Loving Kindness

The Prayer of Loving Kindness

May you be happy, as I wish to be happy

May you know peace, as I wish to know peace

May you be safe from inner and outer harm, as I wish to be safe

May you be free from suffering as I wish to be free.

Everyone is troubled by difficult emotional pressures.  Although most do not develop skills to help deal with these pressures. This weeks meditation exercise was on loving-kindness. By practicing such meditation one can eliminate negative and destructive emotions and begin to reduce these emotional pressures.

The meditation begins with you thinking of someone close to you, some one you love very much, think of this feeling of love and now turn this love towards yourself.  This practice is so one can develop a loving acceptance of oneself.  Moving onward into the meditation you then visualize a loved on who is suffering you focus on this person as you breath in taking in their suffering into your heart, as you breath out you breath out happiness and wholeness to this loved one.  Next you will expand your focus to people around you, those that are neutral, breath in their suffering and breath out peace and wellness. Finally embrace your enemies, taking in their suffering and breathing out peace for them.

I have been practicing this exercise two times a day for the past week.  I start and end my day with this meditation.  In the beginning of the week I struggled with staying focused, the sound of the ocean waves relaxed me too much and I would drift off to sleep, but the more I do it the more I am getting from it.  Each time I feel I gain something new.  I have found that the same meditation can be done by reciting the above prayer.  The same concept is put into play by first reciting the prayer towards yourself, and  then to a love one and then to a neutral person, and then towards a difficult person.  I seem to stay focused better with this prayer than the guided meditation that is listen too.  I still have many negative and destructive feelings towards certain people but with the help of these exercise, I am learning how to let them go and developing a more balanced and healthy life.  

I certainly would recommend and encourage this meditation, because it is important to attempt to let go of the negative emotions...they really are not good for anything.  The more I do this exercise the more I understand how unproductive these negative feeling are. It is important to understand that this is a exercise that will take time, patience, and dedication before you are able to master it.  But the person that puts an effort into this practice will succeed and will gradually free their minds of negative emotions and anger towards others.  

Understanding that the mind needs to be exercised as often and as intensively as the physical body.  Just as you will not immediately begin a physical exercise regimen with running a marathon, most people will not be able to begin their mental workouts with an hour session. You can start with 5 or 10 minutes and grow from there. What is important and has been proven through research studies is that by continual practice you are on a road to a healthier and happier life.  Those that persevere will be rewarded.

I have found that you may need to try different guided meditations, until you find the one that works best for you.  Youtube had many good loving-kindness meditations videos.  I encourage you to try different ones to help you find the one that will be most beneficial for you. Below are links to a couple that I really enjoyed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz7cpV7ERsM&noredirect=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRDsbXr9CY8

Laurie

Rainbow Meditation

                                    

I really enjoy relaxation exercises, because god knows I need to learn to relax!! This exercise was once again very soothing, although I was unable to get the full benefit of the exercise due to the fact that I have been away from home for the past 10 days, and the only area in which I had internet access was in the middle of a very busy dining hall with lots of other people and noise.  I attempted to focus and block out everything around me, this was not an easy task.  I wish that these relaxation exercises were available for downloads because I would enjoy listening to them and because I am sharing this blog with others outside of my school classmates.  I am going to attempt to research these techniques to find if they are available for download and I will share it here on my blog. 

For those that are unaware of what Rainbow Meditation is I will attempt to give a brief summary of how to do this exercise. You begin by thinking of a prism and the many colors of a rainbow focus on your breathing as you breath in and out.

