Life goals....

Here is my final project.

Introduction

      The importance of personally growing psychologically, spiritually and physically for health and wellness professionals should be a priority. In order to teach and help others to grow in these areas, one needs to have knowledge and experience. Having inner peace brings outer peace. Using self reflection to learn how to love the person you are, allows a person to be able to love and understand others. This is important to be able to respect and fulfill a person’s individual needs. To help others find integral health, I must achieve it myself. As a health and wellness professional I must learn to listen and respect people as individuals in order to meet their needs and wants.

      I have several areas I want to develop in my life. The first area I would like to improve is physical. I have started a better fitness program to help me with healthy eating and weight loss. I have set a weight loss goal, so I must follow my plan to reach my goal. Next, I want to develop psychologically and reduce stress in my life. I work a stressful job, go to school and take care of my family. Learning to charge of my life by reducing stress will help be to become stronger and grow as a person. Finally, I want to grow spiritually and I consider this part the zipper of all three areas. Using higher power and asking for guidance and forgiveness will give me strength and determination to succeed.

Assessment

      I started a list of goals I want to accomplish, so that I can improve the areas I want to grow and develop in. The goals I have are realistic and reachable, which means I will only succeed. As I achieve each goal, I will be able to move to the next with ease. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. Physically I give myself 6 because this is the area I feel I need the most improvement in. My physical health is important and I have developed a better eating plan and exercise program. I need to make healthier food choices and stick to my fitness routine. Psychologically I give myself a 4 because of the stress factors I’m experiencing. I have to learn to let go and find time for myself. I have let the stress take its toll on me and I have been suffering from migraines a lot lately. I have been using meditation and visualization to find my happy place. These two practices will help me get rid of negative thoughts and feelings. Spiritually I give myself an 8 because I’m satisfied with my spiritual growth but feel there is still more room for growing. I use pray as my coping mechanism and this helps.

Goal Development

Physical- My goal is to weigh 150lbs in 6 months. I will reach my goal by eating a healthier diet, walking on treadmill and following my fitness routine.

Psychological- My goal is to reduce stress and become a person I like. I will reach my goal by taking at least 15 minutes each day to meditate and pray for myself and others.

Spiritual- My goal is a better relationship with God. I will reach my goal by attending church on a more regular basis.

Practices for Personal Growth

Physical: I will walk 4 miles on my treadmill daily, develop a good cardio workout, and eat healthier foods. I will keep track of my progress and mark each goal as I achieve it.

 Psychological: I will meditate and visualize in a quiet place for 15 minutes daily. As I become more aware of the feelings I’m experience as I use these 2 practices I will continue to find other ways to reduce stress.

Spiritual: I will attend church more and use more prayer. I will attend church on Sundays and seek guidance from God and others to help me find balance in my life.

Commitment

I want to start using a journal and continue with my blog from this class. In order to maintain the practices I choose for myself, I will use small steps in order to measure my success. I will reward myself for reaching my goals.

 

Happy thoughts...

Hi,
The two exercises I found to be the most beneficial are visualization and meditation. Even though I'm very busy with work, school and family, I think it's important to take time for myself and use these practices. I believe when I have balance and inner peace I feel better both mentally and physically. I use meditation alot, especially in the shower. The house is quiet because I'm the only one up. The hot water is relaxing and gives me a chance to focus on good thoughts of how my day will go. I use visualization one to three times a week. The beach is in my back yard, so I like to find a nice sunny spot to lay down and let the sun shine on my face. The sun helps me to relax and concentrate on deep breathing. I like listening to the waves. I take deep breathes and let everything around take me to my happy place. I listen to the waves and pretend the carry way all the negativity in my life. What a great feeling!
Until next time......

A beautiful moment....

Hello everyone!
I truly loved the way I felt after doing this exercise. The person I used for my focus was my mom. Although I felt sad at some parts of the exercise, the end result was I felt better. As I listened and followed the directions, I felt at ease, relaxed and a sense of calm. The background sound was so calming and I could smell the ocean the more I relaxed. I benefitted the most from this exercise because the experience for me was soothing. When the exercise first began, I had tears roll down my face because I missed my mom. I lost my mom a year and a half ago, so for me it is fresh. She is the person I feel most connected to and I think that is why this exercise affected me the way it did. Meditation has increased my spiritual wellness because it helps me to focus on positive thoughts and let go of the negative influences in my life. I will continue to use meditation and prayer as a way to continue my journey to wellness.

