Unit 8

I would have to say that the Loving-Kindness and Meeting Asclepius exercises were most beneficial to me. The loving-kindness exercise taught me how to open my heart and mind more and to be more accepting of others. Most people only take their immediate family, extended family, and close friends into consideration when they pray. Loving-kindness asks us to take everyone into consideration when engaging in this activity, including our enemies. Meeting Asclepius allowed me to reconnect with my grandfather whom I miss dearly. But more than that, this exercise allowed me to feel what he felt all of the time. He was such a good person that I wish I could be more like him.

I can implement these practices into my personal life to foster mental fitness by using my grandfather as a grounding agent of sorts. When I feel myself getting upset or out of control I can take myself back to the exercise and remember what it felt like to "see" him and "be" with him again. The loving-kindness exercise can help me to keep my defensive reactions under control so that I move toward emotional intelligence and integral health. A lack of trust in people has made me a very defensive person and I would like to change that. I believe these exercises can help me with this. Furthermore, I can concentrate more of my time and effort toward mental fitness instead of just random thought.

Meeting Aesclepius

This was a very emotional guided exercise for me. The person I chose to focus on was my grandfather, only I didn't know he was my grandfather until after he died. I was raised to believe that he was my uncle or my godfather. From the time I was a young child until the day he died he was known as 'Daddy Cliff'. He was the kindest, most open-hearted, loving man I have ever known. No matter where he went, no matter how beautiful or how homely the people looked he always found a kind word to say about them. Women could be waif-like or obese, have long hair or no hair, have a beautiful smile or no teeth and he would still say they were beautiful. He always saw the good in people. Being around him always made me feel safe.

When I brought his image into my mind he looked the way I will always remember him - sitting on his living room floor wearing a button down shirt, cardigan sweater, dark trousers and black socks with no shoes. We used to sit on his floor for hours and talk or play. When the beam of white light went from his head to mine I immediately got a warm feeling and then I felt energized. When the beam of white light went from his throat to mine I felt a tightness as if to say, "Only say good things about people." When the beam of light went from his heart to mine I began to cry because I miss him very much. I never got to know him as my grandfather and that is something I wish for more than anything. I think if circumstances were different I would be a different person than I am today. Feeling the light emanate from him to enter my forehead and then spread throughout my body was like receiving a big, warm hug from him. I loved this man so much and when I first went to college after I graduated from high school, he was my savior. He was my sanity. Feeling him become a part of me will make me strive harder to be more like him. Again, he was the best man I've ever known.

"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself.” (Dacher, 2006) This means that a health and wellness professional must first do the things he wants his patients to do before he asks them to do them. In other words, walk the walk before you talk the talk. A health and wellness professional cannot expect their clients/patients to meditate when you have never meditated. How do you know meditation works to lower blood pressure if you've never tried it? We have to be able to definitely say that we have tried the exercises we are prescribing/suggesting and they work because we have used them. As health and wellness professionals we definitely have an obligation to our patients to continue practicing our exercises in an effort to reach human flourishing because it would be hypocritical to suggest they do something we haven't tried or don't believe in. We must be the teachers and the knowledgeable ones.

Unit 6

When I did the universal loving-kindness exercise it started out with me just saying the words. After a few minutes I began to feel this sense of lightness and the words seemed to float away out into space and time. I was using my positive energy to push the words out into the world.
The integral assessment exercise was a lot more involved. I didn’t feel like I had enough time to properly reflect on each part and each question within each part. I think the first question was the easiest to answer. The biological aspect of my life is the source of difficulty and suffering. I have a handle on my nutritional needs but I need to get a handle on my fitness and self-regulation aspects. I must aim for more physical activity in each day so that I can get my body to achieve a level of homeostasis. The area of my life that is ready for growth and development is the psychospiritual quadrant. My emotional development needs some serious help because my stress level is taking my emotions all over the grid.

In some aspects of my life I am taking on too much while in others I am taking on too little. I know that I need to keep myself healthy, both for myself and for my girls. However, it is easier to sit back and read a book and use my school work as the excuse why I don’t exercise as often as I should. Finding time to develop and adhere to a regular exercise routine is not easy in my house but I will be making more of a conscious effort to do what I am supposed to do. If I can get my stress level under control it will help self-regulation.

Now that I am nearing the end of my degree program my stress level will change. I now have the task of finding the right Master’s program but I have been diligently working on that. I have also looked into certifications and other programs that can and will enhance the degree I am seeking. I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted off of my shoulders at the moment so again, this helps with my stress level. I will meditate more and use more visualization exercises and guided mental imagery to help keep me focused and stress-free. I will also commit myself to enjoying a healthy workout since the exercise equipment will be moved into the sunroom in the backyard. I can enjoy the sun, the view, and the outdoors while getting healthy. This will give me a better mindset for pursuing my path to human flourishing.

Unit 5 Project - Mental Fitness

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Loving-Kindness versus Subtle Mind

This week's exercise was interesting!  When we did the loving-kindness exercise we focused our efforts towards people in our lives whereas with the subtle mind exercise we focused our efforts on our breath and breathing patterns.  Strange, but intriguing.  When first getting into this exercise my mind was all over the place.  I worked hard to try and focus on my breathing but that was all over the place as well.  Once my mind and my respiratory system decided to work together, it was neat to feel everything in me moving as one.  This exercise was a little harder because of having to train my breathing and train my brain to stop focusing on insignificant thoughts.  It was easier focusing on people.  Once I achieved a still mind I noticed that it was very spacious and open.  Mentally I was always in the present.  The deeper the mind goes and the clearer images become the more you see and the more it makes sense.  Reaching a oneness with my body and mind was very relaxing yet there was something else there that took it beyond.  I was very tired, but happy after completing the exercise.

Spiritual wellness is similar to mental or physical wellness in that a person is striving to reach a higher level of being or a higher state of mind.  Spiritual wellness takes the body to a whole new level.  One's spirituality transcends all else in the physical body.  A person has to want to achieve spiritual wellness.  Spiritual wellness takes away the fear of dying, of getting old, and of being ill or sick.  I have chosen to follow my own spiritual path.  I have chosen to walk away from guided religion and embrace all that the world has to offer in the way of spirituality.  I will continue to search until I find what I am looking for but at least now I have some tools to work with that can help me to achieve my goal even faster.