The concept of mental workout I imagine is doing exercises to strengthen
your mind. Like the exercise of Loving
Kindness we just done. It is trying to
get us to get rid of our self-centered and quiet our mind so we can be creating
a loving kindness towards others.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Loving Kindness
At first I had a hard time getting the Loving Kindness mp3 in doc
sharing to download to listen to it. I
finally got it though. The first time
that I listened to it I had a hard time focusing, I think that the waves and
flue where nice to listen to the pause was too long and my mind seemed to
wander. I tried it again and I managed
to focus a little better. It has been
hard to quite my mind and focus since I have been busy packing, getting ready
for friends daughters baby shower, etc.
When the part came up about enemies I don’t really have them, but I thought
of what kind of people can make me mad like politicians, I felt better after
doing the exercise.
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Sherri,
ReplyDeleteBeing able to allow the mind to slip into the state needed to do these exercises is so hard for me. I understand how you mentioned that the pauses were too long and this let your mind wonder. I too had this problem. As soon as the pauses stated, I was imediately thinking about what other school work needed done. I am so glad that you were able to accomplish this exercise in the end.
Blessings,
Tennille
Hi Sherri,
ReplyDeleteI found just the opposite, the waves seemed to help me to stay focused but maybe that is because I did it later at night and was really ready to relax after a crazy day at work. I have a lot of difficulty with the part about enemies. When my children were babies about 7 years ago we lived in a little tiny trailor with 3 children because it was all we could afford in an expensive college town. Come to find out our Landlord was addicted to pills and harrassed us constantly for money that wasn't even due yet. In the end she broke into our home while we were at work and demolished all of our belongings throwing them out into the snowy yard the day before Thanksgiving even breaking our baby stuff, pictures, family heirlooms, everything.
We tried to sue her and she got a fake witness to make up all these lies about us. The judge wouldn't listen to us and made our witnessess wait so long to testify that they left because they had to work. Long story short we ended up paying her and her lawyer 8, 000$ and our lawyers 9,000$. You can imagine my faith in the system. We are still struggling to pay this debt. So yes, sending love to my enemies and embracing them is quite difficult. In my Arts and Humanities Class I am learning about Stoicism. Stoicism is the belief that in order to by happy we must look inside of ourselves and that nothing is under our control except for the way we decide to think about things. We cannot change the things that happen to us the only thing we can do is to choose not to let negative emotions about those things consume us (Janaro & Altshuler, 2012).
It is very neat how both of my courses seem to be complimented eachother this term, but through the process I am learning to LET GO and trying my best to give love and care to even disturbing thoughts and emotions. As we read somewhere in the text, we are all humans and we are all just looking to be happy and loved. Her happiness was drugs, my happiness was trying to build a life for my young family but it is what it is and my motto has always been that everything happens for a reason. Sorry for such a long post!
Heidi Waldman
Reference
Janaro, R., Altshuler, T. (2012). The Art of Being Human: The Humanities as a Technique for Living 10th (e.d.). Pearson Publishing.
I am sorry for what happened to you. That is awful. I had a particularly hard time with sending love to my enemies. The only enemy I have is doing 45 to life and he deserves to stay there so he can never harm anyone again. I work harder at forgiving myself. This has been my main focus. I know I will make mistakes, I know I am less than perfect but I deserve a second chance to do better. Instead I understand that because I am sorry others don't have to forgive me. This helps calm my mind at times.
ReplyDeleteMonique