Let’s check your
physical condition right now to see how healthy you are in light of the energy principle, Water Up, Fire Down. As I introduced in my recent blog posts and
latest book, this principle says, “
keep your head cool and your belly warm.”
Checking whether you’re in this condition is simple. First, use one hand to grasp the opposite arm. Holding it for two or three seconds, feel the
temperature of the arm, and remember that feeling. Now touch your forehead with your hand and then the nape of your neck, sensing the temperature of these two areas. Does your forehead or the back of your neck feel about the same as your arm, or colder? Or does it feel a little or a lot warmer?
Now try feeling your
lower abdomen. Try to sense the temperature inside your abdomen, not on your belly’s surface. Does your gut feel hot or cold inside? Feeling the temperature or sensations in your abdomen may seem difficult for those who have little experience focusing on bodily sensations. If that’s you, then it’s enough to check the temperature of your hands or feet. Clasping your hands together, try to feel their
temperature. Now try sensing the temperature of your feet by touching them with your hands. Do your hands and feet feel warm or cold?
It’s great if your forehead and neck feel cool and your belly, hands, and feet feel warm. If that’s your condition, you’re probably focusing well, with your mind at peace and your head clear. But if your forehead feels hot, or if your lower abdomen, hands, or feet feel cold, then the harmony and the balance of your body may be broken, either temporarily or chronically. In this state—with your neck and shoulders stiff, your body tense, and your eyes and mouth dry—your sensory organs are duller and your breathing is shallower than they should be.
This condition will affect your mental state, as well. In a hurry and flooded with thoughts, you have trouble concentrating. If you try to read in this condition, you’ll have trouble grasping and retaining its details. So let’s stop reading for a moment and change the state of your body. Even if your head is cool and your belly warm, I recommend that you follow the exercise I’m introducing here. Your body will love it.
- 1. Sitting (on the floor or in a chair) or standing, make loose fists with your hands.
- 2. Relax your shoulders and, alternating hands, tap your lower abdomen two inches or so below your navel about 100 times, using the part of your fists where your little fingers are located. Apply enough force that you feel the vibration in your abdominal muscles, providing some degree of stimulation. You should be able to do more than 100 repetitions within a minute.
- 3. After you finish tapping, close your eyes for about a minute as you comfortably focus on the sensations you feel in your body:
- • Do you feel a warm heat developing somewhere deep in your belly, spreading to your entire abdomen and lower back?
- • Is your chest more comfortable, your breathing deeper?
- • Does it feel like a kind of pressure or heat in your head is now sinking into your body?
- • Are your eyes moister, and is your mouth filling with saliva? And do you feel better?
The type and intensity of sensations will differ from person to person, but people almost universally feel their bellies growing warmer and saliva filling their mouths. If you’re sensitive to physical sensations, you may get tangible feelings of warm vitality filling your body, your vital phenomena being recharged like a depleted cell phone battery plugged into a charger.
It didn’t take you even three minutes to do this exercise. You were able to change the condition of your body in a very short time, making your head cooler and your abdomen warmer—in other words, putting your body into a healthier state.
To apply the
principle of water-fire energy circulation in daily life, you must stop and listen to what your body is saying. Read the signals telling you the condition of your body. Is your head hot or cool? Are your belly, hands, and feet warm or cold? Is your breathing comfortable and deep, or short and shallow? Do you have any tense, knotted muscles? Is your posture straight or bent? It’s important to look closely at these things.
The heart of
water-fire energy circulation is this: keep your head cool and your belly warm. By checking these right in your body, you can determine whether you have good or reversed
water-fire circulation. Your body is like an indicator you always carry with you that can measure the state of your health right away at any time. And if you regularly do the exercises and training for promoting water-fire circulation presented in my new book,
Water Up Fire Down: An Energy Principle for Creating Calmness, Clarity, and a Lifetime of Health, you’ll start to recover your energy balance—breaking through blockages, supplementing energy where you know it’s lacking, and reducing it where you have too much. You will be amazed at how efficient a health tool you have—your body—if you start to apply Water Up, Fire Down in your life.
Find detailed explanations and applications of the health principle at
WaterUpFireDown.com.