Dudes!

So, I originally started this blog because I had to for a college class.  That would explain why I haven't posted anything since 2014.  I have since finished my degree, and today I registered for classes for my (wait for it) Master's Degree!  I start my degree April 20th, (no jokes, please).

I am also pleased to report that I have a job in my field of study, and I start that on April 4th.

Life has been pretty awesome these passed few months.  Time to start some new adventures.

I can't believe this is the end! Unit 10 Reflextions

Class,

In unit 3 I rated myself a 5 out of 10 for physical, and a 7 of 10 for both spiritual and psychological wellness.  Although I have gotten better in each area, I do not think I have gained enough experience or improved enough to move myself up another step, so I would rate myself the exact same; 5,7,7.  I am making improvement in my physical fitness and healthy eating habits; I am making progress on my subtle mind and loving-kindness practices, and working each day on reducing the amount of stress and anxiety I feel, or allow myself to feel in my daily life.

 If I keep exercising 5 times a week, trying to improve my meditation times by 2 minutes each week, and keep working on my subtle-mind practices each week, I will achieve my goals before the end of the year.



My experience throughout this class has been rewarding overall.  I have been "forced" by this class to make time to put meditation and stress relief back into my life once again, and I forgot how much I missed it!  And need it!  I feel like I have started to become a much more relaxed person; less easy to anger, more patient, and less likely to have a full on stress induced freak out!  I will definitely be using the techniques in my future career (once I master them).  I will also probably recommend meditative practices and yoga as a way to reduce anxiety to my future clients.  I feel the information that I have learned in this class will be will me for the rest of my life, (I already have one friend hooked on the idea of integral health, and she wants to read my text books now that class is over with).

Thanks for the amazing 10 weeks!  Be well.

~Catherine

My mom and I had lunch at this beautiful place a few weeks ago!

My Intergral Health Plan. Unit 9 Blog

Everyone knows the importance of physical health; a healthy body leads to a happy life and a healthy person.  In our American society, our physical bodies are the main focus of our health care system, and disease diagnosis and treatment always focuses on deficiencies in the body, and the medications to fix those problems.  We completely ignore the other aspects of human life, health, and wellness, that all interconnect to make us a wholly healthy human being.  In order to achieve optimum wellness, we need to switch from a strictly physical approach to wellness, to an integrated approach, with recognizes the importance of spiritual health and psychological health, along with physical health.  Many diseases that plague us today, not only affect our physical bodies, but also have roots in our mental and spiritual health, or lack thereof.  For example, heart disease, high blood pressure, and irregular heartbeat conditions, can not only be treated with medication, but also reduced and reversed with meditation and stress management strategies.  In order to heal the whole person, every aspect of humanity must be taken into consideration; only when we begin to treat the whole person, will human flourishing “a profound, hardy, and sustained health, happiness and wholeness” (Dacher, 2006 p. 35) be possible.  The three main areas of wellness are psychological, physical, and spiritual.    

            Each person has areas of wellness that they excel in and areas in which they need help.  Although most people may need to work on their spiritual or psychological aspects more, I feel that I need to work on my physical health the most.  Although I know that I need to work on the spiritual and psychological aspects of health and wellness, they are far more advanced than my physical health, and I feel that I need to advance my physical health more before I can truly improve my psychological or spiritual health. 

            Assessing my progress in the different levels has been interesting, and if I were to rate myself on each of the three levels on a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate myself a 7 of 10 for both spiritual and physical health, and a 5 for physical health.  Spiritual development, I assess my level of health and wellness based on inner calmness, and my ability to deal with the negative events that take place in life.  I also am scoring it on how long it takes me to quiet my mind when I begin a meditation.  When I first started this class, I had a hard time concentrating on non-guided meditations, and a hard time clearing my mind of unwanted thoughts.  I still struggle with this from time to time after a long or stressful day, but in general I am much quicker to relax now than before.  I also gauge my psychological health in a similar way, along with seeing how happy I am in general, and how much stress and negativity I am able to let roll off my back and not affect me.  I measure my physical health and wellness by my weight, by how far into my workout I can get before I feel the need to take a break (even though I usually push through the feeling), and by how many times I can lift my weights before my arms start to feel tired.  Although I feel that I have made a good deal of progress in each area since the start of the class, I do not feel that I have made much progress toward my goals over all.

            My physical goal is to lose the 15 pounds that I have gained, and to be able to run/jog a mile without stopping.  My spiritual goal is to be able to tap into inner stillness at a moment’s notice; to be able to know that no matter how many things get thrown at me and that no matter where I am, I will have a quiet and calm place to retreat to, even just for a few moments.  My psychological goal is to be able to see the best in every situation; to be able to know that I am capable of anything; I would like to be able to use meditation to calm my nerves quickly when I feel anxious, and specifically when I feel an anxiety attack coming on.

