Onward

I must say that spiritually I would rate myself an eight now which I feel is more realistic at the present time from a nine. Physically I would rate myself an eight also from a nine earlier and psychologically another eight and is always my stumbling block area for improvement. My scores have changed because after taking this course I have gotten better at assessing my emotional levels of development and have zeroed in on a few overstated observations. Fine-tuning my skills is a new focus on my mind’s eye. My goals are the same as before but again consistency, determination and a renewed focus on meditational sessions are my goals. Small sessions and longer length ones are depending of tome constraints and work hours. I always have access to breathing techniques and will utilize when needed and feeling stresses. Healing physically is almost complete, so after the holidays I have scheduled in daily yoga and physical activity. I am a fitness nut and committed exerciser. Absolutely love it for it mental, spiritual and physical benefits. Practicing time has been the most difficult of learned principals of this class. I have seen the rewards but still find it hard to slow down and relax. I do love to listen to meditation MP3’s and guided meditation. This is something I have been able to do on a regular basis at bedtime. I have shared much of what we have gone over with my daughter who finds it quite interesting and helpful to her. Of course we share and love to entertain each other through communion, yoga, and music. These factors will always be a part of my life and future pursuits.

Emptying the Cup

Introduction

First we must value practice. Managers, educators and practitioners should reflect practice in order to transform it, rather than guide practice from the mountain peaks (Pearson, 1999). When we have identified a need for change we must adapt, quantify, and dedicate away those things we want to change to contemplative practice. It is scary to seek out new approaches and philosophies but we do that when there are gaps or doubts in the present most excepted ones. There is a need by clients for reassurance. Qualified professionals should have first-hand experience on integral approaches they recommend. They must be able to walk the patient through the process with their own valued understanding of the positive benefits and outcomes. The client should feel that this “person” has been healed, changed and is the figure to assist them on their journey to establish a bond that might be life-long. Having a witness and being one can explain the psychological, spiritual and physical development one must practice daily to reach higher levels of overall transformation.

Personally I need to continue to develop on all areas of the integral process. Times, life and circumstances are always dynamic and fluctuating. I have found that what once work doesn’t always and that we must adapt and find solution once that happens. Physically, I was where I wanted to be, but now, I need to rededicate myself to getting back on tract after to an injury. Psychologically there is always room for important. Meditation, listening to relaxing music, mental imagery, vacations and spending time with myself and others is important for my mental growth. I plan on always being aware of how valuable it is to be grounded with love, gratification, kindness, compassion, having a giving nature and practicing daily time-outs. All these adventures lead to spiritual growth eventually. One thing that is missing and I plan to rectify is finding a mentor. I do need guidance and someone I can talk to about my concerns, questions and when I feel less motivated to meditate. Through some of my meditation sessions, I have had the opportunity to pump into entities that given me advice, shared insights, and have said “you are home; it’s been a long time since seeing you”.   

 

Assessment

On a scale of 1-10, as a whole I rate myself an 8. This is a resolving condition and a sought after goal to improve upon daily through reading, searching, and thoughtfulness but also integral thinking. I am a physical person naturally and rate myself an 8 again. I enjoy life’s simple pleasures of the great outdoors and the playground we have inherited that is outside. I will hike mountains, seek peaks to climb, travel by way of river or creek, run up and down hills yet during I am a peace, harmony and tranquil in thought, connected to God. When I am not outside I am working out indoors doing P90X or yoga. But my newest adventure will be Turbo Fire with Chalene Johnson. I could use to lose about twenty pounds of fat, so a fat-loss program is warranted. Daily exercise also refocuses the mind, definitely helps my spirit and self-esteem plus I feel a sense of accomplishment and soothes a restless mind into calmness.

Psychologically I rate myself a 7. I have much work to do on this subject. Recent difficulties have tested my resolve and I have hit many bumps in the road because of it. My perceptions have not always been positive even with my heighten awareness of it. I do get stressed out; feel frustrated if things don’t go my way immediately. When I feel that way, I go within and still my mind from my senses and thoughts to relax, to let another world exist, to reenergize my soul with purpose. I love to be a peace and harmony with things in nature and in my mind. It feels like home!

