Steps to preparing one's self for integral health through mind-body-spirit

Integral health through mind-body-spirit is the simplest and most complex transformation one can go through.  There are steps to help individuals get in the right frame of mind to be successful when learning focusing/meditative practices. These steps are presented in this week’s reading as; loving kindness, skillful action, and silence and stillness.

Loving kindness is the first step to begin preparing yourself for integral health. Loving kindness is the one’s ability to draw on positive life experiences to center themselves amongst the chaos of daily life (Elliott S, 2006). One must choose positive experiences to reflect on to calm their emotions. I chose the heartwarming love I have for my children to calm myself or the butterflies I get in my stomach from the love of my husband. Everyone’s positive experience they chose to harness will vary on their own personal experience. The calming joy and loving kindness of this thought will be used to replace negative emotions or feeling whenever they may arrive. Once loving kindness is mastered than an individual will not only be able to control their own emotions and decisions but they will be able to project loving kindness to the world around them. 

Skillful action is the next stage of development to obtaining integral health by using our loving kindness to change how we react to the world around us. Each day we make choices we are not aware of, like, we chose to get annoyed or upset without even realizing we have let anger in. Skillful action is the ability to see every action as a choice and not a nuisance. Instead of letting things that we cannot control annoy us we need to replace our negative emotions with positive loving kindness instead. When I homeschool my boys, sometimes they frustrate me by not focusing so instead of allowing the frustration to control my actions I take a deep breath and choose patience over annoyance. If I get angry then I project my frustration on to my children and then the whole days learning is spoiled by negative emotions. 

Silence and stillness is the final stage of preparing one’s mind to practice integral health on a daily bases.  By using the previous steps we are now able to practice silence and stillness which will vary from outer, inner, to innermost stillness and silence. By calming our body we will allow calming our mind to follow. Once we have mastered silence and stillness for our body and mind we will be able to gain innermost silence and stillness. When we calm our mind than the chaos in life becomes more aware of what is needed in one’s life and what is simply noise that is not needed to exist peacefully. It is a freeing sense to allow ourselves to choose a more blissful and meaningful life through integral healing.

References

Elliott S, D. (2006). Integral Health. Laguna Beach: Basic Health.