Unit 9 Final Project

I Introduction

            It is important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually, and physically in order to better help their patients. Dacher says the key to having leaps in health and healing will come about from developing our inner life and our consciousness (Dacher, 2006). A health professional is able to help patients on a holistic level when they are able to relate to what the patient is thinking, feeling and maybe even experiencing. A health professional should consistently work on developing their inner life in the areas of psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal and worldly. Ken Wilber says that one of the few problems that are faced by medical practitioners is the “Cartesian dualism” or the mind-body problem (Schlitz, Amorok & Micozzi, 2005). This is where practitioners treat the patients as if they were machines, just fixing the immediate problem, while all the while knowing that something else deep inside may be the cause of the problem. Which leads to another issue as to where do the illnesses actually start? Is it psychological, spiritual or physical? It is through integral medicine that the illness, the person and the physician are all treated (Shclitz, Amorok, & Micozzi, 2005). As a health professional develops his own biological and psychospiritual being, he is able to help his patient in an integrative way.

 According to Dacher, the psychospiritual part is the most undeveloped part (Dacher, 2006). It is also the primary source of the problems can lead to mental suffering, premature disease and the greatest obstacle to a person’s human flourishing. A health professional should be able to continually strengthen their “mental fitness” in order to maintain their own psychospiritual growth. A health professional should also have their biological aspects under control or in the process of taking care of it. Meaning, a doctor should be an example of what they preach. If they encourage eating healthy, exercising and maintaining a healthy lifestyle then they should be able to give their patients suggestions or examples because they are doing those things. Even if they are struggling with their weight, time or making the commitment, share those struggles with a patient, more than likely, those patients are having the same problems. A doctor being able to encourage a patient to see beyond the physical to actually realize the spiritual aspect of the body in order to maintain a connection through meditation is also a good way to be healthy and whole for both people.

Interpersonal growth is done by the individual. If a health professional wants to be able to help others, this is an area of growth that needs to be strengthened. Dacher says there is major growth in interpersonal life when there is a shift on the focus of I to you to us to all of us. A doctor who isn’t focused in helping all patients doesn’t really have growth in this area. If a doctor is all about him or her, they are looking to make the money, not helping the patient. Once it becomes about the patients, there is healing for both the doctor and patient. In this area, the way to find growth is through formal contemplative exercises (Dacher, 2006). And as consciousness is developed and enhanced, a person’s interpersonal relationships flourish which enables them to handle their outer or worldly life (Dacher, 2006). This is where the health professional actually begins to see service as a meaningful reason for their life. It is the service of helping a patient to gain the knowledge to overcome diseases or to prevent illnesses through teaching, compassion and holistic practices.

The areas in which I feel the need to develop in order to achieve goals that I have for myself are psychospiritual and biological. I would like to develop my psychospiritual, focusing on the spiritual part because I would like to reach a deeper level of consciousness as described by the Olympian minds. I would like to be able to have the “mental fitness” as a person who practiced Calm-abiding for years. I am very head strong and mentally positive but after taking this class, it has only strengthened my knowledge that there is something greater to be reached inside of me. I also choose biological mostly because my physical body isn’t where it needs to be. As I continue to fight my weight and self image, I question how I can help others with this battle that I struggle with daily. I have lost a lot of weight, I do eat healthy and have a more active lifestyle and that is how I can teach, by not giving up and just trying to reach the next goal.  This aspect of my life also includes a spiritual body and that will only become stronger through my actions for a better health and through my developing a stronger Psychospirituality each day.

II Assessment

I have assessed my health in each domain by acknowledging where I fall in Elliot Dacher’s principles for human flourishing and his description of the process of growth in each domain of psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal and worldly. Through contemplative practices of mindfulness meditation and visual meditation, both guided, I have assessed that I go back and forth between spiritual life (calm-abiding consciousness) and the psychological life (witnessing consciousness). I can say this because I am aware of my primal reactions or sensorimotor consciousness and sometimes, I still react with this consciousness first but it is becoming less and less frequent. Through meditation my witnessing consciousness is getting stronger because my intention is substituting for unconscious reaction. I believe that I am on the path to calm-abiding because I have a deeper understanding of the power that my mind has over my body and spirit. My intentions become focused, clear and confident.

In doing my contemplative practices of meditation, I am strengthening my spirit and I am also strengthening my mind. When I did the practice of Loving Kindness, I couldn’t picture one person vividly. My mind would wonder in seconds or it would switch from person to person. It took me a whole week to be able to focus on just one person for a period of minutes. It is getting easier to bring this person to focus when I am doing this practice. As I did the second practice, Subtle mind, it wasn’t as difficult as Loving Kindness because I already learned how to get back to focusing, just this time it was my breath. It was easier to wander in my mind because I didn’t have a picture in my mind’s eye to keep in focus. But, again, with time this practice also easier and it is one I enjoy the most now. As I develop my mind, the hardest part right now is actually recalling feelings and trying to “sit” in them. I can’t seem to get a person and a feeling of happiness or anger to arise. I feel like I am watching from two different windows. But as Dacher says, a person can‘t become a doctor without daily study and an athlete can’t become an Olympian without daily practice, I will not evolve my psychospiritual life to its full capacities and resources without daily practice (Dacher, 2006).

