Creating Wellness Psychological and Spiritual Aspects of Healing
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Creating Wellness
Psychological and Spiritual Aspects of Healing
Introduction
This presentation will:• Teach the importance of mental fitness and its
implications to physical wellness• Introduce the benefits of mental fitness• Describe three research studies that have
demonstrated the healing qualities of mental and spiritual focus
• Explain two exercises that can improve mental fitness
The Importance of Mental Fitness
Mental Fitness is important to a person’s health and wellness. Metal fitness can be practiced on a daily basis. The result of this practice will enhance the mind/body connection and instill a new-found calmness in the body.
The Benefits of Mental FitnessThere are several benefits to practicing mental fitness. Some
of the benefits include:• Pain reduction• Lowered blood pressure• Lowered pulse rate• Reduction of muscular tension• Increased capillary blood flow• Increased bowel and bladder motility• Aid in alleviating migraine headaches• Increased circulation• Lowered anxiety and depression levels• Enhanced the effectiveness of the immune system
Research Study: The Effects of Forgiveness
• Frederic Luskin, a clinical science research associate at Stanford University School of Medicine conducted a study examining the affects of forgiveness.
• He conducted a randomized control study that recruited Stanford students as participants.
• The group received 6-50 minute sessions that guided the group through the steps of forgiveness.
• At the completion of the sessions, the treatment group showed significant reductions in hurt, state and trait anger and significant increases in forgiveness, hope, self-efficacy, and spiritual connection.
Research Study: Love and Health Outcomes
• A famous study examined the effects of watching a documentary film about the work of Mother Teresa of Calcutta on the concentration of salivary immunoglobulin A (S-IgA), a marker of immune function
• S-IgA concentration rose significantly in study subjects, and remained high an hour after the film ended in which the subjects, “recalled times in their lives when they had loved or been loved.”
• The author concluded that “dwelling on love appears to be important for strengthening this aspect of immune function.”
Research Study: The Bennett Study
• In 1986, Henry Bennett studied a group of 94 surgical patients who were scheduled for spinal surgery
• He found that the patients who received preoperative information on how to move their blood from the site of their surgery lost 500 cubic centimeters of blood, while the patients who did not received this information lost almost twice as much blood.
Improving Mental Fitness, Practice Number 1:
Meeting Asclepius
Meeting Asclepius
• Find a comfortable seat, close your eyes, and visualize the image of a very wise, loving man or woman.
• Choose an individual, alive or passed on, whom you respect and honor and with whom you feel a special sense of connection. If identifying or choosing such a person is difficult, then simply create one.
• Stabilize this image in front of you and notice all the details about the person.
• Sit in communication with this wise person and feel his/her presence.
Meeting Asclepius Continued• Reflect on his/her qualities and characteristics, his/her peace,
wisdom, compassion, love and joy.• The image of this individual should now become your focal point.• Stay with the image and allow the experience to deepen.• When the image has stabilized in your mind, allow a strong beam of
white light to form at the crown of his/her head.• Next, allow the dense white light emanating from the mind of this
wise person to enter into your mind.• Allow this energy to bathe and purify your thoughts, feelings, and
images.• Slowly transform your mind into the mind of this person. Take all
the time you need for this transformation to fully evolve.
Meeting Asclepius Continued
• Next, allow another beam of light to form and emanate from the throat of this wise person.
• Allow this energy to bathe and purify your speech.
• Take on the qualities of loving, wise, and sensitive speech so that yours becomes the speech of this wise person.
• Again, take your time as this transformation and purification takes place.
Meeting Asclepius Continued• Then, let a final beam of light emerge from the
heart of this wise person.• Allow it to enter your heart.• Let it bathe and purify your heart with kindness,
love, and compassion, transforming it into the heart of this wise person.
• Take your time allowing this transformation to take place.
• Experience your mind, voice, and heart as you take on the qualities of the wise one. Become this person.
Meeting Asclepius Continued• Next, allow the entire image of this wise person to
dissolve into a bright white light.• Allow this light to enter your body at your forehead
and slowly permeate your entire being, from your cells to your organs, so that you fully become this wise person.
• What does this feel like? What will it be like to have the wisdom and support of the wise inner healer assist you in your integral journey?
• For the next few moments, experience what it’s like to be such a person, to be able to accept yourself as a wise and loving healer in body, mind, and speech.
Meeting Asclepius Continued• Hasn’t this possibility -this self- always been with you? Why is it
easier to see this wise and pure aspect of yourself externally in another person rather than recognizing it as your essence?
