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