My Integral Assessment

I practiced the Loving Kindness meditation and discovered it is starting to get easier. Maybe the fact that I finally got my laptop out of the pawn shop and can lock myself in my room away from my loving children helped me with this meditation this week. I find it funny that some of the people that I love the most can make the Loving Kindness exercise difficult for me to complete.
After completing the Integral Assessment I found it difficult to decide which part of my life needs the most help. One area I really need to focus on at this time is in the biological quadrant , nutrition, this is especially important while I am pregnant and because I have diseases that affect my nutrition. In order to improve my nutrition I will make sure I take my vitamins everyday, drink more water and add more fresh fruits and vegetables to my daily diet. In the Interpersonal quadrant I need to work on my connections with my family, I have been quite distant with my husband and children lately and am not sure why, maybe hormonal mood swings. I do not like feeling this way and want to work on improving my relationship with all of them. My plan for making changes in this area is to take time to listen to each one of them everyday, make Sundays our family day again, and eat more meals at the table together. These are the areas that I will start with as I begin to make changes I will add more in the other quadrants of my life.

The subtle mind exercise

I really enjoyed the Subtle Mind exercise, I think I liked it more than the Loving Kindness exercise. They both have their benefits but I found the Subtle Mind exercise to be more calming personally. Being able to let my thoughts go is a much needed exercise.

I feel that the connection between spiritual, mental, and physical wellness is very important. I believe that many of the issues that I am having in my life are due to the fact that I have neglected manya reas of my mental, spiritual and biological health for a long time. It is definitely time to make some changes in my life.

Loving kindness... I could do this again.

I have to admit that once again I struggled with this weeks exercise, the Loving Kindness meditation. It was not the exercise that caused me trouble, just everything else going on in my life. I wish I had a pause button for everything else that is going on so that I can focus on one thing at a time. I really enjoyed the meditation when I finally got a chance to really try it. The sound effects in the background were very soothing and helped with the exercise. I would definitely recommend this exercise to others; besides who couldn't use  a
little loving kindness in their lives.
One of this weeks questions is "What is the concept of a mental workout?". The concept of a mental workout is to take time each day, just as one would for another exercise, to focus on the inner mind. A mental workout is a time to let go of the stresses of everyday life, to sit with a quiet mind  and focus on the workings of the inner mind. Research indicates that the benefits of a Mental Workout are improved health, control of emotions,  and reduced stress levels. I can use Mental workouts in my day to day life to help me improve my health and wellness. I could definitely use it to help me cope with stress.

Self Reflections and Goals

This weeks blog assignment asks us to asses our optimal well-being in three areas, physical well-being, spiritual well-being, and psychological well-being. After thinking about my life in each of these areas I realize I need to do some serious work in each one. Over the last few years life has become very difficult, and the past few months have been some of the hardest. I have suffered a great deal physically,spiritually, and psychologically. On a scale of 1-10 with ten being optimal well-being I would rate my physical well-being at a 3, spiritual well-being a 2, and my psychological well-being a 4.
 I gave my physical well-being a score of 3 because I am currently 5 months pregnant with my fourth child at the age of 37. My nurse told me that as pregnancies go I am considered elderly. I swear after I was given that information I discovered two white hairs had popped up on my head. This pregnancy has been very difficult so far. The first four months I suffered from all day "morning sickness". In my fourth month I started to have horrible back pain and contractions. I have also suffered from extreme headaches since the beginning. Even though I have felt awful the baby is doing great so I count my blessings and keep on going. During my second month of this pregnancy my doctor told me that my prolactin levels are too high, even for a pregnancy. She told me I should have never been able to get pregnant with such high levels and she recommends that I see a specialist as soon as I have the baby. High prolactin levels can occur if there is a tumor on the pituitary gland. Usually the tumors are benign. Still I am scared. What if I do have a tumor on my pituitary gland? Then I will not be able to breastfeed the baby and will have to go on medicine or have surgery. What if the tumor is cancerous? What do I do? How can I be a mother to three children and a newborn and battle an illness possibly fight for my life? Too many questions and no answers. I ma hoping that after the baby is born I will discover that everything is alright and can make the changes in my life that will improve my physical well-being.
My Spiritual well-being received a score of two. I considered giving it a score of 1 at first but because I still have hope and am still trying I decided a 2 would be fine. I have felt spiritually blocked for sometime now. I gave up on religion a long time ago. I discovered that religion and spirituality were not the same thing when I realized that I was using the religion that I chose to follow to punish myself. After trying a few different religious paths I decided to continue my life on a spiritual path rather than a religious path. I am not saying that religion is bad and for many people it is right for them and helps them grow spiritually, but it did not work for me. About three years ago I began to lose touch with my spirituality. I was pregnant with our third child, my grandmother passed away, my husbands job had cutbacks and our income dropped drastically, we lost our house and our cars,and had to move to a city that I hated. Life got hard and crazy. My eldest son was attacked by a man that tried to kill him, he developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and  tried to kill himself, we moved back to a small town hoping it would help our son and our family heal. Two weeks after moving into our new home my husband lost his job, I found out that I was pregnant with our fourth child, and my husband's former company decided to fight his unemployment. We went over 10 weeks without any money, had to get food from a local food bank, almost lost our new home, and had to beg family and friends for help. Throughout all of this I forgot how to live spiritually, I just felt the need to survive.Right now I feel spiritually blocked, I am afraid that if I pull the plug  that I will be unable to control the flood of emotions and tears that are sure to follow.
My psychological well-being received a higher score than my physical and spiritual well-being because I feel that after everything I have been through it could be worse. My psychological well-being received a score of 4, not a great score but not the lowest either. Life has been stressful, hard, and depressing, but everyday that I was able to get out of bed and move forward was a good day. Even though times have been hard I have not sunk into depression. I have battled depression throughout my life so I am very surprised that I have not been overcome with it at this time. I think my psychological health is a bit better because I always hoped things would get better and I knew I had to keep things going for my family, there was no time for feeling sorry for myself when I have had so many relying on me to keep the pieces together.

