Unit 5 The Subtle Mind Practice

First I want to start by saying… Where has this meditation exercise been all my life?!

I don’t even know where to start with why I love it so much! So first I’ll just explain my experience.

I did the 10 deep breaths in and out and then focused on my breathing as the exercise said to and chose a focal point. I noticed the thoughts (but didn’t cling!) and returned myself back to focus on my breathing. I laid there for what felt like a few minutes, but I have no idea (I had not timer, I didn’t care how long this took), but the most wonderful thing happened. I am going to use an analogy to explain… Picture a movie, now imagine I setting it on fast-forward. That is what my mind does, it races like a movie fast forwarding. No press play, as the images change more slowly, that’s what my mind did. Then imagine someone just shutting the TV off. That is what happened. My mental “TV” was finally off! I felt at ease, I felt the weight of my body that was sunk into my bed, I didn’t move, and almost couldn’t because I didn’t want to disturb this process. I was at peace with myself. There was no color, no images, no thoughts… just silence. It felt like nothing else, it was incredible to me. I could not believe how amazing this was and that I was capable of it. Since I’ve been practicing daily I am more aware, my focus is much better, and I don’t feel a lot of anxiety anymore. I think this meditation needs to be done by all people with ADD or ADHD, anxiety, and for soldiers with PTSD. Well really though, so many people could benefit from this exercise. I know I won’t give it up.

Now how it compares to the loving-kindness exercise, the calm-abiding had less steps to it and felt much easier to follow and maintain. I was not a fan of the loving-kindness one, so I told my counselor at the Veteran Affairs (VA) about it and he gave me some new exercises. I also think that this calm-abiding should have been practiced before loving-kindness (metta, as my counselor told me), so that we could all learn to focus much better. Even though the calm-abiding is about stillness, it still has helped me with focus when I am alert and not meditating. It can help people not cling to thoughts or images, therefore I believe it’d be beneficial to people to do first.

One of the exercises is to first picture someone (even an animal). Then you wish them love, happiness, kindness, safeness, and a few more. Then you turn it into wishing you both that. Then you turn it into wishing you peace, love, happiness, kindness, and whatever else. It’s pretty great!

The connection of between spiritual wellness to mental and physical wellness are substantial! It takes spiritual well-being to have better mental and physical well-being. The body can heal better, be less stressed, and be happier (or in better condition) if spiritual wellness is achieved. I can apply this in my own life by practicing the new meditations 1-2 times daily. When I do this practicing, as a result I can feel less pain, less frustration, more self-love, more love for others, and less anxiety. I used to feel this race against time, but with this calm-abiding meditation, I haven’t felt it anymore.

Unit 4 Loving-Kindness

When I first read about the loving-kindness meditation exercise I thought it’d be simple enough. However, when I tried it, it was a whole other thing. I found it not so easy, but not hard. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to force thinking of a loved one at first, or just let it come naturally. Eventually after a few days of doing it, I just let whomever pop up naturally in my mind. Then when it was time to just feel the body then mind and accept all “sensations”, pleasant or not, I felt nothing and was thinking this meditation was just weird or I was doing it wrong. When I had to do the loving part on myself, that was not hard, it was easy to follow.

Next when I had to picture a loved one suffering, I pictured that person and tried to feel the hurting that they feel, I did the breathing in and out to make the suffering disappear and also repeated the mantra in my head. When I was to picture strangers, the first time I did it I thought of the homeless, the second time I did this meditation I thought of cancer patients, then I thought of children in the children’s hospital, and more… basically just people I don’t know personally that might be suffering daily. Then when the exercise from the MP3 in doc sharing said to picture a field of enemies but to continue to practice loving kindness, I thought at first it was weird. It was actually a really good part to me after a few days of doing it though because even though there may be people I dislike and that dislike me, I learned from the meditation that it doesn’t matter about our dislike for one another when there are people suffering out there, and may not even live long. It made my feelings of dislike lift while I focused on love for others.

Anyway, would I say this exercise is beneficial? Sort of, but mainly just the last part. Would I recommend it? Sure. I may not like it, but just because I don’t care for the entire exercise doesn’t mean someone else won’t enjoy it.

Personally, if I am going to practice loving-kindness meditations I have my own way of doing it that I prefer. I also like to practice daily even when out and about. Once I start feeling frustration with a situation or how someone is acting… I just repeat, “Love them, love who they are, accept what they’re doing, it’s out of your control. Loving-kindness is what matters”. I am trying to do this with my neighbors above me, but it’s not working so far. They are really loud, stompy, and inconsiderate. I will work on trying to feel loving-kindness for them, but with every stomp and slam… my skin crawls (thank goodness I am moving May 1^st into a house!).

The concept of a mental workout is just practicing meditation exercises daily. If one can practice loving-kindness, calmness, patience, or more in their mind, they are exercising the brain and making it work to shift to a more positive thought process. People would essentially be “training the mind” by doing a mental workout.

Unit 3 Well-Being and Relaxation Exercise

Based on my reflections from a scale of 1-10 my physical well-being at the present moment is at a 8. I say “present moment” because I am not always in a constant state of just one rating. I believe I am at a 8 because my health is well right now, I am in excellent physical shape, I am happy with my physical abilities. I chose an 8 because there is always room for improvement.

