My Overall Wellness Improvements

Overall, my wellness is growing everyday and to be honest my wellness various depending on how I feel on that particular day.  As mentioned in last week’s post my overall wellness is growing on a daily basis and my spiritually wellness is about a 7.5. Of, course there are places where I feel that I need to improve, but overall spiritually I feel connected with Christ. I would have to say that my spiritual wellness has improved and I find myself relying on Christ even more on a daily basis and not just when I am in a crisis. Due to me being pregnant physically I am at about 5 because I have been extremely tired and have not had the energy to workout. Currently, my goal is to remain active on a daily basis and only gain about 15-20 pounds throughout this entire pregnancy. Therefore, I would have to say my physical wellness has decreased, but I am trying to increase my physical wellness. Psychologically, on a scale of 1-10 I would consider myself to be 5 because currently I am under a little stress, but I am learning to cope with my stress positively through mediation and physical fitness.  Honestly, psychologically my wellness has not improved, but at least it has not drastically changed or gone down.

Personally, this course has brought a great joy to my life. I have met some people that have been very inspirational and my instructor was amazing! The most rewarding aspect of this class has been my experience of learning how to mediate. I always wanted to be able to mediate and the exercises provided in this course taught me the art of mediation. This course has definitely given me some extra tools to use when teaching wellness class, especially classes such as stress management or tobacco cessation.

Saying Good Bye To My Creating Wellness Class, But Hello To Tracking My Wellness World After College

I.  Introduction:

As a Wellness Educator I find it important to develop my mind and body psychologically, spiritually, and physically in order to be considered a legitimate health care professional. It is almost like a practice what you preach situation. Personally, I find it important to physically exercise on a regular, spiritually remain focus on God’s will, as well as psychologically remaining stressed free.  I have found that exercising has helped me remain focus on life, by helping me clear my mind during stressful situations and physically boasting my immune system.  

II. Assessment:
Recently, I have set back and really looked at my life from the six dimensions of wellness perspective. In order to assess our health in each domain, we must understand how we translate optimal health from our own standards and views. The six dimensions of wellness are the intellectual, emotional, physical, social, occupational, and spiritual. (Kolander) As we become aware of the dimension we can begin to assess our scores. Therefore, just to keep things simple we will use a scale from one to ten. My overall wellness is growing everyday and honestly various depending on how I feel on that particular day.  As mentioned before my overall wellness is growing on a daily basis and my spiritually wellness is about a 7.5. Of, course there are places where I feel that I need to improve, but overall spiritually I feel connected with Christ.  Due to me being pregnant physically I am at about 5 because I have been extremely tired and have not had the energy to workout. Currently, my goal is to remain active on a daily basis and only gain about 15-20 pounds throughout this entire pregnancy.  Psychologically, I am still crazy! Just kidding…..On a scale of 1-10 I would consider myself to be 5 because currently I am under a little stress, but I am learning to cope with my stress positively through mediation and physical fitness.  

III. Goal development:
 As mentioned in the above statement physically my goal is to remain active on a daily basis by at least 20-30 minutes of running/walking 3-5 days a week and doing pre-natal yoga at least 2-3 times a week. Spiritually, my goal is to remain focus in God’s word through having daily devotionals, remaining focus on God’s will and doing his work. Psychologically, prayer has been my best and remains my number one goal in order to keep on track especially when faced with challenges and obstacles in life.

IV. Practices for personal health:
I have found that in order to foster growth physically, psychologically, and spiritually I must record in a journal and/or my blog! From a physical standpoint as mentioned above I plan to incorporate a minimum of 20 minutes of cardio into my daily activity as well as some toning exercises, such as yoga. Psychologically, I found visualization a great tool and as stated before prayer remains my number one source of psychological balance. Spiritually, daily devotionals and prayer time is a great way to foster personal growth.

V. Commitment:
This blog has been such an great experience for me that I actually plan to continue tracking my wellness status by using this blog. As I share my experience being pregnant I am sure I will be able to see the difference in my outlook on life as hormones kick in and as my unborn child develops.

Optimal Well Being

For the past eight weeks I have been taking a course called Creating Wellness: Psychological and Spiritual Aspects of Healing in which has been an amazing experience. Last week, as you may notice I submitted a post on my psychological spiritual growth that was more of a visualization post. During that particular exercise I experienced being able to mediate. This was a powerful moment for me because as I stated in the post that I was extremely excited to actually be able to mediate for the first time and I have the hopes of using the visualization exercise as a way to develop a closer relationship with Christ. Due to being marriage enrichment retreat this weekend I did not start my visualization exercise, but I plan to attempt the exercise by waking up a few minutes earlier every morning and incorporating this exercise with my devotional period. The other session that I found most benetifical throughout my Creating Wellness class was the loving kindness technique. Considering that I am a sucker for love this particular exercise was right up my alley. I focused my exercise more on the forgiveness aspect and how through love and kindness one is capable of developing love and kindness. Lately, I have been trying to accomplish a sense of forgiveness by trying to master the art of positive affirmation when I find myself becoming upset or frustrated with individuals that hurt, rather than focusing on the negative or heartaches and pains the individual has caused me. As stated before this course has been amazing and those two exercises are what have influenced me the most.   

