Sunday, January 8, 2012
Loving Kindness
In practicing the “loving kindness” exercise, I found it difficult to focus for an entire 15 minutes. The portion of the practice to think of someone we have great love and tenderness for and allow these feelings to flow within us was relatively easy for me. I had taken a class called “heart math” at work and this class had us choose something that made us happy and think of that thought while focusing on our breathing. The part of the exercise that asked us to think of someone we love that is suffering was not as relaxing. I think I would have to practice this a few more times before I could say whether or not I would recommend it the exercise to others.
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I would have to agree, that thinking of someone that we love suffering is not so relaxing. I was in a nice-happy-loving place when it asked to think of someone in suffering state and it was hard for me to think of anyone in that situation. I really didn’t want to think of suffering at that time.
ReplyDeleteThe Heart Math class sounds interesting. The name has me intrigued.
I did enjoy that exercise but I agree that the 15 minutes were difficult. I think it might take some practice to get to the point of maintaining that state for an entire 15 minutes. I hate to say it but I am going from the minute I get up until I collapse at night. Relaxing my mind is difficult let alone finding the time to do it. By the time I have a chance to do meditation it is later in the evening. The house is quiet enough and I can sit down and concentrate to try the exercise. My problem is that by that time I am so exhalsted that I struggle not to fall asleep. By struggling with that I find it hard to relax enough to do the exercise but not enough to fall asleep. I would love to set enough time during the day to do this, regularly, I just am not sure yet when. I laugh becuase a lot of times they say that if you get another thought, to acknowledge it and then let it go. My problem is that there are so many thoughts that pour in, from what happened earlier, what needs done now, and what still needs done later on that day. This is inbetween my four year old coming to me and asking what I am doing and if I'm asleep. Or one of my older three asking me, "Aren't you suppose to be working on homework? That I need to wake up." I guess it is something that I am going to have to work on.
ReplyDeleteHi Angel,
ReplyDeleteI would definitely agree with you that this was a difficult exercise overall. It was certainly easy to bring in and feel the love and warmth of someone you care deeply about. Truly I found it difficult to try to bring in the hurt of a love one and dissolve it in the heart and then push out the positive. I especially found it to be a scary thought to be facing a row of individuals that there were no warm feelings about. Can you imagine lining up all the people that you have hard feelings about, having them staring you down and being able to draw that in? In some ways I can actually see it as funny, but for the most part... ooh, scary!
Sandy
I also found the 15 minutes hard to accomplish. Thinking of a loved one in pain was to hard, it just brought up memories of watching my mother painfully pass from breast cancer after 5 other rounds with cancer. I did not enjoy opening that can of worms. I will have to try this a few more times and see if it gets easier.
ReplyDelete