            In order to reach my physical goals, I will keep exercising 5 times a week, for a minimum of half an hour.  In order to keep myself motivated, I will continue to record each day I work out on my wall calendar, and include brief work out details (length of workout, average speed, distance covered, and calories burned).  I will also continue to try and eat less junk food, and more healthy foods.  I will start keeping a food diary of what I eat and when and how many total calories and how many calories from sugar there are in each food.  This will bring to the forefront of my mind, what I am putting in my body.

            In order to achieve my spiritual goals, I will continue to practice the loving kindness exercise, and the calm-abiding mind exercise.  Both of these together will bring peace and stillness to my life.  By practicing loving-kindness, I will have fewer negative thoughts, and the fewer negative thoughts that I have, the easier it will be for me to improve in the calm abiding mind practice.  To achieve my psychological goals, I will try yoga to relieve stress, and use a mantra meditation to ease my anxiety.  By stretching my body in the yoga poses, and focusing on how my body feels and moves I will be able to let go of negative thoughts and self-doubt more easily.  In order to make time for yoga, I will get up when my alarm first goes off, and use the ten minutes I usually “snooze” to go through the sun salutation pattern of poses.  Also, through mantra and breath focused meditation I can replace those negative thoughts, with affirming phrases set to slow, deep breaths.  Telling myself that I am a strong, independent, and capable woman who has nothing to be afraid of or anxious about, will help me to calm my anxiety.

            I will measure my physical progress my weighing myself at the same time once every week, and by judging if my clothes are fitting back to the way the used to.  If I lose one pound each week for the next 15 weeks, I will have achieved my goal in a healthy way.  I will still have to keep exercising to make sure that I do not gain it back.  I will also continue running, pushing myself a little farther each time I run, even if it is only by a block.  Even after I reach my goals, I will still continue recording my exercise and nutrition in a diary, to keep myself on track.  I will measure my spiritual progress by how easily it is for me to let go of negativity, and find my quite calm place in my mind.  Right now it takes me at least 5 minutes to calm my mind to the point where it is still.  My goal over the next 6 months is to be able to quiet my mind in under a minute.  In order to keep improving past my goal, I will also keep expanding the amount of time I spend in meditative practices, trying to add about 2 minutes of time each week.  My goals and plans for the next half a year for my psychological health include increasing the amount of time I spend on stress reduction meditation.  I am developing a mediation schedule, where one day I focus on loving-kindness, the next on subtle mind, and the third day on mantra and breathing meditation.  I think this rotation will keep meditation interesting for me by not doing the same practice every day.  By recording each practice for each day in my calendar, I will be more likely to keep on track.  If I can achieve my goals over the next 6 months, I plan on setting new goals to help further my progress towards integral health and human flourishing. 

Reference

Dacher, Elliott S. (2006).  Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing.  Basic Health Publishing.

Meditation Recap. AKA I can't believe we are in unit 8 already!

How time flies!

After thinking back on all the meditative practices that we have tried these past several weeks, I keep coming back to the loving-kindness practice.  I like to do a short version of this practice right before I start work, and again before I come back from my lunch break.  I think it has helped me deal with the stress of the passed month at work in a much healthier way than I would have before.  I also keep coming back to some of the visualization techniques, and also some of the mantras that go along with them.  Although I have not used these as much as the loving-kindness practice, I feel that when I do use them, they work wonders.  I still feel like I have to come up with my own mantras or sayings; ones that mean more to me than generic thoughts of "I am loved" (although it is important to tell yourself that).  I also tried the meditation from out Dacher reading this week, and found it very useful, and energizing.  Although I did not participate in it for the recommended time, I did read the directions until I could practically recite them, and had an enjoyable experience.  As I stated in my discussion board posting, I feel that I will use this practice when I get discourage from my path towards integral health.    By the time I was done with the exercise and had this feeling of extreme happiness, wholeness, and vitality, that I could almost feel the excitement radiating off of my own skin!  Although that feeling did not last very long, it was a wonderful feeling and one I want to experience again and again.

Hope everyone had a wonderful week, and I hope next week (with all the final projects) goes well for everyone!

~Catherine

Hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday! 

Been going through some photos lately

This blog isn't for class.  I've been going through digital photos, sorting them into folders my month and year, and trying to put together a collection of photographs that I feel are my best photos.  I don't really want to be a professional photographer, (although I must say it was a pipe dream for a year or so), but it is a hobby, and I would like to share some photos with anyone out there who wants to see them.  I have and Instagram account, but its is more for fun.  I do share some serious photos on there, but not many, and what I do share is mixed in with "selfies" and random photos from my life, with friends, and family, not to mention crappy cell phone pictures edited beyond recognition of their original state.  So, here are a few I thought to share, just because I felt like sharing.

Notre Dame

One of my favorite subjects

Eiffel Tower

Earlier work

Reflection