Good Friday to You!
I had a lovely day yesterday. My morning began with tai-chi and writing my blog.
I then headed to Encinitas for a massage and steam, which was lovely as usual.
Next, I recorded a meditation for a client that needs help with deep healing challenges.
I managed to get home in the afternoon to do some drawing and relaxing with Vidya.
I fasted through the day until dinnertime and my body and mind really enjoyed the rest from digesting and eliminating. I’m always amazed at how clear my mind gets when fasting. I just drink Yogi Fasting Tea as I fast and my body does very well.
Today, I start teaching a big group of HLC 2 students here in Vista, so that should be an exciting time for all.
CHEK and BALANCE
Many people today wake up and feel tired even after sleeping.
A significant number of people have low energy levels, finding it hard to clean their homes, cars, dishes, exercise, and even tend to their own children.
Having coached scores of such people in my career, I’ve found it very common among them to not know what makes them happy.
When someone doesn’t know what makes them happy, they have no internal motivation to create joy in their lives.
They become like people that don’t understand what God is!looking everywhere and finding nothing.
I found years ago that if a person doesn’t know what makes them happy, they need only express what doesn’t make them happy.
So far, I haven’t found anyone that doesn’t know what they don’t want or like in their life.
I start with the three chief experiences they are having that they don’t want to experience any longer in their life.
I ask them to write them down in order of importance to them as far as what they would most like to not experience. It often looks something like this:
1. I don’t want to experience being fat any longer.
2. I don’t want to be tired all the time.
3. I don’t want to be doing things for everyone else all the time and having no time for myself.
Once we are clear as to what they don’t want to experience and the order of importance with regard to changing their situations, I teach them how to cultivate a healthy relationship with their 4 doctors. Let’s look at how we can all use my 4 Doctor living philosophy to create the life we want and heal ourselves of unnecessary ailments:
Dr. Happiness: Dr. Happiness represents our use of our own ego, our conscious mind.
Dr. Happiness is the physician in charge of our core values. The values we choose to live by so that we can maximize the opportunity to experience what we want in life.
When we don’t know what we want, but are sure what we don’t want, we now have sufficient motive to establish core-values in the essential categories represented by Dr. Quiet, Dr. Diet and Dr. Movement.
Let’s take a moment and see what happens when we put the 4 doctors to work on the chief “don’t want” challenge:
1. I don’t want to experience being fat any longer.
Being fat can easily result from not having a clear direction with which to channel your energy.
When people become ill in motive, they tend to self-medicate with whatever comfort foods created joy for them in their childhood.
Even as they watch their bodies become fatter and fatter day by day, they often stay in denial as to what they are seeing; others get angry at themselves and then act like a drug addict that needs more and more drugs to get their (self inflicted) pain to go away.
When a person is in this state of existence, each person will reach a point of either disgust with themselves, or an awareness of the fact that if they don’t take affirmative action soon, the problem may be so “big” that it can seem insurmountable.
Dr. Happiness kicks in when awareness reaches the point that one realizes that all the drugs, foods, laziness, doctors visits, family support or disdain aren’t helping.
When the desire for change is greater than the resistance to change, change happens!
When one is ready for change of any type, there is a best place to start.
Once they’ve gotten clear as to what they are willing to change and have taken the time to write it down under the heading of Dr. Happiness, we need to look at the Primary Doctors that determine how much life-force we can cultivate to use for the change process.
What I call the primary axis is the relationship between Dr. Quiet and Dr. Movement.
Dr. Quiet represents our core values and use-of-self around the use of rest in our lives.
Sleep is the most essential and most powerful of all anabolic (healing) forces available to us!and it’s free!
Establishing a healthy sleep-wake cycle according to the principles taught in my book How To Eat, Move and Be Healthy! is the most essential first step.
Most human beings need eight hours of quality sleep each night or they will begin having problems with fatigue, mental cloudiness, and a progressive increase in bodily aches and pains.
