Scroll down the side of the player to access the different topics such as gratitude, reduce anxiety, heal the heart, forest meditation (liver detox), and ocean journey (kidney revitalization). Click on the name of the track to play a track.

What makes these qi gong meditations unique?

They are designed to activate specific energy meridians and organ systems that play a role in resolving specific physical, emotional and spiritual challenges. For years, clients have been sharing how helpful these meditations are as well as the custom ones that I design for clients.

Until I experienced a head concussion sustained in an auto accident, and had to deal with agitated brain waves states that interrupted sleep, impacted mood, and created vertigo, I did not really know what my clients meant about the deep effects of these tracks until I started to use them to shift and heal my concussed brain.

Now, I finally get what my clients are saying about the resonance of my voice combined with this special meditative music from Kevin.

As a thank you for the clients who inspired me to develop these tracks, they are now available free on this iphone and ipad friendly JW player.

Breathe, relax and smile.

So often, people mistakenly think that a focus on only the positive is a mark of enlightenment or maturity, when it is the reflection on both the joys and challenges of life that allows one to truly understand where one’s strengths are and also appreciate the areas that need refinement or growth.

The arts of qi gong and taiji encourage this process of examining areas of balance and imbalance without judgment for when you engage specific movement forms, you have an opportunity to notice your core strengths, balance and flexibility, but also notice where you are wobbly, lacking in centeredness and rigid. As I often mention during our ongoing Saturday qi gong class, the movements are a metaphor for life. For example, if you are rushing through the movements and performing them like calisthenics, this is a metaphor for how you may be glossing through life and missing the nuances and signals that can help you refine your life. If you think you have mastered a move and have nothing really new to learn from it, this is a metaphor for the tendency to fall into spaces of complacency and routines in your life, that you’re not truly stepping out to learn new things that will benefit the release of old paradigms and patterns.

When life suddenly shifts and our bodies, minds or spirits are challenged in new ways, it is our cultivation that can carry us to new places of insights by giving us new lenses through which to view the world. As an example, this week, I was struck by a car who made an illegal left turn into my vehicle, and have had to modify all the routines of my usual practices to accommodate the injuries. Yet, this process of modifying routines, affirms a great ability to flex with what is presented in the life not by just focusing on all the positive love and support that friends, family, neighbors, APD officers and colleagues have given so abundantly, but also by sitting with the very real negative aspects of the experience such as the physical pain, mental shock, and trauma that is natural whenever such an event occurs. Yet, the cultivation holds–and despite these negative aspects, I am able to gain insights to recognize where I am strong and also where I am vulnerable and weak.

So the next time you imagine that the goal of a deep spiritual cultivation is this rosy-lensed view that only keeps you focused on the positive or that the mark of enlightenment is only experiencing bliss, come back to reality and use your taiji and qi gong to discover that true enlightenment empowers a person to be fully connected to all aspects of experience in this human form, not just the positive, and that by embracing the full range of all human experiences, one is empowered to see and experience life lessons in a far deeper way than glossing over the negative and creating an egoic and falsely optimistic haze that does not really promote the resolution of patterns or experiences that may be heavier or negative in nature, and are are as valuable to our learning processes as the bright, triumphant moments.

You can create a sustainable, eco-friendly garden by using cinderblocks to create raised garden beds, and grow a variety of vegetables that help to heal the body in very specific ways. For example, in the spring, people tend to manifest health conditions such as headaches at the top of the head, high blood pressure, joint and tendon pain, and insomnia. A garden that includes vegetables, that on an herbal level, can help to alleviate these conditions might include: dandelion, Swiss Chard, mustard greens and other leafy green vegetables, peppermint and cucumber. Thus, gardening provides a powerful opportunity to develop living herbal pharmacies that can help us to improve health and wellness by allowing us to incorporate healing foods into our daily diets.

When we emphasize organic gardening, we are even more empowered to detoxify the body because foods grown with organic methods are free of pesticides and other toxins that may exacerbate chronic health issues. Furthermore, organic gardening methods help us regain a harmony with the ecosystem in a way that benefits our sense of centeredness and ability to contribute to nourishing the planet and other life forms. Thus, we develop a greater sense of connectivity to the earth, which can help to foster more calm mental states.

