Unit 10

In Unit 3 I assessed my physical well-being at a 7 and last week I bumped it up to an 8.  Mostly because I am getting more consistent with my exercise on my non-jazzercise days.  Since I teach two days per week regularly I would find my self not doing alot on the other 5 days.  Now I have challenged myself to work out 6 days per week.  I have really liked it.  I also have lost 4 pounds and 3.5 inches in the last 14 days.  I had set a daily goal of burning 1000 calories and I do reach that most days.  My diet has been pretty good too.  The goals I set in this area are being met so I am happy with it.

In the spiritual well-being I first assessed myself at a 6 and last week it was am 8.  I think I was a little hard on myself in the Unit 3 assessment so that was the major reason for the change of number.  I realized that I really am a lot further on than I think.  The goals that I set for this area was to read my Bible every morning.  I have done that all but a couple of mornings.  So I think I am trekking along well in this area.

In the psychological well-being I felt that I went down.  I first assessed at an 8 and last week it was a 6.5.  I know this is the area that I need to work in most.  The battle in my life is in my head.  I really think I have made strides though.  If you ask me today I would say that I am at a 7.  I had set a goal of doing some breathing exercises or meditation at bed time and I haven't quite gotten the hang of it.  I will still keep trying though.

I have implemented most of the things that I set out to do in Unit 9.  On the things I haven't I will just start now because I know that if I start to get hard on myself I will quit.  That right there is growth for me.

This course has really helped me realize a lot about myself.  I have done a lot of self reflection and now know the triggers that lead to my defeat.  I will not be defeated.  I am the type of person that loves a good challenge or fight but sometimes I have to fight the thoughts in my head.  The Bible says to "bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" 2 Cor 10:5b.  So that is what I will do.  I also think the most difficult thing for me to do is meditation.  It's just not my thing.  This area will be the one that will need work.  I know I need to quiet my mind more and focus on the strength of God inside of me.  Doing it is the issue.  I won't give up though.  I think the most rewarding thing was that I didn't realize that I will look at my day or week and all the things that I have to do and I get overwhelmed and then choose to do nothing out of fear of failure.  I will quit before I start.  I say it's rewarding that I learned that because now I know what to change.  Before I would just get frustrated that I didn't accomplish anything.  Learning what I have learned through this course will help me encourage others in my personal training career in the future.  I really want to help others reach their potential. I enjoyed this class quite a bit.

Unit 9

My Plan to Health

Introduction

            Since a person is a triune being, body, mind and spirit, then they should find importance in developing their lives physically, psychologically and spiritually.  Only developing one or maybe two areas of their lives will not give them the wholeness, health and prosperity that are needed to live a life of human flourishing (Dacher, 2006).  If a person can live a life of human flourishing then they can help others to do so also.  Developing themselves physically, psychologically and spiritually will bring them to realize that their strength comes from within, not from an outside source. 

            I have come to realize that my biggest battle is in my head.  So in order to achieve the goals that I have set out for my life I must first learn to believe that I can achieve them.  Then I must not let my negative thoughts get in the way.  This is mostly a psychological issue with a little spirituality in there.  My spiritual development will only strengthen my mind and body.  Physically development is needed so that I am physically capable of achieving these goals.  I would have to say again that my biggest need is in the psychological realm.

Assessment

            In the beginning of this term I assessed myself at a 7 for physical well-being.  I would have to say that I went up to about an 8 since then.  I am now on a 90 Day Challenge because my goal is to lose 15 pounds before my birthday on November 2^nd.  I am working out approximately 2 hours per day 6 days per week.  My daily goal is to burn at least 1000 calories per day.  Since I get regular exercise and I also eat a well-balanced diet, I would say I am in good health.  I am still overweight but that is going to change.  I am my first client in my personal training.  If I can’t do it for myself then I won’t be effective to help others. 

            I first assessed my spiritual well-being at a 6.  I feel that it’s more of an 8 now.  Going through a lot of the exercises that we did in this course, I realized that I have the Word so deep inside me that anything that contradicts it feels weird.  It’s hard to explain.  There were a couple of visualization exercises that just didn’t mesh with me spiritually and I couldn’t embrace them the way Dacher intended.  A lot of them I replaced what they exercise were saying with scripture and I enjoyed it much further.  I still have to work on consistently reading my Bible and praying daily, though. 

