- Complete the Meeting Aesclepius
mp3 (located in the Doc Sharing area). Describe your meditative practices
for the week and discuss the experience. Explain how mindfulness or
meditation has fostered an increase in your psychological or spiritual
wellness. How can you continue to apply these practices in your life to
foster greater health and wellness?
This meditative practice
was visioning an older, wiser person and ‘becoming’ that person. I chose to
envision my 88-year-old grandmother. It was easy to see her in my mind, in
front of me. Seeing the white beams of light was easy to place as well. Having
her whole body become into me, was a bit weird. It reminded me of the movie
Ghost. Meditation can foster an increase of spiritual wellness because it makes
you stop, breathe, and focus. Doing this practice can lead to better health and
wellness because it takes you out of reality; it takes you into another world.
2.
Describe the saying: "One cannot lead another
where one has not gone himself" (p.477). How does this apply to the health
and wellness professional? Do you have an obligation to your clients to be
developing your health psychologically, physically, and spiritually? Why or why
not? How can you implement psychological and spiritual growth in your personal
life?
Being impeccable with your
word is a great suggestion. Many people don't realize the power of their words
and see the harm that can be caused with speaking carelessly, thoughtlessly or
aggressively.
The saying “one cannot
lead another where one has not gone himself” is a practice what you preach and
a say what you mean and mean what you say kind of term. Taking this advice to
an extreme may cause someone to ignore their intuition about others, or common
sense about someone's behavior that's damaging. It can also open people up to
manipulation if they train themselves to believe someone's explanation of
negative behavior rather than judging the behavior on its own. This is the
story of my life with my son's father and how I implement it in my personal life.
I love visualizing my grandmother and have used her presence to calm myself, collect tidbits of knowledge and find wisdom through her ever present unity consciousness. But this time I used my creative ability and make up a person to focus on. What I noticed is that this person physical characteristic changed many times through my meeting Aesclepius practice, sometimes a man with a white beard, sometimes a women in a lovely gown. Since I come from a family of story-tellers it kind of makes sense to me that I would do this. The spiritual light co-mingling of mind, throat and heart made me feel empowered and strong with those areas of attention but like you said a bit strange at first. Oh, I love these mini-vacations to escape for a moment present reality but these retreats are just as real to me as this world. Our minds have two parts that are continuously working, one during the day and one during sleep. Although I am here most of the time, I can't wait to go on hikes, do some yoga, or just sit and breath my way into another world that supports me and gives me everything I need to survive in this world. I believe all the great ideas geniuses have had in the past comes from the other part of our mind and the other world we think isn't real. To me, it's real, comforting and supportive, loving and kind, and ocean of knowledge and compassion, wisdom and the avenue for our spiritual flourishing.
ReplyDeleteIt was a nice assignment to me, I really liked this one. And I agree with you about it being weird also for a moment but only because I think that we are fairly new to these ideas and practicing such will make us more at ease wiht the practices and our own mind bodies and souls.
ReplyDeleteI too enjoyed this exercise. It brought me closer to a mentor that I lost to death 4 years ago. Her wisdom was shared with many her siblings, her parents, nieces, nephews, grandchildren. Her wisdom was not just words or phrases remembered but a presence that was wanted and sought after. Becoming her though was a little stressful because I felt that any negative was protected within her. I remember being positive all time but I worried who would she share her concerns and question with.
ReplyDeleteJanice
Hey Lauren,
ReplyDeleteGreat job on your blog. It's very insightful. I would like to touch on one thing with you about the saying. You mentioned that individuals shouldn't take advice and learn negative behaviors. Did you know...it takes roughly 300 - 500 repetitions to create a pattern/habit/behavior/etc. However, it takes 3,000 - 5,000 repetitions to correct a negative/bad pattern/habit/behavior/etc. into a positive. Little fun fact for you. I agree with everything you said in your blog. Great job. Keep it up.
Coach Randy Andrews