Unit 8 – Loving Kindness

Picking two practices from the many that we have been learning about this semester is not an easy task.  They all have such ideal benefits but for this exercise I am choosing loving kindness and meditation.

              I now know that loving kindness can only be given away to others effectively if we love ourselves.  In preparation for this, I am now deliberately keeping this in the forefront of my mind as I go through my day with an open heart trying to be less self-centered by analyzing my reactions to people and situations that are going on with them.  I watch what I say and try to put loving kindness into the inflection of the words I speak and the way I treat others, now knowing that this is the groundwork to being able to be loving and kind. I watch my own internal reactions to things that I am doing and insist on being both patient and kind to myself when I don’t get something right, or something doesn’t go as planned.  I am not beating myself up any longer for things out of my control. The more I do this, the more I believe that I can continue to do this, which in turn will ultimately give me more inner peace and less stress, which of course will give me better health.

Meditation is a great tool, and where meditating for an hour or more at one time may be difficult to incorporate in my day, certainly deliberately scheduling a few minutes a few times a day can be a successful practice for me.  Just taking those minutes to break my normal routine, and concentrate for three to four minutes on my breath will clear my mind and give me a fresh start to the rest of my day.  Those few minutes recharge me as if I have taken a nap in the middle of the day. It brings me back to a center point where I feel loving, strong, with a new hope and vibrancy.

I think that I can easily incorporate these two practices in my career as a nutritionist.  Overeating or not eating correctly can be just as much a psychological problem as it is one of not knowing the proper and healthy foods to eat, therefore, incorporating one or both of these practices while I am treating a client should not be difficult at all.  In educating them to the easy availability of these practices would just be part of the solution to their problem.

Jen

              Unit 7  Describe the meditative practice and discuss the experience:

It is Sunday morning, and I am sitting comfortably in my den as I just finished listening to the visualization practice of this assignment.

I was not sure who to use as my ‘person,’ so I used a fictitious character named Joshua that was the main character in a book of the same name.  Joshua was Jesus Christ coming back to current times and trying to find good people in the world of today. 

It was such a comfort to perform this exercise believing that I was in the presence of Jesus, in my belief, the ultimate human being expressing goodness, love and compassion in everything he thought and did.  A great feeling of comfort, warmth and peace filled my senses as I concentrated on his image and the white beams of light passing from his awesome presence to me.  I was almost sorry when the exercise was over and I had to get back to reality, but am noticing that I am feeling less stressful in anticipation of all of the schoolwork that I need to complete today.

“One cannot lead another where he has not gone himself” (Schilitz, M., Amorok, T., Micozzi, M, 2005).

I have been overweight for most of my adult life.  I am studying to become a nutritionist.  Those two sentences are a juxtaposition of ideals if I ever saw one.  The good news is that I have been learning about my body, and my improper eating habits, along with the psychological problems that go along with overeating, so I have been incorporating some of the practices that I am learning in this course daily, along with a very healthy meal plan.  I have been on this path, with many successes so far, to conquer my weight in the last eight months.  I think that I will be a more successful nutritionist by understanding what it is like to be extremely overweight. It is my responsibility to be a healthy nutritionist, in mind and body, and as one, I plan to work with very obese people and I can share with them all of the practices that worked for me.  I think they will trust someone who has walked the walk and not just talk the talk of being nutritionally healthy.

Jen

Reference

Schlitz, Marilyn, Amorok, Tina, and Micozzi, Marc S. (2005).  Consciousness and Healing: Integral Approaches to Mind-body Medicine.  Elsevier Inc. St. Louis, Missouri.

Unit 6

This weeks Blog post is based on practicing universal loving kindness and integral assessment.  Universal loving kindness is where we learn to hear, see, acknowledge, be present with and feel another by offering our open heartedness, sensitivity, generousity,a nd emotional intimacy and extending these capacitites beyond just our close group of loved ones, to that of all human kind (Dacher, 2006).

Integral assessment involves looking at our current circumstances, identifying aspects of our life that require attention and determine specific changes we would like to address (Dacher, 2006).

While meditating on loving kindness I found that I was questioning myself as to whether I really felt kindness towards others.  From our readings, I learned that we cannot genuiningly be kind to others if we cannot be kind to ourselves.  I have a very difficult time being kind to myself.  Since I am, is my kindness towards others not geniune?  While assessing myself, the specific change I would like to concentrate on the most would be in the area of being kinder to myself.  I find I sacrifice much of myself, when it is not really necessary.  I find I envy people who take time for themselves, and I want to be that person. 

Jen

Unit 5 - The Witnessing Mind

THE WITNESSING MIND

I think I enjoyed this exercise the most.  Like the all the other previous units, I was not able to sit through the entire exercise.  This one helped me focus the best.  Focusing on the breath really helped me connect mind and body.  I loved the waves, they helped me relax and think of warm sand and an empty beach.  I also love the sounds of a wooden flute.  I found the timing of the flute sounds fading in and out lightly in the background to be prefect timing.  They always seem to help pull my focus back, not allowing my mind to wonder off too far.  I realized during this exercise that part of the reason I can not fully relax during these exercises, is because I am too busy concentrating on what is going on so that I can write about it in my blog for school. 

