Unit 10

When I started this class I rated myself very high on the mental, spiritual, and physical scale, because my analysis was based on what I already knew about the above topics. Now that I am at the end of the class I lowered my score mainly because I was assessing my health from a new perspective, I have just started my integral journey, and I want to adapt a beginners mind on this quest.

Thank you all,

One love  

My Personal Holistic health Plan

J. Greenwood HW420 Unit 9 Final Project

Personal Holistic Health Plan; Physical, Spiritual, and Psychological wellness

Kaplan University

Joan M Greenwood 11/22/2010

J. Greenwood 420 section 3 Unit 9 Final Project

My personal holistic health plan; spiritual psychological, and physical

11/21/2010

Dr. Cindy Fouhy

 Introduction

At this point in my life I have the opportunity to create my own personal health plan, not only am I creating a health plan for myself, I also have the awareness of my life as precious. My life is precious, all life is precious, and for me to experience and express the preciousness of my life I must give intentional attention to the health of my spiritual, psychological, and physical fitness.

Most of my life I strive to be healthful; mental, spiritual, and psychological, I grew up with the bible and studied, and practiced its principle for most of my life; I actually grew up in the church. I studied the bhagavad gita, and practiced meditation, yoga, tai-chi, praying, nature walking, and other activities that stimulate my spiritual being; I strive to develop my spiritual fitness through the possibility of love and forgiveness. For my psychological fitness I completed the Landmark Forum, and a few of their advance courses, I attend seminars and workshops, I am always studying or serving,  I work with my heart, knowing that to put my heart in whatever I do is a major part of expanding my capacities for love and forgiveness. I stand firm to my principles and values, I honor myself and others, and I strive to be healthy, happy, and whole.

 For my physical fitness, as long as I can remember I have been physically fit; as a child I participated in and enjoy physical activities, throughout my 49 years of life, there has only been a few times, when I went for any extended period of time; about a year, without being physically active, and healthy. For the past fifteen years I have been working as an exercise instructor; I am being paid to stay active and fit.

My happiness, and health is important to me; I choose a life of health and happiness, but I am not always happy and healthy, there are moments when I am consumed by anger, and negativity, there are moments when I am disappointed and hurt, when my heart is broken and the tears of sadness and bitterness gushes from my soul and cascade down to my face. There are moments when I feel used, abused, and broken, when I am paralyzed by the images, thoughts and action of my mind, and there are moments when I feel weak, tired, and hopeless. Creating my personal health plan will create a foundation for me to cultivate a life of health, happiness, and wholeness for myself and the people in my life. As a health and wellness professional it is important for me to develop my psychological, spiritual, and physical capacities because for me to effectively lead the way towards wellness, my life must reflect what I advocate. It is rather difficult for people to hear what I say if I am not setting an example for them to fallow. Therefore I will start by conducting some assessments of my psychological, spiritual, and physical fitness; this will guide me to create the ideal plan for my health and wellbeing.
Assessment:

My health assessments for the different domains will be scored on a scale from 0 to 10, ten being the ultimate health, and 0 (zero) being no action taken; have not yet consider the conversation of one’s health; a lack of awareness in this area. 

I will use the ACSM fitness guideline, and health status questionnaire to assess my fitness level and risk factors, I will then prescribe recommended activities to support the development of my physical health. Special attention will be given to posture; form and alignment, and the role the environment, and mind plays in the body functioning at its highest capacity. With these considerations in mind, I would rate my physical fitness at 6 (six) in this area of development, because I have never consciously incorporated my spiritual and psychological domain with my physical; I kept the different areas of life separate.  

From this point on I will introduce, and use the integral approach to health Dacher, (2006) as the foundation for assessing my health, seeing that I intend to use an integral approach in developing my health plan. The ultimate goals of integral health are freedom from suffering, and sustained health, happiness, and wholeness.  

