final post

I was not very excited about this blog when I started, but it wasn't that bad. I don't even want to look at my assessment from week 3 because I am sure they are the same. I have not worked toward any of my goals because my personal life was a tad crazy. We have moved, almost. My husband and I have some stuff to work out that is very stressful. It was hard for me to work on anything other then these two issues. I am honestly surprised I made it though the class, because there were days I wanted to quit. I just felt over whelmed. I do plan on exercising more and getting out more. I want to find a church and practice meditation. I have a goal and I have not and will not forget about all I have learned in this class. I haven't started, but I will change my numbers. I will not let this go. I want to be as healthy and happy and whole as I can be for the rest of my  life. I have been encouraged by my classmates and this was truly a good class for me to be in at this time in my life.

unit 9

Introduction

                As I start this journey into wholeness there are goals that I want to achieve for my personal development. The ultimate goal is to be a successful nutritionist. Part of what would make me successful is obtaining good health for me. The interesting thing about journeys is there is rarely a straight path; there is a starting point and an ending point. The way there is determined by what kind of obstacles one faces. For me some of these obstacles placed before me are becoming what I wish to promote in others and finding a work place that supports my beliefs in health care. Looking at the medical field, for instance, changes need to happen in order for healing to take place. Western society has focused on curing patients rather than healing them. It is one thing to cure ailments of the body, but it is a different notion to heal the whole body. Issues like stress, depression and improper nutrition can lead to all sorts of diseases. Stress, for instance, is a high risk factor for heart issues, obesity, and cancer.  If health care practitioners do not set their goals to heal the whole body the patient will never full heal from what ails them. I want to be part of a team that promotes integral health and wellness not just curing diseases.

                What is integral health? Integral health concerns the whole body. The whole body consists of a mind, body and spirit. All these need to be well for an individual to be truly healthy.  The mind not only needs to function properly, it needs to be stimulated.  The body can be stricken by disease and disabled. In order for the body to be healthy it needs to have the proper nutrition and exercise as well as any disease or disablement fixed to the best it can. The spirit is the intertwining inner self that needs to flourish. It needs to spill out and affect others.

                The other thing practitioners should be aware of is how they present themselves. There is an epidemic of unhealthy people and they have in filtered the health care system. How are they supposed to encourage their clients when they are themselves unhealthy? Who wants to walk into a weight loss clinic where the front desk personal weights 300lbs? I personally would think that something is not working here and would go try and find somewhere else. I myself am over weight. This issue has been running through my mind the last few months; how can I help others if I am not willing to follow what I suggest. It isn’t so much that I do not want to follow; I just haven’t done it yet. I want to be stress free with an open heart and ear. I want to help people, without judging them in their situation, to become a better them. I believe that people would find me more credible if I was at a healthy weight and had clear, healthy skin. I also believe they would trust me more if I sat and listen to them and treated them like they mattered and was not just a pay check.

Assessment

                As I move into this journey of wellness I have some areas in my life that need some nurturing. I currently do not feel complete. There are things in my life that I need to add, change or just get rid of. Looking at my mind, body and spirit each of these areas need some work. On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being the worst possible and 10 being the best, I will look at these areas. My physical body I would give a 6 because I have no diseases currently, however, I do not exercise regularly and I have some risk factors. I am, also about 40lbs over weight.  My mind I would give an 8 to. I pick up on thing easily, have a decent memory and I am mentally stable. The spirit is where I feel is lacking the most, I would have to give it a 2. I have done nothing to feed my spirit lately.

Development

                When considering developing these areas in my life that need to be healthier, I want to take care of my mind, body and spirit.  I intend to start an exercise program and eat a nutritionally balanced diet. I will feel better and healthier, I will have more energy and it will make me feel better about me. I love to scrapbook, quilt, and knit. These hobbies are great to simulate the mind. They have an element of design and thinking process that is good for brain activity. My biggest issue with my hobbies is that I have started so many that I have not finished it has given me a reverse affect. Instead of stimulating it has caused me some stress and anxiety. My goal is to finish the projects I started, so that I can do new ones. This ongoing creativity will be good for my spirit as well.  I have just moved in to a new city and I have not been to church in a long time. I grew up in church so the singing of hymns lifts my spirit. I need to find a church in my area to develop my spirituality. Another thing I want to do, as silly as it sounds, is to put on makeup every morning. I see this as good for my spirit because it would make me feel good inside and out. I am not one for wearing makeup usually; I have honestly not seen much point to putting it on and never leave the house. I have noticed, however, that people seemed to take me more serious when I wear it. It might be that I feel more confident about myself and I release positive energy. This will help me be more sociable feeding my spirit as well has freeing my mind of negative thoughts about myself.  All this will start me on the right path to wholeness.

