Unit 10 Final thoughts

In reviewing unit three's personal assessment scores I had a 3-4 in the physical area, a 7-8 in spiritual wellness and 7-8 in the psychological/mental area. At first I didn't think that these scores would have changed from then to now but I have to say that they did a little. In the physical area I am still a 3-4 because I have not began any routine just yet (though coming VERY soon). I just had not made the effort to get up and move-I guess my motivation is just shy of actually doing it. Spiritually I would say that I am a solid 8 instead of the 7-8 range before. I feel good about this area of wellness but believe the growth that comes from life hasn't put me in a level higher than this because it is not time (everything has a season or divine timing). Mentally, I am an 8 also. For me, working on the spiritual strengthens my psychological and right now in life I am feeling calm and in control of what I am supposed to be in control of. I think that these changes occurred from the activities and materials from class which caused a greater sense of awareness.

The goals and activities I set in unit 3 for any of the areas of wellness I have not began yet but do feel like they are within my grasp. Beginning to walk and do yoga daily and meditation and spiritual reading were things that I listed and am still looking forward to doing. In my life I am really busy with work, family and school and it is for these reasons that I have not been able to engage in these activities or meet these goals. I am sure when school is over I will really be able to enjoy these things (hopefully way before).

I do feel like I have developed a better sense of wellbeing since taking this course because it gave me ideas and opened my mind and heart to healing myself and world. The class itself has been rewarding. I really wished that I had had the opportunity to spend more time getting into the class material instead of doing what was due for the week and look forward to reading the books again. The amount of work that we had to do was at time challenging but so unreasonable as I look back and realize that I did it (and it didn't kill me). This experience will improve my ability to help others because it opened my heart even more. I already believed in this integral healing thing but didn't know about it to this extent and it has changed how I take care of myself and how I can help others take care of themselves. Knowing the 3 different areas of focus-psychological, spiritual and physical wellness gives a great definition and guidelines to what needs to be taken care of for human flourishing. I love it!

Wishing everyone goodness and love
Nychelle

Unit 9

Here we are at the end of the term and though I have truly enjoyed this class, I do look forward to the break ahead:) I hope that everyone came out of this class with a heart full of even more compassion and love.

Unit 9 Project
1-Introduction
It is important for health and wellness professionals to develop their own psychological, spiritual and physical health because all of those areas create a "whole" being and to truly be healthy and well, we need to focus on each area of ourselves that creates that whole. To ignore an area or let an area become weak will cause an imbalance that will lead to an overall health imbalance or issue. We have to treat ourselves as we would treat our patients and that would be treating the whole person-physical, spiritual, and psychological areas. Doing so allows us to lead by example and our personal experience not only lends validity but helps to create diverse paths of possibilities to the ultimate health!

The area I need to develop to reach the goals I have for myself would be the physical area. It is my weakness. Though I love to exercise and know not only the benefits but also various methods, I struggle with making the time to implement a daily plan. It frustrates me because I need to do it but am not there yet.

2- Assessment
I have assessed myself in each area by taking the time to see how I live my day to day life and how my overall health is (how often I am sick or achy or even irritable). Writing down these things in addition to examining my spiritual life, my physical life and my psychological life has given me clarity to how well (or not well) I am doing .
On a scale of 1 to 10 . 1 being very poor and 10 being very good
Spiritual-8 I am very comfortable in this area but I am a work in progress so I have potential for improvement
Physical-4 I gave myself this score because I am in a place where I acknowledge my weakness but know I will make a lifestyle change soon because I want it so bad
Psychological-8 For me this area is so closely knitted with the spiritual that I feel it is the same for my score. I am secure but can always do better

3- Goal Development
My spiritual goal is to spend some time daily doing some divine work whether it is meditation, chanting or reading to enrich my spiritual connectedness to the world
My psychological goal would be to work in conjunction with my spiritual goal because the two for me are a harmonious blend-separate but together. Positive affirmations to myself maybe
Of course for my physical goal I would love to make the lifestyle change to exercising and being active most days of the week (no less than 4 days a week).

4-Practices for Personal Health
Strategies to foster growth
Spiritual-As stated above I would like to meditate daily
Reading sacred or divine books
A strategy for both the spiritual and physical would be a daily yoga practice
Physical-Daily walking/jogging or exercise DVDs
Yoga
weight bearing activities 2-3 times a week
Psychological/mental health-practicing self praise
daily affirmations
quiet time
I think for each and everyone of these areas I first have to write down what I want to do and then make sure that I have exactly what I need for each activity such as books, music and DVDs. I should weekly try to make out a schedule of my anticipated week and then from there see where it would be best to meditate ( I think in the morning would be best). I also think that first thing in the day should be exercise so that I am not too tired at night. Daily affirmations also should be done at the beginning of the day but can easily be done anytime. Reading and quiet time would be more in the early evening because I enjoy reading before I go to bed and the quiet time could be scheduled into small spots of time in my day. I just need to make appointments for my activities:)

I need to be kind to myself and realize and remember that everything is not always going to go exactly as planned or how I want it to and that is OK!

5-Commitment
I will track my progress over the next 6 months by writing on my calendar every month to stop and do a reflection check. I will have it on the first Sunday of every month and stop to reflect in a journal of how I am doing and what my concerns are, or any anticipated issues.
Strategies I can use to help in maintaining my long term health and wellness practices would be to remember to track my progress monthly and maybe to even do a weekly check in with myself on how things are going. Being my own counselor and keeping up with the things that keep my happy and healthy. Changing activities may be needed to keep things fresh as well as schedule changes to accommodate my lifestyle. I believe having my family involved with this will help tremendously. I can teach them what I know and have them implement it into their lives and then we can work together to have great human flourishing!

It's been great! Wishing all Health and Happiness:)
Nychelle

Unit 8!

Greetings and Salutations to all! I hope that this reaches everyone in good spirits. For me the holiday season has passed a little too quickly but it was nice none the less:) I have really enjoyed this course and hope that I may take it again in the future when I am able to get even more into it! I really enjoyed the the universal loving kindness mini practice and the subtle mind meditation. I was really drawn to the universal mini because it was very easy to do and had a lot of powerful intention within the simple words. For me this exercise will be easy to incorporate into a daily practice because of its simplicity. I have written the 4 lined practice down and plan on painting it on a pretty plaque and hang it by my bathroom sink so that I can do it in the morning and at night before bed. I know it will become second nature before I know it. The subtle mind meditation was easy to listen to and I felt the instructions were clear and gave me a nice calm feeling. For this meditation, I think that it would be nice to give myself the break I need in my day to refresh myself for 15 to 30 minutes by pausing and listening to this in a calm environment so that I can recharge. The two practices are different and I like the variation. The universal mini is heart-felt and means helping the world (and then me) and the subtle mind took me out of the craziness of life for a few minutes to really get inside my mind/body and enables me to come out feeling pretty darn good.

Wishing the very best to all!

*Nychelle*

Unit 6

Greetings to all during this wonderfully busy time of year. I hope that everyone is in good health and spirits as they read these words. I quite enjoyed the universal loving kindness practice this week and feel like it will be a part of my daily activities. I loved the simplicity of the words and that there was not a whole of complicated stuff involved. I think a mini practice is something that most people can do regularly and once it is memorized, it becomes second nature. I loved what the words said. I felt like they were words from my heart because I really do want the best for everyone. I think starting the day and even ending the day with a practice like this would be great! I personally liked using the word people instead of individuals and appreciated that I could do this whenever, where-ever because it was not pre-recorded.

Integral assessment
The aspect of my life that is a source of difficulty/suffering would be the biological aspect. In this area I am weak in the fitness department and would love to have a daily regimen that I want to do! Currently I do not exercise and this is very hard for me to admit. The self regulation area is also the area of my life that is ready for growth and development. Incorporating a regular spiritual practice would be a nice addition to my life. What I can do and truly want to do is to work to do a regular yoga practice that would give me fitness and self regulation improvement by giving me fitness and spirituality at the same time. I would love to teach yoga one day because I really believe in the wonderful benefits of this activity.

Wishing all the very best
Nychelle:)

unit 5

Greetings All!

I have to say that I am silly for not realizing that the last post I did was supposed to be just a loving kindness exercise and not the subtle mind. None the less, I did take some time and did the subtle mind exercise again and was much happy with my outcome. Granted I was interrupted by my children, I still was able to get way more into this than before. I did not feel like the pauses were too long this time. I just let myself "be". I was not anticipating someone to talk like before. I really tried to focus on what I was instructed to do and so during those times when there was no talking I allowed my mind to focus on my breath. This time there was no anxiety or anticipation but rather a raw relaxation and complete acceptance of the situation and that felt really good. I think that doing this exercise with no distractions would really be beneficial to me and that I could really reached some deeper mind states. I actually look forward to doing this again. I the subtle mind after working and I was not tired but engaged in the activity. In a house where a lot is always going on, taking the time to quiet my mind is a very good thing.

As I stated last week, I did not enjoy the loving kindness activity. I am not sure why that exercise is such a challenge for me but I just can't seem to connect with the instructions. I think that I do need to try the exercise again and maybe at different times/locations to get a better outcome from it. With the subtle mind I was able to get my mind into it and follow the instructions better than the loving kindness. What frustrates me is that I totally have a loving kindness mentality and have for some time now. I know that everything doesn't work for everyone but I would like to do better with the loving kindness exercise, but why? I think I feel like if I don't do good with that activity then my loving kindness heart/mind is not good enough and I know that is not true.

The connection between spiritual to mental to physical wellness
To some spiritual is before mental and to others mental is before spiritual. None the less getting the spiritual and mental aspects of wellness in order is necessary and can be done by incorporating physical activities/wellness hence mind body activities like yoga. I think that any physical activity has the potential to be a mind body activity depending on the individual. If your engaging in a physical activity like walking, that can be made into walking meditation and therefore connecting the mental, spiritual and physical areas of wellness. It is all in what the person puts into it. The deliberate effects of what the individual wants to get out of the activity.

Best wishes to all! Good night:)

Oh yes remember to be good to yourself and be good to others

unit 4

In this week's work on increasing my psychospiritual health, the exercise to practice were a Loving Kindness and Subtle mind practice. At first I thought that the practice was going to be a challenge because I did not like the author's (Dacher) voice. Luckily though once Dacher explained what we were going to be doing a pleasant woman's voice came on and was easy to follow. I felt during the Loving Kindness exercise that a lot of love felt like pressure to me and I had to breath very deep. I liked the Subtle mind practice a little better than the Loving Kindness activity but found the long ocean sounding pauses to be a bit too long for me and that I was anticipating when the woman's voice was going to come back on. During the Subtle mind activity I felt a sense of lightness throughout and though my mind wandered (not a lot) I could easily come back to my instructions. I think on a day to day basis I would not mind doing the Subtle mind exercise and occasionally doing the Loving Kindness one. I very much like the concept of the Loving Kindness but would do it a little differently for my own personal liking. I definitely plan on trying these exercises again when I haven't worked a 12 hour shift!

A mental workout is the same as a physical workout but of course we are using our mind/conscious. Just as it is important to move our bodies the same holds true for other aspects of our being to have the holistic centered wellness. If we want to be good at something we must practice and if we want to be good at creating a healthy mind and spirit then a daily practice with mind centered activities is necessary to facilitate that! Ya just gotta keep trying until it becomes a habit and the mind gets trained!

As always I wish everyone greatness and during this holiday season remember to breath and enjoy the simple beauty of life!

Levels of wellnes!

Good Evening and welcome! I am hoping that everyone's day was pleasant. This evening I have spent some time reflecting on my levels of wellness. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being optimal and 1 being very low) I have rated how my physical, spiritual and psychological wellbeing is.

Physical-3/4 I do not exercise regularly :(
Spiritual-7/8 I feel very spiritually connected and content
Psychological-7/8 I feel psychologically healthy but could use some improvement

Goals and activities
Physical-give myself permission to actively move my body daily with exercise like walking and yoga
Spiritual-spend a little time daily in meditation and spiritual reading (preferably morning)
Psychological-I think working on the spiritual will positively affect this area so it's really important to work on my spiritual area.

I think that by doing these activities I will enrich other areas of my life like work and family because I have feed my soul by taking time to exercise and spiritually feeding myself.

Finally, I took the time to do a guided meditation that work on the chakra system of the body. Each of these energy centers of the body is represented by a color and was given a statement to say like "I feel grounded" or "I chose to love". I enjoyed this meditation as much as the last. I would however like to try and do this meditation on a regular basis to get into a routine. I will try to memorize the areas of the body that correspond to the colors and learn the accompanying statements. Something like this would not take long and I felt very connected to myself and the universe from this activity. It was calming and yet energizing! I would recommend anyone to try this and if they don't like to listen to someone give the meditation directions then learn it well and do it on their own-make it work for you:)

I wish everyone a beautifully quiet moment in each day that gives them clarity and the ability to see something wonderful in the world.

Always remember to be kind to yourself and others
Nychelle