GET YOUR QI FLOW BACK ON

More than likely you have come across the Ancient Chinese concept of Qi. Qi is mysterious; a vital life giving force that flows through all of life. It is the energy that gives us light, sound, warmth and growth. Without Qi there is death and decay.

Within our bodies Qi is the energy of function - warmth, movement, transportation, transformation and evaporation. Our blood vessels pulsate with Qi. The very formation of our blood would not be possible without Qi - breaking down the food we eat, moving and transporting those various substances throughout our body to be be transformed into rich nourishing blood. Even the air we breathe is a form of Qi, without it we can last only minutes.

But here I must pause to introduce another more senior player - Shen. Shen is our consciousness, our Spirit - it is rightly given the title of Supreme Ruler, residing in our Heart Shen governs the harmony and order of our body. Shen is the spark of light that we see in our eyes that grows when we are happy and fulfilled and dims when we are unhappy and depleted. This organising intelligence of Shen allows for the complex interplay between our body, our senses, our mind and even our emotions to work with and for us.

So back to Qi… there is a magical feeling that happens during an Acupuncture session … its so relaxing! People report feeling more relaxed than they can ever remember.

How? Let me introduce you to this lovely concept in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) called Shu Xie, it is the free flow of Qi. Shu xie is naturally occuring when we are relaxed and happy. You don’t have to be a Star Wars fan to know what causes a disturbance to the field - that free flow of Qi - feeling overwhelmed, irritable or just flat when stuck in an ongoing struggle will start to tax our Shu Xie and express itself .

Are you getting where I am going here? Yes, so if Qi is responsible for a healthy functional body what can we do to help ourselves? There have already been a few clues: Qi is the air we breathe, Qi transforms our food into blood and even our mood can affect our Qi. But over arching all of these functions is our Shen, an Intelligent life organising principle that governs the order and harmony of every aspect of our being.

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ATTENDING

Tell me, what are you attending to?

Each day we make choices about where we put our energy. With the repetition of these choices we are creating a habit of attention, we are building a momentum. A momentum that is self generating, self perpetuating and fed by our creative energy.

Now that momentum can in turn be influencing us in an expansive way; that is opening our awareness, providing insights and helping us to develop ourselves.

Or it can be devitalising us; reinforcing stuck patterns that reflect in a loop style dialogue, our behaviour choices, in our bodies condition and the life that shows up for us. This trajectory is ultimately disempowering us.

So what are you feeding? What are you generating? Exploring? Focused on? Developing? Creating?

What are you attending to in your day?

By becoming conscious of the areas and aspects of our life we wish to heal and expand we can set intentions to do so. This is not a Santa’s wish list of ‘Universe come and sort my life out for me please’. Although every now and then, a general cry for help is just the ticket!

Setting an intention and inviting change is a more conscious approach to attending to your life. By noticing the areas that are reflecting stagnation or issues you can make a choice to attend to them.

The best way I have discovered to set an intention is to reflect on my up to date ‘now’ moment of greatest clarity and insight, bringing the best of my noticings to the table, as though I was deep in conversation with my higher self, simultaneously asking for what I need, honestly recognising the full spectrum of where I am at and open to receiving insight and healing to arrive at my ‘now’ Intention.

This Intention is like a seed of change, potent in your consciousness. You will need to nurture it, to allow it to take hold… by guess what… attending to it. By putting your attention on it and listening and learning how to attend to that aspect/ area of your life.

Happy exploring, redesigning, discovering and recognising this life we share and are all blessed to be a part of.

THE MIRROR EFFECT

A few posts ago, in The nature of Fear, I referred to 'bartering my power', let’s get a good feel for what this is about…

We are creators, we are always creating.

Although it may not feel like we are at the helm of our lives, when we experience feelings of despair, frustration and hopelessness. It is not until we see what we are ‘up to’ - not from our results out in the world, but by tuning into our inner world that change truly becomes possible. This is where we stop fighting and start listening.

So, how do we get into this state, into the inner world - the subconscious?

You will have had glimpses and even insights into your belief systems. These beliefs, made up childhood presumptions and uninspected fears lie just behind the threshold of the logical mind. A barrier in the mind that breaks down under pressure, leaking the undercurrents of our beliefs into our daily lives… not in neat tidy little packages that we can make sense of, but in the form of unwanted feelings and unhelpful repetitive thought patterns.

