Intro to my downtrodden mind

Maybe writing a blog whilst drunk isn't a good idea..  But the reflection that alcohol provides on one's life really has the power to conjure a lot of different feelings..  In conjunction with music, there is no more-emotionally-driven pair.  i have nothing worthwhile to say in a blog, and the only people who will care about what i have to say here are people I would say this stuff to outside of this..  You know, on the wonderful world of Facebook and every other type of social interaction possible that doesn't require face-to-face conversation. ;p

I guess for those who are curious, I'm listening to soundtrack music.  First I was listening to Cowboy Bebop music, mainly the songs "Call Me Call Me," "Rain," "Dijurido," "Gotta knock A Little Harder," and "Flying Teapot."  Beautiful sad-mood/thinking music, and if you are curious enough to look up this soundtrack don't underestimate its capacity to yank on your heart-strings because it seems to have come from a not-so-childish cartoon.  It's real music, and even though it doesn't really matter what you think, I just want to compliment it even further by telling how much it gives me real feels.

Aside from drinking a wee-bit out of my boyfriend's Woodford Reserve, I would have to say that in life, I am in a bit of a stupor.  I have nee stupid, waiting for Luck to come my way, waiting for everything -  believing that Everything would come together on its own.  It hasn't, and I am a fool for being so mindlessly idealistic as to believe that..  I put myself down because I am 24 and am finally beginning to understand just exactly how the world works, but I'm starting to realize that such idealism is why the world became such a dark place in which to live..  Nobody has faith anymore..  Not really in themselves, definitely not in each other, not in the Cosmic forces that enable us to continue 'being' here. That innocent faith which enables us to grow but doesn't necessary allow us to die..  Because we truly believe in the back of our minds that things will never get better, that no matter how much we talk to ourselves and pray to the Higher Power, nothing will change, because we have given up on our own individual abilities to change things..  Why do we do that to ourselves?  It's the same reason why people lose integrity in their jobs and stop taking pride in their work..  we begin asking ourselves, "What's the point?" and we begin to realize how long that question goes unanswered, so we just stop asking, stop making the effort, and do as little as we can without being criticized, and also by desensitizing ourselves to our very own critique.  Is constructivism criticism even a thing anymore?  I've been so out-of-the-loop with the world that i don't even know what concepts are being passed down from generation to generation, and it seems everyone these days has a tendency to take everything personally in a negative way..

You know what kinda scares me?  Is that the way in which I perceive the world to be is simply a manifestation of my own beliefs.  it is quite possible that i am out of touch with people so much so that i no longer know what drives them..  If such is the case, tell me what drives you..  Make me less foreign to the ways of the new world so that i can incorporate my own values into it without offending anyone..  I want to have ideals, but they seemed to have dwindled into the past along with my old self..  Someone awaken me from this downtrodden Earth I feel i belong to so that i can appreciate the vastness of the skies, the variety of Earth's species, and the complexity of human experience so that I know that it is Not all for Nothing.

I never really had a direction in which to take this blog..  Just had some 'things and stuff' in my head that i needed to unleash, stuff that will hopefully make sense later on because it definitely doesn't as of yet..

Creating Wellness, Unit 9 - Le Project

       I.            The Importance of Psychological, Spiritual, and Physical Development

An effective professional in any field is one who maintains a sound mind and a sound body, simultaneously.  When you integrate the notion of also maintaining a sound spirit in addition to these other two domains, you attain an untouchability that makes you impervious to failure, and where your successes will only continue to uplift you.  In some cases, the foregoing spirit will uplift those around you and your empowerment will manifest self-empowerment in others.  Also, we must understand the processes that we must take to make ourselves well in the physical, psychological and spiritual aspects of living in order to be able to analyze and credibly advise others on how to achieve the same kinds of wellness.  As professionals, we must also gain an advanced knowledge of how these three domains interact to influence one another.  Personally, I have several areas that I need to work on in order to achieve wellness in the three domains.  First and foremost, I need to work on strengthening my mental discipline.  Although I consider myself to be a very mentally disciplined person, I have not realized the necessity for its consistence in my daily life.  I can bring myself to be disciplined but only about select things, and with other things I simply lack self-control or commitment.  I hope that in time, as I continue practicing consciousness and witnessing my thought processes as they come and go, I will be able to honestly re-evaluate my values and principles and then acquire values and principles that make me try harder to be a complete person whose every action is enacted on the basis of general oneness and union.  As of now, finding this stable ground upon which I can re-evaluate these things is a struggle, and I often think that maybe I would benefit most if I had some sort of life-coach to help me develop these personalized convictions that will eventually lead me to a healthier and more positive way of life.

