Final Project

When I first entered this class at the beginning of the nine weeks I must say I thought that this would be a breeze and somewhat of an easy A. I was quite wrong and have since realized that this class is somewhat tricky and makes one think about not only the kind of life they want to lead as a practitioner, but also the kind of life they are leading personally.  I never realized how much one’s life personally goes into their professional life as a practitioner.  Health and Wellness is not exactly what my career path is, but this class happened to fall into my lap.  My career path is currently trying to achieve an AS in Medical Assisting.  Throughout this class, I have learned a great deal in exploring my own life and personal needs and those of my own career path choices.  It is so important for the professional to be on their game in the spiritual, psychological, and physical life not only for themselves, but also for the patients they are going to treat.  If one does not have it together in one of these areas than all of the areas are affected by it and this will only lead to an unraveling in their life that their patients will be able to sense and to see.  As a professional, you cannot be treating individuals how to heal as a whole if you yourself are not a whole person and in good health in all areas.  On a personal level since this area is not, my career choice I am working on myself in all areas.  I would say that my spiritual area has grown tremendously over the past year with my own walk with God.  I am working on my own physical health, trying to get myself into better shape, and most definitely trying to work on better nutrition.  Through this class, I have learned that some of the psychological healing that I thought I had done seems to not be quite as complete.  I am starting to go back and deal with thoughts and ideas that I have held onto that have shaped my psyche into some unhealthy dialogue.  My goals for the future actually have nothing to do with the medical field at all, but are very much in the Health and Wellness field.  I hope to change the world and the way that teens view their personal relationship with Jesus Christ by being a great Youth Pastor.  This is very much in the Health and Wellness field just in a little different sense. To me the Bible is the ultimate Health and Wellness tool and I plan to use it to change every aspect of myself and develop more as a whole human being.

At the beginning of the course, I thought that I was doing quite well in each area of my life and in fact scored myself high in most categories except in the physical aspect where I know that I am in need of help.  I have known for quite some time that my nutrition and exercise in my life, which the lack of greatly affect my physical help, are in desperate need of some work and in many ways I am quietly crying out for help.  I viewed myself high in the spiritual and psychological portions and never really thought that I needed improvement all that much.  I really thought that I was really in touch with my spirituality that my relationship with Jesus Christ was strong, and that since I had such an intimacy with him that I could not possibly need to excel that much more.  I found myself to be dead wrong in all aspects of my life.  I would say that even though I am overweight and in need of better nutrition and exercise that now I would almost venture to say that my physical health is probably in much better shape then my spiritual health. I know that my view of my overall health has changed and I now realize how much work there still is within me.  Even though I have an intimate relationship with God, I still willingly choose to not listen to his calling and directly run the other way when I am called to do His will.  This realization came from several factors that happened in my life during the duration of this class.  I found it interesting that God chose me to take this course to show me how wrong I personally was about myself and how much I still have to learn.  At the end of this course, I would definitely say that as a whole since all areas work together in my life that overall I really would not assess myself at the top of the ladder, but probably more in the middle.  I definitely could use help in all areas and improvement.  I think that through my relationship with God I can only see an improvement in the future.

