mental workout

A mental workout is basically what it sounds like. It is a workout for the psychospiritual self in order to experience the best psychospiritual fitness level that an individual can experience. We can do this with things like contemplative exercises such as the loving kindness exercise that we practiced this week. Much like physical or intellectual fitness training, we will need to regularly practice these exercises in order to discover the best psychospiritual fitness that we can. Studies show that as we continue to practice this sort of workout, our capacity grows as well as our entire wellbeing.

Reference:

Dacher, E.S, M.D, Integral Health, The Path to Human Flourishing, 2006, Basic Health Pubications

loving kindness exercise

The Loving Kindness exercise helped me to stop and remember what it is to love myself and in turn to love others. I found this exercise to be beneficial because it is good practice to take a pause from the hectic, task oriented world and to refocus on the important things in life. Really, after all, loving kindness is a major stepping stone in the healing process. I would recommend this exercise to anyone that wants to grow as an individual and to anyone who has the desire to help others. I think that this exercise would be a good one to do on a regular basis in order to keep our priorities straight and to help us to step out into our world fully prepared to begin to serve others.

unit 3

Hello everybody. I found a bit of insight from this week's questions and exercise. The following are a few of these:

1.        Based on your reflections, and on a scale of 1 to 10 (ten being optimal wellbeing), where do you rate your A-physical wellbeing, B-spiritual well-being, C-psychological well-being? Why?

In reflecting on my wellbeing, if I were to rate myself on a scale of 1 to 10 with ten being optimal wellbeing, I would rate myself as follows:

Physical wellbeing – 7

I give myself a seven here because I am, in my opinion, above average in physical health. I rarely get very sick if I get sick at all. I am very capable of carrying out any task that I need to and I regularly eat a healthy diet. I did not rate myself as a ten because I do think that I could exercise more.

Spiritual wellbeing – 9

I give myself a 9 here because I am very satisfied with my place in this world and in the spiritual dimension. I am firmly planted in my faith and my beliefs. I did not give myself a ten because I do not feel that anyone can reach the pinnacle of spiritual wellbeing during this lifetime.

Psychological wellbeing – 8

I give myself an 8 here because I am very comfortable with my psychological wellbeing. However, there are improvements that I could make such as stress management, etc. therefore I did not give myself a perfect score here.

2.        Develop a goal for yourself in each area (physical, spiritual, psychological).

My goals for myself in each area are as follows:

Physical – To continue on my journey toward physical fitness and make the improvements in exercise habits that could help me to experience even greater physical wellbeing in the future.

Spiritual – To maintain the level of spiritual wellbeing that I am currently experiencing and continue to grow in my faith and understanding.

Psychological – To strive toward an inner calmness and try to better handle stress in my life or else be able to cut out the unneeded stress where I can.

3.        What activities or exercise can you implement in your life to assist in moving toward each goal?

I can implement a few simple exercises or practices into my life in order to strive toward these goals. In order to reach a greater level of physical wellbeing I can start a regularly daily exercise routine. In order to achieve my goals in spiritual wellbeing I can continue to seek direction in my faith by having a specific time each day dedicated solely to this purpose. Finally, to achieve greater wellbeing psychologically, I can practice stress management techniques and cut out any unneeded stress.

4.        Complete the relaxation exercise The Crime of the Century. To hear this exercise, click here. Describe your experience. (What it beneficial? Frustrating? etc.)

My experience with the relaxation exercise was relaxing. It was very much like some of the guided meditations that I have experienced in doing yoga. I always come away from these kind of exercises with a renewed since of awareness and a feeling of being in control of everything that really matters yet able to let the less important things go. I enjoyed this exercise.

I hope that this week has been as beneficial to you each. Hope you all have a great rest of the week and weekend!

Relaxation exercise

So... clicking on the 'click here' to listen to the exercise did not work for me. I can only assume that the exercise had to do with the health tip on the announcements. My experience with that was refreshing. To give you some background, I grew up in a very rural area in Virginia. My home was surrounded by fields and mountains. As a child I remember many occasions where I would sit outside finding solitude in the stary sky on a crisp winter's evening. As I practiced this relaxation technique tonight outside of my home in rural Virginia I found myself once again in the shoes of that child. Staring at the stars and listening to the soft rustle of the breeze in the trees. There was the unmolested clear smell of winter mixed with a faint hint of smoke from a near by chimney and a dog barking in the distance. This exercise made me completely relaxed and for those five minutes I was that child again full of possiblities and a bright future... I had gone back home.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog everyone! I have to be honest, this is my first experience with blogging. Hopefully it will work out though. I appreciate everyone stopping by to see my thoughts. I hope to update the look soon and maybe add some pics so that it will not look so plain. I am enjoying the class and finding new perspectives on health and wellness. See you all on blog!