Unit 10 blog

When I reflect on my well being, not so much has changed.  In terms of my physical well being, I had given it a 7 in unit 3 and still give it a score of 7 today.  I am still pretty active and no where near living a sedentary lifestyle, but I still didn’t engage in an exercise routine like I would like to.  The main reason for this is that I really do not have the space in my schedule to do so.  I figure that when I have less to do in life, I will exercise more.  In terms of my spiritual well-being, I gave it a 7 in unit 3 and as of today I give it an 8.  I feel a little bit more connected with nature than I have before.  I find myself being more insightful about issues in life and I am a little bit better at thinking positive about life’s issues.  I have been going back to church a little bit more often than before as oppose to making excuses why I can’t attend service. Finally for my psychological well-being, I gave it an 8.5 in unit 3 and still rate it the same as of today.  In unit 3 I have mentioned that I gave it this score because I have accepted who I am as a person, but I feel like I still need to work on my emotional aspect in life and also need to balance my career life.  Once these two things are in balance, I can achieve some more joy in life. 

For my goals set in unit 3, I have progressed a little bit in my spiritual and psychological aspect, although it still has room for improvement.  As for my physical well-being it hasn’t really changed and I know what I need to do in order to improve and move ahead in this area.  My overall well-being has improved gradually.  It is not at its highest peak, but I am working towards that in order to achieve optimal well-being.  Me improving on my spirituality has been rewarding, because the more spiritual I am, the more I think positive about my life.  My mind feel more at ease and comes to mutual understanding easier.  The most difficult aspect of my well-being to change is my physical well being.  I figure that once I accomplish one activity in my life such as school, I can provide the appropriate time to get engaged in more physical activities.  But with the schedule I have now for work and school and family life make it hard to focus on an exercise routine.  Working alone drains out most of my energy and attending school adds on to that.  My goal to become more physical active is still in effect and when it goes into action, my physical aspect in life will improve.  

- Welna Guerrier

Unit 9 blog: Yes! To Integral Health

I.

“Without integral practice, we experience only a portion of the health that is available to us” (Dacher, 2006).  What Elliott Dacher is trying to point out is that for the most part of our lives, we haven’t experience all aspects of healing.  In our society, our mind is set on instant gratification and when our health and well being is not at its best, we turn to conventional medicine where they focus on “healing” one area of the body instead of the whole body.  Integral healing is the very opposite.  Integral healing in part focuses on the whole body by developing in depth the psychological well being, the spiritual well being, and the physically well being of the individual.  To become a great health and wellness professional, being able to develop the psychological, spiritual, and physical aspect of our life is crucial to our professional life, our personal life and our interpersonal life.  As health and wellness professionals, we want our clients to feel like they can have full trust and honesty in our healing and in order for that to happen; we must be fully developed in those three aspects of well being.  Just like Dacher (2006) stated in the text, “One cannot lead others, where one has not gone himself.”  The areas that I feel that need more strengthening in order to improve my overall well being are all of the three aspects aforementioned.  I need to strengthen my psychological well being, spiritual, and physical well being.  Out of those three, I want and feel like I need to strengthen my spiritual and psychological well being the most.  Once I develop my inner consciousness by the use of integral practice, it is then I can become the kind of health and wellness practitioner that my future clients may need for an integral healing. 

II.

When it comes to integral assessment, we are identifying different aspects of our lives that require attention (Dacher, 105).  I have identified the two areas that I feel that needs more improvement and just by doing so, I am on the path to integral health.  When it comes to scoring my overall health; for my physical well being, I give it a score of 7.  I give it this score because I maintain an active life.  I walk a lot and the work that I do for my job is somewhat intense-physical labor.  The reason why I didn't rate it higher is because I do not work out in terms of going to the gym and other physical exercise.  I want to engage in exercise activities in order to reach optimal well being.  In terms of spiritual well-being, I rate myself a 5.  I actually feel like I am moving downward instead of upwards.  I am connected with my higher being and whenever I need guidance and self control I pray.  I did not rate myself higher because I do not pray or communicate with my spiritual side as often as I should, I often pray when some obstacle is in my way, but it should go beyond that reason.  Besides praying, I want to engage in other spiritual techniques such as meditation which can be quite a challenge for me, but with practice, it should be a natural feeling at the end.  As for my psychological well-being, I rate it 6.  I rate it this because I have grown to accept who I am as a person over the years.  If I work on balancing my emotions and the cognitive aspect of my life, I can obtain a higher score. 

