Final Reflection

It was nice to reflect on my self-assessment from unit 3.  I feel that most of my scores have remained the same except for my spirituality.  In unit 3 I gave myself a 5 of 10 but I do feel like I have increased the score to at least a 7.  I feel that I am more in touch with my spiritual self and I hope to keep building on this.  My physical score of a 7 of 10 has maybe increased to an 8 because I have incorporated yoga and crossfit into my exercise routine.  I am kind of hard on myself when it comes to my physical health because I have big goals in that area.  My psychological score of 9 of 10 is still the same.  I could say that I am at a 10 of 10 but I always feel that there is room for improvement.  As for the goals in these areas I feel that I have reached them or made progress towards them.  I have made improvements in my spiritual health, I have incorporated yoga and crossfit as well as continued to eat better foods for my physical health and for my psychological health I have continued to focus on thinking positively.   I really have enjoyed this class.  I feel that it has given me a new perspective on life and what it should be about.  I feel that when you focus on building yourself and developing your integral health, you no longer need so much outside support for guidance or confidence.  I think that the most difficult part is trying to make meditation a priority.  I am doing well with making exercise a priority but I do need to focus more on my spiritual self.  This experience has helped me improve my ability to assist others because it has taught me the importance of loving-kindness and the power of positive thinking.  I now catch myself reacting to a situation and I try to redirect myself so that I can actively respond in a positive tactful way. This class has meant the world to me and I can’t believe that it is just an elective!  I want to thank my professor and my classmates for being a part of this learning process with me!

Final Project

Introduction

            As a surgical nurse, my patients rely on me to have their best interest at heart and to advocate for them during the surgical procedure.  In order to come through for my patients it is important for me to maintain my physical, mental, and spiritual health.  If I were to present myself during the preoperative assessment as distracted, unkempt, and apathetic, they would not have much confidence in my ability to take care of them.  This is why I do everything I can to assure my patients that I am trustworthy, organized, knowledgeable, and in the moment with them.  In order for me to maintain this level of care I need to keep setting and achieving goals both professionally and personally.  In my personal life it is important that I keep working towards physical, mental, and spiritual health by pushing myself physically, taking the time to meditate to lower my stress levels, and using the power of prayer to help me through difficult issues.  Professionally it is important that I increase my mindfulness to keep myself from just reacting to situations that are frustrating, and I need to keep developing my assertiveness so that I can be the best advocate for my patients.  In the following sections I will assess my health in all three domains, develop goals in each area, discuss different strategies for improving health and wellness, and define strategies for ensuring progress in each area.

Assessment

            In order for me to assess my current wellness status in my spiritual, psychological, and physical domains, I graded each domain using a low-medium-high scale.  The grade of low means that I am underdeveloped and dissatisfied with my wellness, the grade of medium means that I am somewhat developed in this area and moderately satisfied with my wellness, and the grade of high means that I am very developed and very satisfied with my wellness in this area.

            For my spiritual wellness I would grade myself at a medium level because I feel that I have had some development in this area but I feel that I can make more progress in this area.  For my physical wellness I would grade myself at a medium-high level because although I am very satisfied with my development in this area, I know that I am nowhere near my ultimate goal.  For my psychological wellness I would grade myself at a high because I feel that I have a very good understanding of my thoughts and feelings, I am great at analyzing myself and my coping skills have improved over the years.  I am very satisfied with my psychological wellness. 

Goal Development

            Setting goals is very important when you are trying to improve your wellness in each domain.  My ultimate physical goal is to be at a healthy weight and be physically fit.  The way that I can measure my progress besides the number on the scale is my progress in crossfit.  Currently I cannot do any pull-ups or a full pushup with the correct form.  My first short-term goal is to complete ten pushups with the proper form.  In order to reach this goal I plan on attending at least three crossfit classes per week and also practicing the proper form at home or work in between classes.

            My spiritual goal is to increase my communication with God through prayer.  I have never really been a religious person and until recently praying has felt hypocritical to me but I have chosen to see prayer in a different light and it has added to my spiritual health.  For my goal I would like to pray at least four times a week to give thanks for the positive things in my life, to ask for guidance through difficult choices, and to send positive energy to those that are in need of help.  I think that by incorporating this in to my life, I will feel less stress and more in touch with my spiritual self. 