Based on the integral map human experiences are expressed in four ways; psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal, and worldly. The biological and worldly aspects of life are considered as the outer aspects of life, and the psychospiritual and interpersonal aspects of life are referred to as outer. The psychospiritual and biological aspects of life are personal areas of development, and the interpersonal and world aspects of life are shared; areas of life we develop and share with others. When dealing with distress and diseases we need to focus on our inner and outer experiences, as well as the shared and personal experiences, this allows us to take a holistic approach to improve the quality of our lives.

 There are five principles that characterize integral health; holistic, evolutionary, intentional, person-centered, and dynamic, these guiding principles are the foundation and guide to the full development of each of the four aspects of life, they guide us on the path to human flourishing.

Psychospiritual development: includes Conative, cognitive, and emotional areas of development. Conative development; the source and character of motivations, am I motivated by survival needs; fear driven, instinctual, reactive, or ego-centered? 

Psychologically: vision and values cultivated from culture, religion and education, or spiritual imperatives; motivated by wisdom, wholeness, oneness, universal loving-kindness and compassion.

What drives my life? What motivates my action? Am I at the level of body, mind, or spirit, what line of development do I need to work on? I give myself a Cognitive development: develop from reactive, conditioned, and self-protective to reasoning; seeking a larger truth meaning, purpose, and fulfillment, arriving at an understanding of the self and world. Am I more reactive than I would like to be? Is my knowledge acquired mainly by logics and reason? Is my knowledge acquired in a non cognitive stare; pure awareness? What is the difference between information and essential truth? What is whole, and partial? What area do I need to address?

 Emotional development: is my emotional life dominated by uncontrolled desires, anger, fear, and other reactive emotions? Do I live in a neutral emotional state? Have I evolved to a level of stable and expansive happiness? At what level of happiness do I live? What do I need to address in this area of development?   I rate myself at a 6 in this area of development

Biological development: this area focuses on fitness, nutrition, and self regulation. Nutrition: progress from unconscious survival reaction towards food, to a mindful, intentional choice of a healthy diet, to making choices that support the stability of the environment, shows concern for poverty and animal suffering. Fitness: a progression from exercise and movements of daily life to a planned exercise program that includes all the components of fitness, and deal with physical disorder to a developed and subtle sense of body awareness. Self-regulation: a progress from homeostasis to subtle mind/body practices, to refined spiritual/ mind/ body abilities. What area needs addressing? I rate myself at a 7 in this area of development.

Interpersonal development: includes personal, family, and community what interpersonal line of development is most important to address? Which will benefit me most in the long term? What level am I currently functioning from? What level would I like to achieve?  I rate myself at a 6 in this area

Worldly development: focuses on work, civic activism, and generativity. Work: evolve work life from survival to meaning to fulfillment to service. What do I need to address in my work life?  Social activism: evolve from a focus on daily needs to a focus on a more widely global level. What do I need to develop in this area?  Generativity: the effort to teach others what I have learned; a transmission of knowledge, skills, values, and wisdom to the future generation. What do I need to develop in this area? I rate myself at a 6 in this area.

The integral approach requires that we become aware of our needless suffering, distress, and dissatisfaction, and the source of developing human flourishing.  To fully evolve from body to mind to spirit will lead to human flourishing.
Goal development:

The goals I have for myself in the different areas of my life are as follows:

My physical health goals: to consciously incorporate spiritual and psychological practices in the biological area of my life, by using the integral approach, and intentionally adhere to the prescribed plan resulting from my fitness assessment, and health status assessment.  

My spiritual health goals: to intentionally practice mini meditation daily.

My psychological health goals: to practice loving-kindness on a daily basis.

IV Practices for personal health:

The strategies I will implement to foster growth in the Physical, Psychological, and Spiritual domain of my life, and the examples and exercises I will use are as follows:

Physical; I will be mindful of the food I consume, and intentionally make healthier choices, I will honor the functioning of my body and stick to my exercise plan, and I will incorporate the subtle mind practice into my life.

