For me it's the Loving-kindness and Subtle practices :)

Your Blog

Complete the following and post in your blog:

1.        Review the exercises and practice sessions you have completed in this course. (Loving Kindness, Subtle mind, Visualization, meditation etc.) Choose two practices that you have determined to be most beneficial. How can you implement these practices in your personal life to foster “mental fitness”? Provide specific examples. I believe the subtle mind and the loving-kindness practices helped me more. From the subtle mind practice I am still learning to put my mind in perspective. I think that my mind has become a little more rested and stable since I have tried to incorporate the techniques of the subtle mind. I try to remember to do the breathing exercises, if not daily then sometime in the week. I do feel better. Things become clearer. I prefer the loving-kindness because it helps to remember to consider the feelings and lives of other people than myself first. Too much of the world had no concern for tier fellow neighbor. So, I choose to think of others more so. I think of my dada in this exercise a lot. The feelings I felt for my dad and wanting him to be better in health. I learn to use these feelings for others. Fostering these practices into my life will remove mental fitness by helping me to concentrate more. Exercises to calm my mind like Tai Chi and yoga will help me. I tried yoga, but it was difficult. I’m going to find another exercise.

 

Blog and Aesclepius

     

Complete the following and post in your blog:

1.        Complete the Meeting Aesclepius mp3 (located in the Doc Sharing area). Describe your meditative practices for the week and discuss the experience. My meditative practices for the week are the same each week. This week however, mediating seemed welcoming. I had a lot of unwanted stress and the meditative experience was needed. I have tried to remind myself to calm down when an issue presents itself. I am thinking more rationally, instead of first becoming upset. I took the time to separate myself from the issues and find a calming moment first, which helped stay focused. Explain how mindfulness or meditation has fostered an increase in your psychological or spiritual wellness. Meditation has fostered a spiritual wellness by helping me listen. How can you continue to apply these practices in your life to foster greater health and wellness? Even though I have spiritual time set aside daily, taking on these techniques to teach myself to remain calm, helps alleviate stress, so my health becomes better. There are fewer headaches and fewer semi-panic attacks. I just learn to relax.

2.        Describe the saying: "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" (p.477). This saying means that just because you are familiar with the territory, does not mean a person knows how to find their way around. This goes for personal issues as well. People assume they have about a person or their issues, because they are familiar with the person or the information given, but that doesn’t not mean they understand what that person is going through or what the situation is, unless they themselves have been through that very thing. How does this apply to the health and wellness professional? It is more important for the health and wellness professional to acknowledge this. Many professionals feel because they have the knowledge of something, they understand the ends and outs. Not so. They become almost robotic, and acting on that info alone can, really set back a patient struggling to have someone shoe compassion. Do you have an obligation to your clients to be developing your health psychologically, physically, and spiritually? Why or why not? No. If they will grow in wisdom and become better people, developing these things will be needed for them. How can you implement psychological and spiritual growth in your personal life?

Gail Pinkard-Rudolph

mp3 (located in the Doc Sharing area). Describe your meditative practices for the week and discuss the experience. My meditative practices for the week are the same each week. This week however, mediating seemed welcoming. I had a lot of unwanted stress and the meditative experience was needed. I have tried to remind myself to calm down when an issue presents itself. I am thinking more rationally, instead of first becoming upset. I took the time to separate myself from the issues and find a calming moment first, which helped stay focused. Explain how mindfulness or meditation has fostered an increase in your psychological or spiritual wellness. Meditation has fostered a spiritual wellness by helping me listen. How can you continue to apply these practices in your life to foster greater health and wellness? Even though I have spiritual time set aside daily, taking on these techniques to teach myself to remain calm, helps alleviate stress, so my health becomes better. There are fewer headaches and fewer semi-panic attacks. I just learn to relax.

2.        Describe the saying: "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" (p.477). This saying means that just because you are familiar with the territory, does not mean a person knows how to find their way around. This goes for personal issues as well. People assume they have about a person or their issues, because they are familiar with the person or the information given, but that doesn’t not mean they understand what that person is going through or what the situation is, unless they themselves have been through that very thing. How does this apply to the health and wellness professional? It is more important for the health and wellness professional to acknowledge this. Many professionals feel because they have the knowledge of something, they understand the ends and outs. Not so. They become almost robotic, and acting on that info alone can, really set back a patient struggling to have someone shoe compassion. Do you have an obligation to your clients to be developing your health psychologically, physically, and spiritually? Why or why not? No. If they will grow in wisdom and become better people, developing these things will be needed for them. How can you implement psychological and spiritual growth in your personal life?

Gail Pinkard-Rudolph

Unit 6 Assessment

1.        Practice the universal Loving Kindness (meditation) exercise on p. 93.

2.        Complete the Integral Assessment discussed in chapter 11 (p.115).

3.        Describe the exercise and assessment process. What did you discover about yourself? What area have you chosen to be a focus of growth and development? Why? What are some specific exercises or activities that you can implement to foster greater wellness in this area?

The exercise and assessment process as another relaxation exercise to look into myself and ask questions about my current life’s goals and my future goals. Its focus is to help me move forward to another level of higher thinking. I discovered that I have moved forward in areas that I had prepared for myself in the past. I have accomplishment the goal of being in a place mentally that I was striving to get to. I realized that I have reached this area, but I have some other areas to cover to attain a more complete goal. I have chosen my thinking to be a focus of growth and development. In the last unit I learned why when I got into deep thought ,other weird thoughts would pop in my mind, It would make me think I was not being focused or serious. So, the area in this unit that I’m focusing on changing is my thought process. It will take practice. To improve this area I can began doing brain games. I do this now.

Subtle Mind Unit 5

Your mental fitness practice this week incorporates the concept of the subtle mind (Dacher p.75). This week, replace the Loving Kindness exercise of unit four with Practice 2: The Subtle Mind practice mp3 (located in the Doc Sharing thread).

1.        Compare and contrast the Loving Kindness exercise and the Subtle mind exercise. Explain your experience including the benefits, frustrations etc., I have a different understanding of this Subtle mind exercises. When I listen to the loving kindness exercise, I thought it was boring. The waves irritated me, but in all truth, I am viewing this exercise in the same way except for one thing. I didn't think it was boring. There were waves. But this time, I focused on the waves and really tried to relax. I imagined myself and my husband with my 2 dogs at the beach. Oddly it was different. Maybe because I had other issues going at that time, I wasn't fully focused as I thought I had been. Also, a fellow classmate pointed out in the last loving kindness exercise that although I got nothing out of it, that someone else may have and I could use it to help them. But this time, It did help me. I needed to relax today. A lot went on this week. I am glad to have had a chance to rest in the Subtle mind exercise. I even thought the slight flute music was calming. The person talking was ok, just too much. Speak and be done. The voice interrupted my thoughts of meditation on the beach.  

2.        Discuss the connection of the spiritual wellness to mental and physical wellness. Explain how the connection is manifested in your personal life. I try and stay close in my spiritual walk with God. The spiritual wellness in a person spirit has to be in order, for the mental and physical wellness to occur. The spiritual wellness is the starting point for mental and physical wellness.There's more peace and wisdom involved. You have a background to fall on when considering issues that plague the mind.

Gail Pinkard-Rudolph