Based on my reflections from a scale of 1-10 my spiritual well-being at the present moment is at a 5. I say this because I haven’t taken enough time to meditate or have my alone time as much as I’d like to. I also think I go back and forth, or get stuck, with being at my optimal spiritual self that I know that I’ve felt and been at. For 2 wonderful years I was elated all the time and in the best spiritual and psychological place I could be. I want to get back there, I know it’s in me, I just have to reach down and dig it back up.

Based on my reflections from a scale of 1-10 my psychological well-being at the present moment is at a 6. My psychological well-being is not at it’s best because I feel my mind cluttered with stuff from school, work, and running my business. I also am having a real hard time with ADD and find it hard to focus often. I sometimes have to read a paragraph, or even a chapter, twice because my focus will shift too easily. L This is all too personal and am starting to wish we didn’t have to publicly blog this.

A goal for myself for my physical area, is to try a new fitness routine. I was on one routine for a few months, but now it’s time to switch it up and add new things in.

My schedule was: Monday- weighted workout, Tuesday- Cycling class, Wednesday- weighted workout, Thursday- Softball, Friday-Sunday= random

Now it’s:  Monday- weighted workout, Tuesday- Cycling class, Wednesday- weighted workout, Thursday- bodyflow (yoga tai chi mix at my gym) and Softball, Friday- Pilates

Sat & Sun= run days. I wanted to train harder since I feel better when I am constantly working out. It helps my sleep and somewhat on my focus. Also, I am doing Tough Mudder and Spartan Race in the next two months.

For the spiritual area, my goal is to get back to a constant state of loving happy Heather. I am loving and happy now, it’s just not constant, I slip sometimes. An activity for the goal is to meditate in nature more. It’s my favorite thing to do, and yet I don’t make enough time for it.

For the psychological area, my goal is to get better focused and to not worry stress about school, work, or my business. My idea for an activity to achieve the goal is to first write down all things on my mind before I read or work. Then look at them and realize that in this moment thinking about those things is not beneficial to what I am about to do. If I catch my self distracted/off track I need to say “now is not the time for that”. When it comes to not feeling like a huge workload is on me, I need to do all my homework on designated days so that it doesn’t make me feel overwhelmed when it comes to my fitness time and work/business time. I want to get the initial post done Wednesday or Thursday and then dedicate Saturday and Sunday to school work. Monday is both of my classes seminars. So really Mon, Wed or Thurs, Saturday and Sunday will be school days. Tuesday and Friday can be “me” time. I would like Thursday to be as well. I could also just do initial post and school Fri-Mon then give myself Tues-Thurs.

I don’t understand why in the learning space the relaxation exercise was called, “The Crime of the Century” and why would it be frustrating? Anyway, my experience was good. Almost put me to sleep though. It was beneficial for relaxing me after a while. When I first started I was anxious thinking “I really want to finish all my school work tonight (well done and not rushed, but just to finish) and I was thinking about things I need to order online still and work I want to do for the week to come for my business. Then I stopped myself and listened well to the soothing mans voice. When he said the light spectrum and rainbow all I could think about was Pink Floyd and the album cover “Dark side of the moon”. Haha. Anyway, I had a feeling when the guy was describing what we would do, that it’d have something to do with the 7 chakras (which I love learning about! I want to learn and do reiki one day!). So I did just as the man said and pictured light beaming from the little circle hole inside me up to the ceiling (well beyond actually!). I didn’t just say the things he directed us to think, I actually believed them. I didn’t want to do this as a “well I think it because he said to” so I really reached in and felt it when I said it in my head. By the end is when I got sleepy when he was finishing up the 7^th violet chakra, the crown. Luckily when he said to think about being energized and awake it helped a bit, but I had to move before he said to in order to really not fall asleep. Overall it was pretty beneficial, but almost too long for me. I like a good 10 or 15 minute exercise.

Welcome statement

Hello!

Welcome to my blog. I have an actual blog that is mine that I use for work, and one that I maintain with a company I work for. As long as I have a good idea for something to write about, I enjoy blogging, but if I'm feeling stumped on a topic, I wrote want to write just to write. I expect the class blog posts to be enjoyable and I look forward to reading everyone else's and interacting with everyone.

Guided Meditation

I have done guided meditations before, but not for a long time so I was intrigued to see what this guided meditation would be like. Personally, I have been meaning to set aside more time for meditation and also know that I need it. I was feeling a little bit stressed with work, school, and finding a new place to live (moving places can be so stressful) but recently I have been thinking, what if I stop letting that stress get to me? Why not meditate more and choose a different mindset. 

I chose to lay down for the meditation and once I started listening to the guy's gentle voice and the rhythm in the background, I felt relaxed. When he said to take a deep breath and relax, I literally pictured the word "relax" and nothing else in my mind. As he went through guiding me to send blood to my arms and make them feel warm and heavy, I actually pictured scooping up the warmth from my abdomen and sending up to my shoulders and down into my arms. By picturing sending warmth and heaviness to my arms, it actually worked. I also told my arms "Here you go, have some more blood, have some warmth, become heavy." By envisioning all of this, it's really just another good example of how the mind is truly powerful and how our bodies are so connected, so much so that we can tell something to happen and it can. After the meditation I thought about using this power to alleviate pain. If we can make a limb warm and heavy, and relax tense muscles, why not try it on pain or a headache next time? So I think I will!