Ilchi Lee's Blog, page 28

Return to Nature to Restore Balance to Your Body and Brain

Let your energy vibration resonate with that of nature to have natural wellness and wholeness.

Have you noticed yourself feeling good when you’re in nature? Maybe you feel calmer and happier? Perhaps you take deeper breaths (if the air is clean) or have more pep in your step? A solution to some worry that had been weighing on you may even come to mind.

The beneficial effects of nature on the human body and brain are being documented in a systematic way by scientific studies. According to one article published on the American Psychological Association (APA) blog last year, “exposure to nature has been linked to a host of benefits, including improved attention, lower stress, better mood, reduced risk of psychiatric disorders and even upticks in empathy and cooperation.” They even saw that contact with nature can have existential benefits such as a sense of meaning and purpose in life.

Scientists are still determining the reasons that even just the sights and sounds of nature while indoors can have physical and psychological benefits, but some that have been proposed are stress reduction and replenishing our attention. They’ve also proposed that we like being in nature because human beings were initially involved in close contact with nature before they developed civilizations.

Feel Nature for Yourself

We can do our own research by watching our bodies, minds, and energy when we’re in nature. By directing our attention inward as well as outward, we can see how our thoughts and emotions morph from the busyness of our daily lives to the calm alertness that matches our natural surroundings.

In energetic terms, our own energy starts to resonate with the energy of the earth the more time we spend outside of our manmade constructions. Our tension, or blocked energy, releases, and our bodies’ and brains’ innate ability to restore itself kicks in. Even more, resonating with the energy of nature makes us feel more natural, and it can become easier to remember that we are a part of nature.

The idea that we are also nature may seem obvious, but it can be hard to actually feel that fundamental truth when we’re rushing around, giving all our attention to screens, surrounded by concrete, or worried about basic necessities. Connecting with nature in whatever way we can lets us reconnect with ourselves more easily. By doing that, we can feel more grounded and centered, more real and more ourselves, while also gaining a sense of expanded possibility and hope.

You can try this right now by watching and listening to the sounds of the lake in the Healing Garden at Sedona Mago Retreat as they play in the video below.

Take a Meditative Walk in Nature

My favorite way of connecting with nature is by walking in it. As I walk, I’m conscious of the fact that I am stepping on the earth. For me, the earth is not merely dirt, grass, or rocks. The earth has a soul. It is Mother Earth (Mago in Korean). I step lightly on the earth, feeling my foot connect with the earth as I take each step. With part of my attention on my feet, the energy of the earth enters my body through the energy points on my feet, and helps fortify my natural Water Up, Fire Down energy circulation. This energizes and revitalizes me. It also solidifies my motivation to achieve the dream I decided to work on many years ago. I feel stronger, more powerful, and ready to take on whatever comes my way.

Come with me as I walk around the Healing Garden lake, stimulating my feet and connecting with the natural beauty of the Sedona, Arizona area.

Why not try this kind of meditative walking the next time you find yourself in a natural setting? Be aware of the earth, your feet, and the connection between them. What happens? How do you change through this journey?

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Meditation for Finding Your Inner Nature to Become a Stronger Person

 

[Video] Ilchi Lee’s Fingertip Meditation for Focus

Our brains have amazing capabilities, but few of us really know how to use them to their full capacity. Try this meditation that uses the energy of your fingertips to help you develop your ability to focus. In the process, it may lead you to understand your brain better and become more aware of what it can do. You can use this meditation to develop your ability to control your brain in order to be and do what you want.

Read the subtitles first, and then attempt the meditation on your own. If you find it hard to focus well at first, keep at it. Do it for more than one day. It takes time to train our brains to listen to our intentions. With practice, I’m sure your focus will improve.

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[Video] Ilchi Lee’s 7 Energy Exercises for Water Up, Fire Down for Health and Happiness Everyday

Tap and press along the main energy circuit of the body to keep up the health of body and mind.

Water Up, Fire Down is an energy principle few people know about, but everyone should. This simple energy cycle is fundamental to our well-being. Since our body’s life energy links the body and mind, having this cycle running the right way keeps both body and mind running in a healthy and happy way.

Simply put, water energy runs up the back of the body from the kidneys and down the front until it reaches the heart. Fire energy runs down the front of the body from the heart and up the back until it reaches the kidneys. With this cycle, we have a cool head and a fire in our belly.

