Unit 9 Final Project

          I believe the reason it is so important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually and physically is because in the business of helping others recover from falls or accidents, we too must be aware of all the possibilities of treatment.  If we are not aware or in touch with all aspects of our own integral health, how can we be of any influence or offer any advice to those who still suffer and don’t understand why.  I think integral health practices are more beneficial in the psychological realm only because that focuses on the brain whereas in physical therapy, the focus is on the physical which again, is controlled by the brain.   Really all three components play a part in integral health and recovery since you need all three intact and working properly in order to help someone else reach the ultimate goal of human flourishing and healing.  In order to reach the final destination of wholeness, happiness and healing we must be able to integrate all three of these specific areas into a treatment plan.  We have already determined if one of these aspects is off, the others won’t work in its place, it is not like a sense that was lost so the other senses take over or become stronger in its place, this is an independent and vital component that must be able to thrive on its own. 

          The areas I need to develop to achieve my goals that I’ve set for myself over the next few years are in spiritual and physical.  I truly believe that because my spiritual component is not functioning completely right now, it is affecting my physical abilities and motivation.  As I said earlier, if one is off, then they all are off.  I think that if I can either commit to working out, perhaps it will give me the drive and energy needed to get back in touch with my spiritual aspect.  I still don’t completely agree that we have to be around others or in an organized setting to get what we need from our higher power; I do agree that we need others like minded to encourage us to grow and even challenge us to change.  I know that my relationship with God is different now, it changed, when my son came back into my life, I felt something that I had never felt before, complete.  Not saying I don’t need God in my life, I very much do, however, I feel closer to wholeness now than I did last October before I found my son and had contact with him.  Even if I don’t choose to involve myself around organized religion again, I do have to go back to working out, that is a must.  I don’t feel that as a Physical Therapist I can set the example of being fit if I’m over weight.  I know I need to lose at least sixty pounds to feel good about myself in that aspect, only then will I feel happiness and enable myself to flourish biologically.  I know I can do this; I just have to prioritize and make up a schedule of when I’m going to work out and let nothing come between my schedule and my normal responsibilities on a daily basis.  Every time I think about cancelling my membership, I visualize myself walking into the gym, because you have to give written notice of cancellation, and I can smell the way it smells in there, refreshing, clean and inviting.  I know that I am not willing to cancel it because that is giving up to me, that is saying I am not going to even try to improve my physical condition; which is something I am not willing to say or do.  I think that right there, shows there is a deep, inner desire to return to the gym soon, and even a longing, I see myself going back even as early as next week.

 

          The way I have assessed my health in each domain is based on the information I have learned in this course, by understanding the different realms, levels and every aspect of integral healing I do believe these will be the guides I can use the rest of my life to hold myself accountable. 

The way I score my wellness spiritually is rather low, perhaps a 5, simply because I haven’t been to church in five months, which is a long time for me.  The reason I stopped going was, when my son was down here, he didn’t want to go, he only went once with me and that was simply to make me happy.  He is an agnostic, which was rather disheartening to me, but I accept it because I love him, and he accepts my beliefs in turn.  He made some pretty good arguments to me, some of which made me actually question my beliefs, but in the end, I hold on to my relationship with God and have no doubts about that aspect of it, while I may question the historical actions of the church, which have been heinous even today, I don’t question the man I follow, Jesus.  I know why I am following Him, I believe in what He did in His life, I believe in what He stands for, and I love Him with all my heart.  If the church can no longer be the example I have a peace with, He can always be one.  There was a lot of history I didn’t know about or ever question before; my son of course, was more than happy to bring all of it to my attention in hopes of winning me over to his point of view.  I listened with an open mind but still don’t think giving all the credit of good or bad things to the “universe” rather than to God and His plan and purpose for me.  My son will give credit to the universe before he will ever acknowledge the power coming from God, and it hurts me to think of how lonely and difficult his life will be without help from above.  He already believes he has to do everything on his own, only after spending four months with me can he even call and ask me for help when he needs it, other than that, he is determined to conquer this world all by his self.  I learned a long time ago that I need help, I cannot do it all on my own, I will never be perfect and nor will the world I live in be perfect so I might as well let the one who is perfect handle everything for me.  My son believes he can make his world perfect and his self as well, that will be a painful lesson for him to learn and accept failure to.  I hope that I can be there for him when he comes to this sad realization that it just isn’t ever going to happen, I hope I can give him advice and hope that someone once gave me, reassuring me that it’s ok not to be “the best” at everything, not to be perfect, to make mistakes so that we can learn from them and move on.  I hope he will not see his self as a failure or not worth anything, but see it as part of a journey, walking down the path to integral health instead of a path of destruction.  My words to him will be that you can try to be the best at everything you do, but it’s ok if you can’t, in the eyes of those who love you most, you will always be perfect to them.

