Contemplative Practice ~ Loving-Kindness~ A Mental Workout

This week’s Integral Health exercise is the beginning of our journey through the four levels of psychospiritual development (Heightened levels of conscious awareness) by using a method called contemplative practice, an opportunity to enter into a relationship with our inner self. One type of contemplative practice is called Loving-kindness which opens our hearts to others and gradually diminishes self-centeredness to get our minds ready for further development.

The exercise in loving-kindness I found to be beautiful and exciting yet not something that is easily understood or experienced fully the first time out.  Being guided first to be in a restful, at peace and ease state to then think of someone close to my heart whom I hold with great love and tenderness.  I naturally brought to mind my son Daniel.  I hold him dear not only because he is my child but because I cherish the relationship we have and continue to build of respect and communication and love.  I was guided to fully experience the love I feel for Daniel and then was surprised by the instruction to turn those thoughts of care and affection around and feel that loving-kindness for myself.  There were a few things that I am not sure I understood about loosening any grasping or attachment with physical sensations, yet the thought of being in tuned to myself and my body was interesting.  I found it more difficult to feel for myself than I did to think about my son. The guide asked to then shift to thoughts, feelings and images that move in and out of my awareness whether pleasant or not and just give them equal care, love and kindness, and then to fully embrace myself as the unique and precious expression of life that I am because loving ourselves is a prelude to extending love out to others.  The exercise then moves to visualizing a loved one who is suffering, and through in and out breaths, breathe in the suffering and have it dissolve in the heart and breathe out health, happiness, and wholeness to the same person and consider how I could be a specific help to this person and breathe out what would be most helpful, I found this in concept alone to be beautiful and will be honored to do this regularly.  Next I was to expand that to include strangers and then all living beings which is also a beautiful feeling.

Although very interesting and calming and would recommend it to others that want a deeper fulfillment of self and consciousness and are interested in integral health and healing, I found this exercise difficult and I can see why it is not something everybody is doing.  This will take time and dedication to be able to train myself to be guided in this way let alone move through such levels of consciousness.  The dedication and training that is needed for this level of change is considered a “Mental Workout” because of the daily commitment I “we” will have to put forth to attain such levels of wholeness.  Just like Olympians or doctors or others attaining uncommon levels of success put in hard work and daily commitments to learn and grow above and beyond, high levels of mental awareness and health will take the extra effort of those wishing to attain it.

I’m in!!

~Reflection and Goals

This week’s assignment is

to reflect on my overall Spiritual, Psychological, and Physical wellness 

and rate it from 1-10, 10 being optimal.

Personally, I am not really sure how to answer that….

Optimal...compared to whom?

To me....I am relatively okay.  I believe I am a well rounded individual who is closer to my God now than ever before, I have no real health problems yet could stand to improve physically, and although not without my bumps and bruises from life’s lessons over the years, I remain sitting firmly on this side of the rubber room, so overall I’m thinking a solid 6. HaHa

However I think the question is trying to go a bit deeper and I just do not have it in me to dig at this time.

  

Over the last few years I have been on a personal journey of transformation.   I am gaining knowledge through the courses I take at Kaplan in many different areas and am gaining personal and professional insights and wisdom through my career as well as personal life (both of which are submerged in human services).  Developing my knowledge in the areas of psychology, behavior (others’ as well as my own), spiritual growth, well being, fitness, aging, happiness and many more are helping me grow as an individual which in turn helps me help others.

My goal for psychological, spiritual, and physical wellness is to continue on my educational path of knowledge and growth.   I believe the knowledge I am gaining helps my confidence and self esteem which in turn improves my overall psychological wellbeing as well as my physical and spiritual wellbeing seeing that the mind, body, and spirit are interconnected. I work out regularly and plan to continue and even increase my physical fitness training over the next few months.  I struggle with my spiritual growth yet have increased prayer and overall time I spend in search of a relationship with God over the past few years.  I have to become more intentional and plan to add meditation or time to “be still” to my day with the intention of growing in this area.

I am going to be intentional in my desire for integral health and be conscious and mindful to acknowledge that my life is unique, precious, and worthy and that human life in general holds unique and precious opportunities.  I am going to cultivate an attitude of loving-kindness everyday (I believe this is one area where my reactive awareness shows up and shows out regularly).  Although I display loving-kindness to all people respectfully and regularly I still react poorly to life’s “bumps” and the poor behaviors of others which then in turn puts me back in a bad place within my personal growth and integral health. I plan on working harder to not be reactive conscious and strive harder for unity consciousness and finally I will find time daily to sit in silence and contemplate life and love, peace, and joy, and integral health and healing to increase my life experience and level of consciousness.

Participating in the relaxation exercise for class this week was enjoyable and peaceful.  The title “The Crime of the Century” left me bewildered.  I am not really sure I understand the title, hmmm I wonder now if I was in the correct place at all…oh well, the good thing about relaxation is that is tends to (at least for the moment) give you a sense of “who cares, I’m relaxed and at peace with it”  J  Regardless of whether I was in the correct exercise or not, the relaxation exercise that I participated in was successful in helping me focus my energy, to think positive affirming thoughts about myself and to relax my spirit which in turn helps me to return to the responsibilities of my life with a renewed sense of peace and joy which is the purpose of meditation, relaxations, and focusing energy to begin with.

I am on a journey....

and the exciting part about it is that it can go in a wonderfully new direction and change daily, and that the power is in my thoughts and actions to make it do so.

~Sandy

~Journey on Relaxation exercise

Within my course material there was an exercise in relaxation called ~Journey on Relaxation.  Basically it was an audio of a soft spoken gentleman guiding the listeners in feeling the blood which, in a resting state is centrally located in the core of our bodies, move into our arms and hands using our thoughts to promote the muscles in those areas to relax. Using slow, deep breaths and quiet, inner thought suggestions, I was able to feel the blood from my core (which makes it heavy and warm feeling) move into my arms and hands which in turn made the warm and heavy feeling enter those parts, and then return to my core upon issuing a new thought to do so.

This, like many other relaxation tapes proved to be highly effective in focusing my attention (which is typically spread out in many directions) to the present moment and onto myself. I was able to stop my mind from wondering to the many things that I have to get done to this one task.

After spending time with my mom, quite a bit of time reading, designing this blog and completing other class work, as well as other day to day interruptions to my information and thought processing for both courses, this brief exercise in focusing my thoughts and energy to relax my muscles and mind, seemed to relieve me of the stress and tensions I did not even realize I was feeling at the time until, by experiencing this exercise, they were gone and I felt better.

Now I can return to my work, less stressed, less anxious, and better able to focus and process my thoughts into words.

Sandy 

Welcome to Totality...

Hello All,

I am Sandy, mother of two great young men, daughter of God and my sweet mother Edna,
employee of the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services, friend to a select few,
and technically a Junior at Kaplan at the time of this blog's inception.

Totality ~ Mind, Body & Spirit was started solely for the purpose of my
"Creating Wellness, Psychological and Spiritual aspects of Healing" course,
however depending on how well I acclimate to it, could possibly continue
afterwards.

I look forward to learning from and within this environment and hope there are
interesting responses and interactions from all.

Welcome!

Sandy

Personal thoughts of "Wellness"

~Currently I am taking a course entitled "Creating Wellness",
The Psychological and Spiritual aspects of of Healing...

What does it mean to you when you hear/read the word "Wellness"?
and what would it mean to ~create wellness?