Practice for Personal Health

                There are certain activities that I can do to help me obtain my goals. I plan on doing Zumba three times a week. I will start slow because I am not use to exercise and then work towards 45 minutes at a time. This is a great aerobics exercise and a good way to release stress hormones.  This will help with my weight loss goals as well. Pilates would help strengthen muscles and increase flexibility; therefore I plan on doing it twice a week as well. Both these together will help my physical body be healthier. I love mind puzzle games and tend to do them every day to stimulate my brain function. I also enjoy the loving-kindness meditation and tend to do it every morning as well as finishing my craft projects. The meditation is a good time to clear my mind of negativity and replace it with loving-kindness. This will help me be more in tuned to my clients as well as those around me. When working on my spirituality, after finding a church, I plan on attending every Sunday morning as well as finding a bible study to get involved with. These are usually once a week.  I, also, want to get back into praying every morning. This lifts my spirits and sets my mind at ease. Being part of a church is a great social outlet and most have opportunities to do volunteer work that will also feed my spirit. My horses is one of the most important things to me. I love being with them and they have been boarded for the last three years. I have not been able to spend much time with them. I am going to get them tomorrow and they will once again be in my back yard.  I plan on working with my horses as much as possible. They are currently not ride able, and that is the goal I wish to work towards. I would say every day, but here in Washington State it is not always possible with the rain. This will definitely fill my spirit. Working with them takes all I am inside and lets me express it through caring for them.  There is something special about looking into the eyes of an animal. These are just a start in my wholeness journey, but they will set me down a path that will lead me further into health, happiness and flourishing.

 

Track Progress

                I would like to track my progress through two different sources: journaling and photographs. I can keep track of daily progress through journal writing. I think the morning would be best it is a great way to start the day getting everything out on the paper. All the concerns for the day ahead, all the plans set for the day and how well the day before went.  If there are struggles then those can be addressed and encouraged to keep moving forward with progress.  When trying to lose weight and working with my horses I think pictures are a great tool. I can take a picture of my starting point and then ever week after. For my horses it might look like: a dirty horse, a clean horse, a horse with a saddle, and then me on the horse. It would make a great scrapbook to look at for encouragement; I accomplished something. I think that pictures can be great to take of the world around me as well. I love flowers and nature. I scrapbook of a walk in nature could be another feel good coffee table book to lift the spirits.

Unit 8...what I like the best

I would have to say the two things I like the best is the loving-kindness exercise and the visualizing happiness. I think this class has opened up for me that these are my greatest needs, desires. I want to be happy and feel loved. If I had to think about it I honestly can't remember the last time I was truly happy. Yes I have laughed a bit and had happy moments, but inside I was not. I know my husband loves me with all his heart, but he has been so stressed lately with work and his mom that I have not felt his love only his pain. I think that we didn't talk about this enough but there is an energy that flows from one person to another. Negative and positive. It is hard to see someone you love unintentionally give off negativity. I think that is what brought me to get a degree in nutrition, to take care of those I love. I want to be a better person, therefore I think it would be in my best interest, as well as those around me, to practice loving-kindness and visualize happiness. I will make me feel more complete and if I feel whole then it will flow from me to others. That positive energy will be seen by those around me. If I can't make a better world I can at least change the world around me to be better through my attitude and positive contributions.

Week 7

Meeting Aesclepius is a nice idea, I just have a hard time visualizing someone. I try to think of a healer and my mind goes off in 20 different directions. I think it is hard for me to visualize something that I haven't seen before, or at least have an idea of what I should be seeing. This brings us to the, "one cannot lead another where one has not gone himself." I read this and one of the first things I think of is a path that I have not gone down. It is in the woods so I can't tell you how long it is or where exactly it goes. I can tell you it is there though. How hard it will be, how long it will take? I have no clue. It also brings me to, I know how to eat and I know I need to exercise, but I don't. I can stand at the front of the path and tell you this is the right path to take I know this because I have studied it, but I can't lead or guide you for it is unknown to me. The concept of the path I understand, the walking though it not so much. In order to lead some one through something you have had to go through it yourself or your just sending them down the path. I was watching TV about a month ago and came across a story of a fitness instructor that took this to a new level. He had eating healthy his whole live and had always been active, so when his clients told him he couldn't understand their struggles he went for 6 months, I believe it was, and ate junk food didn't exercise. He understood after that because he had no energy and started to crave those donuts. He had gained 60 pounds or so, sorry I forget the details, then went back to his normal self. He lost the weight and wrote a book about it. Fit to fat to fit or some thing like that. http://www.fit2fat2fit.com/ I had to find it after that. Anyway what a great example of this concept.

