Unit 10 Blog

As I was reviewing my Unit 3 Blog, I realized that I actually scored myself higher in each area than I did in Unit 9. But as I got to thinking throughout the semester, I realized that I was not as strong as I thought I was in each of these areas. I need work in all three, but I am willing to go and find a way to improve myself. I have made progress in each area, because I am finding more time to exercise and eat healthier, I am making more time for God and prayer, and I am finding time to release my stress and free my mind. I feel as if we can make time for anything we want to if we just put our minds to it. I have been lazy in the past and would make excuses for myself to not finish a goal I have set, but now I am realizing how important each one of these tasks is in my life. And for me to have complete happiness and fill whole, I need to give my best effort in each area. I have made progress in achieving each area, and I will continue to use my the activities I have chosen for myself for the rest of my life. I believe I have improved on my over all well being because I now know how I can relieve myself of extra stress, and how I can use what I know and have to benefit other people. I love being able to help others and with this new information, not only can I make my life whole, but I can help others on their journey as well! Being able to become a better person throughout this course has been very rewarding and knowing that I can keep improving myself gives me something to look forward to. Making time is one difficulty but as I said if you really want something done, you will make time for it. This experience will help me to assist others because I can prove to them how becoming a whole person can make life so much more enjoyable. And how even something as simply as breathing a certain way, can help you to relieve so much stress! Good luck to everyone in their journey's and future goals! =)

Unit 9 Blog

           When we go to a doctor or dentist, we expect them to already have gone through the process of what we are about to ask them, and we expect them to know the answers to our questions. I believe the same circumstances falls for health and wellness professionals. When we are trying to figure out the best way for us to live a healthy and well life, we want to go to someone who has experience and who knows what they are talking about. I believe for these professionals to help their patients, they need to be fully educated and experienced in their psychological, spiritual, and physical states of well-being. They need to know how to use the mind of the patients for the best outcome. They need to know from a spiritual point what is best for the patient. And of course they need to know what is physically best for the patient. Without first having your own goals and achieving them in all of these areas, you cannot fully teach and train someone else to achieve the full standards in these categories.

            I need to make more time for my spiritual development in order to be fully happy with myself. I have been making more time but it is not where I want it to be quite yet. I also need to make more time for myself physically because I do not feel as whole as I used to with my physical well-being. I think psychologically I am complete, but I know that I can always use stress-reducers with everything I have going on.

            I have assessed my health spiritually by finding more time to spend reading my Bible and going to church. I have found more time to teach my daughter about God, and I am finding more time to teach myself as well. I am always opening myself to learning new things about God and finding new friends who want to learn about God. I have assessed my health physically by making time to exercise more and eat healthier. I think it is always important to eat healthy and exercise no matter how little of time it is. I try and make time every morning for about 10-15 minutes to exercise. I am trying to find the time to do it twice a day as of right now. I have assessed my health psychologically by spending time with breathing exercises and clearing the negative thoughts out of my head. I am trying to surround myself with only positive impacts and throwing out the negative in my life. I am using the power of breathing and imagery to clear my head and make my mind stronger.

I would score my wellness spiritually as a 7. I think I have a strong spiritual wellness, but there is always room for improvement. I would score my physical wellness as a 6. I have been in a much better place physically but am working very hard to get back to that place. I would score my psychological wellness as a 7. I think I have a very strong psychological sense, but as with everything else, there is always room for improvements.

One of the goals I have for myself physically is to lose about 20 pounds before summer. I am not disgusted with my weight but I do want to be healthier and I do want to lose some weight. One of my goals for being more spiritually healthy is to spend more time reading the Bible and spending more time teaching and spreading God’s Word. I feel that if a life can be changed, and we have the opportunity to do it, then we should take that challenge. One of my goals to be more psychologically well is to spend at least twice a day using one of the relaxation methods and clearing my head of all things negative that are keeping me from living the peaceful life I want.

