Loving-Kindness Practice

Describe your experience. (Did you find it beneficial? Difficult?) Why or Why not? Would you recommend this to others? Why or Why not?

I found this exercise very interesting and difficult.  I liked the part about imagining someone very close to me that I love and opening my heart to them and also the part about breathing in their suffering and dissolving it in my heart and breathing out wholeness and joy.  Although, I felt sad at imagining their suffering and knowing that in reality I can't just dissolve it.  The part where I had to imagine breathing everyone's suffering in and dissolving it and breathing out health and wholeness to them became very difficult as I imagined the horrific things that people suffer through in their lives.  I didn't feel at peace at all.  I tried to imagine being able to take that suffering away and giving them their wholeness back again and that part felt too unrealistic and hard for me to do, but then at a certain point I realized that if I treat people with loving-kindness maybe I can dissolve even just a piece of their suffering and that would be worth it.  We can't take away the suffering that people experience, but we can treat them with loving-kindness and hope that dissolves some of it or chips away at it.

What is the concept of “Mental Workout? What does the research indicate are the proven benefits of a Mental Work Out? How can you implement mental workouts to foster your psychological health?

Mental workouts are necessary to evolve our psychospiritual life and access its capacities and resources.  If we stop doing physical activity our physical body deteriorates, and the same is true with our minds.  In Integral Health by Elliott Dacher, we practice loving-kindness and the three levels of the subtle mind - witnessing, calm-abiding, and unity consciousness.  These practices tame and train the mind, open the heart, expand consciousness, and progress us toward psychospiritual flourishing.  The introduce us to two wings of integral health: loving-kindness and wisdom. 

I never really thought about mental workouts other than reading and wanting to do crossword puzzles, but never sticking to them.  This really is eye-opening and makes so much sense.  Of course we have to exercise the mind.  If a daily mental workout will bring me to loving-kindness and wisdom I am definitely going to be consistent with it.  I get up early enough in the morning to have time to drink coffee and read for a little while and I am going to start listening to these exercises in the morning to bring myself to greater psychospiritual flourishing. 

Physical, Spiritual, and Psychological Well-Being

Wellness, as a person centered orientation, relies heavily on the concept that the individual is aware of his/her strengths and needs. However there is often little encouragement or expectation for the individual to self reflect or take a holistic personal inventory or to convey their awareness with their health practitioner. Take a moment to reflect on your own level of wellness; physically, psychologically, and spiritually, and then answer the following questions in your blog (journal).

Based on your reflections, and on a scale of 1 to 10 (ten being optimal wellbeing), where do you rate your A-physical wellbeing, B-spiritual well-being, C-psychological well-being? Why?

On a scale from 1-10, I rate my physical well-being a 7 because I have some weight to lose, but I am phsyically active and I am losing weight and I don't have any major injuries or ailments.

On a scale from 1-10, I rate my spiritual well-being a 5 because I don't nurture my spirit with meditation or prayer as often as I would like to. 

On a scale from 1-10, I would rate my psychological well-being a 7 because I tend to have some bouts of depression and negative thinking.

Develop a goal for yourself in each area (physical, spiritual, psychological).

A goal for physical well-being is to increase my walking time from 40 minutes to an hour 4 days/week.

A goal for my spiritual well-being is to spend 5 minutes everyday in prayer/meditation.

A goal for my psychological well-being is to become aware of negative thoughts and turn them around instead feeling self-pity.  

Relaxation Exercise: The Crime of the Century

Describe your experience. (What it beneficial? Frustrating? etc.)

This exercise had me concentrate on a particular area of the body and then imagine a window with a beam of light of a particular color projecting outwards.  Each area represented something.  For example, the stomach near the belly button projecting a bright orange beam of light represented being centered.  I enjoyed this exercise, but at first had a hard time not wanting to associate my own color with a particular area.  Once I really concentrated I could imagine the colors and the symbolic meaning of them.  I liked the emerald green light that represented sharing love as I was really able to imagine sending out a loving thought to someone I love. 

JourneyOn: Autogenic Training

What is autogenic training?  It is a relaxation technique that teaches your body to respond to verbal commands.  The commands "tell" your body to relax and control breathing, blood pressure, heartbeat, and body temperature.  The goal of autogenic training is to achieve deep relaxation and reduce stress.  It consists of six standard exercises that make the body feel warm, heavy, and relaxed. 

Today I tested this technique by listening to an audio tape that led me through the exercise.  The purpose of this exercise was to command blood flow from my body's core to my arms to reduce muslce tension, the number one symptom of stress.  By directing blood to my arms the muscles become saturated and heavy like a wet sponge.  I laid on my back and closed my eyes and took a deep breath.  As I took that deep breath I said the word "relax".  After a few deep relaxing breaths I commanded my blood flow to my arms by thinking to myself that I would like to move the flow of blood from my core to my arms.  I really visualized the blood flowing into my arms and could feel it rushing into and filling my arms making them feel heavy and warm.  As I was doing this I was surprised how my body responded to my command and my visualization.  With each breath I thought to myself that I would like to have a warm and heavy feeling in my arms and hands (and they sure did).  The more I visualized it the more I could actually feel the blood flow into my arms and the warm and heavy feeling that accompanied it.  The audio guided me to continue this thought and visualization for a few minutes and then said to try to lift my arms and that they would not want to.  This was very true... they felt so heavy and warm and relaxed that I did not want to move them and almost like they felt to heavy to do so.  At the end of this exercise I felt very relaxed and aware of my environment and had a good sense of calm surrounding me. 

I tend to get very tense shoulders and will definitely use this technique to help relax those muscles.  This was a great exercise. 

Welcome to my blog

Hello, my name is Sara and this is my wellness blog.  I have always had a strong interest and passion for health, especially nutrition.  I hope to explore and discuss valuable wellness tools that can be used everyday to improve the mind, body, and spirit and bring us to our greatest health.