"A peaceful breathing pattern leads to a peaceful mind"
By focusing attention on the breath only you can tame a busy mind. The voice guides us to concentrate or focus only on our breathing. When thoughts arise that distract us we must re-direct our focus on the breath.
Compare and contrast the Loving Kindness exercise and the Subtle mind exercise. Explain your experience including the benefits, frustrations etc.
The Loving-Kindness exercise instructed us to focus on something specific and then move on to another specific focus. It instructed us to be aware of a thought and treat it with care. The Subtle mind exercise was just about focusing on the breath to remove all other thoughts and distractions. Instead focusing on each thought, it directed us to let go of that thought by re-directing focus to the breath only. To concentrate on the breath you can either focus on the rising and falling of your chest or the movement of breath in and out of your nostrils. I chose to focus on the movement of breath in and out of my nostrils. At first my mind wandered a lot, but I was able to re-direct my focus to the breath and as time went on I found I was able to focus on my breath without much distraction. Our mind are trained to focus on outside factors and that keeps us in a constant state of mental stress. It is important to relax our minds and give them much needed rest by using the Subtle mind exercise. This exercise takes practice and patience. We all have a lot going on in our lives and if we never give our mind a rest we become stressed and ill. The result of mastering this practice is unity consciousness and pure awareness. When our mind is clear and open so is our heart.
Discuss the connection of the spiritual wellness to mental and physical wellness. Explain how the connection is manifested in your personal life.
Developing the mental and spiritual aspect of our lives is connected to the development of the physical aspect of our lives. There are 7 major levels of biological development: anatomical, physiological, mind/body, and spriritual body. Mind/body exercises such as tai chi or yoga strenghthen both the mind and body. This is important because a healthy mind equals a healthy body and an unhealthy mind creates and unhealthy body. They go hand in hand. They go hand in hand, they are not separate and each aspect needs to nurtured and exercised in order to develop greater health and human flourishing. I have experienced this connection in my own life. When I was depressed my body was unhealthy. The symptoms of an unhealthy mind were released in physical illness. Now that I have a positive mind my phyiscal body is healing along with my mind.
Hello Sara,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great bllog and I do enjoy reading them. The Loving Kindness and Subtle exercise seems like it takes a lot of dedication. This is something that I would really have to be serious about I was were to actually practice these exercises. Are you doing the exercises?
Great post Sara, I like how you said the subtle mind exercise takes practice and patience, both are things that I am not very good with. I found the exercise very difficult because I was so distracted by outside activities. I think for awhile I will practice this exercise someplace quiet so I only have to worry about stopping my mind from wandering, and not kids running around. I think this will be a good place to start and then I can slowly add times with outside activity to see how well I have actually progressed in training my mind. I look forward to be a more patient person so I truly hope I can retrain this traveling mind of mine.
ReplyDeleteGreat Post! This is a great practice for times of emotional turmoil or times of great stress. I have found it to be difficult to just let my thoughts be, to embrace them and then release them and just concentrate on my breath. It is difficult, but rewarding. The first time I did this exercise it took the first 15 minutes or so for me to just quiet my mind, but it is easier each time.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post, I love how eloquently you stated the stages of development and the importance of nurturing the mind/body connection.