Loving Kindness and Integral Assessment

I am better able to get into focus during the loving kindness exercise than I was at the beginning.  It is starting to open me up to expanding my concern for others and being less self-centered.

When I did the personal assessment, I looked at each of the four lines of development to see where my strong and weak points were in the areas.  Right now I am very strong in the interpersonal area with good relationships within my family, friends and community.  The biological aspects of my life in relationship to nutrition and fitness are doing pretty well.  I am doing exercises to help bring me back from a reconstructive ankle surgery, and I have a nutrition plan that has resulted in me losing around 50 pounds since the summer.  My worldly aspect of development is average, but I do reach out into the community with a few activities.  Right now the area that I really need to work on is the psychospiritual development involving the emotional area.

As I did the assessment, I was surprised to find that I am doing pretty well in most of the areas of the four quadrants.  It is obvious to me that the area that I need to focus on is the emotional aspect of my life.  Right now my stress level is pretty high due to trying to juggle doctor appointments and physical therapy with work which involves a great deal of overtime, in addition to taking two courses at Kaplan U. this term.  I am constantly tense and tight and tend to be very reactive.  I am doing Yoga, so that is one exercise that is helpful. I know that breathing exercises and doing the witnessing mind exercise will really help to make a change in my stress level.  However, I still haven’t committed to a specific routine during the week to do these practices.  And, I know that until I do, my stress level is going to remain high and reactive.

Loving Kindness: Practing Mental Fitness

I thought the both the loving kindness and subtle mind exercises concentrated on loosening my grasp on the happenings around me, so that I could just observe rather than react.  They both asked me to find a focal point and gave me time to move from my outer mind into my inner self.  Both exercises focused on specific goals and took the listener through the process one step at a time.  However, the loving kindness exercise helped me to reach out with loving kindness toward not only myself but to others.  The subtle mind exercise, on the other hand, worked specifically on using my breathing to help me calm and still my mind and bring me back into focus when my mind wandered.  Ultimately I will be able to maintain the stillness and focusing so that I can release my mind to unity consciousness.

I think this is a good exercise, but I have trouble with focusing, so it took me awhile to really focus on my breathing.  However, focusing on my breathing eventually helped me to bring myself back from distractions.  It was a little frustrating, because my mind is very busy, and I found that I really had to focus on my breathing in order to get back on track. For awhile it was a constant back and forth process.  Eventually, I was able to calm my mind for awhile, but it never lasted very long.  I have to say that when I was able to get to the point where my mind was calm, it was a very restful feeling.

Spiritual wellness completes our integral health by complementing our mind and body health.  It has been proven that praying for someone can make a difference in his/her recovery.  It is also the area that is opened up to us, as we are able to work though the levels of the subtle mind.  I have been involved in formal religion off and on in my life, but I have always maintained a spiritual connection through prayer.  It’s interesting for me to have a better understanding of the spiritual side of wellness, because when people have said that they would pray for me, I really didn’t understand how powerful that could be in my life.

Loving and Kindness

I found that the background sounds of the ocean helped me to relax and concentrate on what the speaker was saying.  Breathing in the pain of other person or people was a hard concept for me at first, but as I grew with the exercise, I found it easier to put the suffering into my heart and then breathe out peace, health and happiness to the person.  I have been working overtime all week and am pretty exhausted.  This could be the reason why the CD relaxed me so much that I began falling asleep.  I think it was a good first try for me, but I know that I will have a better experience, if I try it again when I am more alert.

I would recommend the CD to others, because it helped me to experience each step for a period of time rather than rushing to the next part of the exercise like I did when I just followed the instructions in the book.  The exercise also helped me to open myself up to not only loving others but to actually understand how important it is to love myself before I can reach out to others.

A “mental workout” is using practice of contemplation to calm our minds, so that we can further develop our ability to be more aware of our inner selves.  As we would work a muscle to make it stronger and more useful, we can also exercise our minds through contemplative practice, so that eventually, we can know and experience all levels of our inner selves.