    II.            Assessing the Domains of Health

Every day of living is an assessment of my psychological, physical, and spiritual health.  I’m oftentimes self-conscious, and more often than not it is a self-deprecating consciousness that makes me tip-toe around becoming too comfortable, and so I live in my head but I do not feel as though I live in the world.  When it comes to assessing psychological health, I find it difficult to measure because it is all subjective and dependent upon what one person considers to constitute their own wellness.  There are certain questions that I can ask myself to assess – in my current mental state – how well I am living up to my own social and emotional needs, how positively or negatively I perceive myself, and how well I am living up to my perception of happiness.  If I had to consider what would constitute positive psychological health for me, I would relate that state of being to a feeling of contentment with the conditions of my life and with the people in it.  To measure my psychological health, I would ask myself things like:

a)      Who is causing me to feel this way?

b)      What would best describe my emotional state in this moment?

c)      Where did this feeling come from?  Was it a product of your external environment or manifested from within?

d)      Why do I feel this way?

e)      Is this feeling something I chose and can change?

f)       How can I change this feeling into something positive?

There are many other questions that one could ask themselves to address psychological health, and another big factor to consider in assessing psychological health is what’s going into the body that could also be negatively affecting the mind.  If I had to score my psychological health on a scale of 1 to 10, I would give it a 6.

When assessing physical health, one thing to be consulted is the national averages for various weight and height comparisons, as well as one’s own nutritional practices.  If I had to score my own physical health on a scale of 1 through 10, I would give myself a 4.

Finally, to score my spiritual health, I would likely give myself a 7 or 8.  To measure it, I guess I would have to ask myself just how connected I am to the deeper part of my own consciousness, one that is able to slightly grasp onto the unconscious state of mind where I am able to make sense of my higher purpose and of the course my life has taken up until this moment.  I read tarot cards and they reflect and articulate the phases I go through and offer me some clarity on how my state of mind influences me one way or another.  Without telling me exactly what I need to do, tarot cards advise me on how situations come to pass and I can either go with the flow or fight against it, and in doing so encourages me to confront the realities of life that are not so easy to see or face.  I also study astrology on occasion and create charts for other people, and analyze my own chart to gain an articulate sense of identity so that I don’t simply feel as though I am the way I am for no reason, because I have come to believe that all people have come to be who they are for a predestined reason beyond average human comprehension, that there is a greater pattern for all things to exist as they are because destiny has deemed it to be so.  Sometimes I feel as though I am a waste of space, that I was put here without purpose, that I will be forever isolated behind this mental wall I’ve built so that no one can come in and see me at my most vulnerable.  Time, nature, and astrology have combined to help me realize that so long as I always do my best, I will achieve my true purpose, and that the person I am today is this person in this moment for a reason.

 III.            Developing Goals in the 3 Domains of Health

When I consider how I would develop goals in the area of spiritual health, I would first have to address that my spiritual connection is lacking and determine how to reestablish it.  I have been praying more, not a lot but praying at all is more than I have been doing for a long time.  I need to figure out what it is I believe in, what makes sense to me and ignites my spirit.  I used to have a strong grasp on these things, but life changes and gradually this took a toll on my perception of my purpose, and what higher power is calling out to me.  Sometimes when I read tarot I feel that faint connection with the Higher power that wants to guide me, wants to see me make the most of my life and my time.  So my goal in this area of living is to become more wholly involved in my own life, to make things happen when change is needed, and to understand myself as well as the nature of the world to know where I fit best.  I want to feel connected with my true essence and my purpose, and live a comfortable and confident and fulfilling life  I also want to be inspired everyday, inspired to do something or create something beautiful, inspired to concretize my dreams without losing momentum, which is where physical and psychological health work in conjunction with my spiritual awareness.

Considering my physical health, I have been making a point to exercise a little each day, and to stop being so sluggish and unmotivated no matter how I may be feeling.  So long as I get some activity in, at least I know that I am not regressing, even if my progress stagnates – at least it tells me that I need to do a little more, which is better than being comfortable doing nothing and getting physically more out of shape.  So as of now, my goals are to reach my target weight and eventually be fit and flexible enough to do those bendy yoga exercises that people have been taking pictures of themselves doing a lot lately.

