Unit Ten

Where Do I stand Today:

Vicki Dansereau: Unit 3 Blog Part One
These are my ratings (assessment): physical = 7 spiritual = 6 psychological = 5
(7) All systems are healthy weight, diet, are good rated 7 due to needed improvement in exercise. (6) because husband died little over one year ago after 30 years of marriage, evolving coping strategies. Improvement needed to see beyond physical attachment. (5) because of fear, major changes in lifestyle without husband, finances, and social interaction. **note: heart problems arose right after husband’s death; connection made after tests show healthy heart, but does not show a broken heart. Time heals.
How do I assess myself currently? All level systems are level 5.
Right now my systems body, mind, and spirit have dropped to a level 5. My diet has been compromised due to social, and economic changes. Money and time has created a drop in this area. Finances are low. Normally a drop in finances does not create significant changes in food choices, as the same money spent on a lb of bananas, as a no enriched sugar, additive filled loaf of white bread. When the finances become so low this is where poor diet vs. survival comes into play, it has an impact on health.

I mention this in respect to a clinical standpoint on Integrative medicine. Knowing exactly what is triggering your patient’s wellness, and that is what integrative medicine is all about. The individual patient is a whole. Possible illness created by economics, and how to identify, certain blocks in an individual patient that makes possible treatment when understanding these issues. In conventional medicine, a doctor would not normally ask questions that would convey this status causing possible compromised health. And in turn most patients will not share this information with a conventional medical professional. The issue of finance does touch all aspects of a person, body (lack of nutrition), mind (stress), and spiritual (despair). So how do I as a patient heal during this current event of illness?
Plan of action. The first part is recognizing what I described, (mental inner and outer assessment). Recognizing it is temporary (spiritual) positive outlook, and self confidence in overcoming life challenges.
Physical, is reassess certain foods that can maintain good nutrition, within budget, to obtain better nutrition in this temporary hard economic time. Research foods high in nutrition such as dried beans, carrots, etc. that is very high in nutrients, yet cheap, and plentiful for the money. Budgeting a little more. Bring meals from home instead of buying lunch at work. Drink much more water which is not only healthier but free.
Finally realizing that I am so blessed, with the health I have, the family, and social interaction with life itself, and the choice to wake up each day and live love and be happy. These things are free and always available. The choice is mine, and I choose to enjoy every one of them!!!
My goal at all times is to achieve a level 10 of wellness in all areas. This sense of purpose provides me with the tools to convey to people I meet and treat with the same hope, courage, love and compassion.

Vicki
Humanness and Wonder
We strive, we survive, and we flourish, sometimes at higher levels, and sometimes at low. But we do survive and the challenges we go through serve to help us achieve a sense of the wonder and humanness in us all.

Final Project

I am sorry I tried unsuccessfully to incorporate the project into a compressed word document but have not been able to. I have to post it as an open writen post. All comments welcome. Vicki D.

