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.