Are old patterns or persistent negative thoughts keeping your life from moving forward?
You’ve been meditating, making your wish lists, reciting your daily affirmations and thinking positively. Yet you still feel like your life isn’t on track with your aspirations.
If your grand plans seemed to have stalled, or you are bothered by persistent self doubt, check your “points of creation” and use these exercises to give them a tune up.
The better your energy flows, the better able you are to manifest what you want in your life.
As you learn to focus inside yourself and recognize how energy flows in your body, you may become aware of blockages, or stuck energy.
When your life force or Qi is blocked, not only can it express itself as persistent negative patterns, painful relationships or physical illness, it also blocks energy at those points along your body that are associated with a phase in the cycle of creation.
In other words, the energy flowing through your meridians, and the creative problem solving that manifestation requires, become stopped and life begins to feel like no one is listening or cares about your desires or needs.
As your body’s energy flow goes through its natural
Water Up Fire Down cycle, it is correlated to different aspects in the cycle of your personal development and the creation of your life.
These areas, or creation points, usually indicate negative experiences or false awareness. They also present opportunities for recognizing something that needs to change.
For example, if you have energy stuck in your chest, you may be having trouble accepting something, or anything, right now. Knowing this cycle and feeling the energy in your body can make you more aware of the current or past issues you need to resolve in your life.
Conversely, if you are aware of a certain issue, you can help resolve it by doing exercises to move stagnant energy through the parts of your body (Conception and Governor Meridians specifically) that are associated with those issues. If you are having trouble making choices, you can tap, stretch or twist that area or hold postures that release and accumulate energy in that area.
Some exercises stimulate more than one part of your body at the same time. Others such as
bowing meditation and cobra posture open the meridians that run along the midline of your body.
The more you keep your energy flowing in general, the less you need to focus on any one part of your energy cycle.
Here are some fun and effective energy moving exercises you can do in less than a few minutes, anytime and anywhere.
Longevity (Jang-saeng) Walking
This walking exercise is a different kind of long-distance walking. The word jang-saeng means “longevity,” and that is what this exercise is meant to produce, a long life.
Walking is a natural way to bring rhythmic vibrations to your body. As you set out to walk, with
every step, imagine you are sending a wave of energy through your body.
1. Walk with your feet parallel, exerting strength on the energy point located at the ball of your foot, and your toes.
2. Tuck in your tailbone upward and tighten your lower abdomen. As you walk, lean forward slightly, tilting forward about one degree.
3. Walk with an open chest. Breathe naturally into the abdomen, being sure to exhale completely.
4. Walk with a bright smile. Walk with a sense of purpose and forward momentum.
5. Swing both arms freely as you walk.
6. Feel subtle vibrations spreading throughout the soles, chest, and the entire body.
Longevity Walking can help you feel more confident walking into whatever situation life brings you.
Toe Tapping Vibration
This exercise can be done lying down or sitting in a chair. It is best if you can do it with bare feet, but toe tapping in your socks is okay, too.
The feet contain a wide variety of acupressure points that are stimulated during this exercise. Because all the energy lines in the body end in the feet, you can energize your whole body when you stimulate your feet.
The vibrations you can create with this exercise can help heal many physical problems, including headaches, insomnia and circulation problems. Toe Tapping Vibration helps return the body’s energy balance to a healthy state by bringing energy down to the lower body. It is also a very good mind-body coordination exercise.
Toe Tapping Vibration is also a bit of a brain teaser. Because the feet are so far away from the brain, you may find that at first they do not want to cooperate! But keep working at it and try to increase your speed and obtain an even rhythm to your tapping.
1. Lie down on the floor comfortably. Place your arms and legs on the floor and close your eyes. Breathe in and out several times to release excess tension.
2. As you are lying there, gently shake your head from side to side, allowing your shoulders, arms, legs, and your whole body to relax. Imagine that all your stress is melting into the ground.
3. Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth, making a whooshing sound. Repeat this 3 times.
4. Touch your heels together, tap your toes together, then part the toes again, trying to touch the sides of the feet on the ground. Repeat several times in quick succession. Adjust the rate of taps according to your comfort level, but repeat at least 50 times in succession.
5. When you begin to feel fatigued, slowly bring your tapping to a rest. Feel the subtle vibration going through the end of the toes to the knees, thighs, hips and waist and to the top of the head. Challenge yourself to do a greater number of repetitions each time you practice.
Toe tapping is like having a mini foot massage. You’ll feel surprisingly refreshed.
Tap into Decisiveness
Turn your nagging doubts into bold decisions with this lower Dahn-jon meditation exercise.
1. To begin, tap your lower abdomen to stimulate your body and draw your mind’s attention to it. Keep tapping and the energy center there will pull the extra energy out of your head down into it and up your back. Feel your body as you tap. Notice what sensations, thoughts and emotions arise. What are they related to? Accept them all.
2. Once your mind feels clear and cool, keep tapping your lower abdomen and ask yourself what you really want. What answers pop into your mind? Do they have a theme? Formulate a goal or an action plan from the answers you get and see what happens when you do them.
3. Notice what inner obstacles and thought patterns you face. Watch them all and let them go. Encourage yourself to keep going and develop affirmations that counteract any negative self-talk.
4. Keep going until enough energy has circulated in your body that you are confident of achieving your goals.
Tap your lower abdomen whenever you need encouragement or a power boost—even five minutes can help.
Watch the Emotional Tides
Do your emotions run roughshod over your days, or are you in command of them? This meditation can be very helpful when you are feeling overwhelmed or anxious.
Emotion—which literally means energy in motion—can convey valuable information about yourself and the world you are navigating if you practice not hiding from or denying them.
Next time you feel afraid to drown in a wave of emotion, pull your toes away from the shoreline of your despairs and observe this meditation to just watch and accept the reason why emotions come and just see them as they are.
Observe yourself when you feel anxious and say, “Ah, I have anxiety,”' or, “'I have doubts about achieving my vision.” Ask yourself why this is.
When you watch these emotions as they are, you may see that these emotions usually come at the exact times you are unconsciously telling yourself, 'I don't love myself', or 'I don't trust in myself.'
If you can recognize those moments, you can watch the waters of self doubt recede and bravely draw in self acceptance with the next incoming wave.
Use these exercises as guidelines for revealing how the obstacles and issues in your life express themselves in your body.
Maybe you are stuck in the same repeating thought patterns and can’t really get beyond them. Or, you are not even paying attention to yourself and your body at all.
At whatever point you feel stuck, go back to one of the exercises that resonated best for you and work on that.
The more energy that flows, the better you can see what's going on inside of you and you can change it!