The two practices I have chosen to be the most beneficial to me are the Loving Kindness and the Visualization exercises. The reason for the Loving Kindness exercise would be for its unnatural ability to make you express emotions that are usually tucked away. The feelings of hurt, anger, jealousy, heart break and many more, also the feelings of love, longing, hope and awareness. I believe the saying, “do unto others as you would have do unto you” is the basis for this exercise. Even your enemies have a place in your heart for love, hope and health that they may live an integral life. The Visualization exercise touches my heart because it is a daily reminder to take a step back and look at the wonderful gifts which have been given to us, even how small they might be. I do love to remember a place and the smells, voices, surroundings in which come with it. I can use the Loving Kindness to foster mental fitness by taking the daily emotions from the day and washing them away with the exercise. Clean slate of nothing but positive, well balanced thoughts about other individuals. This will assist in cleansing the mind of toxic thoughts and provide peace to my inner thought process. The Visualization practice can be used to foster mental fitness by allowing a look at the beauty of life, in the past or in the present. This practice can bring up old memories that are very dear to me and take a look at the gifts that are being given today. I just feel like there is so much to life that we do not think about or give the respect to think about and the Visualization exercise gives those priceless moments in life justice. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year.
Steph
Hey Steph,
ReplyDeleteI also believe the Loving-kindness exercise would be beneficial to me. I personally believe I have an open heart but after practicing it a few times I realize that I can be more kind, loving and compassionate to the people I don't think should get an iota of my sympathy. I have certainly come a long way. I am happy to hear that both these exercises have fostered your mental journey and hope for the new year that we become better teachers and mentors to the people we love.
Hi Steph,
ReplyDeleteI think that you brought up a really good point when you said that even our enemies have a place in our hearts. How true. Whether our feelings toward somebody are positive or negative, we still have feelings toward them, and having those feelings shows that somewhere in our hearts we do care about them to some degree. And I think that it is important that we acknowledge that.
For me, I found the Loving Kindness exercise to be uplifting and exhausting at the same time. Thinking about others' suffering is just very heavy on my heart. The emotions that I experienced while participating in the Loving Kindness exercise remind me of what the ancient Romans referred to as a "purging of emotions." They considered that to be a cleanse of the mind and body.
Mariah
Stephanie,
ReplyDeleteI think it is amazing that you were able to take the loving kindness exercise so far. I wish I could get past my enmity towards certain people, but they still currently effect my life in a negative way so it is difficult at this time. I would like to move away from this place, because I feel like I would be able to reach peace a little easier that way. Anyways, good for you. I am happy you were able to use it in such a positive way.