In addition, neuroscientist Christopher Lowry found that mycobacterium vaccae, a harmless bacteria normally found in dirt, has been found to stimulate the immune system of mice and boost the production of serotonin, which plays a large role in influencing moods. The research that Dr. Lowry conducted suggests that gardening activities, where we are working with organic soil or earth with our bare hands can help us fend off depressive states and anxiety by boosting serotonin levels. This gives new meaning to the idea that gardening is perhaps one of the best natural antidotes to depression, not to mention that spending time gardening on sunny days can also help to boost levels of serotonin.

Another connection between Chinese medicine and gardening occurs when we integrate energetic healing exercises such as taiji or qi gong as as a way of preparing the body for gardening tasks. These ancient forms of healing movements help us to avoid the typical aches and pains that some gardeners experience. Taiji and qi gong are excellent ways to warm the joints and spine, areas of the body which often get stressed from bending to work in gardens (even if they are raised beds). Further more, the systems of taiji and qi gong activate specific energy flows that enable us to develop greater sensitivity to the flows found in nature. Thus, these ancient forms of healing exercises allow us to open our energy bodies to the higher frequencies found in natural plant life. This is why classically, in Asian cultures, taiji and qi gong performed in beautiful gardens and spaces in nature where plants are abundant. You will also find in the Asian cultures, a diet high in vegetables and low in meat products, a diet style associated with lower rates of heart disease, cancer, and chronic illness.

So this spring, take a different approach to your gardening efforts by mindfully creating gardens that grow food as medicine, and integrating healing movements as part of the process of working with the abundance of earth and plant energies.

If you did not have the opportunity to join our workshop last year, you can perform a beautiful prelude to circle walking by visiting Dr. Tayam’s website and click on his “Rotating Heaven and Earth” video link. Then, simply practice a heel-toe pattern of walking 8 steps in a circle in one direction, then turn slowly and walk in the other direction for 8 steps. This pattern of heel-toe stepping helps to activate the kidney meridians on the inside of the ankles to create more yinness or fluidity to the kidneys, which then can cool the fire of the liver (excessive wood energy) to help with manifestations described above.

Also, increasing green leafy vegetables especially with a touch of dandelion and other bitter greens can be helpful this time of the year, as well as increasing cucumber and peppermint. Deep green spices such as cilantro, parsley and oregano can also be wonderful this time of the year to balance the body.

On a spirit level, the most benevolent aspects of our beings have an opportunity to bloom this time of the year in unique and new ways. As you perform qi gong through circle walking (either through infinite form or through the simple steps described above), allow yourself to connect in with your deepest compassion and feel that higher vibration nourish your spirit from your heart center outward until all parts of your energy and spirit being are filled with this sense of peace and humbleness. Allow yourself to fully feel then let go of anger at yourself, at others, and at circumstances.

Come into the awareness of the many gifts that have been given to you by your mentors, teachers and helpful friends and spirits–all gifts from God–and truly make a commitment to honoring these gifts by implementing a higher vibration in the life each day through your behaviors.

On my Facebook page I commented that often there are gaps between where we think we are in our lives and how we actually behave. These gaps or illusions can lead to illness and other states of imbalance. On Facebook, I encouraged you to make two lists, one that is a list of what you believe about yourself and how you are living, and another about what your actual behaviors are. So many of you shared your lists and encouraged me to blog about the discussions that have come about as we’ve talked about these lists.

Here are few excerpts from the lists:

“As health provider, I think of myself as following the path of health and fitness, yet when I list my behaviors, I see that I regularly skip health check ups, and engage in emotional eating with foods that are not ideal for health.”

“I see myself as nonjudgmental and caring, yet my grown kids notice that I tend to behave in demanding or critical ways when I am in restaurants or dealing with others in a service role, or that I project imagined judgment or criticism onto others-so I see that I behave in judgmental ways without even realizing it. It’s like there is a lens of who I think I am that seems clear but when I take off that lens, I see that the lens was giving me a false image of myself.”

“I think I’m a person who embraces change, but when I look at my behaviors, I see that I pout, roll my eyes, and verbalize reasons why I cannot change when presented with opportunities to grow or make my life different.”

