Unit 9 Final Project

            In order for professionals in health and wellness to be proper healers, they must first have a proper understanding of all aspects of integral healing practices. In order to do so, they must first bring integral healing practices to their own lives and find balance in their own psychological, physical, and spiritual wellness. By practicing integral healing within his or her own daily life practices, a health care practitioner can better understand the needs of their patients. In order for me to achieve the goals that I seek, the aspect of myself that I need to work on would be my own physical health. I’ve started on the path already by making nutritious food choices, but I need to work on practicing proper exercise. I feel as though I cannot be a very influential integral practitioner if my own physical needs are not met. For this, I know that I need to lose weight and increase my physical energy with proper exercise, yoga, and Tai Chi.

            The aspect of myself that is the most developed would be my spirituality. As a Pagan witch and a Reiki practitioner, spirituality is a very large part of my life. Reiki is something that is very close to my heart- even if I don’t practice it every day. Even if I haven’t practiced meditation or Reiki in a long time, I can pick it up again like it was just yesterday that I had last done it. I’m a very intuitive person and things that people may consider “New Age” come very easily for me. However, I’m sure that there is still plenty for me to learn, so I would only rank myself as an 8 or a 9.

Psychologically, I would say that I am also right around a 7 or 8. I do have some anger issues, but only towards myself. I know that I need to learn how to let go of negative emotions more than I do now. Depression is still something that I still struggle with sometimes due to resentment towards some family members that treated me very poorly while I was growing up. After so many years with my family treating me like I don’t belong in this world, there is still a lot that I have to work through to fully accept and give myself the love that I know that I deserve. Despite being very intuitive with my spiritual self, I have difficulties trusting that intuition and doubt myself a lot more than I should. This holds me back and keeps me from making decisions for myself that would actually make me happy. I’m too influenced by my desire to make others happy that I do not allow myself to make the decisions that I know would benefit me the most.

The part that I need to work on the most would be my physical health. As I stopped being so physically active after leaving Chicago almost 4 years ago, I have gained a lot of weight that I am currently in the process of losing. Even though I have no health problems from it yet, I do know that it is important to lose weight again. After I have achieved my goals with weight loss, I will then be able to focus on increasing my energy and flexibility. I know that this is important for my future patients to trust me as a health care practitioner. However, I am somewhat happy with my body as it is now because I see many other young people around my age who are not as healthy as I am.

My physical goal, as stated above, is to lose weight. I know that I may not get back to the body that I used to have before I had my daughter, but I would be happy to just lose as much as I can. From there, I can try to lose more weight and increase my flexibility and energy so that I can someday achieve the body image that I desire. My current spiritual goal is to finish my Reiki training and achieve the master/teacher level. However, it has proven difficult to find an instructor to take up where my old one had left off with my training. However, I do know that when the time is right, a teacher will enter my life.

Along with this is my psychological goal. This goal is to practice meditation every day and work on removing my self-destructive thoughts and emotions. Through daily meditation practice and the loving-kindness exercise, I can improve my self-esteem and love myself as I know I deserve. Meditation is very beneficial to reduce stress and connect one’s psychological and spiritual selves. I know that in order to be successful in my career, I need to do this more often and learn to trust and love myself.

The practices for physical health that I plan to implement in my life are exercise and proper nutrition. My plan for exercise is to be more active with my daughter both inside and outside the home. I can do this by using my exercise bike at home on days when the weather is not suitable to take my daughter outside. Now that we got a dog, a big part of my weight-loss plan is to go for walks regularly with her and my daughter. To help with that and increase flexibility and energy, I also plan to start practicing yoga and Tai Chi again. My plan for proper nutrition is already underway as I’ve been implementing fruits and vegetables into my family’s diet and we have cut down on the amount of fast food we eat. I’m proud to say that I’ve even started getting my husband to eat salads, which makes it easier for me to eat healthy as well.

With regular meditation and loving-kindness exercises, my plan for mental growth is to empower myself to be the best healer that I can be. My goal is to break down those self-defeating attitudes that I have developed from the influence of others in my life and I need to start taking my life into my own hands and stop worrying about what others think about my goals and plans. I have so much love for others that I don’t take the time to love myself as I should. In order to achieve the mental health that I want, I need to use meditation and the loving-kindness exercise to show myself that I do deserve love. I need to learn how to love and trust myself and I believe that the loving-kindness and meditation practices are an excellent start. My psychologist taught me similar practices when I was being treated for depression and I know that it’s time to pick that up again now that I am close to graduation and starting my career. Meditation can also help me with problem-solving skills and reducing stress related to starting my career.

For my spiritual growth, I plan to pray more and also practice meditation as a spiritual practice. This class has taught me that religion is powerful for spiritual growth and I know that I need to spend more time devoted to my deities, who have provided so much for my life. I would like to spend more time around nature and reconnect spiritually with it through meditation. Even though I am already very connected spiritually to nature, I know that I do not currently spend enough time outdoors like I used to. As many of the deities I worship are connected to nature, spending more time around it will also help me to reconnect with my deities. I can also go to more Pagan events and festivals to spend time around those who practice similar beliefs. I used to be more involved in the Pagan community when I lived in Chicago and now I know that I should get in touch with some groups and shops in the tri-county area. This will help me to grow both spiritually and mentally by finding others with similar interests.

I plan to assess my progress in the next 6 months by continuing my blog. I believe this class has the right idea with how important blogging is to personal growth. I plan to create a schedule for myself to plan time for exercise and meditation practices, as well as a food log to properly track my nutrition and food portions. Through my blog, I can track my progress and keep organized so that I can stay focused and prevent myself from straying from my goals. Our weekly blogs have already proven to be beneficial for me to gain insight to my goals and career choices just by allowing me to express myself. I once used to keep a journal, but my joint problems have been preventing me from writing in it regularly. I’m hoping that keeping up with my blog will allow me to keep track of my progress and inspire me to write again like I used to. I think it would be also nice to provide the link to my blog to friends and clients via my website to allow others to provide insight and advice. This class has helped me to discover my love for writing again and I feel as though blogging will help me in my future career.