Unit 6 Blog- Loving Kindness Exercise & Integral Assessment

Describe the exercise and assessment process.
The Loving-Kindness exercise was interesting.  It was hard to repeat the four statements over and over for ten minutes with my eyes closed. I thought I should record myself saying them and then playing it with my eyes closed.  I believe that saying positive statements will convince your brain to be positive.  As I was saying these statements my brain was thinking of who needs help out there in the world and how can I give of myself to help them?
The Integral Assessment seems like a very good resource to explore aspects in our life that we can work on improving. 

What did you discover about yourself?
I know that I have more than one area in my life that needs attention.  They are areas in all four areas, psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal, and worldly.  Maybe I should determine which area is urgent to begin with?  The concern is doI focus on one area at a time? Or do I work a little on all at the same time?

What area have you chosen to be a focus of growth and development?
I think the most urgent area I need to give attention to is in my psychospiritual life.  I am still struggling with my trust and jealousy issues (emotional).  It causes me stress and aniety which are no good for either my health or the health of my relationship.  I think I have improved but I am not even close to healed.

What are some specific exercises or activities that you can implement to foster greater wellness in this area?
How do we know this? Ideas anyone? The only thing I can think of is to work on my self condifence.  This is supposed to be why people have these issues. I would love some ideas. 

My experience with the Subtle Mind exercise was so much better than the Loving Kindness exercise.  If you read my post with my feedback on the Loving Kindness exercise you know that I did not enjoy it and it gave me uneasy feelings when we were instructed to breath in our loved ones and others suffering.  I did not want to bring pain and suffering into my body.  I understood where they were going with this but I don't agree with how it was done.  I felt like I was being forced to focus on negativity instead of being instructed to focus on positive, loving thoughts and feelings.  However, the Subtle Mind exercise was nothing like that previous experience.  I was impressed with myself that I was actually able to be pretty successful with this exercise.  It was getting late in the day when I listened to the exercise which is naturally time to wind down because it's close to bedtime.  I turned off the lights, closed the door in my room and had one candle lit.  So with a calm and relaxing time of day plus atmosphere I was creating a successful environment.  I began to listen and I found it easy to concentrate on my breathing.  Yes, I had some occasional thoughts and images that appeared in my mind as expected but I was able to notice them and return to my breathing.  As I eased up on the grip of my breath and told to become more of a witness to my mental activity I visualized in my mind exiting my body and looking over myself like you would look at a picture of yourself.  As any random thought entered my mind I was able to acknowledge it and return back to my breathing.  As I listened to the ocean waves I imagined myself in my favorite place to relax- the beach.  As I relaxed 'on the beach' and felt calm and peaceful focusing on my breathing and it felt like the moments just before you go into a deep sleep and i consciously kept myself awake with my eyes closed. I was so relaxed that every time the lady began to speak it startled me. 

The connection of my spiritual wellness to my mental and physical wellness is obvious to me.  As I concentrate on relaxing, peacefulness and quieting my mind, it clears my mind up of busyness and noisy mental chatter which makes my mind healthier and with my mind being healthier brings healthiness to my body since our body follows the mind.  This is important for me to work on in my personal life because if I allow things that upset me 'get to me' then I am only hurting myself with possibly creating premature disease within myself.  I need to practice daily the witnessing mind so to avoid 'knee-jerk' actions.

Loving Kindness Exercise

I actually did not enjoy this exercise.  I expected an exercise tientled Loving Kindness to have a good,warm, positive feeling, but that is not how I felt.  In the beginning we are told to shift our thoughts, feelings, and images that are both pleasant and disturbing.  Then we are asked to visualize a loved one who is now suffering and when we breath in to 'take in our loved ones suffering' and then it says to 'allow this dark cloud of suffering to ride the in-breath into our body'.  and continue this for several minutes.  Then we are told to breath in a circle of strangers suffering and finally to include even people that you may consider enemies and breath in their suffering.  I have to say concentrating on all this negativity did not make me feel good, warm, or loving kindness.  My boyfriend did the exercise with me and he had a different experience.  He said breathing in his loved ones suffering helped him understand how they must feel (to walk in their shoes per say).  Personally I would much rather prefer a more positive exercise and I would not recommend this exercise to others.

The concept of mental workout is much like working out a muscle, working out specific areas of the brain can result in structural change.  Their needs to be a daily commitment to study.  Like physical training, when we stop practicing we will see a drop-off in our conditioning whether physical or mental.  Research studies have demonstrated that mental training can transform the mind by reducing disturbing emotions that cause anger, hatred, fear, worry, confusion, and doubt while enhancing positive emotions such as patience, loving-kindness, openness, acceptance, and happiness.  This provides enhanced resistance to mental distress and physical disease, expands our healing capacities, and promotes well-being.  I believe I can implement mental workouts by listening to positive, motivating cd's which will feed me with positive thoughts which lead to positive behaviors and I believe that when you 'put positive out' you will receive positive back. 
Kristine G.

1) On a scale of 1 to 10 these are my ratings on myself:

Physical well-being- 8.  I am still currently working on achieving my personal fitness goal.  I strictly manage my diet and incorporating exercise is very important to me.  My biggest battle is fining the time to workout as many days as needed to change my body as I want to. 

Spiritual well-being- 8.  I have always found it important to go to church every week.  However, I have never read the bible and don't really know that much about it besides the basics.  I am currently going to a bible study once a week and I have really been enjoying it.  With this class I am desiring to build a stronger relationship with God and find myself growing in my faith.  I am still a work in progress.

Psychological well-being- 8.  To share something personal, I have been going to therapy for a few months to help me "get past my past".  I think I am getting better but not 100% yet.

2) My goals are already set in all three areas working on progress with each to reach a level of 10.

3) Looks like I am on the right track in moving toward each goal because I am already implementing activities.  The only other thing i would like to add is meditation to my daily life.  I think this would help in all three of these areas. 

I enjoyed The Crime of the Century exercise.  Sometimes it's hard to 100% focus and imagine the things he says to but I try.  I do find it relaxing, so much so I found myself falling asleep.  i will be trying it again tomorrow.
Kristine G.