To the reader… I asked professor about using "I" "me" "my" and writing in first person in this project since I've been told by her before not to and was knocked points on a paper once, so I wrote this formally. Just giving anyone who reads this a heads up since it may look weird to see "the author" "she" or "one can".
Introduction
With all of the stress that can occur in people’s lives today, health
and wellness professionals can help guide individuals to practice better habits
to reduce stress and maintain a healthy mentality.
It is important for health and wellness professionals to develop
psychologically, spiritually and physically because the professional should
practice what they preach. It can be easy to tell an individual to be positive,
meditate, eat right, and exercise but if the professional is not friendly and
is overweight the advice would seem contradicting. Health and wellness
professionals can learn about practices for better well being, but actually
actively engaging in psychological, spiritual, and physical practices is what
keeps the professional in a better state of wellness overall. If a doctor
practices medicine daily, a teacher teaches daily, and a baker bakes daily they
are all keeping up with their profession and so should a health and wellness
professional. Also, professionals must continue education by reading,
continuing eduation, or incorporating new practices or methods into their
career. Areas that a health and wellness professional could develop in to
achieve new goals is to be part of a community for meditation or
psychospiritual flourishing so that they may speak with other professionals to
share and learn about new experiences. Finding out current research is also a
goal for one to have because with each new research method done on the benefits
of meditation on specific groups, it adds credibility to the practice and can
also give the professional a new idea or insight to use or share.
Assessment
The author has assessed her health in each domain of spiritual,
physical, and psychological wellness and notices there is always room for
improvement. Although she feels she is flourishing, she feels that continuing
practices is most beneficial to her. If she had to score herself in each area
using a scale of one through ten (ten being highest), it would be an eight in
spirituality, a ten in physical, and a seven in psychological. She is
comfortable in her spiritual wellness and is at an eight because she is still
moving up in that area, but continues meditative practice daily. In the
physical area, she does a yoga/tai chi class every week as well as works out
daily. In the psychological area, she feels she is at a seven because even
though she is positive and practices patience and loving-kindness, she still
has a tendency to worry or overthink things too much.
Goal
development
One goal for the physical area is to do yoga, tai chi, or modern dance
class at least twice a week instead of just once per week. One goal for the
psychological area is to do practices to stop worrying or overthinking. The
practice will be that as soon as worry or overthinking starts, instead, think
of what to be grateful for at this present moment. This practice will avert
wandering thoughts to be back to the present moment. For spiritual improvement,
meditation will continue as well as reading at least one book a month to do
with mindfulness. The current book on the list to read is “How to Practice the
Way to a Meaningful Life” by his holiness the Dalai Lama translated and edited
by Jeffrey Hopkins.
Practices
for personal health
Strategies one could implement to foster growth in the physical area are
yoga, tai chi, or a dance class. Yoga and tai chi use the mind, body, and
breathing techniques. A modern dance class is expressive and uses the body,
mind, and movement. All three provide a sense of enlightenment while improving
one’s physique.
Strategies one could implement to foster growth in the psychological
area are to write in a journal daily and to only surround one’s self around
positivity. Journal writing can help get out any thoughts of feelings that tend
to resonate too long. Filtering out negative people, negative thoughts, and
negative practices in life will help improve mental wellness.
Strategies one could implement to foster growth in the spiritual area
are to meditate and to read books on spirituality. Mediation helps the mind
settle, but can also bring one to the present moment. Sometimes mediation can
even spark an epiphany. Reading books on spirituality can help one to achieve a
higher point of flourishing.
Commitment
One can assess their progress, or lack of,
in the next six months by keeping track in a journal. One could write out what
levels they were at for the start, then keep track of strategies or practices
during the journey as well as thoughts and feelings about how they are
changing. In six months of keeping a journal, one can compare their start to
that six-month goal point. Strategies that can be used to assist in maintaining
long-term practices can include the journal, but also include having a partner
to work with and keep each other accountable, or one could join a community
group online to maintain long-term practices.
