Final Post for this class "i think"

Unit 10

My final blog entry / summarizing my experiences in this course and how it has assisted my well-being and my ability to assist others.

  

In unit 3, I gave myself for -physical well-being- between a six and a nine. I would say that this area is a clear 7.  It does not too of seemed to get better.  Now I want to add that this is my person criticism.  That those that know me think I am doing really well.  I look like I am in my early thirties (20 year difference) and my energy is really good.  That I have a great youthful sense of humor and am for the most part fun to be around once you get to know me. I have started Tai Chi in the last three weeks and have continued it almost every day.  Every day I stretch a lot and every day I stretch my mind to keep clear to new ideas and concepts that I will now allow to wander in, controlled by me.

In my spiritual well-being- Here is an area i am still proud of and would still give myself a strong ten. Actually I could go to eleven.  I am very comfortable in my spiritual side. As I continue to eat in a yakuzen type manor (for my health only) I feel my intuitions and spirit open. I have become more sensitive and aware of things around me. I have taken a few day trips to very magical areas and just feel the nature.  This all helps my spiritual side open.  I leave those places feeling refreshed and ready for much more.

Last but not least my psychological well-being- Here is where I placed myself between a seven and a ten.  The low side was based of the amount of disappointment and sadness I hold.  Well since then I have changed a few things.  Being in this class for one helped direct me to just simply be calmer and—I chose to let the love of my life, my breath, my unicorn go and be free.  I put myself on Mood support herbal formulas and changed my diet to easy digesting foods. I allow many tears to come to release the toxins but the tears are a different type.  A letting go type.  Not a frustrating and angered type.  The tears that come now are tears of saying to myself it is all ok and it is going to be ok.  I feel very alone and have a very strong sense ogf not knowing even more but all of that is actually good for me.  Might be hard to understand but it is me that needs to understand and no one else.  It is me that needs to survive and thrive and rebuild.  I gave eleven years of my everything and the acceptance of knowing that I cannot change things I care about to be a better them is just my problem and it is ok. That even areas that I wanted to change in me that it just was not me and that they could not except that is yet another valuable lesson learned.  That I am who I am and I need to embrace all the great attributes that I have.  We will both be lonely without each other I believe this but it is what it is. Maybe someday things will go back and go back differently but I am not going to hold my breath because he was actually my breath.  Wow--- that makes me cry, but all is good. It needs to be (for my health).  So I give myself a much higher grade in this department for making and taking that great step.

This class has been one of the better life tools that I have received since I learned of organics.  I will continue to apply the relaxation techniques and as well re read my books until fully educated by memorizing as much as I can. 

My only challenges in this class is that i am a very busy Aesclepian healer and i work very long hours and become physically drained. This class over all perfect in every way.

Thank you Professor for everything, I still leave open a full healing treatment with all I know to you, if you are ever in my area at no charge.  It is the gratitude payback for being a good teacher. If you feel you need to pay for it in some manor then you can put it in a little manila envelope, put my name on it (diana) with a happy face.

Unit 9 -My plan that applies concepts I have learned regarding holistic/integral health to help foster growth and health spiritually, physically, and psychologically in my personal life.

    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?

As a practitioner of health and wellness is a necessity to be as developed as you possibly can in the areas of psychology, spiritually and physically.  Each one of these areas has a purpose.  Each one of these areas is a small part of the whole.  It is the whole body that is the goal to balance. That each one of the words listed above (we will title PSP) is a level of the body.  If anyone is absent than the others will suffer.  This is not an area where we are talking arms, like as if one of your arms is weak or damaged in some way that the other can pick up the slack a bit.  PSP are all each their own and need their own strength and growth. When each one of the areas is developed well your own health will be the mirror of it.  You will then reflect health and wisdom. Your emotions will be calm and reserved. Your actions will be thought out and carefully placed and above all you will have a greater sense of knowing.

