Meditation - Week 6

The assessment is to take each part of the levels of development and choose a quadrant to focus on.   I chose the psycospiritual quadrant to concentrate on this week because it is where I am growing the most rapidly and it has added some stress to my life because my paradigm is shifting and my focus is changing from myself to others as I am learning to walk in faith.  Even though that is the area where I’m spending the most time, they are all inter connected so one can’t help but effect the others.  As I’m learning to quiet my mind, I am also learning to look at things and break them down to their smallest part and begin working from there.  I’m easily overwhelmed by tasks because I like many women pride themselves on being able to multi-task and I often have trouble focusing.  I have a bad habit of being impatient and stressing about everything.   I have two illnesses which are exacerbated by stress, high blood pressure and diabetes.   I realize that I don’t have to have these issues but before I can address the biological I need to address the phychospiritual to slow down and stop worrying about everything.  Meditation and Prayer are a big factor in helping to reduce my stress levels. This week, I’ll be adding yoga as part to help the physical part and help to reduce the physical stress manifestation very tight muscles.  I’m finding that as I remove the focus from myself and start focusing on other people that it’s easier.  Two things happened today that would have normally sent me into a fit but I prayed about it and let it go and one of them has worked it’s self out and I’m sure the other one will too.  Is I started to get upset and worry about how I was going to meet the deadline I was facing I decided to let tomorrow take care of it’s self.   I recognized last week that there are so many other people in the world with bigger problems than mine.  The loving kindness exercise also is a great way to foster selflessness.

Unit 5

1. Compare and contrast the Loving Kindness exercise and the Subtle mind exercise. Explain your experience including the benefits, frustrations etc.

• I think both were interesting meditations.  I especially enjoyed the Loving Kindness Exercise.  However the Subtle mind practice made me more aware of my breath during the week.  I found that I was holding my breath and when I tuned into what was going on I realized that my mind was busy, being busy thinking about absurd things that really shouldn't have been allowed to enter my consciousness because I definitely don't want them to manifest in this reality.

1. Discuss the connection of the spiritual wellness to mental and physical wellness. Explain how the connection is manifested in your personal life.

•  4 years ago I was severly stressed out. We'd just purchased a house and my husband wad being deployed to Iraq 2 weeks after we made settlement. For that entire year I was sick, I mean sick, sick. in and out of the hospital had every test know to man it was horriable.  When he got home things started getting better my stress levels went down a little. Im not on the volumes of medicine that I was on previously and I'm actaully getting my health together.   As I grow spirtually and mentally I feel like my physical improves.  I'm still very much a work in progress.

This week has been super busy so I’m behind on doing my practices and making my entries (again).

I admit I’m having some difficulties with this class, mostly because it has given me permission to explore my mind and between this class and my pastor giving me constant confirmation about what I’m reading is even more frightening.  I feel as if the path that I am suppose to be on in being revealed to me when before I felt like I was walking in the dark.  To me seeing and knowing what’s in front of me is more freighting than stumbling around in a dark rom. 

My pastor has us meditating (reading the bible or listening to religious music) 2 days.  He’s calling it the 80/20 rule 80 for the world and 20 for God.   We give God 20 percent of our time and use the other 80 as we see fit.   Gradually we’re to work up to 100 percent for God.   Other people in my congregation may not have got the same message that I got but to me it served as confirmation that of our reading last week.   The reason why this conformation for me is so important is because when I first started reading about the metaphysical and became fascinated by Eastern Religions and practices, my very religious friends and not so religious friends call me a devil worshiper and told me I was going straight to hell.  Now I understand that sometimes even our Pastors and others fear what they do not understand and their fear causes them to attempt to hold us back.   Even though I call myself a Christian, I can’t help but look at other religions and see the commonality in them all and I can see that through the years religious documents have been edited to meet the needs of the time and to suit the culture that was doing the editing.  

The Bible say’s “Love thy neighbor as thy self” which means to show loving kindness towards everyone around you including your enemies.  The Loving kindness exercise was interesting I wish that the audio was a little better and the loops were a little smoother but that was just the distraction my mind focused on at first to keep me from focusing on the exercise.   Once I was able to push that aside and concentrate on the exercise, I thought that the exercise really didn’t mean much but as I started writing I felt a wonderful sense of peace come over me, and my shoulders which by 5:00pm are usually pulled up past my ears because of stress were relaxed.  So my conclusion would be that the exercise was very successful. I wish that I would have started it earlier so that I could have had 5 days of observation to see how it really affected my life.  I’m going to add it to my MP3 player and do the meditation when I wake up and before I study daily for the next two weeks.

I don’t recommend things to people anymore especially if they are not on the same level as I am because of previous reactions to my strange ways but If I were speaking to a colleague who has experience with meditation yes I would recommend it.

A mental workout is teaching your mind to think in different ways and fosters psychological growth.  Studies have shown that people who pray, meditate and focus on more than just themselves and their situations are happier and healthier. 

I think that I am in the beginning stages of implementing mental workouts in my daily life.  Meditate, if you can’t meditate by yourself there are guided meditations just make sure they are from trusted sources because when the veil between the conscious and subconscious is lifted, you become venerable to whatever is suggested.  

Just plain old answers

Rating my Physical well being – Well, I’m not dead so I don’t think I’m a one but I admit that I’m relatively unhappy with my physical anything  although I admit it could be a whole lot worse.   I’d say I’m a strong 5.

Goal – Stop playing games with this diet thing and get up off my  @*# and do it.

 The tools: Go back to my meditation series on weight loss and get exercise motivation

Spiritual Well being – I’m working on. Since I’m a religious mutt it’s been difficult for me to discern fact from religious fiction because everyone has an opinion and everyone believes that they’re right.   I’m starting to see the inter connection between all religion. So I’d give myself a 7 because my spiritual walk is a developing work in progress

Goal – Spend 2 days with God a week (and not just Sunday)

Tools: Read the Bible and other books

Psychological well being - Let’s just say working on it

Goal – keep doing what I’m doing – Work on Forgiveness,  learn to use my fear as motivation and stop sabotaging myself.  

Tools:  Getting help from my friends J Therapist .

The Crime of the Century

Very interesting mediation I wish I could have relaxed and enjoyed it.   My mind was too busy analyzing and anticipating what was next but when I have time to truly relax I’ll try it again.  I did notice that all the tension that I hold in my back and shoulders did leave which was really cool.   As we progressed through the chakra’s I felt a cool/warm feeling in each area (sort of like icy hot).  I have to admit that I’ve been doing exercises like this on and off since I was 10.