week 6

The Universal Loving-Kindness exercise to me was a quick version of the Loving-kindness exercise, but missing a step. As I did the Universal Loving-kindness I felt peaceful, but not the love that can be felt doing the loving-kindness alone. If I was going to suggest this to anyone I would tell them to make sure they have some mastery with the loving-kindness alone so that when they try to free others from suffering and give them health, happiness and wholeness they can feel more complete themselves. I just believe it would be more complete.
Now to the fun apart assessing myself. Nothing I like because I know there are areas that I need to work on and I am not ignoring them, I just don't want to deal with them right now. Then I have to ask myself, " if not know when?" When my world is aligned, yeah like that is going to happen with out inter healing. For now I believe my biggest focus should be on nutrition and exercise. My body is starting to say hey, take care of me. In the process of taking care of my mother-in-law I have gained almost 20 pounds. We tend to eat what she wants because she doesn't like a lot of the healthy choices my husband and I are trying to make. I will be moved out by March 5th and I am so ready to start this. The other area that need a lot of work is community, personal. I am not sure exactly what that it falls under, I believe a bit of both. I do not have a lot of friends and I do not get out with any one, but my husband and my mother-in law. I feel that I need girl friends to spend the day with. I love to scrapbook and I have not done it in 3 years, save a night putting together something for my sons wedding. I had a lot of fun that night with my sister and my other sons girlfriend putting that together, I really miss it. So that is where I want to spend my time focusing on to gain a wholeness, and feel happy and healthy.

Now that I have done both the loving kindness exercise and the subtle mind the biggest issue I have is I do not feel as though I did them correctly. It is as if my mind goes in to a calm state and my body wants to sleep and thing about nothing. I really think I should do these everyday, but I just do what is required of me for the week and move on. With both exercises I felt peace and calm. The ocean background is soothing. I did think the subtle mind was a tad to long for a beginner, and maybe that is why I struggle a bit. If there was a 5 min exercise that moved into a 10 min and so on. This would give my mind a chance to learn and advance. I do believe there will be benefit to doing these on a more regular bases. I am not an angry person, but I do hate it when I feel mistreated. I have to share my story today. There have been a few times in my life that someone forgot about me and didn't help me, or helps someone behind me first. I have been known to dwell on the injustice of not being treating fairly. Well, this is where I think these exercises help, today I was getting an espresso and the guy behind me talked long enough for the other gal to make my drink before he paid. His drink was made first though for some reason. I started with my usual feelings of how unfair and directing it inward as to why I was treated that way and how people should treat people that way. I told my self to breathe it isn't that big of a deal. (I usually tell my self this, but still feel cheated) Today after I took a deep breath and released it I felt so at peace. It wasn't a big deal I got my coffee and went on my way.
I personally believe that the spiritual wellness is more about your inner self coming out then a religious thing. When you bottle up your gifts and your ability to share with the world who you really are that is where your spiritual health fails. Physical health is about your body and mental is about your mind, but spiritual is about your heart.

Loving kindness is something that I have had no problem showing to others in is hard to me to show it to myself, as if I am somehow undeserving. I did like the loving kindness exercise, how ever the woman's voice was somewhat hard to listen to: it isn't as soothing to me as the mans voice from the previous assignments. I love the ocean and flute, both of those have always been relaxing to me. I struggled with once again trying not to fall asleep and really focus on the exercise. I do plan on trying to do this everyday because practice makes you better. I would recommend this to others, because I believe it can be beneficial. I think the first time you try something new that it takes a bit of time to get use to.
I believe mental workout consist of two parts, one clearing your mind of negativity and clutter and than two filling it with loving kindness and intentional thought. My mind wanders all the time I can hardly read anything with out it wondering what I am going to cook for dinner or am I going to be able to get all I need to do today. The other thing I do that can be destructive is carry out conversations in my mind. When I should confront someone and I am not sure how I play over all the scenarios in my mind of what I think they would say. Most of the time I think that I just get angrier.
I think the more you do mental exercises the more your phychological health can improve. The more at peace you feel with the world around you as well as iner peace the better you will feel over all mentaly and spiritually.