Sunday, November 24, 2013
Unit 6 Universal Loving Kindness and Integral Health
Just the words "Loving Kindness" can be difficult words to carry in my daily life. I have been exercise much more loving kindness towards others and I have been receiving very positive feedback in return. However, I struggle to exercise loving kindness with people I do not like, or people that don't like me much. I started convincing myself to love them from afar. Deep inside I no longer have hatred or anger towards those people, but I also will not allow these people back into my life. So I guess this is a small step towards improvement. I also realized that I have strengthen my love for strangers. Nowadays, I find myself interacting with many strangers and most of them interact in a great way with me. I began to realize that deep inside I think everyone really wants to be loved and accepted, however not everyone is willing to give love and kindness in return. We all want things that we don't always want to give back. So just as the Universal Loving Kindness exercise determines, I now have learned to express loving kindness towards my lover and partner, my friends, strangers, and my enemies. I have closed my eyes and chanted the words of the loving kindness practice. I felt as though I was becoming a little bit more at peace with some of my own fears. Currently my main fear has been financial, but I am teaching myself to believe that everything is going to be alright.
Now I focused my energy within the four quadrants of my life and personal development; the psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal, and worldly aspects. During the integral assessment, I found my mind wondering mostly towards the worldly aspect. Similar to the loving kindness practice, I realize that I am finding myself interacting with more strangers and enjoying it. I do not think I have many issues within my interpersonal circle, except for the fact that I have many distant family members that I haven't spoke to in years. However, I did recently speak to 3 of my cousins that I haven't spoke to in 15+ years. All of them were extremely excited to hear from me and they called me "a ghost." Biologically, I have much discipline to take care of my health and fitness. However, although I am very familiar with healthy eating, I lack the discipline to do it more consistently. My psychospiritual development is also a work in progress. This is an area that I have much to learn in and I have to practice more strengthening techniques. However, recently I have learned that my weaknesses are my lack of patience and I find I can be easily distracted. I realize that the greatest exercise for me to strengthen and develop all of these aspects is patience. I usually wan't everything to work out for me very quickly instead of investing in a slow life-long yet prosperous outcome. I am learning to come to peace with the natural flow of time and my personal development.
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Tony, it took me a long time to learn how to love my enemies and communicate with strangers. I believe my wake up call came from watching a TV commercial in which the question was asked, "When you hate who does it hurt?" "It hurts you!" After that, I began to do some research on the impact that negative energy has on the body. Dwayne Dyer stated in one of his speeches that negative emotions weakens the body. This is how Muhammad Ali defeated his opponents, he made them angry. You have a lot to gain by mastering the art of sending love and realizing the power of positive thinking.
ReplyDeleteLola L
Tony,
ReplyDeleteI think your post is wonderfully raw and honest. Many people in our society struggle with patience. We live in an "instant gratification" kind of world today. Everything comes "new and improved" with "faster and easier" methods for completion. We are not a patient society (as a whole). I, too, struggle with patience and am working on it as part of my inner development.
Congratulations on your work so far and really evaluating yourself to see where you can improve even further. Good luck on your journey!
-Erica
Tony you are correct.. it is SO much easier to demonstrate loving kindness with people you already love.. When the universe pushes you to show love and mercy to people that you know dont like you, and people that you are not fond of, that is when it gets really REAL. Would I be able to show loving kindness and forgiveness to those who have done me wrong, or harmed my family? So far I have not been so good at that. In fact there is someone im holding a grudge against. It would be more spiritually beneficial to me to pray for this person, and pray that God touches them, than for me to hold onto the anger which will harm me in the long run. I've heard a saying that the measure of mercy that you extend to others, will be the same measure that is shown to you.. We all fall short of what we should be doing. One day it will be us who is in need of loving kindness from a stranger or enemy.. It's difficult but i believe that all things are possible through prayer.
ReplyDeleteHi Tony! I agree, it's so hard to show loving-kindness to people you don't necessarily care for, people you don't get along with, etc. But I think it's those people who may need it the most. If we can put out that positive energy, we will receive positive energy in return. Life is crazy enough on it's own, why carry around hatred and anger only for it to weigh us down? It's a hard one to let go of sometimes -feel it and let it go. Don't just react. This is something I have to work on. :)
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