Meeting Asciepius

1. Complete the "Meeting Asciepius" exercise on track #4 of the Dacher CD. Describe your meditative practice(s) for the week and discuss the experience. Explain how mindfulness or meditation has fostered an increase in your psychological or spiritual wellness. How can you continue to apply these practices in your life to foster greater health and wellness?


This week has been hard to practice meditation. My mind is wondering in directions that I do not want it to go. I think that the devil is playing again and I'm finding it hard to fight against him. My husband was not feeling well yesterday and apparently I said something that hurt his feelings. In no way was i trying to hurt his feelings or make him feel that I did not care. In other circumstances my comment would not have upset him. But still today he has hostility towards me. I am trying to remain positive and meditate loving kindness to him. I explained that I was not trying to hurt him, but he still holds hositlity. I told him I don't know what else to do, now it's up to him to forgive and either move on from it or continue to hold on to it. All i can do now is to continue to practice loving kindness.

2. Describe the saying: "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself” (P.477) How does this apply to the health and wellness professional? Do you have an obligation to your clients to be developing your health psychologically, physically, and spiritually? Why or why not? How can you implement psychological and spiritual growth in your personal life?

This comment is one that I have always found to be true. I hate it when a doctor tells a patient that he/she is overweight and needs to go on a diet and exercise. Then i see that same doctor in line (who is himself/herself overweight) ordering high fat, high carb food and looks like a heart attack waiting to happen. A patient is like a child, they follow by example. If you are not living the life of health, why should they? I plan to always live to the advice I give my patients in the future.

Universal Loving-Kindness

This was a good exercise. It's a positive thing. It helps me to send kindness to others. Stop focusing on myself and wanting kindness and good health to be sent to others. I found myself doing this in my mind for others this week. When I would see someone that looked like they were having a hard day, I started to say all this in my mind. I hope that it helped that person, but I know that I felt better in the day because I was wanting someone to feel better.

My personal assessment: My eating habits are affected by my habits. If my daily schedule is so busy I tend to just grab something to eat. My priorities are my family, my dogs, our office, my schoolwork. Then lastly myself. I need to focus more on myself to balance my life. This will create less stress. This is an ongoing process.

Subtle Mind

I tried this exercise and found it to be easier than the last one. I was able to sit on my back deck and listen to the birds around while focusing on my breathing. When I noticed that my mind was chattering and not focusing on the birds I simply was able to redirect it. I found this to be so relaxing. This is something that I can do most days. My goal to to do this at least once a day. It only takes 5 minutes out of my time and this is something that I need. I loved this exercise.

Fruit of the Spirit

When I was going through my transformation, my husband said something about the Fruits of the Spirit. I had never heard of this before, so I looked them up. I wanted all of these aspects. I wanted to be Christ like. I wanted God's love to pour out through me. I copied these and to this day, I have one posted on my car, by the odometer. So evertime I get in the car I see it. I posted one on all the mirrors so that everytime I looked in the mirror I would be reminded.

love (agape);
joy (chara);
peace (eirene);
patience (makrothumia);
kindness (chrestotes);
goodness (agathosune);
faithfulness (pistis);
gentleness (prautes);
self-control (egkrateia

Loving Kindness

This exercise was a little difficult for me. I had a hard time quieting my mind and be able to really focus on the person that needed my attention. I really wanted to do this exercise. I think that it is going to take a little practice before I can really concentrate and focus on this loving-kindness. I think this could actually work as well. There's been studies that have shown that people that were prayed for recovered better then those that were not prayed for. I will definatly work on this exercise.