Unit 10 Reflection

In unit 3 I rated my physical wellbeing as a six or seven and now I rate it at more like a five or six. My score is lower due to a physical injury I incurred just after starting this class which has kept me from exercising for six weeks. I am now able to start exercising, but I have to start slowly and rebuild. So, I have not made any progress toward my original goals, but have set new, more realistic ones for the changes that have occurred in my life. I have also found that I have not been doing as well with my food choices and a lot of that has to do with being discouraged about not being able to exercise. It is all getting better, but it will take time to get back to where I was. My spiritual wellbeing rating has not changed during this course. What has changed is my desire to ensure I do make progress in this area. I have stated many times that I do not have strong beliefs in any one particular religion or spiritual concepts, but I do believe it is important. I am hoping to find that one thing that makes me comfortable and like I belong to something that is easy to belong to. I struggle with many beliefs regarding the “rules” that must be followed and do not think many of those rules make a difference in how I practice or believe. I have added meditation to my daily life. Most of the time it is during the day, while at work, but it is where I need it the most, so I am making progress, just not as quickly as I would like. My psychological wellbeing is the one area where I believe I have seen improvement. I had rated it at a five or six, but believe it is more around a seven now. Yeah! I have significantly improved how I react to things and am much more intentional about how I respond to things, not just at work, but in my personal life also. So, not only have I improved, but I have started great progress to meeting my goals of being more intentional in all aspects of my life. Truly, I am not sure how anyone could take a class like this and not get some type of improvement out of it. It is difficult, when you have not been exposed to some of the concepts that are presented, to be open minded enough to accept them all, but once you try the first practice, it all just starts to make sense. Then once the research is presented to substantiate these concepts, it makes it very difficult to turn a blind eye to them. Since starting this class, I have learned to relax and be calmer in all of my daily activities and I learned to love more freely and most of all I have learned to think before I speak. Great class and I wish everyone the best…. Julie

Unit9 Final Project

To All, It is important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually and physically for many reasons. The first, and to me, one of the most important, that comes to mind is the ability to form a trust with your patients. By having developed a holistic approach to your own life, you will view your patients in the same manner, thereby showing that you have a concern for the whole person and not just the illness. Another reason would be the persona that would be presented to the patient. That persona would be of peace, calmness, understanding, compassion, love and other heartfelt, warming emotions that lead to trust, respect and faith in the person taking care of you. This is critical if you want the patient to heal and to follow the recommendations for treatment that you recommend. The areas that I can see myself needing to develop in order to achieve the goals that I would like to reach are stress management, intentional responses instead of reactive, and patience. Many of these areas I have been working on for some time and have made significant improvements, but still have room to make more positive changes. The contemplative practices and meditations that have been explored in this class have brought me several steps closer to where I would like to be, but continued practice of these exercises, and added exercises will need to occur for progression to be made toward my goals. I have the most work to do in my live in regards to the spirituality domain. I do understand that religion does not always mean spirituality, but I believe there should be some sort of faith or belief that brings a part of the calmness and unity to ones spirituality. Unfortunately I have not found one faith to put all of myself into. I need to find something that I believe strongly in that will help guide me to the understanding that this is just the beginning of my journey, that I am not alone in this eternal journey, and that there is more after this life. I have had many struggles with religion throughout my life and this class has made me realize that I need to come to terms with those conflicts in order to reach a calm-abiding mind. Psychologically I thought I was further along then I actually am. I only say this because of the progress I have made over the past few weeks. I really thought I had my emotions in better control and handled conflict better then I actually do. This does not mean that I feel as though I have no control or intention in my actions or over my emotions, it just means that I have work to do. Reading Dacher, which I enjoyed immensely, has made me realize that I am still very reactive and that I have to accept and love all people for who they are and try to understand their struggles and why they are who they are. I have found already that I am much more accepting and very capable of removing myself from stressful situations. It is just going to take practice in order to see improvement toward my goals. I feel my physical domain is the strongest out of the three. I have had a minor setback due to a knee injury, but I am slowly starting to get myself back together again. I am a regular exerciser and I try to eat as healthy as possible. I do not eat fast or processed foods and do my best to watch my weight. The setback I mentioned above may also be why I am feeling less secure about my psychological standing. Without being able to exercise for the past few weeks, I have found that my stress levels have risen and my temper has been shorter. I believe exercise is a great way to improve one’s psychological state. It is important to set goals when trying to improve anything in life. It gives oneself something to strive for and it also gives a sense of accomplishment once that goal is reached. So, for my domain of psychological I will set a goal to reach a point in my spiritual self that at the end of work day, I can leave the office and feel loving-kindness toward everyone, no matter what occurred that day. For my physical domain, I am going to set a goal of 300 minutes of exercise a week. I used to maintain that amount of exercise each week, but due to my knee injury, I have not been able to. For the final domain of spirituality I am going to set a goal of meditating and/or engaging in contemplative practice for 30 minutes each morning before leaving for work. To make progress and reach the above goals, planning and having strategies on how to meet them is important. I know my physical goal is more than reachable since I have been there already, but to ensure I reach it in a reasonable timeframe, I will keep a calendar with my physical activities listed each day, set specific physical goals such as riding my bicycle a certain distance by a certain date, and I will reward myself when I obtain each of these goals with something as simple as a glass of wine that night with dinner. My planning for my psychological progress will include pausing and thinking about the decisions I am going to make. I will do this by taking two or three breaths before I respond to a situation or by going out for a few minute walk around our building at work. I am also going to try to implement the life-as-practice aspect of psychological growth by taking the time to listen more intently, thereby hoping to understand why a person might be angry and hopefully gaining the ability to see their inner beauty. This one will be difficult, but if I take time and slow down, I think this will be one of the greatest gifts I can give myself. Spirituality, as I have stated, is going to be difficult. I can reach a deeper level of consciousness and calmness by practicing the loving-kindness and subtle-mind exercises. This is attainable by setting my alarm clock 45 minutes earlier each morning in order to give me time for contemplative practices before leaving for work. I would also like to find a faith to practice that I believe in completely and give heart and soul to. Research and visiting different religious functions are the best way to do this. I should plan on visiting different types of services once a month to help me choose a belief. Assessing the progress my physical wellbeing will be a fairly simple task. I will be able to see progress by my weight decreasing, my body mass index (BMI) decreasing and muscle mass increasing. I will also be able to monitor my calorie intake by keeping a journal and also by limiting eating out to three times a week, to include lunches, dinners and breakfast. I will also be able to see progress by the distances I ride my bicycle, how fast I cover those distances, charting the amounts of weights I can lift and how many reps using those weights I can do. Assessing the progress of my psychological and spiritual health will be a bit more challenging. There are decisions that I need to make regarding changes in my life, so I could measure my progress based on how many of those decisions I actually make and the ones I do make, charting a plan of action as to how I want to pursue them. This could mean making a flow chart, a list, or even marking my calendar with milestones that I should meet by a certain date. I could also measure the progress of my spirituality by taking note of how long it takes me to get to a witnessing-mind when doing my practices and the degree of difficulty it takes to maintain that state of mind. I am not sure the best way to note this other then maybe counting breaths as a focal point and the few breaths the better I am getting. Psychologically I think the best measure I will have is my days at work. The less stress I feel at the end of the day, the decrease of dread I feel in the mornings as I leave for work and the improved feelings I have toward a couple of my co-workers are probably the best indicators I will have that I am progressing. As long as I feel I am moving toward a more fulfilling life by reaching a higher level of peace and calmness, and stress is slowly diminishing from my life, I do not believe it will be difficult to maintain any of the plans I have set out to follow, or to add new goals to my progression. The difficult part may be making others understand the changes that are occurring in my life and why I have chosen to make them. Julie Couillard

