Loving Kindness

The exercise for loving kindness was interesting. I didn't really know what to expect. I ended up falling asleep both times listening to the exercise disc, which felt good, but I didn't have the frame of mind I thought I should have coming out of the practice session. But after experiencing the session twice, reading the readings again I figured out what may be part of the reason I was confused. My worship and prayer time I normally have as part of my day, really was putting me in the same frame of mind the living kindness exercise was suppose to accomplish, so I didn't feel anything new or unusual. I think anytime a person of faith enters into prayer and prays for other people, friends and those we have problems with it puts your mind into the state of loving kindness, if we are sincere in our prayers. My conclusions from the readings is that the flourishing life Dacher is trying to explain to us is the very "life abundant" that those of us who enter into a relationship with the Divine Mind of God at our rebirth experience. The rebirth, if we nurture our relationship with God naturally takes us through the steps Dacher describes in the four steps to psychospiritural flourishing and the Conscious Unity is what the Bible describes as " let this mind be in you which is in Christ Jesus."Philippians 5:2

The mental workout to develop the mind to me is time set aside to develop the character and to contemplate universal and divine laws and principles. As a Christian this is part of our experience and relationship, but I think that I have much to learn on how to pray using these techniques which engage the mind in a more three dimensional way rather than what most people do with prayer which is just talk to God, without really experiencing the prayer visually and contemplatively. Prayer in this way is more of an experience than words spoken. I like that idea and look forward to experiencing my prayer and meditation time in this way.

Crime of the Century

I am not sure why our assignment was called the "Crime of the Century". I think it is an odd name for a guided meditation that has us visualize rainbow colors. This assignment was timely in that I had just watched a rainbow materialize against dark rain clouds the other day on my morning run. It's arch landed just on the other side of my house...literally my house was at the end of the rainbow! Anyway, it helped me in my meditation because I have never had a very good imagination and visualizing things in my mind is not easy. I had a harder time relaxing this time but after I had completely finished the exercise I did finally relax. When I returned to my morning I felt less tired but didn't notice any significant change in focus, not like with the first exercise. But that may have been because I had to do other things that didn't require too much home work like homework.

As far as where I am physically, spiritually and emotionally, I would say I would be between a 6 and 7, just above average. Since I already do quite a bit of exercise, I think my approaches to bettering all of these areas would be to improve my diet even more and spend more time in meditation and worship to improve my spirituality. Doing both these things would automatically improve my mental and emotional health.

Journey to Relaxation

I have been in Las Vegas helping at the World Championship Dummy Roping Championship for children 11 years and younger. The days have been very busy but enjoyable, since I am enjoying this trip as a gift from a good friend and client who is the founder of the Roping. The Roping is held at the Sands Hotel in the Cowboy Christmas Exhibition. With hundreds of venders selling all kinds of Western wares, clothing, jewlry, decorations, toys, anything you would want to shop for Western. There is food, there music, noise, smells, lights and lots of people! The sensory stimulation is amazing and overwhelming to one who is used to a very quiet,yet busy way of life. After the day at the roping we have been watching the NRF Championships in the evening which is very exciting with more noise, laser lightshows, and LOTS of people. I have had late nights, early mornings with little sleep. Yesterday, about midday I started to get a headache. I never get headaches. And while I can usually get rid of any tension in my body fairly easily by breathing and relaxing the muscles, the headache kept returning. That evening before the NFR competition I decided to take Advil so I could enjoy it. I knew the music and announcing would be very loud. This morning I woke up at 5:30. I was hoping to sleep in since I stayed up after the competition to do homework. I was tired and bit achey, and my nech threatend to give me another headache. Not able to go back to sleep, I decided it would be a great time to do my Relaxation experience. My roommate had to leave yesterday so I have the hotel room for two days to myself. It is very quiet. The music and voice of the lesson is soothing to my overstimulated ears and tight neck and shoulders. The lesson while focusing in my arms and hands made by whole body feel better. The experience of the arms and hands getting heavy and warm then light again affected my whole body and it all felt better. As a massage therapist, my hands and forearms are always tight so it really was a good point of focus for the lesson for me. In fact, it worked as well as massaging my own hands and arms as far as relief. What was really interesting to me was how much better I felt mentally as I started my blog. My mind is alert and I can focus very well on the task. Usually my mind wants to jump from one thing I have to do to another and try to multi-task. I feel as well as when I have had some caffine to wake me up. While I have used breathing to relax often I don't often do a relaxation exercise this specific so it really reminded me of the benefits of training the mind in this way. Usually I meditate and get my stress released by running, but I took this week off knowing I would be busy and not on my own schedule since this is about the roping. This is probably why I got the headache. I didn't have a way to release my stress. My outer shell body seemed to be handling the stress fine, but my senses were being bombarded with no relief. What a wonderful experience and a precious gift our body is with the ability to heal within itself!

The Journey Begins

There is more to our existence than that which we can see or feel, hear, smell or taste. These senses are but pathways to a deeper self-experience, one we often don't acknowledge yet is the core of who we are. To understand ourselves we must first realize there is more than that which we see in the mirror, so we take the first step and begin to explore the possibilities, is there more capacity for more life, happiness and purpose of existence? I think so....