Hello Professor and Class: I have really enjoyed this class and all the challenges that went along with it. I feel as though I have gained personal physical and psychological strength. About 4 weeks prior to starting this class I began a stage of life with my children that has been the most challenging experience in my whole life. The meditation skills I gained from this class have helped me stay calm and focused during the hardest times. As I type I am feeling extremely sad and discouraged as I have had yet another argument with my oldest son and as always have lost the argument. However, the loving-kindness exercise has helped me to overcome these challenging and defeating feelings by knowing that I can forgive him AGAIN and understand that my son is probably just as discouraged as me. I am working on calming my mind and moving forward to starting a new day with a positive frame of mind.
Visualization exercises are my best friend during situations like this because I can put myself anywhere but at home. Doing this allows my mind to calm itself by focusing on the things I love the most, the beauty of nature. In unit 3 I rated my spirituality at a7, psychological at 5 and physical at 9. My numbers are the same now. Nothing has changed because I feel like psychologically I need time to learn how to meditate daily to bring that number higher. It is a personal goal to accomplish skill and peace at meditation.
When reviewing my goals and activities I set for myself I feel I have made progress. I was not mediating at all prior to this class. I am using visualization exercises when I needed to calm down but my focus is really to master the skill of meditation by learning to hear my breath. I plan to continue working towards my goal and my daily journal is the key to accomplishing my goals.
I have implemented some very important goals I chose for my well-being. The most important goal was to improve my family life by bringing us together spirituality. My husband now joins me in church weekly and my youngest son is pursuing his goal of Confirmation. My oldest is still very distant from us in this area. I have also encouraged my husband to exercise for the sake of better health. My husband now gets up and attends Aqua classes at least three-times-a-week even without any prompting from me.
To summarize my personal experience throughout this class is easy. I gained so much knowledge in the area of meditation and how it relates to our body-mind connection. I have shared a lot of my knowledge with my Pilates students. I have also learned a lot from my students as several have stepped forward to share their personal experiences with meditation. The most difficult thing for me was finding time and quiet places to meditate. I do no think I ever accomplish that but have discovered that it is not in my home. I can use all of the meditation skills to help my family and students in the future for the purpose of self-improvement, health, happiness, wholeness, and most of all the MOTIVATION to be the best they can be!!!!!
Thank-You again to everyone for your support and comments throughout this class. Best of luck to you all. Bye Bye
Cherie
Monday, October 28, 2013
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Unit 9: Wrapping it Up:
Hello everyone. Health and wellness professionals should develop psychologically, spirituality and physically. Several opportunities open up once individuals have learned how to travel down the path towards integral health. The first opportunity involves learning how to deal with mental health issues which if ignored can lead premature disease. In addition, it opens up door of knowledge about how our minds and bodies interact with one another and this gift of integral health shows individuals how precious are lives are. The most important element of integral health is the opportunity to appreciate all the unique gifts individuals posses which we take for granted daily because we are too busy to stop and acknowledge the simple things in life. For this reason and many more health and wellness professionals need to experience this so they can share their excitement with their clients.
The areas that I need to develop are finding a way to keep a calm-abiding mind and ignoring the mental chatter that distracts me daily. I also need to make time daily for relaxing. I have a tremendous amount of stress in my home and I OFTEN allow myself to get drawn into it and I get depressed. From there it only gets worse because my poor eating habits kick-in and then I get headaches and starting taking medicines for my headache. I need to focuses on identifying the destructive emotions that lead me to this place and replace my dysfunctional patters with healthy patterns. I plan to spend more time walking alone and I have learned to meditate in my car before and after work. I do this prior to entering the battleground at home and I prepare my mind so when I walk through the door I am not already stressed.
I have assessed by health status in each domain and spiritually I am strong. I do not feel I need to work as hard on my spiritual growth as I do my physical and psychological growth. I am weak in both of those areas because I am easily side-tracked and distracted and I can be doing all the right things and then one small incident occurs and I am completely off track.
Goals that I have for myself in the Physical aspect involve both my children and myself. Both of my children are dangerously overweight and not very active. I plan to included them in more activities around the house like playing ball, encouraging them to walk or run. I have been purchasing some really cool workout stuff that would involve them in weight training with me. Spiritually I am encouraging my children to attend church with me and my husband just agreed to help me teach Confirmation classes at my church. We now attend church together. Psychologically I have set goals for my family and myself. I found a family counselor that is going to work with us individually and as a family. There are a lot of anger issues with both my children. I have also included my youngest son in meditation practices. He likes the visualization exercises more than any other.