            It’s funny because I scored myself the highest in the psychological well-being in the beginning at an 8.  Now I realize that I wasn’t correctly assessing myself.  I think this is the area that I learned the most about myself and I realized that it’s the area that holds me back more than anything.  I allow my mind to defeat me too easily, sometimes even before I start.  I would have to say that I am a 6.5 now.  I need to learn to quiet my mind on a regular basis. I also need to refute the voices in my head saying that I can’t achieve something and replace them with scripture, of course.  Scripture is where my strength is, because scripture is what God says I can do.  I am working on this area the most, aside from the physical, on my 90 Day Challenge.  I have assessed that in the past it wasn’t my body or spirit that defeated me, but my mind.  I didn’t believe that I could do it!  Now I do. 

Goal Development

            My goal for the physical is to lose 15 pounds by November 2^nd.  That will put me at 15 pounds left to my goal weight of 140 lbs.  I gain muscle very easily so I don’t see myself lighter than 140.  My goal for spiritual is to read my Bible every morning starting tomorrow during my 90 Day Challenge.  By the conclusion of the challenge I will have created a habit.  My goal for the psychological is to meditate for 30 minutes per day before I go to sleep at night, again starting tomorrow.  I will do this also for the rest of my challenge.  I am only on day 6 of my challenge so I have plenty of time to start other good habits beside diet and exercise. 

Practices for Personal Health

            For physical improvement strategies I will keep doing what I am doing.  I am doing 30-60 minutes of cardio per day which include running, intervals of sprinting and walking on the treadmill and using the rowing machine.  I also teach 4 Jazzercise classes per week on a regular basis and need to learn 30 new routines every 3 months.  Two of my classes are PT classes which are strength training.  My daily goal is to burn at least 1000 calories during exercise per day, 6 days per week.  I also want to utilize Myfitnesspal to track my calories so that I stay at about 1500 calories per day 6 days per week (myfitnesspal, LLC, 2005-2009).  I will also one day that I “cheat” but I will not go over the 1950 calories my body needs normally.  I will reach my daily calorie intake by drinking 2 Body by Vi shakes per day and eating 2 snacks plus one nutritious meal. 

            For spiritual improvement I will read my Bible in the morning for at least 30 minutes.  I have an app on my phone that has a daily reading so I think I will use that app to help me decide what to read.  I will also replace my regular running or cardio music with Praise and Worship music.  When I have done this in the past the music has helped me focus on God and the press towards my goal much better than secular music can.  Music is the best way that I can get my focus off me and on to Him!

            For psychological growth I will do the Journey On (Kaplan University, 2012) exercise or the Relaxation exercise (Meditation Workshop, n.d.) that I reference in my Unit 5 project before I go to bed each night.  This is the only time I will have “quiet time” since all four of my kids will be asleep.  I really enjoyed these two exercises in the course and I feel they will be beneficial to me in learning to relax and quiet my mind, especially before bed.

Commitment

            I will assess my progress or lack thereof in the first 90 days by tracking everything through my 90 Day Challenge I am currently on.  After that I will do another one until I reach my goal weight so I will track the spiritual and psychological goals along with the physical.  I have also shared this with my husband and he wants to do it too so the support and accountability that both of us are doing it is going to be beneficial.  I think the long-term practices are going to be more of creating new habits of wellness.  Allowing myself some grace to slip up but keep myself focused on continuing these things that will benefit me in many different ways.  

Unit 8

For me the best exercise where the first and the last.  I really enjoyed the one that we would feel the heaviness and the blood rush to certain areas in our body.  This particular one will help me a lot since I have sore muscles often from working out.  It so happened the day I first did this one I was really sore and it helped me recover quicker.  So to do that every evening would help me recover from all my hard workouts.