Now I am suppose to develop goals in each area, physical, spiritual, and psychological. I am going to set small reachable goals for each area and plan to continue building on these goals over time. To improve my physical well-being the goal I am setting is to add more physical activity to my life. My goal for spiritual well-being is to reconnect with myself. My goal for psychological well being is to face my emotions.

I plan on reaching each of these goals by using specific exercises and activities. To help me reach my goal for physical well being I will start walking or doing Tai-chi for at least 20 minutes a day. These exercises are safe for me to do while pregnant and can also help me relieve stress.To help me reach my spiritual goal I plan on taking at least fifteen minutes a day to be by myself. During this time I can enjoy the silence and take some time to reconnect with myself. To help improve my psychological well being I will start keeping a journal, this exercise will help me put my feelings down on paper and provide a much needed release as well as insight.

I went to the link for this weeks exercise Crime of the Century, once there the only thing I found was the Rainbow Meditation so I am hoping this was the right exercise. I had an easier time doing this weeks exercise. The house was much quieter and the kids were cooperating. I found the meditation very interesting and loved the use of colors. I noticed that as I focused on each area that the area actually felt warm. I thought it was funny that while I was focusing on the heart area for giving love that I focused on my husband and he actually called me at that time. I felt very relaxed after this exercise. I have to admit I did not feel more energized though definitely relaxed and tired.

Relaxation....HA!

Over the past couple weeks I have had to use the computer at my Mom and Dad's house, this caused a great deal of stress once my classes started. I found it very difficult to work at their home because I felt obligated to visit or help them around the house, plus my parents like to lurk and watch what I am doing or stand around and chat while I am trying to read. The stress increased when I discovered that my class drop boxes would not work on my parent's computer, I think it had something to do with the fact that they had a virus on their computer a few weeks ago and took it in to be fixed. Today we finally got our desk top computer back and the Internet is back on. I thought that my stress level would surely be reduced and I was very happy to discover that the drop boxes worked once again. While I worked to catch up on my work I felt some stress decrease but as the day progressed and children came home from school the stress levels started to hit the roof. I felt more than ready to practice the Journey to Relaxation exercise for my class. I made myself comfortable in my desk chair and started the exercise. At first everything was going great. I even felt my arms get heavy and warm. I thought it was funny that the baby (I am 20 week pregnant) seemed to become more active when I started to get into the exercise. That was about as far as the relaxation got for me. My husband came home from work and wanted to talk, I paused the exercise and told him I was doing homework. I started the exercise back up as hubby made his way to the shower. Within seconds I am trying to pull my three year old from my lap while he tries to tell me some story about super heroes. I talk him into telling his story to his older brother, rewind the exercise and try again. This time I never make it to the warm heavy arms because World War 3 breaks out in the kitchen as my two oldest boys are arguing over who is going to wash and who is going to dry the dishes, while the three year old proceeds to throw cookie cutters onto the kitchen floor. Each metallic clang of the cookie cutters hitting the ceramic tiles echoes through my head and any relaxation I had previously felt has gone. I continue with the exercise anyway and hope for the best. By the time my husband has removed himself from the shower the war is over, I am hoarse from screaming over the fighting of my kids, the dog is hoarse from barking over my yelling, the relaxation exercise is over and I am more stressed than ever. Maybe I can creep out of bed sometime during the night and try again.