Semester's end... start the journey

This course has been very enlightening for me. Although I am an RN and understand the need for prevention of illness and disease, I was not aware of all of the avenues available for the prevention of illness and disease that I am now.  The intense mind/body connection that prevails in our lives when we choose to establish it can create health and wellness we never dreamed of.
This semester has been very challenging for me as I started a new job and moved to an entirely new state without friends or family here.  Thus, the evaluation I made of myself in Unit 3 has not improved in any area but has disimproved in spirituality. My physical health has remained the same. I do feel more an 8/10 than a 7-8/10 now because of my walking everyday and night at work. However, my cardiovascular endurance has not improved. Spiritually I have gone from a 9 to a 6/10.  I am working on reimproving this area with help from my husband but am finding it hard to stay positive without support from family and a church in my city.  People here are very click oriented and do not accept new comers very well.  However, I can return to my study of the scriptures, wait on the Lord for guidance each day and continue to pursue my connection with the Lord on a different level than before. Psychologically I am the same, 7/10. Although I have begun to do the exercises, the stress level I have been under has made it difficult to follow through on my goals and comittments to holistic health. I know it is essential for me to improve all of these areas and a rule of no more excuses stands.  I hope to see great success over the next since months as I take a leave of absence from school to focus on my personal and professional life more. With the tools made available to me this semester I am certain I can rise above the barriers in my life and grasp hold of true holistic health that is embodied by unity consciousness.
I would recommend this class to others as a foundation for developing holistic health. However, I would suggest that it be separated into two courses so that more emphasis could be placed on learning each activity.

Unit 9 Project

My Holistic Journey and Goals

Introduction

            Health and wellness professionals are a central part of educating their clients about obtaining and maintaining holistic health.  Holistic health refers to all aspects of human development and composition including physical, psychological, social, and spiritual realms.  Developing our physical bodies through exercise, healthy diets, and sleep helps us to fight off infection and disease.  However, physical well-being is not enough.  By developing our mind/body connections, we are able to thrive in the world around us and generate for ourselves, and others, true holistic health and wellness.  Once we have obtained maturity as holistic health providers, we “emanate a healing process. We [become] teacher[s] of patience, care, generosity, loving-kindness, and compassion” (Dacher, 2006, p. 101).

            As a Registered Nurse (RN), the education, training, support, and guidance I provide for my patients is pivitol to their success as individuals and members of the community in which they live.  By providing information on ways to improve their overall health through physical, spiritual, and psychological measures, I am able to provide the avenues necessary for them to generate healing within themselves.  Prior to being a successful educator, I myself must follow the teachings and practices necessary to obtain integral health and human flourishing. These are the goals to obtaining true holistic health and wellness.  To be successful myself, I must prepare for the journey.  This involves accepting the task of dedicating time to practicing mind/body exercises and committing to the transformational steps necessary to achieve these goals.  Secondly, all activities and exercises must be performed with intention.  Work is an excellent place to intentionally implement the goals of human flourishing.  By focusing my mind and learning to control my atmosphere and environment, I can generate a spiritual and physical path to human flourishing. Lastly, I must accept that the transformation process is a process of undoing several years of relating to situations in an unhealthy manner and accepting that the road will not always be paved in success.  “Irrespective of our work or how it comes to us, we can…take it on as our own, brining to it integrity, consciousness, compassion, and soul” (Dacher, 2006, p. 102).  This is the foundation for our successful interactions with patients and their families.

Assessment

            One element of the journey to human flourishing is the constant assessment and reassessment of our progress in obtaining our goals for physical, spiritual, and psychological health.  First, you must establish a baseline and scale to understand where you are starting and rate how you are improving.  You must be honest in your evaluations of yourself and be willing to place the time and effort into changing and improving your health.  Personally, this process is very confronting.  However, I do not wish to suffer from the illnesses and diseases that have plagued my family for years.  Thus, dedicating to the journey is my primary goal for this year.

