The world I live in

This week, I have been practicing the universal Loving Kindness meditation exercise. Each day, I have settled into meditation at least a few times, focusing on these four phrases of universal Loving Kindness. I was amazed at the impact this has had on me. First of all, it has helped me remain calm when frustrated. Beyond that, it has helped me to realize that I do in fact have the ability to make the world a better place. Oftentimes, I feel as though each of us gets so wrapped up in ourselves that we forget what an impact we can have on each other. This Loving Kindness exercise has reminded me of my own power to impact the world.

When completing the integral assessment, I realized that I should focus more on worldly flourishing. When I was in the Army, I was focused more on this quadrant. However, after leaving the Army, and becoming a stay at home mom, I seem to have forgotten about this quadrant. I focus most of my efforts on my own biological and psycho spiritual development. Even my focus on the interpersonal is mostly focused on my own family. I realize now that I should branch out a bit in my development to the worldly. The universal loving kindness exercise has helped me to realize this. I need to find ways to become more involved in my community to impact the world around me.

Subtle Mind

This week, in place of the loving kindness exercise, I tried the Subtle mind exercise. In this exercise, I used my breath as a focus. I found this so much easier! I really struggled with my wandering mind while practicing the loving kindness exercise. However, the subtle mind exercise was easier for me due to the focus on my breath. I really liked the way I learned how to gradually release the grip on my breath as I felt more comfortable witnessing my mind instead of grasping on to every bit of chatter. Although I still plan to work on the loving kindness exercise, I really preferred this. I feel that I made more progress after only trying the exercise twice than I did after an entire week of the loving kindness exercise.

To me, spiritual, mental, and physical wellness have always been connected. I have always known that I would feel physically unwell after an extremely difficult emotional experience. Or, I would feel emotionally content after connecting spiritually with others. However, I am now beginning to learn how to have more control over each of these areas in order to improve my overall wellbeing. I am learning that I actually have the ability within myself to create changes in my mental, physical, and spiritual self. This is an exciting discovery, and with each new day of practice comes a deeper understanding and feeling of empowerment.

This week, I have been working on the practice of loving kindness. This was a little more challenging than I thought it would be. At first, I found it a bit difficult to really focus through the entire exercise. I would start out focused, but then I would find myself letting my mind wander to other concerns. As I practiced a few times however, I was able to improve my concentration. The second part that I found difficult was when I was supposed to send out loving kindness to everyone collectively. I found myself thinking of specific people one at a time and breathing in their suffering and sending out loving kindness.  I will have to continue working on the practice in order to be able to send loving kindness to everyone collectively. 

Research indicates that it is possible to train the mind much like an athlete trains the body. It seems that there is an actual increase in gamma wave synchronization showing improved mental integration. Mental distress is reduced, and well being is increased. High levels on mental training are necessary to reach these levels. However beginning with 30 minutes per day is better than nothing. I think of it as conditioning for an athletic event. I could not simply get up off the couch and decide to run a marathon today, I need to train and condition my body first. So, for my mind I must begin slowly as well.

First, I would like to apologize for my lateness in blogging this week, but a terrible head cold has slowed me down this week in many areas. As I will discuss later in this posting however, it also helped me to realize a few things.I only wish that I had the whole mind body healing thing figured out already so I could get rid of this miserable cold.

After careful reflection I have come to the conclusion that I have a long way to go to reach my optimal wellness. However, this does not mean that I am unhappy with my current level of wellness, I just realize that it can be so much better. I would say that my physical wellness is currently a 5. I feel that I can function on a daily basis, and I am considered to be a healthy weight. I rarely fall ill, and I have very few physical ailments. However, I am not as fit as I once was, and I know that I can again reach a higher level of fitness. Additionally, I would like to improve my immune function, as I am currently suffering from a terrible head cold. My spiritual wellness has come a long way in the past few years, here I would rate myself a 7. I feel much more grounded and secure with my beliefs and am happy with my spirituality, but I know there is always room for improvement. My psychological wellness has also come a long way in the past few years. Here I would also rate myself a 7. I feel comfortable being alone with myself, and am able to understand and control my emotions more than when I was young. However, I do know that there is always room for improvement.

To improve myself in each area I have set a few goals. For my physical health, I have set a goal of eating more fresh foods each day and also bringing Yoga practice back into my daily routine. The daily Yoga practice is also a goal for my spiritual and psychological health. In addition to the daily Yoga, I set a goal of eliminating at least one commitment per week from my calendar. I feel that my psychological health will improve if I do not feel so pulled in multiple directions.

After setting these goals for myself, I completed the Crime of the Century Exercise. I actually ended up trying it twice, and both times I ended up frustrated. Last week I loved the exercise, so I was really looking forward to this one as well. However, I have been suffering from a very bad head cold all week, and it had a huge impact on this exercise. The first time I sat down to complete the exercise, I immediately became frustrated when I tried to take a deep breath. It caused a huge coughing fit, and I realized I was not going to be able to breathe deeply at all. This frustrated me because without the deep breathing, I was not able to get into the proper mindset. I decided to just do my best and try to focus without the breathing. Only a few minutes later, I must have fallen asleep because I woke up an hour later when my son walked in and asked me for something. At first I was very angry with myself for taking an hour long nap in the middle of the day when I have very limited time to complete homework let alone everything else that needed to be done. But then I realized that I must have really needed the rest because I sure felt a lot better. So the exercise was a bust, but I felt more confident in my need for trimming down my calendar a bit. I tried the exercise again today, and was a little more successful. I still didn’t get fully into it without the deep breathing aspect, but at least I didn’t fall asleep this time. I liked the idea of the exercise, and even found myself reflecting on the colors and the idea of bringing them all together or separating them out throughout the day. Unfortunately, I must really need the deep breath as a part of my relaxation. I found my mind wandering a lot during the actual exercise. I hope that I will feel better soon, and I plan to try again.