Ah, and for the most fragile state of being, the psychological aspect of existence…  I have a few goals for this department, one of them to be mindful of when and how often I let negativity in, as well as being mindful of pushing those thoughts aside as they arrive and moving on to the next thing – I want to no longer be a slave to negative mental grip.  I also want to be more confident in myself, and be less flighty and stick to plans and be a more respectable person, instead of being viewed as a naïve young dumb girl with her head in the clouds.  I want to feel positive about myself no matter what I am doing, and I don’t want to subject myself to the negativity brought on by the world outside. I would also like to work harder to.  Those are my main goals for now.

  IV.            Strategies for Fostering Psychological, Spiritual, and Physical Health

Some of the meditative practices we learned throughout this class are being slowly but surely integrated into my daily/weekly routine.  For instance, on days of high stress or when I feel anxious, I utilize the subtle-mind practice when I need to refocus and stay on task.  I also use the loving-kindness practice which allows for me feel a renewed sense of patience and compassion for people who are not as patient or kind to me, and I consider for a moment that in their own lives, perhaps they are suffering and that is why they are so high-strung and potentially rude.  I just remember that quote by Plato: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”  I have also integrated the use of mantras to help keep anxiety at bay and reaffirm my state of comfort by reminding myself that I have as much right to be where I am as anybody else, and by also reciting the mantra “Not everybody is going to like you” so that I need not be a slave to other’s expectations and possible slander.  As I slowly build upon a daily fitness routine, I feel more somewhat more confident and satisfied with my appearance, though there is still a lot that I am working towards.  I have established better nutrition, although it is still difficult to completely give up some vices.  At least not I am keeping track of my caloric intake and being mindful of just how much I take in on a daily basis.

     V.            Assessing One’s Commitment to the Cause

 

I am beginning to realize my commitment to the cause, and know that these practices will make me a stronger and more positive person who can really be attuned to my environment without my perceptions being muddled by unnecessary variables that encourage me to suffer and remain unclear.  Right now I am halfway to where I want to be, and I have not given up.  I will continue to do what I am doing, and slowly do more.  In order to change certain things in my life, I cannot always be so calculating and assess the risk of doing things because ultimately I wind up talking/thinking myself out of doing them.  This can be said of my inability to drive.  It’s embarrassing, but I cannot accomplish many of the things I want to in life without first honing this skill, and I will also never be able to accomplish the independence that I dream of having because I will have to rely on the service of someone else.  I’m building my way up to a more confident me who knows I am capable of doing things, who will no longer expect perfection but will be realistic about achieving goals without being my biggest critic and trying to impress people who don’t really know me nor have bothered to try.  I am committing to being the best ‘me’ I can be, and integral health will be a huge part in realizing this goal – so long as I keep going forward and never backward, I’m achieving my current goal of becoming better.

Unit 8 blog, Methods that seem to work for me

Hello everyone!  This week we are being asked to review and consider the methods we have learned about in the wellness class and choose which 2 work for us the most.  I have to say that the most recently practiced method of Visualization was very effective, and it reawakened my inner dreamer.  Before my inner dreamer fell asleep, I was wandering aimlessly through life trying to find my purpose, and then one day I realized what it was that I truly wanted to do, and that was to become a school counselor.  I envisioned myself as this strong effective woman, persistently working with children to make themselves realize their own effectiveness in the world, making them see that they can make a big difference in how the world will continue to change.  Anyway, I digress and will save the elaboration of my life's dreams and goals for another blog.

When I practiced the Visualization exercise, we were asked to close our eyes and first imagine a time when we experienced great happiness.  Then we were asked to imagine a time we experienced a sense of wholeness.  Finally we were asked to imagine a time in which we experienced "exuberant vitality, radiant health, and well-being" (Dacher, p. 145, 2006). Once we envisioned each of these moments and everything about them in terms of sensations (sight, taste, smell, touch and sound), we were asked to pretty much mash the inner and outer sensations of each of these moments together into one big ball of exhilarating, meaningful, joyous ball of profound experience.  If you were able to achieve that, you were subject to experience possibly one of the most remarkable and liberating feelings of bliss gratitude you may ever feel in your life time.  I've never used the drug ecstasy but I imagine that this overwhelming feeling is similar to that, where everything is so clear and everything about your life's path up until this point just makes sense.  I might get points taken off for language but I have to say that the power of the human mind is pretty damn amazing.

