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.

Throughout this course we have been practicing the meditative exercises and practices, some I enjoyed more than others. Visualization and the loving kindness practices were the ones I was able to identify with the most. This is because I could definitely see these as being valuable to my well-being. The loving-kindness exercise encourages me to simply love others and myself…for I am not perfect nor will I ever be. At times I become so hung up on “if only I were this way or that way maybe my outcomes would be different”. I do know this isn’t so, sometimes I let the self-defeating thoughts get the best of me. However, through I am learning to be kinder to myself and to love myself as I am. The visualization exercise is also very beneficial because it allows me to visualize what and where I want to be in my life. I feel without a vision I would be nowhere. So, I visualize what and who I want to be in hopes that I will make it real little by little within my life. I am convinced these exercises are and will help me form the vision of whom and what I want to be.

I have been implementing these practices approximately 2-3 times per week, sometimes more. I tend to do the loving kindness exercise more because I feel I need to love myself before I can blossom into the vision of my fullest potential.

 Simply just closing my eyes and breathing is more beneficial than I ever imagined it would and could be.