The Water Up, Fire Down Energy Cycle

This water-fire pathway needs to be free and clear in order for the energy to flow smoothly. Otherwise, it’s easy for the energy to get stuck, backed up, and even reversed. So to maintain Water Up, Fire Down, we need to maintain this pathway. It’s easy to unblock different points along the pathway with vibration. Physically making vibrations by tapping or pressing the energy pathway, also called a meridian, breaks up energy that has become sluggish or clumped together.

Try the following exercises for opening up different parts of the pathway.

Head Tapping & Acupressure

Pressing and tapping all around the head and face.

Chest Tapping

Pressing and tapping all around the chest.

Joongwan Healing

Pressing or tapping the joongwan, a major energy point on the solar plexus.

Belly Button Healing

Pressing, tapping, or massaging the major energy point on the navel.

The following exercises not only open up the water-fire pathway through which the Water Up, Fire Down energy cycle runs, they also stimulate the energy flow so that it has enough power to keep going smoothly.

Intestinal Exercise

Rhythmic contraction of the lower abdominal muscle wall.

Up and Down Sitting Vibration

Repetitive stimulation of the pelvic floor, which reverberates throughout the body.

Longevity Walking

Walking in a correct posture for energy flow while focusing on stimulation of the bottoms of the feet.

It’s best to practice one or more of these exercises daily since energy flow becomes blocked easily and this basic Water Up, Fire Down flow affects the energy circulation of the entire body. Try pressing the points indicated in these exercises and seeing whether they are tender or painful. Discomfort at a particular point indicates an energy blockage, so keep tapping, pressing or massaging that point or following the video for that point.

The process of doing this practice every day can make us more in tune with our body and with ourselves overall. This self-awareness will help us maintain Water Up, Fire Down and discover more ways to be healthy and happy.

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[Video] Meditation for Feeling the Love of Your True Self Within

If we look inside and listen to ourselves, we can sense our vital life force and discover complete and perfect love and peace. In other words, we find our true selves. Let this meditation guide you within to genuine self-love and self-acceptance.

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Discover the True Value of Health and Longevity

[Photo 31203279 / Beautiful © Siraanamwong | Dreamstime.com]

The health of the body is important because the body is the vessel and means through which our souls can complete their growth.

Most people I meet want to live a healthy and rewarding life. We can discover the true value of health in Korea’s traditional Sundo (Taoist) culture. While Chinese Taoism aims for perpetual youth and longevity, Korean Sundo views and accepts the life and death of the body as the providence of nature. Rather than striving only for the growth and vitality of the body, Sundo emphasizes the growth and vitality of the soul. It lays out a path to completing the soul’s growth by awakening to and heading toward our divine nature. In Korean, this process is called Shinin Hapil.

So in Sundo, the health of the body is important because the body is the vessel and means through which our souls can complete their growth (Chunhwa). For this purpose, Sundo has ways we can maintain the body. While on one hand, it says being born and dying is a law of nature that no human can resist, on the other hand, it says we are not doomed to grow old and sick. We can always change this process through will and effort. Through will and effort, we can live a long, healthy life as we live for our dreams and the completion of our souls.

It’s even possible for us to have the mental health, energy, and physical health we had at 30 until we are 80, or even 120. Even though our appearance may change as we age, we can still do the things we want to do. Achieving this requires living actively as we manage our body and mind daily, the sooner the better. Just as a great violinist regularly tunes her violin, we can regularly tune our brains and bodies in order to live good lives.

We do everything with our brains.

Even as we get older, our brains remember the passion and will to live, vision and goals, muscular strength and flexibility, and energy condition we had at age 30. We can also use this memory to help us maintain them. Our brains respond according to the information we input into them. So, if we think ourselves healthy, and continue to program our brains with the information, “I’m young and healthy,” our healthy life expectancy increases, and we can live life creatively and proactively. This is deceiving our brain, and it’s a way to apply it. It’s all right because it’s tricking our brain for a good purpose. Keep telling our brains, “I’m young and healthy,” and, though we get older, keep imagining ourselves young and healthy.

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Old cells in our bodies are continuously replaced by new cells. So why do humans grow old and become sick? Our minds have a profound impact on this. Since the cells of our bodies are linked with our thoughts, if we think ourselves old and weak, those thoughts affects our bodies. Even when we do the exact same thing, our bodies react differently depending on our attitude. Depending on what thoughts we have, or, to put it another way, depending on how we use our brains, the results we get differ even for the same amount of work and activity.

