Thursday, December 8, 2011

Will Power Exercise Described

Here's a summary of what I'm doing:
1. Exercise will. The article I read suggests "cultivating the feeling of contentment" while exercising will, and it gives full directions. In short, take a pile of 50 small somethings: pennies, thumb tacks, beads, whatever is small. "Drop them slowly and deliberately into a box one by one, with a feeling of contentment and satisfaction, declaring with each movement, 'I will to will.'" We're urged to watch our thoughts as we do this task as a form of working meditation I suppose. When complete, write our observations so that we can mark our progress doing this over 7 consecutive days. The writing is what I'm doing on the blog.

3 comments:

Nolan Machan said...

So, just out of curiosity - where did this idea come from? When I'm trying to focus/meditate/calm my brain - I recite the Serenity Prayer. Nothing seems to work as well, since it puts everything into perspective.

Does "will" mean will-power, god's will, or something different?

Thanks for sharing your personal experience.
Nolan

river rider said...

In the above description, there is a hotlink to the article which inspired this.

Serenity Prayer is a good one especially to counter stress. I shared the Mourner's Kaddish with my Toastmaster group last week. 3 people asked for a copy. It struck a chord. I encountered this at your mom's memorial service, so thank you Nolan!

river rider said...

Hmm. My will is to try to do God's will, and despite prayer, I seem to be failing more than succeeding. This exercise "came" to me after praying to get insight into how to build habits and skills to actualize on what I feel called to do.