My personal goals are to keep working out, stay focused on my daily meditation and focus on daily breathing exercises. I have no spiritual goals because I feel I am in a good place right now.
I really liked the Loving-Kindness exercise because it reminds me to find the good in people and it gives me an opportunity to think about ways I go out of my way to extend kindness to others. I also liked the visualization exercise because it gives me an opportunity to focus on my dad which is encouraging and inspiring. This exercise gives me energy to work hard like my dad did and still continues to do for his family.
I plan to track my progress by referring to my progress checklist. Every week I write down my goals for the week, things I want to accomplished and one thing I want to improve on. At the end of the week I look over it and recreate my list again. It helps me stay focused and when I accomplish things I feel so good about myself.
Cherie
Hello everyone. Health and wellness professionals should develop psychologically, spirituality and physically. Several opportunities open up once individuals have learned how to travel down the path towards integral health. The first opportunity involves learning how to deal with mental health issues which if ignored can lead premature disease. In addition, it opens up door of knowledge about how our minds and bodies interact with one another and this gift of integral health shows individuals how precious are lives are. The most important element of integral health is the opportunity to appreciate all the unique gifts individuals posses which we take for granted daily because we are too busy to stop and acknowledge the simple things in life. For this reason and many more health and wellness professionals need to experience this so they can share their excitement with their clients.
The areas that I need to develop are finding a way to keep a calm-abiding mind and ignoring the mental chatter that distracts me daily. I also need to make time daily for relaxing. I have a tremendous amount of stress in my home and I OFTEN allow myself to get drawn into it and I get depressed. From there it only gets worse because my poor eating habits kick-in and then I get headaches and starting taking medicines for my headache. I need to focuses on identifying the destructive emotions that lead me to this place and replace my dysfunctional patters with healthy patterns. I plan to spend more time walking alone and I have learned to meditate in my car before and after work. I do this prior to entering the battleground at home and I prepare my mind so when I walk through the door I am not already stressed.
I have assessed by health status in each domain and spiritually I am strong. I do not feel I need to work as hard on my spiritual growth as I do my physical and psychological growth. I am weak in both of those areas because I am easily side-tracked and distracted and I can be doing all the right things and then one small incident occurs and I am completely off track.
Goals that I have for myself in the Physical aspect involve both my children and myself. Both of my children are dangerously overweight and not very active. I plan to included them in more activities around the house like playing ball, encouraging them to walk or run. I have been purchasing some really cool workout stuff that would involve them in weight training with me. Spiritually I am encouraging my children to attend church with me and my husband just agreed to help me teach Confirmation classes at my church. We now attend church together. Psychologically I have set goals for my family and myself. I found a family counselor that is going to work with us individually and as a family. There are a lot of anger issues with both my children. I have also included my youngest son in meditation practices. He likes the visualization exercises more than any other.
My personal goals are to keep working out, stay focused on my daily meditation and focus on daily breathing exercises. I have no spiritual goals because I feel I am in a good place right now.
I really liked the Loving-Kindness exercise because it reminds me to find the good in people and it gives me an opportunity to think about ways I go out of my way to extend kindness to others. I also liked the visualization exercise because it gives me an opportunity to focus on my dad which is encouraging and inspiring. This exercise gives me energy to work hard like my dad did and still continues to do for his family.
I plan to track my progress by referring to my progress checklist. Every week I write down my goals for the week, things I want to accomplished and one thing I want to improve on. At the end of the week I look over it and recreate my list again. It helps me stay focused and when I accomplish things I feel so good about myself.
Cherie
Monday, October 7, 2013
Hello Professor and Class: This was yet another exercise that I could not connect with. I wanted to and I felt that I could. I was starting to feel very connected and calm and about 15 minutes into it my doorbell rang. My kids came running to the door and my dogs started barking. My son's friend came to pick-up his bike and his mother was with him.
I really liked the exercise "Meeting Aesclepius" and I think this exercise would benefit anyone but especially individuals who have self-esteem issues or issues of feeling lonely. I am going to try it again when I am alone at home. I choose my dad as my wise advisor. I admire my dad a lot because he has and continues to sacrifice so much for my sister and I. His morals have always impressed me and because he spent so much time helping us as kids I knew he cared and loved us.
Still today he takes good care of us, even though my sister and I are married. He recently bought me a new car and I told him I did not want him to because I want him to be proud of me for taking care of myself. He said I was working hard and he was proud of me and he wanted to make sure I had a safe and reliable car to get back and forth to work.