Dacher explains biological flourishing as a developmental movement from body to mind to spirit. This is a sequential shift from an outer to inner to innermost perspective. I am at a different level for each of these shifts. I understand the mind/body connection. I understand the importance the types of foods we eat to the chemicals we have in our immediate environment can affect us physically, mentally and emotionally. For my mind/body connection, I enjoy eating healthy foods life vegetables and fruits and I also like exercising or doing yoga.  There are many things that can increase our perception of fear and anxiety that may lead to chronic stress or disease but having something like meditation can help to strengthen the mind which will help to reduce the perception of fear and anxiety. Through meditation, Dacher says, we would become more familiar with the aspects of our bodies that in time we will think of the mind and body rather than just the body. I am already here; I already see and understand the importance of biofeedback. The final stage in biological flourishing is experiencing the body as a manifestation of spirit (Dacher, 2006).  This is a hard stage for many Westerners to accomplish because the culture is saturated with the solidity of the body. He goes on to say that the spiritual body would have the capacities and qualities that we attribute to miracles. Some of these capacities would be, extended survival, weightlessness, being in more than one place at a time, and intuitive experience to name a few. I know that I am not there yet and will have a hard time getting there but that it is possible.

III Goal development

Physical: My goal is to lose 15 pounds to be in a healthy range for my age.

Psychological: My goal is to take 20 to 30 minutes a day in order to work on my calm-abiding meditation.

Spiritual: My goal is to meet my inner healer on a daily basis.

IV Practices for personal health

I plan to exercise at least 30-45 minutes a day and to have the clearest intention to eat healthy meals and snacks in order to reach my goal of losing 15 pounds in my physical domain. I am already on a 90 Day health and fitness challenge.  I am using the Insanity workout to exercise, I take two healthy shakes a day, I eat plenty of fruits and vegetables and I take supplements.  I plan to start my making a space in my room or home for meditation. The second step is to start with 10-15 minutes with guided mindfulness meditation to accomplish my psychological domain. I have a small recorder where I have recorded the guided meditations because I know I need help to focus. For my spiritual domain, I plan to do meditative yoga or the Aesclepian meditation in order to get in touch with my inner healer. Both of these will help me to connect what is going on inside to what is going on outside.

V Commitment

I can try to reach my whole goal in six months but I can assess myself each week so that I am more aware of where I stand and my commitment to it. If I just say that I am going to do something by six months, I know that unless I have a set time to check where I am, I will have come to six months and wonder where the time went. I would reflect at the end of the week to see how many days and how much time I committed to myself to reach my goals. Having a calendar to mark time and type of goal, would also give me a visual account of my progress. So, at the end of the six months, I can increase my goal times or change my goals. I will have established the pattern of holding myself accountable and have created the time and space to put my integral practice for my health as a priority. This can only help me to serve others because pushing myself will only keep me grounded.

References:

Dacher, E. (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing. Basic Health Publications, Inc.

Schlitz, M., Amorok, T., Micozzi, M. (2005). Consciousness & healing: Integral Approaches to Mind-Body Medicine. Elsevier

 

Unit 8

I found the Loving Kindness and Subtle mind to be the most beneficial practices for me. I liked the Loving Kindness one because it helps me to focus in one someone but in particular, someone I like and respect. In the beginning this was hard but with 5 to 10 minutes a day, I have been able to focus faster and with time, I will be able to do it longer. As for the Subtle mind practice, I think I like this one because it has been a challenge to do. It reminds me of the Calm-abiding practice and it can take a life time to learn. I won’t give u! Knowing that it takes that long only makes me determined to do it in this lifetime.

I have implemented these practices in my life to foster “mental fitness” by making the time during some part of the day to focus. When I am feeling lonely or down, I do the Loving Kindness one because it reminds me that I am loved and that I am special. I do the Subtle mind practice when I want to calm down or when I just want to get away from where I am and physically leaving isn’t possible. It gives me a sense of freedom as well as time to take in the situation to handle it to the best of my abilities. As with all things new, only time and practice will help me to foster my mental fitness.

Unit 7

1. I know a lot of people whom I respect and admire that I could have pictured sitting in front of me. The funny thing is, it was an old Asian man from the martial arts movie, no one in particular that kept coming to focus! I spent a lot of time trying to picture what he looked like.