Research has shown that the benefits of a mental workout are that it can reduce our negative emotions and boost our positive emotions.  This in turn affects the mind and body which helps us to fight disease, and defend against distressful and negative emotions, which work to give us the ability to be healthy and well.

I can implement mental workouts by first making them a part of my daily routine.  It is important to set aside a specific period of time to devote to getting to know our inner selves.  I would start slowly allowing between 5 and 15 minutes for my “workout” until I am more comfortable with longer periods of time . I would then find contemplative exercises to use to help me go into my inner self.

Ratings Goals Activities Exercise

RATING

Right now my physical well-being is a 6 out of 10.  I had reconstructive ankle surgery in June and am still recovering.  I have gone from a cast to at boot to supportive shoes, and I have found that this has put my foot, back and knees out of alignment ,which has caused a lot of pain.  I am also on pain medication right now, and will not feel totally well until I am off it.

Right now my spiritual well-being is a 4 out of 10.   Since my surgery, I have looking into the spiritual side of my life, and I am working with a yoga master to help me with meditation and visualization.  I have not been a spiritual person throughout my life, and I am realizing that it is something I need to work on.

Right now my psychological well-being is a 6 out of 10.  I have been experiencing severe anxiety and anger pertaining to the ankle surgery and the healing process.  This is the second time for the surgery, because the first surgery was done incorrectly.

Goal

Right now my goals for my physical well-being are to strengthen my right ankle, so that I can be more active and to get off pain medication.  Once my ankle is stronger and I am able to walk without pain, I will begin a heavier exercise program involving weights and basketball activities. 

The goal for my spiritual well-being is to learn more about being spiritual, so that I can incorporate it in my life much more than I have

The goal for my psychological well-being is to be much more at peace with myself instead of letting anger and anxiety control my thoughts when something isn’t going well.

 ACTIVITY/EXERCISE

For my physical well-being, I am doing a light work-out plan that involves yoga with a yoga master until my ankle is strong enough to do more involved exercises.

For my spiritual well-being, I am now working with a holistic healer who has helped me with meditation and visualization techniques. 

For my psychological well-being, I have been seeing the same holistic healer who has been working with me on clearing techniques, breathing exercises, and relaxation CDs.

EXERCISE

Was it beneficial?

I really liked this exercise.  The combination of the sound in the background, the person’s calm soft voice and the visualization techniques using colors and descriptive words really helped me to pull away from my outside self into a more inner self.  When the exercise was finished, I felt very calm and relaxed.

           It wasn’t frustrating to me except at the end, when I was so relaxed and enjoying
           my inner peace, that I didn't want to come back to the outside world right away. 

Relaxation Exercise

I was busy doing everything for work this weekend that I thought, on my night off I really want to do this relaxation exercise. Well I am here to tell you that it works, and I found that out in front of a good bit of people. I went to the local College Library and hooked my head phones up to the computer. I figured this will be cool, I can listen to a cool relaxation technique I can start using if it works. I would have to say that it worked! I woke up 40 minutes later with my pen across the isle in between desks lol. When I came to I though, wow was that awesome. Then I looked around and some students were giggling so who knows what was going on when I was out. This exercise probably would not have done this so easily if it were not for working a football game in 8 inches of snow Saturday! talk about taking a lot out of you. All in all I felt the technique used was very useful when I went back and listened again. This is definitely some I would like to incorporate into my wide range of relaxation tools. I am wondering if anyone else feel asleep. If so and you are reading this shoot me a comment. For my reflective statement for the week I would like to use a quote I have enjoyed for some time. "Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending." - Carl Brand
To me this touches many parts of my life. Sometimes I want to have regrets, or think how I wish I could go back and do something over. Then I read this, or think it and i get a motivation to stay on the path I am on and not look back until I have created my dreamt upon ending.