The loving-kindness exercise from last week is something I most likely need to do, but I did not enjoy that one at all.  I was very restless and uncomfortable with it.  The Witnessing Mind exercise I actually enjoyed very much and would like to do again and again.

The benefit of this exercise for me, was that I actually enjoyed it, and found myself starting to relax.  I found by doing this exercise that water relaxes me; and the sound of a wooden flute and drums also calms me down very much.  These sounds were comforting to me, allowing me to relax more than any other exercise has so far, and then giving me something physical to concentrate on, such as the breathing helped me connect my body and mind.

Unit 4 Blog Post

LOVING KINDNESS

My experience with the loving kindness exercise started off very difficult.  I was very restless and could not relax.  I had a difficult time focusing.  I also had a difficult time bringing up loving feelings towards myself.  After doing the exercise a few more times, I was able to relax more.  I still had difficulty bringing in loving kindness to myself though.  I think over time, if I continue to do this exercise I think it will be effective.  I would recommend this exercise along with the other ones we have done this far to anybody.  The background sound of waves is very relaxing in this exercise, and the music in the others are relaxing too.  Each exercises quietly guides you into a relaxing meditative state if you allow it.

A mental workout is a daily commitment to practice/study inner peace and human flourishing.  Just like physical exercise is important to improve your physical body; mental exercise is important to improve your mental state.

Unit 3 Blog Post

Hello Everyone!

This will be my second time writing this blog.  Something happen when I was about 3/4 of the way through and I lost everything.  I don't know how, when it automatically saves every few minutes....but needless to say it is gone.

I hope everyone enjoyed their thanksgiving!  Based on my reflections this past week...truthfully...I would like to crawl in a whole for about two months.  I'd like to hybernate like a bear and hope that when I wake my life doesn't look so bleak.  For the assignment on a scale of 1 through 10; 10 being the best I would rate my physical wellbeing at a 5; my spiritual wellbeing at a 4; and my psychological wellbeing at a 4.  Why?  Because after 6 months of not eating any sugar or white flour products, I started eating it again.  I have had a headache for the past two weeks, my stomach has been upset, and my muscles very tense.  I also have a pinched nerve in my back that is affecting my right arm.  I am far from calm or peaceful.  I am full of anger and frustration.  Everything I think and say lately is very negative.  If I were to try and set goals for myself to help improve my situation I could stretch and exercise; go back to eating no sugar and white flour products.  I could get more sun and fresh air and take time for quietness.  I could focus more on saying positive words like "I can", "it will be ok", or "something good will come of this".  I could achieve these goals by creating a daily time management schedule for myself.  I could incorporate exercise, quiet time, school work, healthy eating, etc.

"The Crime of the Century" relaxation exercise was a great exercise.  I would actually love to be able to do this exercise on a regular basis.  I never really understood how the chakra's were developed, but I would like to look into it more.  I found - besides having a very hard time relaxing that the areas I seemed to have a hard time focusing on were red - for grounding; aqua - the neck area - purpose in life; violet - top of head - connected to life.  I think this was a great exercise that was beneficial.  It forced me to stop for 15 minutes and try and relax.  I had me try and focus on my body and what is going on with it.  I think when a person is very stressed like I have been lately; it is very important to be forced to stop and really pay attention to what is going on with your body.

Unit 2 Welcome and Journey on Relaxation

Hello Everyone and Welcome to my Blog!

I hope everyone is having a fun time getting ready for Thanksgiving!  Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday of the year.  It's the one holiday were family and friends get together, talk for hours, eat a good meal along with a few treats for dessert, and just enjoy being together.  No gifts need to be bought, little pressure is really put on people - other than making sure there is plenty of food, and many people are content to just sit and talk or watch tv if you are a sports fan (or a Thanksgiving day parade fan).  This Thanksgiving is a little different for me this year.  It is the first year in over 20 that I will not be hosting and making diner.  Because of my work schedule and lack of finances, my parents have decided to make diner this year.  It is a little weird not shopping days before, or making tons of pies the day before; but it is kind of nice in a way too.  I am kind of looking forward to just driving to their house and just eating!  I am making poached apples for dessert though. :-)

Thank you reading and I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!



My Journey on Relaxation


The relaxation journey was very interesting.  I love listening to the notes played in the background.  Those sounds always relax me.  Drumming also relaxes me to.  While doing the relaxation exercise my hands actually started to swell from the blood and warmth.  I couldn't really get my body to fully relax since I did it right after work; but it was a neat sensation to see how my mind could affect blood flow.  I actually do something similar to this when I am at the doctors and I am getting my blood pressure checked.  I use my mind to try and relax myself so my blood pressure gives a normal reading and nothing too high.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

November 13, 2012

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to my school Blog!