Unit 9 Project:
Integral Health requires a mind/body connection. A healthcare professional is better able to heal a person as a whole entity if they recognize their own mind/body connection in themselves and the interconnection it has in helping their patients. As we extend our lives, so do we extend the knowledge of illnesses that are new to the extended life span of a patient. We now know scientifically, that mental illnesses such as stress are directly related to the body’s function, and that social interaction, and spiritual health play an important role in the new illnesses caused by modern culture. Even conventional methods change with research, education and exploration. It is necessary to understand, and incorporate health practices not only in my professional life, but my personal life as well.
The key to understanding any health modality, or method, is self knowledge through self practice. I have learned much about my total health, mind, body and spirit, and these are the results.
I recognized from the beginning of this semester I am a type A personality. My mental and spiritual areas of health are almost nonexistent. This is due a mindset of strict, schedules, and outline plans for everything in my daily life, and stress to keep current activities and future plans on a tight schedule. This keeps my mind extremely active and preoccupied with constant mental chatter, blocking out mental relaxation, spiritual openness, and creating physiological illnesses such as gastro intestinal, back and shoulder pain, poor nutritional habits resulting in underweight, and fatigue. My primary targeted areas of Integral health are Mental and Spiritual health. These areas are the most unbalanced creating illness in all areas, including physical imbalance.
I set up a simple rating scale that I use now and will allow me to continue a self assessment for the next six months.
Self Assessment Rating Scale is as follows: 1= Lowest Wellness. 5 = Total Wellness.
II Assessment:
At the beginning of this semester I rated my Mental Health = 1 Spiritual Health = 1, and Physical Health = 2
My mental health was unhealthy, due to stress overload, mental chatter, constantly producing fatigue, forgetfulness, anger, and a feeling of despair. This feeling of overwhelming despair creates an unhealthy level assessment of 1 in Spiritual Health.
I came to this assessment through understanding, first I had to eliminate my lifelong learning that mental health was separate and not accessible to me from a perspective of person centered healing. Secondly, I had to eliminate the stigmatism tied to mental health that I learned conventionally, which is this area of healing is only accomplished through a mental conventional healthcare professional, and it revolves around emotional issues only. Once I was able to let go of this I then incorporated integral methods, starting with loving kindness. I opened my mind, clearing it of mental chatter, letting it rest, without guilt, or restrictions. Next was meditation, which I incorporated to fit my individual needs. This meant my own openness to my time, place, method, of meditation, not by a standard one size fits all. This allowed me to instantly recognize how busy my mind was, and realizing how it was affecting my spiritual health as well. Next I realized that my spiritual health has been long ignored, due to the mental chatter, and I had not relaxed, reflected, or even connected internally with the external world. Following the practice of visualization meeting Asclepius, allowed insight to applying this once again to fit my own unique schedule, time, and place. I realized even a few minutes could be just as beneficial as a whole hour or day. What came next was the insight to feeling what person centered healing is. I am now active in my own mental and spiritual health. This is a very strong feeling of empowerment. As a result of six weeks practice I will honestly say over that period the scale of 1= lowest to 5= highest has fluctuated. I realize I must be patient, kind, and caring to myself and my personal integrative development skills, just as I would be to a patient.
Today the scale is Mental Wellness= 3 Spiritual Health = 3 Physical Health = 3.
I have been able to incorporate daily three things that will further increase my Mental and Spiritual Health. Every morning I choose loving kindness, for myself and others. Every morning I make a conscious decision to be mindful, relaxed, calm, loving, and insightful to everything around me. Lastly and I believe for me most important, making time everyday for silence, and silent reflection to allow the natural flow of spiritual energy heal my mental state of mind. This practice really has a benefit on my overall mental wellbeing. And this in turn has allowed me to go into the silence comfortably, and practice visualization of a comforting spiritual being, absorbing much needed spiritual energy from them, and heal without fear, pain, or confusion.
My physical health which in the beginning of this semester, is what I only focused on has now changed to a level 3, as a result of assessing and incorporating wellness techniques to heal my mental and spiritual health. First I notice after six weeks a steady climb in physical energy, as the fatigue is disappearing. Next, I have gone back to mindfully making better choices in nutrition, and more importantly, do what I call mindful eating, taking time to enjoy and savor what I eat. This has decreased my stomach illness episodes. And lastly, mindfulness and meditation with breathing has significantly relieved my upper shoulder pain, asking me more aware of tensing muscles. My physical health simply followed a path to increased wellness as a result of focusing on the mental and spiritual areas that were causing the imbalance. I am confident that my self assessment is on target, and that the areas of mental and spiritual wellness are the primary targets to my total health and wellness. Goals must be set and incorporated however to keep on track.

