Last but not Least...BitterSweet :-) Unit 10 BloG

For Unit 3, I scored my physical health at 7, psychological at 8, and spiritual at 9. Now I would score myself at a 8 physically, psychologically at a 9, and spiritually at a 10. My scores have all increased because I have made my exercise more regular throughout this course, and I also exercise my mind daily. I take time out to meditate daily now and this helps my overall psychological health. My spiritual health has strengthened by me becoming more involved in church and the ministries within.

I have made great process with all of the goals and activities I set for myself in Unit 3. This course has helped me focus on my personal wellbeing in both my home and work life and I have built on that principle and mentality. I have implemented all of the activities I chose for my well-being in all 3 areas. This is how I have become successful at growing physically, psychologically, and spiritually.

My personal experience in this course has been great. I have used the loving kindness and meditation technique a lot in my work and home life to help destress and forgive people and this has helped so much. The fact that I have been able to handle my thoughts and actions have been the most rewarding about this course. I learned this in the course and I have not had any difficulties within the course. My experience will improve my ability to assist others because I have started to build my integral health and in order to help others I must be good. I now feel comfortable to start to assist others and I have my inner self together.

 

This has been a great class!!

 

Courtney L. Jacobs

 

Last but not least...Unit 9 Project

I.Introduction:

It is important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually, and physically because they cannot successfully develop plans and assist patients if their mind, body, and spirit are not intact. They cannot provide guidance on something they know nothing about. To achieve the goals I have for myself I need to work on my psychological development.  My spiritual and physical health is pretty good but my psychological health needs improvement in the area of handling stress. I tend to stress a lot whereas my husband is a casual go with the flow type person. I would like to be stress free like he is.

II. Assessment:

To assess my spiritual health, I review my faith and religious beliefs. I pray daily and know that my spiritual health is strong. My physical health was assessed by my workout routine and physical fitness testing. My psychological health is assessed by reviewing how well I handle stress and high thinking situations. In my spiritual health and physical wellness I score high. My nutrition, fitness, and spiritual relationship are all great. My psychological wellness needs some work.

III. Goal development:

Physical goal: To get back into 100% shape after I have the baby in September. I think being 30 weeks and only gaining 16 lbs so far I have been doing great.

Psychological goal: To meditate more and find a healthy balance between stress and a lot of activity.

Spiritual goal: To continue to build my relationship with God and understand and convey his teachings and word.

IV. Practices for personal health:

To foster growth in the physical domain, I will continue my daily walks and light weight lifting. I will continue to go to the gym at least 3 times a week and focus on a healthy nutrition and fight the pregnancy cravings.

To foster growth in the psychological domain, I will continue to practice a couple of the meditation techniques learned in class; loving kindness and meditation. The exercises are available in the course textbook so I will be able to refer back to it in future. I will implement the loving kindness meditation when I am feeling evil towards someone or when someone uses me. I will use the meditation technique during those times as well as when I am stressed. I have a lot of stressful situations in my life and meditation has begun to help me handle the stress.

To foster my growth spiritually, I will continue to attend bible study and church service weekly as well as read the bible nightly and interpret it. Interpretation of the bible will help me understand my purpose in God’s eyes and bible study is a time I get to fellowship with my fellow church members and discuss and a key topic from our religious teachings. All of this will definitely help me continue to grow spiritually.

V. Commitment:

I will assess my progress or lack of progress within the next six months by keeping a journal. Keeping a journal will help me see my transition throughout my integral health process. Some strategies I could use to assist in maintaining my long term practices for health and wellness is to make it a habit to practice some form of integral health practice every day. Entering a process of self-development, serving, acknowledging and supporting the healing capacities in each individual, and holding all life as unique and precious will assist me in maintaining long term practices (Dacher, 2006).

 

References

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

Most Benefical Practices for Me

The most beneficial practices to me were the meditation and loving kindness. I just recently had a reception Saturday and it was very hectic for my husband and I. I had to meditate AND reflect back on the loving kindness exercise to have peace and remember to be happy and nice to everyone there despite how negative or rude they were being. It took a lot of meditation various times throughout the 3 hours of the reception but I made it through it and it turned out BEAUTIFUL!

I will work on continuing to incorporate these practices into my life daily and I have found this course and practices to actually help me more than I knew. Last Saturday helped me realize this!