In the future, I can see that my physical life is in need of some revamping to say the least.  I have currently bought Zumba for the Wii and have been trying to implement its use into my daily life.  I thought that this would be quite an easy task because I love to dance and I love my Wii.  Little did I realize how hard this game was and how much of a challenge this would be to me to try to put this in my daily routine?  After a few days of trying, this out I soon realized how out of shape I really was.  This realization made me lose faith in myself and the ability to do this every day so that I soon gave up not long after I started.  I cannot believe that I let my internal dialogue overpower my own interpersonal strength.  I then realized how much my psychological health still needed to be healed.  I still internally gave myself the hardest time and told myself that I could never do the exercise to lose weight.  I am in need of so much work still on the psychological side and the physical side.  I decided to start with baby steps to try to get into better shape in these two areas.  My first baby step is to do the Wii Zumba every day and to start with 5 minutes a day.  This may not seem like much to some, but 5 minutes on this game and trying to do, it right and not being in shape at all is very hard.  My kids actually love this game so it will be easy to do it with them and have them help motivate me to get into this habit.  My second goal will be to start to work on my psychological self and my own internal dialogue.  I have to change the way I talk to myself and the way that I view myself in order to have a healthy life.  I cannot personally keep thinking negative thoughts about myself because this only reflects in my own life.  The way that I feel about myself affects not only me, but also the people around me and how they feel.  I should treat myself above all else the way that I would want to be treated by someone else.  I should love myself just as much as I would like others to love me.  Therefore, for my psychological goal I have chosen to work on myself, get into the word of God, and learn to see me the way that He sees me, beautiful and unique.  He made me, He loves me, and I need to learn to love me the way that He does.  I will be in the Word everyday and reading the greatest love letter, that He left behind.  My spiritual goals are probably some of the hardest goals I have to reach and aspire to.  My relationship with Jesus Christ has definitely been under the microscope by myself personally through the past few weeks.  I realize that even though I am teaching the Word to others I am still a work in progress.  I think that we all have room for improvement and growth.  During the past few weeks, I have been examining the life of Jonah and realize how much his life compares to my own.  I am out doing God’s work and have been very comfortable doing what I love that when I hear the voice of God call me to something that makes me go out of my own comfort zone I don’t exactly jump to do it.  In fact, I have found that I either ignore the call and put it in the back of my mind or try to let God know that my own plans might be better than the one he is presenting me with.  Recently God has presented me with road blocks in my endeavors only to show me that my own plans while are good plans, the disobedience that I have shown him is not making him happy so he has made my plans even harder to reach than ever before.  He has now put deliberate roadblocks that scream that I am going in the wrong direction.  This tells me that my spiritual goal needs to be about listening to the Holy Spirit speak.  Too often, we drown out his words and wisdom with worldly noise and disruption and seem to miss the opportunities presented to us.  My spiritual goals are to listen and to be obedient to what God’s will is for my life.

To obtain my goals in all of the areas of my life I am going to spend more time focusing on me and listening to what God wants for my life.  I am spending more time in prayer and more time in meditation only meditating on God’s gentle words and wisdom.  I am spending much more time in Bible studies that deepen my relationship with Jesus Christ and help me to realize how he works in amazing and wonderful ways.  I am giving into his will and taking positions in the church where I know that I am being led to be in.  I am putting aside time every day to spend quiet moments with God and in the Word and I will be working diligently on exercise and praying every day for God to guide me to take the right steps towards a better life in my spiritual walk with him, my physical health, and my psychological health.  I am going to start journaling my thoughts to help me sort out the negatives in my life and turn all those thoughts around into being a positive outlook.  I have already implemented better nutrition choices into my daily diet and hope that it continues and grows.

As far as assessing my progress with my nutrition and exercise for my physical health I am watching what I eat and I will begin working out daily and start tracking my weight loss.  This will also be determined for how I physically feel also and how my clothes fit.  I certainly do not think just numbers on a scale let you know whether or not you are physically healthy.  I will also take into account if I can do things without getting tired and out of breath that I previously have had issues with.  Once I start feeling, better, physically this will help to give me motivation to keep going and this will help in changing my psychological health.  Once I physically start feeling better and start, looking better this will help me to psychologically change the way I think about myself and will help me to have a more positive approach when internally dialoguing with myself.  My psychological dialogue changing can also enhance my physical health and my spiritual health.  My spiritual health will be changed by spending more time in prayer and with God.  I can assess my progress in this area by how I feel about where my life is at with my relationship with Jesus Christ.  If I am feeling discouraged and setback then I know that I need to get back to talking to God more and listening to him more closely.  Sometimes it is hard to discern the voice of God and what He wants for us, but I truly believe if we take the time to really listen He will reveal what His will is for our lives.  All aspects in our lives are connected and unless we focus on all of them equally and give each one of them the attention, they deserve then one will start to suffer which will lead to a fall in all of the areas of our lives.  I have to remember that while I take care of others I need to give the same amount of attention to myself and all areas of my life in order to be healthy as a whole.

