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