III.

There are certain goals that I want to accomplish for my well being in order to continue my path to human flourishing. 

·       Spiritually, my goal is to be more prayerful.  I have to train my mind to be focused on prayer.  I want to be able to meditate as well, something I never really took to try on my own. 

·       Physically, my goal is to step my foot into the gym.  I want to be able to find a work out program that will fit my lifestyle so that I can head towards optimal well being. 

·       Psychologically, I want to make myself feel happy more often.  I need to realize that I am blessed for the things that I do have.  With the other things that I don't have, as long as they are realistic, I have to push myself harder to get them.  I am always the dependable one (as been told by friends and family) and always help others, and I want to keep being that kind of person for the people around me.  I need to be able to free up my mind and release stress from my body so that I can continue the path to integral health. 

IV.

In terms of practices for my personal health, the strategy that I have in order to promote my physical health is to get involved with Pilates and yoga.  I have always wanted to try both of these exercising programs because of the qualities and benefits they obtain.  Eating right is the preventative aspect of health in my opinion, so continuing to research about different ways of obtaining health from foods is a goal of mine so that I can help myself and my clients. I also plan to get a bike this summer so that I can go bike riding in the park.  This will not only encourage my physical well being, but also my psychological well being because it will help me to focus on my emotional and cognitive aspects of my life while exposed to the nature setting.  More over on promoting for my psychological health, I will practice some of the mindfulness exercise that I have learned throughout this course.  I really enjoyed practicing the Journey On relaxation exercise and the Crime of the Century relaxation exercise.  For my spiritual health, I plan to practice the witnessing mind technique, the calm-abiding technique, and unity consciousness technique so that I can control my mental chatter, have an undisturbed mind, and obtain a deeper insight in myself and in my life. 

V.

My commitment for the next six months is to learn more about integral health and its benefits.  I plan to continue to be more engaged with the chakra system as my form of meditation because it was something that I enjoyed experiencing during one of our relaxation sessions.  Also with the chakra system, I really do take it into consideration because I learned that there are special foods that brings out the energy for each part of the body and I m willing to get involved with that personally since my ultimate goal is to be a nutritionist.  Once I experience this for myself and see actual benefits, I can feel comfortable advising my clients to incorporate this practice in their lifestyle. I plan to become more physically active for the sake of my well being by learning Pilates and yoga.  To enjoy fully with these changes, I have to work with a new schedule.  The best time that will help me to get motivated to be committed to these changes will have to be early mornings before I start my day. 

In conclusion, I am responsible for my own well being and my overall health and it is my duty to be aware of how to maintain the one body that I have.  With appropriate research, support system, and motivation for staying committed, I should be able to take advantage of my whole body with ease.  Now is the time to be in tune with our mind, body, and spiritual aspect as oppose to Western medicine who is more engaged with the biological aspect of health.  Taking care of our whole body and not just the visible parts, connecting with our outer, inner, and innermost being, changing our negative attitudes about certain things in life to positive and more will help us get on the path to human flourishing.

Source: Dacher, E.S. (2006).  Integral health: The path to human flourishing.  California: Basic Health Publications, Inc.