Begin with visualizing a red beam of light coming from your feet.  This represents your ability of feeling grounded, safe and secure in your environment. Repeat: “I feel grounded”

Now visualize a beam of orange light coming from just below your bellybutton. This represents a feeling of centeredness and self- worth. Repeat: “I feel centered”

Now visualize a bright yellow light coming from your upper stomach.  This represents a feeling of love.  Repeat: “I feel loved”

Now visualize a beam of emerald green light coming from right above your heart.  This represents the ability to show love.  Think of someone and mentally send them a positive message. Repeat: “I choose to love”

Now visualize a beam of aqua blue light shining from your throat area.  This light represents the ability to feel a since of meaningful purpose in life, willpower, or creativity. At this time think of a goal see the aqua blue light and begin to see that you can accomplish that goal. Repeat: “My life has a meaningful purpose”

Now visualize a beam of indigo blue light shining from the spot right above your nose between your eyes.  This light represents finding balance within yourself, finding balance, and the ability to tap into your conscious and unconscious mind.  The right and left brain working together. Repeat: “I feel balanced”

Now visualize a violet light coming from the crown of your head.  This light represents a feeling of being connected to a bigger part of the universe, your connection to friends, family, nature, and the universe as a whole, understanding you are not alone.  When you feel connected you feel very much at peace.  Repeat: “I feel connected”

Finally, you will bring all the lights back in, and now your body is surrounded by a soft white light. Repeat: “my body is calm and relaxed”

What is important with this exercise is continuing to practice it so that you can lock this calm feeling into your memory bank so when you are feeling stressed you can bring this relaxed feeling back to diminish your stress levels.  I personally, struggled with the visualization and being able to relax my mind enough to really see the lights, although just the sound of the man’s voice talking you through the exercise helped put me into a relaxed state.

Laurie

Ranking my Wellbeing

                        

As part of this week’s lesson plan I must reflect on where I feel my overall level of wellbeing is at this time in my life.  This means I will rate my physical, spiritual, and psychological well-being on a scale of 1-10 (ten being optimal wellbeing).  I will then develop a goal for each of these areas and an activity that I can implement into my life to assist in moving towards each of these goals.  After spending some time taking inventory of my strengths and needs in each of these areas this is what I came up with:

My physical well-being:  7

When contemplating this number I looked at many different areas that would make up my physical wellbeing.

 

 My weight: 150 pounds (not exactly where I want to be, but within the normal/healthy range for my height)

My BMI:  24 within a healthy range

My Body Fat %: 19% within a fitness level

My Blood pressure: within a healthy range

My Cholesterol level: within a healthy range

My Diet: a very healthy natural diet, consisting of a variety of all food groups

Sleep habits: poor

Exercise: 5-6 days a week (consist of cardio, weight-training, cross-fit training)

Medical Conditions:

 I have hypothyroidism in which I still take medication for.  My goal is to eventually come completely off any pharmaceutical for treatment of this.

Recent bone scan reveals that I have osteoporosis in my spine and osteopenia in my hip, although this is being controlled by my lifestyle choices (diet, exercise, and vitamin supplements) there has been very little change for the past several years. (This is good, because it has not gotten any worse)

I recently have been experiencing some hair thinning and loss, which tells me there is something out of balance within my system.

Although my fitness wellbeing would be rated very high, I have several medical areas that are not optimal but yet are not on the lower end of the scale either.  So I deducted a few points for these issues and gave myself a 7 for physical well-being.

Spiritual Wellbeing: 6

I feel I am a very spiritual person and have much faith.  I spend time daily in prayer.  I teach Sunday school at my church. I am just returning from a mission trip to the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky helping repair homes for the under privileged. Although for some this may sound like my Spiritual Wellbeing should be ranked high, I believe that on a spiritual end we all fall short of optimal.  This is an area for me that I can always grow in and do not believe I will ever be able to rank it as a 10, but at the same time I do feel I am in a good place spiritually. I gave my Spiritual Wellbeing a score of 6

Psychological Wellbeing: 4

This is definitely holding me back on my journey to optimal health.  I struggle quite often with stress, times of negativity, times when I have very low self-esteem, and over all crankiness.  I contribute this to: my busy multitasking lifestyle, my constant inner struggle with what I feel my body should look like, working at a job that I no longer want to be at, and lack of sleep trying to accomplish too many things in one day.  For these reasons I ranked my psychological wellbeing at a 4.   

