Okay so here is the deal. I am not doing the Loving kindness meditation according to our text. First I will explain why. Ever since I began this course I have become, anxious, agitated, stressed to the point of becoming ill, depressed and over all unhappy. I was nothing like this before this course began. The last time I did the loving kindness audio I was irritated for over a week with it. So I am going to tweak every meditation I am forced to do for this course from now on. I realized today what a part of my problem was, I feel like I am cheating on my beliefs and God. And honestly that is not okay for me. The premise of the loving kindness is to reflect love towards the world. Well I can do that through my faith and belief. So instead of being quiet and chanting some ridiculous saying that doesn't work for me I am going to speak my mind.
Loving kindness reflection for myself, today I was reflecting on God's word to us. He states in Jeremiah 31:3 (NKJ). "..I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with a loving kindness." God also tell us to "love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you."- Matthew 5:44 (NKJ). SO instead of me trying to breathe in all the worlds problems I reflected on God's word and let go of any anger, hurt, sadness and all the negative feelings and handed them to God. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and Love your neighbor as yourself." - Luke 10:27 (NKJ). See I don't feel as though I need to practice modern day meditation in order to become connected with God. I do not need to take in all the worlds burden onto myself. That is not my job, my job is to love and show kindness, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, and share my beliefs and stand firm in them.
As for my integral assessment. After reflecting today on everything I definitely had to assess many areas about myself and some of them are not easy for me to have to come to realize. Unfortunately some are personal and no offense are not going to be shared. But some of them are my attitude toward thing. any time I am to sensitive and assume I am being attacked. I believe this steams from insecurities that are left over from my obesity and how I was treated. I obviously have some wounds I have not allowed to heal and only did a temporary fix on. I need to really focus on this area on my life. It make a difference in how i see myself as well as how I portray myself to others. Others areas I need to continue to grow in is my relationship with my husband and where we are going with our future as fare as work, home and children. My career is in a path of change which frightens me a little and I need to assess why and what I want to do with my life. Taking time to truly assess so many areas in my life is going to be a constant challenge because of the ever changing situations. The one are I am not affairs of and excited to grow is in my faith. I am excited to see what God has in store for myself and my family.
Nice post! I was talking with my Nurse Practitioner sister, last night, about the meditation part of this course that was new and weird to me but extremely frustrating to you as you felt it was in conflict with your faith. Hopefully you felt some loving kindness coming your way as we talked. She mentioned that you will have the ability to work with clients in a way that many other practitioners cannot. Integral Health is just an inventory of many options that may work and may not for each individual. You don’t need to feel bad about meditation being annoying for you. You’re just being honest with yourself and everybody else. That’s one of the beauties of this class is that we all seem to be at a level of honesty and it’s ok to disagree with some of the techniques available. No one is judging. I commend you in your faith and you’ll be a strong witness in your practice because of it. You’re just meditating on God’s word and there’s nothing wrong with that. Go ahead and vent girl! I love your conviction. You'll never know how many you inspired.
ReplyDeleteTHank Karen, I absolutely agree. I was worried that speaking my mind would actually cost me in this class but then I realized this class is about self awareness and it is meant to be personal and opinionated. :) I love that I am able to see how people differ in their experiences with meditation and I will never tell someone not to try it for themselves because of how different it can be for everyone. Meditation doesn't have to only be one way, we are able to tweak it to fit our needs. Thank you for your comment! :)
DeleteKaren, I commend you for being totally honest and I agree. I too beleive in God and his promise to us. I beleive that this class has not made me change my mind or feel that I have cheated my faith but an experiment to try and use meditation to assist my inner peace with God. The Lord has provided us with such a strong sense of self and spirit that no matter what I do I never forget the real reason. I myself am not a fan of meditations, yoga, or anything else we have read in this class. I know what I beleive and I am just trying to get through this class so that I can complete it and get credit. I would say that if I could do it over again I would definitely not choose this class and I would have picked something else. Meditation for me does not calm me down or make me reflect on anything else but the boringness of what I'm having to do. The Lord has blessed me with so much energy to accomplish everything that he has handed me so, meditation in my mind is something that suppresses that. It's not a good thing, I like to do things my way and this class is going to be put behind me once it's done and over with. Great post.
ReplyDeleteThanks Celia, my name is Brooke though. But I get really confused on these blogs and who they belong to all the time. The funny thing is I actually enjoy the brikam yoga, yet I look at is more of an exercise then any type of meditation. I don't really pay attention to the terminology in the classes. I did however pay attention to the breathing techniques more closely this weekend and realized it helped me hold my position and stances better. I did not feel more grounded or in tune with the earth. But I was less clumsy then I usually am .:) Like I have said before I do my best meditation and reflections on God's word when I am physically active. WHile I breath during the class I found it was easy for me to pray and trully focus on God. I am slowly realizing that as you stated, I am able to find my "inner peace" with GOd. Thank you for your post! :)
ReplyDeletePraise God!
ReplyDeleteBrooke I really appreciate the boldness and honesty you have and the courage to stand for your beliefs. As I read your blog I began to think about how often the word 'meditation' is used in the bible. I love to meditate on God's word and I found that there is nothing else like it, no matter how scientific in man's eyes, it always end up back to God. I said before this class is a great experience for me because I was thinking inside of a box and didn't really face other opinions like this. However, as I read and do the practices I am pretty much the same as you when it comes to my faith, it points me back in the direction of Jesus. I found that even in saying those words I really didn't reach the number 10 because I fell asleep, or got distracted.
Brooke,
ReplyDeleteLet me start off saying that your story is truely inspirational. Although I may not be overweight, I strive for a body like yours; strong, lean and healthy. I have struggled with bulimia since I was 16 (27 now). I would like to know how you started to get healthy? I want this but I have a hard time finding the will power to eat healthy and exercise. The exercise part is being put on hold a little bit because of a torn IT band. Can you give me an outline how you went about it please.
Second your post is spot on for me, as I see it is for many others! I have to alter the meditation, and I honestly can not find it in myself to take in others suffering and expel good thoughts. I don't see this as my job but Gods. I follow what He tells me to do, granted I'm not always happy to do it. I feel like He has pushed me into so many things I did not want to participate in but there is always a lesson to be learned in everything.
Again, thank you for being an amazing example of a strong God fearing woman.