Unit 8 Most Beneficial Exercise

Hello Bloggers,
After participating in several different exercises and practice sessions, the two that
I think that is most beneficial is the "Journey On" relaxation exercise and the "Crime of the Century" relaxation exercise.  When it comes to the Journey on exercise, I found it fascinating to have our mind control our body through visualization.  This exercise shows us how true it is that our mind,body, and spirit are pretty much connected.  This experience reminds me of hypnosis; where you have the hypnotist trying to get you in a trance.  If I were to practice this skill and apply it to my profession where I can make my clients feel relaxed and have them be able to control their physical reactions such as body temperature, that would be such a great achievement in my personal life and in my professional life.  As I have mentioned before, I have to practice this exercise repeatedly in order for me to apply it to my personal and professional life with ease.  In terms of the "Crime of the Century" exercise, again this shows us the power of the mind.  I have read about the chakras and what each colors represent and also found this amazing.  When we think about different foods and their colors we wonder why is a certain fruit beneficial to a certain part of the body...well it is all related to the chakra.  For example, cranberry is red and is beneficial for the urinary tract which is associated with the root chakra.  If you look up the location of the root chakra you would see that it is located near our reproductive system.  The same idea applies to the other fruits, their colors, and its association with the chakra.  Moreover, envisioning the different colors of the chakra coming out of the different regions of my body was a little hard to do but
I eventually got it.  Being able to free your mind of distractions is what can make this practice session a little frustrating, but you will get it once you get your mind to focus on this technique. 

-Welna

Unit 7 Meeting Aesclepius

Hi bloggers, this week's meditative practice was quite interesting I must say, When  prompted to envision a wise person, I automatically thought of my older sister.  She is very understanding and she listens to my feelings and makes me feel better with the decisions I have made of have trouble making.  She doesn't judge me which makes talking to her even better and more comforting.  When asked to envision that person with a white beam of light around their head, I did with ease.  My older sister has never done anything that I consider immoral, she kept her life simple for the most part; never into some drama.  I wish I can say the same for myself.  I hope I can be like her and better when I grow older.  My sister and I are two different people, so when asked to be one with her, it brought me to some kind of tranquility because I was infused with the person who I considered to be wise and who I want to be like her.  I felt like I have a chance to grow into a wiser person. 
Moreover with the reading, the phrase " One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself", this to me means that you cant bring someone towards anything in life if you haven't been there yourself.  For example, how can one bring another towards happiness when he is not happy himself.  That's is like putting up a front and not being honest to yourself or to the other person.  The way this applies to the health and wellness professionals is when a nutritionist or personal trainer advise you to follow a dieting plan or work out routine and that professional has never eaten right or exercise like he should.  How can that individual motivate the patient when he or she has never really worked out with himself.  They are not leading by example is what that seems to me.  As to answer if I am obligated to develop my inner being for my clients, of course I am.  Developing my health spiritually, psychologically, and physically is important for me, my career, and my clients.   This is the opposite of the phrase, "one cannot lead where one has not gone himself." 

- Welna

Unit 6 Universal Loving- Kindness

Hey bloggers!
When I did the Loving- kindness activity, many thoughts came to mind and had some thoughts about myself and people who I am surrounded by.  The activity on page 93 is very similar to my daily prayer.  I often pray for not just for things that I want personally for myself, but I pray for the people in my life and the world so that it may be free of suffering, free of sadness, burdens, pain, and sickness.  When I normally do this, I feel better about myself, because it is always good to me to pray for others and not only for yourself.  When you show God that you are humble, and not self-centered he helps you with your own troubles at the right time.  I love the fact that I am involved in the health and wellness program where my courses teaches me new ideas on how to take care of not only my health but the health of others in a holistic, integral approach. 

Moreover, when I think about what aspect of my life that needs development, I would have to say psycho-spiritual.  Although I am a people-person, and usually go out my way to make others happy or satisfied, I have a hard time focusing on myself, which often leads me to feel stressed out because by the time the day is over, I realized that I didn't do anything for myself, and often that is not in my favor.  So in order to be satisfied or at least happier in my life, I feel like I need a break from others sometimes in order to focus on me and get things done.  Besides meditation, I can also take my time to take notes in a journal and jot down what did I do for others and what did I do for myself in the day, if it's imbalanced, I will make note of it and write down the feeling/emotions that came along with my daily experiences.  This will help me regroup and set my priorities straight. and eventually, be stress free. 

- Welna Guerrier

Unit 5 Blog Subtle Mind

Hey Bloggers!

