Once
again, I failed to connect with this meditation practice. The whole concept of the beams of light
emitting from holes in the body is just weird to me, especially when prompted
to suck my wise person in through my forehead as their light explodes into nothingness. I don’t get anything from these types of
exercises and they are more frustrating to me than healing. I find them a waste of time and knowing that
I have to blog about them is stressful when I get nothing out of them. My spiritual wellness has not improved so
far.
The only thing I get out of these
exercises is that I get to close my eyes and listen to waves for 20 minute
intervals and I guess that is relaxing.
If I were to apply these practices on a more frequent basis perhaps I
would get more out of them, but my spiritual practices just differ greatly than
those of Buddhist meditation, which is what this is. I prefer to concentrate on other kinds of
meditative practices that align with my faith tradition and the Creator God of
the universe instead of a collective consciousness that is full of mysticism and
ambiguity.
The saying
“one cannot lead another where one has not gone himself” means that in order to
help someone you must have experienced the same thing that you are leading them
through. I agree with this to a
point. If you believe this literally,
then you would have to assume that a personal trainer could not lead an obese
person to health, because in order to do so, the trainer would have had to
journey from obesity to health himself.
That is an absurd concept. Most
personal fitness trainers I have met have never been fat a day in their lives. How would they know how to journey through
something they had not experienced? So I
believe that it is possible for someone to impart knowledge to someone else
without having had the exact same experience.
When it pertains to health, I do believe that in order to have
credibility, you have to be walking the walk.
That does not mean that you have to have it all together, but you should
at least be heading down the same path and practicing and modeling the behavior
you are teaching. In order to do so, you
must have in place your own personal plan for physical fitness, emotional
health, and spiritual growth. You must
commit to growth in these areas so that you can encourage others to move along
a similar path to integrated wellness.
Hi Sheila,
ReplyDeleteNo worries about not being able to connect with that meditation. In order to follow a guided meditation, one has to mesh with the narrator. For me, the woman reminded me of the woman who used to talk about lessons learned on Sesame Street. Plus, the beginning guy kills me! He does not have a voice for such things.
Maybe you guide yourself? What I like to do sometimes is revisit in my own mind, one of the places I have been that I really liked - like a vacation spot or something. Go there and see yourself there for a minute or two...then you are done. When you are done, you feel the same "lift" as if you were there...again.
Liam
Hi Liam,
DeleteThat is so good to hear from you since you do meditation routinely as part of your wellness routine. I thought it was just me! I have enjoyed in my stress management class the imagery meditation you mention, so maybe I should focus on that more and not worry about this Sesame Street gal, lol.
My favorite one I tried was of a cabin in the mountains in the middle of a winter snowfall. Just closing my eyes and imagining walking through the front door and seeing all the surroundings, the smells, the noises, etc. That type of meditation clears all the rabble out of my head as I focus on this one environment and it's surroundings.
Thanks for the suggestion, I will make it a point to work this in to my daily routine!
I agree Sheila! I have a hard time listening to the lady and thinking about what she is saying, then I couldnt picture anyone! I was thinking to hard about not thinking too hard!!!:))
ReplyDeleteAnn
Hi Ann,
DeleteI had the same experience, having difficulty bringing one specific person to mind that had the attributes the narrator spoke of. It was quite sad that I had such a hard time with that part of it. I guess I need to find some wise people and make them a part of my life. Maybe then I would have better luck. Most of the time though, I get nothing out of these exercises.
Hi Sheila,
ReplyDeleteI also had a hard time experiencing what I was supposed to experience with this meditative exercise. I could envision my grandmother but I couldn't mesh with the whole light thing. Like you what I did get was 20 minutes of solitude and relaxation. That wasn't so bad! Thanks for sharing your experience.
~Sherrie
Hi Sherrie,
DeleteIt is so good you could envision your grandmother. I have never really had that kind of relationship with my grandparents as they all passed away when I was pretty young. I at first thought of our senior pastor, but then I had trouble concentrating because I was imagining what Dave (my pastor) would think if he knew there were beams of light emitting from himself. He is a pretty funny guy and I think he would have some fun with that, so I could not concentrate and decided he probably was not a good example. I just find the whole beam of light thing silly. It does nothing for me.
Hi, I agree with you and Liam, while Dacher writes a good book, his voice is like nails on a chalkboard, very irritating. Yea, don't worry about the meditative practices. I don't think we have to like them or really get anything out of them. The most important thing is to be aware of this aspect of health. We can individualize it to our liking, and it sounds as though that is what you do.
ReplyDelete