Unit 9 final project

My Plan for Integral Health
Fatima Lazim
Kaplan University
HW420


My Plan for Integral Health
I Introduction:
“Integral Health is a perspective on health, personal transformation, and optimal well-being that addresses the entire range of human experience: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, interpersonal, and sociocultural.” (Integral Health Resources). Starting with our body, we should realize that the body is the context in which the brain and the spirit connect. Therefore, no one could dispute the importance of physical health as an essential component of integral health. On the other hand, we deal with our mental health that influences our physical being as well as our spiritual being. In a physical sense, the East say our mental life can affect our body like writing on water, on sand, or on a stone. Light mental disturbance disappear rapidly from our mind and body just like when writing on water with a figure, stronger disturbance will stay longer like writing on the sand with our finger, but huge traumas will be like engraving in a stone and will leave a permanent mark on our mind and body as well as soul (Dacher, 2006, p. 19). Nevertheless, the spiritual aspect of our health is the unseen, but felt part of our being. Think of it as a newborn with the best breast milk, but no kindness or love provided, what do you think will happen to the newborn? Will he thrive? The answer is no and he may even die. Our spirit is as important as our body and mind. The healer is a key ingredient for the success of his healing approaches. Education alone will not grant the healer or practitioner the opportunity to achieve integral health for his patients. On the other hand, mastering integral health is a hands-on learning process. Incorporating the integral process into the practitioner’s life will enable the discovery of profound possibilities of integral health and healing. Knowing firsthand how we can achieve integral health will give us the insight to help other do the same. After all, we cannot preach what we do not practice, therefore our honest advice would be the one we applied on ourselves first (Dacher, 2006, p. 167). In my own experience, I realized my need to devote more time for my spiritual flourishing. I do practice breathing and visualization exercises, yet I think I need to do more.
II Assessment:
An honest and accurate assessment of our cultural level of development will allow us to plan for the future. There are six principles to integral assessment:
• Alleviate needless suffering
• Recognize the short-term relief and the permanent relief.
• It recognizes the distinction between immediate pleasure and long-term flourishing.
• Psychospiritual development is an essential component of integral health.
• Integral assessment relies on deep listening and guidance.
• Integral assessment addresses the aspects, levels, and lines of development that are available to our current circumstances. (Dacher, 2006, pp. 105-106)
The assessment that I have done on myself revealed that I lack in my interpersonal quadrant. I would say I am on level one on my development in this quadrant. Although my body, mind, and spirit are all underdeveloped interpersonally, yet I am on the right track to enhance my spirituality through the exercises that I learned like the loving-kindness and the visualization exercise. Psychospiritual, biological and worldly developments are all where I want them to be and I am happy with the results, yet nothing wrong with more improvements and commitments.

III Goal development:
Setting goals for the future is to add further lines and levels to my developments in the four integral quadrants. On my physical level I need to work on my self-regulation. Although I follow a healthy diet and do my best to stay physically active within the range my back injury allows me, yet I do need to self-regulate my homeostasis through a mind/body practices to break the cycle of stress. Psychological, I need to control unneeded emotions and sufferings. I tend to react very emotionally to situations and for a very long time I did not know how to work on this problem. What I learned is that intentions are very close to attentions and subtle mind, breathing exercises, and meditation could help me hold my attention on a certain experience and train my mind to recall positive images and feelings in bad situations which will help balance the negative emotions and help me put a tight lid on my reactions. Last my goal on my spiritual level is to be able to maintain what I already achieved and may be try to pass it to others. I would love to be an inspiration and influence for people to explore their spiritual side and feel the connection between their inside and the universe.

IV Practices for personal health:
First we should know that all integral practices should be supported by inner development, second is that integral practices should be based on the individual’s specifics needs and the totality of the available resources (Dacher, 2006, pp. 119-120).
Ken Wilber’s had a vision to reach an integral health point in which we achieve three goals; profound and enduring health, happiness, and wholeness (Dacher, 2006, p. 3). Integral mean from the inside out, so what I want to do is to start with my body, then my mind, and ending with my spirit to revolutionize the way I acquire health, happiness, and wholeness.
Physically I ride my bike every day, especially early in the morning or at night to clear my mind from all the chatter; it really calm me down and give me clarity.
I also like to do breathing exercises because I do believe that engaging my brain and body in the rhythmic movement of breathing benefit me manage my back pain and tension headaches.
Psychospiritually, I do loving-kindness and visualizations exercises; both help me balance the negative energy and give me a feel of peace, satisfaction, and happiness. Counting my blessing through the loving-kindness exercise or by recalling the wealth of happy memories that God gifted the human mind to store is priceless for me.
Spiritually I believe in God existence and that alone got me through so many hard times and heartbreak. I practice prayer every day and if I skip my prayer I feel guilty and disconnected from God, so I will have to continue my praying. The other thing that helps me spiritually is to help others. I cannot walk by a poor person or injured animal without helping. I believe that we are here for a reason and the universe is connected somehow. When God send a person in need our way, it is like God is helping us redeem ourselves or feel better, so I never waste the chance and it really enlighten my spirit to make someone happy. In the future I really wish I can find a job where I can do both my job and help others at the same time because that would be my dream comes true.

V Commitment:
I would be assessing and re-assessing my integral health using Dacher four quadrants and their lines and levels of development. I have been on the road of integral health for a while now and it is just getting better. I assume in six months I would master the contemplative practices that I learned about. In order for me to maintain my progress I would like to get involved in some kind of compassionate service, provide mentorship to those who would like to learn about integral health, and above all continue to commit to prevention approach to health rather than treatment when it is late. As I said before I have been working on my goal of integral health for over a year now and I think in six months I will be in a better place than today thanks to all the knowledge I got in this class.



References
Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing (p. 19).
Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing (p. 167).
Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing (p. 105-106).
Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing (p. 119-120).
Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing (p. 3).
Integral Health Resources. Retrieved Sunday 25, 2010 from http://www.integralhealthresources.com/