~ Beneficial Contemplative Practices

To move forward and upward on the journey to integral health, I must develop my mind.  My thoughts, my feelings, emotions, beliefs, learned behaviors and responses to all the same around me. Because my mind, (our minds), have the power to lead us to sickness or to health, to prosperity or poverty, to intelligence or ignorance, by what we think and how we respond to those thoughts, so we must harness the power within and use it to our advantage.  To do that, the exercises and practices throughout the course of “Creating Wellness, the psychological and spiritual aspects of healing”, such as, Loving Kindness, Subtle mind, visualization, meditation, etc...which assist in the development of intentional thoughts, calm abiding, peaceful resolve are just the beginning or just a few tools needed to get me started.

It is hard, at this infantile stage of my journey to determine which of these tools thus far have been the most beneficial to me because I am still assessing the areas that I need the most help and growth in, yet I believe myself to need to work on calming the mental chatter of my mind first.  My thoughts tend to be everywhere because I am a multi-tasking something something and my mind continuously tries to keep up, direct, and move beyond me so I need to learn how to just “stop” and be more intentional on what thoughts, feelings, emotions, and responses to actually focus on and which to just let go, so I can get to a place of calm, peace, tranquility, and harmony so I can direct my intention, and health instead of being led by it.  I will use the guided exercise of Subtle mind for as long as I need to, until I learn how to stop the mental chatter on my own, so I can move onto more advanced stages of visualization and meditations which will develop my psychospiritual life and then flourish body, mind, and spirit.

Although I just personally like the concept of the “Loving-Kindness” exercises, breathing health, happiness and wholeness into my loved ones and all of humanity through my thoughts, I believe that is one that I can and do now throughout my day, so I will continue, yet I do not feel that is an exercise I need to focus on to be able to move forward.

I need more meditation, intentional calming movements, thoughts, and to learn to be less reactive so I will seek out different forms of meditation to get myself into a place of inner peace and calm. 

I am going to have to force myself to make a plan of action and find assistance in helping me be accountable to stick to it because I can see how, at this point, I let my current life situations (work, family, school, personal time with friends, mate, etc.) take me farther away from time I need to spend just being.  Being quiet, being still, being without thought, movement or response.  I need to learn how to do that.  I need to learn how to do....nothing, intentionally, with the intention of fostering my mental fitness which in turn fosters integral health.