Week 8: What Exercises Worked for Me?

Hello me mateys! (Yes, it's a pirate kind of day and no I didn't make anyone who ticked me off walk the plank...yet) Welcome to another adventure in the psychological and spiritual aspects of healing! We are on week 8 and we have two more weeks to go. It doesn't seem like we have been at this that long, but I do hope that all of you have enjoyed learning these new techniques each week just as I have.

I will be the first to admit that last week was not a good week for me at all. It was a very rough week and I had to use almost all of the techniques I've learned over these eight weeks to get past everything. I am doing better this week (still waiting for the Karma smackdown bus to hit, and it will eventually, believe me it will), so this blog should be a bit better.

So, come with me my little marshmallows (mmm...marshmallows) as we explore the exercise for this week.

1. Review the exercises and practice sessions you have completed in this course. (Loving Kindness, Subtle mind, Visualization, meditation etc.) Choose two practices that you have determined to be most beneficial. How can you implement these practices in your personal life to foster “mental fitness”? Provide specific examples.

For me, the two best practices I have found to be the most beneficial for myself have been meditation and visualization. Meditation give me that time to quiet my mind and work on my breathing techniques. I can use those breathing exercises to imagine that I'm breathing in the good and positive energy and breathing out the bad and negative energy. So many people think that in order to do meditation that you have to do it for a long period of time each day. You don't have to do that. Meditation can be done in just five minutes a day if that's all the time you can spare. 

Visualization is my 'mini vacation' that I can escape to each day. I can sit back and think of a place I want to be, like on a beach at night or in a mountain cabin surrounded by falling snow. I can see the sights, hear the sounds, and even smell the different scents. After a visualization trip, I feel calm, relaxed, free of stress and energized to finish my day. 

I did not care of the Loving-Kindness exercise of the one from last week. I am not at a point where I can truly use the Loving-Kindness exercise. This exercise asks a lot of a person (to take on another person's problems and love them no matter what). I simply can't do that yet. I may get there in time, but right now, this exercise won't work for me. For the exercises I found not very helpful, I will continue to read about them and see if I can try my own way to achieve what these lessons were trying to teach us. I know I had problems with the voices of the instructors. Perhaps I will use just music and see if I can perform the exercise without any spoken help.

I hope that by practicing these two techniques that others will be more inclined to listen to my advice about the topics. I've noticed that many clients that notice that others understand their questions and needs are more likely to take that advice and believe that these exercises will work. They may not work for one person the way they did for another, but each of us is different and that is to be expected.

I am curious as to what methods the others in this class have found helpful and the ones they found not so helpful. Again, I'm sure it's different for everyone. And so, we have come to the end of yet another week. Keep up the good work and don't give up if something doesn't seem to be working for you. With a little time and patience, you'll get there.

And so, my fluffy little marshmallows (now I want S'mores or Rice Krispie Treats) I will leave you with these words: Success isn't measured by the position you reach in life; it's measured by the obstacles you overcome.