1. Practicing loving and kindness was very difficult at first as there was so much garbage in my head. It took me quite awhile to calm my mind enough to visualize what I wanted to achieve. I did find it difficult, but the more I practiced, the easier it got. I would recommend this type of exercise to people as it feels as if you are letting go of the bad and replacing it with the good. 2. What is the concept of a mental workout? A mental workout is working out the brain. The trained mind functions at a higher level and as we work our minds out, the level becomes higher and higher. In implementing mental workouts my goal is to set aside at least 15 minutes each morning to practice breathing and concentrating and also practice loving kindness. I want to open my mind, but also be able to block out the clutter and focus on my mind and expanding.
Unit 6 Universal Loving Kindness: Integral Assessment
After practicing the universal loving kindness session and repeating to myself: May all individuals gain freedome from suffering. May all individuals find sustained health, happiness and wholeness. May I assist all individuals in gaining freedom from suffering. May I assist all individuals in finding health, happiness, and wholeness. I found myself wanting to be a part of giving and helping. My heart felt a sense of warmth that I had not felt before. Warmth toward my brothers and sisters. The experiences that are taking me through this class are changing me as a person and allowing me to see clearer, understanding myself and everyone around me. The meditation that I am doing has helped me to be calmer in stressful situations.
Integral Assessment: What can I say? After doing an assessment of myself and taking a good look at the different aspects of my lines and levels of development, I realized just how much work I need to do. Work: My working aspect needed much attention. Though I do work for a doctor and am around patients all day, my feelings of being just a worker bee should not be. I am providing a very important service to my patients. They rely on me to be caring and compassionate from the minute I call out there name in the waiting room till I leave the room. I am providing something they may or may not get from their physician depending on how compassionate, loving and kind that he is. Seeing how my physician treats his patients really bothered me and I could not understand how he could have no compassion. Was he not clear on what his purpose was? Does he not know the power of the mind and healing? My obvious guess is that unfortunately, money is the desire and not the wholeness or complete healing of the patient. My plan is to start doing yoga to foster a greater wellness in this area. Physical and mental health at the same time. My gift to my patients is a clear mind and compassionate listening................
This exercise for me was very interesting. I could not seem to focus on one particular wise being and my visualization kept going between three people that I found wise. My father, Dalia Lama and Buddha. For whatever reason, I found myself concentrating on all three of them sitting in front of me. The bright white light emenating from all three of them, mind, throat and heart. It is almost like I was letting all three of them come into me at the same time. It was raining outside so the sound of the rain, the waves crashing on the shore were also subconsciously in the background. I was sitting on the beach in front of all three of them feeling their presence. I found myself lowering my pulse and breathing very deeply, as if inhaling all their goodness. This was very enlightening for me as I could not focus on just one person. I cannot explain not being able to focus on just one, but three.......
"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself"! To explain this in simple terms. How can I be a personal trainer to a person without ever having done this! However, as I am learning, the physical is only part of the whole. The body and mind are but ONE! If I am not a product of the training of my physical aspect...........how can I show someone else to do what I do.
Two of the most important exercises to me are loving kindness and visualization. These two have been very beneficial to me during this course. Visualization I have used prior to this class, but remains a positive course of action in my life.
Loving kindness is something that I need to find the time to implement in my life on a daily basis. I have decided that each night before I go to bed, I am going to sit in a quite place and practice the loving kindness exercise. My goal is to have compassion for people that have hurt me in some form or another. To be able to forgive through loving kindness and be kind to them no matter how they treat me. For example; at work, it is so hard to be kind to the doctor that I work for when he is not nice to me.
Visualization is an easy process for me, however, I want to take it to the next level. Not only use it when I lift weights, but apply it to every aspect of my life such as good outcomes at work. Visualizing my step daughters cancer leaving her body in hope that it will go and not come back.
Both of these are very important to me as they are both ways to enrich my life with love and kindness and more. I will actually start using my vision board again. Putting what I want on my vision board to happen and manifest these things in my life. I want a better healthy life for both myself and my husband.
