Unit 5 The Subtle Mind Exercise

1. Compare and contrast the Loving Kindness exercise and the Subtle mind exercise. Explain your experience including the benefits, frustrations etc.

I found this one to be a little better than all the previous ones. However, I still prefer to do meditation solely myself or with just background sounds. This may be, because I have become used to doing meditation that way. However, I will sometimes listen to some self-hypnosis things I have recorded, which is somewhat similar to the audios the professor has had us listen to. I found this meditation to be more relaxing and reflective. The other recording seemed to talk so much that I was thinking and listening more than meditating.  

2. Discuss the connection of the spiritual wellness to mental and physical wellness. Explain how the connection is manifested in your personal life.

I believe that they are all interconnected and people have created ideas, which inherently separated them as being different. This is both the blessing and curse of language, because it is all just a generalization and a form of stereotyping things. We are a system and in systems everything affects everything. So, what happens mentally, spiritually or physically affects the others to some degree and vice versa. For instance, if some ideas or belief does not fit your environment, then it creates stress, if one does not adapt, then this causes our bodies to react by creating cortisol and so on to go into the fight or flight response. This response in turn affects our mental state, which then affects our spiritual aspects of ourselves.

For instance, if I find more opportunities to have fun in any circumstance, then I will create a positive effect on both the physical and spiritual aspect as well as the mental aspect. This is because everything affects everything. You can alter your mental state, which alters your physical state and that also alters your spiritual state. None of these are specially constants per sey, but rather variables in an equation, which equals outcome we give names, like moods and so on. 

Below is another video I put together that you may find useful. It is designed to be useful in helping people get into an altered state of mind. I hope you enjoy it.