Here it is, my project. I hope that I was able to answer all of the questions thoroughly enough :)
- Introduction:
Why is it important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually and physically? What areas do you need to develop to achieve the goals you have for yourself?
It is important for health and wellness professionals to develop all of
the aspects of their life to have balance and to continually grow toward
health, happiness, and wholeness. To live a more balanced life is not only
beneficial to the professional themselves, but also to their clients as it sets
a good example of how to be truly healthy. Not only giving advice to clients,
but actually living it is much more convincing, and this provides a way to
relate to the client as they also work toward integral health. Through
practices like the ones we participated in during this class a health and
wellness professional would also be able to extend loving-kindness to all
clients and give them nonjudgmental attention and the individual care that they
need for their situation. Being balanced and continually growing in all areas
of our own lives would help us to come to understand the full capacity of the
human as well and allow us to help clients to live up to their full potential
and use their full human capacity.
- Assessment:
How have you assessed your health in each domain? How do you score your wellness spiritually, physically, and psychologically?
My spiritual wellness could use some work, and it is something that I
have been trying to work on for a few years now. I wasn’t raised in a religious
household so I feel like my spiritual growth has really come over the last ten
or fewer years. I have been trying to learn more, pray more, and ask questions
of those who I see as spiritually “wise”. I do know that spiritual growth is a
continually on-going process, and I love to continually learn and I look
forward to the rest of my spiritual journey, wherever it may lead me.
Since I have started earning my degree in nutrition, physical health has
become more and more important to me. I have always thought that I was a fairly
healthy person, physically speaking, but the more I learn, the more I would
like to improve my health. I have always believed in eating healthy and
everything in moderation, but only recently I have been learning how extremely
important physical fitness is as well. To be physically healthy and reduce risk
factors for chronic disease we need a good balance of nutrition and fitness,
not just a focus on one or the other. Overall, I do think I am pretty
physically healthy, but I think I could really benefit from a good exercise
routine.
Psychologically I think that I am at a pretty good place, which isn’t to
say that there is no need for improvement. Currently in my life I don’t have a
lot of major stressors, and when I do encounter stressful situations I try my
best to deal with them as calmly as I can and even use meditation and focus on
my breathing when I need to. I could definitely work on my subtle mind so that
I am not so overwhelmed with thoughts all of the time and so that when I do
have a lot going on I can take thing one step at a time more easily.
- Goal
development:
List at least one goal you have for yourself in each area, Physical, Psychological (mental health) and Spiritual.
For my physical health I would like to develop some sort of an exercise
routine. I am fairly active chasing my kids around and I do some yoga and I
like hiking, but I definitely don’t so any sort of regular, routine exercise
and I think I could benefit from some regularity and really pushing myself
physically.
For my spiritual well-being I need to pray more, as I think it allows for
reflection, gratefulness, and a sense of something greater, beyond just
oneself. I would also like to seek out more knowledge and/or thoughts and maybe
even some answers to questions that I have from people who I trust and admire
on a spiritual level, my father-in-law is one of those people for me.
For my psychological health I could continue to work on how I deal with
stress, especially when it comes to having a lot of things going on around me
at once. I especially need to work on how I respond to my kids and other people
in general when I am stressed or feeling overwhelmed.
- Practices
for personal health:
What strategies can you implement to foster growth in each of the following domains; Physical, Psychological, and Spiritual. Provide at least two examples of exercises or practices in each domain. Explain how you will implement each example.
For the physical domain I would like to create an exercise prescription
for myself. The other class I am in this term happens to be and exercise and
fitness course and it is centered around developing exercise programs tailored
to individuals no matter what their age or health condition. From the course I
am learning how important it is that I start making a point to have a routine
exercise plan. I now have an good idea of how intensely, how often, and what
kinds of exercises I should be doing; now it is just a matter of getting myself
started.
For the psychological domain I would like to work on using the practices
that we learned in class. Meditation and especially the subtle mind exercise I
think could be very helpful to me in learning to manage my stress and how I
react to overwhelming situations.
For the Spiritual domain I would like to be more active in my pursuit of
spirituality. I need to start asking more questions and just putting more focus
on the spiritual side of my life.
- Commitment:
How will you assess your progress or lack of progress in the next six months? What strategies can you use to assist in maintaining your long-term practices for health and wellness?
I liked the assessment process that we used from our Integral Health
book. The integral assessment really helped me to lay out in front of me the
different aspects of my life and see where I was at with each of them and from
there get an idea of where I could use improvement and what I could do to focus
on those areas. I think that having a routine in my long-term practices is also
going to be key. I know that if I don’t have some-what of a schedule laid out I
am likely to stray from the practices and lose any balance that I have already
created.
