My experience with this exercise was very intense. This may or may not sound weird but I feel like I was drawn to this class for a reason. In the past year or so, my family has been through a lot of different emotions. Some of these emotions have led to huge amounts of stress not only in my life but my husband's life also. More recently, my husband has been dealing with his own personal issues, including the purpose of life (e.g. what's his role?). Anyway, while I practiced the loving-kindness exercise, I was taking deep breaths and imagining, physically trying to take away the pain and suffering my husband was feeling. Over and over again I kept these thoughts, it was very emotional and intense. I felt strong, that I could be strong for him in this time of need, and it gave me pleasure to feel this way.
I would definitely recommend this practice to others. I think not enough people get the chance to sit still for a few moments and meditate. This is a gift that you can give to yourself; just give yourself 5 minutes out of your day to sit back and relax....it's very empowering.
A "mental workout" is basically done through different types of meditation techniques. The concept is essentially to "workout" your mind since it's been discovered that you can not only train your mind, but push it's limits. Working your mind strengthens your mental capabilities and connects your mind, body, and spirit. Some of the proven capabilities that have come from this concept include an overall reduction of stress. Individuals who meditate can work and build on their relaxation techniques, which can take the edge off and reduce stress. Psychologically, reducing stress is great for you. This will boost your mood, give you physical energy, and even prevent illnesses (both acute and chronic). Many people are unaware but your mind is limitless!
~Jen
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Self-reflection
Rating myself is sort of challenging because I find myself to be my biggest critic, but here goes nothing!
As far as my physical well-being goes, I would rate myself a 6. I gave myself this rating because I'm not in my best shape of my life but I'm also not in the worse shape either. All throughout my childhood into my late teen's, I was very active and into sports so weight was never an issue. After giving birth to my son at the age of 20, I gave up on my physical health including my weight. About 3 years ago, I decided to make a change because I wasn't happy anymore. I've since lost about 20 pounds but it's still a working progress. My ultimate goal is to lose about 10-15 more pounds; this ultimately depends on how I feel 10 pounds lighter. If I'm not content with being 10 pounds lighter, I will continue to lose weight until "I" feel healthy; not the way others perceive me. There are two ways for me to achieve this ultimate goal: healthy "clean" eating and exercise. I have the exercise part down but need to work on choosing healthier foods for myself and I also need to stop overeating!
Spiritually, I would rate myself a 4 and that's thinking positively! I rated myself a 4 because I think I need major improvement in this area. Growing up, even though I was baptized, my family was not involved in the church (with the exception of my grandmother). Although I do believe in God, I do not follow any specific religion. This is something I'd like to change and make one of my goals. My ultimate goal will be to study different religions to find the one that suits me best and then to follow it as part of my optimal wellness. To do this, I will probably start small and research the fundamentals of a few different types of religions to narrow my search down.
Psychologically speaking, I would rate myself a 7. I've come a long way and feel I've grown the most in this area, especially in the past 2 years. In these past 2 years, I've learned a lot about myself and my "true" feelings, not feelings that have been drilled into my head by family and close friends (and my ex-boyfriend). I feel that there are areas that I need to fix (or heal), insecurities that have formed over the years from bad relationships, etc. One goal that I'd like to set for myself in part of healing my psychological well-being is to further explore myself, including learning to love myself completely. This includes flaws and all. I gotta learn to leave behind the things I cannot change and embrace all the good things I've learned and will continue to learn about myself. I strongly believe that the more I've learned about myself, the stronger I've felt, psychologically speaking.
After completing the Crime of the Century exercise, I felt completely relaxed. At first, I couldn't quite get into it because the visual kept changing and my slight a.d.d. was kicking in. I tried hard to focus on the sounds; the music and the calm monotone of the man's voice. When I was able to pay attention to my breathing and the noise, the background images became more hypnotic than distracting. I thought overall this was an interesting exercise.