As far as the other "weapon of choice" goes, I would have to say that the loving-kindness and subtle mind practices tie for second.  Nothing trumps the visualization of the inner sanctum when it comes to conjuring up feelings up peace and warmth and light, and there are so many elements that you can add or take away from your archive of experiences to personalize it.  I did appreciate the loving-kindness exercise a lot though, because it helped me to remove my general dissatisfaction with the attitude of humanity and see that although some people act unrelentingly miserable and appear unbearable to be around, when you look past that negativity they surround themselves with all they are looking for is the same thing that I am, and that is love, kindness, happiness, health, and a feeling of wholeness through which they can connect with others.  Even those people have things on the inside that they wish to protect, and that is what I believe to be the reason they become cold and decide to shroud themselves in unwelcoming or combative energy, to protect their souls from being vulnerable to positive expectations that may not be met.

The subtle mind exercise was also very useful to me, and has been since I utilized it as instructed for the first time.  The human mind is very strong, but also very fragile as it is affected by so many external factors.  This fragility is subtle in that it is a choice we were never made aware of until we first utilized this practice and realized how much we allowed our reactions and responses to be dictated by things that are often inevitable and beyond our control.  This exercise teaches us to "gently" push these incoming negative thoughts and reactions aside so that they may pass as quickly as they arrive.  It has taught me that emotions are an inevitability, but how we respond to them is a choice.  Even if we feel impulsive to react to something that we have deemed painful or stressful, we make a choice to grasp onto specific aspects of our lives and rebel against them instead of choosing to accept the natural dynamic flow of both negative and positive happenstance in our lives.

These practices foster mental fitness because they broaden our perspective from the life we see right now in front of us to the life we are willing to work hard to have.  We are no longer stuck in a single moment, but rather immersed into a series of moments that contain opportunities for us to gradually work our way to a more profound life by strengthening our mental faculties and discarding all from our minds that hinders our progress towards that expansive goal containing happiness, clarity & meaning, love and communion with all that is around us.  In times of stress at work or at home, we can get flustered and rebel against the challenges we are faced with when the odds seem to be against us, and succumb to that pressure.  Or, we can deem these challenges as opportunities to push past what we deem as being impossible surpass, and become stronger, confident, self-assured human beings who are capable of an infinite number of things so long as we continue to expand ourselves.  Even when we try hard at something and fail to meet our own expectations, the fact that we are bold enough to try in the first place was a challenge converted into an opportunity that would have otherwise been wasted, and we can now use that as a reference point from which we can practice strengthening ourselves even further.

And that, as they say, is that.

I think I met Aesclepius

In Wellness class this week, we were asked to listen to the Meeting Aesclepius mp3.  I kinda appreciated it but admittedly I struggled to conjure the image of a person who personified all the qualities listed, and the faces kept changing to different people I knew who I admire for various individual qualities.  It's hard to think of someone in my life who is the whole package, so i tried to create someone who embodied all those different qualities the way the people I know did, only jam-packed into a single person.

Overall the experience was calming, and I feel a bit freer.  What I love about this class is that the practices, when successfully completed, leave me feeling like a blank page.  I am finally able to free myself of the many worries that wander into my mind, even if I am only free for a couple minutes, hours, seconds.  It's like being able to vacation from my life without the stress of packing or going somewhere.  In me, mindfulness has fostered improved psychological and spiritual wellness because I have learned to control what I let into my mind, and I have learned to control how long I let the negativity linger.  Spiritually, I know that I can connect with my greater self, connect with the Universe, and tap into resources I never knew I had and resources I've taken for granted for a very long time. I can continue to foster my wellness in each of these areas by remaining mindful of the negativity that comes into my life and making the choice to not let myself become fixated on it.  I have learned to let things pass and 'keep on keepin' on' towards my goal of a better me.

"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself."  This phrase basically means that you cannot guide others to a place of wellness when you have not reached that place yourself.  You can't help others effectively find solutions to their problems when you have not faced similar problems and sought out solutions to them yourself.  This applies to health and wellness professionals in a big way because sometimes professionals act as though they are unable to relate to their clients, unable to relate to their dispositions and all that has affected them throughout their lives, all that continues to affect them.  If, as professionals, we are unable to relate to our clients, we are not properly equipped to provide solutions to problems we do not understand.  We want to see our clients getting the most they can out of our services, and we must be able and/or willing to try and understand every single one of our clients, empathize with them, in order to truly help them deal and heal.

I want to have a sharper mind and be able to articulate anything I want to say in the most effective and basic manner possible, instead of 'half-murdering' my thoughts through my murky and wishy-washy speech.  There are a lot of things i want from myself, and up until being in this class, I never thought I could take control and meet my own goals because I settled and did not want to seek much more beyond my comfort zone.  I have realized what an error I have made in accepting comfort and achieving only the status quo.  I want a beautiful and meaningful and joyful life - something simple but not stagnant.  I continue working hard and cultivating this life, cultivating my spiritual, psychological, and physical strength.  I have a very long way to go but the fact that I have come as far as I have by stepping out of the cave that was my mundanely redundant life is a huge personal achievement, and I look forward to pursuing more with an Open mind and an Open soul and immersing myself in the concept of what it means to really Live a Life.