I. INTRODUCTION It is so very important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually and physically because as Eastern and Western medicine grow and change, we must also grow and evolve or change (evolution, Dacher). This will enable us as health and wellness professionals to give the best to our patients/clients and also us. For myself the goals that I have set are simple but are also going to take time and practice. One of the areas that I will be assessing and working on is spirituality and loving-kindness. I am a very compassionate person however, there is something lacking in loving-kindness. II. ASSESSMENT During this class I have assessed myself several times and in order to reap the fruits of integral health there are things that I am going to have to work on to achieve health, happiness and wholeness. My physical health is very good however, spiritually I will need to practice and make more time to grow. There are also aspects of my psychological health that need to be addressed. III. GOAL DEVELOPMENT
At this point in my life, I have found that I have many goals for myself. My physical goal is to pay more attention to my body and listen to what it is saying. Not just the training aspect for being in shape, but really being in tune with my body. My psychological or mental health is huge for me. My goal in that aspect is to learn and practice meditation techniques along with visualization and manifestation to decrease the stress and clutter in my life. Learn to know what clutter is and which battles to address. I would like to experience the calming mind. My spiritual health is very important. This is the probably one of the most important aspects of integral health. Prayer and forgiveness are two goals within my spiritual health that are very important to me for integral health. My goal is to learn to forgive and pray. I will set aside time in the morning to assess and pray to start my day off. Prayer is communication with the absolute.
Physical health: The strategies that I will implement will be visualization and also breathing techniques. My goal is to visualize each and every exercise that I do for physical health; such as leg extensions. I will visualize the quadriceps muscle strengthening with each extension and flexion. I will also concentrate on my breathing technique. On extension I will be exhaling and on flexion inhaling; using my breathing and visualization to strengthen my total body. This I will do for each and every muscle and cell in my physical body.
Psychological health: The strategies that I will implement for my mental health will be meditation and a form of yoga or Pilates. The morning is a great time for me to sit and meditate. Everything is quiet and there is no clutter to the day. My goal is to take advantage of the morning and sit in a quiet place practicing my loving-kindness exercises and also forgiveness. Along with this is controlled breathing which in turn will help to calm my mind? Everything whether physical, spiritual or psychological all fit together and is integral parts of being healthy, happy and wholesome. My goal is also to take one pilates position each morning and learn to hold that position while meditating. This will help to relieve stress in my body and mind. For example; taking pressure off of my neck which in turn takes pressure from my head, which in turn relieves my headaches, which in turn helps to relieve the stress I feel from my headaches. This in turn helps to calm my mind, heart and body.
Spiritual health: The strategies that I will implement in my spiritual health will be prayer and meditation with manifestation. Just as a person trains their physical body and makes time to be physically healthy; a person must also be spiritually healthy. One of my goals is to get with people of like mind and to study and read. Pray. Once again, prayer is communication with the absolute. Whether you are a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim or other; prayer is important for true spiritual health. I am part Native American Indian, so part of my prayer and spiritual health will be to find like peoples and participate in a “sweat lodge” at least monthly. Become one with Mother Nature.
V. COMMITMENT
To assess my integral health I will follow the six principles of integral assessment. If I am not reaching my goals, my intent is to determine how to ascertain these goals and look at why I am not reaching them. I want to be able to flourish biologically, interpersonally, psycho spiritually and worldly. My goal is to follow the principles of assessing myself and figure out what are the sources of stress in my life and where is my greatest need for growth. With all that I have learned in this class, my goal at this time is to delineate what is clutter and where is the most growth needed. There is such a huge library of information on integral health. I have an interest in Buddhism and the Dalai Lama and have read some of his books. His approach to integral healing starts with “love”. My commitment to my integral health and others is to cultivate “love”, loving-kindness and compassion. The world today would be a much better place if everyone had compassion and love. What is amazing to me; I know what I want to say, but cannot find the words to say what is in my head. There is so much I want to do and so many things I want to accomplish. However, I can say that being on the road to integral health, my journey will be much better………..
