Everyday Enlightenment, page 6
• Drive or move even slower when you are late.
• If you like to hit the snooze button on your alarm, get out of bed immediately after the alarm rings.
• In any challenging situation, ask yourself, “What would my strongest, bravest, most courageous, most loving part do right now?” Then do it. Do it right. Do it right now.
Do It or Don't—But Hold the Excuses
Don't be a master of “If only”—if only I had more time, more money, a better opportunity, different parents, a more understanding spouse, no children.
Life is tough. Be tougher.
Reclaiming your will isn't easy, but life is not about easy; it's about finding inner strength you didn't know you had. And remembering that you didn't come here for “easy.”
It would be nice if we could master life from our armchairs—achieving our goals through positive thinking or creative visualization alone. But the power to change depends not on what you hope or wish or think or feel or even believe; it depends on what you do. Doing can be tough, and life can be difficult. It's supposed to be, at least some of the time, because life develops in us only what it demands of us. Daily life is a form of spiritual weight lifting, and you are here to strengthen your spirit.
If your purpose in life is to make life easier, don't get married, don't have children, avoid responsibilities, work minimally for basic subsistence needs, and learn to live cheaply. Don't commit and never volunteer. Don't own things, because they break. Hitchhike through life. Rely on the goodwill, charity, or tolerance of others. If you run out of family or friends to help, there's always the government.
I've known a few people who live like that, sitting out the dance, taking an incarnational vacation. Sometimes these vagabonds are interesting characters, but for the most part they are not exemplars of human potential.
Only the most courageous souls come to this planetary school.
And only awakening souls pick up a book like this. If you have read this far, you have all the will you need.
Reclaiming your will can make or break your life. Just stop looking for easy ways. Instead lay it on the line—picture yourself standing on the edge of a cliff with your habit right behind you, ready to push. Visualize your tendency holding a gun to your head, for in a way it is. Imagine having to choose between continuing your habit or saving the life of a child (and that child is you). Then make your stand. You may feel like giving in to a habit or tendency; you may miss it, want it, or believe you need to do it because you feel so much pain. Accept that your feelings are natural. But know your purpose, your will, and your power. And know that all your angels and ancestors, all those who came before you, are watching and cheering you on. Then do what you have set out to do. If you backslide, love yourself anyway and hold your course. Your cheering section is still with you. Build a new way of life, one day, one hour, one minute, at a time.
Take inspiration from people like Helene Hines, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She had sought medical treatment when she first experienced weakness in her legs; it turned to numbness, and finally, at age thirty, she had complete paralysis. After undergoing electrotherapy to tone the muscles of her legs, she began an intense period of rehabilitation, first walking, then running. Helene still has MS. But she is now a 4:20 marathoner, inspiring thousands who run with her in the New York City Marathon every year. Helene's husband reports, “No matter how lousy Helene feels, she goes out every day and does what needs to be done.”
Winning the Battle of Will
Wherever there's a will, there's a won't. You know that accomplishment takes effort, even sacrifice.
Even if you know something is good for you, even if you know you really ought to do it, even when you ardently want it to happen, even if you agree with the value of accepting your feelings, knowing your purpose, and doing what needs to be done—won't-power sometimes wins out over willpower. So be gentle with yourself. It can take time to awaken your will. The time you take is entirely up to you. Negative thoughts and feelings may continue, but your power will grow until one day, one moment, you discover that even when you can't do something, you have done it anyway.
Following Higher Will
Throughout history, and into the new millennium, those who have engaged mighty endeavors—missions to discover new continents or explore new worlds—have drawn upon not only their own inner strength, but also a higher will that takes them beyond their own personal power. When you strive to go beyond yourself, even in everyday life, or to struggle against immense odds or difficulty, you can also call upon a higher will. Countless people in a life-and-death battle with alcohol or other drugs have found strength in the prayerful words “Not my will but Thy will be done.”
Whether or not you believe in an external God or relate more to a universal Spirit or life force, by surrendering your will to the will of your higher self, or Spirit, or God, you can find infinite strength. That strength can support you as you begin to serve its source, surrendering your individual desires to the higher purpose of serving family, society, and humanity. Instead of asking, “What do I prefer? Is it in my best interest?” you begin to ask, “What is for the highest good of all concerned?” This question spiritualizes your relationships and creates newfound meaning and connection with your family, your business associates, and the larger world in which you live.
As you leave this gateway, remember that you too are on a mission—exploring inner space and discovering new worlds as you pass through the twelve gateways. Every life has its heroic struggles. By reclaiming your will, you find the power to persevere in the face of odds or obstacles. The power of your will is a master key to everyday enlightenment, and to all the gateways to come.
THE THIRD GATEWAY:
Energize Your Body
Your body is the only thing you are guaranteed to keep for a lifetime.
It forms the foundation of your earthly existence.
Energizing your body enriches your life by enhancing every human capacity.
If you lack vitality, nothing else really matters; if you have your health, anything is possible.