Years of self enquiry, observation and a huge learning journey of my own, helps me guide people out of their mental landscape ‘of what they already know’, into the unknown. Helping light the path, not along the voice of the logical mind but of your heart. Your heart, for it has witnessed it all... your hurts, your joys, your desires, your fears and unmet needs and your generosity of spirit.

Making this connection is powerfully healing. In this state are able to release the grip that the habit of years of judging ourselves has around our heart, and seek to understand ourselves naturally from a place of compassion. In this moment we have changed everything… from this moment on we are healing, and there is no turning back, because it feels sooooo good! And now we also deeply know, it was ourselves all along, we are the ones creating what we are feeling, we have been writing the script and we have been acting in our own play!

So, where are we bartering our power?

In our formative years, our interpretations of how we fit into the world and most importantly how we get our needs met were created… wired into the brain in strong impressions, not of logic, which was yet unformed, but in the universal language of feeling. This is how we created our baseline survival strategies. These strategies become an issue for us, when we have placed our inner needs from ourself, out into the world for others to provide for us…

"I will behave this way so you will give me what I need the most… the feeling that I am loved"

Now bear in mind that personal interpretation of ‘loved’ is as unique as a fingerprint to each of us. And this my friends is today’s key, for when you discover for yourself what your own combination of love is, you will never abandon yourself again and you will be on fire with purpose… more on that in another post.

You can probably look at your own life and see these unspoken exchanges of power, often most exaggerated and painfully complicated with our dearests and nearests. Playing out in a seemingly unbreakable pattern.

What is the point of all of this? The perfection of life gifting us is … the seed of wisdom lies waiting within the experience of each lesson.

‘We’ repeat ‘our’ pattern until ‘we’ allow ourselves to question, what is this situation mirroring to me about myself? To look, what am I ‘up to’? To learn, what am I trying to create?

So, if a relationship aka a pattern is really in your face, you my dear are gearing up for a change... that bound up energy is demanding your attention... because you are able to create more than this!

Here’s another way to think of it… it’s like upgrading how we meet our needs. Seeing what we are ‘up to’ helps us understand our needs, take ownership of them, responsibility for them and integrate our ‘emotional needs’ into our adult self. Allowing us to create more meaningful and genuine relationships that help us explore who we are as love, rather than bartering for love outside of ourselves.

Our logical mind cannot have this conversation with our inner world. Until they are connected through the heart, a state of deep relaxation and simple presence that allows for enquiry and revelation… at that stage the mind is merely a scribe ‘taking note’ of the brilliance of our being.

THE NATURE OF FEAR

I love fear.

Why?

Because I know that when I feel fear, I am at a doorway within myself that I have not fully gone through yet. That I am feeling fear, because I have not learnt in the moment that this particular fear arises to be present and create. I have recoiled, bartered my power outside of myself (more on that in another post) and retreated into the comfort of a belief about who I am and how my life is.

Now, no good story would be complete without a key now would it? The key is INTENTION.

Where are you- in that moment of hypnotism, where fear has you convinced it is reality.. that you can awaken and challenge fears authority... when you look your fear in the eye and boldly take back that authority. Unless you do this, you will not pass through the door... and you will just 'know of your fears' rather than 'really know them'. The former leaves us with a sense of frustration and despondency. The later, excited and in love with the process and magic of life.

Now this is where love steps in, as it's not over yet... No one is doing fear to you. You have been holding that fear in place all on your own, and why?

Back to love. Remember at the beginning, when I said that fear arises because I have not learnt how to be present and create in a particular moment (ie when I am triggered). Well facing fear from the seat of love/ heart, gives you the opportunity to relate to this part of yourself and say what is it I need... what am I to learn here? And you will need to be in love in this moment, or your Mind will wander on in to control the situation, quoting all the bumper stickers of life of what you already 'know'... and let me tell you now, that's not going to cut it. Because you don't understand what this part of you truly is, this is the whole point.