Unfortunately, I was unable to participate in one of the sessions due to my inability to get my blog up and running. So at this point, I will say that in all three areas; psychological, physical, and spiritual, I have made great strides. Not so much the physical aspect as I feel that I have had that aspect fairly under control. However, I have learned through this class and since Unit 3, that I was not at all spiritually able or psychologically able. My mind during this class has been a sponge absorbing every bit of information and practicing each exercise with intention!.. I can definately say that my score has increased on the spiritual and psychological levels by at least 40%. My goals that I set, I have also been working toward. I still have a hard time with loving kindness toward certain people, but am working on it. My goal of setting a time to meditate has come to fruition and I am now meditating at least two times a day and sometimes more. I cannot say how many times during the day that I use the breathing technique during my day. It immediately helps to calm my mind and allow me to get back on track. At this point, I have implemented each goal and exercise to better my life and health. What I have found throughout this course and what I have seen is a change in myself and the way that I look at health. More than ever, I am convinced that the mind is the control over the body and not the other way around. The more I speak with people and my patients I find that they are somewhat educated about the healthy aspects of being healthy in body and mind. I even find myself getting into a conversation with people that I don't even know and wanting to talk to them about integral health. On a sad note, one of my good friends was diagnosed with Stage IV Ovarian cancer and is now living her bucket list. I decided to take the chance and talk with her about integral health in hopes that if her mind is healthy, then her body will follow. My hope is that my influence on her will at least extend her life past the next six months. My goal is to see her get through this awful disease and be comfortable with her life and death. My goal is to assist her and many others to improve their lives and to live healthy, happy and whole.
Practice 1. Loving Kindness
ReplyDelete1. Practicing loving and kindness was very difficult at first as there was so much garbage in my head. It took me quite awhile to calm my mind enough to visualize what I wanted to achieve. I did find it difficult, but the more I practiced, the easier it got. I would recommend this type of exercise to people as it feels as if you are letting go of the bad and replacing it with the good.
2. What is the concept of a mental workout? A mental workout is working out the brain. The trained mind functions at a higher level and as we work our minds out, the level becomes higher and higher. In implementing mental workouts my goal is to set aside at least 15 minutes each morning to practice breathing and concentrating and also practice loving kindness. I want to open my mind, but also be able to block out the clutter and focus on my mind and expanding.
Unit 6 Universal Loving Kindness: Integral Assessment
ReplyDeleteAfter practicing the universal loving kindness session and repeating to myself:
May all individuals gain freedome from suffering.
May all individuals find sustained health, happiness and wholeness.
May I assist all individuals in gaining freedom from suffering.
May I assist all individuals in finding health, happiness, and wholeness.
I found myself wanting to be a part of giving and helping. My heart felt a sense of warmth that I had not felt before. Warmth toward my brothers and sisters. The experiences that are taking me through this class are changing me as a person and allowing me to see clearer, understanding myself and everyone around me. The meditation that I am doing has helped me to be calmer in stressful situations.
Integral Assessment:
What can I say? After doing an assessment of myself and taking a good look at the different aspects of my lines and levels of development, I realized just how much work I need to do.
Work:
My working aspect needed much attention. Though I do work for a doctor and am around patients all day, my feelings of being just a worker bee should not be. I am providing a very important service to my patients. They rely on me to be caring and compassionate from the minute I call out there name in the waiting room till I leave the room. I am providing something they may or may not get from their physician depending on how compassionate, loving and kind that he is.
Seeing how my physician treats his patients really bothered me and I could not understand how he could have no compassion. Was he not clear on what his purpose was? Does he not know the power of the mind and healing? My obvious guess is that unfortunately, money is the desire and not the wholeness or complete healing of the patient.
