Running Head: FINAL PROJECT 1

Unit Nine Assignment (Final Project)

Lauren A. Rogers

Purdue Global University

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Unit Nine Assignment (Final Project)

When conducting an interview, I choose an individual from work that I didn’t know

about. I had spent a lot of time on these spirituality and psychological questions and the answers

are below.

Spirituality Questions

1. What does spirituality mean to you?

To me spirituality means being connected to yourself within, allowing you to be more in tune

with your senses which makes you more aware of the things happening around you. Being

spiritually in tune can help in many aspects such as decision making, business, relationships etc.

 I needed to start to see where this person stood in their spirituality, and If they thought it

was like religion. I think it is a common misconception so I had to clarify in case I

needed to do some explaining.

2. Have you experienced being a part of something bigger than yourself?

Yes, I look at society or everyone around me and realize that the world is not only about me. I do

not really volunteer to be part of things that are bigger than me or for recognition, but I still try to

be the best person I can be by giving everyone the same amount of respect and being kind

whether that’d be by holding the door open for the next person or helping a person who dropped

a stack of papers on the floor. Having little impacts on people in society, little by little, may add

up to something big.
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 This is important to realize you are here for a purpose on this earth and that you aren’t

alone. You are always a part of something bigger, as in group, family, universe, nature,

etc.

3. How can you use self-discipline to make improve your spirituality?

I believe self-discipline comes from something you believe in, being disciplined with your

beliefs and following the path you believe you are supposed to take should allow you to be more

confident in yourself. At times confidence is the bridge to improving yourself in all aspects,

especially spiritually, because you are confident in what you believe.

 The 7 Golden Steps to Self-Discipline are: expose your mind to positive messages, hang

out with positive people, determine how badly you want your desired goal, visualize

yourself as already in possessions of the self-discipline required to achieve your goals, set

small and achievable goals, become accountable to somebody, get to work, and act (Mind

Body Breakthrough, 2013). Self-discipline is the backbone to everything spiritual, if you

don’t believe in your values yourself, who will? I think the most important to take from

this to improve spirituality over time is to set SMALL goals.

4. Do you consider to live majority of your life being mindful and in the present moment?

Yes, life is to short not to live in the moment, but I still try to think about possible outcomes from

each decision or action I make because it may affect a future moment that I will also have to live

through.

 “Mindfulness meditation gives us a time in our lives when we can suspend judgment and

unleash our natural curiosity about the workings of the mind, approaching our experience

with warmth and kindness—to ourselves and others” (Mindful Staff, 2014). To see if
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they spend most of their time in the past, present, or future is necessary in someone’s

spirituality.

5. Do you live your life optimistically or pessimistically? Why?

I live life more on the optimistic side. I choose to live seeing the glass half full because I would

rather believe in the good things the world has to offer, knowing there is lots of evil.

Nonetheless, seeing the glass half full does not mean I do not know the glass is not full, and I

have never been okay with just half. I think viewing things like that help with not being content

and going after everything you want.

 Positive thinking opens up more opportunities for you to be successful in your life. When

an event happens, you need to figure out three things: whether the event is temporary or

permanent, pervasiveness (how much of your life is affected by the problem), and how

personal is it (Seligman, 2017).

6. Do you practice any type of spirituality regimen (religion, meditation, yoga, etc.)?

No not really, I don’t have any strong beliefs to religion or anything like that, I think what’s best

for my soul is making people smile and being the best person, I can be.

 Everyone spiritual or not can benefit from practices that involve deep breathing,

stretching, mindful thinking, religion if you choose, etc. Overall it is being open minded

to the different types of therapies that are out there because we all have rough days.

7. Is it easy for you to be able to forgive yourself? Others? What are consequences of this good

and bad?
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Yes, it is easy for me to forgive myself and others. The bad part about being able to forgive so

easily is that it’s hard to forget, which makes it harder to view that person at the same standard at

which you viewed them before. The good part is you never really have to hold a grudge, you just

know where you and that person stand and that gives you clarity on which situations you can and

cannot let them in on.

