Two of the practices that I found worked best for me are Loving Kindness and visualization of meeting Asclepius. I would like to begin with 15 minutes of Loving Kindness in the morning during my break at work and take about 10-15 minutes the visualizing Asclepius exercise in the evening before I go to bed. It may take me awhile, but I would then like to increase these times until I can get to at least a half hour each. I know that these exercises will help foster my “mental fitness,” but right now I am too caught up in my tight schedule involving a lot of overtime at work, physical therapy and doctor’s appointments and assignments for my Kaplan classes to be able to focus. The fact that I have ADHD doesn’t help. This is my last semester before I graduate, so I hope to be able to take the “down time” over the holidays to put my thoughts and plans into action. I know that the Loving Kindness will help me to quiet my mind, and to deal with the way I tend to over empathize and “feel others’ pain.” By breathing in a person’s suffering and pain and then letting it dissolve in my heart, before I let out my breath with happiness and peace directed at them, I know that I will do a better job with helping my future clients instead of being overwhelmed by their personal pain and sorrow.
Since I am still healing from my summer surgery, I think the visualization with a healer or wise person guiding me from within will really help me to focus on how I can continue to heal myself without being so reactive to my pain and frustration. I feel that both practices can be a very beneficial addition to my integral health and daily living.
I am happy for you that you are so near the end of your schooling! That's great that you have stuck with it and are about to accomplish something really great! Sounds like your schedule is quite daunting and as I read your post, I feel how stressful your life might be at this point, but I think you have the right idea, taking some downtime through the holidays and integrating these practices into your life. I hope that your physical therapy continues on a forward course and that you continue to heal from your surgery.
ReplyDeleteYour post gave me some inspiration!
That is a great post. It sound like you have been through a lot and you are able to use your experiences to benefit others. I understand what it is like to have a rough schedule. I have one more semester and when you work full time, go to school full time, and have a family it can be pretty rough. I have four sons and it seems that we have activities every night of the week and during the holidays that just complicates things more. I can completely understand the ADHD mind as well because that can just jumble everything. Hang in there. It sounds like you are doing great. Congratulations on your graduation!
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