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.