Relaxed and Refreshed

I have found through this course that meditation and visualization are the two most beneficial practices for myself. I have found that both can be challenging a little especially around my house to find a quiet place with no interuptions. I have though found times late at night after everyone is in bed and early in the morning before anyone rises in the morning to be the most convienient. Both these times also help me tremendously. Not only is it because I will have no interuptions and all is quiet, but after a long a stressful day what better way to unwind right before bed or what better way to start a day than by being relaxed and ready to take on the world. Both times seem to fit my lifestyle perfectly and I have been trying evey day to implement them into my daily routine. Most days this is possible, but there are a few where I still find it hard to unwind or wake up completely to get the exercises done to the point where their effect is a lasting one. Using these exercises help me a great deal and I believe the more I use them the more that their affects will have on my life. It is great to start and end the day relaxed and refreshed. This also gives me the opportunity to reflect on the days events and to let them go and be ready for the next day. Also it allows me to start the days refreshed and relaxed and ready to take on the world and free from stress. Hopefully the more I do these practices the longer the effects will last throughout the day and hopefully one day I will be able to stay stress free throughout the entire day.

One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself!

Over the past few weeks I have definately been thinking about my hynobirthing and hypnobabies experiences. I have also listened to the CD that came with this class. I really loved my hypnobirthing CD's and the exercises that I was led through. Not all of them delt with birth some were simply about relaxing and trying to keep calm. So I went back to listen to some of the ones from the past. I just love to lay on the couch and take time out for me. This experience has been so calming and relaxining. I just love letting myself and my thoughts go into another time and another place and not having to deal with the here in now for a few moments. Through this class I have tried to get to a better place psychologically and spirtitually with myself. Using these techniques and with my hypnobirthing CDs I have been able to meditate more and relax almost immediately. This is so needed right now in my life and I am so appreciative of learning this skill and using it. This has led me to be so much more intune with myself and I want to continue to use this meditation just to help me to keep a relaxed mind especially when things are stressful. The phrase "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" resonates in my mind several times a day. How can we as leaders or physicians try to teach out patients something that we don't grasp the concept of or even practice. We can't expect someone to believe in something or try something if we don't know what it is ourselves or don't believe in it. It's almost like trying to tell someone about God and how to believe in him and why, but we don't believe it ourselves. This would not go over good with anyone and how could we answer questions if we don't even know the answers ourselves. I think it is always the best idea to practice what you preach. This way if you are doing what you want your clients to do when they have questions you will be able to answer them and also maybe give them your own experiences and then they will be able to personally identify you in some way.

What I discovered about Me!

