Subtle-Mind and Visualization

While I am still trying to adjust to meditation practice, I have found subtle-mind and visualization practice to be the most accessible for me.  I think I like them both because in a way, they oppose one another.  Subtle-mind requires observation and the ability to let go of thoughts and images as they pass through the mind.  Visualization is more active.  It requires a focus on a single thought or image and a development of it.  I find it difficult to focus in quiet, but both of us these practices tap into the mind's ability to follow through, either with passive observation or with active imagination. 

I believe the best way to practice both is to alternate them.  It may exercise my mind to practice both either day to day or week to week, so I can strengthen the individual practice, while still maintaining interest in both.   For example, if I practice subtle-mind in the morning when my my thoughts are less active and less likely to be distracting, and then practice visualization at the end of a day where images are fresh and vivid, I can use my own daily rhythms to contribute to mental fitness.  Or as a challenge I could do the opposite, waking myself through images and winding down with observations.  Either way, consistency is important in making these practices count.  I have to commit to setting aside time each day.

Meeting Aesclepius

The Aesclepius exercise was very relaxing, as guided meditations usually are for me.  Although I think that involving a real person into visualization is always a challenge.  There are a lot of thoughts and emotions tied to a person who means a lot to you, so the exercise is more complicated than it seems.  I pictured my grandfather, who died in 2003.  I was very close to him, especially after my grandmother died in 1999 and he started living near my parents.  My mother's relationship with him (he was her father) was complicated, since he had not been a wonderful father when she was growing up.  He was a WWII POW who was never diagnosed or treated for PTSD, but in hindsight, he was likely affected.  After spending a year as a prisoner in France, he was finally liberated, came home, got his GED (he had not yet finished high school when he was drafted), settled into a job with the Federal Reserve, married and had two children.  But he often drank and had a short temper with his two daughters.  It never escalated dangerously, but my mother remembers his outbursts and occasionally being hit.  Unfortunately this was probably not too far outside of the norm for discipline in the 1950s and 60s.  He changed dramatically with age, stopped drinking and became a very loving grandfather, so I could not picture the person my mother told me about when I got older.  He eventually, only years before his death, talked about his time in the war and in the prison hospital.  It made me wish he had been able to talk about those things sooner, but I think in the 1940s, it was expected that a man just move on and deal with things on his own.  I am sad that it caused him and his family so much pain. 

When I pictured him during the meditation, I pictured the man I knew before his death, who was loving and kind and happy. But it is hard not to remember everything else too.  I know he was not perfect and that his wisdom came from that.  Although he didn't have all the answers or all the support he should have had, he showed a lot of strength in living as long as he did. 

Unit 7: Leading by Example

My unit 7 posts will be in two parts, since I have yet to sit down with Meeting Aesclepius.  As for the second part:
"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself."

I agree with this statement to an extent.  I believe more that one cannot lead another where one is not going.  Pursuit of health and wellness is dynamic and evolutionary, but not necessarily finite or conclusive.  As a health professional, I think one has an obligation to live his/her principles.  There should definitely be leading by example.  If, for example, a personal trainer tells a client that they must exercise three times per week for cardio health, I expect that trainer to be doing the same.  However, if a trainer is a small women training a large man to gain muscle, she will definitely have to tell him to do things she herself cannot do, such as bench press 150 lbs.  I don't believe in this case that she is leading where she has not gone; I believe that she is leading him along a similar path she has traveled, one of fitness improvement, but that everyone's individual path looks very different.  I also believe that no matter what point we are in our path, we can help each other. If someone is trying to quit smoking but has not yet achieved the goal fully, I believe he/she can still help motivate someone else who is trying.  As long as we are going in the same direction, we have something to contribute.  

Loving-Kindess and Integral Health

This loving-kindness exercise is very good me, because it is subtle and repetitive and brings me to a place of focus.  I sometimes have trouble with expressing loving-kindness due to a sense of justice, or more accurately, a desire to be right at times.  Not all the time, but often.  For instance, when I get frustrated with my husband, I feel the need to fully explain what he has done wrong so he will understand my feelings.  He takes this as an attack which can lead to a fight.  Instead, I can exercise loving-kindness, accept that what bothers me may not be "wrong" or "right" and I can look at his actions from his point of view instead of mine.  The meditation practice can definitely help me feel more connected to those feelings. 

In my inventory of the four aspects of integral health, my spiritual and mental development can always use work.  I feel this because I find it simple to address social and physical needs.  They are more material and outward.  My thoughts and my feelings require attention on the inside, and as an extrovert with a short attention span, it is hard for me to take quiet time for meditation.  I also focus on action rather than thought, so observing my thoughts without acting on them takes work.  I believe that consistent meditation will help.  Also, because I am motivated to act, it might better suit my personality to begin with study of meditation in Eastern culture so I may be moved to practice.  This might be an easier place for me to start than diving into quiet practice. 

Subtle Mind

The Subtle Mind exercise was much more successful for me than the Loving-Kindness exercise.  With loving-kindness, the visualization of someone in pain was difficult for me.  Not necessarily because it was a negative idea, but because it lead my mind in too many directions and too many thoughts.  Subtle mind was less complicated.  The suggestion of focusing on breath, witnessing thoughts and the quiet wave sound made it easy to relax.  I found myself still observing a lot of thoughts and outside sounds and feelings, including my cat laying near me, but I was not holding onto those distractions.  I will definitely do this exercise again.

Spiritual, physical and mental wellness cannot be separated because they are all part of one person.  One will affect the other.  If I am feeling physically ill or out of shape, I do not feel well mentally.  If I am not connected spiritually, I don't feel as good about myself.  When I am stressed mentally, I feel tired physically.  Those feelings cannot be independent of each other.