HW420-Unit 10 Reflection

For this final post to my Health and Wellness class I am to review my Unit 3 personal assessment which you may read here. 

I rated myself an 8 for physical and wanted to increase time spent exercising, while I was unable to increase daily time I was able to add an extra day of yoga. I still rate myself a 9 spiritually and probably always will as there is always room for improvement. I’ve added a bit of service in that I applied to volunteer a few hours at our local animal shelter. I am working on adding an additional 10 minutes to my morning and evening meditation routines. I still rate my psychological well-being a 9 because I rarely stress or sweat the small things. I have good relationships with family and I believe that my spiritual success spills over into my psychological part of life. My scores haven’t changed but I am making progress if only in the aspect that I have broadened my knowledge on my holistic health.

I am making progress towards goals. I have successfully added five minutes to my evening meditation but I still am working on the morning goal. I met my goal of adding a day of exercise and it feels good to have accomplished that goal. I will find a way to be of service, it’s will be a matter of finding the passion.

I do think my well-being has improved. I enjoyed learning new things and retrying meditations I had tried in the past. While I don’t feel they are a good fit for me I have adapted some of the practices to further improve my current meditation practices. I definitely believe this class will be important in my professional life because it has shown me that the different ways that I may help people become comfortable with meditation and leading a whole life inside and out.

Linda

HW420-Unit 9 Final Project

Introduction

              It is important for a health and wellness professional to develop themselves psychologically, physically and spiritually so that they better understand what their clients/patients challenges are and to be able to say they’ve walked the walked. As a health and wellness professional we need to be able to make suggestions not only based on what we might have tried personally but through our continuing education.

              Personally, I need to develop more in the psychological and physical areas. The goals that I have are to get stronger physically and mentally. Physically I want to increase my endurance as well as maintain my cholesterol levels and my blood pressure. Psychologically I want to learn how to ask for help. I have a tendency to do whatever needs to be done myself even if it means not getting in time to exercise. If I learned to ask for help I could let go of some of the stress that follows doing everything myself.

Assessment

              I assess my physical health with tests like the sit and reach, the Rockport Walk Test, push up tests and others that will measure my muscle strength. I score my physical wellness an 8 and believe it will get better if I increase the time I spend exercising. Spiritually I assess myself on how I am feeling and whether or not I am living the principles of the Tao. The closer I follow the principle the better I feel. I would score myself a 9 out of 10 for my spiritual wellbeing. Psychologically I assess myself based on how I am feeling spiritually and physically. If I am feeling no stress and healthy then my mental wellbeing is usually fine. Psychologically I would rate myself an 8 to 8.5

Goal Development

              A goal I have for my physical well-being is to increase my endurance and maintain the medical improvements I have made in regard to my cholesterol and regulating my blood pressure. For my mental health I would like to increase my meditation time from 20 minutes to 30 minutes. Learning to forgive mistakes I and others make more easily is what I would like to work on spiritually.

Practices for Personal Health

              The strategies I could implement to realize my goals would be to schedule additional time for exercise each or add a sixth day to my program and I could add new types of exercises that I typically might not try to enhance my physical being. Spiritually I could increase service to others whether through an organization or just by helping someone when they need it. I could also try to find a group to meditate with to increase my awareness of the world around me. Psychologically or mentally I could increase my meditation times to help aid in stress reduction and I could also add more yoga time to my routine to help calm my mind and body for my meditation.

Commitment

              To assess my progress or lack of progress I could keep a daily journal. By doing this I would have a visual of how I am working on developing my new habits. Journaling will be helpful to track my feelings mentally and spiritually. The physical aspect can be tracked by whether my clothing is getting looser and by preforming the tests I mentioned earlier like the Rockport Walk Test. To continue to hold myself accountable to my goals beyond six months I could develop a support system of people who are in the same position as myself and people who are beyond my development. Each of these groups can help keep me motivated to continue while at the same time provide a social outlet that will enhance all the aspects of my whole well-being.

             

HW-420-Unit 8

The most beneficial exercises for me were the Loving-Kindness from Unit 6 and Subtle Mind from Unit 5. I admit that is because they were the exercises that resembled the type of meditation I already practice.

With the Loving-Kindness I practiced with the exercise provided and learned the guided part so that I could self-guide and use my own music or nature sounds. I find guided meditation hard to do because I am so used to not hearing anything other than the music or sounds I introduce. However we can all modify these exercises to suit our needs. Using meditation to spread goodwill is something I strive to do for myself and others. This was the easiest for me because of the mantras and it was very close to what I learned from Dr. Wayne Dyer’s books and PBS specials.

Subtle-mind was also good for me as well. I have really embraced this practice as it helps me let go of the days clutter in my head and allows me to sleep more peacefully. Many times I have cleared my mind so completely I have fallen asleep in my meditation area. I have now decided that practicing this decluttering should be done after I climb into my bed for the night.

I am supposed to tell how I will implement these practices into my daily life, well I have been practicing meditation for over ten years and it has become so ingrained in my daily life that I feel off if I don’t get my meditation time in. When I first started I only meditated for short periods. I had to learn how to focus and I had to teach my then 8 and 12 year-olds to let me have that time. Now ten years later I start my day with a 20 minute meditation and I end my day with another 20 minute meditation. As with anything we truly want in our lives it takes the three “P’s” practice, patience and persistence.

Linda