Unit 4

Hello class and professor,
To start with, this exercise was both easy and hard for me-I do feel that overall it was beneficial and I will be trying it again every day for the designated 15 minutes. This exercise was a bit different than simply meditating, I feel that it was difficult for me to release my hold on certain emotions I had about my body, my knees in particular. You see, I have broken, twisted, and busted up both my knees numerous times over the years, I actually had to give up my first love of classical ballet dancing because of a drastic knee injury in which I never fully recovered from, so I have some underlying hatred for the pain I have in my knees on a daily basis. This was hard to release, it took me several tries to somewhat relinquish, but it did happen at some point during the exercise. I would definitely recommend this exercise to others, I feel that it made me come to terms with my held back emotions about certain aspects, I felt a great sense of relief when it was done though, a good first step in emotional and mental health.
Speaking of mental health, the mind has recently been seen as another part of the body which needs to be worked out in order for wasting not to occur. As they say, use it or loose it. It is important that we all use our minds in multiple ways in order to keep mental health and alertness as time passes-studies far and wide has shown that an active mind is more apt to stay active as age progresses. There are actually mental workout centers and personal trainers to help individualize a workout plan depending on what areas (math, science, literature, art, language) a person is most weak in-it is a proven method by way of detailed diary records taken by participants to show overall progress in certain skills. I think being able to use your mind as a muscle to be worked out is a clever tool to use in increasing creativity, openness, understanding, and overall wellness.
-Stacey Smith

Reference:

Tannen, S. Mental Fitness-exercises for the brain. Retrieved 2/28/2012 from www.bellydoc.com/articles/article 7.html

Unit 3

Hello everyone,
Well, to begin with the first question of rating myself on physical, spiritual, and psychological well being - I am currently working out 5 days a week, eating very healthy as I have cut out all sodas, fried or fatty foods, and most all sweets, and keep a general active lifestyle I feel that I can safely rate my physical well being as around an 8. As for spiritual well being, I am a very spiritual person by nature - I meditate and have honed in on my inner discipline in order to continually treat others how I would want to be treated. I have to remember that everyone deserves respect and needs to feel love and compassion, we are all fighting our own battles. With this in mind, I feel that I am probably at a 6 for spiritual well being. Honestly, I think of spiritual and psychological well being as, most times, one in the same. Having a sense of universal connectedness and oneness with myself allows me to not only reach deeper within my own values but also gives me understanding into the world and people around me. Having said this, I think my psychological wellness is around a 7.
My personal goal for optimal physical well being is to gain more flexibility with yoga classes as I am not a very flexible person physically. My goal for spiritual well being would be to reach the next level of universal understanding and to practice spiritual ritual every day in order to gain the level of inner peace I want to reach. My goal for psychological well being is to teach myself how to take those spiritual aspects of myself and apply them to my environmental situations, such as donating my time to soup kitchens or helping to rebuild homes. I think I need to give back more.
I think in order to reach my physical goal I could join a yoga class and designate 2 to 3 days a week to go to it. I could also look up other stretching techniques to use at the gym before and after my exercise routine every day.
To obtain my spiritual goal, I think I could find time to reflect on my feelings and inner voice - I could start writing a journal of my thoughts and feelings - I could also try different and more extensive meditation practices.
Last but not least, to achieve my psychological goal, I think I simply need to reach out and help to touch others' lives more instead of only focusing on mine. As I mentioned earlier, I could donate my time to helping those who are in need, I could also donate my time to pet adoption centers or even take my dogs (chocolate lab) to nursing homes to cheer up the elderly. I feel like reaching out to others the best way for my to obtain my goal.

As for the exercise of experiencing the rainbow, I felt very relaxed and comforted by this exercise. I personally enjoyed it and felt it was uplifting and rather calming yet energizing at the same time. I don't really have trouble with this sort of visualization as I use a similar technique to begin my meditation practices, I feel the ability to visualize and attach that vision to emotion or feeling gives me a better grasp on the exercise as a whole - I get more out of it and it doesn't feel one dimensional.
-Stacey Smith

Unit 2: Journey On Relaxation

Hello everyone,
I just tried the out the relaxation exercise posted on in our course this week, and I actually really liked the visual aspect of it, while I was doing the breathing and thought exercise I was becoming entranced by the beautiful colors and visual effects of the screen-I think this is a very good way to calm any wandering or overactive mind. I personally felt a bit of a difference when I tried the entire exercise in my body, except I mentally moved the centrally located blood to my head and shoulders as I had a headache and a kink in my neck. The exercise worked in relieving (temporarily) my headache and left a warm and tingly sensation in my shoulders and neck.
Overall, enjoyed it.
-Stacey Smith

Unit 1

Hello all!
This first unit really did interest me, although I have always lived in a whole wellness type of atmosphere as my parents raised me to use energy healing and meditation, take herbal remedies for common cold symptoms, and give respect to all living creatures I was never really introduced to some of the complex integral concepts that Ken Wilber described. The four quadrants of whole being was especially intriguing to me with the I, IT, WE, and ITS. My parents taught me about the different aspects of culture and life in correlation with me as an individual-how we are all connected and meant to be appreciated in equal manner-but they never went into extreme detail as Wilber does in our text. I have always embraced this way of life and oneness with everything but in the back of my mind I know that total "whole wellness" integration in the western medical world will never reach a point to make a universal effect. I feel that our culture, our society has too strong of roots in the material world we have created to really step back and realize there was always more than what they have made. I can always hope and live my life in this way, I don't judge-I just like to be.
-Stacey Smith

First Post

Hello all!!
Welcome to my newly founded blog page.
Hope we all have fun this semester, I have a feeling this class will provide some very interesting learning material, can't wait to get started.
-Stacey Smith