Sarah A CalhounHW420: Creating WellnessUnit 9 Final Project

I Introduction:

In the fast-paced, stressful, overworked and underappreciated society that American adults live in

today, it is imperative that health and wellness professionals, particularly, work to develop and maintain

their psychological, spiritual and physical wellness in order to offer their clientele the best support.

Some of the best encouragement comes from experience, and there is certainly no better teacher! In

my personal life, I feel I have room for improvement in all three areas. However, instead of being

discouraged that I am not where I want to be, I see it as an opportunity to develop and grow so I can put

my best foot forward.

Psychologically, I maintain a fairly regular state of collectiveness. I rarely stress, I stay organized,

and I appropriately vent when I need to instead of bottling up. Life experience (and just a touch of

OCD!) have helped me to be a planner, which enables me to be less frazzled and much more relaxed. I

do want to incorporate more daily meditation and deep breathing techniques into my routine in hopes

of achieving an even organized mindset, and I personally believe there is no such thing as too much

mental clarity.

In the spiritual realm, I definitely feel as though I am lacking. I deliberately connect with my

creator only once or twice a month, to my own dismay. I think I could benefit from implementing prayer

and self-reflection along with my daily meditation, and I would likely experience a higher sense of

purpose and of self.

At this very moment physically, I am nearly two weeks post-op, and I have subsequently not

been keeping physically fit as I was before surgery. I will not be cleared to work out until about four

weeks post-op, with heavy cardio and lifting not recommended until at least six. That being said, I am

trying to be cautious with my nutrition and calorie intake, as well as engaging in even the slightest form

of exercise, so long as it does not aggravate my incisions or get my heart rate up. After my physician

Sarah A CalhounHW420: Creating WellnessUnit 9 Final Project

clears me for physical activity, I will be more than thrilled to get back into my exercise routine, which

starts with a 45-minute cardio leg/butt workout first thing in the morning and ends with a relaxing 75-

minute yoga session just after dinner, 5 days a week. I also teach bellydance for an hour two nights a

week which adds a little of everything—core, cardio, stretching, chest, arms, and legs.

II Assessment:

I have assessed my health in each of the three domains by comparing the knowledge I have gained over

the term with information from online health assessments and our required reading.

I would score my current spiritual wellness at about a four, unfortunately. However, as I

mentioned, this is merely an opportunity to grow, learn, and open myself up to connect with my

creator, practice calm-abiding, and accept change in the form of divine intervention and spiritual

awareness. As all truly great things take time, I do not feel I can realistically give myself an ultimate date

of expected change, but I do hope that my spiritual wellness score can come up to an eight or nine in

the next year.

Physically, my wellness ranks around a four also, due to post-operative condition and a slight

cold. Minor details aside, my physical wellness generally sits around a seven or eight, which I am fairly

content with. I do hope that when I am cleared to resume physical activity, I can approach it with new

gusto and appreciation since I have been physically unable for the last couple of weeks. I would also like

to see this domain around a nine or ten.

I believe my psychological wellness is what has kept me so healthy! I would score my

psychological wellness around a nine of ten. In general, I have a very positive, sunny outlook on life and

I truly believe that attitude is everything. I have found that an optimistic approach to any obstacle

makes it less threatening, more amenable, and achievable. I like to try to keep on the sunny side, as it

truly seems to make even the worst complication seem tolerable. I feel the best way for me to maintain

Sarah A CalhounHW420: Creating WellnessUnit 9 Final Project

my positive outlook is to deliberately see that silver lining when it seems there is only a dark sky on the

horizon.

III Goal development:

In my physical domain, my next attainable goal is to achieve and maintain my goal weight. I have lost

more than thirty-five pounds since the birth of my youngest, and it is the last ten pounds that seem to

give me the most trouble. I know to realistically reach this goal, I have to stay on track with my

nutrition, (using nutritional tracking software seems to help most), persist in my daily exercise routine,

especially on days when I don’t feel like it.