Physical health encompasses more that what people see on the outside. It is internal and can be analyzed with the use of labs, diagnostics, hygiene, and weight management. As for myself, I would grade my physical health a 7-8 out of 10. Overall, I have a healthy body mass index (BMI), a tool used to determine health based on eliciting someone's height and weight and using an equation to find a percentage of body fat.   My BMI is 19 which is normal for my height and weight. In addition to having a healthy BMI, I work as a nurse walking long distances on the floor each day and my lab results, from a year ago, show perfect health. The only area I am lacking in is learning to relax and stretch my muscles. I injured my knee in sports and I have constant tension in my neck and back. This assessment must be productive in that a realistic view of our dedication to success must be made.   

            Spiritually, I would rate my health and wellness a 6 out of 10.  Prior to moving away from my home in California last September, my spiritual health was 9 out of 10.  I had the physical and social support of my church family and the daily reminder of their love and burden for my success as a whole.  I felt very connected to my greater power, God, and attended church each week, prayed each day, “waited on the Lord” several times a week, and worshiped often.  Now, over 3,000 miles away, I feel lost.  The journey to spiritual success, however, is one that can be reestablished and accomplished with dedication and practice.  By remembering my priorities and refusing to feel displaced, I can reestablish my connection with my higher power, God, and recommit to the goals necessary to obtain spiritual health and stability.   

Lastly, my psychological well-being would be rated 7/10. I am a constant thinker and analyzer. However, I allow this to interrupt my daily activities at times and feel very drained at the end of day. I have an amazing husband and family but my OCD personality at work and goal for perfection make stress a huge factor in my life.  In addition, my new position as a hospital nurse is more challenging than I prepared myself to accept.  Mental preparation and learning to transform my thoughts and work environment to establish an atmosphere of healing can all provide me with the tools necessary to improve my psychological health.

Goal Development/Practices for Personal Health

            Establishing goals, both long-term and short-term, helps us as individuals to remain accountable for our actions and provides us with a constant reminder of where we were and where we want to be.  In addition, when tough times approach, we are able to remember why we are taking the journey we are on.  Once a goal is obtained, we can re-evaluate our needs and establish new goals to achieve.  This process helps us to develop our personalities and traits we desire to emanate in life. 

            Holistic health and wellness is a long-term goal I have established for myself.  To obtain this goal, I must set a date as to when I want to have this accomplished and practice the exercises necessary to reach this goal.  By December 2013, my 30^th birthday, I will be actively practicing and living a holistic lifestyle dedicated to true health and wellness. To obtain this long-term goal, I must focus my plans on obtaining several small short-term goals.  My first goal is to focus on my physical health.  By June, 2011, I will improve my physical health to 9/10.  I will accomplish this goal by allotting 15 minutes every day to stretching in the am before work or any daily activities. Included in this goal would be another 15 minute stretch before bed so my muscles relax as I sleep.  My second physical health goal is to actively perform 20 minutes of cardiovascular exercise five times per week by June, 2011.  To accomplish this goal I will begin with 10 minutes of cardiovascular exercise twice per week.  Every two weeks, I will increase my time of exercise by two minutes.  Once I have reached 20 minutes per day, twice a week, I will increase my times per week to three days and decrease my time to 15 minutes three days a week. I will again increase my exercise time every two weeks by 1-2 minutes per day and accomplish my end goal in June.  Having these goals in place I am confident that I will be able to obtain 9-10/10 physical health by June.

            Spiritually, I simply need to return to the practices I used prior to my move. I need to reconnect with my spiritual father, God, and acknowledge his love for me.  A long-term goal for my accomplishment of spiritual health is to obtain 10/10 spiritual health by December 2011. Short-term goals I will implement to accomplish this are: Waking up each day at the same time and worshipping for 10 minutes while getting ready for work; making 3 set times throughout the week to “wait on the Lord” and draw his presence into my life; and setting aside three times per week to listen to the recorded sermons brought by my pastor back home.   I am certain that my struggle for spiritual health and wellness will be accomplished by implementing these goals.

