Unit 9-Chelsey Leone

Personal Application of the Psychological and Spiritual Aspects of Healing

                The psychological and spiritual aspects of healing are important for health professionals to look at and conceptualize because in order to teach others then they need to look at their inner and outer lives and begin on the path towards human flourishing as well. Health professionals should have a goal to develop spiritually, physically, and psychologically in order to better their lives and contribute to the spiritual, physical, and psychological aspect of their clients lives as well. I feel that in order to achieve the goals that I have for myself in my personal life and career goals I need to work on managing stress in my life by using meditation like the subtle mind meditation that Dacher (2006) offers. I also want to expand my knowledge on traditional healing methods, medical science, and the human experience in order to help me on my path to human flourishing. I believe the more knowledge the better, especially when teaching others about health and wellness (Dacher, 2006). In general I feel that the better I learn to train my mind and manage my inner and outer life the better person I will become.

                The four domains: biological, psychospiritual, interpersonal, and worldly are the four aspects of the human experience. Each domain have lines of development in which are relevant to the health and healing. I would score myself by taking a look into each area of my life and see where I feel I am lacking. I feel that I am getting better and working on my biological area in the aspect of self-regulation. I would score my biological area a 7 because there is always room for improvement. Psychospiritual development I would rate a 6 because I would like to work on my spiritual development and do more activities like meditation to improve this as well. I want to feel more fulfilled and at peace with life in general, I feel that this is always going to be a work in progress with ups and downs. I feel my interpersonal area is good I have good relationships with my family and I am working on my community relationships with meeting new people and volunteering to serve and give back to the community. I would rate this area a 8. Worldly flourishing focuses on work, civic activism, and generativity. I feel that even though I am beginning to volunteer I am still looking for a job after moving to this area. I feel that I can also work on national issues more and know about what is going on around the world in general. I would say this is the area in my life that needs the most work and I would rate it at a 5. Setting a goal that I have for me in each area is a good way to strive towards bettering my path toward integral health. In the psychospiritual area I would like to meditate more and have a better spiritual connection. In the biological area I would like to practice better self-control with my eating habits. I am striving towards having a “clean” diet so this is one area I would like to work on, but no one is perfect. In the Worldly category I want to find my dream job and be happy with the job that I am at, this is an every changing goal of mine. As far as strategies go in each area to foster growth in each of these domains one would be to keep a daily journal of goals that I have for myself and what I did during the day to try and achieve these goals. An example would be that I used meditation and deep breathing to foster better psychospiritual health. Another example would be that I did community service and paid more attention to worldly activities that go on around the world to become more aware of others cultures. Also, a daily journal could be used to keep a food journal to help with some of the biological aspects that I had talked about. Reminding ourselves what we would like to get out of our journey on a daily basis and knowing what goals we set for ourselves is a great reminder to stay on track. I also think that reading to gain knowledge about health and wellness could be greatly used in all the domains in order to further our development towards integral health. Once on the right track and achieving our goals through practices such as journaling, meditation, gaining knowledge we can make new goals to set ourselves further into integral health. I believe a good way to assess if we have achieve our goals is to go back to the beginning and look at the goals we set for ourselves and see if we feel that we have achieved or done what we have said. Like I mentioned above journaling is a good way to track progress and go back and read to see if the goal had been achieved or progress on the goal is continuing. Long term practice requires commitment and motivation to stay on track. I think that writing our goals down and when we feel that we cannot do it any longer, go back and read what our goals are and why we wanted to achieve it in the first place. This can help increase motivation to stay on track long term. I also feel that once we start seeing results and change then happiness with come with that. Seeing progress always helps increase motivation to keep going as well. Everything in live is about personal choices and if we will be happy with the choice we have made. In order to make the choices we want we need motivation and will power. Ultimately making the right choices to take the path to human flourishing will achieve health, happiness, and wholeness.

Reference: Dacher, E.S. (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing.  Laguna Beach, Ca: Basic Health Publications, Inc.