How to live a happy and healthy life

The three simple steps to human flourishing are health, happiness, and wholeness. First, one must remove unneeded suffering from their life. Next, one must train their mind to replace negative emotions with positive loving kindness on a daily bases. Finally, one must be mindful in every action of everyday to fully develop their consciousness. Though these steps are all very simple they all take daily practice and patience to develop into one’s life. Human flourishing is obtainable by every individual on earth and will ultimately lead to integral health.  

To implement each of these steps into daily life an individual must consciously assess their life and every action and influence in their daily routine. If an action or influence produces negative emotions like anger or worry than it must be eliminated or looked at differently. If a negative influence cannot be eliminated than the emotions must be replaced with loving kindness. Finally, once all negative emotions are dealt with, one must continuously make the effort to assess all of life’s influences on a daily bases. With enough patience and daily practice, one will train their mind to simply respond this way every day without the need for constant focus. This is when life will become blissful and simple.

Meeting Aesclepius

Meeting Aesclepius was an extremely enlightening meditation exercise for me personally. Aesclepius is the wise healer that lives inside all of us which can be realized through meditation and revisited through daily meditation. My Aesclepius is myself in the future when I have fully mastered loving kindness and unity consciousness. My future self looks like a gypsy bojo hippie with grey long hair. When I preformed this exercise I felt as if I truly was blessed with her ultimate acceptance and loving kindness. With her/myself ultimately accepting my life for what it has been and what it is, I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I finally gave myself the courage to say that everything that has happened in my life has not hurt me but has made me the strong person I currently am and will continue to be. I will continue to accept the strength of my Aesclepius through calming meditation and mindfulness. I have always been a caring and compassionate person toward others but now I can harness that love and project it back to myself. 

Others look to me for guidance because they know I have overcome what they are going through. I not only have the knowledge but the experience as well to help others in their life’s journey. Had I never struggled than how would I know what others are going through or what they need to move on? Like, in our reading for this unit it states that, one cannot lead another where one has not gone himself (Marylin Schlitz, 2005). This means that just because you possess the knowledge does not mean you possess the experience to apply it to others life’s successfully. As healers, one has the obligation to experience their own remedies or teachings before they can apply them to their patients. An individual who does not practice mental fitness will have no experience to influence others with. I know that would not trust an individual who has never been in my shoes before to know how to fix my problems.

References

Marylin Schlitz, T. A. (2005). Consciousness & Healing. St. Louis: Elsevier.

Steps to meeting Aesclepius. 

 

My current life assessment

Loving kindness meditation is a great tool for replacing negative feelings in one’s life with positive emotions. Whether an individual realizes it or not, they possess loving kindness within themselves. In order to replace negative emotions with positive emotions one must first learn to harness the loving kindness within themselves. I always tell people to imagine a blissful sleeping newborn baby or puppy, to acknowledge the love and kindness they may feel for this newborn or puppy. Then to harness this feeling that lives with themselves to replace negative emotions in time of need. 

I have been utilizing loving kindness when I get migraines because if I practice loving kindness my headache lessens. This practice is sometimes difficult to achieve when my brain hurts really bad but will always lessen the pain. Even if it is just a little bit of ease, it is enough to help. Because of my constant migraines, life has been very trialing lately but meditation helps. I have slacked on my work outs and social life because of the daze and fatigue caused by my migraines. When assessing my life I feel I am lacking in these areas and I am trying to figure out how to strengthen these aspects of my life without overdoing it physically. I can only do so much or my condition worsens. 

I have decided that I need to replace my extreme hiking routine with light hiking activities. So instead of giving it up completely I simply need to partake in shorter less strenuous hikes. I also have starting replacing my weightlifting with tia chi and yoga to insure that I still partake in daily exercise. There is not too much I can do about my social life currently because I never know when my migraines are going to strike. I will however invite my friends on my short hikes so I can benefit from walking in nature and socializing at the same time.

Loving-kindness and the subtle mind

 

Each week’s meditation session open my eyes to what is truly possible when you open your heart and calm your mind. Both the loving-kindness and the subtle mind exercises were very beneficial to me personally on my current life’s journey. With each exercise, the more I practiced the more natural they both became. At the beginning of each week’s new routine I felt that I almost had to force myself to relax and focus on my breathing but by the end of the week my mind was more willing to cooperate. I guess that is why it takes practice to train the mind to become calm abiding. The loving-kindness exercise taught me how to harness the love I have in my heart and to reflect it inward. The subtle mind exercise taught me how to focus on the calm within my mind and also to reflect inward. 

The connection between spiritual, mental, and physical wellness is one and the same. You would not think that each of them relied so much on each other but they absolutely do. If one has faith and hope that they can do something then they will harness the motivation needed to succeed. Their mental wellness will improve with the inner motivation and hope they have harnessed. If one is positive about their life’s situations then they will ultimately influence their overall physical wellness. However if one is spiritually and/or mentally ill then they will most likely unknowingly be feeding sickness and disease. Thoughts are things and as humans we have the power to control our body, mind, and spirit.  Whether we feed it positively or negatively is our own choice.