Unit 9 Post

Unit 9 – Personal Application of the Psychological and Spiritual Aspects of Healing

Anita “Yvette” Clark

Kaplan University

HW420: Creating Wellness: Psychological and Spiritual Aspects of Healing

Dr. John Aguilar, M. Div., PhD

05/21/2011

Introduction

It is important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually and physically in order to be able to help others understand integral health and accomplish human flourishing.  If we do not understand and accomplish these practices our self, we are not able to teach from personal experience and knowledge (Dacher, 2006).  We need to learn to listen, understand the emotional state the individual is at the time, be willing to be there with them without losing control of our knowledge and aspects, be strong enough our self in our learning and teaching, so we can assist them in the direction necessary to allow beginning changes to take place (Dacher, 2006).  We have to be able to know when the individual is ready to advance to other levels, as well as know when there are set backs to continue encouraging and motivating in the right direction (Dacher, 2006).  It is the same as what I am learning now.  I have learned the concepts and practices of human flourishing.  Since it is a new concept, I need to continue to work on them to fully understand and have incorporated these practices into my life.  Currently it is hard to accomplish because it is a new concept and I am not disciplined.  I need to accomplish discipline in the meditation areas, witnessing mind, calm abiding, finally reaching unity consciousness (Dacher, 2006).  I also need to develop the subtle mind through lots of patients and practice and dedicate 10 minutes a day working on this, gradually working up to the full required time.  If I do not take the time to advance myself in the areas I mentioned, adding it to my daily exercise routines, I will not have learned how to properly flourish, therefore, I am unable to help anyone else accomplish these goals (Dacher, 2006).

Assessment

I have assessed my health in each domain, spiritual, physically, and psychologically.  My score for my physical health remains the same as when I assessed in unit 3, which is an 8-9.  This remains because I still exercise 3 times a week, weight lifting exercises, and the other 3 days, Zumba….absolutely love!  This kind of dancing goes along with my heritage of dancing style.  Great exercise.  My spiritual and psychological health seems to have slid backwards from the assessment in unit 3, to a 5-6.  I feel the reason for this is because of a lot of stress with everyday life, end of class homework, yard work, housework, etc., and the list goes on.  I am also not disciplined in the area of meditation and have a lot of work to do.  I am putting more pressure on myself because I want to know, become very familiar with the concept and practices, so I pressure myself.  This is something I have always done when there is something I want to accomplish. 

Goal Development

My goals are to accomplish and master the art of integral health, human flourishing, subtle mind, unity consciousness, etc.  I want to understand and know as much as I can.  I want to flourish in these areas, become high on life with this new found perspective and way of living.  I am excited to push forward, which is where part of my stress comes from.  I don’t know if that makes any sense to anyone, but this is what I have always done to myself, and I ultimately always accomplish what I set my mind too.  So, in the Physical sense, I will continue to do my exercises as always.  In the Spiritual and Psychological sense, I have to continue to practice making these areas an important part of my life to expand, mature, understand, and master.  If I cannot do it every day, then I will set time to accomplish these practices 3 times a week, 4 times a week, etc. until they become a part of everyday habits (life).  Like Dacher says, we are mentally disturbed and I am now!! Very disturbed!  So, if I am mentally disturbed, then so is my physical and spiritual (Dacher, 2006).  I have to bring them all back into balance with each other and I feel how uneasy I am emotionally, and spiritually, I can feel it all in my insides……I want to scream!  As you can see, I have a lot of work that needs to be done but not impossible.  This is my goal!

Practices for Personal Health

The two practices I will implement for my personal health will be the Loving-Kindness and Subtle Mind.  These two practices seem to be the best because I am most calm during these two practices.  To implement these, I will do as already mentioned, practice 3 times a week, 4 times a week, until I get myself to practice every day.  This will help me to discipline myself slowly, so as to eventually accomplish the full required time of meditation, and two, it will be possible to slowly incorporate these practices into my daily life style.  I will first start with the subtle mind practice in the morning and Loving-Kindness before bed.  I think they will be perfect together, Subtle Mind starting me off for my day, and Loving-Kindness ending my day thinking of others.

Commitment

Commitment will be Subtle Mind in the morning starting out 3 days a week for ten minutes at a time, increasing time to full required time, then going to 4 days, and so on.  The Loving-Kindness Practice will be every night before I go to bed, since this is pretty much like praying, but meditating for a period of time.  

I wish everybody luck in your future practices and accomplishments with human flourishing and integral health; and thank you all for your patience and guidance.  Have a great summer!  Yvette

Reference

Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing. Laguna Beach, California: Basic Health Publications, Inc.