Integral Assessment & Universal Loving Kindness

"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."


After completing the exercise for a short while I began to feel my inner self open up, like an overall feeling of welcome was gradually filling me.  I feel like it transitioned from my mind, and then my spirit started to feel warmer and more open, and then my body felt graceful and and warm.

I really liked the integral assessment that we were told to reference.  It got me to realize that 95% of the problems I imagine myself to have are due to feeling as though I lack strong interpersonal relationships with other people, and that my worldly presence is lacking because I feel so disconnected from them.  I have chosen to focus on the interpersonal aspect of my life, and also realized that self-regulation is the line of development upon which I need to build.  This line of self-regulation affects me the most because I hide from social situations, avoid them, and don't challenge myself to them - thus my skills "worsen" because I haven't made it a point to practice them until recently once i began to realize how segregated I am from the rest of the world, aside from my boyfriend, my gram, and my boyfriend's mother.  What I have to do is practice making conversation more, starting with at work.  When it comes to making conversation, i tend to draw a blank - I don't know how to begin, and I don't know how to continue.  But with practice I will become more socially savvy.

The art of the Subtle Mind

I struggled with the Subtle Mind practice, but i would like to try it again later on.  At the moment, it is asking too much for my awareness to slip into the natural state of my mind, as I struggle with anxiety and although I've overcome a lot of it, these past 2 days it has been completely unrelenting.  During these 2 days I have been constantly having to remind myself not to cling to negative thoughts, feelings, impulses, but the struggle has been a mixture of ins and losses as I give in just a little extra to the negativity that I'm faced with.  A lot of it is self-inflicted, certainly, and i think that what i must do is revisit the Loving-kindness practice again and again.  I know I'm making progress but sometimes I just feel as though I want to jump out of my skin..  I don't really know how to bring myself back to that centeredness that is self-assured and stable, and I'm afraid that talking about it to anyone besides myself and this blog will only aggravate things, as i want to let this pass.  I need a new frame of mind, and a renewed sense of self based on something personal and uniquely Me.

The Loving-kindness exercise is a necessary precursor to the Subtle mind exercise because it opens the mind-body, and spirit to meaningful connections with other people.  Although these connections may not always foster positive results, we learn to open ourselves to the positive potentials of such relationships, and we learn to graceful open ourselves to love and kindness as well.  Once we successfully achieve this, we become more susceptible to not only positivity but negativity fostered through this openness towards others.  What the Subtle practice is able to help us achieve is a firsthand look at the way our minds translate everything outside as well as inside from an objective level.  It gives us access to our witnessing consciousness, where we mentally take a front row seat and observe the steady flow of thoughts and feelings that enter our minds, without allowing the entry of these thoughts and feelings to alter our mindset.  It is an alternate form of openness, because we open our minds to all things we perceive on all levels of conscious perception, but strengthen the ultimately Constant state of mental acknowledgement without giving excess attention to a single thought or feeling.

Last semester I successfully completed this exercise, and it was one of the greatest clams I'd ever experienced - it felt transcendental, like I was one with everything, like I was at peace with everything.  With more and more practice I hope to achieve this feeling again, the feeling of Unity consciousness.  But i must first achieve a state of calm-abiding, which will come in time once I have achieved consistent witnessing consciousness without exception.

-Ajax

The Loving-Kindness Practice

As I practiced this exercise, I found that unlike prior times of practicing I was better-able to reach the state of inner stillness and calm where I could 'observe' my thoughts and feelings and inner/outer sensations, but I did struggle.  I struggled with the more imaginative aspects of the practice, and had a hard time visualizing many of the instructions.  Ultimately though, I would say I benefited from this practice, and after trying again I was able to imagine taking in the suffering of my loved ones, dispersing the storm cloud of their strife after taking it in as my own.  Still, it was a frustrating practice at the beginning and towards the end, and mainly the only thing I accomplished was quieting my mind down and sort of zenning out - I just don't feel as though I accomplished what the main objective of the practice was, though I did complete the practice feeling open to the world.

The concept of a mental workout requires the training of one's focus and awareness, not only of the immediate external environment but also of one's current capacities for both, and an understanding of one's strengths and weaknesses in mindfulness.