Unit 10-Follow-up

Hi everyone, I can't believe this is the last few days of class---kinda sad. We were asked in unit 3 to assess our physical, spiritual, and psychological well being and I rated myself a 8-9 in physical, 6-7 in spiritual, and 7-8 in psychological. Today and since we have started the class I would have to say I have improved in all the areas. Physical: 9-10--I have included additional cardio in my training plan which was one of my goals in order to improve. Spiritual: 7-8--I have always gone to church but I think it was just the motion now I actually "feel" it as well as daily practice of loving kindness has come along way, it is now a part of daily routine and I even do not have to think that I need to practice it. Psychological: 7-8--This one is still difficult especially as I write about this this evening. This is the anniversary of my fathers passing and it may have been 7 years ago it is still pretty raw since for the last 8 years I have been the caretaker, defender, and everything of an alcoholic and abusive ex husband so since I am finally free I am just now going through the grieving stages. Erika

Unit 9-Personal Plan

Hi everyone, here is my personal plan: Personal Plan As a health and wellness professional developing ourselves is a key aspect in being able to help others, we should “practice what we preach”. It will also help with developing a deeper and more meaningful relationship with our clients as well as those we work with. Self-development and practicing integral health should be a lifelong commitment and while not one aspect is more important than the other we may need to work on one more than the other. At the beginning of the class one of the exercises was to identify an area that I needed more attention and I chose spiritual development. Through process of elimination I would have to say I need to work on both spiritual and psychological development. I was able to assess myself based on a couple different ideas. First, how do I feel? Second, how are others responding to me? Based on that, I would score myself as follows; physical: “9 out of 10”, psychological: “7-8 out of 10”, and 6-7 out of 10” in spiritual health. Setting goals to fully have integral health is important. For physical health my goal is to incorporate more cardiovascular exercises to my current weight lifting routine. Psychological and spiritual health is something that I would like to work on simultaneously. My plan is to include at least a half-hour (morning and evening) to clear my head and specifically for spiritual is be more involved in church and then actually applying that to my personal life more stringently. My strategy is the same for all three and it is quite simple in thought but more difficult in practice, take and make the time. The following are the examples of exercises I will plan on including daily; 1). physical: walk or elliptical post workout for 20-30 minutes depending on muscle group that was trained that particular day, 2). psychological: tai chi and/or visualization for as long as I need to “relax” my mind, and 3). spiritual: in addition to being more involved in church my plan is to practice loving-kindness and subtle mind; while these are recommended to be done in a quiet area I know that I can do this anywhere and anytime and that is my current plan especially for practicing loving-kindness. Assessments should be an on-going process; however, a six month assessment should be done in greater detail. Detailed assessments are important in being able to make adjustments in the program and my plan is to ask questions. How do I feel on the inside and outside? Do I need to increase the amount or time spent on the exercises? Do I continue to have mindless chatter? How are others around me feeling when I am in the area? Based on the answers I can change or alter my program. This is not a on again off again program and it has to be flexible enough to change as we change throughout our life cycle. I hope that some of my ideas work for each of you as I have incorporated ideas that were suggested throughout the class. v/r Erika

Unit 8-Initial blog post

Hi everyone! I'm sitting here trying to figure out which of the two exercises that I found where the most beneficial...I guess if I have to choose it would be loving-kindness and visualization. I chose loving-kindness because that is the foundation and visualization for the benefit of "seeing" things that are not distorted and quite frankly that's how I learn anyway. Practicing loving-kindness on a daily basis or even when you become upset with others and yourself can help me refocus on the good things that we can offer. The visualization is something that I do most everyday anyways but can used for more than picturing a task that I have to complete. Erika

Unit 7-Aeclepian

Hi everyone, The one and only person that came to my mind was my father. My father passed away several years ago but I still feel his strong presence. While listening his image was so bright and vivid. I felt and learned so much not only from my father but I learned lots about myself. This is away that I could keep in touch with him no matter where I am. This experience has opened my eyes to the realization that mental health is just as important as physical health. Maintaining this practice will be difficult to be honest but I know ultimately it will provide valuable in the long-term. Each day set aside some time to take care of myself, everyday I work out my physical body and now that I have seen the benefits of working out my mind I can work that in to my day as well. Now all I have to do is find the time?? I have a saying that I often say "I would not ask anybody to do something if I hadn't or be willing to do it myself". With the saying from our text "one cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" says the same thing. How can we talk to our patients/clients if we have not experienced the same thing or even have inner-turmoil. Up to about a year ago I lived and survived in an alcoholic and mental/emotional/physically abusive marriage and would tell my Soldiers to get help if they need to and etc but I couldn't even do it myself. I held this part of my life as a secret for the last 8 years and I have felt that I was the biggest hippocrite for saying one thing and doing another. I feel we do have an obligation to ou rpatients to be on the right path, not only is it good for us but we have to set the example. I found that also some of the exercises were not necessarily difficult but we have to be able to continue to motivate our patients/clients when they run into obstacles and give suggestions and tools to help them overcome them. v/r Erika

Unit 6- Universal loving-kindness

Hi everyone! Universal loving-kindness; the ability to see others for who they are, being empathetic, generous, and filled with emotional intimacy; the final step in interpersonal development. The practice seems to me like the loving kindness but expanded to "all individuals"; for 10 minutes relax and enter in to a natural ease of your body and mind. Once you have done this repeat the following phrases: May all individuals gain freedom from suffering. May all individuals find sustained health, happiness, and wholeness. May I assist all individuals in gaining freedom from suffering. May I assist all individuals in finding health, happiness, and wholeness. The assessment process involves looking at each of the aspects of the human experience; asking questions about areas you might feel that you need help or which one to focus on? As we have learned throughout our reading it is important to work on all the phases of each of the four quadrants. The area I have chosen would be psychospiritual growth because when we did our personal assessments earlier in the class I felt that this was one that I needed to focus on the most. Within psychospiritual growth, I WILL focus on first myself in order to extend myself to others. I am going to continue to do the exercises we have learned about; loving-kindness, subtle mind, and universal loving-kindness. Erika

Mental Fitness

ErikaBuckmaster Project Unit5 by CreatingWellness

Unit 5-Subtle mind

Hi everyone:)

I am not sure if I can compare the loving kindness to the subtle mind, they each are valuable in our ultimate goal of human flourishing.  The main difference I see is that with loving kindness you are intentionally sending out positive messages to others and yourself while with the subtle mind its focus is primarily on us.  I wrote down several things that I thought were crucial:

1.  Our breath is always with us so using that as a focal point means that this can be done anywhere or anytime.

2.  As I was practicing I began to realize that most of my thoughts were not really important to dwell on.  It's not that they are not important but having a subtle mind will help being at peace with the thoughts and feelings.

3.  The last thing that came to mind was "do I really even have a thought that I should get "wrapped around the axle" about" and I really didn't. 

The connections between spiritual health and physical and mental health work together, without one would we truly be "healthy"?  I would have a tendency to say no.  Scientifically we know what happens when we are stressed and spiritually we would not be able to be clear about who we are. 

Have a great week everyone!

Erika