Loving-Kindness & Meditatiom

When we are younger we think we are invincible and we are owed the
things that are done for us by loved ones and friends. We often forget
gratitude and compassion, but as I get older I realize it is important
to let people know how much they are loved and appreciated. I am ever
evolving and each day I feel a little wiser and stronger and more love,
so as I continue on my journey to achieve wholeness, and to help others.
I am practicing daily showing gratitude, loving-kindness and meditation.
I continue to do for others despite their lack of humility, respect and
gratitude, because my heart tells me it’s the right thing to do and I do
so because of the self-satisfaction I receive.

The loving-kindness exercise was a little hard for me because it meant
that I had to deal with some of the things that didn't always allowed me
to be compassionate and at times grateful. Practicing to give love to
everyone around me, including people I felt don't always have my best
interest at heart was very hard. The mind is amazing, and once we are
able to concentrate and focus our energy on achieving balance, the
practice becomes a little easier each time.
In order to extend compassion and love towards others, we must be able
to feel it within ourselves, if we are able to feel the effect of
loving-kindness from within then we are able to show it to others. We
must first acknowledge our own suffering and struggles and embrace it,
and transform feelings of hopelessness, lost and alone to universal love.

The feeling of calm that comes from meditating is rewarding in stressful
times. I must admit that focusing was very hard for me, keeping a mental
calendar of my days activities and always feeling hurried because there
was so much to do and not enough hours in the day to accomplish them.
Less than five minutes can restructure my thought process, and realize
that I created my own stress. I learn to say no, and allow myself to
take the time I need for myself. I am on a life long journey to
achieving wholeness, the road may get bumpy at times, but so far I am
enjoying the ride, and I believe that it will get better each day.

Meeting Aslepius

In the past I’ve had a hard time concentrating during meditation exercises, maybe it was the distractions around me, or maybe it was that I keep a mental calendar of my daily activities and placed stress on myself if I am unable to accomplish each task for that day. For this exercise, I intentionally placed myself in a quiet and calm place with minimal distractions, and the person I envisioned was my maternal grandmother. For me, my grandmother was the epitome of a woman, and that transcended to my mother, me and now my daughter. She had style, compassion, wisdom and most of all she loved herself and her family. It is hard at times to become another person, adapt their strength and wisdom, but for someone I admired, it was surprisingly very easy. I often talk about my grandmother strength and wisdom which had an impact on shaping my life. The exercise for me was calming, there was a sense of peace after I was done with the exercise, I even found myself smiling during the exercise, I believe that the love I felt for her made the exercise much easier to do and kept my focus intact.
As a provider we must work on ourselves, mind, body and spirit in order to help patients towards achieving it. I believe as professionals we do have an obligation to our patients to learn, understand and practice what we teach.

Universal Loving/Kindness

I had the opportunity to practice loving-kindness on a family member over the weekend. I was is Canada for a wedding and saw family members I haven't seen in years. Naturally with families there is good and bad, well the bad is that one family member have a problem with abusing alcohol. Several emotions were expressed by other family members, frustration, anger and disappointment to name a few. The one emotion I thought was needed was not expressed, compassion. I sat in the distant observing and realized that alcohol was the surface problem, there is much more that was much deeper than the alcohol. We went to talk by ourselves and he vaguely touched on some of the thing that I think contributed to this behavior, unfortunately alcohol is the best way he knows to numb the pain. Of course I do realize, he has a serious problem and needs professional help, but just being able to talk with him and offer compassion, and reassuring him that I don't love him any less because of his problem, and, although I am miles away, if he needs to talk, I am phone call away. It broke my heart to see him like this, and I only hope that he realizes that he has a problem and gather the strength to get the help he needs before it's too late. I discovered that I've developed my listening skills and I am able to be more objective about situations. I also realize that we each are very different individuals, and have different ways of handling the same situations.

I've chosen to focus on the biological aspect of my life with the emphasis on nutrition which is the cause of much difficulty. The line of development that is most essential for me at this time is to find a way to stop sabotaging my weight loss efforts. I am aiming at maintaining the food journal I started several months ago to realize my eating patterns and the emotions associated with then. I am giving myself a week to get the momentum back to start journaling, I need to channel my energy elsewhere when I feel the need to eat even when I am not hungry. I believe that journaling my feelings will help to realize the emotions associated with times I eat mindlessly.

Loving/Kindness and Subtle Mind

I certainly had a different experience with the Subtle Mind exercise than I did with the Loving/Kindness, it may be that I was more relaxed, didn't have anyone around me or I was able to be more focused. From the loving/kindness exercise it is important for us to expand our consciousness, diminish the focus on ourselves and learn to be compassionate to others. Developing loving/kindness for the four different types of people must start with ourselves and then passed down to a loved one, one who is sick or suffering, a neutral person an an enemy “, in order to love others we have to love ourselves first”. There are so many distractions in our lives that can causes us to sometimes forget the positive effects of loving/kindness or developing a subtle mind. We have to train our minds, that even when we are in a sour situation we have the capability to train the mind to arouse positive feelings.
The subtle mind is developed through deep and calming meditation, it helps to overcome weaknesses and fear, and to re-focus even through distractions, which I think is essential to the discovery of ourselves. The subtle mind exercise allowed me to be more focused and to realize that there are things about myself that I must deal with in order to create a healthy balance in my life.

Oftentimes we put very little emphasis on our physical wellness until we are in a crisis and we are told usually by a medical professional that we have to make changes in our lifestyle if we want to enjoy a better quality of life. For several years I have been physically active, after my own health scare, but never paid much attention to the effects both spiritually and mentally. I usually go though the physical process because I knew I had to do it , and then I developed a love for it. When we realize what our bodies can do physically, it often translates spiritually and mentally. Our spiritual and mental wellness is developed and enhanced through different types of physical activity that requires strong focus which keeps our mind engaged. Believing that there is a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives, making time for ourselves daily to practice relaxation exercises, guiding your values by your decisions and actions. I would love to say that I have achieved spiritual, mental, and physical wellness, but I am on the path, as long as I am aware of my goal, I believe that I will be successful in achieving wholeness in my life, which I hope will transcend to others.

Loving-Kindness/Mental Workout

I found the loving-kindness exercise a little difficult, overall I have a hard time meditating and focusing my attention on the positive aspects of meditation. I find that I have several thoughts going through my head which makes it hard to focus. It was even more difficult to put my focus onto others including my enemies, which I am hoping I don not too much of. This is the mental and spiritual aspect of my optimal health and I have constantly work on to achieve wholeness. I certainly have no doubt that these exercises are very rewarding and is a stepping stone towards optimal well-being, but first I have to have some control on my thoughts in order to focus and get the best out of these practices.

Mental workout is somewhat like physical workout, the more we work at it is the more physically fit we will be, so in essence our mind can be strengthened with regular training. Exercising different parts of the mind helps with overall mental clarity, alertness and concentration. It is giving yourself permission to take a break from worries and concern and dedicating time to do the thing that rejuvenates us and makes us feel more confident.