Unit 4 -- Loving oneself and then extending kindness to others

Hi Everyone,

I believe my experience with this week's guided imagery was a bit skewed. I have an extremely nasty cold and with that comes a huge sense of self-pity and feeling miserable. My patience seems to be next to none as well. I want to try this one again, after I feel much better, because I loved what the guide was saying and I think it would benefit me tremendously!
As for this week's guidance, I had a rough time focusing on my body and its sensations. What I seemed to be drawn to was my sore throat, my coughing, my body aches, my swollen sinuses, etc. I found it hard to go much deeper than this.
I also had a hard time focusing on a loved one, even though I chose to focus on my husband who I love dearly! As I was trying to focus (which was hard due to coughing and a sore throat), I was thinking about him taking care of me, rather than just focusing on him as a person. I even tried deciding if I wanted him to bring me soup in a can or Chick Fil A chicken noodle soup. See what I mean? The repeated waves-crashing clip wasn't relaxing me today. Instead I actually felt chilled and closed off, simply because I don't feel good and the idea of being wet sounds miserable. The flute was nice. I actually appreciated the subtle music at times.
When it came time to focus on someone who was sick and I was supposed to breathe in their sickness and exhale with happy healthy feelings, I found myself being self absorbed and thinking of myself. Perhaps this wasn't all bad, because I was trying to give myself happy healthy focus. Maybe my cold will go away faster?
I found it...entertaining?..that when I was supposed to focus on people who I felt anger towards or didn't care for, I actually could visualize this quite easy. However, the love and kindness was not there by any means. I think I was already feeling feisty, so this was an image that perpetuated my feelings at the time.
I was happy to hear that we are supposed to do this a few more times for 2 weeks(?) because I really do feel like this would be a great exercise for me when I am feeling better and I am able to dig deep into my mind. I have caught myself, many times, focusing on the crazy parts of the day, the people that don't sit right with me, the careless remarks that were made, etc. instead of the good and positive of the day. I would love to get to the point where I had so much love and kindness towards myself, that I was easily able to extend that to people around me. I can only imagine how little chatter I would have in my head, and also, how little defensiveness I would have, if only I could send and receive the love and kindness instead.
I would recommend this to lots of people I know. I think it would be beneficial in the way that everyone would be a lot more relaxed and a lot slower in getting angry at one another. Just imagine what could happen to something like road rage, if people practiced this exercise more often?
To me, mental workouts are times of practicing various mental exercises, such as this one, in order to change one's thinking and be able to access different parts of the mind. For example, for a person who is very short tempered, practicing seeing a situation in a different way and extending loving kindness to whatever is angering the person, could help the individual react better to stressful situations. I believe after awhile the person would no longer be considered short-tempered because after so much practice, the mind would follow the relaxing and loving path it has become accustomed to, rather than flying off the handle like before.
Research has shown that with continuous mental workouts people can reach an "Olympian" status with controlling one's thoughts, feelings, and reactions. These people are also able to reach different parts of their brain to access deeper feelings and wisdom that was not previously known or understood. Along with this, people who are great at maintaining the discipline of mental workouts, research shows they are great at reaching optimal health and happiness.
Personally, I need to implement mental workouts and become very disciplined in doing them. I find myself carrying a lot of physical stress, solely due to not being able to control every situation, like avoiding accidents, not making mistakes, paying every bill early (or on time), not being late, etc. If I were to give myself the same loving kindness that I extend to others, I believe I could very easily let go of a huge amount of stress that manifests itself physically throughout my body. The ironic part is the hesitation that comes bubbling up when I think about taking this exercise on and learning how to change my thought patterns. Why wouldn't I want to be more happy and more relaxed? Yet when I think of taking on "one more thing" regardless of what it is or how it will help me, I feel tired and rundown. I find myself feeling the same way about organization. I love when things are organized and clear, however, I hesitate when it comes to putting in the time to do it. It's a self defeating thought. See! I found another thought pattern to work on for myself!
I can't wait to feel better and try this one out again! I will blog about those results, even if we are in a later unit!
Have a great day everyone! : )