Unit 8 Most Beneficial

The two most beneficial exercises that I found for myself in this class were the loving-kindness, the first one, and the human flourishing, the last one. These two were the ones that I was the most able to completely involve myself in and let the rest of the world go. They were the two that brought me the most joy, peace, calmness and relaxation. I truly enjoyed how I felt while practicing them and their experiences stuck with me for hours, which was longer then the others. Once the exercise was over with the others that were practiced, the effects were gone or they were not easy for me to completely release myself in. I can implement these practices at work while sitting at my desk. I may not be able to get a complete 30 minutes in, but many times I could sit for five or ten minutes, especially after a meeting. I would really like to start incorporating these practices into my morning routine. I think that is when they would be the most beneficial. It would help immensely to get my day started in a positive way, which I could use.

Unit 7

Meditation is something that I had always talked about trying, but not something I actually went and did. I had suspected it would be a good practice for me, not just psychologically, but physically also. I think the one best thing that I can say it has done for me is that I now step back from conflicting situations and try to have much more intention in how I react. I have especially seen a big change in this aspect of my professional life. I need to continue to do this in order to maintain any type of relaxation and peace at my job. The best way for me to continue this is to take a deep breath, pause and then allow the words to come out. It is impossible for anyone to lead, or to be followed, if they have no idea where they are going. Chaos ensues and chances are everyone gets lost. A location, attraction, concept or idea can be explained, but until you have experienced it, been there, done that, you cannot give firsthand knowledge, understanding, feelings or emotions about it. It would difficult to convince anyone they should do or not do something that you have not at least tried to do or have experienced. How could you convince someone to stop smoking when you had a cigarette in your hand or that meditation is calming and beneficial if we cannot give them an experience to relate to? It is important that we lead by example, especially when someone’s health is at the root of the leadership. I believe I have implemented psychological and spiritual growth in my personal life just by taking this class and taking it to heart. By practicing the exercises in my daily life and truly trying to grasp and understand the concepts that have been presented show a growth and desire to improve in these aspects of my life. Julie Couillard

Unit6 Integral Assessment

This week I struggled with the meditation exercises.  Not because of the exercise, but because I had a difficult time letting go of all the happenings in my life this week.  Although this was frustrating, it was also a learning experience.  I have learned that although I have had great experiences with meditation, I have most definitely not conquered all of my road blocks.  For the few moments that I was able to let things go and was able to focus, I found that it did not take long for my emotions to flow during the universal loving-kindness exercise.  The imagery that appeared when repeating the line regarding freedom from suffering for all individuals was very moving for me and surprising how filled with the emotions I became.

