Tonight I tried the Loving/Kindness exercise lying down on my bed in my quiet room with the light off. I began to envision my son as the one I hold loving feels for, but my fiancé kept popping into my head as well. It was as if they were battling for my attention. I also found my mind wandering tremendously to things that had nothing to do with the exercise. Embarrassingly I actually fell asleep! So I started all over again. Every time I get to the part where we are to extend loving-kindness to enemies I get a very uneasy feeling. I would say this has to do with a lot of resentment I have towards my brother over an argument we had about 3 weeks ago.
Mental Workout:
The concept of the mental workout is to exercise and train your mind as you would your body; to practice as you would practice during physical training. If we are to evolve our psychospiritual life we need to work at it just as we would anything else for at least an hour a day. The goal of the practice is to progress towards an expanded consciousness and greater healing capacities.
Research indicates that the benefits of a mental workout include transformation of the mind in which disturbing, negative emotions such as anger, hatred, and fear are diminished; and positive emotions such as patience, acceptance, happiness, and loving-kindness are enhanced. Resistance to disease as well as mental stress is enhanced as well. Developing the capacity to heal leads to an overall state of well-being.
Implementing mental workouts to foster my psychological health would entail taking time each day to peacefully engage in contemplative practice. Even just a short while such as fifteen minutes can be sufficient to start out with, and then the amount of time spent on the exercises can be increased gradually.
Sendy,
ReplyDeleteI also strugle with sending loving kindness towards "enemys" this is something that I also need to work on. I often like to think about sending kindness in a way that they will learn of their misgivings and hurtful ways, in a way sort of praying for them to be a better person,so that they do not hurt us and other so much.
Amy Lucid
Sendhy,
ReplyDeleteI can also relate with you on it being difficult to send loving kindness to people considered to be enemies. I am currently working on finding a way to send love to them. I think it requires a type of forgiveness and understanding that I really don't have for those that have hurt me. I want to have it, but it's going to take some work. My mom and my sister were both battling for my attention during the exercise because they are both going through hard times. I just sent love to both of them! Great job on your exercise! we all have to start somewhere :)