Final Project

               I.               Introduction:
                      It is important for everyone to develop psychologically, spiritually and physically. Though I think it’s especially important for health and wellness professionals. If the professionals are not well in these areas, how can they be expected to teach others to achieve this wellness? It can’t just be a “do as I say not as I do” mind set. To teach others how to do something you must be proficient in it yourself. In this case a health and wellness professional should feel whole and well in these three areas of wellness and be able to pass on their knowledge and tips on how to achieve wellness. I need to develop in all three areas. I think most people would say that as well. No one is perfect. I have goals in every area of wellness. I think my biggest focus right now are on psychological and spiritual health, as I have been working on my physical health for some time now.

              II.               Assessment:
       People are constantly changing. I assessed my health a little over a month ago and rated my physical health a 7, my spiritual wellness a 5 and my psychological a 7. As for physical I think I am around the same. Maybe even down a point to a 6 because I just haven’t been able to get into working out lately and I am sleep deprived. But for the most part my nutrition has stayed the same; I haven’t had any illness etc. Spiritually I think I would bump myself up to a 6 as well. I am trying to be more in tune with myself and finding my place in life. I have realized how important I am to my children and my family and it has boosted me spiritually. I have also found a few of the exercises in class very helpful. Psychologically I’ll say I have fallen down to around a 5. I am having late post partum depression issues. I am very down psychologically and having a hard time coping with my children. I have a 6 month old and a 2 year old. I have no family around and my husband works all day so it is very taxing on me. Add onto that my 6 month old doesn’t sleep well, doesn’t like naps, is teething and just becoming a little harder to handle. My sleep deprivation affects both physical and psychological wellness. I have had some issues lately resenting my younger child and not wanting to be around her just because it seems like I can’t handle it and I’d rather not stress myself dealing with it. It’s a hard time and I hope I can start to cope better.

             III.               Goal development:
           I have goals in every area of my wellness. Physically my most realistic goal is to take better care of my body. This includes eating less food that is bad for me and working out more. The biggest thing I need to change physically is my sleep deprivation but that’s not a goal I can work out myself right now because my baby is up at night causing it. Spiritually I want to try and have quiet time every day. I’m attempting to find a few minutes every morning before everyone is awake to have a few minutes of quiet time to just connect with myself. Psychologically my goal is a little different. I am looking for a doctor to help me with that. I need to talk things through, maybe with a psychiatrist so I can have access to medications if that point comes along. However I’d like to try and resolve things with some therapy and mental health time to myself.

            IV.               Practices for personal health: 

                 To help physical wellness there are two exercises I want to focus on. First is literal exercise. Since it is getting warmer out I am going to start taking my kids for walks to get some sun and exercise. The other is to practice checking ingredients on everything before I eat it. If something is questionable I want to make myself put that food down and walk away. Psychologically I am going to have more fun. Instead of staying inside with the children on the weekend I can take them to a playplace or the library. The other exercise is acknowledging my achievements no matter how small. At the end of the day if I think back and I got nothing substantial done that day, I am still going to appreciate that I was there for my children. I fed them, loved them, nurtured them etc and I should be proud of that. I think being less hard on myself and more appreciative I can boost my mental health. Spiritually I can work on meditation. I am not a fan of meditation but I would like to try implementing it into my life more. Second is just trying to have some relaxing time listening to slow music and doing whatever I would like. I never get this time so I have to try and find it. Instead of doing the dishes maybe I’ll listen to yoga music and paint my nails.

             V.               Commitment:

                  To assess my progress I think I will stick to rating my wellness out of 10. It gives me a good idea of what I need to work on and what I am improving. I can try to average out the progress I’ve made and what I still need to do to get an accurate rating. The one strategy that I think can really help maintain my goals and practices is to make myself accountable. I can explain to my husband what I need to do and how and when so he can let me know if I am doing them like I said I would. A good idea is to create a group on social media of people who would all like to work on these things. That is a really good way to keep yourself accountable. Everyone could check in with their progress and explain what is or isn’t working for them. 

Integral Assessment

While practicing the loving kindness exercise I was very agitated. I tried to go in with an open mind and tried to get into the mantra but I could not. Then I became agitated because why would I sit here for 10 minutes and repeat this if I don’t feel like it’s helping anything. I should be playing with my kids, doing laundry etc. It just didn’t seem like something I’d like to do.