Unit 8 - the two meditation practices I like best, hhmmm!

I would have to say the two meditation practices I like best are Subtle Mind and Universal Loving-Kindness.
I love the Subtle Mind because it is teaching me how to relax my whole body and mind, bringing them into sinct with each other making them one unit.  As Dacher says, I am to allow myself to settle into the natural ease of my mind and body, breathing while maintaing firm concentration on your chosen focal point.  My chosen focal point is listenting, listening, listening to my body, focusing on learning what it is saying through my breathing, my heart rate, and muscle reaction (how long it takes to relax them).  I have been working on this exercise since we learned about it, and I am getting better at listening to my body.  Relaxing everything about me bringing all my sounds together as one unit. I have not reached the full experience of this type of meditation practice yet, but will definitely be working on reaching the last step, which is to be firmly stabilized in stillness.  I want to feel this step, to accomplish it, mastering myself!  What an accomplishment that will be.  I will be so excited, and then I will be able to soar to different heights of my being, I will have more insight and realizations of many things. 
One of the things I have experienced lately is seeing a haze or a shadow around both hands and fingers.  Every way I move my fingers that shadow is there.  It is really weird!!  I spoke with my message therapist and she told me the more I keep practicing the meditation practice, the more this will come to be because I am calming myself expanding my abilities.  When I first saw it, I wondered what it was, why am I seeing this and what does it mean?  I do not see this everyday, only some days, and seems to be when I have no stress (stress from school work).

The other exercise I really enjoy is the Universal Loving-Kindness.  This practice gives me a sense of purpose and accomplishment for others.  I am able to do something for those I cannot physically help or those whom I do not know.  To me, this exercise is the same as praying for those in need.  To implement this practice into my life to accomplish "mental fitness" is simply doing this exercise everyday when I pray, or blocking out a different time in the day for this practice, or just saying this as a prayer, or implementing this practice when I am stressed about something.  There are many ways I can implement this that would be helpful for accomplishing mental fitness, and realizing that life does not just revolve around me.  There are many other people in the world that need help in many areas of their life and if I can pray for those in need, I am accomplishing alot.  There are many who feel know one knows they exist or cares for them.  If I could meet those individuals and let them know we know they exist and care for them, they would feel loves.  Can you imagine how many people do not feel loved and are sick from that lack of emotion?  I used to see new babies 2 and 3 months old coming into the hospital with the diagnoses "failure to thrive", and it was because the mother did not love the baby.  Right there is actual proof all people need to be loved! 

Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing. Laguna Beach, California: Basic Health Publications, Inc.

Anita "Yvette" Clark

Unit 7 - Meeting Aesclepius

This exercise is definetly going to take some practice to accomplish the subtle mind.  It initially asks for you to imagine sitting in front of a person whom you respect and love.  I picture Jesus right away and the feelings of relaxation, trust, comfort, understanding come about.  But the Beam of light we are to imagine coming from the top of the head, the throat, and chest is really hard for me to imagine.  So, I ended up in total frustration because I could not imagine this.  Essentially, this exercise did nothing for me.  In my opinion, it is asking to much of me to do in one sitting, and I don't think that it is the fault of Dacher in what he is trying to train us to do, it is me!  I am unexperienced, untrained, and very unfamiliar with this type of practice.  It will take some practice to train and discipline the mind to accomplish the exercise. 

Mindfulness and meditation has increased psychological and spiritual awareness in many aspects, making me aware I need work, practice and discipline in some areas of my life.  For example, I am not a patient person and when I want something done, I want it done NOW, and I want everybody in my family to operate under the same window or expectation.  If there are things I know need to be done, I spend the time to get it done, so I know it is taken carea of and no worries.  I think these meditation exercises will temper that need to have things done NOW.  I do know these are my issues, but wonder why anybody else cannot operate under the same window?  Other people operate under a slower less stressed movement than I, so the reall issue is, why do I operate under a stressed movement?  In order to understand this issue, I need to continue to practice, practice, and practice these meditation practices taking me through the exercises and steps of discipline.  This is the only way I can think of to accomplish greater health and wellness. 