          Physically I rate myself even lower, at a 3 because I’m not doing anything to improve my current condition of being overweight.  I’m not grossly overweight, but like I said earlier, I do need to lose at least sixty pounds.  I have not given up on myself though, I do have the desire to go back into the gym, and I believe by using visualization practices, I will be back there sooner than I know, every day, my plan is to visualize myself driving to the gym and walking in, I get excited just thinking about it right now, so I know I’ll be going soon. 

          Psychologically I rate myself at a 10, the reason why is after spending two years in inner healing, I resolved more than half my issues and forgave all those I needed to forgive.  I’m not saying I don’t have bad days, I’m not saying I don’t think about committing suicide on occasion, but the reason I rate myself a 10 is because even when I have those thoughts, I don’t carry them out.  Years ago, a thought like that would come into my mind and I would be off to carry it out.  I think that is the best success rate you can give a two year program, not to mention that before I spent my life without an ounce of self-worth, something I see in both of my sons now.  I let people walk on me, reveled in being a martyr, was addicted to people pleasing, and hated myself the entire time.  Now, I have self-worth, I am valuable to myself, I can say no to people, I can  stand up for myself, defend my opinions and choices to others even if I know they won’t agree or like them.  I can spend money on myself occasionally rather than on others, I believe I deserve good things too, I refuse to allow myself to be abused in any way, and I choose not to abuse others because of my wounds.  Joyce Meyer said something once that has stuck with me, “Wounded people wound people” and that is my motto; no longer wounded I don’t need to wound others.  I’m not saying that I never hurt anyone’s feelings, it happens, but I don’t set out to, that’s the difference.  I’m not saying that I have “arrived” either; I’m still on this journey to freedom, wholeness, happiness and health.  I have finally come to the realization of what I deserve and what I don’t deserve, and I don’t deserve to be used by others, abused, manipulated or controlled.  I do deserve love, attention, compassion, true friendship, unconditional love, loyalty, commitment and freedom to choose.  I couldn’t have said that ten years ago, all I thought I deserved was death and I set out to achieve that goal.  What we believe determines our actions, it sets us on a path to life or death, without the tools to know why we are choosing either, we can never change the direction we are travelling nor can we know the reason we are choosing to travel.

           My goal physically is obviously to go back to the gym starting Monday, psychologically, it’s to continue to flourish within building my self-esteem up by eliminating thoughts of self-destructive and actions such as suicide and smoking, and spiritually I hope to find a way to achieve peace regardless of whether I attend church or not.

 

My plan to foster growth physically is to become more aware of how I am eating and when, starts working out again, and continue to treat myself to new clothes and keeping up my physical appearance on a daily basis.  The ways I do this now are by getting my hair and eyebrows done every few weeks and dressing up when the occasion arises.  Psychologically I plan to continue to foster my relationships with my sons, husband and others close to me in my life. The ways I can do this is by staying in constant contact with my oldest son, supporting him financially when I can, being there for my younger son and helping him get on the path to independence by teaching him how to manage his money and keep a checking account ledger. With regards to my husband, just continuing to trust his judgment financially and include him in decisions on how we spend our money.  I also am working on truly allowing him to be the head of the household by handling issues with my younger son such as whether he moves out, the conditions on his staying with us and the decision to move in March and not take him with us.  I think although that will be a hard decision for me to rectify, I understand he is 18 years old and needs to get out on his own two feet and experience what real life is like without me around to do everything for him.   Spiritually I plan to foster my relationship with God by spending time completing a daily devotional every morning and contemplating what that devotional means to me and ways I can incorporate it’s meaning into my daily life.  I accept that I cannot convince my oldest son that having a relationship with God would benefit him, however, perhaps by simply setting the example and letting him see how it works in my favor will be convincing enough one day.

 

          The way I will assess my progress or lack of progress in the next six months will be by writing down my goals and setting a time line that six months from now, I will return to the list I made and see what items I can actually cross off as completed.  The strategies I can use to assist in maintaining my long-term practices for health and wellness is to simply continue to practice visualization techniques and meditate on where I am now and where I want to be within six months.