Unit 8

Review the exercises and practice sessions you have completed in this course. (Loving Kindness, Subtle mind, Visualization, meditation etc.) Choose two practices that you have determined to be most beneficial. How can you implement these practices in your personal life to foster “mental fitness”? Provide specific examples.

The loving-kindness and subtle mind exercises are the only two meditation practices that I have learned in this course that have been beneficial to me.  I suppose because they were in mp3 form and I am able to listen to them multiple times.  I like the idea of loving-kindness because I tend to put others before myself and have the motherly tendency to put try to take away others' pain.  The subtle mind exercise works for me because I force myself to intentionally clear my mind and focus my thoughts.  I have already implemented these into my personal mental fitness routine because whenever I am stressed I use them and get some stress relief.  Practices that I have never learned in this book closely relate to the visualization method.  I like to lay still and envision the hot sun on my face, feel the rays enter through my face and turn my whole body into a warm beam of light.  Once this has happened I let my physical body form dissolve and travel through space and time in my mind and eventually rest back down into my body.  This has proven to be the most beneficial to me, but I'm not sure it has a name exactly.