals like
financial stability and awareness of my errors and improving from my truth.
After reviewing many articles on the internet I found a good definition of what
needs to be improved and that is self reliance but not just be willing to take
better care of myself but to then take responsibility of others as well. With
this come confidence, positive attitude and team work to help with the main
mission of success.
Goal III Spiritual Health
I learn through
myself and the path of integrity and the strength through meditation practices,
lifestyle choices and sharing this pattern of positivity to others. Holistic
and integral health practices as well as being open minded are ingredients to
my personal flourishing. I enjoy meditation, as it was first introduced to me
in my journey with this class. I learned the loving kindness and learned really
how to find all of the good in people and learned how to love and strengthen
that love towards myself and others and be thankful for this. I used my time
effectively with the sessions of the subtle mind, allowing my consciousness to
find peace and to reach out and look at my thoughts with the witnessing mind.
As I strengthened in practice and in spirit, I really learned to control my
thoughts really by just organizing with what I would allow to be acknowledged
and what I wanted to follow. Finally I learned to reach the higher consciousness
and to explore the inner peace and strengthen that area as well. Belief is half
the battle and it is a part of integral health which can improve with the
support of a healing and consciousness approach.
IV Practices for Personal Health
What strategies can you implement
to foster growth in each of the following domains; physical, psychological, and
spiritual. Provide at least two examples of exercises or practices in each
domain. Explain how you will implement each example.
Physical
Stretching exercises
which are not necessarily yoga can help prepare my body for positive exercise
to follow. I can learn different techniques to learn balance and proper
stretching to become more flexible physically. This is sometimes a challenge
for me but the first step towards developing and encouraging growth is
beginning slowly. Let’s say I jump into the gym and just feel overwhelmed and
discouraged from not reaching unattainable goals and just bringing myself down
to actually keep myself from growth. I actually have been there, but to take an
approach where I build up and I set attainable goals and I purchase fitness
magazines and chose a role model to be like and find myself succeeding this is
when I know I have chosen the right path. I can do this very simply, but it
takes motivation to get there.
A tracking system
is the right choice for this domain to grow. I can only know if I am improving
if I decide that I will track my workout sessions. It is important to keep a
list or a guide to where you are at and where you need to be. I also can use
bodybuilding.com to help track my goals and actually have graphs but it isn’t
100% necessary but it does help foster growth in my physical training. I enjoy
tracking different reps and sets that are level for awhile so I will raise the
par and reach a higher level with the tracking system.
Psychological
This domain is
easy to tackle with meditation techniques. Specifically I can maintain a steady
routine that will help ease the troubled mind. One of the key components to a healthy
mind is coping mechanisms. Now when you are in a psychological distress and you
feel you have lost control with anxiety, depression and experience overwhelmed
conditions you must avert and then strive for coping. This is not easy if you
do not have any coping skills, but with time you can find yourself in control
fairly soon. The idea is to be in balance and when you lose that balance you
must want to go back. In order to do so you cannot be self destructive, you
must not let emotions defeat you like shooting yourself in the foot and you
must accept and move on from which you cannot change. The only way to overcome
this type of situation may be a journal of internal thoughts that allow you to
express and pour out those feelings on paper and to really get all your
thoughts out leaving your mind cleansed of all that buildup and bring yourself
that psychological healing. Throw away the paper in your journal when you’re
done unless it is a positive journal, then go ahead and keep those papers in
there but avoid looking back at the negativity because it is about
psychological flourishing, not psychological failure.
Another strategy
is being a part of a Health and Wellness program here at Kaplan. Actively
seeking a Bachelors of Health and Wellness has allowed me to educate myself
effectively on all aspects of health and our life. I am consistent with my
studies with the discussion boards and the readings as well as the newly
introduced part of HW420-01 the wonderful blog section. Involvement throughout
the course and throughout my time here at Kaplan has really helped out my well
being as a change in perspective towards a wonderful and healthy lifestyle. As
it gets closer to achieving my Bachelors, I am more than anxious to achieve
even higher levels of education with a Masters program in mind.
Spiritual
The idea of
meditation comes to mind. What a wonderful tool for one’s life. It’s important
that everyone gets the education of learning this tool effectively. The days go
by and the stress builds but where can this stress leave? The subtle mind is a
process that has three levels of consciousness including witnessing, calm
abiding, and lastly is unity consciousness. I remember some of the exercises
throughout the class and we really went deep into this topic finding our spiritual
health and ways of tapping into natural ways to heal. The benefits are significant
in physical conditioning because you are now thinking mind over matter and
truly have built the inner energy and positivity to overcome obstacles you couldn’t
achieve before.
The idea of taking
time to show more concern to others is another strategy that can help my
spiritual health. Being in relationships can help ourselves grow, and to help
us to be less self absorbed. It is most important to be less absorbed in our
own life and all that we deal with on a daily basis. As we proceed through our
life we develop a maturity and a focus on others and how we can help others
become better. This in return allows us to live with this comfort and to move
beyond the negativity towards a higher spiritual health.
V Commitment
How will you assess your progress or lack of progress in the next six months?
What strategies can you use to assist in maintaining your long-term practices
for health and wellness?
The one thing I have done that
is really time consuming but a wonderful reference for my past assignments is
keep a folder dedicated for each week of work. Throughout this course we have
learned new ways to meditate and new material that has now allowed us to comprehensively
tie all things together and use it in an effective manner. I can’t just say
that I enjoyed week 3 when I feel they all were equally beneficial but better
as a whole. It takes time to master these skills, and to have a wonderful
reference guide that is easily accessible and organized can be a huge benefit
for me in the future. This is just the beginning of my tracking goal. I plan to
really keep a journal of beneficial material, maybe even a “to do” list in
detail that shows myself what I have accomplished and what I have planned to
accomplish in the following months to come. So by using my iPad I am
effectively b short term, and long term goals in my reminders list and checking
off these goals when they are finished. I am pursuing a Bachelors degree here
after this class and this will definitely take commitment of me for over six
more months if I chose to continue at the rate I am going. This puts myself in
a situation of dedication and opens doors for health and wellness in the
future. To be more exact, I will also be pursuing a job in health in wellness
with the help of the career development available at Kaplan University over the
next year or so. I have plans to go for a Masters degree as well, and by
setting the par high I have found myself putting in more time, effort and
overall dedication in my work than ever before. Thank you for reading my final
project of a personal application of the psychological and spiritual aspects of
healing. This class has changed me in a way that I can help better myself as
well as those around me by sharing the knowledge and gratitude of what I have.