 

 

Thank you and I hope you all have a great week!

 

Courtney Jacobs

Unit 7 Meditation practice session

This week's meditation exercise was very helpful. This week has been a stressful week for me because we are having our wedding reception on July 5 and we have been doing all of the last minute stuff and not to mention its June 30 and my dress has not been shipped yet. On top of this I made 7 months pregnant yesterday so I have had quite a week and this exercise has helped me relax and think peaceful thoughts. The ocean sounds and soothing voice of the woman on the audio also helped. The soft music in the background was nice as well. Meditation has aided in increasing my spiritual wellness by helping me relax and focus on my faith and spiritual growth. Focusing on my deep faith takes meditation time and prayer time and this ultimately leads to better health for me. My blood pressure stays low, my headaches decrease, and I feel more at peace.
The saying "one cannot lead another when one has not gone himself" means that you cannot advise or counsel someone when you have not experienced their struggles. When applying this to health and wellness profession, the professional must be able to empathize and understand what the Client is experiencing. Having personal experience with issue helps as you can give advice based on what you or someone close to you has learned. I think we do have an obligation to our clients to develop psychologically, spiritually, and physically because the more we develop the more knowledgeable well be to assist others in their development. I can implement spiritual and psychological growth in my life by meditating and continuing to fellowship with my church congregation and pastor.

Courtney Jacobs
 

Unit 6 Blog Integral Assessment

Hello Class,
The loving kindness meditation exercise was unsuccessful as usual for me. I am working on my mediation skills and trying to concentrate more on them but it is quite difficult for me. This week I was able to find a super quiet spot in my home but my mind kept wondering so I would have to say the first exercise was not successful for me. Any tips on how I can try to focus on the exercise so it can be more beneficial to me?
I discovered in the integral assessment exercise that my psychospiritual well being needed to be fine tuned. I have to find a way to balance my personal life, spiritual life, and social life. Since being pregnant my personal and social lives have changed a lot. We do not do as much because I am sick a lot and this takes effect on everything else. I have been working on my spiritual life and I feel I am making a lot of progress but I just have to learn how to balance it all. This was a good exercise and I did enjoy it and find it beneficial.

Unit 5 Blog-The Subtle Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste!

I think the loving-kindness practice helped relax my mind more than the subtle mind practice. I definitely lost my train of concentration a few times when trying to relax because my mind wondered to other tasks and events of the day. After a few times of trying I finally decided it was time to get serious and concentrate as best as I could on the Subtle Mind practice. I was overall unsuccessful at getting my mind to totally float free. It is always going 100mph. I was thinking about other school assignments randomly or what I needed to do at work the next day. I focused and concentrated more with the loving kindness practice.
My spiritual wellness coincides hand in hand with my mental and physical wellness. A year ago I made up my mind to take the spiritual journey I have been on and my husband agreed to take it with me and we started reading the scripture more and focusing on God and our spiritual growth and this has taken our relationship to the next level. While we are not perfect and we do have good days and bad days as with any relationship, we use our spiritual faith as the foundation so make it through everything. It feels good and our mental and physical health have both improved over the last year. Our faith is what carries us through and helps us eliminate a lot of the additional stress in our lives.

Courtney

Unit 4 Blog

My experience with this week's exercise of loving kindness was interesting. First I had to find a place quiet where I could concentrate as usual as my home is always so busy. Once I started listening to the audio and got past the voice and listened more to the words, I began to focus on the objective of the exercise.  I found it did not instantly help me but I tried it a couple of days this week and it eventually started to help me be more positive towards others and change my attitude. Being pregnant my hormones are out of whack, so this exercise helps me relax and remember I do have a heart and feelings and so does EVERYONE around me. I would recommend this exercise to others as it is useful when reflecting on your actions and heart and remembering the hearts of others. I saw myself mature as a person after a couple of exercises.
Mental workout is the exercising of the mind to help relax it as it is constantly working and needs breaks and tuning at times just as our cars do and computers do. Research proves that mental workouts enhances our skills and insight into life and our abilities to comprehend and understand why people and the world function as they do. It would be difficult for me to incorporate mental workouts into my life because I am not used to them but once I set a routine to do it once a day it would eventually become a routine.

Courtney J.