My plan is to start doing yoga to foster a greater wellness in this area. Physical and mental health at the same time. My gift to my patients is a clear mind and compassionate listening................
Unit 7
ReplyDeleteMeeting Aesclepius.
This exercise for me was very interesting. I could not seem to focus on one particular wise being and my visualization kept going between three people that I found wise. My father, Dalia Lama and Buddha. For whatever reason, I found myself concentrating on all three of them sitting in front of me. The bright white light emenating from all three of them, mind, throat and heart. It is almost like I was letting all three of them come into me at the same time. It was raining outside so the sound of the rain, the waves crashing on the shore were also subconsciously in the background. I was sitting on the beach in front of all three of them feeling their presence. I found myself lowering my pulse and breathing very deeply, as if inhaling all their goodness. This was very enlightening for me as I could not focus on just one person. I cannot explain not being able to focus on just one, but three.......
"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself"! To explain this in simple terms. How can I be a personal trainer to a person without ever having done this! However, as I am learning, the physical is only part of the whole. The body and mind are but ONE! If I am not a product of the training of my physical aspect...........how can I show someone else to do what I do.
Unit 8
ReplyDeleteTwo of the most important exercises to me are loving kindness and visualization. These two have been very beneficial to me during this course. Visualization I have used prior to this class, but remains a positive course of action in my life.
Loving kindness is something that I need to find the time to implement in my life on a daily basis. I have decided that each night before I go to bed, I am going to sit in a quite place and practice the loving kindness exercise. My goal is to have compassion for people that have hurt me in some form or another. To be able to forgive through loving kindness and be kind to them no matter how they treat me. For example; at work, it is so hard to be kind to the doctor that I work for when he is not nice to me.
Visualization is an easy process for me, however, I want to take it to the next level. Not only use it when I lift weights, but apply it to every aspect of my life such as good outcomes at work. Visualizing my step daughters cancer leaving her body in hope that it will go and not come back.
Both of these are very important to me as they are both ways to enrich my life with love and kindness and more. I will actually start using my vision board again. Putting what I want on my vision board to happen and manifest these things in my life. I want a better healthy life for both myself and my husband.
Unit 9 Project, 1st part
ReplyDeleteI. INTRODUCTION
It is so very important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually and physically because as Eastern and Western medicine grow and change, we must also grow and evolve or change (evolution, Dacher). This will enable us as health and wellness professionals to give the best to our patients/clients and also us.
For myself the goals that I have set are simple but are also going to take time and practice. One of the areas that I will be assessing and working on is spirituality and loving-kindness. I am a very compassionate person however, there is something lacking in loving-kindness.
II. ASSESSMENT
During this class I have assessed myself several times and in order to reap the fruits of integral health there are things that I am going to have to work on to achieve health, happiness and wholeness. My physical health is very good however, spiritually I will need to practice and make more time to grow. There are also aspects of my psychological health that need to be addressed.
III. GOAL DEVELOPMENT
At this point in my life, I have found that I have many goals for myself. My physical goal is to pay more attention to my body and listen to what it is saying. Not just the training aspect for being in shape, but really being in tune with my body.
My psychological or mental health is huge for me. My goal in that aspect is to learn and practice meditation techniques along with visualization and manifestation to decrease the stress and clutter in my life. Learn to know what clutter is and which battles to address. I would like to experience the calming mind.
My spiritual health is very important. This is the probably one of the most important aspects of integral health. Prayer and forgiveness are two goals within my spiritual health that are very important to me for integral health. My goal is to learn to forgive and pray. I will set aside time in the morning to assess and pray to start my day off. Prayer is communication with the absolute.
2nd half
ReplyDeleteIV. PRACTICES FOR PERSONAL HEALTH
Physical health: The strategies that I will implement will be visualization and also breathing techniques. My goal is to visualize each and every exercise that I do for physical health; such as leg extensions. I will visualize the quadriceps muscle strengthening with each extension and flexion. I will also concentrate on my breathing technique. On extension I will be exhaling and on flexion inhaling; using my breathing and visualization to strengthen my total body. This I will do for each and every muscle and cell in my physical body.