Spiritual; I will meditate when I first wake up and before I go to sleep, and I will also pray for all people to be free from suffering, and experience health, happiness, and wholeness.

Psychological; I will observe my emotional responses; anger, fear, desire, and attachment, I will strive to cultivate happiness in my life and the life of others, by practicing the exercises laid out in the integral health practice.  
V Commitment:

To assess my progress or lack of progress in the next six months, I will perform a monthly assessment in the different areas of my life to ensure that I am taking the actions necessary to produce growth in these areas of my life.

The strategies I will use to assist me in maintaining my long-term practices for health and wellness are, I will invite my friends to explore the integral practice with me, I will post daily reminders, and I will share my goals, and progress with a family member, requesting that they support me by holding me accountable to my words.   

Dacher, E. (2006), Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing, Laguna Beach, Basic Health Publications, Inc.

My thoughts create my reality

I think that the contemplative practice and Loving-Kindness exercises are the two most beneficial practices for me.   Contemplative practices create the awareness of my mental process, this gives me the opportunity to free myself from the busyness; constant chatter, of my mind, and with intentional, constant practice my subtle mind will be cultivated. The loving-kindness exercise fills my heart and mind with loving-kindness for myself, and everyone; soften and open my heart and mind to respond to life from a space of love and care.

I will continuously observe my thoughts, and conditioned reaction to life, and cultivate loving-kindness, and a calm conscious response to the challenges in life. I will intentionally increase my yoga practice to seven days per week mini sessions, I will also practice mini meditation each day before I get out of bed, and daily pray for all people to cultivate health, happiness, and wholeness.

http://jamaicajoan-conscioushealing.blogspot.com/

Mindfulness the path to Psychological and spiritual wellness

This week’s practice was a challenge, but a bit easier than previous weeks; I kept falling asleep, and after the third attempt was successful in completing the meditation. Purifying my mind, speech, and heart, and allowing myself to be embodied by the Dalai Lama’s compassion, love, and wisdom was a new place for me to be. Allowing myself to be the healer, and serve with purpose and wisdom felt as though I was elevated to a space inside myself which requires a lot of patience, and practice to maintain.   Conducting regular mindfulness practice has slowed down my knee-jerk reactions, which is replaced by observing then responding with loving-kindness, compassion, gratitude, and forgiveness. 

I can make mindfulness an intentional, vital part of my daily practice, to ensure greater health and wellness; in the same way I participate in physical activities on a daily basis, I must incorporate daily meditation in my life.

“One cannot lead where one has not gone himself”, means that if I don’t have the knowledge and experience of a topic, concept, or subject I cannot impart knowledge of the subject to others; I cannot give what I don’t have. As a health and wellness professional I must first develop health, happiness and wholeness within myself; know and understand what it takes, and feels like to be healthy mentally, physically, and spiritually in order to be a leader or healer to others.

Not developing oneself as a health and wellness professional would be much like, “the blind leading the blind” when attempting to lead a person towards health, happiness and wholeness.

http://jamaicajoan-conscioushealing.blogspot.com/

Unit 6 Integral Assessment

The universal kindness exercise and integral assessment gave me a new perspective on being connected to the source of my existence. In praying for the alleviation of suffering, and a life of health, happiness, and wholeness for all, I became present to the words I was repeating, and observed that I was repeating the words at a very fast pace; it was very noisy in my mind, at that instant I consciously, intentionally focused my attention to my breath and started breathing slower, which slowed down my speech. I then started to repeat the prayer out loud, which caused me to experience the relationship, or connection with the words, not empty words that flow from my lips, but a pouring out of my heart; being the conduit for freedom from suffering, loving-kindness, health, and wholeness for all people including the self.

I will focus on expanding my capacities for loving-kindness and a quiet mind; this will start me on the path of human flourishing. Periodic integral assessment will track my progress in fulfilling my goals to attain health, wholeness and happiness for all people.