Integral Self-Assessment

Introduction     

It is becoming widely known and accepted that our mind, body, and spirit should be treated as a whole versus its interdependent parts.  As Dacher (2006) quotes “the mind is the body, the body is the mind” (p. 18).  The condition of one aspect of us reflects the condition of another – so they should be treated as a whole cause one affects the other.  To fully understand this connection and provide adequate integral services, it is important that we not only embrace this concept as professionals of health and wellness; but also develop it ourselves.  As we work towards human flourishing and develop our own selves psychologically, spiritually and physically, we can speak from experience as we help other individuals through the same process.  Without this experience we cannot fully grasp the challenges and struggles one may face or be able to explain different techniques necessary to move them towards integral health. 

In looking at my own life, I noticed that I am not balanced in all areas.  I need to further develop psychologically and spiritually in order to achieve the goals that I have for myself.  In this paper, I will discuss how I have assessed my health in each domain, goals that I have made for myself in each area, strategies for fostering growth in each of the domains, and how I will commit and assess progress in the future. 

Assessment

To assess my health in each domain, I used a scale from 1 to 10.  1 referring to as needing the most development and 10 referring to as needing the least development.  My goal is to have all domains in the range of 7 to 10.  Currently, I rank myself psychologically at 6 needing a little work; spiritually as a 3 needing the most work; and physically as an 8 being in the range I find acceptable. 

Goal Development

                Although I think that my physical domain is in an acceptable range, it is not perfect and can be further improved.  To further develop this area of my life, I want to ensure that I do not run the risk of developing high blood pressure again.  My psychological domain is okay and needs some working on to reach a level between 7 and 10.  To further develop this area of my life, I want to work on not letting my emotions take control of me.  I call this emotional hijacking and there are certain experiences that cause me to have an automatic and uncontrolled response versus me thinking and responding with intention.  Lastly, my spirituality domain is something I need to develop the most.  My goal for this area is to look at spirituality more broadly and define what it means for me and not solely based on what I was taught growing up.  I have lost touched with spirituality and have been feeling a strong need to build that area of my life back up. 

Practices for Personal Health

                To foster growth physically and work towards warding off high blood pressure, without medication, for good, I will feed my body more foods from the earth and less processed foods.  To implement this plan, I will pre-portion fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds into little baggies that I can grab and go each day and eat from.  In addition to being more cautious about the foods that I put into my body, I am going to amp up my workout routine.  Although I work with a personal trainer, I seem to only go to the gym on those days or just 1 additional day.  I am going to foster my growth physically by getting in a regular routine of exercising of at least 5 days a week.  To help implement these plans, I am going to develop backup exercise routines that I can do at home in case I cannot make it to the gym.

                To foster growth psychologically, I am going to practice the two meditation exercises that I learned in this course.  The first meditation exercise I will practice is the loving-kindness exercise.  This will help me think less of myself and help to harbor negative emotions about others that generate feelings of hate and anger.  In addition to the loving-kindness exercise, I will practice the subtle mind meditation.  This will help me to become more aware of my thoughts.  Once aware, I can control and make intentional choices versus having automatic responses.  I will implement these meditations each day, starting with the loving-kindness meditation in the morning and ending with the subtle-mind exercise in the evening.

                I feel that I am really closed-minded when it comes to spirituality.  To foster growth in this area, I want to read different books on spirituality.  To implement this process, I will search and buy books on various topics including Buddhism, connecting with nature, and the art of praying to broaden my scope of spirituality.  In addition to reading more about spirituality, I would like to practice other types of meditations that help me connect to my inner spirit.  I will look on-line for practices on this type of meditation.  If I am not successful on my own, I plan to implement this goal by visiting a nearby meditation center.

Commitment

                To gauge whether, I am lacking or progressing as I further develop my physical domain, I will use how I look and feel to determine if I need to make changes to my goal and implementation plan.  If I truly do eat more foods from the earth and exercise more, I will lose a noticeable amount of body fat in six months.  In addition to how I look and feel, I will also take measurements of my blood pressure readings.  If my blood pressure readings are normal for a week, I will feel that I am progressing in my goal of warding off blood pressure, without medication, for good.  To assess how I am progressing psychologically, I will monitor how often I am emotionally hijacked in a period of a week.  Now that I am more aware of the issue, I can note when it happens throughout the day.  I need to monitor now how often it happens so I can have a baseline to compare to in six months.  To assess how I am progressing spiritually, I will gauge how open I am to the idea of spirituality.  If I find that I am still wishy-washy about the entire topic, then I will consider it a lack of progress and develop a new plan to foster this area of my life. 

                To assist in maintaining long-term practice for health and wellness, I will consistently remind myself that this is not an overnight process.  It takes time and small steps to develop the skills to flourish in each domain. In addition to my friendly reminder, I will journal my experience through this process.  This will help me to identify what works and what does not work; what areas that I need to change and what I can leave as is.  Lastly, as I begin to develop further in each of the domains, to share this with others so they too can experience the wonderfulness of health, happiness, and wholeness.  Inspiring others will inspire me to continue along with this journey.

Reference

Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral health: The path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach: Basic

Health Publications Inc.