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.

Unit 3 Blog

1. Based on my reflections, I rate my physical well being at 7 because I am not out of shape but I have not been exercising as much as I used to because I am always so tired and sick randomly. I am 6 months pregnant so my physical wellness is not 100%. I rate my psychological well being at 8. I am pretty good at balancing stress and a full load and I participate in activities to help with my psych levels. Spiritually I am 9. I attend and participate in church activities regularly. I pray with my husband and family daily and we keep God and spiritual wellness at the top of our list.

2. My goals: Physical is to start exercising more often again (3-4 times a week) and stretch more often
Psychological is to start meditating or find ways to relax my thoughts and plan more.
Spiritually: It is already pretty good but I want to become even more active in church and help coordinate functions. This will help me stay spiritually enriched.

3. For my physical goal I can start walking more because it is more difficult to run and I can stretch at home as well as do lunges and squats to keep body toned and boost physical activity. For my psychological goal I can start finding a quiet spot in my home daily and reflecting and meditating. For my spiritual I can find out what activities are coming up in my church and volunteer my services.

4. I found this exercise frustrating and not beneficial to me. I have tried meditation in the past but I think I probably have too much going on in my home and life to focus. I went into my room and turned the lights off and I was only one in there but I could still here activity in other rooms which was distracting and I could not concentrate because while trying to focus on breath and relaxing, I was thinking about my next school assignment due.

Courtney L. Jacobs