Unit 6

The Loving kindness exercise didn’t do much for me except show me that my memory sucks.  I got frustrated that I had to keep reading the same 4 lines over and over since I could not remember them.  This became distracting and I felt it took away from the experience.  I think that if I could have remembered them it may have given me a different perspective.  I knew what I was reading but I just could not put it to memory.  It didn’t make me feel any different (minus the frustrated feeling). 

The Integral assessment was just an inventory of where we thought we needed extra work on ourselves.  I could not pinpoint just one area and ended up having problems that came up out of a couple areas that I would like to deal with.  I think the one I would most like to work on would be biological.  I do not wish to go into detail on the things I would like to work on there for my own privacy.  One way I could work on this is to physically workout.  This will make me healthier and give me a foundation to build off of.  Practicing meditation will also help me in the biological category.  This will help me to quiet my mind and learn to focus on one thing at a time instead of letting my mind do as it pleases. 

Power point for Unit 5

I am not sure how to put my power point on here.  I have not found anyone else that has theirs posted either.  If anyone knows how to do it I would appreciate any ideas. I really don't want to lose points for not posting it. 

Thank you  :)

Subtle Mind vs Loving Kindness

1.Compare and contrast the Loving Kindness exercise and the Subtle mind exercise. Explain your experience including the benefits, frustrations etc.

Things I like about the loving kindness practice were that you focus on your body and accepting whatever you are feeling.  I think it is important for us to know that negative feelings may not always be bad and we should embrace them and learn from them.  I also liked that it has you think of someone you care about and has you feel those feelings or them and then has you turn those feelings towards yourself.  This may be the first time I felt feelings for myself that I feel for others.  All too often I forget to give myself some credit and / or just take some time to see how good I am doing something.  It gave me a whole new feeling for myself. 

Things I like about the subtle mind practice is how the beginning reminds me of how I calm myself down when I feel like I am getting overwhelmed.  I focus on my breathing and step back, leave the room, or just block everyone else out, I count to 10 breathing deeply at each number.  This allows me to take my attention off of whatever the situation is and to regain my composure.  I count to 10 at least once but will continue the mantra until I am fully at ease again.  I thought it was neat that I already have had some practice with adjusting my breathing to calm my mind.  If counting to 10 does not work as well as planned I use a focus point, usually my wrist where I take my pulse radially.  This method usually works within a minute and I can slow my heart rate.  I use this technique often in the back of the ambulance on harder calls.  It makes a huge difference if you are worked up instead of calm and this was a trick one of my mentors had me try during a couple very rough calls.  I never thought I would make it through them but when I tried this it was like magic and I have used it ever since.  I never thought of it as meditation though. 

The differences are that loving kindness helps to get you to clear your mind and have it still while the subtle mind wants you to focus on these “mental movements” to see why they are occurring and trains you to discover these thoughts in depth.

2.Discuss the connection of the spiritual wellness to mental and physical wellness. Explain how the connection is manifested in your personal life.

So for me, I am not physically fit, therefore I will need to focus on getting my body fit before I will be able to obtain a high level of spiritual wellness.  I see this to being similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you have to succeed at the bottom and work yourself up.  The bottom, in this case, is the physical body.  If you do not take care of your body its needs are not being met, this will prevent you from establishing spiritual wellness because your body will still be trying to focus on getting its basic needs first.  Once the basic need (physical wellness) are met, the mind will start to crave the next step. 

Dacher, E. S. (2006). The subtle mind. In Integral health: The path to human flourishing. 1st ed.                   Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications.

Meditation this week.....

I liked this meditation.  For the past few weeks I have found the meditations have to much involved and do not allow me to have time to really "get into" the meditation.  I started listening to this disc when we first got the books just so i had more of an understanding of what kind of class this was going to be.  I have found that I have compared each meditation since then to this one since I have found that I really like this one. 

Initially I fell asleep each time I listened to it but I felt more refreshed than normal when I woke up the next morning.  I feel more at peace.  I now stay awake during it and find that I look forward to getting to that part of my evening when I get to put the kids to sleep and then have that time to myself.  Mental workout is achieved by practicing these exercises and it in turn makes your mind stronger and helps you to focus.