Psychological and Spiritual Growth

This week’s meditative practice was more of a visualization practice. In which my personal visualization focused on a person that I admire, which is Maya Angelou. I visualized her being a kind, loving, and brilliant women of God. As I sat in her present I was honored to hear her stories of life and grasped onto her ever word of wisdom. For the first time I was able to slowly flyaway into another place where peace and tranquility took over my body. Now, I can truly understand why people mediate on a daily basis and I can definitely see myself visualizing during my prayer time. I can just imagine to connection I can have with Christ if I used this same sort of mediation practice.  There is a particular bible verse that reminds me of the importance of spiritually and psychologically taking time out and strengthens your mental state.

Spend your time and energy in training yourself for spiritual fitness. Physical exercise has some

value, but spiritual exercise is much more important for it promises a reward in both this life

and the next. This is true and everyone should accept it. 1 Timothy 4:7-9 (NLT)

As I read the quote, : "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself” I naturally wanted to relate it to spirituality because in life we run across people that effect our thinking in either a negative or positive aspect to the point that it can run us closer or further away from a higher being. As a healthcare professional I feel that it is an obligation of mine to have some sort of impact on my patient/client life. To give a person the confidence to become an advocate for his/her owns health is my number one goal as a Wellness Educator.

The Universal Loving Kindness of Meditation

For me meditation is not an art that I completely grasped yet. As stated in previous post I find myself able to escape when I exercise. Especially, when I run, but last week when I went to the driving range (golf) last Thursday I found myself once again escaping into another world. I guess I should say those are my sorts of mediation. I found that during my Integral Assessment that it was hard to cultivate into a still mind, but as I tried I focused a lot of my time and effort on my personal relationship with God and my emotional development. Maybe, the majority of my problem during this assessment was that I was focusing on more than one subject. As I visualized the changes I needed to make I envisioned myself having a more positive and productive life as a stronger women. In order to accomplish some short term goals of becoming stronger women I look forward to graduating within the next few months by working hard to graduate with at least a 3.5 GPA and completing a 10K race. Mentally, as I accomplish those goals I will gain a sense of accomplishment, confidence, and satisfaction that no one can ever take away from me.  

Mental Fitness

Today has been an interesting morning for me. It was nice outside and when I say nice I mean raining and dark. Yes, I am one of those weird people that likes the sound and view of the rain. I actually love to run in the rain, but I needed to finish homework this morning; therefore, I had to skip my run. L So, as I was practicing the mental fitness exercise this morning I found my mind able to relax and freely escape from the world for only a brief moment, which was extremely frustrating. As I read about the witnessing mind and the goal is for one to learn how to stop the mind from clinging to random movement I found this particular exericise to be extremely difficult and I am learning that in order to be any use to myself I must learn to let go of random thoughts of life and negativity. Through the practice of ME TIME! I am slowly realizing that I must go on a daily run because that is honestly the only time my mind is at a standstill or calm-abiding. Running is my time of effortless stillness and when I an running the only goal that I set is to push my body to the limits of freedom, which brings a sense of refreshing coolness to my soul. I have found that running is my similar to my prayer time with God. When I pray to God (spiritual wellness) I automatically go to a place of peace and when I run (physical wellness) my body goes to a place of peace; therefore, eventually my mind (mental wellness) goes to a place of emptiness or stillness.

“Reflection is a flower of the mind, giving out wholesome fragrance; but revelry is the same flower, when rank and running to seed.” Author Unknown

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/reflection_is_a_flower_of_the_mind-giving_out/203414.html (2010) Retrieved April 26, 2011

Loving Kindness

This week as I tried to practice the loving kindness technique into my life I found it difficult. Usually, I find this (to love and be kind) quiet easy, but this week it has been extremely hard. As I am working on forgiveness I have found this exercise to be extremely beneficial because it forces me consciously try to be kind and to love those individuals that I rather not be kind to. I find myself practicing the relaxation techniques when I start to become angry. I would definitely recommend this exercise to anyone that may be struggling with forgiveness because with forgiveness the actions on love and kindness becomes easier to practice.  Learning to be kind and loving is a mental workout in its own way. In life the brain is faced with several challenges that bring on many emotions. Our brain controls our every movement, thought process, overall our entire life.  The brain is the master piece of our life; therefore, it is important to feed it with positive and strong daily exercises and experiences. Research has proven that mental workouts are the best way to give the brain the boost of energy as well as a rest from the daily stressors of the world.  Mental workouts have a great way of lowering anxiety and increase creativity as well as help individuals to take on the challenge and overcome obstacles in life.  Personally, I have found that going to the library and picking up a random book and reading one chapter of something that I find uninteresting is my way of having a mental workout as well as just getting away from the stressors of my life. The library is my go to place to just get away from the world.  So a little food for thought today is 1 Corinthians 13:4-13

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 ⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 ¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13&version=NIV