Unit 8

The two exercises that I have found to be the most beneficial during this coarse is the subtle mind, and the visualization exercise.  I still practice the subtle mind as often as I can, because it helps me to not feel controlled my anxious thoughts, but rather it puts me in the role of an observer, and from it I can gain a lot of awareness.  This has helped to reduce my anxiety a lot.  I really gained a lot of love and perspective when doing the visualization exercise.  It reminded me once more just how much my kids me to mean, and how much of a gift children are.  It also gave me a unity awareness of how we are all precious like children, and that that is our ultimate goal, to once again become like little children.  I think that exercise will be a little more difficult without guidance.  But I will try to focus on positive visualizations of things that make me happy and go to my "happy place" more often. 

Unit 7

I once again got annoyed with the assigned audio recording.  I did what the speaker asked, and thought of someone and pictured the beams.. but doing that only took a second or two, yet the crashing waves lasted and lasted and lasted.  It took too long for the speaker to move on to the next point, so I started thinking of something else.  How long can you sit and picture a beam of light going from one person to another?  What all does that entail that it has to last so long?  That being said, during this exercise, and the previous exercises that I have tried to practice this week, I am just made aware of all the negativity and mental suffering that I experience.  Sometimes I get hope that I can advance to a different level, however when picturing this person (my deceased grandma, who was the safest person I've ever communed with), I struggled with seeing that I would ever be able to think like her, meaning have her joy, peace and trust.  Trust being the biggest one.  Then, after concluding that I would never be able to understand her, she spoke to me and told me that I have endured a lot of suffering in my life, and to forgive.  She wanted to take it away, like she wanted to in the past.  This wasn't a vain word of wisdom, coming from someone who really had no clue into your inner experience, but yet who wants to give you simplified advance.  She knew what I had been through, of my suffering, because she had experienced it with me.  I also recalled a conversation that we had, probably our last one a couple years ago in which she was trying to help me understand the other person in my life who had hurt me, pushing me towards forgiveness for that other person, and for me.  However, I have already forgiven that person, though she didn't know.  It is interesting how our subtle mind, knows, without us consciously imposing the beliefs, but it knows more than we do. 

During the exercises this week, I only had one successful session, which resulted in relaxation and clarity.  In the other exercises, such as the witnessing mind and loving-kindness exercise, I couldn't tame my mind and finally gave up trying.  Also, part of me is really resistant to doing the loving-kindness exercise.  I think because it is time consuming and annoying.  But part of it is because I have fears related to forgiveness.  I fear that if I forgive, I'll just get hurt again.  As if unforgiveness is a protective shield.  Not only that, but it also means that transforming my thoughts and beliefs, and that is a little scary to do.  I think when I try it again this week, instead of even attempting to go through the whole exercise, I'll just focus on one person each session, that is far more doable and I think could be beneficial. 

Unit 6 exercises

So... I have found it very challenging completing any of these exercises lately, because when I lay down, close my eyes and start meditating, the next thing that occurs is that I am waking up several hours later.  Hard to do when you are so tired.  That being said, I'll say that while doing the unit 6 exercise, I have discovered that the current most urgent area that I need to work on is my self image.  I strongly dislike my physical fitness level, being overweight, and also lazy as a norm.  This is an area that effects my self-esteem, meaning that it is really important to me.  I have started to work on this by starting a diet last week, and have lost 5 pounds so far.  I have not began exercising yet because well I have absolutely no energy, and because it is not a habit and I am overwhelmed by the things I have to get done.  However, I am sure I'll get there eventually, I know exercise is healthy for my body, it'll increase my strength and energy level, make me feel better physically and emotionally, and will help to reduce stress.  Another area that came to my mind is my relationships.  I am still getting angry about things, however through this exercise I am becoming more accepting of myself and others, and am able to be a little more forgiving.  Also, there are painful areas that just cannot be fixed, but seeing from the perspective of a witnessing mind helps me to have patience and faith that one day healing and understanding and forgiveness will come when it is ready.  I think that these exercises have taught me a lot about myself.  I am becoming more aware of the negativity in my body and mind during the day, and when I notice my muscles tense, I try to relax them.  Just awareness alone helps so much.  I am started to get a greater understanding at times and am enjoying the opening of my mind. 