Goal development: Goal setting for me as an individual may not be the wisest method of integrative health practice based on my personality. Knowing that my personality type may produce increased stress by defining goals as another schedule to be strictly kept, is not a method I would incorporate. Rather redefining the word goal and its intent would be more beneficial for a person like me.
Therefore my own unique personal goal is redefined. I call it Commitment and Development. This allows me to define commitment to a person centered mindset (myself) and loving kindness, and caring for me, which for me conveys action and not reaction to a goal mindset. Development, for me means allowing a continuing evolution and understanding of my personal level of wellness in mind, body, and spiritual wellness will rise and fall, in a rhythm that is natural, and normal, making the commitments less of a failure if not achieved and more of an insightfulness to progress at that moment in time. This is my Commitment/Development in each area of health.
Mental – Commit to daily relaxation, and mindfulness meditation, no matter if it is 10 minutes or an hour. Develop daily moment assessment to breathing exercises. Commit to small amounts of time to silence, daydreaming, and visualization of calm abiding thought. Develop further insight and continuing education in Integral health, allowing this to become a natural way of living.
Spiritual- Commit 15 minutes every weekend to sitting in meditation in the place I set up for this practice, and give myself 15 minutes once a week to visualization of a spiritual person renewing my sense of purpose. Develop more increments of time, as well as further developing my inner voice that lets me know my spiritual energy is depleted.
Physical – My first commitment to my physical health is stop and assess each day what my body is physically feeling. I know this may sound strange, however, personally I do not pay attention to pain that may be created by injury, or even poor posture. These small moment to moment assessments can increase physical wellness just being mindful of how your body feels. Am I sitting properly, bending properly. Next is the commitment to making mindful choices in my eating habits. Commit to sitting down and eating each meal mindfully, enjoying taste, texture, and flavor. Develop a new food menu to increase my health, incorporating more fruits, and green vegetables in my diet. Developing a plan to incorporate at least one new vegetable, and or fruit into my weekly diet, and increase to daily. Commit to walking, and dancing every weekend, even if 10 minutes, and develop a plan to increase walking time to 2 hours a day every day.
The strategies for incorporating Integral Health forever in my life will take the commitment and development as defined above. What strategies will I utilize though to follow the path of Integral development and health?
My first strategy is education. Keeping a mindset within the Integral health community, will allow me to stay focused on all I have learned and research methods that I may not know of that may work better. For instance look into biofeedback as a method of relieving pain that may be caused by a physical abnormality. Staying actively within the Integrative medical community will allow me always be mindful to all the possibilities to Integral health. I started to attend open and free seminars offered in my workplace on different integrative techniques. This week I attended a seminar on the Alexander technique of body realignment and posture.
My second strategy is focusing on areas such as my diet and nutrition incorporating mindfulness in the area of nutrition, as well as researching this area to see if stress reduction, will help my poor eating habits, and look into the best methods of exercise for my age group. Physically my strategy is to increase other venues of physical enjoyment such as taking a dance class in tap or jazz, which I love.
My next strategy, to focus on my mental health, I already started. I am making small significant changes such as posting mindful messages around the house and on the job. For instance, “Life is not a race, it is a journey, be mindful, stop, look and listen to yourself and the world around you. I now utilize the strategy of purposefully waking slower, which slows my mind.
Strategies for my mental health, peaceful contemplation and meditation, in which I no longer watch violent TV shows, no news, and listen more to meditating music, in my spare time. I purposefully seek out comedy shows if I feel sad, or watch comedic shows to produce laughter to heal mentally and spiritually, this surprised me as a therapy that really works well for me. Spiritually, I am now thinking about purposefully seeking out a social group, or center such as meditation class, or yoga class that feels the same way I do about spiritual healing methods, on a social basis other than a professional medical basis. I will commit myself mentally spiritually, and physically to altering, changing, and adding new strategies as they enter my daily life each and every moment, from relaxing and living in the moment, to appreciating the very things around me, such as nature.
Commitment means self assessment. When and how I assess my development is the key to my design plan for me, honestly, openly and realistically. I am fortunate in that first I work in Integrative medicine; it is around me at all times, even as far as sitting side by side with the doctors and nursing staff. So this is a constant reminder to think about the areas of my health personally, in mind, body and spirit. But there is a difference in commitment before I started this class and now as to how I will assess my own personal progress in mind/body/ and spiritual health. I now have a monthly chart pinned to my refrigerator with a pencil on a string, and each section is marked Mind, Body, Spirit, (1=lowest – 5 highest) with a section called Why?
At the end of each day I commit myself to fill in each area, with a number, and a brief word or to trigger, why. Then at the end of the week when I have cleared my mind through breathing, and medication exercise, I will assess, contemplate what the numbers represent, focus on the causes of the low numbers and the connection they have to my overall health in each area, and finally assess whether or not I need to increase commitment, and or develop a different method such as trying a new methods of wellness, yoga, etc. that may not have worked for me before. This strategy is really the definition of taking responsibility for my own personal health and wellness every day.
Finally I make a commitment to myself that I deserve to be the best I can be and this means my total self, mind, body, and spirit. And I promise to pass along the knowledge and practice of loving kindness, compassion and mindfulness to all others.