Psychological health: The strategies that I will implement for my mental health will be meditation and a form of yoga or Pilates. The morning is a great time for me to sit and meditate. Everything is quiet and there is no clutter to the day. My goal is to take advantage of the morning and sit in a quiet place practicing my loving-kindness exercises and also forgiveness. Along with this is controlled breathing which in turn will help to calm my mind? Everything whether physical, spiritual or psychological all fit together and is integral parts of being healthy, happy and wholesome. My goal is also to take one pilates position each morning and learn to hold that position while meditating. This will help to relieve stress in my body and mind. For example; taking pressure off of my neck which in turn takes pressure from my head, which in turn relieves my headaches, which in turn helps to relieve the stress I feel from my headaches. This in turn helps to calm my mind, heart and body.
Spiritual health: The strategies that I will implement in my spiritual health will be prayer and meditation with manifestation. Just as a person trains their physical body and makes time to be physically healthy; a person must also be spiritually healthy. One of my goals is to get with people of like mind and to study and read. Pray. Once again, prayer is communication with the absolute. Whether you are a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim or other; prayer is important for true spiritual health. I am part Native American Indian, so part of my prayer and spiritual health will be to find like peoples and participate in a “sweat lodge” at least monthly. Become one with Mother Nature.
V. COMMITMENT
To assess my integral health I will follow the six principles of integral assessment. If I am not reaching my goals, my intent is to determine how to ascertain these goals and look at why I am not reaching them. I want to be able to flourish biologically, interpersonally, psycho spiritually and worldly. My goal is to follow the principles of assessing myself and figure out what are the sources of stress in my life and where is my greatest need for growth.
With all that I have learned in this class, my goal at this time is to delineate what is clutter and where is the most growth needed. There is such a huge library of information on integral health. I have an interest in Buddhism and the Dalai Lama and have read some of his books. His approach to integral healing starts with “love”. My commitment to my integral health and others is to cultivate “love”, loving-kindness and compassion. The world today would be a much better place if everyone had compassion and love.
What is amazing to me; I know what I want to say, but cannot find the words to say what is in my head. There is so much I want to do and so many things I want to accomplish. However, I can say that being on the road to integral health, my journey will be much better………..
Unit 10,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I was unable to participate in one of the sessions due to my inability to get my blog up and running. So at this point, I will say that in all three areas; psychological, physical, and spiritual, I have made great strides. Not so much the physical aspect as I feel that I have had that aspect fairly under control. However, I have learned through this class and since Unit 3, that I was not at all spiritually able or psychologically able. My mind during this class has been a sponge absorbing every bit of information and practicing each exercise with intention!..
I can definately say that my score has increased on the spiritual and psychological levels by at least 40%.
My goals that I set, I have also been working toward. I still have a hard time with loving kindness toward certain people, but am working on it. My goal of setting a time to meditate has come to fruition and I am now meditating at least two times a day and sometimes more. I cannot say how many times during the day that I use the breathing technique during my day. It immediately helps to calm my mind and allow me to get back on track.
At this point, I have implemented each goal and exercise to better my life and health.
What I have found throughout this course and what I have seen is a change in myself and the way that I look at health. More than ever, I am convinced that the mind is the control over the body and not the other way around. The more I speak with people and my patients I find that they are somewhat educated about the healthy aspects of being healthy in body and mind. I even find myself getting into a conversation with people that I don't even know and wanting to talk to them about integral health.
On a sad note, one of my good friends was diagnosed with Stage IV Ovarian cancer and is now living her bucket list. I decided to take the chance and talk with her about integral health in hopes that if her mind is healthy, then her body will follow. My hope is that my influence on her will at least extend her life past the next six months. My goal is to see her get through this awful disease and be comfortable with her life and death. My goal is to assist her and many others to improve their lives and to live healthy, happy and whole.