This last visualization was a great one too.  I really did feel a lift in my spirit when I was focusing on my happy time.  Which I chose to be my husband and I dancing.  We always have so much fun when we dance.  After the visualization I had a little extra skip in my step, I liked it.  This one will help to do it often so that I can keep a positive attitude when things get difficult.  You can accomplish more when your thinking is positive.

Unit 7

Well the meeting Aesclepius was a bust.  It was relaxing but I must be too much of a skeptic or not good at visualization.  I chose the person to be Jesus Christ but when I started to visualize myself to be Him my mind just said "this is not the way you do it."  The reason that alot of this is hard for me is because I know where exactly my strength, peace, love, joy and hope comes from and that is Jesus.  It is inside me because the Holy Spirit lives in me.  I become more like Him when I learn more of who He, live the way He wants me to live and develop a deeper relationship with him.  Not by imagining myself becoming Him.  I have to say that it lost me once they named the healer and the healing god Aesclepius.  There is only one true healing God and it's not Aesclepius.

"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" means that you can teach something that you don't know yourself.  I can relate to this in my relationship with God and any ministry I am involved in.  I cannot guide someone through a struggle using knowledge of God that I don't have myself.  I believe that is why God allows us to go through things so that we can help the next person through.  This is extremely important in the profession I am going into.  As a personal trainer I will know first hand the struggles of getting healthy.  Most of the time they are not physical struggles but mental and spiritual struggles that keep us from it.  I have been through those too.  Helping someone know who they are and what they are capable of is important for success.

Unit 6

The Universal Loving-Kindness exercise was different.  I would have to say I didn't really get anything from it.  It was relaxing because at first I was focusing on my breathing but the whole reciting things doesn't really work for me.  

The Integral Assessment was eye opening.  I think that psychospiritual is the area in which need growth and development for me.  I was focusing on my I am lazy or will procrastinate everything. This will cause me stress because when I have to do things last minute, on a deadline I am stressed out and will find myself with neck and shoulder pain or forget to eat and then get headaches.  It's a vicious cycle.  I realized that I am lazy not because I have a lack of drive but it's because of fear of failure.  I want to be perfect at everything I do (which I know there is no such thing).  If I don't think I have enough time or the ability to do it perfectly I just won't do it.  Or I will put it off until I have to.  I kick myself in the but every week and wish that I was more organized but I am not.  I used to be major competitive and that would keep me driven but I know that's not very good for you either.  

I think the exercises I am going to implement to help me is one reading my bible every day.  My strength comes from God, not me.  When I keep my focus on Him I can accomplish anything.  I am also going to do the breathing exercises like the subtle mind one, I like that one.  I NEED to train my mind to be quiet.  I think since I am constantly thinking about all the things I need to do, I overwhelm myself and give up before I start.  I also want to try running without my Ipod and just focus on my breathe and prayer while I run.  I used to do this when I went for walks and had wonderful conversations with God.  Don't know why I stopped.   

Unit 5

The subtle mind exercise was a lot more enjoyable than the loving kindness.  I found the loving kindness one to be kind of weird but this one was relaxing.  It was very difficult for me to keep my mind on what I wanted it to.  I would often start thinking about the 50 million things I could be doing instead of just sitting and listening to my breathing. lol  I also had to fight off thought off...."This is boring" and refocus.  My noisy kids and the phone ringing didn't help either.  I never realized when you are trying to focus that everything itches! lol! I was trying to figure out a time when my house would be quiet and that only time would be when my kids are asleep.  They get up before I do so it can't be in the morning and if I try to do this in the evening I will fall asleep.  I enjoyed the exercise though.  I think I only flirted with the witnessing mind and could get to the rest.

Unit 4

The Loving Kindness exercise was different.  First I was a little freaked out by the voice of the lady.  It sounded mechanical and a little scary.  Once I got past that then I could focus.  It's hard for me to find a time to have peace and quiet in my house.  It's also hard for me to turn off my brain to focus on things like this.  I found it difficult to do the breathing in suffering and breathing out health.  It made me just want to pray for these people I am thinking about.  Since prayer is usually were my focus is.  I did feel more relaxed at the end of the session.  I will continue to try it more and more and see if I get better at it.

