Week 9: My Plan

1. Introduction:
   I believe it is very important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually, and physically, especially if they want to be taken seriously in their careers and serve as a trusted and credible source of support for their patients.  I believe that in this line of work, we need to be able to practice what we preach. 

We are dealing with patients who are struggling with wellness in one of more of these areas.  I feel that patients should be able to trust that the advice we are giving is tried and true.  If we were able to do these things, they can do it, too.  Not everything will work for every individual, but at least we can tell our patients in an honest manner how various techniques worked for us, and if not, what we tried to overcome our roadblocks. 

I do not think that patients expect their health and wellness professionals to be perfect or flawless, but I think they need to see us progressing on the journey to total wellness, instead of feeling like what we are advising is unattainable.  In regards to this, I believe that I need to develop my physical well-being. I am a very healthy person; however I want to be in better shape.  I know I feel better about myself, and my body feels better when I am involved in regular physical activity.  I feel that my patients would benefit from seeing my journey to better physical wellness as well.

2.  Assessment:
   In terms of my physical wellness, I have done fitness tests like BMI, as well as the PQRI to determine that my health will allow me to safely exercise to lower my BMI.  In terms of my spiritual and psychological health, I have found reading the Integral Health text to be very helpful in reflecting on my own wellness.  I also feel that the blog exercises were very helpful in assessing my wellness in these areas. 

I feel that my spiritual and psychological wellness is good, but not optimal.  There are things in both areas that I would like to improve.  My physical wellness is lacking a regular exercise program that would allow me to reach and maintain my goal weight. I have made so much progress in this area over the years that sometimes the last 20 pounds seems like a drop in the bucket. At the same time, to come this far and not be in a state of physical wellness that I am proud of, seems a waste of effort. 

3. Goal development:
   My goal for psychological wellness is to learn to take a break and think about a situation before I react.  I tend to react to a situation first, sometimes complicating it further than if I would have taken the time to think things through initially.  This would save me a great deal of stress and heartache.

My goal for spiritual wellness is to fit time into my schedule to meditate and pray daily.  I always feel better when I do this, however it is challenging to always find time to do it without waiting until I am too exhausted from the day to really focus.

My goal for my physical health is to find an exercise program I enjoy and have fun with,  I want to participate in regular exercise 30 minutes at least three times a week.  I feel that I am doing well with my nutrition, but I need physical activity.

I feel that no one achieves or maintains optimal wellness without constantly making and analyzing goals.  Wellness is not a state you reach and then your work is done.  I feel that the goals I have set are manageable and achievable at this stage in my life.  Once I am free of school commitments, I would like to tweak my physical goals to target some specific areas of my body that would make me feel better about myself.

4. Practices for personal health:
   Meditating and prayer are both strategies I can implement to foster growth in my psychological and spiritual domains.  I also believe that yoga would be a strategy to help encourage growth in all three domains, as it is a physical activity that calls on breathing and meditation techniques.  I have been looking into a zumba fitness program that I think would not only benefit me physically as it is a great exercise, but psychologically as well because it is so upbeat and fast that it would really help alleviate stress and aggression. 
5. Commitment:
   It is always easy to make plans, but carrying them out on a daily basis is another story.  I will assess my progress with a pocket calendar I can keep on my nightstand.  I will indicate nightly on the calendar if I have done my meditation exercises as well as my physical exercise program.  This will give me a visual of how well I have been honoring my commitment to myself. 

Tracking my progress in terms of my exercise program will not be difficult.  Since I am pregnant, I visit my doctor monthly and am weighed.  If I am able to manage my pregnancy weight gain goal of only 20 pounds, I will know I am on the right track.  In terms of spiritual and psychological progress, my family is always very good at telling me how I am doing. When I am stressed out and moody, it sets the tone for my entire family.  When I am more relaxed, they always comment on how nice things are around the house.  This is always good to hear.  As the saying goes “If mama’s not happy, NOBODY’S happy!”

I think the calendar will really help me keep myself accountable.  I would like to give myself some reward if I stick with my commitments to myself for a certain period of time.  I considered tracking my progress in terms of commitment pay period to pay period: if I have done my meditation exercises and work outs as planned the entire pay period, on pay day I will treat myself to a pedicure, a movie, or something to pat myself on the back.