A Foundation for Life
Your body is the ground and metaphor of your life, the expression of your existence.
It is your Bible, your encyclopedia, your life story.
Everything that happens to you is stored and reflected in your body.
In the marriage of flesh and spirit divorce is impossible.
—Gabrielle Roth
Road Map: Beyond Good Advice
If you haven't yet achieved optimal energy, vitality, and health, it is not because you haven't read or heard good advice on the topic. Most of us are on information overload. The world is filled with guidelines and principles. But how many of us turn what we know into what we do?
Good advice isn't enough. You can read a never-ending stream of principles and programs in books and magazines, but you will benefit only from what you do each and every day. That is why it's so important to keep it simple and practical. That is why, in the third gateway, you will find not only practical methods for energizing your body, but also practical ways to apply these methods in everyday life.
Here's an example: Take one slow, deep breath—as slowly and deeply as you can, without strain, expanding first your belly and then your chest—and feel yourself relax as you exhale slowly. In the same manner, take two more deep breaths before proceeding. And from now on, for the rest of your life, take at least one deep, deliberate breath every hour. Take a nice deep breath right now and you've begun; you've hardly stepped into the gateway and you have already learned an energizing practice for life worth infinitely more than the price of this book—if you do it.
This, book, like this life, represents a wonderful opportunity or a waste of time, depending upon what you do with it. We benefit from an exercise machine, or book, or seminar, or lifetime only to the extent we use it.
In this gateway we come back to the body basics—a tour through the holy trinity of health, exploring seven dietary principles for increased immunity, longevity, and energy, and how to maintain a higher energy level. You will also learn the vital secrets of conscious exercise, breath, and relaxation, culminating in the Peaceful Warrior Workout—the most efficient routine of flowing movement, deep breathing, and tension release you may ever learn.
Back to the Body
Many of us have a love-hate relationship with our bodies. We indulge them, deprive them, stuff them or starve them, overwork and underwork them, spoil them, punish them, enjoy them, suffer them, and, at times, feel betrayed by them. How many of us wish to fly free of our physical mortality, to travel out of our bodies before we've fully gotten into them—to reincarnate before we've fully incarnated?
If you don't take care of your body, where will you live?
—Unknown
Energize Your Body begins by making peace with and coming to love and admire the body you've been given. In fact, your body is the only thing you are guaranteed to keep for an entire lifetime. You can't say that about your spouse, children, home, car, money, or beliefs—only your body. It is your only real possession, so it pays to treat it well. If you do so, many other things fall into place. No matter where our flights of fancy take us, we return to a fundamental truth: The human journey begins and ends with the body.
Energy Assessment: The following questions are not in any way comprehensive but are intended only to stimulate initial reflection on your body, health, priorities, and energy in everyday life.
• Are you completely satisfied with your own body?
• If not, what would you rather change, your appearance or energy level?
• On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your average energy level?
• Does your body function as well as you would like?
• How much time, out of each twenty-four hours, do you spend on the health and fitness of your body?
• How much time do you spend maintaining or improving your physical strength, your stamina, and your flexibility?
• Consider your priorities: How much time, energy, and attention do you spend on health, fitness, and energy compared to your primary relationship, your children, your education, your worth, recreation, entertainment, and sleep?
• Do you listen to your body?
• Do you treat your body with care and kindness?
• What three things do you like most about your body?
• What three things do you like least about your body?
• What can you change, and what can you learn to accept and appreciate?
There are no right or wrong answers, but considering these questions opens you to make the best use of this gateway.
Higher Outcomes and Hidden Benefits
This gateway combines body and spirit to offer both practical and transcendental outcomes. The functional practices and principles presented here will help you build a foundation of physical vitality and health. And by cultivating an energizing lifestyle, bringing your body to a state of dynamic balance, you also achieve three higher outcomes:
1. Liberating Your Attention: When your body rests in dynamic balance with energy coursing through you freely, you feel a deeper connection to life and you begin to ascend to higher states of attention and awareness.
2. Amplifying Your Capacities: Increased energy enhances your strength, mental alertness and brightness, charisma and personal presence, sensitivity and intuition, and even the ability to heal yourself and assist in the healing of others.
3. Preparing Yourself for the Gateways to Come: This gateway provides a foundation for all those that follow, because energy is the common denominator that provides the stamina, fortitude, and focus necessary to face the challenges ahead.
Managing Your Energy
Energy is the most abundant substance in the universe; in fact, it is the universe. You are made of energy; you take it in at the gross levels from the food you eat and, on more refined levels, from the air you breathe and from the people and living things around you.
Why, then, do you feel so little energy at times? There are several explanations for this, both physical and psychological, including (1) a weak link in the trinity of health—poor diet, insufficient rest, lack of exercise—resulting in toxicity, enervation, imbalance, and compromised immune response; and (2) low motivation—a lack of compelling purpose, resulting in a depressed autonomic nervous system ( the “blahs”).
