Asciepius Exercise

Doing this weeks Asciepius exercise brought up many emotions and memories for me. The person that layed on my mind was my mother, who passed away 14 years ago, when I was too young in my opinion to deal with something so intense. I've struggled with this loss since it happened. I was able to go back to the many great memories I have of my mother. I was also able to remember exactly why I've struggled with he loss for so long. I went back to the moment in which I remember sitting in my living room listening to her talk, and thinking to myself that I had so much to learn from her. It was great to look back to the many good memories but in the end I was left feeling sad.

What the saying " Once cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" means to me is to make sure you are able to heed your own advice before you give others advice. If you are not able to follow your own advice how do you expect others to take you seriously. I believe many of us have been guilty of this some time or another. We are very quick to give advice to other people, however sometimes that advice is easier said than done.

Loving-Kindness exercise

The possibility of sending good thoughts to someone in need of wholeness of any kind made doing this exercise more useful then I originally believed it could be. I must admit I am usually on overload, so I have been mostly skeptical that this type of exercise could be useful in my life. I was not able to remember all the phrases this exercise required me to recite right away. However, after saying them out loud several times the words came out a little bit easier and a good feeling also came about in myself. I suppose it was a feeling of selflessness, which was very welcoming and awarding.
The area I've chosen to focus on is interpersonal growth. I find that many times my patience wears very thin when dealing with others, whether it be my family, friends or most often with strangers. I have a hard time being as understanding about someones personal situations as I would like to be. For example when dealing with a "rude" employee of an establishment I find that I immediately feel the need to say exactly what comes to my mind, rather than taking a step back and trying to give the person the benefit of the doubt. It's possible they are having a bad day and most likely receiving any comment or attitude from me is not going to do anything to help their situation. I am going to try to practice putting myself in the shoes of others in order to try and gain some more compassion and understanding.