A mental workout is doing just what I did.  Making you mind focus on what you want it to not just dealing with the random thoughts that always come in.  Research shows that those that tame their mind or strengthen it with mental workouts use more of their brains.  Doing these exercises on a regular basis would help me to focus better.  The first few times it's always difficult to do new things but just like anything, the more you practice the better you get.

Unit 3

It's kind of nice to sit back and evaluate where you are in your life every once in a while.  Too often I am constantly on the go so stopping and thinking is nice.

I would rate my level of physical wellness at a 7. I get regular exercise because I am a Jazzercise instructor and even if I am not teaching one of the 4 classes per week I am constantly learning new songs or routines to teach.  I am getting better nutrition now that I drink Body by Vi shakes for breakfast and sometimes dinner.  I hate eating breakfast but with all my education I know I need to.  It's much easier to drink good nutrition from a shake, for me anyway.  Since I have been drinking them I have lost 15 inches and 7 pounds (it's been 8 wks).  I have never been one to be strict on my diet!  I want to live! Other than that I am in pretty good shape for a 37 year old who has had 4 children.  I still need to lose some more weight though.

My spiritual well-being isn't where I would like it to be lately so I think I would have to rate it at a 6.  I have a very close personal relationship with Jesus Christ and trust Him for all things in my life but lately I have used a busy schedule as an excuse to neglect spending time in prayer or reading my bible.  To be honest both my husband and I have been feeling the same conviction lately.  We have actually missed 3 Sunday's of church in a row and in the 15 years I have been serving God strongly I have never done that.  I miss my time with God, it grounds me.  But I have been too lazy (I say too busy but that just an excuse) to do anything about it.  Even though I haven't been very active in spiritual things I still know who I am in Christ and that's what gets me through the hard days.

My psychological well-being would have to be like an 8.  I am a pretty easy going person.  Through many years of ministry I have learned to take my thoughts captive to the obedience of God (2 Cor 10:5).  I have also learned to recognize stress as fear and fear is the opposite of faith.  I have my moments, with a 16, 14, 6 and 4 year old how could you not? But I know who hold my Shalom in the palm of Him hand so my emotions don't rule me, I rule them.  When I do feel stressed out I will go workout or run because I am a physical person and that's what calms my brain!

Goals for each area would be to continue to lose weight in the physical so I would just keep doing what I am doing.  It's coming off slowly but surely.  For the spiritual I need to make time to sit in the morning and read my bible and talk to God.  I have written devotionals that were inspired by my "sitting at His feet" and I love being there.  I really do need to get rid of the excuses and make the time.  Psychological goals would be to involve my self in more prayer.  Prayer is more effective for me than meditation so I will get more out of it when I do it.

The relaxation exercise was OK! I just had a hard time getting into it at first.  This time I laid down instead of sat and really tried to focus like he said to.  I guess I must not have much of an imagination because I was having a hard time envisioning a window on my body and light coming out.  When he would tell me to say "I am grounded"  I would hear in my head "my foundation is on the Rock" (Luke 6:48).  Just about everyone I slipped in a scripture in its place.  I would rather get my peace and strength from God's Word than anything else.  Toward the end I was just wanting it to be done.

Tanya

Unit 2

Wow I really enjoyed that Journey On relaxation exercise!  The 15 minutes went by fast it felt like 5 minutes.  Earlier this morning I taught an exercise class where we exhausted our upper body and my shoulders and arms were surely feeling it.  This exercise helped them greatly!  I could feel the warmth and blood flow accumulate in my arms and hands.  Which is great for healing the muscles.  It took some work to stay in relaxation though.  I never have a quiet house during the day.  I have two teenagers and a 6 and 4 years old so the is always noise but with my headphones on and trying to ignore the arguments and questions I still did it.
I am one who is usually a skeptic when it comes to stuff like this but I really enjoyed it.

New beginnings!

I am brand new to blogging!  So we will see how this goes.  I look forward to getting to know everyone through more communication.  I guess I can start by posting a pic of my family so that you can put a face to the name.  The easiest way to fit all 6 of us in is posting our last Christmas card.  So here it is.