Unit 9 Project -- Reflections

Introduction:

            Integral health, the study of how health and healing is related to the different aspects of a person’s life (physical, emotional/mental, spiritual, and social), is not just a method of healing but rather an approach to life. This system sees those aspects as not separate areas, but rather all part of an interrelated whole. What affects one area affects them all. To best understand integral health and to assist others in pursuing integral health, it is necessary that the practitioners are taking steps towards those aspects in their own lives. By expanding those areas, we increase our compassion and ability to work with others (Dacher, 2006). A practitioner expanding their own integral health also gains the personal experience and perspective that is a part of the healing process with a client.

            In my own life, there are some areas that I need to develop in order to meet my personal goals. I am working on expanding my social circle so that I have a wider network of friends. Social connections are a vital part of integral health. I am in pretty good physical shape, but I do want to be a bit more toned, so developing my fitness practices will improve my integral health. My career goal is to be a psychologist specializing in psychoanalysis and sex therapy, and to meet this goal I will have to develop my mental skills through learning, study, and practical experience.

Assessment:

            Over the course of this class’s assignments and in thinking of my own goals, I have assessed my health in each domain. For the physical domain, I think about my general level of biological health and fitness. I am fit, though I could be fitter, and I have no serious health concerns. I eat fairly healthily, and I exercise a few times a week.

In the mental and emotional domain, I think about what sorts of thoughts and emotions occupy me. I have ups and downs, and sometimes the downs are a little deeper than I think they are in others. I wouldn’t say that I’m concerned I’m depressed, but just that I’ve had some emotionally difficult situations punctuated by some better moments. On the whole, I think I am doing fair emotionally. Mentally, I am working on changing the thought patterns that arise from and contribute to the emotional difficulties. I am developing my self esteem and working on creative activities that bring me emotional and spiritual satisfaction. I would say that mentally, I’m fair but improving.

Socially, I look at the connections I have with people and how I feel about my social life. I also look at whether I am working on making the world a better place in some way. I am working on meeting new people and being more involved socially. I find that I experience a lot of energy and fulfillment when I’m seeking new social connections in addition to maintaining the ones that I have. I have a circle of people that I have known for a long time, as well. I have experienced a greater sense of compassion with my social connections. I am much more readily accepting people as they are, and I feel that I am more understanding of their faults and idiosyncrasies. I feel that I am making a difference in the lives of the people around me by showing that I care and trying to help them by listening more.

Spiritually, I look at whether I am feeling spiritually fulfilled and whether I am practicing in ways that support and increase that fulfillment. I do feel that I have found a spiritual system that I find fulfilling and that has room for a lot of exploration. That room for exploration helps me to stay interested in it. I do have some semi-regular practices, but I think that I could benefit from having some additional, more frequent (such as daily) practices. My practices utilize shamanic ideas such as those described in “The Technologies of Shamanic States of Consciousness” by Stanley Krippner (Schlitz, Amorok, Micozzi, 2005). Doing more research into the techniques of various cultures will help to put some variety into my practices.

Goal Development:

            Physical: To work out for at least 30 minutes at least 5 times a week.
I think this is a reasonable goal, and it would increase the number of times I’m working out every week.

            Mental/emotional: To meditate for at least 10 minutes per day in support of developing my still mind capacity.
Developing my still mind will increase my own psychological health as well as my capacity to listen to others.

            Spiritual: To celebrate at least one of the moon phases (new or full) every month.

Practicing more regularly will help to further my spiritual development.

Practices for Personal Health:

            Physical: One physical practice that would help me is continuing my cardio workout. I work out using the Kinect for Xbox, and it has helped keep me consistently interested in exercising. I have a tendency to get burnt out quickly doing the same thing repeatedly, so having different exercises helps include the variety that I need. I’d like to start getting up about an hour earlier each morning so that I can do the cardio workout. Another example practice is to walk more. I like to walk, and last summer I started walking out to a nearby cemetery and walking around there for a while. This is a total workout of about 5 miles. I’d like to do that more often, such as at least once a week. I could do this on weekends, such as Saturday mornings before I go to work.

            Psychological: An example of a psychological practice that would expand my mental health would be to study more psychoanalytic theories. I find these ideas helpful to both my mental and spiritual health. I’d like to ready at least one book on psychoanalysis per month. Related to this, I could keep a dream journal with a friend of mine. She and I are both interested in dreams and dream analysis, so we could write down our dreams on a shared electronic document and help to analyze each other’s dreams for unconscious meanings.

            Spiritual: One practice for this area would be to explore a new aspect of my spirituality by reading one book per month about an area of pagan practices with which I am unfamiliar. This would give me new ideas to implement for my own practices to see what I can work with. Then, a practice that would be related to and benefit from this one would be to do a shamanic journey via meditation or drumming at least once a week. Reading about unfamiliar practices would provide me with an increased vocabulary of belief from which to draw when trying to interpret the journeys.

Commitment:

            The biggest challenge for me, and I imagine for most people, is not making the commitment to doing regular practices, but honoring the commitment by keeping it. There is a peak period where it is easy to keep the commitment, but then I skip a day, or two, or a week, and then it becomes a month, etc. Repeating the practices regularly establishes it as a habit, but the challenge is picking it back up if a day is skipped. I could assess my progress by keeping a log of the days that I do my practices. This could be a calendar with different colored markers to denote what was done each day. At the end of a month where I meet all of my practice goals, I could reward myself in some way. This uses the behavioral analysis technique of a token economy to set up a reinforcement system to keep me motivated to do the practices. Eventually, they should be so well established that I won’t need the reward as often.

References:

Dacher, E.S. (2006). Integral health: the path to human flourishing.  Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications Inc.

Schlitz, M., Amorok, T., Micozzi, M. (2005). Consciousness and healing. St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Inc.