Spiritually I feel is one of my strength because I have always been aware of it by my ancestors, parents and grandmother who was once a holy woman in our tribe that turn to religion to escape unsolicited visits from the outside world. Even though I feel spiritually connected I rate myself an 8. This is due to my struggle in the psychological area. I recently read an article entitled Empting the Cup: Healing Fragmented Identity. This paper was about indigenous people’s struggles (alcohol, drugs, depression and helplessness) that are in relations to the spiritual stripping and the oppression of culture, language and traditions brought on by colonialism. We have lost our way but seek to educate ourselves and fellow tribal members that we need bring back the old styles of communion, dancing, and spiritual practices. Emptying the Cup implies that our human bodies are physical vessels that contain our spiritual, emotional, and mental energies. My vessel has been filled with images of dancing barbaric savages in war paint, uneducated and defeated people whose culture was deemed heathen and of course cowboys and Indians rivalry. Amy Desjarlais wrote this piece and it made me aware that I need to “empty my cup” of negative colonial ideals and return to the ways of my ancestors. In the past there were traumas but these events are still affecting people to this day in the form of historical trauma theory. Historical trauma is cumulative emotional and psychological wounding over the lifespan and across generations, emanating from massive group trauma resulting from a cataclysmic history of genocide. Thanks to this class and education I have to this point, I have stumbled onto something quite important to me that is healing something I didn’t understand before. Through community support, meetings with tribal leaders and identifying grief I will empower my spirit.   

 

 

 

Goals

Within my work I have set some goals in all aspect of integral health and wellness. More involvement with my community in the neighborhood and tribe through dance, festivals, volunteering, gardening, sharing feelings and rancor but most of all, feeling good about life and the knowing that we can have health, happiness and wholeness for ourselves, friends and enemies. I already have a fitness program (Turbo Fire), nutrition guide and have set a time to start which is after the holidays for 90 days, six days a week. Psychologically I need to continue with my mental practices of meditation, visualizations, and imagery. I have purchased a couple of albums dedicated to meditation. One is by Dr. Miles Neale titled Mindfulness Meditations For Tranquility and Insight and the others is Weight Loss through Hypnosis and Relaxation by Dr. Michael Cohn and DR. Mary Fuller. I have already started using them and they are great tools I bought at the iTunes store.

 

Practices for personal health

I have set goals, deadlines, priorities and will engage persistence and determination to meet all aspects of my spiritual, psychological and physical requirements that I have imposed of myself to heal, strengthen and reach higher places of awakening. Physically its exercise and yoga six days a week with my structured program I have already mentioned. On my days off I will visit my favorite hiking destinations and indulge in blissful meditation there for spiritual connections and energy absorption. I also love art, music and community gatherings. All these expressions of creativity I will utilize to further my spiritual journey, as I will paint, draw and write. New Age music I already use and am using as I write my paper.  Addressing old wounds and exploring the ones I don’t know yet are at the root of my psychological development. I am trying hypnosis via MP3’s with guided practice geared towards openness, stillness and witnessing. Those practice I started last night at bedtime. This morning I was ready for my daily tasks and excited to do them, one is this assignment. I like the idea of cross-training integral practice (Dacher, 2006). The idea is to incorporate all priorities for a whole-body approach to health; addressing individual quadrants with further the development of all. Replacing negativity with can-do attitudes is a focus of mine through contemplative practice as the witness. I see my failings; adjust my feelings and emotions based off that assessment, and work diligently daily to heal. My intention is supreme!    

 

Commitment

I have been on a journey for quite some time now and what I have learned is I am evolving daily with meditation, physical enjoyment through exercise, eating healthy nutritious foods, and with my awareness of myself, the world and universe. We are all connected and part of the whole ocean of consciousness, spirits and energies that we can tap into to help us navigate unmapped territory. The entire universal system is made of the same materials, orbit small and large cosmic bodies are powered by the radiant energies of thought that travel to us, nurtures and heal us. My commitment is to us! My commitment is to all; to respect each individual as precious and a needed part of everything. We all need each other’s help to move on to something wonderful and beyond what we presently have. What we have is good but can be much better if we include everyone and leave no one behind. When we finally realize that hurting others hurts ourselves wars will seize and we will have time, resources, and dedication to spread health, happiness and wholeness to ever corner of the planet instead of suffering. By reconnecting to the Great Spirit, with our Mother Earth and Father Sky Image we can collect our inner peaceful nature, calming our minds to hear the messages, and working in unison as a whole, we will overcome our many obstacles through divine wisdom and loving-kindness which will bring in a new level of reality and existence for humanity that includes living beings and consciousness. My commitment is to experience reconnections lost or forgotten, to stymie my own fears, to be open-minded and committed practitioner of integral health practice that include the practitioners in it makeup and considerations. I can’t forget something written in the Empting the Cup: Healing Fragmented Identity article: it is impressed upon the reader the vital role spiritually practices, culture, and ceremony play in Aboriginal identity, trauma prevention and healing: it also opens the door to discussing a pragmatic approach to culturally appropriate consultation that empowers all communities to take responsibility to come together in a good-way, for a fresh look at the contemporary consultation models and provides necessary inspiration to think beyond the limitations of current diseased and disempowering realities (Desjarlais, 2012).     