            Obtaining psychological health is so crucial, I believe, to my overall obtainment of holistic health.  By obtaining psychological health, my stress level will decrease and the tension in my neck and back will fade.  This will help to improve my physical health as well.  One priority goal for improving my psychological health is to establish one goal per day at work that I will accomplish and focus on perfecting. By dissecting my goals for perfection into obtainable challenges I feel my stress level will decrease significantly.  In addition, by December 2011, I will be stable in my current job and proficient in my daily tasks as a Registered Nurse. My second priority goal is to improve my psychological health through meditation and visualization.  By June, 2011, I will actively practice meditation for 20 minutes three times per week and visualization 20 minutes twice per week.  To obtain this goal I will set aside five minutes every day for two weeks to focus on deep breathing exercises.  After the first two weeks, I will utilize common meditative practices to increase my focus on my inner self for 10 minutes three days per week and five minutes four days per week. By doing this, I will effectively obtain my goal as previously mentioned.

            Overall, committing to practice these exercises for physical, spiritual, and psychological growth, I can effectively improve my holistic health and wellness.

Commitment

            Committing to the goal of holistic health and wellness is a priority for my life. However, although my intentions are stated in writing and my goals are set, I must follow through with accomplishing them.  To critique my overall improvement over the next six months, I will post my goals in a highly visible place so that my husband and my friends are aware of my goals and can help me to focus on achieving them.  In addition, I have found a “work-out buddy” who has similar goals to mine and is dedicated to helping each other accomplish our goals.  When another person is driven to accomplish similar goals it makes the points of the journey, where you are unsure if you can continue accomplishable and obtainable.

            Ways to determine my progress are to assess my endurance in six months.  My baseline currently is five minutes of cardiovascular exercise twice each week.  If in six months, my baseline is the same, I know I have not accomplished my goals.  Similarly, with my spiritual health, if I continue to feel this lack of connection with God and continue to separate myself from the practices I know help me to gain spirituality; I will not have accomplished my goals. Lastly, I will assess my psychological goals by evaluating my work environment and asking those around me if they have seen an improvement in my time management and a decrease in my stress level.  In addition, I will evaluate the tension in my body and my ability to sleep as assessment data for obtaining my psychological goals.

            Overall evaluating my goals will be an ongoing journey and process. Set-backs are inevitable along the way but with support and dedication to a life of holistic health, I am certain I can accomplish holistic health and wellness.    

MOST BENEFICIAL EXERCISES: Unit 8

This semester has opened my eyes to the health and wellness benefits of establishing a mind/body connection.  So exercises for establishing this connection, however, have not been useful to me while others have been increasingly helpful.  The first exercise that changed my viewpoint on health and wellness and helped to generate a new found energy for me is the inner healer exercise performed with Track 4 of the Dacher (2006) CD.  This exercise helped me to connect with the love, honesty, and integrity of the words, actions, and overall disposition of my grandfather.   This created an intimate connection that helped me to establish these attributes for my inner self.  I can utilize this exercise each morning to focus my thoughts and inner energy for the day.  This exercise can also create benefits for me in my professional life as I can learn to speak only kind words and let my grandfather's presence eminate from me when dealing with difficult patients. Kind words heal and when you have prepared your mind to focus only on the positive, you produce the positive in your actions, words, and overall demeanor.
The second exercise that truly benefited me was the subtle mind exercise. Although I was not successful with this exercise at first, I found the health benefits of deep breathing and learning to focus my thoughts to be numerous.  The most interesting and beneficial element of this exercise is that it gives you room to grow and make mistakes.  It acknowledges that your thoughts may drift and helps you to refocus your mind as you continue to practice the exercise. For me, this exercise can provide me with significant personal and professional benefits. Knowing how to focus my thoughts to generate the actions I need to perform as a a nurse in critical situations is priceless.  In addition, knowing how to focus in and be a good listener for others can help to form deep bonds in my personal friendships.
The critical aspect for me to remember as this semester winds to an end is that the exercises learned are for my health and wellness. They are not simply time wasted.  As I become busy in my life, remembering this key element is difficult. It is important, however, to establish time to practice these health and healing exercises on a daily basis to truly benefit from their use.