The area I chose in the assessment to be my focus of growth and development is biological. Specifically the lines of fitness and nutrition. I try every day to better my fitness and nutrition but at the same time I am met with many setbacks. I was extremely motivated after I had my second child in October to get in shape. Once I was cleared to start exercising I focused on a clean diet that met my caloric needs and started going to the gym. In 3 months I lost 20 pounds. Then I stagnated. I got bored of working out. I wanted my sweets, pizza etc back. I am really trying to refocus. I need to get back to implementing my fitness regimen and work on controlling my cravings. 

Subtle Mind

1.          Compare and contrast the Loving Kindness exercise and the Subtle mind exercise. Explain your experience including the benefits, frustrations etc.

Subtle mind had the crashing waves just like loving kindness and that relaxes me the most. I love the sound of water. It’s so pure and relaxing. I kind of got relaxed just by the waves and couldn’t really listen to what the woman was saying. What I did hear I couldn’t focus on. We’ve been dealing with a lot lately so it’s so hard for me to try and take time to explore my mind and get benefits from this. It’s also frustrating because no matter what I do I feel like these things are silly and I can’t believe in them. Maybe I’m trying too hard to fight that and need to just listen.

2.          Discuss the connection of the spiritual wellness to mental and physical wellness. Explain how the connection is manifested in your personal life.

Spiritual wellness is related to mental and physical wellness because you have to believe in yourself and be happy with yourself. If you are spiritually sound your other wellnesses can be more in balance. If you are an optimistic person and in high spirits, you will take things easier and keep happy. It can help with stress and physical ailments. In my personal life I can tell my spiritual wellness affects me when I get sick. I like to lay around in a funk and be sad and cranky when I’m sick. However I have found when I try to be optimistic about getting better, actively thinking what I’ll do when I’m better etc I recover faster. 

Loving Kindness

1.          Describe your experience. Did you find it beneficial? Difficult? Why or why not? Would you recommend this to others? Why or why not?

For once I did find the exercise beneficial. The woman talking was very soft and soothing and I believe that helped. I also enjoyed the calming noise (water?) in the background during the reflections. I would recommend it to others. It really helped me de-stress enough to truly think about what the woman was saying and I think I will keep the clip saved for me or others, especially when someone I know is suffering.

2.          What is the concept of "mental workout"? What does the research indicate are the proven benefits of a mental workout? How can you implement mental workouts to foster your psychological health?

A mental workout is exercising the brain. We expand our brain and keep it in the shape we would like it to be. It is beneficial to memory, helps keep you quick thinking and helps you reach higher levels of thinking for example. For my psychological health I could set aside time each day to work out my brain and do things like meditation then a word search.

Wellbeing

Based on my reflections I would rate my physical wellbeing as a 7. I work every day to better my diet, the things I put in and on my body, etc. I have a very natural diet but I still struggle with cutting out some things like sugar and gluten. I have slacked off on working out this month because we just had a huge move as well and can feel my wellbeing sliding. My spiritual wellbeing I would rate a 5 because I feel like I still have much to work on there. As for psychological I would give it a 7 as well. I have a lot of stress and things I hold onto that I need to let go.

A goal for physical wellbeing is to get lose my last 30 pounds I’m holding onto. Spiritually I would like to become more at peace with things. Psychologically I am trying to not take everything so seriously so it doesn’t stress me out.

To achieve my physical goal I need to start my weight calendar back up and back into the gym. To help achieve my spiritual goal I am going to try meditation and having quiet time to myself. And finally to achieve my psychological goal I am going to try and thoroughly think through everything that stresses me out and tell myself why it really should not.

When trying to do the relaxation exercise I was overwhelmed by everything else in my life. My kids were being loud and there is very little time (until bed) that it is quiet around here for me to take time to myself. Once they are in bed I just want to go to bed as well. I also find it hard for me to relax because I feel guilty. I feel like there’s a million other things I should be doing. It’s hard to justify taking time for myself. I really need to work on this. 

Journey on Relaxation

I really tried to focus on the journey to relaxation but found it to be hard. In day to day life I have many things to do, think about, plan etc. so I found it hard to sit and focus on this relaxation recording without thinking what I have to do next, if I completed something etc. A lot of it also seemed quite silly to me. However that is why I am in this class. I am not in tune with myself in the way this recording tried to accentuate and pursue and I need help with that. I am going to continue listening a few more times and try to focus more and take it more seriously. I hope by doing this continuously at different times I can get a little more into it.

Hello

Welcome to my blog! My name is Nicolle and I am trying to get back to the roots of humans and be as natural as possible. I am here in this class to try and get to the basics of relaxation and spiritual healing.