            My psychological goal is a bit different.  My goal for myself is to dramatically decrease the time spent on Facebook.   I have realized lately that I have an addiction to Facebook and I check it probably more than ten times a day.  Facebook is the first thing I check in the morning and the last thing I check before I go to bed.  There have been many articles about the negative affect that Facebook has on your self-esteem and your feelings of loneliness.  To be embarrassingly honest, if I see that a friend is on a vacation, I feel guilty that I have not taken the time to do that for myself, and if a group of my friends post that they are out for a drink then I feel sad that I was not invited.  I have realized how pointless it is to focus on what other people in my life are doing instead of focusing on what I want to do or how I can improve myself.  So, my goal is to delete the Facebook application on my phone so it is not easy for me to access and maybe check it once a week.  Hopefully I will notice that I feel better about my own life and I will not want to check it at all!

Practices for Personal Health

            There are many practices that I could implement in to my life to further my development in each domain.  Two of the practices that could assist in my physical wellness is yoga and boxing.  Yoga and boxing are probably two of my favorite exercises because they allow for stress reduction and they increase your strength.  In order to incorporate these in to my life I need to schedule time for them so that I hold myself accountable for going.  Seeing as how I already want to incorporate crossfit in to my schedule three times a week I will have to schedule yoga and boxing on the other four days of the week.  I have already written out the schedule for each class so that I know when classes are offered so I can make them work with my agenda.  I already have all of the proper work out attire and equipment for each exercise so that will not become an excuse. 

            The two practices that I would like to incorporate for my spiritual wellness are volunteering and increasing my mindfulness.  I feel that volunteering at the humane society would bring me joy because I love giving love to animals.  I could start by volunteering on Saturdays so it would work out with the rest of my schedule.  I think that this would help me spiritually because I feel very connected to animals and knowing that I could help them feel loved before they are adopted or put down would mean a lot to me.  Increasing my mindfulness is also a spiritual goal for me because it brings me back to what my main objective is in life and that is to spread love.  There are many times throughout the day that I feel frustrated by someone else’s actions and to treat another person poorly because of how I feel would just keep the negative cycle going.  By increasing my mindfulness I could hopefully stop the spread of negative energy and project positive energy instead.  I can incorporate this by increasing my awareness of when I am responding to negative situations and change my reactive patterns.

            The two practices that could assist in my psychological growth are meditation and journaling.  I have always known that meditation is supposed to help reduce stress and promote relaxation but I have recently realized that it can also change the way you think about things and how you react to others around you.  Just like with physical exercise, it is important to schedule time for your meditative practices so they will actually get done.  I think that the best time for me to incorporate them is to plan on meditating when I get home from work so that I can calm my thoughts and get myself ready for a restful night.  Journaling is also a helpful practice because it allows for self-reflection.  I tried journaling in the past but I found that since I rarely handwrite lengthy papers anymore, my hand starts cramping and then it becomes less enjoyable.  To remedy this I think that I will try to journal using my computer.  I also found out that journaling every day is not necessary because most of my work days are uneventful so I would like to just journal about current thoughts/issues instead of breaking it up by days.

Commitment

            I am excited about setting goals for myself so that I can continue the development of my integral health.  Although I know what my ultimate goals are, it would be very helpful to track my progress by making smaller goals and then journaling about my progress.  For the next six months I would like to track my progress in all three domains covering my crossfit, yoga, boxing goals, and the incorporation of meditation, prayer, and journaling.  I would like to set small goals for each exercise/practice so that I can slowly incorporate them instead of setting a huge goal that I could possibly not meet.  I think that for the physical domain I can write down my monthly accomplishments and also take pictures so that I can see my progress and keep myself motivated.  As for the spiritual and psychological domains I think that it would be helpful to journal about my progress and also keep this project in my journal so that I can remind myself of my goals.  One fun project that I have done in the past that I could also do for these goals is to create magnets that I can stick to my refrigerator so I can see them everyday plus it helps me tap in to my creativity.  I am very grateful for having the opportunity to take this class.  It has really changed my outlook on life and helped me realize that there is so much more than just the physical aspect of life. 