~Jen
As far as my physical well-being goes, I would rate myself a 6. I gave myself this rating because I'm not in my best shape of my life but I'm also not in the worse shape either. All throughout my childhood into my late teen's, I was very active and into sports so weight was never an issue. After giving birth to my son at the age of 20, I gave up on my physical health including my weight. About 3 years ago, I decided to make a change because I wasn't happy anymore. I've since lost about 20 pounds but it's still a working progress. My ultimate goal is to lose about 10-15 more pounds; this ultimately depends on how I feel 10 pounds lighter. If I'm not content with being 10 pounds lighter, I will continue to lose weight until "I" feel healthy; not the way others perceive me. There are two ways for me to achieve this ultimate goal: healthy "clean" eating and exercise. I have the exercise part down but need to work on choosing healthier foods for myself and I also need to stop overeating!
Spiritually, I would rate myself a 4 and that's thinking positively! I rated myself a 4 because I think I need major improvement in this area. Growing up, even though I was baptized, my family was not involved in the church (with the exception of my grandmother). Although I do believe in God, I do not follow any specific religion. This is something I'd like to change and make one of my goals. My ultimate goal will be to study different religions to find the one that suits me best and then to follow it as part of my optimal wellness. To do this, I will probably start small and research the fundamentals of a few different types of religions to narrow my search down.
Psychologically speaking, I would rate myself a 7. I've come a long way and feel I've grown the most in this area, especially in the past 2 years. In these past 2 years, I've learned a lot about myself and my "true" feelings, not feelings that have been drilled into my head by family and close friends (and my ex-boyfriend). I feel that there are areas that I need to fix (or heal), insecurities that have formed over the years from bad relationships, etc. One goal that I'd like to set for myself in part of healing my psychological well-being is to further explore myself, including learning to love myself completely. This includes flaws and all. I gotta learn to leave behind the things I cannot change and embrace all the good things I've learned and will continue to learn about myself. I strongly believe that the more I've learned about myself, the stronger I've felt, psychologically speaking.
After completing the Crime of the Century exercise, I felt completely relaxed. At first, I couldn't quite get into it because the visual kept changing and my slight a.d.d. was kicking in. I tried hard to focus on the sounds; the music and the calm monotone of the man's voice. When I was able to pay attention to my breathing and the noise, the background images became more hypnotic than distracting. I thought overall this was an interesting exercise.
~Jen
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Relaxation and my past week
Hello everyone! My name is Jen and this is my first blog ever, so bear with me! :-)
There are two things I'd like to reflect on for this week's blog: relaxation, and this past week.
First things, first. Relaxation...what does that mean to me? Well, as far as this past week goes, relaxation was watching the NFL playoff game Saturday night from the comfort of my own home. This was literally the only time I had a chance to sit down, relax, and not think about anything besides what was going on during the game. You see, most of the time when I watch football, I tend to zone out - my husband could attest to this as we've held conversations during football games and sometimes I completely stop mid-sentence and then completely forget what we just talked about, LOL. When football season ends, I'm definitely going to have to find a new outlet! :-)
The second thing that I'd like to reflect on is this past week. As I sit here, only one word could possibly describe this past week for me and that is hectic! <Which by the way is quite humorous because hectic is the opposite of relaxing!> Anyways, although my life seems to be pretty crazy right now, this past week felt the worst. I sometimes sit back and think to myself, how do women juggle all these responsibilities on a daily basis?? It can be physically and mentally draining to be a wife, mother, full-time employee, and student. I seriously amaze myself sometimes when I'm able to pull it off, but this past week I feel like I have failed in one (maybe two or three) of these categories. I'm not feeling well on top of it all, so I know this doesn't not make things any easier on me. At the end of the day, I realize I can only do so much. I have to prioritize things, of course keeping the important things first. If I cannot complete everything in one day, I have to leave it as that and not feel guilty about it. I cannot continue to beat myself up about it because it will only make me feel worse. Besides, sitting here dwelling on things I cannot fix will not help me get through my day, at least not successfully.
Until next week ~Jen
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