This leads into my goal for my psychological domain— I am determined to see myself as the

fantastic, smart, confident woman that everyone else seems to take me for. Not that I don’t value

myself, but I definitely must get better about putting myself at the top of my own priority list. I know

that when I take care of myself first, I feel better about myself, I have more patience, and I feel as

though everyone, especially my husband and kids, get the best version of me, too.

To remember to tend to myself spiritually is difficult, at best. It is almost as though I pack my

day with so many extraneous elements that I feel as though I don’t have the time to be spiritual.

Unfortunately, I can no longer afford to embrace such a hurried attitude. I am fully ware that spiritual

wellness is an integral part of my healing journey and I need to develop that domain in my own life

before I can fully give my best self to others. That being said, my goal is to nurture my spiritual wellness,

connect with my creator, and get to know my authentic self.

IV Practices for personal health:

For me, conquering the physical domain is the most easily achievable. I value my physical health and

being a personal trainer, I am easily motivated to maintain it. Because I am already in good physical

condition, exercise comes naturally and proper nutrition follows. However, there is always room for

Sarah A CalhounHW420: Creating WellnessUnit 9 Final Project

improvement, so I plan to implement two strategies to foster growth in my physical health domain. The

first is to bring on one or two clients for personal training per week to keep me fit and preserve my

personal training and communication skills. I will do this by creating business cards, a website, and

working on small advertising to attract clientele. Then, I will tailor a fitness program for each client,

which fits my schedule and theirs, and continue to get the word out. The second strategy is to design

and maintain a nutritious eating plan for the whole family to encourage healthy eating and nutritious

habits. I have a husband who works evening shift and two preschoolers who want nothing but

independence from obligations such as eating to contend with, but I am determined to sit everyone

down and thoughtfully draw up a meal plan we can all agree on. Armed with nutritional standards that I

want to see met, and reasonable food choices to appease everyone’s taste buds and schedules, I think

we can come up with a family-friendly menu.

The psychological domain is a touchy one, but certainly one that seems to be in working order in

my personal life. Because my goal is to see myself in a more positive light, two exercises I believe will be

beneficial are to implement a daily mantra and take time for myself every day. I would like to

implement a mantra that reminds me that I am smart, happy, healthy, and giving my best every single

day, and I would ideally repeat this mantra throughout the day as necessary. Taking time for myself at

all is difficult, so remembering to put myself first on a daily basis is going to be tough. However, if I keep

my goal manageable and reasonable, such as 30 minutes in the morning (before everyone wakes up, of

course), to reflect, pray, connect, breathe, appreciate, and love, I am certain the results would be nearly

immediate and they would definitely present a win-win situation. Knowing that I am taken care of

allows me to take better care of everyone else’s needs.

My spiritual domain needs a makeover. I try justifying that I have my own relationship with God

and that we talk frequently, but in truth, my spiritual health is lacking. To address this deficiency, two

Sarah A CalhounHW420: Creating WellnessUnit 9 Final Project

things I want to put into practice are attending weekly church service and committing to fully embarking

on my journey to my authentic self. Our church has service so many times a week that I get rushed and

hurried and I almost trick myself into thinking that we have to go as a family or not at all. Though I

prefer making church a family affair, the truth is that I could go alone early every Sunday morning and

be back before my house is even awake. Maybe when it is in my weekly habit to just go to church, the

rest of the household will follow suit. My journey to my authentic self starts with self-awareness and

appreciation for all that I have been blessed with. In my daily meditation, I want to employ self-

discovery techniques, deep breathing, gratitude, and calm-abiding that I may eventually realize and

welcome my true, authentic self.

V Commitment:

Over the next six months, I will do a few different thing to assess my progress or lack thereof. First, I

would like to keep a journal—one that documents moods, feelings, awareness, goals, milestones, and

encouragement. Another tool I will use is this assignment! Someone once said that goals are much

more likely to be attained when they are on paper, so I will print it out as a daily reminder of where I

want to be. Additionally, should I find that my goals are not being met, I will set aside a ‘plan B’ to

include lots of self-encouragement to reach my goals so as not to discourage myself if I fall short. I

believe if I can implement the aforementioned strategies into my daily round for the upcoming six

months, they will become habits and maybe, eventually, I won’t have to track them so closely.