I.

Introduction: Maintaining Personal Wellness for the Sake of Professionalism One cannot lead another where one has not gone him or herself. Put yet another way, having a map of Hawaii is not like actually being there (Schlitz, 2005 p. 477) If we ourselves are not able to develop psychologically, spiritually and physically, how can we possibly assist our clients in achieving holistic wellness? I think it is more about the desire to achieve wellness and making it a priority in life. If we do not desire wellness for ourselves how can we desire it for someone else? Desiring wellness for someone else takes psychological and spiritual maturity. A good wellness professional has respect, love and well wishes for his/her clients and desires holistic wellness for everyone as much as he/she does for themselves. The loving-kindness exercise demonstrates the point I am trying to make. In order to show loving-kindness to others, we must begin by showing it to ourselves (Dacher, 2006 p.51). Nurturing our own psychological, spiritual, and physical maturation and wellness is the epitome of loving ourselves. As Dacher says that is where we begin or we are unable to love others the same way, love them enough to assist them on their path to holistic wellness. As a true believer in holistic medicine we know that the three aspects of wellness, psychological, spiritual and physical, are a package deal, the whole is more important than the parts. In order to achieve the goals I have for myself I need to face the fact that I am not developing as well psychologically and spiritually, as I am physically. We have grown up in a society where it is O.K. to let our psychological and spiritual wellness suffer. We as a society base wellness on physical appearance and physical symptoms. Personally I need to work on leaving behind these perceptions and looking inward to gage my wellness. I need to look inward and access my spiritual and psychological wellness as often as I look in the mirror at the gym.

II. Assessing My Health: I have read and done my best to apply The Six Principles of Integral Assessment (Dacher, 2006 p. 105). I am not as well as I would like to be spiritually, physically or psychologically. I think that part of the key to wellness in any of these three areas is to never be satisfied or stagnant. We must always aspire to further develop our holistic wellness. Currently my spiritual wellness is what concerns me the most but I am actively working towards being more spiritual. I truly desire wellness in all three areas and will continue to flourish especially now that I have had this class.

III.

Personal Goals: Physical goal-lose weight, and workout more often. Stop stress eating.

Spiritual goal-continue to attend church with my mate, discuss our spiritual goals as a couple and as individuals in order that we can support each other with our spiritual goals. I will chose programming on T.V. that has an aspect of spiritual and psychological stimulation. Im going to watch some T.V. but I was far more satisfied as an individual last night when I watched The Bible on the History channel instead of some of the other (garbage) programming that is available. Psychological goal-I should see a professional who can help guide me towards psychological wellness. In addition I need to continue to value psychological wellness so that it gets the attention it deserves in the future.

IV.

Practices for personal health:

My physical approach goes hand in hand with my psychological approach. I find that I am eating as a response to stress. I need to identify, write down, the areas of my life that are causing me stress and distinguish between the immediate pleasures and those that foster my long term flourishing. I need to eliminate the things, activities, which are not promoting my wellness. In eliminating extra activities I can better manage my time and workout more often. In addition from a physical aspect I can implement Yoga into my workouts, Yoga will help develop all three aspects of wellness. Spiritually I can foster growth by using the meditation practices from this course. I had a wonderful experience with the meditation exercises and I need to set aside time daily to meditate. Saying it is one thing and doing it is another, I know, but I fully intend to practice meditation. The second practice I need to adopt is loving-kindness. I have begun to look at all individuals with love, I need to continue to adopt that mindset and open heartedness in my life. Also I have found a church that I love that is moving me spiritually, I will start going on Wednesday as well as Sunday in order to stimulate my spirituality more than once a week. V. Commitment:

I fully intend to read Dachers book on my own time. I believe making a personal choice to read it on my own time instead of as an assignment will really bring the points home. I would like to be able to assess my progress with Dachers guidance, and I will also look for other books and articles that can help me do the same. Im afraid that once this class is over I will forget how important it feels at this moment to continue along the path of spiritual and psychological wellness so I will review the course material in the months to come.