A strategy I could use to grow spiritually would be to spend at least 10-15 minutes in the morning and 10-15 minutes at night becoming more in touch with God. Even when our days are busy, we should always make time for God. I could also volunteer with projects and missions to help people learn about God and what all He has done for us. I can implement these by setting my priorities straight and just doing it. I can look throughout the neighborhood and my church I attend right now and see what all I can do to help the community to learn about God. A strategy I can use to grow physically is to leave about an hour a day to exercise. Even though time can be strenuous, we can always make time for things that will help our futures. I can also start planning healthy meals instead of just picking healthy foods here and there. I can implement these by making time to do them. I can put tasks aside that aren’t quite as important and spend more time taking care of myself. A strategy I can use to grow psychologically would be making time to clear my mind of the negative thoughts I have. I can also strengthen my mind by educating myself with something I am not familiar with. I think if we challenge our minds with something we don’t know much about, then we are strengthening ourselves psychologically. I can do these tasks by using exercise techniques such as breathing sessions, and I can find projects that interest me and that are challenging.

I can assess my progress over the next six months by keeping a chart to see when and how I have accomplished these goals. I think it is important to write down what your goals are and mark them off as you do them. I think that if I can’t do one of the for some reason, then I need to pick up where I left off the next day and just add a day to my time. I think when you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. I also think by telling someone what you are doing, they can help encourage you to accomplish your goals.

The strategies I can use in maintaining a long-term goal for my spiritual, physical, and psychological well-being would be to look back at the progress I made after completing my goals and realize how amazing it felt when I accomplished something I worked so hard on. Then I would look back and see how I felt before accomplishing these goals and realize that I do not want to return to that place. One big strategy I can use is to do these tasks for God and for my daughter. I think that when we have someone in mind that we want to accomplish these goals for, then that can push us further to complete it.

Unit 8 Blog

The two practice sessions that I have found to be most beneficial are the Aesclepius Practice and the Universal Loving-Kindness Practice. I chose the Aesclepius Practice because the person who I would like to be more like is someone who has never failed anyone and who we should all want to be more like. I think that if we would all pick someone who gives everything and never takes, and who has an unending care and love for the people around them, then this world would be a much better place. I want to be able to show others that I do care and that I do want to help everyone I can because maybe they will start to realize how nice to is when someone helps them and return the favor. When we decide that we want to be the great change the world needs to see, then we will start seeing the world change as well. I think the problem today is that we are always looking our for ourselves and not the needs of others.

I also liked the Universal Loving-Kindness exercise because it showed me how to put myself into someone else's life and realize what all they are going through and maybe see how I can help this person. The person I chose for this exercise in the grieving situation is someone who has amazing faith but has had a really hard time. She is an example to me because no matter what life has thrown at her, she has never lost faith in God and keeps getting up and becomign stronger with each obstacle she comes across. I have known several people like that who are amazing examples to what "being strong" is all about.

I think both of these can be implemented in my life to help with my mental fitness because I am looking into the world through another's eyes and seeing what all I have over looking through mine. I think when we take the time to realize what we need to change, we are bettering ourselves and making ourselves stronger in every sense. When we want to be the change the world needs, we are showing people it is possible to become like the ones we look up to and we are strengthening others as well.

Unit 7 Blog

With the Aesclepius practice, I realized how hard it would be for me to put myself in someone else's shoes who was so wise, kind, peaceful, compassionate, and joyful. The one man who came to mind that I found to be so loving, wise, respectful and honorable was Jesus Christ. This is the one man who I will never be able to be like but I can sure try and possess some of the amazing qualities that He had. With this meditative practice, I tried to think the way His mind, speech and heart worked and tried to transform myself into the amazing person He was.

I think mindfulness and meditation have helped me because it has taught me how to let go of the negative aspects in my life and try to learn how to be a better person. Some of these practices are hard for me because some of them made me really think about things that weren't making me so happy and to try and push those out of my life and some of those were hard for me. I want to be the best person I can be and be the most positive person I can be for my family and for myself.