I myself need to work on the physical side of me.  I am a mature woman and can feel time sneaking up on me. It is important that I age with grace. It is important for me to represent health to my children most specially my oldest daughter.  She has fought the common sense of eating well and thinking soundly.  She has been against many ways I have handled things because I have not used religion.  That I stepped away from the God above and found that higher power resides in me and has been there my entire life.  I hold the power to heal, and take responsibility for every single action I do or, that happens to me.  I answer to my health.  If I am getting it right my health will show it.  If I am getting it wrong (whatever it may be) my health will show it. I do not pray for patience I look into myself and see what is wrong.  Is it my diet, life style, environment, what am I doing that is creating the imbalance.  If all is good and “sound” than I am getting an “A” in the classroom of life.

    Assessment:  How have you assessed your health in each domain? How do you score your wellness spiritually, physically, and psychologically?

As a heal care practitioner I judge myself very harshly.  I always look at each of the three areas, Physical, Spiritual and Psychological as being a part of a harmony as my fingers are to my hand, that without any one of the three, the table losses a leg, so to say.

My weakest area is my Physical side. This is an area that I must be very disciplined in and have not been for a little bit from a separation that happen in April.  I can easily feel a deficiency in my blood and an excess in my liver.  Emotions can really destroy.  Well being aware if half the battle.

If I were to score this area of physical,  I would give myself a 6 with 1 being the worst and 10 being optimal.

As to Spiritual and Psychological these I would give them both a high eight.  There is always room to grow.  I figure the day I can bend a spoon by just thinking it will be the day I can give myself a 10.

  

 Goal development:  List at least one goal you have for yourself in each area, Physical, Psychological (mental health) and Spiritual.

My personal goals that I would like to increase in the areas of Physical, Psychological (mental health) and Spiritual well-being are-

Physical- I would like to rebuild my immune system, clean out my large intestine and liver. 

Nourish my liver and kidney blood which in-turn should as well, strengthen my teeth.

Psychological – Here I need to learn to not be so sensitive. To not take things so personal, that even though the level of care that I have is higher than everyone I know, except one person, (and I just let that person go from my life) that I need to remember each and every person has a life of information in their head that they use to make every decision that they do.  

I have been sad and angry for a long time and know why.  I am working very hard on that and believe I have chiseled away a good 80% with the help of techniques I have learned in the class of, Psychological and Spiritual Aspects of Healing.

Last but sure by no means the least, is Spiritual.  This area needs no addressing.  This area is doing very well and as a matter of fact when I reach my physical goal, this area is going to sharpen like a razor blade. This area already scares me with things I become aware of.  Things like seeing a small girl in a friend I have, a girl of about thirteen.  This girl looked over-whelmed with burden and not happy at all.  Like as if she had the weight of the whole world on her shoulders.  I told my friend what I saw in her one day and she almost broke into tears.  She said when she was very young like thirteen that her mother was very ill and she had do everything while her mother lay in bed to try to get well.

 

  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.

In each of the different domains I have found different techniques to implement in fostering growth.  As to keeping the physical growing, i started tai chi up again. As I learn this practice of different slow moves I will be incorporating it into my everyday life.

1)      In the spiritual department I have started every day to take time out to just sit and be quiet. I have allowed my mind to open and, to open to the possibilities of all things and everything, to never close my spiritual thoughts to possibilities.  To remember that we do not know, so we can never say we know and if you think you do know something on a topic then you are wise.  I look for the spirit in nature and in the nature of all things.  Just the other day I drove an extra 6 miles to get myself back to a small turtle that looked as if it was going to cross the road.  Once I arrived and could see the turtle clearer (I got out of my car) to move it’s seemingly direction, back toward the grasses, I said to it, you trying to cool off?  At the same moment to see fluid had come out from its mouth and there I noticed it was dead.  However, even being dead and being something very special I still picked it up and moved it into the grasses where it (to me) could have its dignity and lay to rest in the  environment that it belonged.

