Unit 10 Wrap-Up

1. For the life of me I could not find where I noted my scores from Unit 3. I remember doing it, but what I did with it is another question. I do know how I feel compared to 6-7 weeks ago though. My psychological and spiritual scores would be about the same as before, while my physical score would be lower. This is largely due to being massively pregnant, with all the aches and pains and stresses that go with it. However I feel like I am on my way to getting things resolved. I have a follow-up appt with a specialist for my kidney stones in the morning, to discuss what our next step is. If it's surgery, I have the comfort of already knowing what to expect as it would be the same procedure I had a couple of years ago, the last time I had this issue.

2. & 3. Again, I can't find the assignment, so I don't recall exactly what I set for myself to do. I do know I have not changed much since then, as my current physical limitations make things very difficult at this point. Most of what I've been able to work on has been improving my psychological wellness, to prevent stress from degrading the other areas of my wellbeing, and laying the groundwork to improve my physical wellness. I'm confident that as I improve physically I'll make great strides to improving the rest of my life.

4. The road through this course was a tough one for me. Health issues with me and my family interfered with my classwork more than once, stressing me out and forcing me to just learn to let go of a situation and make the best of it. Nothing like being 300 words from finishing a major project with an hour til the deadline, and being summoned to take the little one to the ER because he's suddenly running a fever and throwing up all over the place. ~sigh~ But it's finally the end, and considering the rough path I'm happy with what I've accomplished.

Unit 9 Summary

1. Introduction
a. It is critical for health and wellness professionals to develop themselves spiritually, psychologically, and physically because unless we are in the best possible position we can be in our own development, we cannot hope to properly assist our clients in their own search for health and wellness. I feel I am doing well psychologically and spiritually, but my physical health is lacking and affecting the other two areas of my life. The stresses of pregnancy at 30 with constant sickness and kidney stones has been wearing. To obtain my goals, I need to take the time to address my health issues so I can repair the nicks in other areas of my wellness.

2. Assessment
a. I have assessed my health in each area by reflecting on it daily. How do I feel about where I am at versus where I could be? For the most part, I feel that I have reached as many of my goals in my psychological and spiritual domains as I can until I can improve my physical health. My main focus right now is on maintaining my current levels of health and wellness in the first two while I spend the majority of my energy on my physical health.

3. Goal Development
a. My primary goal in both the psychological domain and the spiritual is to do what I can to maintain my current level of wellness. I have two goals in the physical domain. The first is to complete my pregnancy as healthy as possible, and to have a healthy child. My second goal is to continue being followed by my specialist for my kidney stones and get those treated as soon as I can.

4. Practices for personal health
a. To foster growth in my physical health, I can maintain a close relationship with my doctors to figure out the treatment I need to recover and improve my health. I can work with them to decide what medications and procedures will be best for my needs. To foster growth in my psychological health, I can pay attention to my moods and implement methods to equalize the mood swings. These can be nutritional supplements, relaxation techniques, or pharmaceuticals, as needed. To foster growth in my spiritual health, I can make time each day to focus on meditation techniques, and practice breathing and mental clarity exercises.

5. Commitment
a. I will be able to assess my progress primarily in the physical domain. As I complete the pregnancy and begin to recover from that, and get the kidney stones dealt with, my body can begin to heal. As my body heals, I will be able to focus more attention towards maximizing my psychological and spiritual wellness. I will know I am making progress as I am able to focus more and more attention to these two areas. Maintaining my close relationship with my health care providers and dedicating more time to other areas of my wellness will help me maintain my goals in the long term.

Week Eight

I had a difficult time choosing the two exercises I most benefited from. The majority of them had the vocal track with them which I find highly distracting, and difficult to use at just any time that I need to as I may not always have a CD player available to run through the exercise. The ones I liked the best were the ones where I could simply shut out the world and let the background sounds wash over me, giving me a platform to quiet my mind and just let it wander and see what discoveries or insights came to mind. These are ones that I can implement any time I need a mental refresher or jsut a quick 5 minute cool down from stress in my life, and continue on as a happier, calmer person in my interactions with the world.

Meeting Asciepius

I had a lot of difficulty with this meditation. I often struggle with voice-led meditations such as this because I find myself focusing more on the voice than the instructions it's giving, and find it distracting. I have also lost a number of very dear friends and family in my life, and I found it difficult to choose one to focus on. This kind of makes me sad because for each person I could have chosen, there is so much that I would have liked to have said to them, or wisdom I wish I could have gotten from them.

I fully agree with the statement, "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself." I believe in the practice of "Practice what you preach." I feel anything else is hypocritical. I don't believe I have any right to tell someone they should do XYZ, if I do not or would not do the same myself. I also know I get angry when someone tries to tell me to do or not do something, yet they do the exact opposite, so why would I want to do that to someone else?

Exercise and Assessment

I found the exercise to be difficult. Not so much in making the changes in my mind, but primarily in the execution. We were instructed to close our eyes and focus on the exercise before actually doing it, meaning there was no ability to read the phrases during the exercise. I think it took me longer to try to memorize the phrases to be able to complete this component that it did to execute the exercise. This is why exercises such as this generally don't work for me.

So I turned my attention to the assessment. Most of my issues right now stem from problems in the biological quadrant of the aspects, primarily the physical body. Between being pregnant and having kidney stones on top of it, I just plain don't feel good. It is easy for me to see how this has begun to affect other aspects of my health as well. I have been saying for 3 days I need to call the dr again to see if they have gotten my consultation appt set up yet, and just haven't done it. Until that appt happens, I can't progress towards healing the issue. I am roadblocking my recovery by failing to make one phone call. I need to make it a priority to get that phone call made.

Subtlety

Finally, an exercise that did not put me to sleep! I, like others, found the narrator's voice in the Loving Kindness exercise to be a bit distracting. But when I listened to the Subtle Mind exercise, I was more able to just relax and let my mind go where it will. I like relaxation methods that I can do anywhere, anytime, without the need for a CD or other implements. Something that I can do in 5 minute increments during the day regardless of whether I'm at home during my son's nap, in the waiting room at the dr's office, or waiting for my daughter's school bus on the corner.

I believe spiritual wellness is crucial to mental and physical health. I have noticed before that when I'm stressed out or hurting either mentally or physically, my first instinct is to turn inward and nurse my spiritual aspect, whether by simply taking a nap to give my brain time to reset, or full meditation if I need to analyze something without the distractions of daily life.

Loving Kindness

My first thought on the Loving Kindness exercises is kinda random. It's mostly, I REALLY need to start taking a nap before doing these relaxation exercises. My body is so used to my use of meditation to fight off insomnia that it instantly equates the exercises with sleep.

Once I woke up and restarted the tracks, it was great. I finished the exercises much more focused than I had been before. Right now I plan to move on and finish the rest of my homework while I'm still relaxed and able to concentrate.

The idea of a mental workout is to condition the mind so it takes to tasks better, is more focused, and is more observant. Research has shown that even mini workouts improve clarity and focus. I love doing mental workouts here and there when my mind starts to scatter.