This is what I mean by still taking care of us. I hope I can do for my kids what my mom and dad have done for me. I do not mean buying them stuff but loving them and being an example of a person with good morals, honesty, and hard working.
The phrase "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" is very strong and has valuable meaning. It makes sense that we cannot advise our clients on issues we have no experience on ourselves. Trying to help someone with depression by taking information out of books or using personal opinions is not a good way to help them. Not only that but that client will quickly lose faith in you and this could create additional anxiety or possibly set- them-back rather them encourage them to move forward.
Cherie
I really liked the exercise "Meeting Aesclepius" and I think this exercise would benefit anyone but especially individuals who have self-esteem issues or issues of feeling lonely. I am going to try it again when I am alone at home. I choose my dad as my wise advisor. I admire my dad a lot because he has and continues to sacrifice so much for my sister and I. His morals have always impressed me and because he spent so much time helping us as kids I knew he cared and loved us.
Still today he takes good care of us, even though my sister and I are married. He recently bought me a new car and I told him I did not want him to because I want him to be proud of me for taking care of myself. He said I was working hard and he was proud of me and he wanted to make sure I had a safe and reliable car to get back and forth to work.
This is what I mean by still taking care of us. I hope I can do for my kids what my mom and dad have done for me. I do not mean buying them stuff but loving them and being an example of a person with good morals, honesty, and hard working.
The phrase "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" is very strong and has valuable meaning. It makes sense that we cannot advise our clients on issues we have no experience on ourselves. Trying to help someone with depression by taking information out of books or using personal opinions is not a good way to help them. Not only that but that client will quickly lose faith in you and this could create additional anxiety or possibly set- them-back rather them encourage them to move forward.
Cherie
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
To be healthy is to be FIT: Hello
To be healthy is to be FIT: Hello:
Hello Professor and Class:
This week was exciting and enlightening. I learned a lot about myself and learned some new coping mechanisms. The Loving Kindness exercise was fun but I found it hard to really meditate. It made me think about all the people I hold anger towards. It always made me think about why I was so angry at this people and I now regret the way I spoke to them. I was not really mean but I think I could of tried to understand them more before I jumped to conclusions about their attitudes. For instance, I have this one teacher who never seems available to help me as a substitute for classes at the gym. She is always telling me she is busy. I immediately get angry and assume this job is not important to her. I find out through another teacher that this other teacher is a Neuro Surgeon and the teaching job is her way of dealing with the stress of her job. Now I feel horrible because my assumption was way off. I have so much respect for her and feel really bad for the way I reacted.
The Integral Assessment was enlightening. I found my weakness to be in Interpersonal Flourishing and Biological Flourishing. I have a lot of issues with my children, one has anger issues and the other has Aspergers. They are 17 and 20 years old. I really do not like coming home because of all the trauma and loud noise in my home. I think I would get a second job if it were not for my two dogs that I love and keep me sane. I also have a hard time eating healthy. I stress eat and the foods that make me sick I still eat when I am stressed. I am trying very hard to control this and the meditation exercises are helping.
My goal is to continue with daily meditation. In addition, I am taking long walks with my dogs everyday. I love walking alone because I can think and take in the beauty of nature. This relaxes me and I can return home relaxed and able to deal with family issues.
Hello Professor and Class:
This week was exciting and enlightening. I learned a lot about myself and learned some new coping mechanisms. The Loving Kindness exercise was fun but I found it hard to really meditate. It made me think about all the people I hold anger towards. It always made me think about why I was so angry at this people and I now regret the way I spoke to them. I was not really mean but I think I could of tried to understand them more before I jumped to conclusions about their attitudes. For instance, I have this one teacher who never seems available to help me as a substitute for classes at the gym. She is always telling me she is busy. I immediately get angry and assume this job is not important to her. I find out through another teacher that this other teacher is a Neuro Surgeon and the teaching job is her way of dealing with the stress of her job. Now I feel horrible because my assumption was way off. I have so much respect for her and feel really bad for the way I reacted.
The Integral Assessment was enlightening. I found my weakness to be in Interpersonal Flourishing and Biological Flourishing. I have a lot of issues with my children, one has anger issues and the other has Aspergers. They are 17 and 20 years old. I really do not like coming home because of all the trauma and loud noise in my home. I think I would get a second job if it were not for my two dogs that I love and keep me sane. I also have a hard time eating healthy. I stress eat and the foods that make me sick I still eat when I am stressed. I am trying very hard to control this and the meditation exercises are helping.
