NEW CLASS, New Term

Well, I'm now in my second to last term of school. I am now a senior in college, boy do I feel old. Only 20 weeks to go until graduation! YES! My long-term goal of getting my education is in its final stages.

My Integral Health Plan

Integral and Holistic Health Care Practice
I. Introduction
The concept of the whole person with a mind, body, and spirit, not as separate parts, but united aspects of each person, is ancient and had been the central concept behind healing and medical care up until the 17th century. Mind-body-spirit focus promotes the belief that everyone has a largely untapped capacity to improve their own health and well-being through a combination of mind-body-spirit approaches, nutrition, yoga/exercise and group support. (Avera Center for Wellness). Human Flourishing is the ultimate goal of integral healing; having happiness, wholeness, and fully sustained health. It is very important for health professionals to understand and consider this development, psychological flourishing, because to lessen its importance is to ignore the final aim of human life—the gain total health, happiness and wholeness. It is imperative for health and wellness professionals to develop spiritually, physically and mentally because if they do not, they will not be whole themselves and they cannot properly teach others holistic health, if they do not practice it themselves. I need to develop my physical or nutritional health and In turn, my mental health will improve.
II. Assessment
I have been able to assess my health spiritually, physically and mentally through the meditation practices, course reading, exercises, blogs, discussions and seminars. Out of a score of ten, my physical health is a six, mostly because my exercise is high, but my nutrition is poor. My spiritual health, right now, is at a high 9. I learned to rely on my spiritual side while my husband was deployed to Iraq and I have strived to maintain that level since then. My psychological health is around an 8. I get down on myself at times and get a bit stressed being a mom, a wife, a student, a Church youth leader, and a potential adoptive mom.
III. Goal Development
Physically I am doing well with getting daily exercise; strong hour workouts six day a week and one light day on Sunday. However, I need to work on my nutrition. I have a plan to eat mostly fresh fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains, and very few sweets each day. I am going to include my family in this plan and we will all begin to eat a healthier diet from now on. We will have one easy day where we can eat a treat on our Family Home Evening night. I have decided that we do not need junk food in the house, it is not necessary and promotes bad eating habits.
Mentally, my goals are to increase my physical health first, in hopes that my mental health will conversely improve. However, I do have a goal to finish my schooling by this time next year. In order to do this I need to increase each term by one class. This may be a bit harder to get things done around
the house, on top of everything else I have to do, but it’ll only be one year of this and then I will be completely finished. I also plan on doing either the “Subtle Mind Practice” or the “Meditative Practice” each day in the mornings, before everyone arises in the morning.
Spiritually, I am doing well. I could probably set a goal to read my scriptures every morning, and perhaps include that as part of my “Meditative Practice”. I attend Church regularly, and while that does not necessarily mean I am spiritual, it does lend itself to helping me achieve my spiritual goals. I want to know my Savior Jesus Christ and I want my children to know Him, also. My favorite saying in our house is: “Live so that those who do not know Jesus Christ, will want to come to know Him because they know you.” This is my ultimate spiritual goal.
IV. Practice for Personal Health
Phsyically, I will strive to eat more nutiritously; to eat for fuel purposes not to just eat.
Spiritually, I will add scripture and meditation (prayer) to my daily routine.
Mentally, I will strive to read only good books, and not have idle time that is wasted. I will think more positively about myself and my body.
V. Commitment
I am working on making goal charts to track my progress. I actually have these for my children. When they get their “chores” done, they get a sticker and when their chart is full, they get a special day out of their choosing, with Mom and Dad, by themselves. I am going to make myself one of these sticker charts and hang it by my kids charts. When my chart is full, I’ll treat myself to a day at the spa. It seems to work for the kids, maybe it’ll work for a “kid at heart”.

Fostering Mental Fitness

I am going to continue to use the "Subtle Mind" and "Meditation" practices to further my mental fitness goals. Eventually I will be able to create wellness within myself without the CD's, but for now, I will continue to use them until I have mastered the techniques. I connected with the subtle mind practice and as meditation is already a part of my daily life and it is working well for me, I will contnue to use it. Last week, Sunday, we had a Family-wide Fast and prayer day to further our adoption efforts. Around 10 families were praying or meditating for the purpose of us finding the right adoption situation for our family. The next day we received a phone call from our adoption agency saying that we are going to be considered for a birthmom's baby due in January. What's interesting to note is that before Sunday we were not one of the couple's being considered for this situation because we were too new to the adoption agency and not all of our important paperwork had been received yet. The agency's social worker felt impressed, on Sunday evening, (after the Fast) to include us in the list of four other adoptive couples' to be sent to the birthparents. We were then sent non-identifying information on the birthparents. The likeness between us and the birthparents is strikingly similar. The social worker feels that we will be the best match, but it is always up to the birthparents, so we are still praying to be chosen. We feel that the family prayer (meditation) was very helpful and we look forward to being blessed with a new angel baby in the new year. Meditation or prayer, really does work. I have tested it time and again throughout my life and it has always worked, although not always in the way I think it should. Answers do come, sometimes after a little time and sometimes quickly, but they do come. Even if you aren't looking for answers, meditation or prayer can bring you to a peaceful center inside yourself to help you focus and achieve whatever it is you are working toward. "Try it, try it and you may, Try and it and you May I say." Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham. Good Luck everyone. Much Aloha, Sophie

