Unit 9 Project

1. Psychology, spirituality, and physiology are important as it determines own our abilities, such as dealing with everyday stresses, being able to have a contribution to society and our communities, and resiliency to the ups and downs of life. Personally, the goal that I have is to create a more spiritual connection within myself. For years, I put myself on the back burner to provide a stable environment for my children when they were younger. Now that I have an empty nest, I am looking forward to the next stage in my life without children. How I use that time is definitely up to me, but I am willing to take some steps in finding whatever that outcome may be.

2. I like to use the one to ten approach in scoring myself. I would have to say that I score a 6 in spirituality. I am very interested in meditation and know that there is a higher power that has something in store for me as I go along. I have yet to go to a professional advisor such as a yogi, to learn about meditative practices, but I have been researching what is available in my area and hope to make a leap sometime after the New Year. Physically, I see myself as a 5. I sit on the fence with exercise and a healthier diet. I know what I need to do and have the means and tools to do it, but job stress makes it easy to use it as an excuse, for me to stray from my plan. I know that I need to rein in my stress habits and I am working on it. Psychologically, I see an 8. I feel that I have done very well at this point in my life (43), considering the rocky start that I chose for myself at a young age. My life is constantly in review and I know that I cannot change what has occurred, but I can learn from the mistakes. I don’t spend my time wondering what could have been nor do I want to go back in time to change things either.

3. Physically, my goal is to control my stress eating. Psychologically, to continue to maintain my same level of thinking without major bumps in the road, and spiritually, to increase my inner awareness to a higher level.

4. Physically, my strategies are to control eating habits and exercise. I know it is so cliché, but it is a necessary component of good health physically and mentally. Psychologically, well I need to control the job stresses. The goal is to not internalize the drama that is the work place, and not to sweat the small stuff. To try to let things just roll off the cuff and leave the workplace where it belongs, out of my home. Spiritually, I hope to start a meditation or yoga class. I don’t know if I will start it this year but I do know that after the New Year, I will start attending a program. Just to say that this is not coinciding with New Year resolutions, I gave that up a long time ago, but just because of my time constraints this year. I don’t like to start things so late in the year.

5. Well, the physical part is not bad. I know this sounds hokey, but I use a calendar and gold stars to track my progress with eating habits. If I stay on track, I use a gold star. If I overeat, I put on a red star. Usually, I can spot the trends in color. If I had a bad day or days, I know when that was and what the upset was. So I try to brace myself for those days that I know that I might have issues. I also have a calendar for exercise as well. I like to see the gold stars lined up week after week. I know it sounds stupid, but when I don’t exercise and not see the star, I kind of beat myself up, for a few minutes then I go on and try to keep the good streak up. As for the spiritual, I have a few leads on several meditative and yoga programs in my area. Because I have never tried meditative practices, I won’t know if I like it until I try it, but I’m sure that it will be a good thing.