In answering the question on page 477, One cannot lead someone in a direction they have not traveled.  In my profession, I have seen OB/BYN's tell me and others how to care for my babies when they have not had any themselves.  How in the world do they know what exhaustion means?  They don't.  They have no understanding of how mother's get really stressed out when they are tired, lacking sleep, sore from childbirth, and still have to be a mother and a wife cleaning the house, cooking, laundry, etc.  Do not speak about something to me that you have no experience in!  I will not hear you.  How it applies to the health and wellness profession is this: In order to get positve results with those you are working with, you have to be well knowledged academically, and scholarly, and speaking and teaching from experience, so that you can fully understand where one may be coming from.  If you only have book smarts but lacking personal experience, what good are you?  Like I said, I do not hear you.  My mind shuts off right away and I resent the fact you are even trying to talk to me.  Don't do it! This world is already filled with many people who think they know a lot and don't know squat.  I only want to speak with one who is knowledged in all areas I am looking for.  Plain and simple.  Because of my strong point of view, I want to be knowledged academically in the area I have personally experienced to be exceptionally good at my occupation.....helping others in the health and wellness field. 
In answering if I have an obligation to my clients to be developing my health psychologically, physically, and spiritually?  YES, and I have answered the why in the above paragraph.
In answering how I can implement psychological and spiritual growth in my personal life?  I have to walk the walk and talk the talk.  Like I said, if I do not have any personal experience to go along with what I am learning academically in this field, I will not be able to totally help anybody else, simply because I have not experienced it, therefore, I will not be understanding!  It is that simple.

To all of you mother's here, I hope you all have a VERY HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!  We deserve to be pampered.  Yvette

Questions, Questions, Questions

I have just looked at the requirement for this weeks meditation and can honestly say that right now, I am very stressed about all the questions we have to answer.  Questions, questions, questions.  That is irritating in it of itself.  I cannot even force myself to engage in this exercise right now.  My brain is so tired of the constant exercising of thinking and writing, thinking and writing.  I am getting really burned out.  I cannot wait until this class is over. 

I would for once love to beable to meditate, that be the only exercise, and then write our thoughts, feeling, emotions, how we felt when we were all done with it.  Why can't it be that simple? I think most of us would learn more if our meditation exercises were enjoyable, rather than having to answer questions upon questions.  Knowing that we have all that do do every week, plus the intense questions in our discussion board.  I am so exhausted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yvette

Unit 6 - Loving Kindness and Assessment

This is one I have to really think about and how to describe what I am feeling after this exercise.
There are a lot of thoughts and emotions to this exercise for many reasons.
First we are to describe the exercise: The exercise was a 10 minute exercise, repeating four phrases -
May all individuals gain freedom fron suffering.
May all individuals find sustaind health, happiness, and wholeness.
May I assist all individuals in gaining freedom from suffering.
May I assst allindividuals in finding health, happiness, and wholeness.

First, I need to say all this homework is a bit much and am finding myself with a mixed of emotions, such as: frustration, tiredness, overwhelmed, and sick of having to sit in front of the computer constantly.  It seems never ending, all the things we have to do for this class.  ARRGGHHH!

On the positive side, I love this class.  There are so many positive things to learn from the exercises alone, I love it!  I have learned so much about myself and excited to keep the momentum up.  It is challenging, and even though I am frustrated, I am finding myself waking up every morning wanting to do the subtle mind exercise and learn more about myself. 

From this exercise alone, I initially found it to be very weird and different from the rest.  My initial thought was.....how stupid this is!  I started the exercise anyway, and found it to be similar to praying, the only difference, we are not actually thinking about specific people.  Praying is time consuming because we have to pray for each individual needing prayer.  This was easier, lumping all people into one sentence......May all individuals gain freedom from suffering     and      May all individuals find sustained health, happiness, and wholeness. 
After spending the time with this exercise, I found myself feeling very excited, happy, loving, and enthusiastic for a deed well done.  Thinking about other people and taking the time to say a prayer for all individuals that I know and don't know.  There are so many people around the world that need prayer whom I don't know.  There are so many times I wish I could do more for people that are suffering whom I don't know, and I feel I am doing something by repeating these phrases. 

As for the assessment, I know I am finding myself getting very tired of all I have to do with my busy schedue, being a mom, wife, student, and teaching students how to draw blood.  It is all very tiring in their own ways and  am definitely being stretched too thin.  I do not have enough time in one day to do all the things I want and need to do for myself.  I would love to spend more time praying, bible studying, with my children and I can't.  I find myself very frustrated and tired, getting mentally exhausted and drained.  These are the most areas in my life I am finding stressed.  I am starting to get little headaches everyday.  My greatest possibility for growth and development would be to take the time I need for myself to grow and develop.  I need to spend more time in quiet time.  NO MORE HOMEWORK!  This is the most taxing right now on me.  Once work is done in 3 weeks, I will have so much more time to open up for myself, I can't wait.  I am very anxious for this time to come.  I want to meeee tiiiiimmmmmme.  I want some down time, relaxation time, time in my flower beds, time with my kids, and going to garage sales.  These are all temporary pleasures that help with my long term pleasures.  Always fun to go and find good deals and save money.  I can tell I need some time for my spiritual self just because I am starting to find myself getting very irritated easily.  I can feel my body crying out for this time.  In 3 weeks, can't wait.  Meee tiiimmmme here I come.  This will help me so much towards my integral health.  Need to spend more time meditating, journaling, and stretching my body, getting the frustration ooouuuutttttt!!!  This is my persoanl assessment of myself that I know needs modification. 

