The Importance of Pschological and Spiritual Wellness

I really liked the meditative practice given this week to perfrom.  I thought about my grandmother that past away awhile back because she was the one that taught me to be a good person through values and going to church and learn religious beliefs.  She also helped me in school and I became the best student I could be because of her.  After she passed away, I have sometimes strayed from things she has taught me but this exercise makes me think how I should start going to church again and start showing more loving-kindness and compassion to others in my life.  I want to be the best person I can spiritually, mentally, and physically.  These type of exercises make you reflect on past experiences and choices you have made and helps you look in what you should change in the future about yourself to help you reach total optimal wellness.  I am going to start taking more time to relax and reflect on my past experiences and lifestyle habits and see what I should change to become healthier overal.  They saying "one cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" means that someone, who is teaching someone else about a certain subject area and practices, should have already mastered it and used it in their own life.  I do think that us as health and wellness professionals should have or working to have a high level of psychological, spiritual, and physical wellness.  I think this should happen before we are able to teach other people how to improve their lives to optimize these areas in their life.  I am working on increasing my psychological wellness and spiritual wellness by meditating and praying more often.  I also reflect each week on the choices I made and see what I should change to be an overall healthier person.  I am working on getting on the integral path toward optimal wellness. 

Integral practice

Describe the exercise and assessment process. What did you discover about yourself? What area have you chosen to be a focus of growth and development? Why? What are some specific exercises or activities that you can implement to foster greater wellness in this area?

 

Close your eyes and rest into the ease and stillness of your mind and body, releasing all mental activiy.  When quiet, ask yourself, What aspect of my life--psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal, or worldly--is the source of difficulty and suffering?  Focus on this one area.  What line of development is most essential for me at this time?  What is my current level of development and what can I am for? 

 

I need to focus on developing my biological, psychospiritual, and worldly ascpect of my life.  I am working on changing my diet to be healthier and exercising more to get to a healthier body fat composition.  I am working on using more loving-kindness and compassion toward more people.  I am working on keeping my mind focus and calm to be more aware and able to learn more knowledge and use it accurately.  I am working on speaking and working with others better.  I am starting to perform cardiovascular exercises everyday.  I will try to meditate weekly and go to classes to learn to work with other people from different places.

The Connection of Spiritual Wellness to Mental and Physical Wellness

I enjoyed performing the subtle mind exercise more than the loving-kindness exercise because you can use the breathing exercise anywhere to be able to control our mind and bring our mind to a calming and peaceful state no matter what situation you are in.  The loving kind-ness exercise is for someone that is in a place that is quiet and calm and it is used to relax and think more on how to show compassion to others.  The breathing exercise can be used during exercise as well and can train the mind to stay focused during the exercise and visualize yourself getting stronger or faster.  This exercise helps get your mind calm and focused during any situation which well decrease stress hormones in the body.  I use breathing exercises while I am exercising to be able to lift harder and run longer.  Mental training can transform the mind by reducing disturbing emotions that cause anger, hatred, fear, worry, confusion, and doubt while enhancing positive emotions such as patience, loving-kindness, openness, acceptance, and happiness.  At the same time, this will help us provide enhanced resistance to mental distress and physical disease.  I will practice on thinking more positively during life adversities and use positive emotions when dealing with the effects of the situations.  I will work on showing more loving-kindness toward other people to help both of us to be happier.

Loving-kindness and mental workout

After I listened to the loving-kindness exercise, I felt more peacesful and at one with myself.  The exercise help me reflect on my spiritual well-being and how I could work to be a better person.  It is hard for me to have enough time in the day to sit in one spot and get in a restful, comfortable position and expand my heart to release my loving-kindness.  I will work harder to be able to take more time out of my busy life to get in a peaceful state and reflect on how I can use my loving-kindness to help others and become a better person in the future.  I would not recommend this exercise personally because that is not how I become relaxed and less stress.  I use the weight room for that and talk to my wife about stressful things happening in my life.  I do believe its something I should try to do more but I do make time to pray and reflect on how I could become a better person and put others before me.  Mental workout is a workout that tames and trains the mind, opens the heart, expands consciousness, and progresses us toward psychospiritual flourishing.  When stabilized, calm-abiding natually evolves into the highest level of consciousness, unity consciousness.  When we gain access to unity consciousness, we gain access to the resources of a higher consciousness--wisdom, peace, compassion, happiness, and wholenss.  I will work on taking more time out of my week to do more mental workouts to increase my overall wellness.