Unit 8 - My meditations

I chose the 'love and kindness' meditation and the last one, the 'happy, healthy, whole' meditation to foster my mental health. The love and kindness causes me to think about others and to let the love I have within to spread to others. This is, I think, a very important part of mental fitness. I am spiritually sick if I keep thinking about myself all the time, the less I think about myself and my wants, the more I can listen to the people around me and can be of service to them, which in turn serves me, because I feel good when helping others.
The 'happy, healthy, whole' visualization left me with an intense feeling of serenity and completeness. Questions ceased and answers came willingly. This meditation speaks to my inner soul, my inner, self-confident, and healthy self, thus creating a better me if carried over in the now-time. My mental fitness profites from this state of being because there is no stress, no must do, no fast drive - but still more things get accomplished. Great how that works! I can feel these better moments for some time, but am far from being a saint! There are still the fast, stressy moments more frequent than the slow, peaceful ones. But what do they say - progress, not perfection!

Unit 7 - Every master needs a mentor

Nobody can teach what he hasn't learned before. And even further, nobody can teach what he is not practicing . I remember how appaled I was when I saw the surgeon who would do my appendectomy the next day, drinking and smoking in a little bar. I immediately lost trust in him - he operated anyway, and all went fine, but I did have major apprehensions. I think the most important part of healing is understanding and knowing what it means to be healed - having gone through the process oneself makes you a better healer. For instance, I always had a woman assisting with the birth of my children. It just made more sense to trust a woman who has gone through it herself. There are wonderful obstetricians out there, don't get me wrong, but personally, I trust a woman more. She just knows not only the facts and the physical process but she also knows about the mental, and spiritual part of giving birth. So, in order to teach or heal integral health I have to practice it myself - and how will I implement spiritual growth? By meditating regularly, by being still and listen, by feeling love and kindness, and by ever trying to grow more.

The Asclepian meditation was a little hard for me - I have a person who I think is a mentor, a spiritual advisor, and an awesome human being. But when I visualized the beams of light from his mind to mine, from his communication chakra to mine, etc. I felt like I am stealing something from him. Somehow I felt it was wrong to just take these powers without asking his permission - although I knew I would not literally take them away from him. So, I tried it again with an imaginary Asclepius, and that worked better. It really always makes me calmer and more confident when I meditate these kinds of meditations. Cool! I like it!

Unit 6 - Integral Assessment

I am just glad this exercise made me do my integral assessment - it made it pretty clear to me what I got to work on right now. I tried to visualize it with this blotch-diagram. As one can see there is definitely work to be done in regards to nutrition, social activism, and conative aspects. 

For my nutritional needs I finally have to be careful of what I eat, more proteins, less sugar. As to the social activism...hmm...I am not so sure how I can work on that one. I will take suggestions. As to my conative, the motivational part, well, I have to check my motives every now and then when I am doing something, or say something. Why am I saying it? Why am I really doing it? I think these three, or at least two of them, the nutrition and motivational aspect go hand in hand - if I find the right motivation for eating healthier, then I catch two flies. I was surprised at how well I am doing with the interpersonal aspects! Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am not in a relationship right now. No wonder I can do good. But I can see it also with my children, that I am improving. Love and kindness can really change lives. At least it does for me.

My Power Point Unit 5

http://www.slideshare.net/Johannabennett/j-bennett-hw420-section-02-unit-5-project-7499843

Unit 5 - The subtle mind

I think the mind is anything else but subtle....at least mine is. It's stubborn and strong. Very hard to calm down. But repeated meditation can work wonders. This weeks meditation, the subtle mind, actually calmed my mind, since it had to be focused on exactly one focal point. As opposed to last weeks meditation where we had to go through steps of liking and sending, and visualizing many different things. This time we had to calm our mind, not activate our mind in a certain direction. Breathing was a good focal point, because it always happens, whether we want ti or not. I once got the feeling of stillness - the moment when the focal point slowly changes from your breathing to stillness itself. How wonderful! To be able to just be....without questions or problems, or things to do!

This stillness persisted for a little while..then my not so subtle mind awoke again and off I was to the races. Frustrating. But I know with more practice more stillness can come. This stillness though I find I can reproduce every now and then during the day - I just focus on my breath and there it is. This stillness is very important to me - many situations in which I would immediately react, and blurt out what does not need to be said, I have a second time to think whether it really is important to be said by me now, and often times I don't say what I initially thought so important to say. I want to do this more often than not. So I keep meditating and calming my mind.....