Meditation and Visuals

TASTE OF HUMAN FLOURISHING visualization and the Loving Kindness MP3 were my favorite exercises and practice of this course. Both start off with associations of someone you love or who bring you great happiness but the taste of human flourishing goes a bit further and includes special places and experiences to focus on and feel throughout your person. Staying in the moment is important, as is entering the state with an open-heart allowing for loving feelings to consume the entire body, mind and spirit with kindness! The focus of quantifying questions of depth as to smells, feelings, quality-of-mind, and connectedness to the dimensions of unity are asked within to assess and assimilate full enjoyment of experiences. Using your mind to extract feelings and mental pictures is much like pretending and day-dreaming, something I used to do all the time as a child. These exercises remind me of childhood imaginations and fantasies we are trained to forget as adults. It kind of funny that we will be training ourselves to rekindle past loves, wholeness feelings and radiant health experiences to affect our present world and outcomes.

 Loving-kindness asks us to be at peace and be tranquil as well as acknowledge all thoughts that travel across the mind-eye. We are to love each equally, observe them and to unattached ourselves from them.  Stillness, harmony and peace is the natural home of our minds. Welcome it and enjoy! Loving yourself, as a precious being, is paramount and is reflected outwardly towards to world during waken hours. The only hesitation I first felt was taking in suffering of a loved one but once understood this is an act of giving, exhaling out suffering and the lights of health towards the loved one. What a great gift of taking and giving. But the biggest leap is to send our love (taking in suffering and breathing out health, happiness, wholeness) to the world even to ones enemies is powerful in the loving-kindness piece.   

Peace and harmony I sent out to the world. These experiences are gifts. Love and happiness is the state we should live in all our waking hours, to facilitate health, wisdom and wholeness. Once we stop, quiet the minds ramblings, we can see life as wonderful, tranquil and supportive of our needs and feelings. There is comfort there but also vast knowledge to create the life we seek that is wholesome, uplifting and with purpose. This meditation thing shows us our essence. Like any good feeling and adventure, this can and will become habit. These mental exercises followed with great nutrition and physical activity incorporated a total holistic approach to healing that is personal and dynamic. The mind and spiritual development has been forgotten in the biomedical fields. Man has always evolved and will continue to do so, on our quest of supreme knowledge of cause and effects!

Meeting Aesclepius

Meeting Aesclepius

Going within is a treat to visit quiet and calming nature that is our home and destiny of our strivings. Our subtle mind or Aesclepius utilizes visuals to access the wise healer that is waiting for us to share insights into integral health and happiness. We see a wise individual who we respect and honor. This time instead of PERSON I know, I will create one and image their face, persona, and intelligence that I can utilize to help me find peace, happiness, wholeness and universal love for all things. I will observe while listening to the ocean waves. My experience is soothing, tranquil and calming until directed on the next phenomena. I get to sit in communion with this wise person and feel them of their quality and characteristics of presence. All that is universal is exchanged and felt during this bonding. What I see is a gentle person who is neither male nor female but a glowing light that burns bright with love, kindness and wisdom. These types of mental practice have been like mini-vacations/retreats that have kept me from over-reacting in many situations that I used to succumb (anger, frustration, and impatience) to in the past. By imaging a loving person, I have become that person. When I feel negative feelings and emotions, I can steer away by thinking of grandma, mother or my great-father figure I created to help guild me to surer grounds, safety and clearer thought.

Personal evolution and experience is walking the walk and talking the talk. “The ability to see the divine in everyone and treat each individual as though he or she were Christ or the Buddha himself can transform the suffering of illness into grace of healing” (Marilyn Schlitz, Tina Amorok, Marc S. Micozzi, 2005). We must all connect and become equal human-beings and share the experience of the journey that disease can empower us to discover, as a team. Both practitioner and patient can benefit from the grace of the healing process and spiritual opening that that entails to transcend our worldly existence into higher consciousness and personal witnessing. Professionals have the responsibility to challenge themselves to seek personal development to help steer the patient on their journey and mentor them with guidance, wisdom and personal knowledge. This experience gives credit and insight into the practice of self-discipline and personal conquest of self into spiritual, psychological and physical development. My journey has been an evolving process that started with physical fitness and has graduated into nutrition, meditation, yoga, and mental imagery practices. I continue to strive to add more dimensions to my skills and to seek knowledge, truth and wisdom for the rest of my life. Daily mental practice is a part of my being, as is hiking, fishing and other physical activity that connects me to nature and the universal oneness I have discovered.  

