Loving Kindness

     Where to begin??? First of all, I have to admit that I wasn't able to practice the loving kindness exercise until yesterday.  All of last week I was in Canada for my grandmother's funeral and my mom was here through the weekend. I have spent yesterday and today playing catch up in both of my classes. That being said, I did finally get a chance to listen to the Loving Kindness mp3 and found it to be pretty difficult.  I was able to still myself and focus, but I had a hard time actually doing what I was told to do.  I really couldn't seem to 'send loving kindness' to other parts of my body, or to 'observe' my inner thoughts and feelings. The water in the background was very disturbing to me and not at all relaxing.  It actually reminded me of the ocean and I found that I kept feeling cold whenever the water sound would replay. I have found from experience that I prefer to do my meditations in complete quiet, without any background music or noises. I'm not sure if I would recommend this to others simply because I had such a hard time with it.
     To me, mental workout simply means practicing control over your thoughts.  By meditating and focusing our directing our minds on a daily basis we can in turn see progress toward a more complete level of psychospiritual wellness.

The Crime of the Century???

I'm not sure if I did the correct relaxation exercise because of the title "The Crime of the Century".  The relaxation exercise that the link directed me to was a meditation exercise that involved focusing on the colors of the rainbow shooting out of my body like a prism.  Each color and area of the body that it was associated with represented something different. For instance, red coming out of the tailbone and leading to the floor pertained to feeling grounded.  I was able to focus on all that he was saying without getting distracted in thought or from people walking around my house; however, I had a hard time envisioning the colors.  Near the end, I was directed to picture myself being surrounded by a bright, white light: I was able to do that.  The experience itself was relaxing and my hands actually warmed up much more so than during the previous relaxation exercise. I do like making declarations over myself, like "I am loved", "I can love other", etc... I feel that overall this was a very positive experience!

My Level of Wellness

This unit's blog is in regards to my physical, spiritual and psychological well being.  When it comes to my physical well being, I would give myself an 8.  I workout at least five times a week doing combined cardio and strength exercises; and I maintain a healthy weight for my height. A goal that I have for my physical health is to maintain a healthier diet.  I tend to eat well for a few days, and then binge for a few days on high calorie, sugary foods. An activity that I can do to help with this goal is to start a food journal.  Concerning my spiritual well being, I would rate myself at an 8 also.  I believe in God and in having a personal relationship with Him.  I attend church every Sunday and a life group on Tuesdays.  A goal that I have for my spiritual well being is to spend more alone time in prayer and meditation.  An activity that I can to help achieve this goal would be to schedule 20-30 minutes of quiet time each day. I'm more apt to do this if I set aside a specific time in my schedule.  Psychologically I would give myself an 8 also.  (Apparently, I like the number 8).  I maintain a pretty stress free environment and am not a worrier; however, I do tend to see the glass as half empty.  One goal to increase my psychological awareness is to engage in more fun activities.  Planning a family game night will help keep things light and would be quality relationship building time with my children and husband.

Welcome to My Blog!

I'm completely new at this, so bare with me.  I started this blog as an assignment in a current class that I am taking as I work towards my BS in Health and Wellness. I hope that you will find my posts to be fun, interesting and informative.  Thanks for stopping by. Please leave me comments, I'd love to know what you think!

Reflection Post for Unit 2

To give you a little background of how I was feeling before starting the Journey On relaxation exercise, I would just like to say that my whole body has been freezing cold all day, particularly my hands. I must have the draftiest house ever. So I settled in at my computer to listen to the relaxation guide and was pretty skeptical at first; however, I did follow all of his instructions.  My arms and hands did not feel any heavier during the exercise, from start to finish.  As I mentioned above, my hands were freezing cold. I could feel the coolness through my jeans and my legs were getting cold because of it.  About 7 minutes into the exercise (I peeked at the time) my hands and arms were still cool but not as cold as when I started the exercise.  I really didn't think that there was much improvement in 'warmth'; however, once I was directed to start focusing the blood from my arms and hands back into my abdomen, I definitely felt my arms and hands getting colder.  So, as a result of feeling the coldness come back, I can assume that I was actually able to focus some blood from my abdomen to my arms and hands and that they did warm up more than I realized.