Meeting Aesclipius

In this week’s meditation, we completed the exercise Meeting Aesclepius.  In this exercise, we visualized an individual that we found to be a wise, kind, and compassionate person.  Personally, I immediately thought of my favorite teacher, Mr. Baskin.  He was always someone that I went to for advice throughout high school.  He was someone that I looked up to and that I feel really made a change in my life by helping me cultivate my own self-esteem.  In the exercise, you visual a beam of light coming from your mentor’s head, throat, and heart.  These beams of light are to transfer kindness in these areas to you.  From the head you receive kind thoughts, from the throat you receive kind words, and from the heart you receive kindness itself.  I feel like meditation has helped to provide me with an outlet.  Although I do still feel like some of the meditations are too long for me, I do enjoy having time that isn’t focused on the tasks that need to be accomplished or what everyone else wants.  It is nice to have time to focus on myself alone and my own developments.

The saying “one cannot lead another where one has not gone himself,” is synonymous with the saying “practice what you preach.”  You have to have walked the same or similar path as the person you are trying to lead.  This is especially important in the health care field.  Would you really want an obese doctor telling you that you need to lose weight?  I believe that health care professionals have an obligation to their patients to either be in a great state of health or to be working toward that state.  I think that in order to be the best health care professional that I can be, I need to work on my physical, mental, and spiritual health.  To do this, I need to find better time management and make time for physical exercise and meditation.  Without this time and attention to my own health, there is no way that I will be able to help another individual to achieve their own integral health.