Unit 9 Final Project

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.