I have decided to do these exercise with someone in my family to get how they felt also. Last week, i used my old school husband. This time I asked my mom to join me. She has a wider mindset and willing to try new things. She said that it really relaxed her and once the she got done, she said that she felt a feeling of openness and lightness. She said that she felt like she was floating and her heart was drawn open. As for myself, again my hamster was running on its wheel so it took a few minutes to get my mind focused. When it said to bring to mind someone you hold with great love and tenderness. I got stuck on that. Who should I chose, my kids my husband a close friend and I allowed my mind to get of track. I had to bring it back to the exercise. I finally got into it when asked for you to focus on a loved one who is hurting. I focused on my sister, who has had multiple health problems and is trying to recover from surgery. She is having a difficult time allowing herself to heal. Not to mention, she has had great emotional suffering with the lose of her two sons and has yet to fully dealt with her emotions. As I took the in breath, i asked to take her suffering and on the out breathe i sent her my love, happiness, health and wholeness.
This exercise is going to take some practice to fully get the whole loving-kindness benefit. But then again this is what called getting a mental workout. Just like working out muscles, it takes practice. Not just practicing it once in awhile but making a commitment to partake in my mental workout everyday. Just like flexibility or cardiovascular training, if you don't do it everyday consistently, you can struggle and just might lose the ground that you have already gained. I cant see this similar to my TurboKick workouts and routines. In order to become a better instructor and learn my routines, I have to practice everyday. With each workout, I get better, stronger and able to help others with their journey into health. So each time i do this loving-kindness exercise the more I will benefit from it and be able to flourish.
Tammie,
ReplyDeleteI too had a great deal of trouble quieting my "hamster" as you put it (I like that analogy). Even when I tried to find the quietest time to relax there were still things distracting me: my son in the other room with my husband, my daughter trying to go to sleep, etc. I know that the more I work on this the easier it will be to shut these things out and really focus but right now it is hard! I guess just like my running and your workouts I just need practice.
I will be praying for your sister! It sounds like she has had an incredibly rough time.
Heidi
Tammie,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing how your mother felt as well as you. It is great to see how someone outside this class sees things sometimes. I will be praying for your sister. I cannot even imagine losing my boys. I have had friends that have lost children and that is a very difficult thing. I do not think you truelly know how someone feels until you have been through it yourself.
On another note, I think you have to work at keeping your mind straight on a daily basis. If we all knew what we were doing day after day and did not have any issues whatsoever, it would be a perfect world, but that is not the way it works. We have to continuelly work at keeping ourselves whole in mind, body, and spirit. If one area is out of whack then eventually it will affect the rest.
Wendy
Tammie,
ReplyDeleteI so love your blog! Iam jealous..lol. I love that cat. Regarding the loving-kindness exercise,I really enjoyed it. You are right, it is just like working out physically. NO instant gradification. Well, maybe a little. I do feel great after a workout and I felt really good after doing the mind exercise. However, I have to be consistant if I want to maintain it.
Maria,