The key to managing your physical energy is actually threefold:
• how much (and how efficiently) you assimilate energy through the food you eat and the air you breathe
• how much ( and how efficiently) you maintain and channel energy through your body through exercise, stretching, relaxation, and massage
• how much (and how efficiently) you use or spend energy in the world.
As you will explore in the next gateway, Manage Your Money, an often ignored financial principle states that no matter how much money you take in, you remain poor if you spend more than you make. This same principle applies to the arena of vital energy.
You may recall the story of the man who stood on a mountaintop and cried up to God, “Fill me full of light!” A voice thundered down from the heavens, “I'm always filling you—but you keep leaking!”
Even now, abundant energy flows through the world, swirling around you, flowing through you. Your primary task in managing energy is to clear internal energy leaks so you can maintain a higher energy level.
Energy leaks can stem from mental sources (including anxiety, worry, regret, and preoccupation), emotional sources (including fear, sorrow, and anger), or physical sources (including illness, injuries, postural imbalances, overloaded digestive systems). All of these produce tension and discomfort, which reduce physical vitality.
To understand how and why you have developed energy leaks, imagine a flowing river whose water represents the energy flowing through your body. A free-flowing river has great energy and power, but if trees or boulders obstruct the flow, it creates turbulence. In your body you experience these obstructions—this turbulence—as tension and discomfort, which in turn drain your energy.
There are two primary ways to reduce the discomfort: (1) you can clear the obstructions; or (2) you can lower the level of energy (water), resulting in less flow, less turbulence, and less discomfort.
Few of us have learned how to clear the mental, emotional, and physical
obstructions in our bodies, so we often resort to the second solution: finding ways to lower our energy level, thereby reducing tension and discomfort. The obstructions (problems) remain, but by lowering the flow of energy, we reduce the symptoms and don't feel them as intensely.
The most common forms of tension release include exercise, sexual climax, creative endeavors, physical and mental overexertion, thrill seeking (including gambling, suspense films, and video games), overeating, and the use of alcohol or other drugs. The problem with any of these methods is that once we release the tension and feel better, the energy begins to build again and the discomfort increases, so we need to release it again. This repetitive cycle is commonly known as addictive behavior.
The twelve gateways teach a more lasting solution to this problem by showing you how to clear away your obstructions. Doing so enables you to
experience more joy, bliss, and spirit in everyday life.
reduce or eliminate addictive drives and compulsive behaviors.
increase your physical strength, mental alertness, intuitive sensitivity.
strengthen your immune system, living a healthier, more energized life.
Open Secrets of Vibrant Health
Vibrant health is essential to removing the obstructions that create our tension and devitalize our bodies. The cornerstones of energy include moderate, regular exercise; a simple, healthful diet; enough fresh air, fresh water, and rest; and engaging in some form of creative activity. You also want to avoid the following three factors, which can compromise your immune system, resulting in illness:
1. Toxicity: Toxicity here refers to how we feel after eating or drinking more than we can effectively process, burdening our liver, kidneys, intestines, and eliminative organs. We all know the dull, heavy, tired, or queasy feeling that follows a bout of overindulgence. To avoid toxicity, enjoy quality, not quantity. Eat less, exercise more, and hydrate your system with fresh water, herbal tea, and fruits and vegetables, which aid waste elimination.
2. Enervation: To enervate means “to weaken or destroy strength or vitality.” Enervation refers to chronic, stressful fatigue, such as the exhaustion that arises from overworking at a job you don't enjoy. To avoid enervation, combine moderate, stress-releasing exercise with sufficient rest. And make sure you take at least three vacations each year; they are worth their weight in gold.
3. Imbalance: Your body maintains delicate temperature, sugar, hormonal, acid-base, and respiratory balances that can easily be upset. To avoid physical imbalance, remember to take some slow, deep breaths regularly, avoid extreme temperatures unless you are prepared for them, and make the following three keystones your holy trinity of energy and health.
The Holy Trinity of Health
Whenever people ask me for advice about problems ranging from the mundane to the metaphysical, I ask them three questions:
Are you eating well?
Are you exercising regularly?
Are you getting enough rest?
These three questions constitute the holy trinity of health. All three, taken together, balance your body and generate vitality that enables you to meet the challenges of everyday life and the twelve gateways.
I am convinced that a light supper, a good night's sleep, and a fine morning, have sometimes made a hero of the same man who, by an indigestion, a restless night, and rainy morning, would have proved a coward.
—Lord Chesterfield
It is not enough to know about or merely appreciate the trinity of health. For you to benefit from them, these three elements—diet, exercise, rest—must become absolute priorities. Unless you make your health more important than your work, your money, or watching television, you will always find something more pressing to do instead. Each day you choose whether to make a nutritious meal at home or get some fast food, whether to get up early to exercise or sleep in because you stayed up late watching television. And let's face it, it's easier to watch television, sleep in, skip exercise, and grab some fast food. But ask yourself, “When I look into a full-length mirror, what do I see?” You see your living habits reflected back at you. So don't wait until you have time—make time.
