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.
Hello Sara,
ReplyDeleteI am one who also never really thought about mental workouts. I think it will be kind of hard for me to to do mental workouts. Whenever I am trying to focus on something that is really not that interesting to me I tend to think about every thing else instead of what I am suppose to be concentrating on. It's probably because I do not have any mental training at all what-so-ever.
Sara, I also had the same experiences as you with this practice. I found it to become more difficult as it went on and could not allow myself to become fully relaxed. I did enjoy the part of thinking of a loved one, that gave me a sense of peace at the beginning but then got lost along the way.
ReplyDeleteI like your thoughts on mental workout. I believe that our mind does affect our body and in order to reach human flourishing we must allow our thoughts to be at peace to gain health, happiness and wholeness.
Hi Sara, I think it is a great plan to attempt to work in a mental workout to your morning routine. I, like you, found it hard to imagine breathing in someones problems. Right now I feel like I have so much work to do on my own life that I can't even imagine helping others. Even to say this sounds selfish to me, but as we have recently learned, we have to love ourselves before we can truly love others. While I would love to be able to remove pain from others lives my priority right now is going to be to learn to love myself, and treat my family the way that they deserve. Once I have mastered my own life I will definitely use that knowledge to help others learn to do the same. After all, that is why I am studying health and wellness. Best of luck working you mental workout into your schedule.
ReplyDeleteDawn
Hello Sara,
ReplyDeleteI love the way you explained your experiences this week they were so clear and it help me identify myself with you. I also found the breathing in my loved one’s problems very easy to do, but when I tried to picture all the people that I don’t really care about or plain simple I don’t like and breath in their suffering it was really hard. I usually try to avoid thinking about the people that are a negative influence in my life and doing this felt awkward, and to a point I felt like I was been fake about my feelings and I did not like it at all, maybe I need more practice and forgive them for everything they have done and said to me. And regarding mental workouts, I agree with you that we should consider it as a corporal exercise and practice it every day because practice makes perfect!
Great Post!