~Complete the Meeting
Aesclepius mp3 (located in the Doc Sharing area). Describe your meditative
practices for the week and discuss the experience. Explain how mindfulness or
meditation has fostered an increase in your psychological or spiritual
wellness. How can you continue to apply these practices in your life to foster
greater health and wellness?
Oh my goodness… today’s experience had many
elements to it. First, it was actually comical that as I attempted to maintain
focus and participate in the exercise my Husky decided it was time to play and
start slinging her rope toy around on the hardwood floor. I couldn’t help but
laugh. As I picked the person to meditate on I choose a wonderful woman and
mentor I worked with for 6 years. She is such an example to me of wisdom,
compassion, joy, patience, grace, strength, and has a Godly character. If I
could be half the woman she is in my life I would be on the right track. J I chose to meditate and
think about these characteristics as I was guided through the mediation praying
and asking God to develop these in my own life. At the end I did not chose to
participate as led by taking that person into myself because I believe that I
as myself am uniquely created and chosen to be as I am by God. Why would I
choose to take on another person into myself and in my place? Maybe I
misunderstood the instructions but I did not agree with this due to my beliefs.
As expressed above I instead continued to pray and ask God to transform my life
and character to be like this mentor I shared my life and work with. I
enjoyed this time! The music was so relaxing and I felt the meditation focusing on excellent character qualities made for some good prayer and stillness for my
mind despite my distracting puppy desperately attempting to gain my attention.
I don’t really think that meditation has
increased my mindfulness to spiritual wellness. I have practiced aspects of
this in my life past, present, and expect to in the future. But I do feel like I have enjoyed gaining more knowledge and
evidence of how it strengthens the physical. To continue applying this in my life
is important to move toward optimal and integral health. I must take the time
to be still, get quiet, meditate, and pray. Engaging in these activities need
to be more than an assignment for a course but aspects of my daily life. Until
I carve aside a time for it and make it a habit I will not feel the benefits
and effects of it.
~Describe the saying: "One cannot lead another
where one has not gone himself" (p.477). How does this apply to the health
and wellness professional? Do you have an obligation to your clients to be
developing your health psychologically, physically, and spiritually? Why or why
not? How can you implement psychological and spiritual growth in your personal
life?
This saying is important for the life and practice
of any practitioner or leader. We as health care professionals, leaders,
parents, and partners alike must each be working towards mastery of what we
teach. There must be an element of walking the talk in our own lives for their
to be validity to what we prescribe, teach, model, and share with others. With
out this, we are nothing but empty words and a fraud in some respects. It’s
like the Respiratory Therapist that educates and gives care to the patient and
then walks out the hospital room to go take a smoke break. Really!?! We do have
a responsibility to our clients/patients to continue developing our
psychological and spiritual growth. Without this what we provides is empty
without meaning. We will not have the experience and personal testimony
ourselves that is so quick to make or leave an impression upon others if we do not walk this out in our own day to day life.
So, what do you think? Are you that person? Can you say you are living up to the standards that we are learning to lead our clients/patients in?
Unfortunately there are so many individuals that do not practice what they preach and I, for one, think that it decreases their credibility. I agree that responsibility is the key to developing our psychological and spiritual growth and for the understanding of that path as well. If we have not experienced something, even if we can talk about it to a patient, it does not hold its ground when an in-depth understanding of the situation is needed. Obviously there are always going to be things that we will not have knowledge or experience in but in order for us as professionals to help heal someone else in the spiritual or psychological realm we need to look inside ourselves and reach for the goal of human flourishing. Once we explore our inner consciousness it will be easier to lead others to this path as well.
ReplyDeleteI liked your blog, but I really liked your final comment! When it comes to the statement about not being able to lead one where you have not gone yourself, I cannot agree more. There are so many teachers, parents, philosophers and so on who live by the whole motto 'Do as I say, not as I do', but for what? I feel that if a person is being paid to perform a service, they had best represent the goals and ideas of that profession to the "T". Anything other than that to me, is simply unacceptable. Great job this week Ashley!
ReplyDeleteAshley, You did a wonderful job on your blog this week, you are a great writer and you share your experience from your heart which is a breath of fresh air to read. I really enjoyed reading all of the different blogs to see how everybody else viewed this meditation, whether it was useful to others or not. I think it sounds like you have a strong spiritual connection with God which is so important in this life, you were able to connect with a power higher than yourself to seek guidance and support, thank you for sharing this experience with us. Keep up the good work Ashley, I look forward to reading more of your work in the future.
ReplyDeleteMichelle