Reflections on Learning

When I look at my assessment of my life and my plans for change I think it just seems impossible to ever reach the point I want to get to. I have been trying to overcome my depression and anxiety for many years, and it seems that this will never change. Although we have learned that anyone can use what we have learned in this class to improve their life, I am very skeptical that I can do this for myself. This is difficult to explain, and until I can move this barrier, I will not be able to expand my horizons. Getting started is the first thing. I am doing some things for myself now that I wasn't before, like improving my diet and making sure I get to yoga class. The easiest thing for me to do would be to sit down one day and just start. The goals seem impossible to reach, and a real change in attitude is needed. The exercises in Dacher's book on preparing for change are probably even too advanced for me, I just need to decide I am going to change some things and that it will work.
I scored myself pretty high on biological health, but lower in all other aspects, especially psychospiritual. It has become easier over the years to make these issues unimportant in my life, like I can control them and keep them under wraps. The big change needed is to understand that these issues are just as important to my own well being as my physical health. By using my yoga practice, involving myself in volunteer activities and putting myself in situations that force me to interact with others will help me to get to the place I want to be. I must stick with my plan and be sure to review every month.
I feel like I am a little closer to my goals, but I have not yet implemented home meditation practice as I have planned. It seems much easier to make excuses and not move forward, so the most important way I can begin to get to my goals is to decide that it is time to start and not stop.
The most important thing I have learned in this class is that there is another way. In order to really help people we have to open our minds to all of the options that exist, and pay attention to what the patient is trying to tell us. This is something that many practitioners do not do today, and I think this is one of the reasons why we cannot help them as well as we could. I have also learned that there is a lot more research on healing methods going on out there than I ever knew before. We spend so much time focusing on what we were taught in school, we forget that each person is an individual and responds individually to our treatments. What has been difficult for me is to admit that I cannot truly help those if I do not help myself first. Although I have saved the lives of many over the last 30 years, it seems I have not truly healed them, but only prolonged their suffering. I prolong my own suffering by resisting my own plan for change. Now I have the tools I need to help myself and others, the future looks much brighter.

Personal Practice

I have reviewed the practices we have encountered in this class, and I have to say that they have indeed been challenging. But, never let it be said I don't want to be challenged or changed in any way. Because of my depression and anxiety issues, it is really easy for me to give up and not pursue challenge and to accept myself the way I am. I will not be doing this. I have spent the last 20 years seeking active change and making improvements, and although I have seen improvements, there is always room for more. With that said, I think that some of the practices we have encountered in this class can be of significant help to me, and could be the catalyst I am looking for with consistent practice. The easiest one for me, and currently the most helpful I have experienced to date, would be the mindfulness (subtle mind) meditation. This is something I have been practicing on and off over the last few years and although it has not gotten that much easier for me, it is do-able because I really do not have to invent anything in my mind, I only have to observe thoughts and emotions and pull my mind back to a chosen focus when needed. This is something I can continue to do before, during and after work (my most stress) but only need to practice more regularly. I think it can have a significant impact on helping me think and speak with more intention. The second one is very difficult to choose, because they were all so difficult for me. I guess I would have to choose the loving kindness visualization we began with on the CD, for two reasons. First, it was the easiest for me to do out of all the visualization exercises. And second, but most importantly, I need to feel more loving kindness toward not only myself but others as well. I find myself being mad at and hating people in general (and myself) all the time because of the stupid things we do and say, and the way we abuse each other and the earth. It is a very overwhelming hatred, and I know that in order for me to be the kind of person I want to be, this must be changed. It will help me form that basis that I need in order to develop my inner mind and truly feel spiritually connected to life and the universe. Transforming myself into an example for the people I contact daily is a wonderful goal and may help them to change their ways as well. Dacher tells us that the only way we can advance to the point of true integral health is to plant the initial seed of universal loving kindness in our hearts and minds. This is the most important first step in my own transformation.
-"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." Gandhi

