ABOUT
ME
My ONE Journey...
In the summer of 2014, I hit a point of my life where I knew I needed to change. I recently graduated from college in May and was unemployed. During this time, I was hunting for jobs, left and right, and failing miserably. I was lucky enough that I was living with my family at the time so I was stable, financially. Then one day my oldest brother told me about this holistic development idea he had read about. He said the holistic approach is to balance your activities: physically, emotionally, menantly, and spiritually. It was meant to help alleviate stress on the overall body and teach people to help themselves. My initial thought was, this is nonsense. So, I nodded politely and pretended to listen. When he was finished, I thanked him and replied, “I will try it out” with a smirk upon my face.
Little did I know, that nonsense was going to change my life. After 2 weeks, I thought, since I had so much free time, why not actively try out this holistic approach in my daily activities. I was actively going to the gym and playing tennis so I was covered in the physical requirements. I was relearning materials from my college years and reading current scientific research for my mental activities. I lacked the emotional and spiritual activities . Therefore, I decided to develop my communication skills so I can build better relationships with others, hence working on the emotional side. I took up yoga and meditation practices to work on the spiritual side.
I was able to participate in these activities for about 4 weeks until it all fell apart. After weeks of trying to do all these activities, I felt burnt out. I felt it was too forced and there were always obstacles or distractions in the way. This caused more stress than the holistic approach was meant to solve. So naturally, I gave up on the approach because I was “too busy”. About a month went by and the holistic thought was reintroduced into my thoughts. I began to wonder why I was more stressed during those weeks. I pondered for quite some time and came to the conclusion that perhaps, I needed to systematically program my time. I needed to visually see all my past, present, and future times.
I started to strategically plan and map out how I was going to accomplish this holistic method. With the help of an excel spreadsheet, google calendar, and countless papers, I was able to plan how I wanted to spend my time. The concept was simple enough. I needed to split my time into these improvement areas: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. All the other events were standard normal activities. These included sleeping, getting ready for the day, going to work, driving; normal activities that are outside of my improvement categories.
The action plan was to work on these 4 categories over the next 6 months and track my progress. So, for my physical development I wanted to focus on 3 main activities: weight lifting, tennis, and cardio running. On the emotional side, I spent time with my family and friends. For mental development, I studied physiology, statistics, nutrition, and human development. As for spiritual development, I practiced yoga and meditation. This was a slow and ongoing process that ultimately allowed me to find purpose in my everyday events.
The result of this plan allowed me to change and advance forward. My physical body felt more energetic. My muscles were toned and I was stronger than I was before. I became more empathetic and understanding of others. I could communicate at a deeper level. My memory retention was longer. I could feel as though my neuro processing pathway was faster and more efficient from my self assurance. I was calm and composed. These benefits were the result of the program.
Now I understand that there is no actual scientific proof that these benefits were the direct effect of the program and it was only my own personal journey. But it stands without reason that I did change and became a different version of myself. This was a plan that was catered to me so it was unique in its own way. I acknowledge that this will not work for everyone and that everyone’s balance plan will be different but there is a common core parameter that everyone can work off of and build upon. These 4 categories can lead others to change in their way and find their own sense of balance. It is entirely up to the individual.