Meeting Aesclepius

The mindfulness, meditative exercise "meeting Aesclepius" was personally, by far the most powerful psychospiritual exercise I have done yet. Great for self-esteem and it allowed me to create my own inner-master of mindfulness within myself. Having that ideal persona that resembles a skilled teacher I may have encountered in my past, I am now able to more easily  implement psychological and spiritual growth in your personal life. To ensure this continual growth, practice is essential. 

The statement "one cannot lead another where one has not gone himself," could not me more true in my line of work. In some cases people can get away with having a good amount of information and teaching others what they know. When it comes to human flourishing, learning how to practice from a skilled teacher who lives the lifestyle or being self-taught, is the only way to go. We as practitioners owe this to our clients so they are not being misled. As health and wellness professionals and spiritual practitioners we need to obtain a healthy lifestyle with good habits, nutrition, physical activity and regular mind/body and psychospiritual practice. 

Reality Self-Check

As they say, practice does make perfect. Each time I work on the "loving-kindness" exercise I get a better grasp of the overall goal of selflessness and mind control. This has been enlightening especially and most difficultly, the part where we were to show this immense love toward all living beings. In my mind, i pictured myself out of this world with our whole planet in my arms and I let my heart burst with the deepest, most unconditional love I could. Spreading this power of love and kindness throughout every continent and every inch of every sea and literally to every living being. The overwhelming feeling I feel after doing so is incredible. This may be the same feeling some experience when they believe one person can change the world. I too, now feel hopeful of this. 

Now assessing oneself on any level is a whole different story. A reality check to say the least. However, I feel as practitioners we need to master this before being able to successfully assess others. The goal of this Integral assessment is to ultimately alleviate needless suffering and promote human flourishing. We do this by settling into our calm mind and releasing all mental activity. We then ask ourselves "what aspect of our life; phychospiritual, biological, interpersonal or worldly is the source of difficulty and suffering?" Establish an answer and move on to a positive aspect of assessment by asking yourself, "what area of my life is ready for growth and development?" Personally, after doing this self-assessment, I found numerous areas in which need to be a focus of growth and development. First things first and I realized that my interpersonal aspect of family needs attention and my biological area of fitness. Having moved away from my immediate and really all family and splitting with my son's father I am really on my own with him. I have not been as attentive and nourishing to my family and close friendships. To make sure these relationships are still developing and flourishing I plan to set aside time to connect with each person on a more regular basis and set more personal  time with each during visits back home. I have always found myself to be good at this and deeply bothered by those who let "life" get away from them and forget about the relationships that mean the most. Now I feel a bit guilty of that. As far as fitness goes, it should be inexcusable seeing as i AM a trainer! I have been lazy and will set a workout schedule and get back on track to make sure this biological aspect is not lacking and I can strive integrally and reach a state of complete homeostasis. 

Flourish Spiritually through a Subtle Mind

After a week of mental workouts in Loving-Kindness I have added the second exercise to my workout regimen, the Subtle Mind. The purpose of this is to first, tame the mind and cultivate a witnessing consciousness. In other words, to be able to witness the busy thoughts, feelings and emotions as they come and go without attaching to them. The second step is to sustain that mind control by achieving a still mind in what is known as calm-abiding. Lastly, to gain the wisdom of unity consciousness and stabilize the calmness and a sense of pure awareness.

This audio exercise was much more difficult for me than the Loving-Kindness one. In loving-Kindness, we are guided through how to breathe and what to think and feel. This was easier because my mind did not have as much wide open space to wander. In the Subtle-Mind you are left with large spaces of time to remain consciously in the mind and are challenged to keep your mind still. After the third time trying this I was finally able to actually witness thoughts that arose of recent conversations, current stressors and excitements of life without climbing aboard and letting them take me away. I could watch them come and then go. I got to the point where I was focused on the rising and falling of my chest with each breath and sustained that focus long enough to feel first my heart, then stomach, then entire core and finally my whole body fill with a warm sense of harmony and bliss. As my focus switched from my breath to only my still mind that warmth turned into a tingly high that moved throughout my body as I held that still mind for I would guess about three minutes without clinging to one single thought, image or sound. In the end I felt renewed and accomplished. Now, I can say that It took practice to reach even that short three minutes. Tips when trying this meditative practice is to not lay down, be sitting up and aware. Do not attempt this while tired because it will put you out! Lastly  try this earlier in the day at first, when you are a bit more at ease and have yet faced the daily stressors.

Overall the challenges of these practices in psychospiritual flourishing are overcome with practice and the benefits are huge. I felt immediately calmed and blissful during and after completion. I would recommend meditative practices like these to everyone on a regular bases. They enhance our spiritual wellness and thriving spiritually goes hand in hand with positively influencing our psychological or mental wellness. As we now know, like they have always believed in Eastern Medicine, the mind and body not only reflect one another but they are one. So when we flourish spiritually we also flourish mentally and physically. Personally I manifest this connection daily with relaxation exercises and meditations such as the examples above, along with yoga and occasional tai chi. 

Give it a try(: 

A Mental Workout of Loving-Kindness

What might one think of when asked to complete a "mental workout?" A vast array of challenging thoughts maybe, or a series of visualizations touching on all the cornerstones of your life? Well, to my surprise a mental workout is a highly effective contemplative practice where we are at first guided, then are able to guide ourselves through first a stage of loving-kindness that opens our hearts to ourselves and others as it diminishes self-centeredness. Then, the second practice of a mental workout is obtaining a subtle mind which allows us to cultivate a high level of wisdom through three levels; witnessing, calm-abiding and unity consciousness. Through this mental workout we grasp a high understanding of our minds and gain psychological health, which is a huge component of the equation to wholeness. Research has shown the immense benefits of this practice. 

After my first experience with listening to the loving-kindness mp3, i was amazed at how i felt. Just so happens I tried it out during an hour of my life where I was feeling incredibly hopeless and overcome with sorrow due to a situation I had put myself in to. I was staring right in the eye a broken family that I had put my all into making whole for 4 solid years. Laying down and at the point of tears I listened to the loving-kindness mental workout and it completely changed the way I looked at my current and overall situation and the people involved. I went from feeling distraught to feeling in total control of my mind, body and soul and well as having the power to wish unconditional loving-kindness onto everyone in my life and everyone in the world that are complete strangers to me. This exercise was so powerful and positive that I would recommend it to everyone. In fact, I would recommend it most to those in pain and who feel hopeless and as though they have lost all control in their lives. I feel that love is an un-measurable power in our universe that remains a secret to many. This workout of loving-kindness does a magnificent job at unleashing the power of love.