Unit 9  Project

I don’t see how it could be possible for a health and wellness professional to help, heal or counsel a patient/client successfully in matters of physical, spiritual or psychological health if they themselves were not actively trying to develop themselves in those areas as well.  Educational knowledge and skills may lead a professional to a diagnosis, but that is only a portion of what is needed.  A person who has unaddressed physical, spiritual or psychological negativity in their lives would not be of any help to others.

I have spent the last few months taking a close look at my life; my thoughts, words and actions, to try to figure out where I need to make positive changes that will promote flourishing health.  These last few months have been unusually difficult for me; looking for work, financial difficulties, family problems, a voluminous amount of schoolwork, and the fact that I am at an unhealthy weight, to name a few. These problems have been wearing me down to having outbursts of unhealthy negative emotions, filling me with fear, and pushing me to the point of exhaustion. I understand that aspiring to have a career as a nutritionist will not be productive if I cannot find a way to successfully alleviate this suffering not only in the short term, but also permanently.  I need to find a healthy way to lose weight (who will trust an overweight, unhealthy nutritionist, unless I am on the journey of losing weight to achieve optimum health?).  I also need to trust that with the skills that I have, even in this difficult economy, I will find work to help me with my financial burdens, and to focus on the thought that long as I keep putting myself out there with a positive attitude I will find work. If I approach my family with a loving attitude, things could turn around and give us an outcome that is possible to bring us all together in a loving peaceful way. On a scale from 1 to 10, I would give myself a 2 or maybe on a good day a 3 in all three areas thus far (physical, spiritual and psychological health.)  I believe it is a gift that I took this course because it has taught me so many ways and practices that I can use to achieve flourishing health in all three areas, if I adopt them into my way of life.

I know what to eat and how much to eat in order to maintain a healthy weight, but I continuously over eat and participate in binge eating. For my physical body, I am now in the process of assess inwardly why I overeat and binge eat to find a way to stop these detrimental habits.  Negative emotions have been such a part of my daily life, I now have learned that the mind is flexible and that I could train my mind to think and react in a more positive (more compassionate, more loving) way. My goal is to systemically train my mind through inner development with contemplative practices.  I have been incorporating deep breathing into my life daily and sometimes more than once a day when needed, to try to bring myself back to the present moment. I am confident that by me achieve a less stressful and more peaceful mindset, I will be able to affect all those that I meet during my day in a constructive and optimistic manner.  Reaching spiritual health is probably the most difficult one to achieve, but I am in hope of achieving this ultimate goal by spending a lot of times in preparation.  I am beginning to understand the value of silence and the realization of something that has always been foreign to me.  TV, radio, phones, texting, computers and other erratic business are such a part of my life and it adds to the chaotic level of stress that I am under.  Although it is almost impossible now-a-days to do away with all of these things, I am going to consciously try to eliminate them from controlling me and my time.  To start, I am going to set times for each of these things to make the time that I spend with them productive and at the same time incorporate a short amount of time of silence in my day daily.  I plan to increase the amount of quietness each day and change the activities I do during the day to things that really matter, rather than just going through the motions of the day doing things out of habit that don’t.

For my physical health—exercise and proper diet.  I have started out slowly (exercise is not something that comes easily for me) I plan at the moment to go out of my way to walk more than I do now in simple ways—to park further out in the ShopRite parking lot when I shop, to walk to the bank a few blocks away rather than use the car, take the stairs instead of the elevator/escalator whenever possible, etc.  It does not work for me to do vigorous exercises. I have found that if I try to do too much too soon, I end up giving up the entire plan…baby steps (no pun intended) works better for me.  I have recently cut out all unhealthy sugars and white-flour products in my diet and plan to continue this indefinitely.  Once I am comfortable with this, I am going to try to watch my portions in hope to drop my excess weight.  My psychological practices will incorporate deep-breathing exercises and visualization.  Whereas I do already incorporate deep-breathing exercises for a few minutes daily and sometimes a few times a day, I plan to extend this exercise purposefully to include some visualization practice at least two days a week in hopes to keep me focused on the present and in hopes to maintain a loving and compassionate demeanor.  Spiritually, I plan to incorporate yoga and chanting as a routine. I did a daily yoga practice faithfully for years long ago, but not any longer.  I have a great tape by Susan Winter Ward, a yoga instructor, and have decided to take one hour on Sundays…the best day of the week for me…to practice yoga with the tape.  Chanting is something that I have done only once on a retreat up in NY State and it brought me to a place outside of myself where I experienced one with nature and my God.  This was an experience that brought me incredible peace and I hope that by incorporating it somehow in my weekly practices, I will get great spiritual benefits from it.  This will be done by trial and error until I find a time that it will fit into my routine.

All of the above goals and the practices that I have listed below cannot be done successfully unless I make a commitment to the process. I personally know people that belong to Alcoholics Anonymous and Overeaters Anonymous and understand their commitment to abstinence each and every day in order to have a fruitful and ongoing recovery.  I see what I am now trying to do as the same type of opportunity to commit to practices that have been proven effective for others time and time again. Daily commitment, keeping my focus on my goals, participating in proven holistic and contemplative practices will help me assess the progress that I am making in the next six months and longer. Making this commitment will help me to be able to get closer to the goal of flourishing health as well as putting me in the position of being able to help others also achieve the same.

                           “Become the change you want to see happen in the world.”                                                                                                                                                                                         Gandhi

Jen

 

Reference

Dacher, Elliot S. (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing. Basic Health       Publications. Laguna Beach, CA.