Unit 5 blog---warning this may be lengthy due to the prescribed subject matter.

 

 

This exercise is a compare/contrast of the loving mind and subtle mind exercises. Before I start than I want to say something about this week’s reading. Specifically the reading on forgiveness I personally found that much more informative than the exercises that I will compare/contrast shortly.  The reason I think that the forgiveness reading is more beneficial than the exercises is that I believe that forgiveness is a building block for everything that Dacher is trying to convey. Without first forgiving ourselves none of the rest of this is possible just as liking yourself is a building block the basic foundations of integral health.  So with that said the loving mind and subtle mind exercises. While I did not find them personally helpful I would definitely recommend them to anyone who is willing to try something new as a way of improving themselves. As I have said before both exercises were a trial in patience and tolerance. The reasons why are many for instance the voices are distracting and vaguely disturbing in a don’t make the dangerously unbalanced person way upset. Another more important problem that I have with this type of lead exercise is that while the narrator is trying to help you focus they really are not.  Listening to the narrator tell you what to do and when to do it takes the focus off the relaxation, peace and connection to the inner world that is you and the natural world we are all connected to by learning to let go of the distractions all around us.

Now I am supposed to cover how all this fits together in my life. Since that can be an intensely personal discussion I do not feel comfortable sharing at this time in this way. I prefer such talks to be with actual people not a computer keyboard and screen. I will simply cover the highlights. When my mental processes are healthy I am able to connect with the natural world around me and my inner self and the physical is healthier as well. I know that these exercises are supposed to make one understand that physical health is linked to both the mental and spiritual health. Personally I can attest to the fact that even when my mental and spiritual health are not optimal my physical health has always been that way, although that is not to say that unbalanced mental and spiritual health has not tried to negatively affect the physical just that it has not happened at this time. I can say that physical health does lead to better mental health from experience. I know that for me I feel much better mentally when I am physically active and healthy. An example of this is when I broke my foot. And no this was not caused by an imbalance in the mental and physical just running across the room in my socks the foot slipped because socks and wood floors are not the best combination and hit the wrought iron bakers wrack. This caused the Doctor to place me on restrictions for 8 weeks. Spending more than 2 hours a day with my foot in the air is a guaranteed way to make me very unpleasant to be around. The mental and spiritual practices were started many, many years ago and these exercises have not helped or hindered the ones I have been using.