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.