Week 8: Most Beneficial

I felt that the loving kindness exercise was one of the most beneficial practices for me. It was much easier for me to meditate thinking about my family and things important to me than it was to think about other imagery. As I mentioned previously, it is always harder to turn the focus back to myself. After all, the ideal "super mom" thinks about everyone else first right? It has been a hard realization for me to come to terms with, that I do need to spend more time focusing on myself. I am recently getting over a bad sinus infection that turned into bronchitis.  I was out of work for a week, 4 days spent with a fever that basically left me completely out of it and unable to do anything around the house. Luckily, my family pitched in to help my husband and there were no major disasters! Getting so sick that I was unable to do anything does not happen to me often, luckily, but the experience showed me how important taking care of myself is.

I also really found the subtle mind to be very interesting and beneficial.  I liked the idea that the mind holds all we need for optimal health and wellness. We just need to learn to use that power and take control of our mind.  I know that I clog up my brain with so much useless worry and randomness, so I really liked the idea of a more focused thought process to work through things.

Week 7:"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself"

"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself." This reminds me of another quote, something along the lines of "You can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?" I think a big problem that many have with health and wellness professionals is that they do not always "practice what they preach." Many feel it's "easier said than done," especially when their providers are giving them instructions and suggestions, that sometimes feel like criticism, and it seems like the provider is not exactly following their own recommendations.  This has happened to me in the past and it really discredited anything of merit that the provider had to say.  I either felt like what was suggested obviously wasn't working for this person, so why should I bother? OR why is this such a big issue for me, if it apparently isn't a big issue for you?
I feel as health and wellness professionals, we do have a responsibility to be familiar with the practices we are recommending to our patients.  While I feel health and wellness is an ongoing process and we do not all have to be the "perfect" person in order to do this job, I do think we need to be actively working on ourselves all the time! Not every practice is going to work for every person, but at least we have tried it and know what the roadblocks were for us.  Maybe our patients might even have ways they overcame the same roadblocks and we can benefit from that as well. 

Week 6 Blog...Integral Assessment

I am good at giving advice to others.  I am OK at taking advice and feedback from others.  However, I must admit, it is always hard to assess yourself, regardless of what you are looking at.  The areas of your life that might need improving is especially tough.  I tried to go through the Integral Assessment as open minded as possible, as there is no benefit of telling yourself what you want to hear, and giving myself a good critique and some honest feedback.  I think the area of my life that lacks the most is fitness and relationships with others.  I use the time factor as the main conflict with both of these issues. While I have a very close family that I spend time with often, I feel that I lack time for friendships. I do have close friends I can turn to, and that I talk to often, but I miss the opportunity to socialize and spend time with these people and build memories.  I also feel that my life lacks in the fitness department majorly.  I have lots of good intentions and plans, but when it comes down to it, I just have no time at this point in my life. I cannot think of one thing I could give up to make time for this and it has been a constant struggle.

Week 5: Subtle Mind V. Loving Kindness

I found the loving kindness exercise to be much more beneficial to me. It was much easier for me to get started with it because so much of it asked me to think about other people; I find it very difficult to focus on my breathing.  The loving kindness exercise felt more like prayer to me.  I felt the subtle mind exercise had too much down time; I am not yet at that place where I can keep my mind from wandering.  It seemed that what focus I was able to get was gone with so much silence.

There is such a strong connection between spiritual wellness and mental and physical wellness.  I believe that when you nurture and strengthen your spiritual mind it eases the tensions and pain you feel physically.  So often, our bodies manifest symptoms because of all the strain we feel because of unresolved issues plaguing our mind and dragging down our spirit.

Week 4: Loving Kindness

I will admit, of the exercises we have done so far, loving kindness has been my favorite. It wasn't hard to fill myself with loving thoughts about my children, (especially considering their grandma took them for the afternoon so I could do homework!!) but it was difficult to turn that focus back towards myself. It was a good reminder of what we have been learning, that if we do not take care of ourselves, it makes it more difficult to take care of others.
I have not been functioning at 100% lately, between major job stress and a nasty sinus infection. Once I get a few assignments checked off my to-do list, I am going to take a nap so I can kick this illness and feel better when my children get home this evening!

Week 3: Crime of the Century!

I am going to be honest...what I think when I hear the intro to these exercises and they are encouraging me to relax, I think "I wanted to relax, but I had to listen to this instead!" I have a hard time participating in these meditation exercises...I feel like I have too much in my head! Maybe that is all the more reason for me to practice this, but I just cannot get myself to a point where I can block out all that I have going on.