Personal Statement: Achieving Professional Development Goals Through Mindfulness

Jordan (2009, p. 168) defines mindfulness “as an individual learning process characterized by a heightened awareness of the specific circumstances in a given situation”. I work with Veterans and each patient is unique in their own past experiences and things they have been exposed to. I am mindful in order to deliver safe, quality, and effective patient care. I recover anywhere from 9-19 veteran patients a day, each with different backgrounds and I have to be mindful on how I approach them as they recover from anesthesia. Some veterans awake with flashbacks, and need special patient specific assistance. Upon discharge home, I review their discharge instructions on a level that the patient understands. I am flexible in my teaching and communication based on each patient. Traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and other neurologic disorders are all taken into consideration and my mindfulness allows me to be patient, flexible, and non-judgmental. Being mindful and compassionate allows an excellent healing environment for our patients to be cared for.

An emotionally intelligent individual manages personal situations and relationships with balance and care. Daniel Goleman, a psychologist and author, believes the four domains of emotional intelligence are self-awareness, self-management, empathy, and the combination of the above. When these four domains work congruently it stabilizes an individual in both work and home relationship (Goleman, 2013). A human service worker offers an effective service to the client when socially balanced and focused on developing healthy levels of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is demonstrated both in the workplace and at home by how situations

Often in the social work field, a clinical will hear the term emotional intelligence and the five domains associated with it, which are relationships, tolerance, flexibility, self-management, and emotional awareness. There are many different definitions of emotional intelligence, but it has been described as the ability to motivate oneself and continue in the face of frustrations; to manage impulse and delay gratification; to regulate ones moods and keep distress from overtaking the ability to think; to empathize and to hope (Morrison, 2007). Regarding the social work field, emotional intelligence is something that all clinicians need to be aware of and how it applies. A clinician needs to be able to listen and build empathy when working with others, understand non-verbal communication and its effects, and have self-awareness of how working with others can affect the clinician emotionally (Morrison, 2007). It is crucial to be able to monitor your own feelings and emotions as well as being able to monitor your client’s feelings and emotions.

This paper is about my experience with mindfulness based meditation and scientific inquiry of these experiences. Mindfulness based meditation is describes as technique used to cultivate nonreactive, non-judgmental and stable awareness of the present moment (Garland and Gaylord, 2009). The end goal is to sustain this meta-cognitive state for a long period of time. I practiced non-denominational form of mindfulness based meditation for the first time in my psychology class, which was devoted towards intellectual and experiential examination of meditation. The practice was conducted in a group it was instructed by our own professor and it begun at the end of class. There was one sessions per week and each session was structured meaning it was

can put you in the mindfulness moment with the client. By being a mindful listener as a therapist,

Because mental health counselors are susceptible to burnout, which may negatively affect their clients, it is ethically imperative that they practice self-care. There is a growing body of research supporting the positive effects of mindfulness in facilitating counselor effectiveness, but little is known about the link between the practice of mindfulness and the rate of counselor burnout. The research proposal discussed in this article seeks to examine the link between mindfulness and counselors’ ability to practice effectively without experiencing

This source helps provide an idea of how mindfulness will play a role in our healthcare today and the future. I want to use this source for that specific reason and to show its role in my own chosen profession of a physician. The article discusses many costs saving measures when mindfulness is applied and there is a potential of billions to be saved.

Today is the last day of my 15-unit TESOL certificate program at UCR extension. Quite proud of myself that I have successfully completed 25 units through the spring to the summer quarter. There were a lot of struggling and hardship during the past 5 months, but eventually I overcome all of the difficulties and received my certificate. Therefore, I will not stop chasing my dream of switching the career to education.

Josephine P. Briggs, M. (2010, June 25). Exploring the Power of Meditation. Retrieved from National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health: https://nccih.nih.gov/about/offices/od/2010-06.htm

Most people hear about meditation from their families and friends but have little knowledge of what the practice actually entails. Before joining my Masters Program in the field led by my experienced and knowledgeable Professor Sophie Sore, I was both nervous and excited. I had no prior experience with meditation neither visualization and had was still unsure of how the learning experience would turn out. My friends had made comments that they had “ lost their minds “after their meditation experience. With no doubt, this made me skeptical about the program but my intuition led me to one of the greatest and enlightening paths that I would ever undertake in my life.

I am a born leader. Even when I am not looking for leadership opportunities they always seem to fall into my lap. My life has been one that is based on service to others, so I regularly volunteer for committees and extend myself to help others. It is important to me to be the best teacher I can, I regularly attend professional development sessions and implement my new learning in the classroom. However, upon starting the Teacher Leadership Master’s program at Lamar University, I was just beginning my career as a teacher leader. I had not had many opportunities to show leadership outside of my grade-level team. During team planning meetings, I normally directed the discussions. My coworkers looked to me for guidance and interpretation of the curriculum. I regularly made suggestions about teaching strategies. Additionally, I was a member of various campus committees including the Campus Performance Objective Committee (CPOC) where worked together with campus administrators and community partners to develop the Campus Improvement Plan. However, I did not view these tasks as leadership opportunities.

The primary topics I experienced this week included: mindfulness, stress, and the environment. This experience presented an introduction into self-discovery and the affects that the environment positions on an individual’s ability to acquire mindfulness. This consumption rests alleviated with the support of meditation, which taught me the importance of erasing distractions and concentration this week. Though meditation, individuals remain qualified to appreciate the simplest forms of life – breaths and movement. Individuals exist so apprehensive with meeting the requirements and expectations of an ideal life that they ignore the aspects of life they keep them alive. Without the simplicity of these forms, the complexities of life would not endure.

Choosing a career in medicine is my first career choice, and in many ways it is the only career choice I want. From professional athletes that we see on television, to the educators that have taught me and many others through the years, they all have committed themselves to extensive study. They have practiced countless of hours to master their individual skill set for their profession. I see myself following in the same footsteps, but as a pediatrician. I want to also master the skills that it takes to be a great doctor. It may not be simple and the outcome may not be near, but with extensive studying and practice I want to achieve and master the set of skills of pediatric diagnosis and eventually improve the medical process. This is my

Before taking the class, and before really understanding the benefits of mindfulness, I must admit, I did not really take mindfulness exercises seriously. I tried a few exercises, led by a phone application, but I constantly wondered what these exercises were supposed to achieve. I always thought to myself, “I know what happens around me, being mindful is great, but specific exercises for this seemed exaggerated.”

The first experience that I thoroughly enjoyed and will be examining, is the insightful discussion and mindfulness meditative exercise conducted by the guest speaker, Bob McClure. Bob’s perceptive talk about the