My Goals and 1 activity to work towards accomplishing my goal:

Physical Wellbeing:

 To figure out why my hair is falling out! This is really freaking me out, and I am not sure if it is an age thing, hormonal, nutrition, or a result of stress. I plan on scheduling an appointment with a local naturopath to have my blood analysis done in hopes of determining if there is a physical reason for why this is happening or is it a psychological reason.

Spiritual Wellbeing:

To spend more focused time in prayer and devotions.  Although I spend time in prayer daily, there are times that I do it while doing other things.  I feel that I need to allot for time just for this task and not try and fit it in while doing other things. I will get up 15 minutes earlier in the morning to read a devotion and spend time in quite prayer without any other distractions.

Psychological Wellbeing:

Oh, where do I begin with this one?? My first goal here will be to decrease my negativity.  This is a goal that I have been working on because I see how negative my son can be and my hopes are that he will learn from my example.  I know that negative feeds negative and at the same time positive feeds positive, so the more positive I have around my son the more positive he will become.  To accomplish this I will refrain from speaking negative remarks, although I may think them, which is not much better, I will work on that next.  I will start my trying to make one full day of no negative remarks and build from there.

Although these goals look good on paper, the hard part comes when you must really implement them into your lifestyle.  I have to say, for me, this is not just a school assignment; it is truly the stepping stones on the journey towards optimal health.  I will employ these goals into my daily life in order to get that much closer to my end goal.

Laurie

The Power for Achieving Relaxation is Within You

"Relax" a word that is at times easier said than done.  

As the week is rapidly approaching the end, my stress level seems to be rising just as rapidly.  I had very high expectations of what tasks I would need to accomplish today which have fallen a little short.  I will be leaving tomorrow for a mission trip to the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky, my family and myself have been looking forward to this trip, although I have been a little on edge trying to get packed, work, and get my school work done before we leave.  Everything but my school work was accomplished.  As I finally only have a few hours left before bed, I curl up in my corner of the couch armed with a cup of green tea and a bowl of fresh strawberries. I log in to my class: Creating Wellness: Psychological and Spiritual Aspects of healing and there waiting for me was just what I needed, a relaxation exercise.  

I begin to listen to the audio, the voice is incredible soothing, I decide to attempt to get the full benefit of this exercise.  I shut the end table light off, put my earphones in, and close my eyes.  I listen to the voice explain how I have the power for achieving relaxation just by thinking about it.  It is a technique called Autogenic Relaxation.  By thinking and focusing on a particular body part you can make it feel more relaxed and comfortable.

I continue to hear the voice saying the word "relax" and with every breath I repeat the word and I immediately begin to feel more at ease.  As the exercise continues I stay completely focused on my thoughts of becoming more relaxed, I picture the blood running through my arms and they begin to feel heavy and warm, my fingers have somewhat of a tingle in them.  My mind is blank except for my thought of relaxation.  I begin to feel totally at peace, almost to the point that I could fall asleep.  Oh, how my mind and body needed this and then....BAM!! reality hits.  My son comes storming through the living room like a bull in a china closet yelling Mom wheres my DSI. 

I truly can see how techniques like these can help promote relaxation and reduce stress.  The trick is teaching yourself how to implement them into your real, everyday life and doing them when you need them most.

Laurie  

Hello

My name is Laurie I am the mother of three a daughter 25, and two sons 21 and 13. My children are my most prized accomplishments.  I live in Northeast Pennsylvania with the love of my life and my youngest son.   On the journey for a healthier lifestyle for myself and my family I discovered a passion for nutrition and fitness.  I am currently pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree at Kaplan University in Health and Wellness and Studying Naturopathic Nutrition Counseling through Trinity School of Natural Health. Throughout my studies I have discovered the importance of achieving harmony within our bodies which in turn will lead one to a state of well-being. “To achieve a life of wellness one must embrace habits and behaviors that will promote better health and an improved quality of life” (“What is Wellness, n.d.).  

Reference:

“What is Wellness” (n.d.). Definition of Wellness retrieved August 5, 2012 from:

               http://definitionofwellness.com