Unit 6: loving kindness exercise by Elliott Dacher and Integral Assessment

After practicing the loving kindness exercise I feel as if a weight has lifted off my chest. I feel lighter and more vibrant in energy with less worries on my mind. It allowed me to address my concerns for others and let it rest without dwelling on the situation unresolved. The integral assessment helped me to address the issues i struggle with and I have actually been practicing this routine for many years and it is what led me down this path. I have had health issues all my life and now I have found the roots of them and am starting off with a clean fresh slate and my body will be functioning optimally as soon as I resolve one more issue with some mercury fillings. I would have never gotten to this point though without this mentality of finding the root cause of the problems I was suffering from. Identifying what level of development you are on and having direction can help to stay focused on your path to human flourishing!

Mental Fitness

Unit 4: loving kindness exercise

After reading this exercise in the book Integral Health by: Elliot Dacher, he described a breathing meditation for us to try.  It consisted of breathing in and controlling the breath and looking inward on our thoughts and deeper feelings and being.  He talked about breathing in someones suffering and exhaling health to them in a visual manner.  When we visualize our breath we can send our intentions out by visualizing the person and then assisting them.  When we are centered, we are not focusing on ourselves as much and our worries as we are doing service for others.  Too much service to others though can lead to neglect of the self.  This is a meditation exercise though designed to help us to look inward more and understand who we are.

I didn't find this difficult at all because I use to do it as a kid before there was a process and labels assigned to it.  I loved visualizing things as a child before bed.  I would visualize how I could help others and come up with ideas and it gave me a great sense of love and joy in life.  As I consciously participated in this activity today I noticed I reached a higher level of clarity and the energies within my body feel as if they are evenly distributed and the lump in my stomach form the stress of today has diminished.  I have had a lot of changes over the past couple months in my life and my body does not adjust well to change and this exercise helped me get out of that frame of thinking and realize this is only temporary and the stress is caused by how I am perceiving the situation.  I have been working on changing my reactions and creating action in my life by uncovering that subconscious over the past 15 years.
From a psychological standpoint these exercises are beneficial in that they help strengthen our Chakras form what I understand and help to create overall balance in our machines we call bodies. In Dacher's model he pointed out that psychological development is pertinent in that we need it to evolve to a witnessing consciousness and develop through the 4 stages of psycho spiritual development.  Unity Consciousness cannot be attained without being aware of how our brains function in our physical bodies.  When we understand we can implement change in behavior and overall health and wellness is a side- effect of this process.

References:
Dacher, E. (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing. Basic Health Publication, Inc. Laguna Beach, CA.

-Sherry Slatosky

Unit 3

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?                                 I would rate my physical well being at a 10 because everyday I take care in eating well, exercising and making choices that would bring happiness to my life and get me closer to my goals.   My Spiritual well-being needs a little bit of work still but I am forging far in that direction.  I would say it is about an 8 because although it is not fully developed, I make an effort everyday to expand spirituality awareness and question our purpose here on Earth.  My psychological well-being I would say is a 8 right now as well. I am still working on overcoming symptoms associated with trauma but have made great strides towards development of a social network system for support and have close family members who are also always willing to give their support when they can.
2. Develop a goal for yourself in each area (physical, spiritual, psychological).                              Physical Goal: Workout at least 3 days a week involving strenuous exercise such as tennis, biking or running for at least 1-1 1/2 hours per session.                                                                           Spiritual Goal: Attend a mass on Sunday at the church and find a place I feel welcome even if it isn't a church.  My main goal is to stop settling for what is close to what I want and going out with intent to get what I want.                                                                                                                     Psychological Goal: I actually signed up to take a MENSA test on May 29th and am really looking forward to it.  I have set a goal of going onto Lumosity everyday to enhance my brain function to be able to do better on the test.                                                                                                        
3.  What activities or exercise can you implement in your life to assist in moving toward each goal?         The activities I listed above. I also made it a pint to start using the Silva Method. I committed to a one week free trial of the software.
4. Complete the relaxation exercise The Crime of the Century. To hear this exercise, click here. Describe your experience. (What it beneficial? Frustrating? etc.) This was very interesting and it was a great relaxing exercising to re-balance chakras. The only thing that was frustrating was finding a color in the room to look at when I was visualizing.