Unit 8 Discussing personal choices for Integral Practice

Unit 8 Discussing personal choices for Integral Practice My two personal choices are Witnessing mind and Breathing Techniques

Witnessing mind used in clinical application:  The subtle mind practice application of the witnessing mind to me is a personal choice and a beginning point in the use to practical application of integral  medicine.  The witnessing mind practice allows clarity of the mind by eliminating the mental chatter, clearing the path to all other quadrants of integral health, body and spirituality.  Once the mind is free from intrusive, blocking thoughts, the mind can focus on the subtle illness of the body, through the use of the five senses, identification of any illness, or discomfort can be focused on, assessed, and healed.

Case in point today I went to the store and bent down, threw my back out, creating extreme pain.  First breathing became short due to pain response, muscles tightened throughout whole body, fear of pain itself blocked all other mental thoughts, including logical thinking regarding possible healing. 

Here is the application of witnessing mind to help this emergency situation.  1) I noticed my breathing was wrong, and corrected by witnessing and then slowly breathing in and out.  Next I noticed through witnessing mind the physical reaction of my body to the pain, and corrected the emotion of fear of the pain , through action of slowly altering posture, and relaxing muscles, caused by pain, and fear.  Understanding there was nothing to fear, as I was controlling the health crisis in a positive manner, I relaxed my body.  Lastly, knowing to stop, allow my lower back to rest, lying flat with knees to chest, releasing stress of lumbar curve and visualization of my body reaction in the form of the color red and yellow in this area indicating inflammation.  Finally treating my lower back for a reminder of how ever long it takes for my body to heal.  We heal when we witness each area, mind, body, and spirit.

The breathing technique is what allowed me to achieve the above scenario.  I am actually sitting here with my fifth vertebrae slipped forward like a rock on a cliff, breathing, relaxing, and lifting my entire posture up while sitting as to relieve the pressure of the vertebre until it slips back into place.  The key to sharp, immediate pain is I believe, breathing.  Many people will equate extreme sudden sharp pain with fear, of the pain.  Once controlled slow breathing starts, control over the fear of the pain itself allows focusing on relieving the pain, through your own assessment.  This is the correct way, as opposed to the conditioning Western mind, that says, “Ow pain, fear, immediate relief,= pain medication.  We are so conditioned that we do not ever think of the medicine, just swallowing a pill.  In actuality, the method I describe above brought relief, even though small and slow, much quicker than the 20 minutes it would have taken for medication to enter my stomach and bloodstream.   

 I is a different and very logical path to healing, however it is a very different application, that requires belief that healing starts within, and then assisted with the help from outside sources.  Once you believe this, pratice personally, and professionally, falls into place. 

Vicki D.

Humanness and Wonder

Unit Seven Blog

  Meeting Asciepius:

To me he is Buddha, he is calm, loving, wise, caring, and compassionate.  He and I look into each other’s eyes, he does not speak, but I hear him, he does not move but I see his gracefulness.  I am feeling slightly frightened, unsure.  I am looking for a response, an answer, but he does not give one.  I hear him say it is ok, trust me, I am here.  I see yellow light, not white, and although I try to see what he sees, I can only feel what I think he feels. Love for all, including me.  This practice is somewhat unsettling, not bad, but not good either.  This is perhaps due to issues that are emotionally painful, fear of loss of reality, as I feel disconnected from my body physically.  I think my environment (surroundings are inhibiting me from fully completing this practice).  I believe I could allow the flow of light to enter me from him in a nature environment.  I can become, I do feel, I invasion myself with him, feeling what he feels, but I seem to be distracted and fearful of the practice that involves the light.   The last words coming home and the inner essence of Asciepius being me and inside me brought tears to my eyes.  I kept thinking why can’t the world feel this, Why am I in a place that I can’t be in at all times in today’s reality.  While it is truly healing emotional experience, it also brings sadness to me.  I am not ready to understand this deepness, but maybe with wisdom ongoing I  hope to feel this and be in this place at all times.

