The Subtle Mind

This week's practice was even harder than last week's!

As compared to the Loving Kindness exercise, I found this one very uninvolved and difficult to follow. I ended up becoming VERY tired and VERY confused as to what I was doing.

I found it extremely difficult to shift my focus "to varying degrees" toward and away from my "focal point" of breath.

If you tell me to focus on my breath, I can do that.

If you tell me to focus on a spot on the wall, I can do that.

But varying degrees of focus? That's just confusing and seemingly pointless.

I seem to enjoy exercises with more involvement - when there are 8 minutes of radio silence, I will most likely fall asleep, you know?

However, I do think that spiritual wellness is deeply connected with mental and physical wellness.

It's the final frontier, I think.

A person can be deeply mentally and physically strong, but lack any sense of spirituality (I have many friends like this).

However, when you begin searching your personal spirituality, you learn more about yourself than you did on either of the other levels.

You become vulnerable, which is scary but ultimately freeing.

I personally know that when I'm praying, reading the bible, and singing worship songs frequently, I feel much more deeply rooted in my own soul. When I go a week or two without doing any of these things, I feel a disconnect - I can't remember where to turn for comfort.

Spirituality is the ultimate source of comfort and self-assurance, whether you believe a particular religion or simply what you know to be true in your soul.