I can apply these different things that I have learned by pushing negative situations and people out of my life and welcoming in all of the positives aspects of life. I need to learn to let go of my past and make way for an amazing future. And I need to learn to be a better person and think about those who are less fortunate and learn to put myself in other's lives.

I think the saying "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself," means that we cannot completely help someone down a path of being successful without having taken that path before. We cannot tell someone how a situation will be or how hard it easy it was to get ther without having done it before. We need to first be a student before we can be a teacher. We have to take the situation and learn the mistakes and good experiences we can have before we can show others how to get through the same situation.\

I think this applies to the health and wellness profession because in order for a professional to help out their patients, they need to know their information in order to be able to provide the patient with the right information. I think that experience makes the situation even better because the patient can realize that someone has made it through what they are going through and that will give them hope to make it through the situation themselves.

I think that I would have an obligation to my clients because I know that I am not fully prepared to teach someone how to be completely positive and let go of all the bad because I have not reached that point yet in my life. My glass is still half empty in that category so I have to work on it myself before I can teach someone else to be whole.

I can implement spiritual and psychological growth in my life by clearing my mind and making room for everything positive. I am becoming more in touch with God and it makes me feel complete. I always feel as if something is missing and now that I am becoming more and more in touch with Christ, I am feeling happier and whole again. I think learning how to let things go will help me with my stress and psychological areas as well.

Mind-Body Connection Blog

On a scale of 1-10 I would rate my physical well being about an 8. I am not ashamed of my body but I do believe that our body's are God's temples and that we should treat them as such. I am always looking for ways of improving my body because I think staying active not only affects your physical appearance, but also our mental and social aspects as well. I would rate my spiritual well being about a 9. I think that I can always improve on my spiritual well being and that there will always be room for improvement but I will always keep a strong faith. I would rate my psychological well being about an 8. I think that for everything I have been through in the past few years, I am handling it rather well. I have an amazing life and I have never had anything too tragic happen but just a lot of changes and good byes. I have had to learn to do a lot on my own and I am learning to be a stronger person and Christian because of it. I think I am stable in my psychological state of being but I also will take any advice on how to become stronger or remain this way.

A goal for me physically would be to continue to exercise on a regular basis and start eating healthier. I think that our bodies need fuel but healthy fuel. I also think that eating right isn't going to do the trick itself. I think exercise, even if short periods of it, also helps to make us stronger within ourselves. Spiritually I want to become more committed to my time as a Follower of Christ and become a more faithful Christian and less of a materialistic and sinful human. Psychologically I would like to become stronger within myself and realize that through my weaknesses there is a light at the end of the dark tunnel. I tend to blow situations out of proportion sometimes and I want to be able to not do that and calmly and rationally fix whatever situations are occurring.

I can go on daily walks and continue with the exercises I am doing now. I can slowly add new and healthy nutrition to our diet we have right now. I can go to church more often, pray more often and spend more time with God. And I can take a few minutes everyday to relfect on all of the amazing blessings I have in my life and know that the bad shall pass. I think that by taking a few minutes to ourselves and taking some deep breaths, we can learn to handle situations a lot better.

When I listened to The Crime of the Century, I felt very relaxed. I loved how he took several different body parts, with the different colors and made you realize different positive aspects about yourself. I like seeing everything broken up and telling myself all of these positive things. At the end whenever it was over and I was supposed to be gathering myself up, I did feel like going to sleep which was not supposed to happen. I was supposed to feel energized and be able to go on with my days activities but I did feel sleepy. I think this did help me to relieve some stress and I would do it again but towards the latter part of the day and not early in the morning.

Relaxation Video

I was amazed at how this video actually made me feel. I felt like I was so relaxed and I loved the way my body just felt like a sponge. I don't usually take the time to listen to videos like that but they really do help. It makes you feel as if you are somewhere else and only concentrating on making yourself more comfortable.

Hello Everyone!

Hello everyone! This is my first attempt at blogging but I am excited to read everyone's blogs and see what all this class has to offer! I wish everyone the best of luck with this class and I hope we can all succeed in what we want to do!