2)      The second strategy to increase and to keep growing in my spiritual world is to keep my health as clean as possible because if the health is sound than the mind will follow.  It is as simple as that.

In the Psychological department the two ways I will foster to continue to grow in this area is again, clean my health up as much as I have the power to.  A sound body allows the mind to go to other things.  If you are ill the thinking is how to get better or if the illness is not something disabling the illness does not allow the body to really open and be free.  I will continue to read the works of great writers that will enhance and stretch my mind, to continue to think and ask questions and learn all possibilities of all things.  The open mind is a large key here for me.

Now for the Physical, I will continue my tai chi and my work hard on incorporating more walking. I have added stretching and receiving massages to increase blood flow and warm the joints to assist in better movement. I will as well keep my mind physically active toward the direction of calm and clear thinking as well as compassionate thoughts toward those around me.

 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 just signed up for my next two courses and one of them is with a Professor that I had last year.  This is not a good thing with this particular Professor.  Well coming out of this class I am only hoping that I will be able to take my skills that I learned here into this next class and do better internally with them.  This will truly be the test to see if I maintain my progress and my strategies that I have learned here.  So that will be one way to asses that I am keeping my new techniques in my life.  I am if anything going to enforce them otherwise my judgment of past experiences is going to get into my way.

Something else I will do that is record the relaxation audios on a dvd so I can play them whenever I need as well as carry Elliot Dacher’s book also my Consciousness and healing book with me like a security blanket.

HW420 Unit 6 Time to Shift

This week i  practiced the Universal Loving Kindness meditation that is found in Elliott S. Dacher's book Integral Health, The Path to Human Flourishing p 93.  This particular meditation is to me extremely unselfish in nature.  It leads you to send freedom, health, happiness and wholeness to those you love and to all people.  It brings you to a place to be given the opportunity to assist as well in this process with someone.  May it be a stranger or someone you know.

This entire week while daily (often multiple times a day) saying these words in my head and sometimes out loud i have encounter magical things where i have been asked to help assist situations from money to health to advice.  This in turn as giving me a feeling of calm and needed.  Needed, not like i am looking to help and i my self needing that but a much more balanced way of feeling like you helped someone this seek be a better them. It has brought rewards to my own calm that has added in my sleep, digestion and mental well being.

In the Assessment Process Exercise found as well, in Elliott S. Dacher, p 115  when you become still and ask yourself "What aspect of my life- psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal or worldly, do i need to work on for myself, clearly what jumped out was my interpersonal and psychospiritual aspects.  My interpersonal- is a relationship i let go to fly free on it's own and it has left me in many ways with clipped wings.  I can fly just not very far at all before i come down real fast.  I did not realize how much the relation i had encompassed absolutely ever aspect of me.  Even to eating something new because it would be them, that would feed me new things.  I can tell it is going to be a long journey that most likely i will never fully get over, i just need to be able to thrive not just survive (live without them).

As to the psychospiritual that one just jumps out purely due to the passions of my heart and the amount of care i hold inside to offer to those on the outside. 
Both of these practices have influenced me to want to smile, laugh and yet go deep with-in to see truth, whatever it may be. 
To implement these exercise more i need to visit places that my eyes can see beauty in it's nature form such as places like, Parfrey's Glen that is just only an hour away  from me.  Places of deep truth and sincerity.  When in these places to meditate on the aspects that make me me.  



Dacher, E.,(2006). Integral Health The Path to Human Flourishing . Chpt 9 p 93, Chpt 11 - p 115

Parfrey's Glen, (2012). Retrieved from  http://www.devilslakewisconsin.com/information-center/other-natural-areas/parfreys-glen/

Loving Kindness / Subtle Mind exercises (part two)

2) Discuss the connection of the spiritual wellness to mental and physical wellness. Explain how the connection is manifested in your personal life.
  
