Unit 9

Unit 9 Project: Final

 

 

Health and wellness professionals lead others to live healthy lifestyle choices.  As a professional, individuals seek you out to be their guides in whatever area you specialize and focus in. Therefore, it is important as a professional in this area, to develop yourself psychologically, spiritually and physically. Continued development in these areas, give you the edge as a professional to guide others with knowledge and experience. In addition to being a midwife, I also hold a vision for myself to be a holistic, intuitive life coach empowering women across the globe to develop their own inner awareness and higher self, because when you are really in tune with yourself, you find the answers. To see my vision to fruition, I have to be developed as much as possible in these three areas. I would say right now that changes in the physical area of my life are the most pressing for me, followed by psychological and then spiritual.

Assessment of Health

In 2012, when I finished midwifery training, I had a series of events that led me to put off my midwifery practice and truly develop my spiritual life. It was a calling that was so strong, I couldn’t resist the path. So, I left midwifery and truly developed my spiritual life and practice. This is when I discovered meditation practices which helped me connect to myself, my higher conscious and my guides. It helped me to make huge changes in my life and allowed me to start getting some clients to practice with. So, I feel like my spiritual wellness is really developed. My score in this area would be a nine because there is always room for improvement.  I currently feel like my physical body is where I need to most work and support right now. In 2013, I got a job at a pharmacy because I had some health issues that had to be addressed and I needed health insurance. Although it was nothing serious the health issues resulted from living in an emotionally and mentally toxic environment and then manifested physically. When we don’t take care of our spiritual and psychological lives, our issues will eventually manifest physically.  I’ve been working at the pharmacy for over a year now, but have been growing more dis-heartened and disconnected to my bliss due to lack of time. So, just yesterday, I gave my two week notice and I already feel completely relieved. The two things I need to work on in the physical area of my life is exercising and making more health conscious decisions.  I was always too tired to exercise and had to grab meals on the go at work. This resulted in me becoming very unhealthy. Now that I will have time to exercise and won’t have to grab fast food, I will be able to dedicate my time to this area of my life. So, I give myself a score of about four in this area.

Psychologically, I score my wellness based on the psycho-spiritual levels of development because it is a mental state of mind.  Just like in the sensorimotor consciousness phase, infants are just primal beings. There is no distinction, no mental processing, just their instinctual response. Psychologically, I find myself in the calm-abiding stage consciousness state of development. Dacher (2006) explains this stage as, “an unusual and remarkable accomplishment. The mind is undisturbed by the thoughts, feelings, and images that usually occupy our awareness. We abide in the stillness rather than in the turmoil of the mind’s movements. It is like a great ocean unaffected by the rising and falling of waves.” (p. 73). Psychologically, I still have a lot of work to do, but I am much better than where I use to be. I would give myself a score of seven in this area.

 Goal Development

Goal setting is important because if we have nothing to motivate us, it’s harder to do the work. For instance, if I say I want to lose weight, that’s not setting a specific goal. That is general, but setting a specific goal means to develop a program step by step to get there. Goal setting is important for any area of our life where we need to get something accomplished, either personal or professional. I have identified one goal in each area of development for myself. Physically, my goal is to increase my exercise to three times per week, and to begin making conscious choices about food. I do need to lose weight, but that will be a result of my goal to increase exercise and become conscious about eating. Spiritually, the one goal I have for myself is to begin using my spiritual gifts to assist my clients. I have a few clients, but I plan to increase them over the next year. Also, spiritually, I want to continue taking development courses to expand my spiritual development so I can help my clients expand their level of awareness. Psychologically, my goal is to just keep progressing where I can stay in a calm and centered space when things happen which would cause an emotional reaction. One of the specific ways that I can do this is to keep a journal. Every night, I will write an overview of my day so that I can see what happened and how I responded.

Practices for Personal Health

In addition to setting goals, putting practices in place to foster the fruition of them are equally important. In the physical realm, the strategy is to implement exercise and make more conscious choices about food. Exercising, specifically doing cardio exercise will help me burn calories and promote heart health. Secondly, cutting back on fast food, and buying more healthy foods will help me attain my overall goal of losing weight.  Exercising every week will also help raise my awareness to my physical body because as I commit the time and energy it takes to exercise, it will deter me from wanting to eat foods that are not healthy. Growing psychologically or improving mental health is very important for me. I found that before I started working and being around people, I was much more centered and focused. One way I plan to foster my mental health is by journaling. By journaling the day’s events, I can truly begin to make the connections between where my emotions rise and what influenced them. Then, I can come up with a plan to react differently the next time the situation presents itself. Another way to foster psychological development is to associate with positive people. Negative people have a tendency to weigh you down and bring you to their level of thinking and vibration. Being with others that have a positive mental attitude and positive focus can be great for fostering mental health. Spiritually, two exercises that I will continue to do to foster growth in spiritual awareness is mediation and prayer. The more that I purposely connect to my higher consciousness and God, the more I’m able to connect with others. I call prayer and meditation the spiritual communication dance. Prayer is speaking to God and meditation is listening.  Both of them foster spiritual growth.

Commitment

Physically, it is easy to assess progress. When it comes to losing weight, I have to see if  the pounds are going down? Am I feeling better? I will also be able to tell if I am doing enough when it comes to my energy levels because right now, they are pretty low. It will also be easy to assess physical health when I ask myself the question, how am I feeling about myself?  One strategy I can use to keep myself on track is a rewards system. I can buy myself something or treat myself to a restaurant dinner every month if I’ve hit my target goals. Honestly though, as I begin to lose weight, and feel better about myself, that alone will be my motivation to keep going. I believe psychologically and spiritually, it will also be easy to assess my progress because I feel the difference in myself when I am not where I need to be. It’s one of the very reasons I’ve decided to leave the pharmacy I work for. I’m surrounded my negativity, I feel as though I’ve learned the lessons I went there to learn and it’s prohibiting my own mental and spiritual growth right now. I also believe journaling will help me assess my progress as I begin to make connections on paper. In addition to using the reward system I can also use positive strategies like allowing myself to take an additional client or teaching a class when I’ve hit my own personal goals in this area. I also believe that teaching other women to increase their own awareness will also motive me to continue my path.  

 

Becoming a health and wellness professional is a goal that is not for everyone. It takes honesty, integrity, drive and passion to do this as a career. I look forward to incorporating all of these personal growth aspects into my life as well as helping others find their bliss by developing awareness.