Incorporating Exercises

The two exercises that I think I connected with the most were the Subtle Mind exercise and the Rainbow Relaxation exercise.  I really liked the Rainbow Relaxation exercise because it helped me focus on all of the chakra points and really visualize the energy coming from each point.  The Subtle Mind exercise was interesting because of how I was able to calm my mind and observe my thought process.  I do not think that I was able to reach the unity consciousness level but hopefully that will come with time.  The Rainbow Relaxation exercise could be included in my weekly meditation schedule to help me really become more in tune with my entire body and energy that flows through it.  The Subtle Mind exercise can be used when I am feeling stressed or when my mind is just racing with unnecessary thoughts.  I like to use that exercise to calm my mind and to put things in perspective.  I have really enjoyed practicing all of these exercises and I am looking forward to incorporating them in to my life.  I think that with the yoga class I am taking I will be directly thinking about meditating instead of getting wrapped up in my thoughts and forgetting to take a moment for myself.

Finding Aesclepius

This week I have attended four yoga classes that have helped me incorporate meditation in to my daily practice.  When I am trying to make something a daily habit I first have to treat it like an appointment so I can set aside a specific time to do it.  Yoga class has been very helpful in keeping me balanced this week.  I have had a lot on my mind with some current relationships and yoga has helped me to calm my mind.  Completing the Meeting Aesclepius exercise was quite interesting.  I wasn’t quite sure what to expect and I did find it relaxing but not one of my favorites.  I first started out with the visualizations of the old person that I love and trust.  I can see how tying to connect with someone with great strength and wisdom could be helpful but I think that I eventually started to fall asleep with the waves.  I did end the exercise feeling calm and relaxed.  I think that the meditations that I have completed this week have helped me remain conscious of how I am feeling and how I treat others.  In order to keep myself grounded I would like to continue with the meditations and yoga so I can remind myself of  my intentions of wanting to project loving-kindness and keep an open mind.

The saying “One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself” (George, n.d., p. 477), means to me that in order for me to help others become healthier or explore their deeper consciousness I cannot just tell them about what I’ve read or heard, I have to go through the motions myself to get a deeper understanding.  This saying makes me think of an overweight medical professional trying to stress to their patient how important it is to eat right, exercise, and take care of themselves.  The patient just isn’t going to listen to them because obviously the medical professional doesn’t even know how to do it for themselves.  I think that we do have an obligation to develop ourselves physically, psychologically, and spiritually so that we can project ourselves as trustworthy leaders that have walked the trail so we can show others the way.  I think that it would be difficult to take care of others if we are not in a stable spot emotionally and spiritually.  I believe that meditation, yoga, and prayer are the best exercises for me to increase my psychological, spiritual, and physical health.  I hope that along my journey I find other exercises or practices that can assist me in furthering my progress.

George, L. E. (n.d.). Transformation of the healer: The application of Ken Wilber’s integral health model to family practice medicine. In M. Schlitz, T. Amorok, & M. S. Micozzi, Consciousness & healing: Integral approaches to mind-body medicine. (pp. 465-477). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.

Integral Assessment

Universal Loving-Kindness

I must admit that I did not believe that I would get much from this exercise because of the experience that I had with the first Loving-Kindness meditation.  But, after I was able to shut off all of the mind chatter and focus on the thoughts of wanting everyone to find health and happiness and to be free of suffering and then thinking that I could help people with this I did experience something unexpected.  At first I felt an emptiness inside of me because I have been stressed out about some things and I thought that if I don’t have anything extra to give, how can I help others?  Then I actually started to feel a warmth and fullness inside of my chest.  I did not expect this to happen.  Then I had the thought that if your intentions are to truly help others to find health and happiness then you will receive the loving energy to do so.  I thought that it was pretty cool!  Whenever I do these exercises, it helps put everything in to perspective.

Integral Assessment

I feel that I have been trying to assess my life and what I can improve upon for a long time.  My main focus for many years has been on my physical health.  I have struggled with my weight since I was a young kid and it has been difficult to replace my emotional eating with another coping mechanism.  I felt that recently I was able to deal with some issues from my past that I didn’t realize was affecting me.  I did realize that I will constantly struggle with an issue if all I address are the superficial things.  I now feel that I am on a better path with my physical health.  I am going to start a new yoga class today actually and I am very excited about it!  I have cleaned up my eating and I have set some new goals for myself.  While going through this class I have realized that I could be giving back to my community.  I already excel at work and I love what I do.  I would like to volunteer at some shelters and look for other opportunities to give back.  The thing that I feel is holding me back from doing this is the amount of time that I need to dedicate to school right now.  I do not want to make a commitment to volunteer and then realize that I have a paper due or a seminar to attend.   Although I have learned a lot from my nursing classes, these two elective classes dealing with stress and spiritual development have by far been the most beneficial!  Seeing that my physical health is coming along and I have a future goal for my community relationships, I believe that I need to attend to my psychospiritual development.  I need to work on incorporating meditation in to my life because whenever I do it for class I really enjoy the outcome.  I also think that yoga will help improve my mind/body connection and keep me calm and centered.  I have a lot of exercises that use drive and aggression, I think that yoga will help incorporate exercises that use concentration and mental/physical strength.  I am really thankful for this class because it has given me the answers to some of my questions and shown me the path to better health and wellness.