As we go further and further into sleep debt, our emotional stability diminishes to the point that we are not only tired, but find ourselves in a seemingly endless series of tiffs with people.
This can be very energy draining in and of itself.
Dr. Quiet is the Chief Anabolic (tissue restorative) physician as well. If we aren’t getting enough deep rest, our healing powers diminish quickly.
The result is that most people end up taking any number of unnecessary drugs, which further tax and poison their body-mind.
Though many that don’t like the shape of their body mount the energy to start exercising, many end up injured very quickly because of their unawareness of the fact that exercise (as traditionally done) equals stress.
Without adequate sleep, the exercise attempts only add to their overall physical burden.
I’ve seen many start exercising, get injured, get therapy, start exercising, get injured, start therapy over and over again. Sadly, after a few such rounds, many people flat out give up on exercise.
Dr. Movement is the physician to turn to once sleep is balanced.
Dr. Movement has two components, a yin (Work-In) and a yang (Work-Out) aspect.
When people’s bodies are tiered and/or uncomfortable with exercise, I teach them how to use movement to cultivate energy.
When we move rhythmically, we pump blood, lymph and all fluids of the body most effectively and efficiently. Gentle, rhythmic movement is extremely supportive our detoxification systems.
Because the connective tissues of the body produce bio-electrical charges when stretched or deformed by muscle contraction, if we use a Work-In approach to movement, we end up with more energy when we finish a Work-In than when we started.
A Work-Out is exemplified by having less energy when we are done and the need to heal from the training session.
To Work-In, one need only choose any rhythmic activity they enjoy enough to do; the best exercise in the world is the one you’ll do regularly! For most people, walking is easiest.
Walking requires no special equipment, costs, and can be done anywhere, even if you are in solitary confinement in prison, you can still walk on the spot!
As you Work-In, keep your activity gentle enough that your heart rate and breathing rate don’t seed up.
Additionally, monitor the moisture of your tongue. If your tongue begins to dry, you are working-out!
Invest at least 20 minutes into a work-in session each day and if you can do more sessions throughout the day, that will be better. If you do a work-in as I’ve suggested here, you should never be tired or sore.
My rule for working-out is that you should never work-out until you have the energy to improve on your last work-out performance by 1-3%.
If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be working-out. For those of you that have a hard time getting to sleep at night, 20 minutes of working-in will harmonize the body, lower stress hormone levels, and significantly aid falling into a deep sleep.
Dr. Diet is the physician in charge of what you eat and drink. The chief first steps to living well and having a beautiful body and an abundance of energy are:
1. Remove the 4 white devils from your diet:
1. White processed sugar
2. White flour
3. Sodium chloride or white table salt (use unprocessed sea salt)
4. Pasteurized or commercial dairy products of any type.
2. Eat as much certified organic foods as you possibly can so you minimize toxic burden from foods.
Following the methods for identifying your optimal diet proportions and using the rotation diet plan in my book How To Eat, Move and Be Healthy! will give you all the essential tools you need to create a beautiful, vital body.
CONCLUSION
Being healthy and vital is essential if we want to fully live and enjoy creating and experiencing our dreams.
Establishing “motive” is easy if you don’t know what you want or what makes you happy; just get clear on what you don’t want and take affirmative action within the 4 Doctor model I’ve shared here. Begin your corrections with Dr. Quiet.
Then move along the primary axis to Dr. Movement and become amazed at how much energy and improvement in your health you can create with the skillful application of Dr. Movement.
Finally, feed your body with the foods that are suitable for human consumption and that work best for you.
With a little practice, awareness and authentic effort, you’ll find you aren’t tired, moody, or lazy any longer.
Your body and mind will heal and become what you desire because that’s simply how life works!
Hope your weekend finds you enjoying much needed rest, nourishing food, adequate movement and time to reflect upon what’s really of value to you!
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