Unit 5 Exercises

I have found that both the loving-kindness exercise, and the witnessing mind exercise have a lot in common and are connected to each other.  The main differences are that the loving-kindness exercise focuses on relationships and helps us to have more love and understanding of ourselves and other people.  The witnessing mind exercise focuses not allowing our mind to be held prisoner by our thoughts, but rather changes to a more witnessing of them.  I have already found so much freedom doing the latter exercise, and have learned a lot about myself and have gained some clarity into some situations using that exercise.  The loving-kindness exercise was a little more difficult, because I had a hard time thinking of a relationship without some form of anxiety or strain.

After doing these exercises, I have already gained some freedom from anxiety, anger, and have already been gaining some clarity about situations.  As a result, I have not been as tense, and have had better relationships.  These exercises have also helped me not have an automatic negative reaction in situations that would have resulted in a downward spiral before.  Interestingly however, since doing these exercises I have been having vivid intense dreams, in which I have had fights or anger outburst, that seemed very real, to the point that they wake me up and have me thinking for awhile before I can go back to sleep.  I also have to sometimes remind myself that they really didn't happen.  It is like the anger that I been able to let go has manifested itself in another way.  I had experienced this in the same way when I quit smoking years ago as a young adult.  After I quit, I would dream that I smoked and when I woke I felt guilty until I reminded myself that it was just a dream. 

This has shown me first hand how much our minds are connected to our body and our spirit.  When I am more at peace, I am more enabled to start dieting and working on my physical self, which I am starting to do now, whereas when I am stressed, I don't have motivation to do anything positive for myself.  And although I have rated my spirituality an 11 on a 0-10 scale, doing these exercises are bringing me to fullness of life in which I am much more confident and at peace with who I am as a spiritual being, and my place in this world. 

Loving-Kindness Exercise

Initially, doing this assignment was a little difficult, because the person on the mp3 didn't give a lot of direction on what to think about.  So I did my best, and let my thoughts go where they would.  I immediately thought about someone who I love, but who has really hurt me.  While thinking about my feelings of loving kindness, I was able to feel those feelings, however anger was there.  That anger has been very difficult to let go of, and has been poisoning my mind.  I didn't seek to let go of that anger, because I have been unable to do so on my own.  I realize that the anger is there as a shield to prevent future harm.  As I listened further to the recording, I was able to have compassion for that person, thinking about how my anger, and other people's anger towards them has caused them suffering.  I also thought about how anger doesn't change anything, unless I allow it to move me away from the person.  I think that sometimes anger is there to motivate us to do something to protect ourselves, and is therefore a good thing.  However, lingering anger is not a good thing.  I realize that anger and the thoughts I have been having just makes me miserable.  After doing the exercise, I feel more hope and have more faith in loving-kindness.  Honestly, I don't think our society encourages loving-kindness enough.  I think that our society encourages us to act on our anger and get rid of people who hurt us.  That is my view.  However, we all need loving-kindness.  When the exercise asked us to expand our thoughts to strangers, I immediately thought about a co-worker who I've had some conflict with.  It was easier to see her suffering.  I don't know what she suffers from, but I do know that she has a lot of drama in her life, which extends to others around her in her work environment.  This helps me to not be angry towards her for her attitudes towards me.  Having loving-kindness helps me to have more understanding and let go of whatever grievances I might have had towards her, or may eventually experience in future dealings.  I honestly believe that people who hurt the most, have been hurt the most.  This was a good exercise to help put things in perspective. 

