Unit 8

The two practices that I chose are the Loving Kindness and the Meeting Aesclepius meditations.  I found this two were the ones that I enjoyed the most.  In loving kindness I found that the connection of love is important to health and wellness.  Being able to connect to something greater through love and feeling love will help you flourish.  In meeting Aesclepius, I like the thought of sitting down with a guide in meditation and letting any information that I receive through the mediation be incorporated into my life.  I like how I got more insight into a situation or a clearer path as to where I should go.  I would use these as daily mediations.  Use loving kindness in the morning to get my thoughts in the right direction and in a happy place before starting the day.  If I can make myself smile right away in the morning there is a greater chance I will smile the rest of the day.  I would us meeting Aesclepius at night right before bed to check in with my guide and see if there was anything during that day that I can learn from and change.  Or, maybe I would be giving a different insight on a path to take in my tasks for the next day.

Unit 7

I really liked this meditative practice for this week.  I created my own person, who was a combination of a lot of wise and loving people that I know.  This week I should have done more meditating that I have.  I know it would have helped me get through this tough loss of a dear family member.  I did stick with my running and that helped.  I should have added the meditating to clam my mind so I could sleep better.  This is a meditation that I think I could use a lot.  I would look towards this person and guide and hope that they will give me useful information needed to guide me on the path that I am to be on.  I think you could create any kind of guide that you think you need and use this meditation for information.  Say you wanted to travel but didn't know where you wanted to go.  You could create a travel guide and ask that the perfect place be brought to you through a meditation or it could manifest in the next few days.

"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself"(Schlitz, Amorok, & Micozzi, 2005, p. 447).
This is very true.  It is like trying to teach a child how to add and subtract if you didn't know how to add or subtract yourself.  If you do not have love in your heart for everyone and everything, how can you help a client get to a point of love in their life?   I think as health professionals we need to be learning and expanding our knowledge so that we can help others.  This weekend there is a mind and body expo at the convention center in Minneapolis that I would have loved to go to.  I do have a family funeral that I have to be at, but I will catch the next one.  I think there is so much that is changing and new studies that are being done that will teach us how to connect everything together.  If we do not stay with these studies the students coming up behind us will have all the new and we will be left behind learning from them.  We can start creating a network of people that we trust for information and expanding on what we are learning now.  Now is the time.

unit 6

            Once again I did like the universal loving-kindness exercise; however, I have an ethical issue with the last two lines.  I will only assist someone if they ask me personally for it.  I do not believe sending out my energy to help people that do not ask for help.  Everyone is on their own path and if I send my energy to someone that does not ask for help I am changing their path and/or lesson that they need to learn for themselves.  I will send positive energy out to a situation for the highest good.  And maybe it all has to do with intent but I still have an issue with it.     

            When I did the assessment process I already knew that areas that I needed to work on.  This process just gave me more definition in the area.  I believe with time these areas will grow.  I just have so much going on right now with a full time and part time job, and school.  I know there is more that I can do in these areas.  I do spend some time on them when breaks allow.  One activity I can do more of is meditation and waving my white flag sometimes to the universe.  Just knowing that I am on the right path for myself keeps me going to greater wellness.

Unit 5

In the loving kindness exercise we were asked to picture someone that we love and bring them into our thoughts.  You are asked to think of people and the love that you give and or receive from them.  In the subtle mind exercise we are asked to not think about anything.  We are to empty the mind.  In the mp3, I again did not like the man's or woman's voice.  I liked that there was less talking, but I found for myself that if I am to empty my mind I need complete quite.  The sound of the waves and music helped my mind to wander.  Once I went into a quiet room with no noise I was able to empty my mind better.  I have done this type of practice on my own before.  This is they type of meditation that I prefer.  When I go to this spot I feel like I get guidance from a higher power.  I use this information to tune into my body and I can feel my body change. Once I was able to see my place in the universe and realize that there are bigger things going on than just what is inside my small part, I was able to see and understand how my thoughts affected my mental state.  If I allowed myself to be negative then I could not think clearly on projects.  Once I also got to this negative point I also found myself skipping my running.  It was a domino effect for me.  If I can understand my spirit and turn the negative into something positive it changes the rest of my day.