HW420 Creating Wellness – Spiritual and Psychological Aspects 1

of Healing

Personal Inventory

Nick Waddell

Unit 9 assignment

HW420 Creating Wellness

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Personal Inventory

At the onset of this course I was under the impression now is going to have a great deal

of difficulty with the assignments. I do not adhere to much mainstream religious teachings and

prefer to approach a lot of my problems from a fact based and objective standpoint. Eventually I

was able to frame my mind so that I could still understand the necessity before the intangible in

life. This became my approach to the idea of spiritual wellness. Understanding things and

allowing myself to not have to understand things that cannot be fully explained All of these skills

came to a culmination point at a time when they would become extremely necessary for me to

have in my toolkit. On December 11th Bagram Airfield was the site of a significant ground

attack that started with a large improvised explosive device. Several of my Soldiers were within

200 meters of the blast. Most of them are very young and are on their first deployment. This was

a turning point for those Soldiers as they had not yet experienced the reality of war. Over the

next several days the skills that I learned in this class would be the basis for my guidance to these

young Soldiers to ensure that they would be capable of performing their daily duties again.

Meditation can be an important element to personal health goals. Being able to calm

oneself and regain control of one’s mental and spiritual wellness will help to stay in a healthy

frame of mind and reframe any problems that a person might face. But meditating might not

always be easy, and some people might not really understand what meditation means. I'm by no

means a meditation expert, but I wanted to make sure that I could help my Soldiers calm down

when they were clearly very distraught. I taught them about the mindfulness approach to

meditation, about focusing on the present, and just learning to be still. This method seemed to

help a couple of the Soldiers who were coming to terms with the idea of their own mortality. I
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remember from my own experience that learning about this as a teenager was a very difficult

concept. I think that the mindfulness meditation approach help give him something else to focus

on.

When the ground attack occurred, eight of my Soldiers were isolated from their weapons

and body armor. At that point they only had each other to rely upon in order to get to safety.

When I was able to finally speak with them after the attack, I was able to review with them how

they had each followed the Army's core values. It was clear to me that prior to this experience

the Soldiers had regarded the values as just words. After such a significant life event, these

words brought new meaning and they could see how living those values had helped protect each

other and themselves.

Physical activity is my own personal form of therapy. It gives me time to work out my

frustration and helps me call my mind. One of the biggest issues facing these young Soldiers was

that they were in the gym when the explosion occurred. For a few this threw into sharp relief the

necessity for physical readiness in a time of war. For others this would create a feeling of anxiety

when engaging in strenuous physical activity again.

Another abstract concept I encouraged my Soldiers to practice was forgiveness for self.

Some of them admitted that they were extremely fearful during the attack. Others were ashamed

that they hadn't taken their weapon with them. And yet another was upset that he didn't go to

fight. I had to let the Soldiers know that it was not their fault for what happened. Sometimes bad

things just happen in the world and beating yourself up about it is not going to make the situation

better. I encouraged them to forgive themselves for the burden they were bearing. I found that I

had to forgive myself as well. During the attack I found myself a half mile away from my
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Soldiers with no way to get to them. This personal forgiveness was extremely necessary for me

to get on about my daily duties.

Hydration is one of those givens of military life. We're often told to drink water and drive

on. Drinking water can fix a lot of ailments. However, this can be extremely relevant to the point

of my Soldiers on this day. Some of them told me that they felt extremely dizzy and had

headaches. While some of these maladies could easily be from shock or from potential

concussive damage, most of them turned out to be dehydrated. This led to a conversation about

maintaining proper hydration and always being ready.

Nutrition, just as important as hydration, is an important aspect to ensuring that the mind

and body can operate at peak efficiency. During the attack on Bagram Airfield we found

ourselves locked down and sheltered in place for nearly 16 hours. Depending on a person's

location, they may not have had access to a great deal of food. My Soldiers suddenly realized

that maintaining a proper diet before there's an emergency is something that can help during an

emergency. Those that maintained a diet of burgers and fries found that they were much hungrier

than their counterparts who maintained a more balanced diet. Coincidentally the Soldiers that

maintained a more balanced diet were also or mentally balanced and coherent throughout the

experience.

Even before these significant events I regularly encouraged my Soldiers to be more

socially interactive with each other. Our unit maintains a very small but enduring presence in

Afghanistan. Having personal relationships with other people can help to ensure that business

can be conducted more smoothly. After a significant event it's important for the Soldiers to

understand that they are valued and important. The best way to show this is by supporting each

other by being there for each other.

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It's always important to have a hobby that you enjoy. This can help you as a grounding

function when you find yourself isolated and away from familiar surroundings and family. I

know that a lot of my Soldiers enjoy playing video games with each other or by themselves

period I personally like to read or exercise. I encouraged the Soldiers to have a hobby that

improves them rather than something that simply distracts them. Having a hobby that you can

see a discernible improvement in can make it a more rewarding experience.

Finally, and especially after this class, I've started encouraging people to accept the

unexplainable aspects of life. Sometimes things just happen and we can't come up with a ready

explanation. I've kept myself up at nights for years wondering why not me and why someone

else. This is not a healthy way to go through life and sometimes we just have to accept that

things happen. This acceptance can have a tie in with personal forgiveness.

Reviewing my project seems like I’m writing a paper for how to deal with combat stress.

As I think about it, mind and body wellness steps are effectively steps to help returning the mind

to a state of homeostasis, just like we’d want to return the body. All of this mindfulness and

wellness leads to a state of the mind and body being in balance and functioning as ideally as

possible.
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References

ARMY.MIL Features. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.army.mil/values/.

Edwards, C. L., Ruby, P. M., Malinowski, J. E., Bennett, P. D., & Blagrove, M. T. (2013,

December 24). Dreaming and insight. Retrieved from

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3872037/.

Winston, D., Rockman, P., Ostaseski, F., Kuyken, W., Hunter, J., Sofer, O. J., … Newman, K.

M. (2018, December 13). How to Practice Mindfulness. Retrieved from

https://www.mindful.org/how-to-practice-mindfulness/.