Over the past few weeks I have been going through quite a lot of self discovery. I don’t know if it is due to this class or just something that was coming into fruition on its own. I have always considered myself to know who I am and what I wanted. I have been in school now for almost two years and am rounding the bend to graduation. Although I have had some setbacks in my life I have always found myself back in the medical field somehow and always took that as God’s ultimate sign that this is where I should be. I have been and tried several different aspects and avenue’s in the medical field till I found the one that I believed fit me perfectly in fact all of the pieces for me to get here just fell into place. Well here I am in undiscovered territory once again. I felt that I was where I am suppose to be up until the last few months, almost like a ton of bricks my whole world came crashing down and I started trying to build up the wall and fast. I have been a volunteer youth pastor with my husband for almost a year now. We actually just kind of fell into the position and took it on with great pride. We love our youth and loved everything that came with it. Then in September I felt that God put an idea in my head and laid a project on my heart and within one month I was holding our very first community youth rally that I single handedly walked by faith to do and everything fell into place. I was amazed at the 350 attendees and the 35 door prizes, the donated food and water, the entertainment and sound that all just fell into place. Now all of the staging, entertainment, speaker, door prizes, and sound needed to be paid for and I knew our church didn’t have money and I certainly didn’t have it so what else would I do, I prayed. Then God blessed us with donations that just rolled in not only did we go above and beyond what we needed we also got to bless others with our donations. This single event started a snow ball rolling down hill and it started gaining speed. What else do you do when you see something headed your way? I jumped out of the way and ran! Yes just like Jonah I ran away from God’s voice and his calling. How can God call me to do something that I have never had any formal training in and how would he call on me he knows me? How can he ask me to do something different then this perfect plan that I have almost finished with? I did run and had been running until about a week ago. At every turn when someone asked me about going into the ministry I politely told them no and that I was going into medicine. Even after several nudges from God himself and several snags along the way that held up my clinical’s I still believed that medicine is where I was needed. How could I do something different now? After all of this? I then was offered a very new position to be a county youth pastor which would include a salary, an office, and money for the counties youth to do things with. This was almost like a dream. Wow, was this possible I could do both. Well no not really the youth pastor would require time and how could I do that to the ability needed and do medicine? So I asked for prayer and direction and not only my prayer, but I went to my pastor and my church family. Well I knew what God wanted me to do, but I don’t always listen so I kept on trucking along with classes and said “I’ll graduate and get a job and just keep being a youth pastor for my youth, that’ll be ok”. Boy was I wrong. Just like Jonah ran and God interrupted him in a BIG way with a whale, well he hit me in the head with a 2x4! It’s almost like a Verizon commercial I could even hear him yelling on the other end “CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?” He made me listen. My husband and I got the shock of our life-We are expecting! Now you might be like wow isn’t that great. Ummmm...Well we have 3 together and 1 was mine previously. Not that we don’t love our kids, but we really were done. Not only that we were taking measures to prevent this from ever happening. We also never thought it would happen since we had such a small chance with our previous daughter and we were on fertility drugs to get her for almost a year. Well so hear we are pregnant and not just barely pregnant-Quite pregnant. And to top it off I am due in the start of my externship, which means I can’t do it and that would mean I can’t graduate. Now if that’s not God telling me what direction I need to go in! LOL! 

So what did I learn about myself-I learned that I need to listen more to God! I really need to learn to quiet my own mutterings and ideas in my own head and learn to listen to the still voice of God and what He wants for my life. I always thought that my spiritual life was strong, but I am realizing that it can’t be strong if I am running from it! I have to learn to embrace every part of my life and when I do this will lead me to my integral healing and being whole. My focus on myself and God will be prayer. I need to pray not for what I want and my will, but for what He wants and for me to listen to His will. I have been getting back to my Bible studies more and been in prayer more and I need to follow where he leads and let go of my dreams and plans because His plans are better than any I could ever imagine for myself.

Subtle Mind

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

I didn't mind the Loving Kindness exercise I thought it was very relaxing and very helpful to follow someone's voice and think only about what they were saying. I was not fond of the voice for some reason though and it did make my mind drift off a bit. This exercise I also was not very fond of the voice, but I loved the music and the quiet times that it allowed me to have and focus on my breathing. This exercise reminded me more of hypnobirthing classes. I did like this exercise more mainly due to all of the quiet times with the background music and it was in rythym with my breathing. I also thought that it was more relaxing and I would love to do this exercise more than twice a day. In fact I think today I needed it about 20 times. LOL !

Discuss the connection of the spiritual wellness to mental and physical wellness. Explain how the connection is manifested in your personal life.

My spiritual life has so much to do with my mental and physical wellness. It is amazing how much we deny that their is any correlation between the two, but realize that they are directly connected. I am recently amazed at how much the two relate in my life. I would always have considered myself a pretty spiritual person. I have had several circumstances here lately that have let me know just how interconnected all of my body is. I have been restleling with some situations in my life and repeatedly been asking God for direction and quietly trying to listen to his advice and let him guide my life. Now I say let him guide my life, but of course I only wanted it to go in the direction that I saw best suited for myself. Funny isn't it that we even give God our orders and want him to just give it to us! LOL