The other exercise, which focused on the integral assessment was not so difficult.  It was very easy for me to come to the conclusion that psychospiritual is the aspect of my life that I need to focus on.  This becomes very apparent to me at my job.  I find that I am still at the conative line when handling my work.  It seems every time I think I have made progress, I have not.  This class has made me take a hard look at what this job is doing to me and it will be a difficult journey for me to get to the emotional line with respect to work.  I feel I have made and continue to make progress in my personal life regarding this, but because of work, I am really not sure that this progress counts.  Until I can get all areas of my life in sync regarding my psychospiritual health, I believe I am lacking in the whole aspect.

After reading the material this week I believe I need to start working on life as  practice.  I feel my biggest obstacle at work is that I do not respond with intention to situations, I react instinctively.  The only way I am going to overcome this is to stop, clear my mind at that moment and then respond.  I have actually regressed in this because of the retirement of my previous boss.  Having a mentor was brought up in our discussion this week, and I can attest that having a mentor makes a huge difference in ones life.  My previous boss took many hours to talk to me and teach me how to be more compassionate and understanding to situations and people.  He taught me to slow down and try to appreciate the differences in people.  My current boss is just the opposite, and due to my personality, I find that I am using his type A, bolder personality to justify to myself that it is ok to go back to my previous ways of dealing with work situations.  This is not the person I want to be and realize that it is up to me to make these changes.  It is a struggle, but I feel that realizing I am reacting instinctively and want to change this is the first step to making the changes.

Julie Couillard

Unit5 Subtle Mind

The meditation exercise this week was again one that I enjoyed. I surprised myself in that I became so relaxed and so in tune to my breath, that I was actually startled when the woman's voice come back in the audio clip. I would still say that the loving kindness exercise was the most enjoyable for me. I struggle with trying to come up with reasons why, but I will start with because it was the one that moved me the most. It was very emotional and made me look at myself in ways I have not done in the past. It also made me realize how strongly I felt about things that are changing in my life and how comfortable I am about those changes. These are aspects that I would not have looked at so deeply had it not been for that exercise.
  This week's exercise was wonderful and made me realize for the first time in my life that I can let go of thoughts and stresses. I really did believe this was impossible for me. So again, an experience that taught me something about myself, which at my age, really makes me take pause realizing I do not know everything about myself. Sometimes this can be overwhelming, but it has been an experience that I should have taken on many years ago.
Spiritual health. to me, is the completes total health. One can be physically fit, eat right, have no questions about their mental capacities, their position in life, no stresses about anything, but still be unhealthy. Spiritual health gives you a piece of mind and calmness that nothing else can. It teaches you the most basic aspects of being human: kindness, compassion, love, understanding; the things that truly matter. You can own any material thing in this world, but without the ability to appreciate and share with someone, you really have nothing. Just how I feel...
I hope everyone has a great week, and I look forward to sharing...

Julie C.

This week's exercise was a brand new experience for me. We have done meditation exercises for this class in previous weeks, but this was the first one that I was able to relate to felt completely involved in. The other exercises were just that, exercises to gain experience and insight regarding what meditation was about. This loving-kindness exercise was much more then that. The emotions that I felt and the involvement with those emotions was almost overwhelming. The first portion of the exercise where we were to think of someone we loved and to open our hearts and allow those feelings to flow was amazing. I had no idea I could feel that deeply about anything. I had tears in my eyes. It was difficult to try to allow myself to feel that way about me, but I am working on it. One of the other sections that had use receiving the pain of a loved one on our inhale breath and releasing love and kindness to them on the exhale breath was difficult. I had no problems with the receiving, but I had a hard time letting it go once I received it, so it was difficult to let the love and kindness out with the exhale. I have to learn to take things in, and not just give love and kindness out, but to release the pain that I have taken in with that breath. Again, something I will have to work on. This exercise is one I can see myself repeating several times a day. It was invigorating and really put my perspective to where I think it should have been regarding what is really important in the outside world. Actually, the first few minutes did that for me. A mental workout is exercising the brain. It is training it to gain control of ones self and to reach a deeper understanding of all things. Some proven benefits of exercising the brain are reducing negative emotions, such as fear and anger and increasing positive emotions, such as love and compassion. It can also help to improve attention and memory, among other functions of the mind. One of the biggest ways to help implement this is any ones daily life would be to meditate and involve ones self in exercises as mentioned above. Julie C.