Marilyn Schlitz, Tina Amorok, Marc S. Micozzi. (2005). Consciousness & Healing. St. Louis: Elsevier Churchill Livingstone.

It Time To Focus And Move Forward!

For a few minutes, I closed my eyes and eased my mind and body and repeated phases for ten minutes that elicited an outpouring of good fortunes, freedom and my support of the elimination of the suffering of the entire world and its inhabitants. In my mind, I included animals, the earth and all that she is, and every individual entity I believe exists; a true and encompassing universal loving-kindness. The assessment process was more self-centered. I quieted my mind and thought of ways to improve by asking quality questions of myself and present development in the areas of psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal and worldly. What area was the source of discomfort and suffering and what should be my focus?

What I discovered doing the meditation is how forgiving I could be even to my enemies. I don’t really feel that I have any at this point in my life due to that forgiving nature I presently enjoy. My service to others mentally could use some work and focus. I really would like to join a neighborhood gardening project or serve as a volunteer in some capacity. Farmers Markets, community health issues, feeding the homeless are a few volunteering opportunity I would like to invest in soon. Interpersonal development is another focus I will strive for. My psychospiritual and biological development has been my focus for years, so it time to share my insights and experience with others and to received insights and experience for others. This ocean of whole-body energy can be exchanged and relayed for all to share and be advantaged. To build courage and remove fears, I will visualize and mediate on the subject described and many other endeavors I chose to explore. I am building up to sing Karaoke one day very soon. I purchased a WiiU game console and am eyeing a Sing Along game that is a Karaoke simulation.  

The Subtle Mind through Breathing

The subtle mind was frustrating compared to the loving-kindness exercise. Maybe, I had too much coffee today because I had issues with focus and attention and I even got a little bored with the length. I started out great and zeroed in on the breath and my mind as instructed but the “monkey mind” kept creeping in and I witnessed various random thoughts and images. Back and forth my thoughts ran past me and I dodged them like a running back during a football game. I continued to push them aside and not to attach to them for a while but maybe I got tired of this exercise a bit too soon maybe. I did reach a point of stillness, calmness and easing of breath for about 4 minutes and it felt great while it lasted. I will attempt this exercise again tomorrow because it might be due to having had a long day filled with activities and bad food. This kind of exercise might be better for me at my best and freshest timeframe, in the morning.

Thinking of Love and Sharing!

The Loving-Kindness MP3 at it conclusion relaxed my mind and body. I thought of a group of loved ones, my grandmother, mother and niece. When I visualized them, I immediately felt comforted, relaxed, warm, cared for and loved. My physiology resulted in less tense muscles in my trapezius, back of head and shoulders. I notice some rumbling even in my gastrointestinal area. Taking time for inner practice makes one think they are wasting time. Taming the mind to realize and understand the value of such practice is the only difficulty for me. “Everything meaningful in life is achieved through effort, discipline, and perseverance” (Dacher, 2006). I know that statement to be true because I have used that recipe many times to get me moving physically (daily exercise and proper nutritional considerations). I would recommend anything that helps one become healthier and more alive spiritually. The Loving-Kindness practice opens up the mind to higher levels of consciousness and wisdom. How much better of world we could live in if selfishness and self-interest no longer existed; that loving-kindness attracts loving-kindness, we get back what we give approach (Dacher, 2006).

Dacher, E. S. (2006). The Integral the Path to Human Flourishing Health. Laguna Beach, CA : Basic Heaith Publication.

Mental workouts are mind training and a daily commitment just like physical exercise, human flourishing being the end result. Perseverance is necessary to maintain both physical and mental conditioning. Although we can relax during these sessions, the aim is the development of an expanded consciousness and our healing capacity. Mental works, according to research can transform the mind by reducing disturbing emotions that lead to anger, hatred, fear, worry, confusion and doubt, while enhancing positive attributes, such as patience, loving-kindness, openness, acceptance and happiness. Before I do my physical workouts, I will sit still and listen to the loving-kindness MP3. I know the values of mind conditioning and preparation and the positive affects it has on the physiology. When I am happy, my muscles, lungs, heart and joints respond better to physical resistance and calisthenics. In other words, I get a great workout and I am stronger physically!