Universal Loving-Kindess

Wow! What a powerful exercise. For 10 minutes I read aloud the following:
May all individuals gain freedom from suffering.
May all individuals find sustained gain freedom from suffering.
May I assist all individuals gaining freedom from suffering.
May I assist all individuals in finding gain freedom from suffering. 

After completing the exercise I feel connected to the world! I feel like my love is out in the universe giving people strength and positive energy for their hardest conflicts. I feel like my love can impact the world! This was an amazingly powerful exercise.

Reading the phrases out loud made my intentions more real than if I’d read them silently to myself. As I grew comfortable with the words I actually stood up, raised my voice and declared the words with conviction and real intention!! Wonderful!

Random Thoughts Exercise

I am completing this assignment on the last day of the school week. I’m barely fitting it in between work, my husband, preparing for Thanksgiving, and shoveling snow. As I sat down to listen to the subtle mind exercise my mind everywhere. I could call this exercise the random thoughts exercise. I couldn’t keep my focus on my breath and I could barely stand to spend 20 minutes sitting still. I wish the circumstances of my day didn’t have such an effect on my ability to grow from this exercise, but it did. There were, gratefully, a few moments of true introspection in which I was able to witness my thoughts and let them drift away as I focused on my breath.

The loving kindness exercise from last week focused outside my body; I was focusing on loved ones and even strangers. This subtle mind exercise focused internally. I had an easier time last week when the exercise gave me a person, a loved one to direct my thoughts to.

These exercises are all part of the integral health process which aims to increase one’s overall health. The spiritual, mental, and physical parts are all connected and therefore if one is not healthy, all are not healthy. On the flip side improvements made in one area positively affect the others. I experience this most noticeably when I am not exercising regularly. If I feel dragged down and out of shape physically my mental fitness and spiritual wellbeing are also unfit.

Loving Kindness Meditation

Listening to the first two tracks of the Integral Health's accompanying CD I tried to experience and pass along loving kindness. Dacher describes loving kindness as “embracing others” (p 51), “a heart to heart connection” (p 51) and “a practice to open our hearts to other and gradually diminish self-centeredness” (p 65). I started the CD and focused my thoughts first on my husband. I felt a warm surge come from deep in my abdomen and a much focused energy on the love I have for him. After only a few minutes of sending that feeling to him my phone rang. It was my husband calling to check in. We tend to “check in” with each other once or twice a day, just to see how the other person is doing. I immediately asked why he’d called at the moment?? What he feeling something particularly loving?? Laughed and asked why…and that yes, he’d felt a quick surge of warm feelings and called. I was amazing as was he when I told him what I’d been doing. I’m still very excited about that experience, and excited to put this meditation to practice.

The concept of a mental workout is similar to a physical work out. In order to move beyond rest and relaxation and into a “progressive development of an expanded consciousness and its healing capacities” the practices must be part of one’s everyday life. Research has shown that by doing contemplative practices one can change their brain’s neural pathways which can have a positive impact on attention, memory, perception and imagery (Dacher, 2006).

Dacher, E. (2006). Integral Health: The Pathway to Human Flourishing. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications, Inc.

Today!

I took my own advice and went to a yoga class today!!! It was amazing and I feel GREAT!

Rainbow Relaxation

The Crime of the Century (Rainbow) relaxation technique did not work for me. Imagining the colors was very distracting for me. I got stuck on imagining fruit; apple for red, oranges for orange, bananas…etc. I tried very hard to get pass that distraction but the harder I tried the more I was stuck. I enjoyed the phrases to repeat; I am grounded, I am centered, etc. I find that positive inner talk is very powerful. "My life has a meaningful purpose, my life has a meaningful purpose" Just saying it can be so uplifting.

I rate my physical wellbeing at 8. I’m in good physical shape because I have been active my whole life and have never have any extremely demanding or harmful physical experiences such as a car accident or being pregnant. Over the years I’ve become a fair-weather runner meaning that if the sun is shining I’m out there running. A goal I have for myself is to run even in cloudy, cold weather. Ultimately I’d like to be running four times a week. Another goal is to take another yoga class. I’ve done yoga in the past and enjoyed it very much.

I rate my spiritual wellbeing at 6. The lower rating here is because I’m often restless in my soul. I struggle with questions of what, how, and where am I going in my life? Am I making the right choices? Is time just slipping by? I have a wonderful husband, a great job, an amazing family and good friends; and still I’m uneasy at times. My goal in this area is to find peace; even if the peace is intermittent. The activity I feel would help the most with is mindful meditation. I’ve been reading more and more about meditation partly through school and partly on my own. Whenever I actually make the effort to meditate I enjoy great success in the quieting of my restless soul. I need to do it more.

I rate my psychological wellbeing at 7. I feel that I have almost complete self-acceptance of all the good and bad inside myself. There are always parts to work on but I have very relaxed with myself. It’s like I can step back and look at my spiritual uneasiness, acknowledge it and be okay with its presences. My goal in this area is to maintain my objectivity of my life and be kind to myself as I follow the journey of my life. An activity that would help improve my psychological wellbeing is journaling. Have perspective is so powerful when it comes to judging one’s self. Journaling could give me that viewpoint.