 Forgiveness is not only important for our physical health but also our mental health, some

of the benefits are: “Healthier relationships, Improved mental health, Less anxiety, stress

and hostility, Lower blood pressure, Fewer symptoms of depression, A stronger immune

system, Improved heart health, Improved self-esteem” (Mayo Clinic, 2017).

8. How much impact do daily life stressors have over your mind? How do you let them effect

you?

I think daily stressors impact me minimally mentally. I try not to let the affect me at all, but I

think the brain still recognizes the stress you are having and holding it in affects me physically,

such as, dry skin, tightened muscled and probably other things that I just have not noticed yet.

 Muscle tension can be an issue with life stressors that you might think aren’t stressing

you out but really are. If they are affecting you physically and not mentally, this is still

affecting you in a negative manner, you’ve just found a way to block it out. Muscle

tension produced through the stress response is primarily isometric in that there is very

little, if any, noticeable change. Yet over time, muscles contracted isometrically begin to

show signs of shortening” (Seaward, 2018). Progressive muscle relaxation is where the

patient when cause tension in their muscles and release them from their feet to their head.
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Some benefits can be to reduce chances of getting TMJ, tension headaches, back ache,

insomnia, etc.

9. Have you had any mystical experiences (near-death, premonitions, insightful dreams,

clairvoyant thoughts, synchronistic moments, etc.)? If so, explain the experiences.

I have had premonitions, near-death and clairvoyant experiences. I believe the difference

between premonitions and near-death experiences are that premonitions are a feeling, that I

actually believe are mostly toward what might happen to other people, and yourself of course.

Near-death experiences are something that have happened that may cause trauma such as a bad

car crash or severe heart attack. I believe clairvoyance is closer to premonition because they both

entail similar things but not exact. I feel clairvoyance is when you know something is going to

happen as where a premonition is just a feeling of something terrible.

 This is important in spirituality because we’ve all had these experiences in one shape or

another and this is how we are all connected. You might have never spoke to a person but

something about them is calling to you, these mystical experiences are something that we

hear about and it is all so amazing.

10. How can you use your human energy field tool to create a stronger bond with the mind-body-

spirit connection?

I can use it by believing in myself and my beliefs, and keeping a good balance in life in all

aspects which will allow my mind, spirit and body to be stronger than ever before.

 Ultimately spirituality is all about mind body spirit connecting. If this is strong,

everything else should fall behind. We all lack in certain areas and can improve, but
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when this feels balanced, we do as a whole being. Physically, mentally, emotionally and

spiritually we will feel at peace.

In conclusion, by doing this interview I found out a lot about this individual spiritually

and psychologically. I can see by this interview that they are highly spiritual and mostly just by

positive energy from the others they are around. They don’t use many practices, but I think they

could benefit from them in a way that some of these daily stressors wouldn’t cause physical

stress to their body, they could relieve it with breathing exercises and such. The fact that they

have good self-worth, are optimistic, forgiving, self-disciplined, and mindful (living mostly in

present); it shows me that they have a good balance of spirituality in their life. To heighten the

effectiveness of my inventory I would probably ask some more detailed questions. Ten questions

are a good start to people able to get to the first layer of their being, but to get a much deeper feel

for their layers of energy, I think I would ask many more questions than this. Overall, this

inventory would give you a good start to understand how your clientele or patients would react to

a given situation.
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References

Mayo Clinic. (04 Nov 2017). Forgiveness: Letting go of grudges and bitterness. Retrieved

from https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-

depth/forgiveness/art20047692

Mind Body Breakthrough. (1 April 2013). 7 Golden Steps to Self-Discipline. Retrieved from

https://waleoladipo.com/the-science-of-self-discipline-7-golden-steps-to-self-

discipline/

Mindful Staff. (08 Oct 2014). What is Mindfulness? Retrieved from

https://www.mindful.org/what-is-mindfulness/

Seaward, B. L. (2018). Managing Stress, Ninth Edition, 9th Edition. [Purdue University Global

Bookshelf]. Retrieved

from https://purdueuniversityglobal.vitalsource.com/#/books/undefined/

Seligman, M. (10 November 2017). Learned Optimism. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YAB6mkMznY