Subtle Mind

The subtle mind exercise was much more enjoyable than the loving-kindness exercise.  With the subtle mind exercise I was able to calm my mind by focusing on my breathing.  At first I noticed that my thoughts were trying to pull me away.  These thoughts were related to my responsibilities and worries.  My mind kept jumping from one topic to another about the things going on in my life.  When I recognized that this was happening I brought myself back to my breath.  Then the next stage for me was seeing colorful waves moving around, kind of like watching a screen saver.  When I was watching the waves I no longer thought about my responsibilities or breathing.   Then, I started seeing my thoughts and I would start off with one idea and then it would morph in to something else.  These thoughts were very creative and when I didn’t like where the stream was going, I simply moved to another.  A couple of times I let myself get carried away with a thought and it almost felt like dreaming.  When the lady’s voice came though to direct us to the next phase I felt my focus come back to the exercise and then I had to work my way back through the levels.  My cat and my cell phone also added an extra distraction that I had to work through.  I did feel like I was able to get little glimpses of the unity consciousness level but I was usually pulled out by a thought or noise in the room.  I felt very calm during the exercise and I felt like I was teetering between mentally working the exercise and falling asleep.  I felt very focused and calm when the exercise was over. 

The reason why I enjoyed the subtle mind exercise more than the loving kindness exercise was because I felt like I was actually able to do the exercise.  With the loving kindness exercise I felt that I was going through the movements but I wasn’t sure if I was doing it right. 

The interconnectedness of our body, mind, and spirit is something that we cannot ignore.  When we are able to excel in one area, we can excel in the other two.  In my experience, when I am going through a work out with my trainer and she is pushing me past my limits, I feel physically that I need to give up but if I can tell myself mentally that I am capable of completing the exercise or lifting more weights I am able to do so.  We have all heard the idea that everything is mind over matter and this couldn’t be more of a true statement.  The relationship of the mental and physical body is an easy relationship to describe but, the connection between the mind, body, and the spirit isn’t as easy to identify.  In my personal experience, the time that I felt a spiritual connection to something is when I read the book Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss.  After reading this book I felt a certain clarity and release of pressure.  When the fear of death and dying is taken away, it does make it easier to live your life and challenge yourself.  I would say that I do have a fear of dying before I am ready but I think that I am not alone in that.  I feel that when we can realize that we are in control of our lives and at any second we could change the path of our life if we wanted to, it opens up so many possibilities.  We just need a healthy body, a determined mind, and a open spirit to achieve our dreams. 

Lindsey

Loving Kindness

I have some mixed feelings about the Loving Kindness exercise.  I had a hard time being able to observe my thoughts and feelings and I found that I easily went off on to a mental tangent.  I enjoyed building the feeling of loving kindness inside myself.  It was also easy for me to breathe in a loved one’s pain and suffering and exhale love and security for them.  I felt like it was almost like a prayer for them.  Both my dad and brother are going through some tough times and I really liked sending them some positive vibes!  When I was trying to complete the exercise for others around me and then all of the people in the world I felt a bit of a disconnect.  I am familiar with my family and what they are feeling.  I found it hard to feel the pain and suffering of others because I don’t know specifically what their pain is coming from so it makes it harder for me to connect.  I think that it is an interesting exercise and I feel that it was a bit harder than the relaxation exercises.  I would recommend the exercise to others that would be interested. 

The concept of a mental workout is to consistently train your brain to focus on certain things, using different visualization techniques and controlling your thought process.   The research on contemplative practice shows that with consistent training you can have a positive impact on different mental functions like attention, perception and memory (Dacher, 2006).  The way that you can implement mental workouts in to your life is the same way you implement physical workouts.  If you make it a choice to improve your mental or physical wellbeing you need to make it a priority and schedule a time every day to include it in your routine.

Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral health: The path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications.