Unit 10 Evolution

In the beginning of this journey my evaluation scores for were a 7 for physical, 5 for spiritual, and a 7 for psychological. For most of my life I have had a strong sense of motivation and discipline with physical fitness. However I have struggled with practicing proper nutrition. Today I find myself improving to about an 8 out of 10 in this area. The extra point comes from the discipline to eat right. Now I measure portion sizes and count calories. I also added many more grains and vegetables to my diet. As far as Spirituality goes, this is the strongest area of improvement for me. Prior to this course, I didn't believe or practice spirituality much. Today I can probably rank myself at 8 out of 10 for spirituality. I now understand how spirituality can effect the body and mind. One concept that I find useful is daily prayer. Prayer gives me a sense of purpose and strength to carry on. What's funny about prayer is that I realize that you don't necessarily have to conduct a religious prayer. Prayer can be conducted towards nature or even inner energy. Learning spirituality has changed my life and giving it new meaning and definition. It has also taught me how to channel stress out of my body. Deep breathing is another technique I find very useful. Depp breathing helps channel negative energy from the mind and heart out of the body. It also oxygeniate the body during times of high stress and physical activity. Last, psychologically I began as a 7 out of 10. Today I can say that I have become an 8 out of 10. This course have taught me mind workouts that have helped me change my outlook on everything. I hasve learned from meditation that I can calm my mind from daily stress and chatter, and convert that energy into understanding and loving myself. I practice this daily through various times of the day. Prior to learning this, I thought of stress as a daily routine that everybody experienced. Today, I tell myself that there is not much worth stressing about. This has also taught me to not let my financial worries destroy the talent and potential within myself. Meditation has also taught me to patient with myself. When I read about the monks of China, much of the peace and tranquility they experience in life comes from their life-long inner patients. Unfortunately in Western culture, we are trained to minimize patients with most things. Overall I view just about everything in my life different now, and I feel as though I am evolving into a great person. I want to further learn and practice these teachings so that I can later teach others on how to flourish mentally, physically, and spiritually.

Unit 9 Mind Body Spirit Goal Setting

                         Over the course of the last few months, I have learned some of the vital techniques required to achieve the ultimate goal of life, human flourishing. In order to reach the level of human flourishing, first a step by step plan must be implemented in each area of my being. Some of the areas that will be explored are my psychospiritual development, mental development, and physical development. Each area requires training; an almost Olympian style of training and discipline that is designed to eliminate stress, depression, worrying, lack of sleep, sickness, disease, and premature death. Practicing exercises in areas such as loving kindness is designed to open up the heart to all possibilities. Also, practicing an integrative holistic approach through exercises, research, and application will aid in promoting a healthier lifestyle. This unit 9 project focuses on my mind body spirit health assessment, developing wellness goals, practices and exercises designed to achieve wellness goals, and committing to my mind body spirit goals.

                        First, as a health and wellness student and soon to be practitioner, it is important to create and plan a personal wellness development plan before attempting to help others. One reason is that planning allows the practitioner to stay focused on preparing for necessary life changes within himself and his patient. Planning is accomplished by reminding ourselves over and over about the unique and precious opportunities of human life (Dacher, E., 2006). One of the greatest opportunities given to human beings is the ability to express loving kindness towards others. Loving Kindness can be expressed through our thoughts, prayers, and advice to others. This then opens the heart to characteristics of respect, honesty, patience, and acceptance (Dacher, E., 2006). This in return, teaches practitioners to love, care for, and understand their patient, which promotes a stronger ability of healing.

                        Psychological development is the ability to strengthen and expand the mind into different levels of consciousness. Psychospirituality occurs when the mind and spirit fuses into one. The mind and spirit are closely related in a sense that both develop within the brain. Psychology revolves around the study of the mind and the anatomical brain and its functions. This includes thought process, imbalances, as well as diseases of the mind. Spirituality usually refers to the beliefs in the mind and sometimes the heart. One of the reasons why the mind and spirit are so closely related is because beliefs begin in the mind. Once a belief is practiced consistently for a long period of time, it then occupies the heart, and later occupies the whole being. For example, religion is first taught, then practiced, and then lived. In order to develop psychospiritually, one must learn and understand the four levels of psychospiritual development.

                        The first level of psychospiritual development refers to primal unity. Primal unity is similar to a newborn baby’s natural instinct to react based on survival. This first level of psychospiritual flourishing, primal unity is deeply rooted mentally with no spiritual development. In western civilization, we lose this level early on which is necessary for further development. This takes away most of our ability to develop further. Dr. Dacher states, “Western culture does not, as a matter of routine, prioritize inner development at a young age, we are mistakenly forced to look outward to worldly experience as a way to calm our unconscious fears, insecurities, and losses that result from this broken oneness” (pp. 61). The second level of psychospiritual flourishing refers to the witnessing conscious mind. A witness conscious mind provides a person the ability to see with an inner eye what occurs within a person’s thought process. This gives more room for effective decision making through eliminating clutter and distractions within the mind. This is the beginning phase to controlling the mind. The third level of psychospiritual flourishing refers to the calm-abiding mind. A calm-abiding consciousness is where the mind and spirit begin to fuse. Intentions begin to mature and the mind becomes clear, focused, unbiased, and confident (pp. 61). The last level of psychospiritual flourishing, unity consciousness comes with the development of wisdom and consciousness within the mind. The mind and spirit becomes one and a person becomes fully aware of their true nature.

                        In Western culture, physical development tends to be the most focused area of healing. Western medicine has mastered the biological components of health through exercise, nutrition, medication, and medical procedures. As we know, the human body has the ability to accomplish amazing things, including the ability to strengthen, heal, and lose weight. However, the human body has its limitations unlike the mind and spirit. This is why the body needs the mind and spirit to heal. Many research studies such as the famous prayer study, proves that spirituality can help heal even the most chronic illnesses. Even though the body can achieve great heights alone, the body also has great limitations while attempting to achieve these goals. This is where an integrated approach to healing becomes necessary. All three areas, mind body and spirit need to work together to eliminate the body of unwanted toxins and diseases. One system without the other, fixes only a part of the problem and not the whole problem. This is why western medicine is starting to integrate with eastern medicine. Integrative approaches to medicine heal the body as a whole.

                        Over the last few months my evolution from, a basic understanding of health and wellness to a strong application of mind body spirit integration has occurred. Much of my time has been spent learning ways to develop the mind body and spirit. There is still a long way to go in my personal development, however the fundaments of practicing is imbedded in me. My discovery is that through practicing mind body spirit exercises, modalities, and approaches, I will someday achieve the ultimate goal of human flourishing and teach others how to do the same.

                        Initially in the beginning of this journey, I have assessed my psychological, spiritual, and physical scores at lower levels. Today with pride, I can say that my scores in each area have improved. Much of my psychological development has come from gaining knowledge. Reading and understanding the many health concepts from this term has given me a strong sense of mental development. However, just like anything else the key to maintaining a strong mind is to train. For me, training comes in the sense of learning. Learning has taught me different options that are necessary to my own flourishing. Learning has given me a strong sense of confidence in my abilities, has taught me patience, and has taught me how to teach others. This reminds me of the saying, “Every great teacher was once a great student.” As a practitioner, in order to teach others how to achieve ultimate wellness, first the desire and ability to learn must be within me. Once applied, I will then possess the skill to heal within and to teach others how to heal.

                        .My physical development has never really been an issue for me. Much of my physical wellness began when I was in the military approximately ten years ago. During my four year tour, physical fitness and nutrition were strongly imbedded in my being. However, although I am knowledgeable on nutrition, at times I have lacked in this area. In the past, as a young single man I found that I was more disciplined in fitness and nutrition than I am as a father and a husband. Being a family man makes me comfortable with indulging in bad nutritional behaviors even though many times we tend to eat healthy as a family. This is where discipline comes into place. My disciplinary skills must become sharpened to focus on the goal of maintaining my physical fitness. This course has taught me to practice discipline through following up with my exercise goals. Through contemplative exercises of repetitive mind body meditation, I have taught my mind to stay on track with my physical goals. For example, I tend to meditate now before I exercise. In my meditative practices I encourage my sub-conscious mind to eat better and exercise more often. I now find that even in the worst weather and on the busiest day, I find at least 15 -30 minutes a day for my own physical development. Another exercise I used is mental imagery. While running I imagine myself winning a large sum of money or a different prize once I complete the set out distance. This has taught me to accomplish my workout goals. I now know that physical wellness goals assist in preserving, improving, and maintaining biological life.

                        Spirituality is the one area that I initially struggled with. Now I can say that spirituality is the area I find most pleasure and success in. At first, understanding spirituality was challenging to me. I used to believe that spirituality and religion was the same thing. But now I realize that spirituality is a person’s belief system of a higher energy or being. This energy can be seen in a form of a religious figure (spirit), an energy form (qi), or even as just a figment of the imagination. Most people believe in something higher. Many times, a higher belief is needed to channel the energy to the mind and body. This is how our beliefs, such as prayer, can help heal even some of the worst sicknesses. Just being able to describe this spirituality topic proves to me that my spiritual journey has improved. In order to further improve spirituality the best exercise that work for me are the application of spiritual modalities into my life. My new obsession with learning about Tai Chi has improved my sense of learning, meditating, and physical balance. This gives me the opportunity to control my breathing while channeling negative energy out of my body. Yoga is another modality that has assisted me in the flexibility of my mind body and spirit. I now find myself chanting while performing these meditative physical exercises, such as Tai Chi and Yoga. Chanting positive words such as love, or forgiveness, sub-consciously opens the heart and mind to healing our daily worldly wounds. These wounds come in the form of stress, anger, anxiety, and pain and can easily turn into sickness and disease. Therefore, it is important to practice some form of spirituality daily in order to eliminate negative energy within our being.

                        In my opinion, commitment is probably the most difficult area for people to develop in. This is primarily because of the large amounts of distractions we face on a daily basis. These distractions tend to force me to believe that worldly flourishing is the key to survival. This means that my mind is in a constant state of panic of eating, sleeping, and breathing work in order to pay upcoming bills. However, although many of us are raised to believe so, this perception of survival equals panic, is not the healthiest approach to finding peace during a stressful situation. For most of my life I have had commitment issues with work mainly because I found no value in giving away my time and free will to somebody else. Second, I found no passion in what I did for a living. Third, the pay hasn’t always been the best in most cases barely making enough to survive. However, as Dr. Dacher mentions (pp. 101) in his teachings, we need to turn our jobs into spiritual work. This means that we need to change our intentions into loving the opportunity to help and serve others. Dacher teaches that this is the only way to gain true fulfillment at work. After reading that passage, my perception at work has changed and so have my relationship with others. This was probably one of the most helpful passages I have read in my lifetime. So why am I speaking about work when it comes to committing to my goals? I find that if I can learn to commit to something I used to hate doing (my job), and changing work from a negative to a positive, I can most certainly learn to commit to many more areas in my personal development. Overall, I find that the best way to assess my progress in committing to personal development is to organize my goals. As a visual learner, it is best for me to organize my goals on paper or electronically, and follow through with my goals as I read them. This also allows me the opportunity to become flexible, changing and rearranging my goals as they develop. This is especially important because I have terrible memory. I am also discovering that much of my memory loss may be contributed to mental chatter and stress, which over the last few weeks I have learned, can be detrimental to maintaining a clear and focused mind. So far, this unit 9 project is just a fraction of the many amazing, life-changing mind body spirit wellness concepts I have learned.  Continuing to pursue a life-long education in these aspects will give me the right to teach and heal others the way I have been.

                       

 References

Dacher, E. (2006) Integral Health – The Path to Human Flourishing, Basic Health Pub Inc., NY

Unit 8: Loving Kindness & Meditation

So far in this course I have learned how beneficial it is to practice loving kindness and to meditate. The loving Kindness exercise allowed me the opportunity to open up my heart to family, (both near and distant), friends and associates, and enemy and strangers. All though I tend to be comfortable with all, I had to teach myself to let go of past  memories of hurt and anger from my enemies. True loving kindness is the ability to see past mental obstructions that are toxic to human flourishing. I think the best way to implement loving kindness in my life and others is to practice a few times a day. Reach out to a stranger or a distant friend or family member, telling them that they were in your thoughts and prayer. The response that is received from this is sometimes amazing.

The next exercise I found useful is meditation. At first, meditation can be difficult because the mind tends to wander off into mental chatter and distractions. Prior to learning meditation exercises, my mind was always cluttered and I worried much about my future finances .Meditation has taught me to clear my thoughts of worrying, and to let go of unnecessary pain and suffering. Meditation has thought me to rid my mind of stress, and to practice energy shifting. Energy shifting is the ability to take your stress and negative and energy and channel it into a positive (motivation) to get things accomplished. I find that the best way to meditate is to be in a comfortable, quiet place, and think about relaxing, positive thoughts. The best outcomes I've found from meditating is that it reduces stress and anxiety, and it promotes better sleep at night. Another great thing about meditation is that there are different types of meditations designed to fit an individuals preference. I have been learning much about Tai Chi, and ancient form of martial arts also known as "meditation in motion." It is just a matter of time before I practice those techniques, but for now, visualization helps as well.

Unit 7: Mind Body Spirit Development

Listening to the ocean waves of the Aesclepius mp3 helped me to ease my mind a little bit. Prior to listening to the mp3, I was thinking about my budget for bills and Christmas. So I entered this in a stressful state. Then I thought about a wise significant person in my life. I thought of my father who passed 5 years ago. I thought of all the wise things he used to tell me about how to be financially smart especially during hard times. I kept thinking about how much I missed my father and wished he was alive. I was not sad, I was just wondering what it would be like if he was still around. Although he was sick most of my life, in this exercise I saw him as a strong and healthy person. I think these exercises have the capacity to trigger hidden memories or unresolved problems in our lives. Once we find these hidden messages, we can continue to use meditation as a source of finding inner peace and replenishing our soul.

When Wilbur stated "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself," he was referring to the roles and evolution of a healer. He is informing healers and practitioners to go through the process of learning and developing their own spiritual health. He believes that in order for a practitioner to heal someone, they must first understand how to heal and must also be healed as well. Wilbur is someone referring to spiritual enlightenment that must be experienced before teaching it to others. This in return also applies to mental and physical development. I believe that all professionals owe it to their clients to constantly work on strengthening their own mind body and soul. Without personal development, not only is a practitioner cheating his clients but he is also cheating himself. Patients will then be able to see first-hand that the practitioner, practices what he preach. The best way to implement psychological and spiritual growth in my own personal life is through contemplative practices, meditation, and reading. Much of what I have accomplished this term is through reading and understanding different mind body training techniques, and then applying them to my life, slowly. 

Unit 6 Universal Loving Kindness and Integral Health

Just the words "Loving Kindness" can be difficult words to carry in my daily life. I have been exercise much more loving kindness towards others and I have been receiving very positive feedback in return. However, I struggle to exercise loving kindness with people I do not like, or people that don't like me much. I started convincing myself to love them from afar. Deep inside I no longer have hatred or anger towards those people, but I also will not allow these people back into my life. So I guess this is a small step towards improvement. I also realized that I have strengthen my love for strangers. Nowadays, I find myself interacting with many strangers and most of them interact in a great way with me. I began to realize that deep inside I think everyone really wants to be loved and accepted, however not everyone is willing to give love and kindness in return. We all want things that we don't always want to give back. So just as the Universal Loving Kindness exercise determines, I now have learned to express loving kindness towards my lover and partner, my friends, strangers, and my enemies. I have closed my eyes and chanted the words of the loving kindness practice. I felt as though I was becoming a little bit more at peace with some of my own fears. Currently my main fear has been financial, but I am teaching myself to believe that everything is going to be alright.

Now I focused my energy within the four quadrants of my life and personal development; the psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal, and worldly aspects. During the integral assessment, I found my mind wondering mostly towards the worldly aspect. Similar to the loving kindness practice, I realize that I am finding myself interacting with more strangers and enjoying it. I do not think I have many issues within my interpersonal circle, except for the fact that I have many distant family members that I haven't spoke to in years. However, I did recently speak to 3 of my cousins that I haven't spoke to in 15+ years. All of them were extremely excited to hear from me and they called me "a ghost." Biologically, I have much discipline to take care of my health and fitness. However, although I am very familiar with healthy eating, I lack the discipline to do it more consistently. My psychospiritual development is also a work in progress. This is an area that I have much to learn in and I have to practice more strengthening techniques. However, recently I have learned that my weaknesses are my lack of patience and I find I can be easily distracted. I realize that the greatest exercise for me to strengthen and develop all of these aspects is patience. I usually wan't everything to work out for me very quickly instead of investing in a slow life-long yet prosperous outcome. I am learning to come to peace with the natural flow of time and my personal development.

Unit 5 The Subtle Mind

The subtle mind exercise was very interesting to me. It gave me the ability to focus all of my business onto my breathing. I think the loving kindness exercise was more focused on the heart with feeling and emotions. I had a difficult time control my mind to be calm. Just as the exercise mentioned, every time I let go of my busy mind, it came right back quickly. Although it seemed to be a little effective, I guess this is an exercise that takes much more practice and patience.

The mind is the focal point of energy that connects to the spirit. Mind body and spirit are all connected. A good example is when a runner is getting prepared to run a long distance. Many athletes tend to pray or meditate on the goal. Whether the goal is to finish, finish in first place, or to just participate in a run, it takes a higher energy to give the strength to run. This strength then channels the mind. It tells the mind what techniques would be needed to run. Should I stretch before running?, how long to stretch?, what should I eat or drink to prepare for the run? The mind state tells the body what is needed to run. The mind also sends signals to each individual body organ, function, and system, in order to run. The body then responds with signals from the mind and execute. All of these mind body spirit events are what I use when I run 4 days a week. This in return will help me keep a healthier heart, body, and spirit.

Thanks

Tony P

Unit 4 PsychoSpiritual Flourishing

1. Describe your experience. Did you find it beneficial? Difficult? Why or why not? Would you recommend this to others? Why or why not?

For this loving kindness exercise, I actually didn’t get much out of it until I reached the portion related to breathing in loved ones suffering and exhaling positivity. Initially, I was in a “busy” mindset and had a little difficulty focusing and concentrating on the exercise. But as soon as it mentioned “suffering,” I thought about my dad’s death in 2008. It reminded me how much he suffered before dying. I then started thinking about my mother in law who is always in pain and suffering. I had difficulty “letting go” and I tried hard too. Afterwards, I kept thinking about how much we are trained to hold on to problems without ever really resolving them. So it seems that I, like most people, may have some “control” issues.

I think that most people can relate to this exercise and give it a try. I initially didn’t think I would get anything from it, but am surprised to see that it helped me to reflect on the way I handled the pain and suffering. Although my mother in law is difficult to talk to, this exercise gave me the courage to call her and offer assistance to her.

2. What is the concept of "mental workout"? What does the research indicate are the proven benefits of a mental workout? How can you implement mental workouts to foster your psychological health?

Similar to an Olympian level of fitness, a mental workout requires daily practice designed to strengthen the minds consciousness. The most meaningful aim of contemplative practice is not rest and relaxation but rather the progressive development of an expanded consciousness and its healing capacities (Dacher, E. pp. 65). A mental workout is designed to consistently train the mind to conduct loving-kindness exercises and to have a subtle mind.

Research indicates that together these practices help us to tame and train the mind, open the heart, expand consciousness, and progress toward psychospiritual flourishing (pp. 66). Applying and practicing these practices a minimum of 15 minutes daily will train the mind to become psychologically healthy. For example, practicing loving-kindness daily by expressing love, helpfulness, and kindness to people will return to oneself tenfold. After a while of practicing, the routine becomes a part of the inner being, and the result is that one will then possess the ability to express and teach others how to do the same.

References

Dacher, E (2006) Integral Health –The Path to Human Flourishing, Psychospiritual Flourishing, Basic Health Pub Inc.