My goal is to continue with daily meditation. In addition, I am taking long walks with my dogs everyday. I love walking alone because I can think and take in the beauty of nature. This relaxes me and I can return home relaxed and able to deal with family issues.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Creating A Quiet Mind
Hello Everyone: I WAS doing so well at blogging and now I cannot seem to send post to any of your sights. I tried for a couple hours last night typing post after post. When I went to submit them they disappeared and then my screen flashed out. Very frustrating.
I hope you are seeing my main post for Unit 5:
I found the Loving-Kindness exercise difficult because there was too much to think about. I cannot relax or focus when I have to stimulate my mind with new thought processes. I do think it is very hard to instill loving-kindness all the time. I have become much better over the past year at understanding why individuals react to certain situations in certain ways.
As a manager I have to be open-minded and it is important I understand what and why certain deep-seeded thoughts initiate particular responses. Most individuals are not intentionally mean or angry, however; if they are over the top there is normally something that happened before that situation that created that response. I also feel strongly that when you give love first individuals will respond with love.
The "Witnessing Mind" exercise was great. I loved the ocean sounds and I was able to focus on my breath moving forward to focusing on creating stillness within my mind. Despite the fact that I had children intentionally drawing my attention to them I was still able to relax. I really enjoyed this exercise.
I practice spiritual, mental and physical wellness to the best of my ability everyday. I workout everyday (as it is my job) and I attend church weekly. If I need to talk I make time to visit my counselor or call a friend. I know when I am depressed and I recognize when my depression is affecting the people around me.
Sometimes it is really hard for me to pick myself up and move forward. Yesterday was my birthday and my sister and mom and aunt made this day very special for me. I was very depressed by the evening because my children did not recognized my birthday and I was in tears last night. It just hit me. I toke out birthday cards they used to give me when they were little and put them out so they might remember what it was like to give love.
I know my children love me but for this generation showing loving-kindness is not important or is it a daily practice.
Cherie
Monday, September 16, 2013
Hello Professor and Class: The exercise for this unit was a little too relaxing for me. There was too much quiet time for thinking plus the sound of the water and chimes put me to sleep. I tried to focus but it was too difficult for me. I understand the concept behind the exercise.
Practicing Loving-Kindness is very important to me. As a manager I want to appear approachable to my instructors. This way they will feel comfortable talking about their problems relating to work. I can help them become better instructors if I understand where they are coming from.
In everyday life I practice Loving-Kindness with my children and husband. Talk about a challenge because we do not see eye-to-eye on most things. I try to be open-minded and I try not to take things personally. That is the hardest for me. I am sensitive and my feelings get hurt quickly. Again, I look at things through their eyes and world. My vision is that if they know I care enough to see their point of view they will meet me halfway in most situations.
I would recommend this exercise to others if I felt they were capable of holding their attention for that long. I do not think this exercise is for everyone. It takes an individual with a quiet mind and the ability to focus for long periods of time.
The concept of the "mental workout" is the perquisite for this exercise. We must first learn how to quiet our minds and attain the wisdom to understand others prospective. Anyone can benefit from the "mental workout" because it can result in great knowledge and it also allows you to teach yourself at your own pace. Practicing Psychological development allows us to focus on destructive emotions that hurt the people we care about the most. We learn by doing and this results in a healthier set of attitudes' and behaviors.
Cherie
Practicing Loving-Kindness is very important to me. As a manager I want to appear approachable to my instructors. This way they will feel comfortable talking about their problems relating to work. I can help them become better instructors if I understand where they are coming from.
In everyday life I practice Loving-Kindness with my children and husband. Talk about a challenge because we do not see eye-to-eye on most things. I try to be open-minded and I try not to take things personally. That is the hardest for me. I am sensitive and my feelings get hurt quickly. Again, I look at things through their eyes and world. My vision is that if they know I care enough to see their point of view they will meet me halfway in most situations.
I would recommend this exercise to others if I felt they were capable of holding their attention for that long. I do not think this exercise is for everyone. It takes an individual with a quiet mind and the ability to focus for long periods of time.
The concept of the "mental workout" is the perquisite for this exercise. We must first learn how to quiet our minds and attain the wisdom to understand others prospective. Anyone can benefit from the "mental workout" because it can result in great knowledge and it also allows you to teach yourself at your own pace. Practicing Psychological development allows us to focus on destructive emotions that hurt the people we care about the most. We learn by doing and this results in a healthier set of attitudes' and behaviors.
Cherie
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