  The connection that i had with spiritual wellness and its connection with mental and physical wellness a very close.  i think that i have been combining them all together from the start.  My spiritual wellness in the connection that i have with nature.  Then energy of nature and how that protects me and carries me through difficult times.  I actually think that they all have a very unique quality and i look at each of the three differently.
When you delve into the deeper lever of your spiritual mind, your mind could not feel comfortable there due emotions we have stuffed down. Now putting mental and physical wellness together you can have yourself working out longer, faster and harder which in the long run if that is what you need to prepare for an event that is great.  The three are different levels, the spiritual is the deepest and the physical is the most physical, closest to the skin so to say and the one in the middle would be the mental.

All of these are going to have such a profound influence i am excited to keep you updated on the effect in days and weeks to come.

HW420 Unit 5 - Loving Kindness  (part 0ne)

1. Compare and contrast the Loving Kindness exercise and the Subtle Mind exercise. Explain your experience including the benefits, frustrations etc.

These two exercises are so very powerful to any and everyone who applies them.  It has been a week in using them both and i can say they that  they are not easy for me.  "Loving Kindness" put me to sleep in the beginning just after i would give my love and kindness to someone who is suffering.  The first time i took the love and kindness from my own heart, that i gathered from a man that has a unique high level of love, and gave that love to my daughter who was not feeling well, i believe in those moments are when she got up and out of bed and felt better.  I cannot testify to who i gave my love and kindness to with other but it is a feel good practice. To me it makes me feel as if i have just hand made and delivered a gift that i know they always wanted and needed. The "Subtle Mind" exercise is a real Challenge.  I have been working on this one all week and just cannot yet completely get my mind in complete control.  It wonders so much. I have so much in my mind that i am always thinking about.  One thing that is very good though however, i can keep grabbing my mind and bringing it back. Also this one for a strange reason i never fall asleep to.  I want to master this one. 
Through the week my ability to not talk so much has risen greatly as well for a cool reason my humor.  I have made people laugh all week with things i would say. 

Kaplan-HW420 -Unit 4 "Phychospiritual Flourishing"

This week i was to read chapter 6 in Dasher's book "Integral Health" and focus on the first practice (Loving Kindness).

Where i work i have had a bit of a challenge with an old friend.  I am not sure what i did wrong but one day i was attacked verbally and then again and again and again.  It is always over something petty but i remain quit and do not speak back and let them just say whatever they need.  I have the support of everyone including my manger in knowing this other person goes off often.  For it to happen to me was odd because we have been friends for so long.
The other day i spoke with intense, sincere kindness.  They took it as if i was talking to them like they were a child.  So it did not go well.  I used what i learned from the #1 practice and being this time i had witnesses, they did not look good.  The behavior that everyone witness that happened to me was a surprise.  They saw a side of this other person that they had not seen before.  As well i gained respect for my technique, calmness and wise words. The facts remain this person does not like me and i do not know why.  It is like they resent me.  Funny note, i look very very similar to his girl friend that he had a couple years ago and might still have.

The practice of loving kindness i think is something everyone should experience.  They need to make their own decision how they feel about applying it.  Love to me means: Increase ones potential.  So loving kindness in this form of this practice might not always be the correct answer. I think to go into meditation and bring the pain of another into your heart and dissolve it with a return out-breath of pain free or kindness and love, sounds perfect but some should need to just figure things out on their own and be alone while doing so. 

In learning the understanding of "Mental Workout" is brings us to the practice that was done above.  When we add information to out mind for our health and happiness or soundness we are working out or mind.  We use such a small portion of out minds it really is time to stretch that area that sites on top of our shoulders and use it for something beside a hat rack , as my mother would say.

Kaplan University-HW420 -Unit 3

1. Based on your reflections, and on a scale of 1 to 10 (ten being optimal well-being), where do you rate your A-physical well-being, B-spiritual well-being, C-psychological well-being? Why?