Unit 3

Well, I must say, since I am blogging, that figuring out how to post another post took about 15 minutes and was very frustrating.  But finally I figured it out, I think.  That being said.. on to unit 3 questions.

What do I rate my physical, spiritual and psychological wellness on a scale from 0-10?  Well after giving it some thought, I'd rate my physical wellness a 6 on 0-10.  I chose a 6, because although I am overweight and getting old, I am still healthy, and can walk, talk and eat.  Therefore, I think I'm doing pretty well.  My goal to increase my physical wellness would to be to start dieting again, and exercising so that I can lose weight and feel even better about my appearance.

I rate my spiritual wellness an 11 on a 0-10 scale, because I am a very spiritual person, and through my faith I am well with God.  Well, I take that back.  I don't listen to him in a lot of areas, and do things that I know I shouldn't.  I know that he still loves me and that him and I are ok, but I do have some fear of the natural consequences that may result from me not listening.  He tells us to do and don't do things for a reason, not because he wants to make our lives hard, but because he loves us.  For this reason I rely and seek his grace to overcome the stubborn parts within me.  But all in all I think that those parts are affected more by the psychological category than the spiritual category.  So I might be willing to go down to an 8 on 0-10 scale spiritually because of the fear that I suffer.

Psychologically I would rate my wellness maybe a 4 on 0-10 scale, because I am very stressed, anxious and don't feel good about myself.  It seems that the more I tell myself "you should... " or "you shouldn't..."... the more I do what I shouldn't do.  I realize even more so after doing the reading and assignments in this class, that I live in a constant state of stress, which effects my happiness.  One thing that comes to mind about this is I sometimes tell myself that I need to just be happy and enjoy the moment, because what does worrying do for me?  Does it change a single thing in my life?  Nope.  It is natural to fear, but to live in a constant state of fear and doubt is not healthy.

So this brings me to another category of thinking... self acceptance, loving ourselves.  As this assignment is themed, it is about being familiar with our strengths and weaknesses.  I have a history of OCD so I think I am always going to live with a little self-doubt and fear.  But why allow it to rule my life?  I have so much more growing and learning and calming down to do, and this won't happen in a day.  So I plan to continue to pray, meditate, seek God's word and and truth, read my bible, start going to church again, dieting, eventually exercise and work on changing my thinking and accepting and loving others around me.  There are people and things I cannot change, so I must do or go where my heart leads in how to cope or not to cope with that.  All in all, I think I am doing a fine job.

The relaxation exercise was relaxing.  I was mentally stressed and annoyed again when I saw the time was 20 minutes, and did some of it.. thinking to myself "there are so many things I can be doing in 20 minutes besides sitting and listening to a relaxation exercise".  What bit of it I heard, was impressively relaxing even though I wasn't trying too hard.  It helps to distract ourselves from our daily lives and go to a mentally safe place. 

Relaxation exercise

http://www.kushs.net/kaplan/HW420/JourneyOn.mp3

So as I began to listen to this recording, I felt annoyed when I saw that it lasted 15 minutes, and I was thinking to myself "I've done these exercises before, I am not in the mood".  But I decided I would listen for as long as I could endure so I could complete this blog post.  However, despite the fact that my mind was busy during it, I started to feel relaxed.  I would have stopped it in the middle of it, however I couldn't move my arms because they were too warm and heavy! LOL.  Seriously though, my shoulders immediately relaxed and then I realized how stressed I was.  I'm listening to my baby's swinging chair rock back and forth in the background, and the breathing of my 5 year old as she sleeps.  My husband is in bed so everything is quiet except for my typing, and all I have now is time to myself, to think, to relax and enjoy some peace.  The man was very hypnotic!  I was genuinely surprised by how my body responded to his power of suggestion.  I would go to him to hypnotize me if I was to ever go to someone for that.  Really though, so far from what I've read in our assigned readings has made me aware of the fact that I might die young if I don't change my thinking.  I live in a constant state of stress.  Thanks for reading, come again some time :)