How do these gaps form between our actual behaviors and how we think we are moving through life and who we think we are?

Our egoic selves often are driven by emotional patterns and the energy flows of an external world that is out of balance. Emotionally, we may not even be aware that we are aligning with the negative messages coming from a societal level, and allowing these messages to influence our behaviors.

Messages around how we define success in terms of comparing ourselves to those who are entrenched in a materialistic focus, can cause us to feel angst, depression, anxiety, frustration and a disconnect between our three dan tiens, our physical, emotional and spiritual energy centers.

Eventually, this disconnect creates situations that result in financial challenges, relationship erosions, and health issues, all reflections of chronically living in denial of truths. Yet, our egos may create wonderful stories to convince us that we are not out of balance and that we are walking on a path of “success” or “enlightenment.”

Denial is the illusion that we are living truthfully when we are hiding from truth.

Manifestations of denial may emerge as clinging to relationships that are no longer serving us well. Some of us hang onto an illusion of “family closeness and loyalty” and maintain close ties to family members or friends who are negative, discounting and toxic. This is a special kind of fantasy–the idea that if one is loyal enough and just hangs in there, that healing will one day occur such that one will have the support and love that one has always craved from people who are not functioning in a very healthy way. Thus, you might stay tethered to toxic relationships within your families, companies, and social circles.

Some of us may also be tethered to an idea of false spirituality or altruism in believing that success is defined by the ability to reach out to help others through having a high level of material resources to create large altruistic foundations. While this is certainly a compassionate vision, it is also one that is an egoic trap because it is still based on the energy of the money cycle that this world revolves around in terms of making one’s spiritual ability to help others dependent on having material resources, when the truth is that even the poorest person can have a profound spiritual influence on many people.

Having said that, there’s absolutely nothing wrong in amassing wealth but if you do so, it is important to understand that the system from which money comes, is inherently out of balance. When you are aware of the imbalance of this system, then you can take steps to avoid having your life force energy or vital “qi” from being depleted as you amass or use material resources.

Although criticized for being extreme, the two hours documentary, “Zeigist, The Addendum,” does a very good job of describing the energy and flow of money not only in this country but on a global level as well. You can find it on Netflix and other similar movie services.

It is important to awaken to the idea that the modern world in which we live is not governed by a higher energetic force, but is instead dominated by the endless cycle of consumption and the desire to obtain money so that one can then spend even more. This is an eroding versus replenishing cycle and is a system based on illusion. All we have to do is look at the stock market to see how the cycles of money are artificially and easily manipulated. As this imbalanced cycle and system governs so much of our world, it can be easy to get caught up and influenced by it without realizing that we are allowing ourselves to create lives of debt, stress and spiritual angst.

Reflection

Take a moment to look at the image that you present to the world in terms of where you live, how you live, what you drive, what you wear and then finish this sentence:

When others see me, I imagine that they think I am…

Take some time to email or call a few friends or colleagues and ask, “How do you see me? What image do I present to you?”

Now, take a look at how you really live.
What are the facts that really reflect who you are and how you are living?
What are facts that you tend to hide from others because those facts do not fit how the world perceives you?

What does a life lived authentically look like?

Many of you were aware that a higher volume of higher vibration energy would increase around the winter solstice of 2012. In response, many of you changed your career paths, retired, and embraced new styles of living involving downsizing your homes and returning to a connection with nature by starting food gardens, adding solar power and learning more about the cycles of conservation versus consumption.

New levels of responsibility and self sufficiency emerged in beautiful ways such as making profound dietary changes to eliminate toxins, and committing yourselves to empowering your children with alternative ways of being in the world through homeschooling.

For those who remained on the same tracks of life in terms of holding high debts and living a more traditional, materialistic life, you have another opportunity to align with this higher energy that is increasing in our world, with the approach of the spring equinox, March 20th in the northern hemisphere. In the days leading up to this shift, be open to hearing truths about where you really are in life in terms of your personal cultivations and really challenge yourself to be aware of areas where you may need growth. Be honest and really take stock because the spring equinox is an opportunity to welcome new states of abundance through greater awareness, acceptance and levels of self sufficiency that can allow you to tap into your full human potential versus being chained to the patterns that belong to a greater system of imbalance outside yourself.