Meditative Practice

My meditative practice consists of daily personal prayer and weekly yoga meditation. I really enjoy this time of my day and week. I try to set myself apart from everyone else at these times, so I can more fully focus on meditation. I chose my dad as my "wise one", he has always been that person for me. I often went to him as a child, and now I go to him as an adult for guidance. This was an easy exercise for me because I have this "wise one" in my life in actuality. He has always had a peaceful demeanor about him, he never yelled at us. When we were making unwise choices (being naughty) all he had to do was look at us with that, "I am so disappointed." look and we changed what we were doing really fast! This mindfulness practice has helped me achieve an inner peace that I haven't felt in quite some time. I used to feel this way all the time when I was a teenager, but I let it go and go stressed out in college, marriage and early parenthood. It feel wonderful to have this peace in my life again. It's nice to know that it's okay to take time out for myself to unwind and de-stress. I am going to keep these CD's and use them with my future clients.
"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" Perfectly describes the need for health professionals to practice what they preach. It is so much easier to explain something to someone when you have gone through it yourself. I am always amazed when i see medical professionals smoking or over-eating. They know better! I know they learned healthy habits in their schooling. I am less likely to follow the advice of a medical professional who does not practice thier own healthy lifestyle practices.

Integral Assessment

I am working on my biological aspect of my life right now, specifically in the areas of nurtrition and self-regulation. I have been working on this for the past month and a half. I joined Weight Watchers so I have a daily tally in my mind of what I am eating and how it is effecting my health and energy. I ask myself. "Am I really hungry, or am I just thirsty? Do I really want to eat that, or can I substitute something better for my body? Am I eating because of some emotion, or am I really hungry?" And my favorite self-question: "How Bad do you want it?" I have noticed as I have been focusing on this aspect of my life, I have begun to feel better in other aspects of my life. In my interpersonal relationships, I am happier because I now have more control over myself. I am not as quick to anger with my husband and kids or those in my community (road rage). My psychospiritual quadrant is becoming more balanced as well. I don't get emotional when I look in the mirror because I know I am doing all I can to get my biological aspect in balance. I am going to continue to focus on this part of my personal assessment as this is going well for me at the moment. I will continue to use my breathing or yoga exercises and the subtle mind exercise because they are working well for me. My husband has even commented on how much happier I seem, as of late.

The Subtle Mind

The Subtle Mind exercise was much calmer than the Loving-Kindness exercise--no psychodelic colors exploding out of my body. ;0) I was able to focus on my breathing which let me calm down faster than with the Loving-kindness exercise. I was better able to focus on my inner-self and not on so many outward emotions. I was able to use this exercise more often in my life this week as I tried it whenever I began to feel overly anxious about my many responsibilities or upset with my children's tantrums. My husband noted that there was a more peaceful feeling in the home and I told him about the Subtle Mind exercise I was using. He thought it would be helpful for some of his patients at his Orthodontic residency. He'll probably copy it and take it with him to school this week. I could imagine myself watching the waves off Oahu's North Shore and my favorite beach, Turtle Beach, always had a calming effect on my psyche. I experienced none of the frustrations using this exercise as I had with the Loving-kindness exercise. I felt at peace, whereas, with the afore mentioned exercise, my mind felt so overwhelmed that it just gave up and fell asleep. Spiritual wellness allows the mind to be at peace and allows the physical aspect of one's life to be attended to, instead of worrying about other things and letting physical wellness disappear. Spiritual, mental, and physical wellness work together for total wellness.

LOVING-KINDNESS=
In the beginning of the Loving-Kindness exercise, this was difficult for me to grasp. I have a hard time letting go of my negative body image, it is so ingrained in my psyche. I love other things about myself, my voice, my personality, my creativity, but my body image is a huge hang up. This experience helped me let go, even just a little, of my negative feelings about myself. There is really no reason to hang onto the outside of my body, it is such a small part of who I am.
Taking in the suffering of a loved one was difficult for me. My son is having problems fitting in at school. He is not into sports like most of the other kids. He is very creative and great at public speaking. We call him our little politician. It hurts to see him hurting. We are going to rectify this by getting him involved in more of the things he is good at, such as: art classes, and the theater.
There are so many greater things our there that people are suffering with, so much greater than my little body image disorder. This experience helped me to put my own suffering in order and reach beyond myself to heal.
My husband did not like this, but mostly because he didn't get anything from it but an early bed time.
Mental Workouts help us expand our current thoughts. They help us to reach beyond ourselves. By forgetting ourselves and our problems and by reaching out to others we can put our own problems into perspective and realize that we are so much more than the sum of our parts.