Loving- Kindness

  I enjoyed the loving-kindness exercise. I completed it three times! I did it once after reading the process in the book, I administered it to my son and then I did it again alongside him with the mp3. I did think that it was beneficial, I could not complete it without including prayer though which I found very interesting. I will take that as a sign of spiritual growth and gratitude. While focusing on the assignment I felt very peaceful, loved and warm. I could visualize in my minds eye love and smiles, positive energy flowing from me and thoughts of healing, and action for the world. I would recommend this exercise to others and in fact have already to my oldest son who is 12 and my husband (=

  The concept of a mental workout is that we need to make a daily commitment to working our minds in order to evolve our psycho-spiritual life and access its resources. I can implement a mental workout by participating in contemplative practice a form of mental training daily. Antoine Lutz and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin comparing contemplative scholars with a control group in order to study gamma waves; they found that the contemplatives brains showed a progressive increase and synchronization of gamma waves which suggest mental integration at a higher level (Dacher,2006).

Reference:

Dacher, E.S. (2006), Integral Health The Path to Human Flourishing. Laguana Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications, Inc.

Unit 3 blog participation

1. Based on your reflections, and on a scale of 1 to 10 (ten being optimal wellbeing), where do you rate your A-physical wellbeing, B-spiritual well-being, C-psychological well-being? Why? 
I am a 8 in physical well-being, I fall short a bit because my waist circumference is not in the health range, and I am currently working through a stiff neck! I am a 10 on my spiritual well-being this area in my life has been receiving a lot of intentional time lately with two Bible studies, devoted time to prayer, study and meditation, extracurricular church activities, and listening/praising through contemporary Christian music. I feel very peaceful and am learning to apply these spiritual principles to my life. My psychological well-being is also at a 10 right now. I feel very peaceful with my self and my surroundings, anxiety free, and have learned to cope well with stress and time management, I am content with my studies, parenting, financial status, and marriage. 

2. One physical goal I have for myself is to complete the Bataan Death March on March 17th it is a 26.2 rough terrain hike in New Mexico. One goal I have for myself spiritually is to complete one study on March 14th. One goal I have for myself psychologically is to identify areas that may be out of alignment and correct them.

3. What activities or exercise can you implement in your life to assist in moving toward each goal?

 I need to be more intentional in stretching to avoid injury while training for the Bataan death march. I need to carve out more time for reading in my Bible study. I need to intentionally jot down when I feel psychologically flustered or stunted.

4. Complete the relaxation exercise The Crime of the Century. To hear this exercise, click here. Describe your experience. (What it beneficial? Frustrating? etc.) I was very frustrated trying to complete the exercise this week because I procrastinated and then my children were not cooperative! I had to compete for time and restart several times. To prevent this from happening and reap the benefits I will need to prioritize the blog at the beginning of my week next week.

I am a blogging fool for you!

Silly but true yes. I am working my way through learning to blog and am hopeful that I will get the hang of it sooner than later. I completely forgot to blog this week for this course as one of my other classes has blogging as well and I did not specify that I needed to blog in both on my to-do list for the week. It is true I get a bit flustered when I make silly mistakes like that now that I am in my Senior year I have been at this school gig for a while!

I look forward to following you all throughout the course and wish you all a bountiful semester (=

~Brandy

Mind Body Relaxation

Centering my thoughts upon relaxation was tough to do while completing the Journey On exercise my sons were having some very audible fun building a fort. I began to see in my minds eye a soft cream colored light and my hearing became solely focused on the narrator. The first few breathes I could feel my chest opening up and my nostrils releasing heavily.

Upon the speak of the blood resting in my abdominal cavity I became very aware of my abdominal region. Then I began to focus on breathing and relaxing again. I began to focus my attention on blood flowing to my shoulders, arms and hands as directed by the narrator and almost immediately I could feel a tingling sensation in my fingers and palms. Upon the third or fourth time of directing my body to move the blood flow my hands were very heavy and I could feel added weight in my elbows and heat in my shoulder blades.

After slowly breathing to come back into awareness I was again aware of the soft cream colored light and the noise resumed around me while my vision began to refocus on my surroundings. I am completley convinced that our bodies listen effectively to our thoughts.

~Brandy~