In Calmness...Unit 7

I really enjoyed this exercise! I have not been too keen on many of this guided meditations, as I find them a bit long and distracting. However, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
I did this exercise on my deck. I had spent most of Mother's Day cleaning and replanting on my westward facing deck, enjoying the sunshine after a VERY long and frozen winter, so sitting here in the sunshine, surrounded by 85 degree breezes, made this exercise even more relaxing and meaningful.
I found my "wise" person deep within my soul. This was not easy to do! Perhaps it is my upbringing-full of craziness and drama, bigotry and ignorance, lack of truth and mind games-that made finding this person so difficult. When I found him, I instantly felt comforted. The white lights that fell upon me absolutely filled me with warmth and peace. I left this exercise feeling very calm.
As I have stated in other blog posts, finding the quiet time to practice these exercises has been difficult. The results, however, in finding the time to practice, have been fantastic. I am finding it easier to make this a priority in my life, and I have found a new calm, a new way of shutting my mind off and just accepting some peace within my mind. I plan to stay with this time of meditation, even though I don't plan to use guided meditations as used in this class. Instead, I plan to use some of the meditations that I have used in the past, and those that I continue to explore with my therapist. This are important to me because they HAVE led me to a rediscovered peace and calmness-I had this years ago, and I had lost it. When I lost this sense of calmness and meditation, I wandered back into stress and sometimes, chaos. I can easily see that now. I do not want to revisit that kind of living.
"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself", is a very true statement. It is important that one has empathy and understanding to the life and issues of a person they are attempting to lead. In my case, I plan to work within the field of fitness and weight management, along with dealing with those who have issues with eating disorders. In my opinion, no amount of education in the world can possibly teach one how to deal with eating disorder patients. It is a mental nightmare that makes little sense, and has little reason involved with it. I suffered from such disorders for many years, and while I can empathize, understand, and feel compassion for those who suffer, I have yet to find a doctor, or a book, that can make logical medical sense out of the disorder. Having been there, I can understand the confusion, the lack of "making sense", and the incredibly feeling that no one can possibly understand the strange, constant obsessions and rituals that go along with these disorders. My history of this makes me more compassionate, more understanding, and better equipped to deal with stories and issues of eating disorders and what they do to the mind, body and soul. It is important that we not only have education and training, but a true sense of what our clients have been through-their fears, their joys, their worries.
It is important that I find continued peace within myself in order to pass that along to others in a healthy, mindful, complete manner.