Summarizing Experiences

The Assessments:

Based on self-reflections, and on a scale of 1 to 10 (ten being optimal well-being), the following areas of physical well-being, psychological well-being and spiritual well-being have been rated in comparison as:

                                                     Unit 3   Unit 10

Physical Well-being rating:             6           6.5

Psychological Well-being:              6           7

Spiritual Well-being rating:            7           7.5

The Changes Noticed:

Physical Well-being:  Positive results are becoming evident due to healthier eating, increased awareness, and exercise habits.  Less caffeine consumption is showing me that I sleep better and feel more rested upon rising.  I have also begun to lose some weight.  Motivating myself toward these new well-being goals is improving which also contributes to well-being.

Psychological Well-being:  This is where I see the most improvement which is directly associated with regular meditation practices, and intentionality, awareness, and observance exercises.  Something that I have added on my own is to do a ‘repetitive mantram’ as a way to promote the reduction of negative mental chatter and increase a sense of spirituality.  I credit this choice to Eknath Easwaran (2011) who said “A mantram is a powerful spiritual formula which, when repeated silently in the mind, has the capacity to transform consciousness. There is nothing magical about this. It is simply a matter of practice. The mantram is a short, powerful spiritual formula for the highest power we can conceive of – whether we call it God, or the ultimate reality, or the Self within. Whatever name we use, with the mantram we are calling up what is best and deepest in ourselves.”

Spiritual Well-being:  Due to meditation and mindfulness exercises; and intentionality, and observance exercises, I am seeing new spiritual experiences appear and it becomes the authentic understanding that you do not know, truly, what some of these experiences are until you ‘have’ them yourself.  One example:  I have heard it said that it is best to love yourself.  My thought response?  “Yeah, yeah….I love myself” but until you ’feel’ love wafting within and without and experience the depth of the loving vibration itself, you really do not understand it specifically.  When I was working on the Unit 7 exercise and researching Eknath Easwaran and the Eight Point Program (2011), I began to feel good, then really good, then joy running around on the inside of me, then joy from every cell in my body.  At this point part of my mind wanted to analyze what was going on and another part just wanted to stop and observe.  I stopped, observed, was quite taken aback by the feelings and thought that if I started back into the Unit 7 assignment that I would lose the feeling.  After experiencing tears of joy running down my face, I figured it could not get better than that, so I decided it was time to step forward and I went back to work.  I felt, not as good, but had an elevated sense of well-being for the rest of the evening.  With that said, I am so looking forward to future spiritual experiences.

The Goals and Implementations:

All identified goals in the areas of physical, psychological and spiritual are being acted upon and shifts are becoming evident, which support and encourage me to continue in all areas.

Thank You:

This class has covered a myriad of intricate information that, if applied, can lead to positive shifts and unimaginable experiences.  Dacher (2006) states “We just need to train ourselves to surf the waves of outer adversity rather than to drown in them.”  The glimpses of some of those possibilities that I have experienced, I’m thinking, are some examples of what Elliott S. Dacher (2006) mentioned in our course textbook Integral Health as “fruits will begin to emerge early”.  The body follows what goes on in the mind, thus making the mind a very important point of focus in this journey, and therefore a beautiful and precious gem that can reflect exquisite experiences.  Prior to this course, I had the understanding that there was definitely something more to human existence than what was seen and touched.  I’ve had far too many experiences that hinted at something more.  This course has connected some of those dots and I am very happy and grateful for this!  So much of what we have learned has filled in so many blanks that the upgraded awareness of what is possible is completely and positively stimulating.  With these tools, the understanding that integral health is limitless is invaluable.

“Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!”

References

Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral health:  the path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publishing, Inc.

Easwaran, E. (2011). The eight point program. Retrieved from http://www.easwaran.org/the-eight-point-program.htmlEaswarrdklkfj