“ One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself.” When I think of these words       Buddha’s teachings come to mind.   Like him I need to know, so I can grow, so I can understand         my existence in connection to the world and all people around me.   Opening himself to the joy and pain of life, by experiencing what others felt physical and emotionally, gave him the capacity for true healing.  When you know firsthand by feeling, physically, emotionally, and  spiritually what a patient is going through, only then can you offer advice and guidance.   Lastly I  believe patients will accept healers’ advice if they know the healer practices it themselves.     

Unit Six Assessment Universal/Integral

Universal Kindness : I had had no problem reciting, feeling, or believing in Universal loving kindness for all individuals.  I also take it a step further in that I wish this for all living creatures on this planet.  As I recited the phrases, my mind focused on flashing images of people, places I have not been to in the world, animals, plants, and trees, and even images of sea creatures.  I felt a sense of sadness, hope, love, intense compassion and sometimes emotional pain.  After this practice I do feel physically and emotionally drained.  This is the only way I can explain it. I am not sure if this is supposed to happen, but if not anyone that may know why this happens, I am open to all thoughts.  When I feel unfulfilled, sad, or lost, and my mind shifts to outside my own world, I am able to see and practice universal loving kindness.  Perhaps the key to my exhaustion lies there.

 Integral Assessment : This  practice was one of the first things I did when this class started, and it was this practice and reflection that allowed me to see my psycho spiritual level of development was the cause of most of my biological illnesses.  Stress based became muscle tension, and pain in shoulders.  Fear , anger, egotism, and an stagnant (I) view created gastro intestinal issues.  I also recognize I am the healing as well as the healer.  This means, practicing integral assessment has to be practiced on myself in order to practice it on others.    I need to work on reassessment through stillness of my mind, and openness when assessing my mind, body, and spirit.  Just knowing which area is ill, or out of balance, is not enough, I need to then tie together the symptoms so I can create a full picture of where I need work.  Finally I need to understand which I have not before that the imbalance can and does happen often, and only through constant assessment can it achieve lesser symptoms of imbalance.
VickiD.
Humanness and Wonder

Unit Five Breathing Dacher

After listening and practicing the breathing technique, I felt more focused and relaxed.  This is my favorite mindful practice.  It is easy, free, you always breath, so the reminder to do the practice is there.  I am an advocate of easy methods both for myself and patients.  I believe when the technique is simple a person is more apt to not only use it, but continue the practice of breathing creating a witnessing mind as a natural  part of their lives.  Personally, it works very well in removing mental chatter. 

A quick note to class:  You can change the CD visuals by right clicking on the image screen and choosing other visuals.  I found this after calming my mind through the breathing exercise and exploration.  There are some good visuals check them out.

Vicki D.
Humanness and Wonder

Unit Four Loving Kindness CD Pratice

I had to do this practice for two days on several occasions.  The tape starts with the Practice of Loving Kindness and then moves to The second Practice The Subtle Mind Practice.  In between each practice and during the breath is a focus.  This breath focus is key for me.  It removes the mental chatter, allows me to openly relax.  However the Loving kindness as the first practice for me personally does not fit.  For me the Subtle Mind and focus on extending loving kindness comes first.  Once I am in a state of giving to others, I am then able to acknowledge that I can be a part of the receiving, and I deserve to be loved.  I know that the theory is self love allows the ability to give love, and in most cases yes.  But there are unique individuals that give love, compassion, and kindness first because it is in their inner spirit to feel compassion, and empathy for others, but never learned how to cultivate it for themselves.  In this case using the practice in reverse is  helpful.  At the end of two days, of this practice, I have made small steps, and the saying came to mind "Look through the eyes of a child."