“

"Knowledge is only rumour, until it is in the muscle."

 

” - New Guinea Proverb

Here are handouts and Autogenic relaxation exercises from the first "lesson" of an eight session Autogenic Training (AT) class.  This first "class" concentrates on relaxation of the voluntary muscles of the arms & legs.  It is probably sensible to stay with this focus for at least a week or two before moving on to the next exercise in the sequence.  Subsequent lessons teach relaxation of several further body systems.  Please read the introductory post on Autogenics before starting any of these exercises.  If you're hoping to learn AT to help with physical or psychological symptoms, it may be sensible to talk to a health professional first to check on diagnosis and other treatment options.  While you're learning these skills, don't practise them if you're driving or operating other dangerous machinery.

“

"These virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions" ... we are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

” - Aristotle/Durant

Here are handouts and Autogenic relaxation exercises from the first "lesson" of an eight session Autogenic Training (AT) class.  This first "class" concentrates on relaxation of the voluntary muscles of the arms & legs.  It is probably sensible to stay with this focus for at least a week or two before moving on to the next exercise in the sequence.  Subsequent lessons teach relaxation of several further body systems.  Please read the introductory post on Autogenics before starting any of these exercises.  If you're hoping to learn AT to help with physical or psychological symptoms, it may be sensible to talk to a health professional first to check on diagnosis and other treatment options.  While you're learning these skills, don't practise them if you're driving or operating other dangerous machinery.

This is the third of three posts giving handouts & questionnaires on compassion & criticism.  There are a dozen MP3 recordings listed below.  It would be possible to use these tracks as a "compassionate mind training" sequence, although I've listed them more to illustrate the kind of approach that it's probably sensible to use.  The twelve recordings make up a four exercise training.  Each exercise includes a brief (1 to 3 minute) introductory track and then a medium length (15 to 18 minute) and longer (24 to 28 minute) meditation.  If you want to follow this sequence, please read the Suggestions for goodwill practice handout (below) first. 

This the second of three posts on handouts & questionnaires for Compassion & criticism. It contains a series of loosely linked downloads about compassion, self-criticism, hostility, self-esteem and related subjects.  To see the earlier post on this subject click on Compassion & criticism (first post).

Compassionate/self-image goals scale and background - this is a scale from Crocker's fascinating work on compassionate and self-image goals.  See too the "Self and social motivation laboratory" website at http://rcgd.isr.umich.edu/crockerlab

Contingencies of self-worth scale - this is another questionnaire from the Crocker lab (see above).  Interesting way of probing what people's self-worth is based on ... and what the subsequent effects then are.

Home.  Catching up.  Acting on some of the thinking/planning I did while I was away.  The most obvious new initiative has been reviewing my intention to train in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT).  When I got back from walking in the Sahara at the end of March, I wrote in a blog posting    

"And I want to follow up mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) more.  I've been teaching forms of inner focus since the 1970's.  I am however drawn to pretty much anything that has a better evidence base supporting its helpfulness in relieving suffering.  MBCT is currently the meditation variant that has the best - and increasing - support." 

I applied for various forms of training.  However coming back from the Glen Affric adventure, I reversed this decision and wrote cancelling an MBCT course I'd booked saying:

Heading home.  Up quite early this morning.  Eventually left the hostel about 9.00am.  I drove up to Inverness before looping round to head down the A9.  I've just stopped in Aviemore at the Mountain Cafe  for old time's sake.  I came here a year ago on the way back from a trip camping and walking in the Fainnichs.  I was here again last October with my son-in-law and a friend after we'd walked north through the Lairig Ghru  - the marvellous pass through the Cairngorms.  This is a great cafe.  Eating their "Fresh fruit glass with runny honey and natural yogurt" more to justify my place at a table than anything else.

Last night I slept in a hostel rather than a tent.  In fact the predicted gales and lashing rain never materialised.  Some rain, some wind, but I woke in a comfortable bed feeling a little foolish, and very much recharged.  Last night, good pub food, a shower, and a mattress rather than a sleeping mat.  Yup and today's walk  was beautiful.  When I got back this evening, a girl working here at the hostel, said "Well someone's caught the sun.  You look as though you've been in the Caribbean."  And it was a lovely day.  I drove back out to the start of Glen Affric, then walked up Gleann nam Fiadh for about 4 km before heading north up beside the stream and then angling west to climb the south-east ridge of Tom a' Choinich (hill of the moss).  Extraordinary views back to yesterday's walk and the beauty of Mam Sodhail/Mam Soul, Carn Eige and Beinn Fhionnlaidh.

Today was huge.  I woke early, cold.  It had been such a clear, starlit night.  My socks, that I'd washed through in the stream and tried to dry a bit yesterday, had frozen solid.  So too my walking boots with hard frozen laces.  Rub and mould the socks till I can get them onto my feet, and back into the sleeping bag to warm them a bit.