• Who is this wise and caring person you first imaged outside yourself? Where has he or she been? Isn’t it time to welcome him/her home? Isn’t it time to know Asclepius as none other than the natural and wise essence of your heart and mind?
• Remain a few moments in this natural state and noble essence.• When you feel complete, slowly return to the time and place of the
room, remembering that your ever-present inner healer will support and guide you toward integral health.
Improving Mental Fitness, Practice Number 2:
Loving-Kindness
Loving - Kindness• Resting comfortably in your natural state of peace and ease, bring
to mind an individual, someone close to you, who you hold with great love and tenderness.
• Allow these loving feelings to expand within your heart as if a faucet of loving-kindness were being fully turned on. Take a few moments to fully experience these feelings.
• With these feeling filling your heart, begin to turn them toward yourself. Start with your body and its sensations, pleasant and unpleasant.
• Give each of them your love, your kindness, and sense of ease, spaciousness, and care. You want to loosen any grasping or attachment to your sensations. Just let them be. Take a few moments to be at peace with your body and its sensations.
Loving – Kindness Continued
• Next, shift to the thoughts, feelings, and images that move in and out of your awareness, those that are unpleasant and disturbing, as well as those that are pleasing and welcome. Give all of them equal care, love, and kindness, treating them as close friends that inhabit your life on a daily basis. Loosen any grasping or attachment to these mental movements. Give them a large field to play in.
Loving – Kindness Continued
• Then, turn your inner mind, specifically to the stillness, peace, and gentleness that is your natural home. Give this deeper aspect of your mind-your soul and spirit-all the loving-kindness that is your heart. Welcome it into your life.
• Finally, fully embrace yourself for this unique and precious expression of life that you are. Loving yourself is a prelude to extending this love out to others. Take a few moments to complete this part of the exercise.
Loving – Kindness Continued• Next, visualize a loved one who is suffering. When you take your
next breath, which we will call the “in-breath” from now on, take in your loved one’s suffering. Allow the dark cloud of suffering to ride the in-breath into your body and then let it completely dissolve in your heart. Do not feel concerned about being over-whelmed by this suffering; its nature is such that it will dissolve if you merely breathe it into your heart.
• Then, when you breath out, which we will call the “out-breath”, breathe out health, happiness, and wholeness to the same loved one.
• Take in the suffering of your loved one on the in-breath, and on the out-breath send out health and joy.
• Continue this for several minutes. Consider how you can be of specific assistance to this loved one. What can you offer to relieve his or her suffering, temporarily and over the long term?
Loving – Kindness Continued
• Is it something material you can offer? Is it deep listening, understanding, a new perspective, emotional support? Or perhaps you can suggest a long-term strategy that will assist this loved one in identifying and eliminating the source of distress.
• On the out-breath, offer what you sense will be most helpful.
• Next, expand your focus to include a circle of strangers beyond your immediate loved ones.
• Breathe in their suffering and allow it to dissolve in your heart.
Loving – Kindness Continued• With the out-breath, send out the peace and wellness that
is growing within you. Continue this for several minutes.• Next, embrace all living things, including those whom you
consider enemies. • Imagine this whole field of individuals is in front of you as
you continue this practice of taking and giving.• Continue in this manner for the remainder of your practice
session.• Experience the changes that take place in your mind and
heart. Remember this is an inner practice whose primary goal is to create a heartfelt loving-kindness that diminishes your self-centeredness and quiets your mind.
Loving – Kindness Continued
• When the 15-minute practice time has passed, remain for a moment in the natural peace and ease of you mind and body, reflecting on the practice.
• If you wish, jot some notes in your journal.• When you are ready, slowly and peacefully
return to your regular activities.• Continue this exercise twice daily for the first
week and at regular intervals in the future.
Conclusion• Mental fitness is important to a person’s health
and wellness• It can help aid many of the body’s issues such as
high blood pressure and migraine headaches.• Three research studies that have examined the
effects of the mind-body connection in relation to wellness are: The Effects of Forgiveness, and Love and Health Outcomes, and The Bennett Study.
• Meeting Asclepius and Loving-Kindness are two examples of practices that can be conducted to improve mental fitness.
Reference:
• Chopra, D., Dossey, L., Kabat-Zinn, J., Ornish, D., Pert, C., Remen, R.N., Wilber, K., (2005), Consciousness & Healing: Integral Approaches to Mind-Body Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri: Elsevier Inc.
• Dacher, E. (2006). Integral Health - The Path to Human Flourishing. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications, Inc.
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