The purpose of this exercise is to help the person to increase their capacity of empathic listening, seeing and caring for others: with open heart,sensitivity, generosity and emotional intimacy. These feelings and abilities are meant to spread from ourselves and into our relationships. We can give and receive the gift of seeing the other, acknowledging them for who they are, hearing them, and being present with them. Integral health involves expanding beyond our close friends and family to include all of humankind. The development of universal loving-kindness is the final step in our interpersonal development (Dacher,2006).
The following exercise is designed to help acquire universal loving-kindness by helping you to move your focus from personal love to universal love. It takes about 10 minutes.
First close your eyes and rest for a minute or two into the natural ease of your mind and body and repeat the following phrases for 10min.
May all individuals gain freedom from suffering.
May all individuals find sustained health, happiness, and wholeness.
May I assist all individuals in gaining freedom from suffering.
My I assist all individuals in finding health, happiness, and wholeness.
The personal assessment process involves looking inward and determining where we are on our path to integral health. The path to integral health requires us to be aware of our sources of needless suffering, distress, and dissatisfaction and our possibilities for future development and flourishing.
Using our four quadrants as a guide to self evaluation:
The four quadrants are "Psycho spiritual", Biological", "Interpersonal" , and Generativity or the willingness to reach out and teach what we know and to pass on the skills, values, and wisdom that will help future generations.
Looking inward requires stilling and focusing your mind, then focusing on the four quadrants of the integral map. Decide which areas of your life within the quadrants you want to focus on.. I need to focus on my physical health and on my emotional health.. undoubtedly they are interrelated one affecting the other..
I am out of balance between my ability to express my emotions and use my intellect, in other words I tend to use thinking as a means of coping with stress and problems. I need to be able to balance my thinking with allowing myself to "feel". The increased stress related to not truly dealing with the cause of my stress is affecting my physical health.
To help myself in these areas I need to take care of my physical body by physical exercises as well as practicing the loving-kindness meditation to help my mind to relax and to extend my loving-kindness to others. I can use the witnessing mind exercises to help me to step back and evaluate my feelings, accept them and to feel them in a healthy way.
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ReplyDeleteUniversal loving kindness, is an interesting method of connecting with others and caring for them. It is similar to prayers for others healing and health in the Christian faith. The difference is that you are praying for God to take in their suffering and pain so that He may heal them or help them with their pain. As a Christian I do not believe that I personally can heal another but I can pray to my Father for His healing power to envelope them.