I think this saying means that in order for us to understand and guide a person, we need to have experienced some of the same things in life. As a health and wellness professionals, we need to understand our clients, their life and how they think. We need to be able to give them the right guidance by using some of our own life experiences. Yes, I do believe we should develop our health psychologically, physically and spiritually because if we don't have good health in these areas, how we can properly guide another person to achieve these things. As the old saying goes, practice what you preach. I will use prayer and meditation as the practices I use in my daily life in order to achieve wellness and grow as a person.

Until next time....

Hi everyone!
This exercise made me feel relaxed and calm. It helped me to focus and reflect on my life and the things I want to change. It makes me want to find health, happiness and wholeness not only for myself but for the other people in my life. I think that once I find balance in my own life, I will be able to share it with others. The assessment helped me to put in order the things I want to improve. If I find healing in one area, it will lead to wellness in others. I discovered that I tend to overthink things sometimes and this cause me great stress both mentally and physically. I often have a hard time of letting of things. My first focus is of seeking support of a close relationship because I don't feel the support I need from my husband. I don't always feel like he supports me in my life goals. It seems as though sometimes he discourages me more than encourages me. The exercise I use is prayer because I find inner peace when I do. I not only pray for myself but also for my husband. I seek guidance for us both, so our marriage will be stronger. I pray that God will help my husband to see the benefit of my goals and how it will not only make us stronger as husband and wife, but also make our family stronger.

Hello,
I think both exercises were good and really helped me alot. I found that the loving kindness more benficial because I seemed to be able to relax better the second time I tried it. I think my biggest down fall is that my life is so hetic, I can't focus and relax. I realized in order for me to be able to enjoy the experience I needed to remove myself from all the noise in my house. I do believe what Dacher said about loving ourselves to be able to open up and share that love with others. I think that spiritual wellness leads to mental and physical wellness because when a person has spiritual wellness it allows them to let go of things. Keeping feelings and thougths inside causes stress to the mind and body. I use alot of guided imaginery, prayer and meditation to help reflect on parts of my life that are having a negative affect on my mind and body. Life is a learning process and people need to train their minds to let go of negative thoughts and focus on the positive.
Until next time..........

Exercise experience

Hello everyone,
I found this exercise beneficial and difficult because I think that I couldn't focus. I have alot going on in my personal life right now. As listened to the directions I found it difficult to focus on what the lady was telling me to do. The background sounds were very calming and did help me relax but I could only think of the stress that I'm enduring at this time. I had a hard time letting go. I think if maybe I was in a different state of mind the exercise would of worked. I would like to try it again and see if my experience would be different. I would reccommend it to others because I feel that it can be helpful. I will try the execrise again this week and let everyone know if my experience is different.

I think the concept of a mental workout is training the mind and body to work together as one and help a person to relax. If the mind and body work together as one, it allows people to focus their energy and find peacefullness within themselves. The end result would be to reduce stress. The proven benefit of a mental workout is training the mind to progress to psychospiritual flourishing. By taking at least 15 minutes each day to learn to relax and let go, people can begin to learn to love themselves, which will help them to love others.

I think that before we can truly love others, we need to learn to love ourselves.

Until next time...

hello everyone,
Here's a quick update on my life, I'm on vacation for the next week. I will enjoying nature in a secluded cabin with my husband. I plan on leaving all my stress behind this week and focusing on me!
How I rate my physical well-being is a 7 because I'm on a weight loss goal and I'm half way there. I still have fifty pound I want to lose. I rate my spiritual well-being a 8 because I attend church now and I'm building a relationship with God. I rate my psychological well-being a 8 because I still need to work on some things in my life.
My goal for physical well-being is to lose fifty more pounds. My goal for spiritual well-being is to attend church more and keep developing my relationship with God. My goal for psychological is to find happiness and be a better person.
The activities I'm going to use are developing a plan that meets my needs, focusing how I can achieve my goals and finally putting my plans into action. Physically I change my eating habits and started walking on my treadmill more, spiritually I want to find a women's bible study to attend and psychologically I want to start meeting new people with positive energy.
I found the exercise to be very beneficial because not only did it relax me but it relieved the stress I was feeling in my shoulders. The speaker calming voice made the exercise easy to follow. I enjoyed it very much.
Until next time....