Hello,
This
week’s exercise asked us to close our eyes so that we could come to a natural
ease of our mind and had to repeat the following phrase: “May all individuals
gain freedom from suffering; May all individuals find sustained health, happiness,
and wholeness; May I assist all individuals in gaining freedom from suffering;
May I assist all individuals in finding health, happiness, and wholeness”,
(Dacher, 2006). The assessement for this
week asked us to close our eyes and to release all mental activity; once this
was done we had to ask ourselves two questions “What aspect of my life
(psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal, or worldly) is the source of
difficulty and suffering; and the next was, What area of my life is ready for
growth and development? I found the
exercise for this week to be very, very, boring and with that from what I
discovered about myself is that I really don’t like reading things over and
over for ten minutes straight that was not for me, it gave me a headache and I
found myself becoming very impatient. The
area I have chosen to be a focus of growth and development is my interpersonal
development; the changing/shifting of I to you which is considered the major
growth for this development (Dacher, 2006).
According to Dacher, “with each step up the developmental ladder, our
sense of isolation and separateness diminishes, and we gain a growing capacity
for intimacy and connection; in addition, there is longer a distinction between
what we want for others and what we want for ourselves”, (2006). At the moment I am caught up in what others
want and what I want for myself and it is really bugging me and stressing me
out, therefore, that is why I chose to focus on growth and development in this
area. I believe the specific exercises
or activities that I could do to foster greater wellness in this area is take
up a team sport because this could build leadership and communication skills
(Bazilli, 2014).
References
Bazilli,
M. (2014). Group 22: Life Skills. Retrieved on April 3, 2014 from https://www.changemakers.com/project/pekn-wiki-group-22-life-skills.
Dacher,
E. (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing. Basic Health
Publication, Inc. Laguna Beach, CA.
I did not enjoy the loving kindness exercise either. I'm not sure I could sit with a quiet, peaceful mind for that long repeating something I DID like. I'm glad I'm not the only one that could not get into it.
ReplyDeleteIt can be hard to stand up and be a leader sometimes. I am very introverted and tend to go along with the flow even if it's not what I want. Taking up a sports team could be a great way to help with that. Maybe even a start up as coaching a little league soccer team or something? You can practice on leadership skills on little ones before having to tackle adults :)