Being in love in the face of your fear, will help you see and feel the part of you behind your fear- its whole story - and why you have hidden this part of you out of fear, what this disconnect has stopped you from learning and what there is to discover about yourself , life and others... this gift that will transform your life forever.

Now remember, fear underlies anger, guilt, shame, sadness, blame, powerlessness, insecurity ect... obscuring parts of ourselves that are emotionally signalling us that we have so much more potential to be… to be in relationship, to be creative and to be empowered in each moment of our day.

So this is why I love fear, because it's my way of showing myself that... opps I have left a part of me out of this moment. And wow, what will I be able to create when I have got to know that part of myself and how it can help me become more of who I am.

CREATION

Not something we tend to think about a lot as we go through our day, caught up in our mind movies that run on auto pilot. However whether we know it or not we are creating every moment... with every aspect of our being. We are creators.

We are living with our beautiful planet, sharing our creations with others who are also experimenting, learning and exploring just as we are.

Most of what we are creating is from subconscious patterns that we identify with ... in our minds, our feelings and in our bodies. Familiar, comfortable and often unnoticed. That is until the flow of life starts to call our attention to some aspect of our creation. Getting louder and more repetitive until 'brrrrrrng' the alarm bell of discomfort prompts the desire for change.

At first glance, it is very easy to blame others. To place the power outside of ourselves... for most of us have been conditioned to see life as happening to us, not for us.

Reflection rather than reaction, invites another perspective into play. A chance to see what it is that 'we are up to'. As there is an incredible power in witnessing ourselves actually making choices in each moment. This overview opens up the ability to see a continuum, where we...

*recognise the repetitive nature of the pattern throughout our lives- ‘the past’

*see what we have believed, thought and felt that has kept us hitting the repeat button everytime this situation arises- ‘the present’

*and what it is that we haven't yet learnt about who we are and how we can be, aka what we can create- ‘the future’

Each recognition on the continuum is like a mountain peak with deep crevices that require descent to discover the unknown. When entered into with the light of self discovery and acceptance, we are literally meeting a part of ourself that has been rejected and abandoned- by ourselves.

These parts of us have been in a time warp identified with a belief about how life is for us. Unable to truly connect with the present time self, the self that has discovered all sorts of things about life and who we know ourselves to be.

And when we stand on a peak and yell into the crevice 'oi get your butt up here'- you might recognise this as your own attempts to try and work on something inside of you that you want to fix or get rid of. This approach misses the magic entirely.

And here lies the classic key moment... relationship. You are not just learning the facts of yourself, you are learning to relate to a part of yourself you have not deeply known... it may be your ability to value yourself and have a voice. To trust yourself and give yourself permission to be true to yourself.

All of which are familiar 'bumper stickers', phrases we ‘know’... but emerging from the crevice of self discovery is a whole other level it is understanding... when you are the ‘author’ of the bumper sticker. You relate to this part of yourself AND you are never going back to be hidden EVER again.

And this fabulous point brings you to the question- what it is that I want to create now?

And this dear reader is where I will sign off, to return another day to discuss Intention and the Nature of Change.

THE COST OF CONTROL

Have you ever noticed yourself outgrowing the control of your mind? It may have been a little discipline you had set yourself, a routine or an expectation you had of yourself. And then one day you realise - you can trust yourself to be free and make a decision that is coming from a deeper place... one of more care for yourself, awareness of what you need or insight into a limit that was holding you back.

That my friend is a very precious moment of growth... for the mind can act as a gatekeeper of our reality... a self imposed role which is validated behind the scenes by our fears.

So while that control, be a it a presumption, an expectation, a fixed idea or a judgment can colour the world around you.... this is not my message here today... my message is this; the attitude of your mind is in relationship with reality.

Okay so that probably needs some unpacking...

Our attitude - the collection of our beliefs, our unprocessed and processed experiences and emotions presenting as our expression - how we are in the world.

Mind - the witness of what is arising interpreted into thought.

Relationship - interaction.

Reality - well, I am hardly qualified to say, so lets run with Oneness, Infinite, Omniscience, Omnipresence...

So if you look from the perspective of the Infinite, ever present all that is ... there are a few check points to go through before being experienced by the consciousness of our being.

And this my dear is where you may or may not pay the cost of control...