Have a great weekend all, it is so warm here, need to get outside and breath some fresh air.  Good bye for  now.  Yvette

Unit 5 Project for Blog - Answering required questions

Question 1:
In answering questions for the blog project, I am to compare and contrast the Loving Kindness exercise and the Subtle Mind exercise based on my experience.  After listening to the Subtle Mind exercise, I do not like the Loving Kindness exercise so much because there is too much talking and directing where our mind are supposed to go.  That is the frustration part of Loving Kindness. 
The benefits in Subtle Mind exercise: I love this exercise because it starts you out with using your breath as the focal point.  There is not much talking, just sounds of the water moving and yourself.  This exercise is based solely on you learning how to control your focal point, first being on your breathing, then controlling where the mind goes, bringing it back to the focal point if it wonders too much on other things (the chatter), focusing on the calming and relaxation of your whole self, ultimately reaching the mind, thoughts, visions, chattering, breathing, heart beat, etc. all being one unit.  This is awesome!  Although, I did not reach the whole unity yet, but with practice, this will be possible. 
This exercise, I feel, allows me to be in control and learning/teaching myself how to focus, breath, relax, work through my own feeling coming in and out of my mind, realizing they are non-important, they do not have to be a part of who I am, and letting go of them, eventually being able to reach the whole body/mind calmness.  I like this one much better and will use this one to meditate with.

Question 2:
I am to discuss the connection of the spiritual wellness to mental and physical wellness.
My answer is the same it has been since class started......it is all one unit.  If one part of these three joined aspects is detached or off balance, the rest will be affected.  If our spiritual self is stressed, ridden with hate and anger, distress, etc......................................, the mental and physical sense will sense the stress and be manifested in temporary illnesses and/or symptoms.  It is all one unit, as we have been learning throughout semester. 
Next, I am to explain how the connection is manifested in my personal life.  Is there a right and wrong answer to this question?
I am going to answer this question as, the connection is manifested in my life by the way that I act and carry myself.  It is manifested with what I find very interesting in life, and that is getting down to why our bodies act the way they do, why the health issues arise, and how do we change the effects.  When I find my body having certain health issues, I investigate why it is happening, what is really affecting me spiritually, ponder on it, meditate, exercise, thing some more, and get the answer, finally changing how I react to things.  I guess this is the best answer I can give.  I would love to be able to say something profound here, this is my final answer.  I could phone a friend, but would rather settle on my own thoughts as the final answer!!!
Thank you to all for participating in this class with me and on my blogs, sharing your stories and experiences giving a different aspect of looking at things.  I feel we all learn from each other and will take all to make a better place for us to live in!  Better understanding of the self, body, mind, spirit.  I thoroughly enjoy this class, very informative and enlightening.  I have realized much about myself and excited to learn more.  Yvette

Mental Workout - addition to my initial post

Mental Workout is doing a serious of workouts like memorization, mental imagery, and perceptions that are practiced consistently in order to establish change in how we think, act, learn (Dacher, 2006).  The benefits of mental workout, in the long run are positive mental and physical health.  We are able to think clearly and quickly.  If we let our minds relax, doing nothing with it over a period of time, it loses its abilities to think quickly and memorize adequately.  We will eventually get depresses and physically slow down, possibly sick.  We have to keep exercising the brain, much like exercising the muscles of the body to keep them strong, firm, pliable, adaptable.  To implement mental workouts, we keep exercising the brain with constant stimulation, such as mental imagery, memorization skills, and perceptions, we will eventually change the structure of the brain in a positive direction (Dacher, 2006). 
the exercise for this unit, Loving - Kindness, is something to use to mentally stimulate the brain consistently, so that eventually, we will be this loving-kindness person in our life.  We can learn this concept and teach it to others, reaching the final goal of integral health.