 I had a very difficult time visualizing the "white light" so for it to leave him and come to me was also difficult. I understand the concept, the visualization of it was difficult.

I believe that I had a strong psychological and spiritual awareness but meditation has helped me with stilling my mind in order to become the master of it. I will continue to make time to meditate and connect with nature which will only help me to foster wellness and a healthier life.

2. I love this quote!! It is not necessarily for all things but it holds true in the health and wellness profession. It is easier to communicate and share experiences through dialogue and for the other person to know that you are coming from experience.

If meditation came easy to me, how could I understand the frustration of the patient who wants to quit because they can't focus? Since I have been mediating and find it difficult to quite my mind, I can understand. If I can find ways to help before I try to meditate, then I can recommend and encourage. I have found that if I exercise before meditating, I can still my mind faster than if I try to do it after rushing to get things done.

As a person who is looking into Naturopathic medicine as a profession, I do owe it to my patients to develop my health psychologically, physically, and spiritually. I owe this to them and to myself because it is the way in which will help me to become a better physician and a leader by example. For example, who wants a doctor to to tell them to lose weight when the doctor themselves are overweight or obese?

Unit 6

Personal Assessment

I did the Loving Kindness meditation again and found it easier to focus this time. I have been doing meditations for the fast three weeks now and can actually sit and start focusing on the breath without help. So, as I did the assessment in this meditation pose, I thought about what line of development is most essential for me right now. As the image of doing school worked passed through my mind, I knew that I was growing mentally because of this and spiritually because of my Buddhist practice, so check on psychospiritual. As biological came to mind, I thought about how I am doing my 90 Day Challenge and how it is been a blessing in my life to have a focus for my health. But I wasn’t happy because I didn’t see myself where I physically want to be. So, here is where I stopped to think: what is my current goal? Am I doing all I can to reach this goal? Do I stay focused? What can I do to change in order to stay focused? This is the first part of an assessment. As images and pictures and words came to my mind, the second part of the assessment came to me. I had to think about my interpersonal development. Is this an area that is lacking or holding me back from developing my biological self? If I continue to make progress in my goals, am I developing my worldly self by helping others to become motivated? These are just some of the questions that came to me while doing the assessment.

My answers or reflection: I have made major progress in my physical health in the past three years, take joy in that. I have helped to motivate and encourage others to become healthier in their lifestyles, take joy in that. As I continue on my current challenge, I am further along than where I was two months ago, there is growth, take joy in that but be ready for when this one is done to have another challenge in mind. As for interpersonal, I want and pray for world peace each day because I see the world as “we”. I take action in that by making my family life happy, healthy, and secure. By doing that, I play are part in my community and society. As I support healthy functions in the community and local business owners, I am doing my part to make our city a functioning part in the state. In doing my part there, I work and am very strict when it comes to recycling, so I am doing my part. Can I do more? Absolutely!!

Unit 5

1. I had a more difficult time focusing on my breathing in the Subtle Mind practice when I first tried it. I kept falling asleep as I focused on the breathing. It wasn't until I saw a video from another class about focused breathing that I was excited to try it again. The second night I did the Subtle Mind, I felt different, I was able to focus and I was able to breathe without noticing the breath and all the all while not having a thought!!! I felt great because it was for only short periods of time that I could do that. I can't wait for when I can do it for longer periods of time. As for the difference compared to the Loving Kindness practice, this was harder. With the loving kindness, there were feelings of love filling me as I focused on my loved one. Focusing on the breath didn't bring up any types of feeling other than frustration of not being able to stay focused on the breath.

2. The connection of spiritual to mental and physical wellness is very evident in my life. When I lost my child over 10 years ago, I lost my mental faith. I say this because I had always questioned my Catholic faith but I believed because it was what I really learned in my early life. I was born into the Hindu religion and then was raised in the Catholic faith. So, when I lost my child, I was really lost. I had gained a lot of weight and was very depress. I was also in an unhealthy relationship and was anxious all the time, which didn't help. Once I removed myself from the relationship, I was still fat and depressed. I wasn't attending church and my mom at the time wasn't going so there was no support in going just to go. It wasn't until I met a neighbor who invited me to go to a Buddhist discussion meeting that things started to change. Please understand that I was already trying to eat healthier but that wasn't helping me to lose weight alone. It took her a few months to convince me to go. I finally decided to go because I wasn't going to church and I have always been interested in Buddhism. So, when she told me that it was going to be at someone's home and not at at temple, I made the decision to go. The last thing I was looking for was an institution. My experience from that first meeting, which is over 5 years ago, changed my life. As I prayed, read, and got involved my physical well being changed. I understand that it has to do with my spiritual connection to myself and the universe which has transformed my mental, emotional and physical health to a happier and healthier me!