This week we were to practice our subtle mind exercise.  I'm going to have to be honest here, the first time I did it... I fell asleep! (lol) I had done it after work and on a full stomach... so one,  I was tired and two, the blood left my brain and used all the energy I had left and worked in my digestive system to do its job.  I became aware of my first experience and told myself to try again, but this time to practie the subtle mind exercise when I am not tired and not too soon after I eat.  The second time was better.  I was alert and followed the instructions.  During this trial, I had a couple of mental disturbances that came along during my breathing activity.  I realized that these thoughts had to do with the fact that I had turned off my phone and was wondering if my boyfriend was trying to get in contact with me.  The second disturbance that caused my mind to wander was thinking about my new friend who is going through some bad times in her life.  So basically during the subtle mind practice, I was concerned for others.  After trying this exercise over and over again, I began to find ways to keep away the thoughts that were trying to creep in before and used those same reasons as examples to keep away new thoughts from creeping in for the next trials. 
Overall, this breathing exercise was more difficult than the loving-kindness practice.  I say this because in the loving-kindness, we were allowed to participate with others and didn't have to worry if my mind wandered because I was forced to replace my thoughts with love, so I was more focused on doing that.  As oppose to the subtle mind practice, I had to focus on my breathing which was a little bit hard since breathing is an involuntary action, and when we are forced to focus on our breathing for a reason such as this exercise, it gets a little frustrating.  It's like it is forcing our mind to do work. 
The connection of spiritual wellness to mental and physical is greatly needed.  You must have a clear, conscious, and sane mind in order to achieve the other aspects of well being in a healthy way.  When all of these aspects are in sync, our well-being has a nice flow to it.  I believe the better our spirituality is, the better our body and mind will respond to whatever we are trying achieve.

- Welna

Unit 3 blog/ Crime of the Century

Hi bloggers!
I hope you all are having a nice day!  In unit 3, we are to discuss about our optimal health and how would we rate our own.  On a scale of 1-10, (10 being the optimal well being); for my physical well being, I give it a score of 7.  I give it this score because I maintain an active life.  I walk a lot and the work that I do for my job is somewhat intense-physical labor.  It requires a lot of moving, lifting, climbing, bending, and walking as well.  The reason why I didn't rate it higher is because I do not work out in terms of going to the gym and other physical exercise.  I want to engage in exercise activities in order to reach optimal well being.  In terms of spiritual well-being, I rate myself a 7.  I am  connected with my higher being and whenever I need guidance and self control I pray.  I did not rate myself higher because I do not pray as often as I should, I often pray when some obstacle is in my way.  However, I know where my heart belongs, I keep my body and soul as clean as I could.  But I think I should have a cleaner mind though (lol).  With my psychological well-being, I rate it 8.5.  I rate it this because I have grown to accept who I am as a person over the years.  There are 2 areas in my life that I would like to improve and I think over time those areas will be fixed!  Overall, I feel good about myself.  I am working on accomplishing my goals in life such as graduating, getting a good career, getting married then start a family! 
Spiritually, my goal is to be more prayerful.  I have to train my mind to be focused on prayer.  I want to be able to meditate as well, something I never tried on my own. 
Physically, my goal is to step my foot into the gym.  I want to be able to find a work out program that will fit my lifestyle so that I can head towards optimal well being. 
Psychologically, I want to make myself feel happy more often.  I need to realize that I am blessed for the things that I do have.  With the other things that I don't have, as long as they are realistic, I have to push myself harder to get them.  I am always the dependable one (as been told by friends and family) and always help others.  What I want to do more often is pamper myself... have a REAL day off.  Being able to free up my mind and release stress from my body so that I can continue the path to integral health. 

Moreover, when I participated in the Crime of the Century relaxation exercise, it took me a while to get relaxed the way I should.  I however visioned the colors of the Chakra coming out of the different regions of my body.  I just wasnt able to be completely focused on all.  The one true region that I relaxed to the most was the orange which was associated with love.  I am in a serious relationship and although it is a rocky road between us, I love him.  I immediately thought about everything I love, including my boyfriend, and also friends and family.