Unit 4 - loving kindness

Dacher's voice has reminded me of somebody I know and could not put my fnger on it.  I finally figured out who it was, I could see the face of the person coming in and out of my mind.  It is Boston Rob from survivor.  He has the same voice and pronunciations as Boston Rob.  Thank God the relaxation started with a female voice and sound of ocean waves.  I would have not been able to continue the exercise. 

I loved the soun of the ocan waves, it helped me a great deal with relaxation and the fact the exercise gives you time to shift from step to step.  The main idea helpful for me was to loosen any grasping or attachment to any thoughts or images, just to observe them.  It was a very emotional experience for me, as I started to cry, having to let go of emotions I had no idea I was hanging on to.  The concept of taking in a loved one's pain is hard for me.   Why would I want to take on their pain?  I am sure through time and practice, it will become easier and will learn the reason as I go on.  I will definitely have to practice this everyday.  Absolutely love it!

This is something I would love to have my mom listen too.  She is carrying around a lot of baggage that over the years of my childhood, she has bestowed upon me and I have taken on some of her fears.  I have realized this and throughout my life I have started to let go of these emotions, realizing they are hers.  She has wanted me to be in her world of pain so she wasn't alone in it.  She definitely could benefit from this.    Yvette

My own level of wellness

During a self reflection of my health, I came up with the following assessments, but based on guessing because I have not put any thought into how healthy I really am until it has been a requirement of me in this class.  I am not one who visits the doctors, nor do my children.  For the most part, we are pretty healthy. 
Physically, I would say I am at an 8-9 because I do exercise on a regular basis dong various types of exercises.
Spiritual well-being would be an 8 and psychological would be an 8.  Of course, all three are tied together and my physical well being has a lot to do with my spiritual and psychological thought processes or well-being of both.  If you are spiritually happy and secure, then psychologically you are happy as well.  Physical would follow.  Like Dacher says, if we are mentally disturbed, then so is our physical state disturbed.  Makes perfect sense how they are all intertwined, a part of each other, co-exist together, etc. 
My goals in these areas are to continue to grow and expand in mind, body, and spirit, which has been going on and will continue to go on. 
The thing I find very irritating with this concept is, the more I grow within myself and expand all three of these concepts the majority of the world is not doing the same.  The more you become aware of their real existence and ideas, versus your new learned ideas and awareness.  Eventually, you find yourself outside of the box and people in the box are continuously trying to pull you back in because that is the norm of the majority.  You need to fit into their mold of what is normal and are judged, graded, etc. based on this.  You are seen as somebody going against the flow of things, as somebody causing trouble, going against the grain.  If you ask too many questions, you are considered challenging the norm.  What to do, I don't know. 
I have done the exercise and find it difficult to imagine the square or circle shape along with the color.  I found it to be tedious and irritating, only because I don't have time to do things like this.  I have lots of homework, kids that need me, grocery shopping, cleaning and laundry before Monday comes around.  The beneficial parts of the exercise are learning to calm yourself step by step, organ and area of the body step by step, using the shaes and colors to help, eventually succeeding in the journey to relaxation.  What an accomplishment that would be.  I would love to eventually beable to accomplish this myself and hope eventually I can do this.  Right now, I have too many expectations, assignments, and duties to do. 
Of course, this is they way the majority of society operates on....many things to do on limited time.  Arrrgghhh.  I can't wait until I am done with school.  Yvette

WElcome

I am supposed to post a welcome to my page, so welcome everybody to my page.  Feel free to post and comment anytime you want and on the right side, there is some information about myself.  Thanks, Yvette

Meditation

Meditation is something that kind of scares me.  I have done this many times before and tapped into something in the past not to fond of.  I know meditation is very good for people to do because you can do alot of relaxation, control breathing and heart rate, body temperature, etc. eventually ridding yourself of stress and illness.  Very good for the mind to clear our thoughts and rid ourselves of anything negative, eventually adapting positive thoughts.  Since the experience, I have not meditated.  So, I have done yoga and pilates to de-stress.  That has worked for me as well, being very effective in ridding myself of any negative thoughts.  Praying and talking to God has also been very effective. 

I am so excited about this class and can't wait to learn all I can! 

support group for family members of veterans and veterans

Yesterday I have decided to start a support group in the small town of Alma, Michigan for family members of veterans and veterans themselves.  WE do not have one in this area covering the middle part of Gratiot county and feel we need one.  There are so many families out there who need to connect with others sharing similar experiences or situations.  I have called some friends who are veterans to get feedback and insight from them.  They have helped and given me some resources to check on.  Hopefully, more to come.