I have been listening and know that I have been hearing God and his will, but instead of following I have been running. This is only out of human instinct. We tend to run from the things that we don't understand or might not believe that we are ready for. During all of this time I have not been feeling so well physically. I have been very ill and been having lots of physical ailments and problems. Not only have I had physical issues with my health, but I have also felt very emotionally depressed. While all of this is going on I never really thought about any of it all being related. Even while going through this class, in the back of my mind I was certainly thinking that I was doing everything I should and that I certainly was not failing. LOL! Well I was so wrong. For the last 3 months I have been miserable with my health and my emotions thinking about what was wrong with me. Going to the Dr's and hearing about the tests that they needed to run to see if it was caused from this or that. Then last week after having the church pray for direction for me let me tell you God hit me over the head HARD! My experience last week has been similar to the Verizon commercials. You know where the guy keeps walking around saying Can you hear me now? Then finally when someone on the other end can hear he says Good!  Well let me tell you since subtle signs were not getting my attention and obviously God was asking if I could hear him and I wasn't responding to his question. Well he found a way to get my attention, a way that shook me and let me know he answered me LOUD and CLEAR. God was yelling CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? Yes God I can! Interesting enough once this happened and I started to realize that my questions had been answered and I knew what I needed to do all of my illnesses and emotional sickness just faded. Every single symptom is GONE. Amazing that it all related back to my own emotional turmoil and spiritual warfare going on within myself. It is so interesting how we are such complex creatures, yet so simple also.

Loving-Kindness Experience

1. Describe your experience. (Did you find it beneficial? Difficult?) Why or Why not? Would you recommend this to others? Why or Why not?

I was very relaxed. I absolutely loved the ocean sounds. It did take me a minute to get used to the voice, but once I did they were a very beneficial exercise. This is something that I even thought of sharing with some of the ladies in our church congregation. This is a great exercise and should be done by everyone. Could you imagine if everyone started doing these what a different society we would have. Maybe we would actually think about others once in a while and think about real humanity. This exercise was such a blessing and could be a great gift to others and I would love to share it with everyone.

1. What is the concept of “Mental Workout? What does the research indicate are the proven benefits of a Mental Work Out? How can you implement mental workouts to foster your psychological health?

A mental workout is getting your mind ready to grow and flourish. It's training your mind to think positively towards others and yourself and sharing your positive thinking with others. Mental workouts can enhance our well-being by altering our brain's neural circuitry. They can also have a positive impact on attention, memory, perception, and imagery. Working specific areas of the brain can also result in a structural change. It can reduce disturbing emotions and replace them with positive ones. It can also cause a higher order of mental integration and organization. This mental training can result in long term changes and short term ones. Mental workouts can be done twice daily when you have a quiet moment to yourself for just 15 short minutes. Mine were done in the morning, when everyone is sleeping, and in the evening, when everyone is sleeping. They were quite enjoyable and I could pair them up with my time with God.

A moment to reflect on my own level of wellness; physically, psychologically, and spiritually

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

A. Physical Well-being - 5
B. Spiritual Well-being - 8
C. Psychological Well-being - 8

I game my physical well being a 5 because currently I am overweight and not eating the way that I know I should. I also am lacking in the physical activity area. This really does not help the health problems that I have. I really need to work on this area quite a lot. My spiritual and psychological I gave an 8 because I currently have been discouraged in both areas. This also does not help my physical much either. I have been working diligently on my spiritual life which is helping me psycologically. I think that if I worked as hard on my physical as I do the others I would be a much happier person overall.

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

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

I have been anticipating to use my wii fit and my wii workout games more, but quite frankly have not made it a priority. Making working out a priority would help in the physical area and help me to feel better about myself and help my body to feel better.
I have been putting off a bible study that I have been interested in for about a year. I need to bite the bullet and start the study right away. This study would help in my spirtitual life and my psychological because it does deal with getting rid of your "baggage" and cleaning up your life.

Complete the relaxation exercise The Crime of the Century.  Describe your experience. (What it beneficial? Frustrating? etc.)

I actually like using exercises like this one to relax. I have used several exercises similar to this one in hypnobirthing. I love the monotone nature of the narrator's voice and the soft music in the background. For me when using this technique and focusing on what someone is telling me it really helps me to relax and become more centered.