Transformation of the Healer

"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself." Lawrence George says that this is an old saying, but I have never heard it before. However, I have heard this same concept voiced in different ways. He feels this is the most important part of integral health and practice, that it is most important for the healer to experience what Wilber's model represents in order to be able to truly help another heal themselves. Although this seems a wise thought, I tend to disagree with it. I believe that one can practice without actually experiencing integral health themselves. Many practice allopathic medicine without ever having been ill themselves, and they do it very well. The point to remember here is that we already know that allopathy falls short of providing the lasting and ultimate health one can attain. Even if an oncologist has had cancer himself, the treatment will be the same regardless, and there are no guarantees. But if the integral healer reaches a high level of functioning and has a good understanding of how they got there, it may be easier for them to teach others how to get there as well. The only limitation is the individual they are attempting to help: as we have already studied, each individual must be responsible for their own development. If the patient is uncooperative, everything that we attempt to help them with will fail.
Every healthcare practitioner does have an obligation to develop their own health in all aspects. If we are not healthy in mind and body, we cannot focus on helping another. We become so focused on our own issues that it leaves nothing for the one we are attempting to help. A well developed mind can handle any kind of stressor without a resultant effect on the biology, and so will remain strong to help others. As a nurse, patients rely on my ability to handle emergencies and to support their suffering. If I am not strong enough in any way, including physically, I will be useless to them. I took the Nightengale Pledge when I graduated nursing school in which I promised to assist in the healing of others. I think I should be able to provide my skills to those who are less fortunate than I am, and do it with a strong mind and body.
Schlitz, M., Amorok, T., and Micozzi, M. (2005).Consciousness and Healing: Integral Approaches to Mind-Body Medicine. St. Louis: Elsevier/Churchill/Livingstone.

Meeting Aesclepius

Well, once again, I have had a lot of difficulty with visualization. I did this meditation on a Friday night after a long day at work. Instead of making me feel better, I had a very difficult time focusing on what the instructions were telling me to do. It was one of those times when I just could not get into it. I do not have a better explanation than that. Again, the voice breaking in to the middle of the practice was very disturbing and did not help to improve my focus any.
I have been practicing mindfulness on and off for a while now, and I find it to be very settling to my mind, if I am in the correct frame for it. I find myself at times just not in the mood to work the subtle mind. But I really do think that there are times when it can be very helpful, like when I practice on the way to work. I arrive with a much better attitude to start my day if I silence the "noise" before I get there. I tend to focus on what the day will bring, but if I try mindfulness and only focus on the present moment, it gives me time to just be and not worry about what will be. I think if I increase this practice to daily it will help to still the anxiety that goes crazy in my head sometimes. Also, stopping for a few minutes several times a day to focus will be very helpful on days that are very busy. If mindfulness is easier for me, I will be more likely to practice it, so I need to set aside time to work on the more difficult task of visualization in order to become proficient at it.