A-physical well-being- My physical well being is on a sliding scale. I would say between a six and a nine. There are times truly that after giving a day of healing treatments and i drive home, that getting out of my car takes a second. From my low back to to my shoulders. I know if pushed i would snap right into shape but my push is lite. I know all the things to do naturally to get into shape it is just i place myself often in the "shoeless shoes maker" position.

B-spiritual well-being- Here is an area i am proud of. I would give myself a strong ten. I have been through many facets of organized religion in my years from Lutheran to Catholic to Jehovah to Pentecostal. I have taught Lutheran Sunday school and have read the entire bible as well, took two complete courses of the Pentecostal version, "End Times". I am know seeing nature as my leader, teacher and overall higher power. i believe in spirits, angles as well as the boogie monster. I believe in life in outer-space and that we started by walking upright. I believe that i hold the power to heal with the intent of my minds thoughts. I believe that we hold the power of a higher level within us.

C-psychological well-being- Here is that sliding scale again. It would be between a seven and a ten. Here the only place i waver is in disappointment. I house an enormous amount of sadness. As crazy as this may sound i thought that my life would be very different. I never thought that i would be alone so much. That i would be used so much. That i would be lied to and deceived so much. I never thought that my dad would not live to one hundred and that my children would not do things behind me that i could not see that could of caused them great harm. I never thought that i could not change someones mind in thinking when i present a valid reason. A reason for health and healthfulness. So it has been a journey of learning and understand just where my place is on this planet and excepting that i had many things wrong. That makes me want to cry just admitting all this right here. So being sound in mind and body is always my every moment goal. To be mindful of each and every thing. To except what is real and allow real to be what it is. At that point i can walk away from it wiping my feet or stand there and face it. I have a choice. Always remembering that sadness is the sincerest of emotions and cause the least amount of harm to the body of all the emotions even happiness. Peace, sound and calm is what i seek.

2) Develop a goal for yourself in each area (physical, spiritual, psychological).

My goals in these three areas are-

Physical-take more walks often, use my yoga ball and exercise tools more, apply my Tai Chi to every day when it restarts in May on the 15th.

Spiritual-A goal here for me would be to maintain the spiritual developments that i have developed and maintain this development through the rest of my life.

Psychological-The mind is a beautiful thing and i think that people beat themselves up too much over hows theirs works. So, here it is important for me to realize that things happened for what ever reason they do and nothing should be taken personal. The times that something might feel personal are the times we are being tested. That in those times our mind (emotions) need to remain calm, cool and try to move on. Moving away emotionally, psychology, from a problem will allow you to get a better grasp on it. it would be those times that you need to take that walk as well.

3) What activities or exercise can you implement in your life to assist in moving toward each goal?

Focus, focus, focus, focus, are the only words i hear to help me reach these goal that i had mentioned above. I must remove distractions as well and i must think of Diana, think of myself. If i would think of myself more (my needs) and stop offering my talents as much as i do, then my goals will come easier.

1. Complete the relaxation exercise The Crime of the Century. Describe your experience. (What it beneficial? Frustrating? etc.) To hear this exercise, click here. http://www.kushs.net/kaplan/HW420/TheCrimeOfTheCentury.mp3
   

This was a wonderful relaxation video. The concept of the rainbow and it's seven colors relating to what i believe are the seven chakras was a beautiful idea to enhance relation. Everyone loves rainbows and the concept of the rainbow to relax with was beautiful.
This exercise was very beneficial for me in that i look at colors all the time in regards to health. Every organ has a color and here every emotion has a color. I have a few very personal thoughts about red, both blues, yellow, emerald green and white. Coupled with the other colors, it was a beautiful journey.

Now, i listened to this very early in the morning and i think that it might of been too early. From wanting to sleep to the things i had planned for my day i had to keep refocusing. I would like to get to a point that this form of relation can come at any time of the day. I would also like to make the red, yellow and blues for me have my own personal meaning and not relate to experiences in my life. That as well, was distracting but not harmful, but just a little disturbing. Boy i have a lot to do.