Unit 5

Loving Kindness, Subtle Mind and Spiritual Wellness

 



 

The loving kindness exercise and the subtle mind exercises are completely different, although ironically they have the same intention, overall. In the loving kindness exercise, we really focused on expanding our awareness through our body. It was more of a directed exercise that used body areas and colors to bring awareness and expansion to the mind/body connection. It was meant more, energetically, I believe, to "feel" the aptitude for love that the human is capable of. In the subtle mind exercise, we were allowed to just focus on mind primarily using breath work to bring us back whenever we felt that we were "attaching" to anything coming into the mind during this awareness practice. The subtle mind exercise practice focused on teaching, also, the differences between attachment and just letting go. And, it is true. When someone first starts to practice meditation or mind awareness, it is so easy to become distracted. I had the hardest time with distractions when I first began my conscious practice. As you practice and become more aware, the distractions tend to disappear. Now, after about 10 minutes of meditative practice, I find myself truly in another dimension. And, there are different things that help me in meditation. I don't like to sit in silence. I have a specific type of music that I play when I meditate and it truly helps me to sit still, be quiet and let go. I think as individuals, we get caught on that meditation has to be in silence and in silly positions. That is the furthest thing from the truth. All we really have to do is sit or be active, such as in active meditation, and we can listen to whatever we want such as a script like guided imagery, or music, or nothing if that is what the individual so desires. As long as the focus in on "going within," it's all the same. I like both of the meditations. The only thing I found a little frustrating during the subtle mind meditation is how they kept bringing me back to "and let your mind release things, like no attachments," and I felt it was geared more toward beginner meditation. I'm personally at the point where I don't have thoughts that constantly filter in so out of the two, I enjoyed the loving kindness better.

Spiritual wellness, in my book, is essential for wellness throughout the body. I believe there are so many disease processes that stem from lack of spiritual wellness. A person who is harvesting hatred, anger, jealousy, or grief, probably will not be the most physically or mentally healthy. It's all connected. If a part of you is suffering from dis-ease, it is going to eventually show physically. For instance, I have a best friend who suffers from obesity. She is about 450 pounds. When we really broke into her childhood, it was discovered that she was sexually abused as a child. As a protection mechanism, she packed on the pounds to 1)protect her physical body by being "unattractive," and 2) her physical body is a result of her mental/spiritual connection or lack thereof and total lack of self respect and self esteem. She still harbors lots of guilt and anger and in turn, that comes out as eating very high fattening foods/sugary foods and gaining weight. She honestly doesn't think she's worth it, so she treats her body the way that individual made her feel. It starts in the spirit and in the mind, and it comes out in physical. I understand everyone is different and has different outcomes, so this is just my example of how mental/physical and spiritual wellness is all tied in together.

Personally, I try my best to keep everything in balance the best that I can. I understand the implications of imbalance and dis-ease. I do need to get better with my diet and with exercise, because I honestly need to respect my body better. I have a long journey coming with my master's program and if I do not learn to get into shape and handle stressors better, I may not have an easy time with it. I do meditation at least three days a week, and I believe when I start working out that I will connect even more. One of the things I learned in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition is that food is energy and not just in calories, but energetically speaking. So, personally, if I am bogging myself down with meat from animals that have been fed hormones or may not have been treated well, and refined foods that truly hold no nutritional value, my energy level (physically and energetically) is going to be much different than if I were to be eating a vegan or clean diet. And, in turn, all of that affects my spiritual wellness. When I am balanced spiritually, I feel better mentally and physically. Again, it is all a circle and there are no separate pieces of ourselves. Our health is one and all and all in one. We cannot separate any piece of ourselves from another. And, if there is an imbalance in one section of our circle, eventually, the other pieces will be affected too.

Mediate, mediate and mediate!!! Seek stillness and stillness will see you.

Heidi