Integral Assessment

In order to really explain my assessment, I will break this down into aspects and lines of development.
Psychospiritual-along the conative line, I looked at my motivation for my thoughts and actions. I believe I am at the mind level on this line, where I have mastered my instinctual motivations and have become concerned with my psychological well being, but have not mastered this. I am motivated most to control my depression/anxiety issues, but I am also concerned with ethics and doing unto others in order for them to do unto me as well. But is this motivation concerning my own egotistical motivations or am I truly concerned about others? Stay tuned. In the cognitive realm, I think I am still kind of sitting on the body area, whereas I am rather reactive and conditioned in my thoughts, but I can also see some logical thinking to lead me to right actions. I have the desire to find meaningfulness in my life and I try to use logical thinking in my life as a whole, but I have not yet come to grips with this. The emotional line is where I have the most difficulty, since I have not been able to control my fears and anger that drive my depression and anxiety. This will most likely be where I will begin, since it is my most urgent issue. I need to practice more mindfulness in order to still my thoughts and replace the negative with the positive. I think it is helpful to practice for a few minutes prior to a specific event that causes anxiety, in order to focus on what I need to do in order to succeed at that event. Eventually my focus should be on daily practice before or after work.
Biological-my fitness and nutrition lines do not need much work, although there is always room for improvement. I have not reached the spirit level of fitness, but I am at the mind level, since I do have a specific training program for certain improvements in fitness. My nutrition is at the mind level, but I do not always function at the spiritual level, I tend to focus on what will make me happy at that moment. Self regulation is the area that requires the most improvement, since focus on mind/body practices is something I need to bring into my daily practice, and not only every now and again when I think of it. I have begun to use hatha yoga weekly to improve on this, and my goal is daily practice.
Interpersonal-I think I am truly feeling an egocentric and personal focus right now, probably because I have to. The psychospiritual aspects of depression and anxiety affect this area of my life, and I feel like in order to maintain my daily focus and get through each day, I have to concentrate on myself completely. I do not think about my family a lot because they live far away and I do not have a very good relationship with them. I probably spend more time on community activities than my family focus, I volunteer my time in a medical reserve corp for the local community and my motivation here is truly for the community and not for myself, I can honestly say this. So although I think I am in the spiritual realm as far as community action goes, the majority of my life is spent on the body level, and I focus so much on myself I cannot spend much time on my family or friends. This is an area that I feel will improve if I can focus on my psychospiritual changes but I can also help those changes by focusing on this aspect as well. I need to remind myself to spend more time focusing on the needs of family and friends and showing them loving kindness once I have improved on loving myself.
Worldly-this goes along with the community action I involve myself in concerning the interpersonal aspect of my life. My social activism line is at the mind level right now but I don't think I am quite ready to expand that to the global level yet. Generativity is something that I am concerned with and I already try to teach others at the level of organization(mind)how to interact with others by my own example. I also try to help by listening and providing help by teaching what I have learned over the course of my life. I can expand on this by teaching others in educational sessions at work and in the community. Eventually I would like to become involved in community health teaching locally.
I think that if I can get my psychological issues under control by subtle mind techniques as well as mind/body techniques, this will help me improve all aspects of my life. I will be able to interact with others more effectively and without fear, as well as finding my own happiness by loving myself. This will bring me closer to true integral health by allowing me to focus my energies on healing my physical and emotional self to gain access to the spiritual level of being and not so much on my chaotic and external needs. Any suggestions on techniques that have been helpful to yourself and others is always welcome.

Beginning with the universal loving kindness practice

I have already noted in a previous post that it is difficult for me to perform visualization practices. However, repeating phrases over for ten minutes is probably harder, it is hard for me to maintain my focus because other thoughts come into my head quickly and I have not yet mastered control of them. I think that it is important for me to gain a quiet mind before coming to this practice, and this would involve mindfulness practice then incorporating the loving kindness practice in the same session. When I lose focus on this, I can then return to a mindfulness practice to retain the stillness, kind of going back and forth between the two in order to maintain focus. While I do feel caring and love for certain people in my life, I am not clear what my motivations are for this kind of love, because I have not gotten to the point where I feel true loving kindness for myself. This has always been a problem and I do feel that it is true that in order to truly love others you must first love yourself. Maybe the best thing for me to do is work on feeling loving kindness for myself first, then it might become easier for me to visualize this and project it to others in practice. Does this seem reasonable to anyone else?

The connection of spiritual wellness to psychological and physical wellness

Considering what we have learned in this class, one cannot reach integral health without including all aspects of the person, and that includes psychospiritual as well as physical health. I always look at it as if it is a chain that, when broken, causes the person to suffer. Whether they suffer physically, mentally or spiritually may change over time, but they are all connected in that, if one suffers mentally or spiritually for long enough, the physical health will follow eventually. I tend to use my clinical depression as an example here, because it has been a problem for many years. Although medication has it under good control, I do tend to ignore the fact that there are still underlying issues that medication cannot help. So while I am able to function well in society, I am not truly well because my spiritual health suffers and I have not developed the higher levels of the mind. I have noticed over the last couple of years that although I work out, I do not really feel well physically, and this may be due to ongoing mental issues.We have learned in the reading that developing the subtle layers of the mind to work with the physical body will lead to overall holistic health. What am I waiting for? I think there is some kind of stubborn fear inside my head that believes that this will not work for me, that I have tried and failed before so why do it now? This is what the subtle mind training helps with, to get rid of the bad attitude and set the tone for practice. I am a yoga practitioner, and have learned to combine physical practice with mental focus in order to train the whole body as one, and this makes me feel so good and strong when I finish. I have my own empirical research to support the fact that mental training and physical training go hand in hand.