Hello everyone!

      I have gotten so much out of all the exercises we have done from Dacher but the two that really stand out to me are the visualization exercise we did this week and the loving-kindness exercise. The visualization exercise we did this week involved remembering times in your life when you felt the happiest, most whole, and most alive! Remembering those times gave me a sense of hope and made me the happiest of all the exercises. Even though those feelings were temporary they helped me in remembering what those three things felt like at their fullest. There is a verse in the Bible that says "Whatsoever things are true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things." (Philippians 4:8) I believe remembering past things that are everything this verse says is so beneficial to us! It helps us remember that there is light among the dark and that it is stronger than the darkness. I am making a very pointed effort to think on good things and push out the bad. I have a confession to make. I have a great worrier and I am always afraid that something bad is going to happen. The last few days I have been thinking only on those things that are good and no matter how tempting it is to worry about some thing or another, I am putting it all in God's hands and remembering every time I am tempted to worry that God is greater than anything else in the world. He has promised to make everything work as good for His children and focusing on this truth and the times He has blessed me in the past is an essential practice that will help me overcome my fear and anxiety.

     The loving-kindness exercise was of great help as well. It helped me focus on the attributes I wanted to express in my own self. Imagining others who have the trait you want to have and imagining it in yourself is a great first step towards actually having it in your life. Focusing on what you want is the first step in getting it. The second, is asking God for it and for help to achieve it, and the next is doing it.

     Both of these exercises are wonderful tools to learning to live a happier, healthier, more fulfilled life. If anyone has not tried them yet, PLEASE take time to do them at least once. It will give you a taste of this happy healthy life that you want and it will drive you to be disciplined in it. Don't give up! Diligence in these will pay off a thousand fold. Just remember, only God can give you the complete happiness you seek. I consider these meditations as good tools but after trying them and then letting God take control, it is no contest between the two! Giving your life to God will do so much more for you, but God has given us tools for us to help ourselves achieve our goals while He actually gets us there in the end.

Aeschypilus Practice

The Aeschypilus practice was interesting. It was hard because the wisest person I know on earth was my mother and she passed away 2 years ago. It was good to focus on her amazing traits and see them flowing into me. I think focusing on the goodness/wisdom of another is good so that you can get a better handle on how you should be yourself.
I will be honest, I have not been doing very many meditation practices lately. I have been so busy moving to a new house with my husband and one year old that the only relaxing practice I have done lately is to read my Bible and to pray. I always try to make time for that but I know that I need to make time for calm meditation as well so that I can better train my mind to be still even among all the turmoil that has been going on this weekend. So, "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" is a good reproof for me this week. It   reminded me that I have to do this so that I can show others how to do it and tell them about through my experience. Learning about it on paper is good but actually learning about it from experience gives you a whole new kind of knowledge to impart on another. Another good phrase to describe this is "the blind leading the blind."
Good luck everyone and may you be more diligent than I!

Unit 6-

I really loved the loving-kindness exercise!!! It was so hard to focus but once I started to focus on the words of the exercise, my mind started to focus. I realized a while back that I wanted my goal in life to be relieving us much suffering from others as possible in every area but especially spiritually and physically.  Doing this practice reminded me of my passion and life goal. I believe I will continue to implement this exercise into my daily life and someday when I am practicing my goal in a professional setting I believe that will be on my wall somewhere for me to see every day.

     I really liked the self-evaluation exercise too! I believe I have found that the part of my life that has been biggest source of suffering has been my psychospiritual life. I have been driven by fear in how I react to things that come my way. I snap at others when I am feeling threatened even in a slight way and I am always on the defensive, wondering what someone really meant when they said something. This is an awful way to live and I really want to make this fear go away! I am motivated by "the first source of motivation (that) is instinctual, reactive, and ego-centered. It is usually driven by fear." (Dacher, pg.107) This is also the same area that needs developing.

   I intend on implementing meditation, coupled with lots of prayer to combat this destructive attitude. I intend on being more focused on realizing when I am allowing this to take over my attitudes and actions and help myself work through those moments.

Dacher, E. (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing. Basic Health Publications:

            California.

I really loved doing the Loving-Kindness exercise! It really helped me to focus my meditative exercises on someone other than myself. When I was asked to focus on showing loving-kindness to everyone (including myself and the parts of me that weren't feeling too good just then) I was challenged to do mentally what I should be doing physically too in my every day life: showing love to everyone and everything no matter if I like it or not. So, instead of getting mad at my aches and pains, I tried to focus on nurturing them. I think it was an extremely beneficial exercise!

The subtle mind exercise was great too! It helped me focus more on the different attributes of myself and how they affected others. I thoroughly enjoyed this because it helped me feel completely calm and it helped me to just focus on myself for a moment instead of everything around me. So, I guess the subtle mind exercise was more about realizing who I was and what I am made up of and the loving-kindness exercise was more of learning how to use what I had inside of me.

Spiritual wellness, I believe is the key to mental and physical wellness. As a Christian, I believe that a person's relationship with God is what gives us the best mental and physical wellness possible. It gives us the peace of knowing that our God is in control so that we do not have to worry about what happens because He will only do what is good for His children. It gives us a sense of joy to be able to please Him and to know how to better help others. It also give us a profound sense of acceptance of ourselves since all our sins are taken away by our God. Studies, as we have read, show that reducing stress and excelling in love, gratitude, and forgiveness (all very prominent virtues in the Bible) will improve our mental health which in turn improves our bodily health.