An exercise in Contemplative Meditation and discovering your core values

Process:

Bring a pen and some paper with you to your favourite meditation place and prepare yourself for contemplative meditation.

By this time, you should be able to get yourself into the right frame of mind to meditate. This is not a trance working or exercise involving the subconscious directly, but it is a good idea to ground yourself and focus completely on the task at hand.

Once you are ready, ask yourself the following questions and write down whatever answers come first to your mind:

• What are my Strengths – What skills or talents do I have? What am I really good at doing? What do others say I am good at doing?

Talking to people, knowledge, teaching

What are my Weaknesses – What would I like to improve about myself? What have others told me I need to improve about myself?

meditation, clearing my mind of all things and being able to focus on the meditation of the task at hand.

• What are my personal Ethics – What values do I strongly hold? Why? (Look at your causes if you need help with this one: What causes do you strongly support? Environmentalism? Humanitarian work? What are your opinions of controversial subjects such as abortion, hunting animals for fur, or domestic violence? What issues burn deep within you? What do you demand justice for?)

Being kind to all, help where needed, treat others fairly if at all possible, be self sufficient, take care of the enviroment, promote all life.

• What are my Values – What values do I hold? Why? (For help, think of the qualities you most admire in people, as well as the ones you despise. Those are the values that you hold dear or clash with – write these all down)

Kindness, intelligance, motivation toi learn and continuing to bette oneself

• What is my Learning Style – How do I learn best? (If you are stuck, look at your favourite and least favourite teachers in your life. What common features can you find? These contribute to discovering your personal learning style)

Reading and then practicing
Discussion with others, learning how things look to others especially if their views are different from mine.

• What are my spiritual beliefs – For this one, try not to think of any religious studies you have taken. Look more at the things you like or dislike about the religions you’ve been exposed to. What is desirable? What pushes you away? These basic things are your core beliefs.

I believe that we are all differnt parts of the same systme. We progress as we move forward and grow in our spirituality and understanding of our world. We are spiritual beings but are also given free will, a choice. We are the many aspects of the Goddess/God.

People who are closed minded push me away. People who will argue that their way is the only way will push me away. I dislike demands and the idea that someone can control our spiritual aspects. Spirituality comes from experience and life.

When you have finished your session, simply ground and center using your method of choice. Leave your written answers for a while and have something to eat or drink. Engage in an activity that has absolutely nothing to do with this exercise. Later on, have a look at what you’ve written. Some things may surprise you!

You may want to do this exercise a few times since it will take a few times to really get used to looking within yourself.

Meditation is not something that I have been doing very successfully these past 6 months. i do plan to do this again soon to see what I come up with. I am currenty working on grounding and centering myself again so that I am able to meditate successfully.