How and what we live for is important.

In addition to having a positive, proactive attitude and the memories of our youth, our brains help us stay youthful and healthy when we have dreams and goals. The most powerful of these is the dream of completing our souls. Striving steadily toward this dream draws the purest, brightest energy to us—healing energy—and gives us the motivation to keep going, past our reproductive years, past our working years, and through life’s ups and downs. Such a dream makes every year of our lives important and meaningful.

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Where Does Creativity Come From?

[Photo 171182261 / Creativity © Alphaspirit | Dreamstime.com]

Creativity comes from an awakened brain and an awakened life.

The greatest joy a human can have is the joy of creation. Where does creativity come from?

First, creativity comes from a free soul.
A free soul sees whatever happens as simply phenomena, without being attached to anything. Free souls can dispassionately watch themselves and the world without being mired in either for they know that everything is energy, coming and going, changing endlessly.

Second, creativity comes from ownership of life.
We depend on experts for many parts of our lives. We look to people who supposedly know better than us for our decisions about what we should eat, wear, and learn, and about what relationships we should have and with whom. As a result, it has gradually become more difficult to make even trivial decisions for ourselves. True creativity manifests when we declare that we are the master of our lives and decide for ourselves how we should live.

Third, creativity emerges from a purpose and a vision.
Creativity manifests when we know what we really want and have a definite, concrete vision for achieving it. How much creativity we can bring out depends on how big our vision is and how much it helps other people.

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So, when things aren’t working out, instead of worrying only about methods for solving it, we can empty our minds and reflect on our purpose.

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How to Speak from Our True Selves

[Photo by seventyfourimages via Envato Elements]

Awaken and feel your true self to express it freely and boldly.

In my last blog post, I described the benefits of speaking from our true selves—the combination of the energy of the soul in our hearts with the divine aspect in our brains. If our consciousness becomes and remains aware of these parts of ourselves inside, it can read them and speak what they say aloud.

But how can we build this connection between our consciousness, soul, and divinity? I suggest working from the bottom up.

Strengthening Our Core

In our lower abdomen, we have an energy center that acts as an anchor and a furnace. This furnace can burn away the energy of our thoughts and emotions (everything is energy), helping to make the energy inside us clear. The energy it burns serves as fuel for us to act quickly and decisively on what our true selves want to say and do. With a strong energetic core, we have the foundation to speak confidently as our true selves.

Exercise for strengthening the abdominal energy center ►

Connecting to Our Soul

Next, in our chest, we find the energy of our “soul,” what I call the pure energy that has no beginning or end that came into our bodies when we were born. This energy can be easily covered by stress and emotions, especially negative emotional energy. On the other hand, the energy of our soul has no emotion; it’s beyond emotion.

We can connect to our soul by feeling it—by letting our attention go to the very center of our chest and feeling the sensations there. If we don’t have experience in sensing our soul or if we have a lot of emotion, then all we may feel is emotion. We may also feel emptiness or numbness if we don’t usually give this part of ourselves any attention.

Overcoming emptiness or emotion involves similar techniques. It’s about clearing the energy while observing it in a detached way. We can use vibration to do this by tapping or shaking the area. The vibration of our physical bodies causes movement in the energy of our bodies. Instead of the heavy or dark energy of negative emotions, the vibration makes the energy light and bright. It’s like the difference between a stagnant pond and a flowing stream.

We can also make vibration in our chests by using our voice. The sound, “Ah” in particular resonates with the energy in the chest and clears it. Combining vocalization with tapping and shaking causes an even more powerful effect.

These vibration exercises can be followed by Jigam exercise, which is an energy meditation in which we sense energy between our hands. The major energy point in the palms of our hands, called the Jangshim in Korean, connects directly with the energy center in our chest. If we do Jigam enough, we can feel the energy in our chest moving and clearing. We can also practice Jigam meditation by itself without doing vibration exercises first.

Learn how to do Jigam ►

In order to hear what the soul in our chest has to say, we can ask it questions—any questions we want. But if we haven’t felt our true self before, I recommend starting with the question, “Who am I?” If we keep repeating that question to ourselves while focusing on the center of our chests, we’ll become aware of some feeling or word or image. Accept your experience as it is, and you will be able to overcome any of the doubts and fears that tend to come up in this situation, and you will be giving love to your true self.

Awakening Our Divinity

Deep in our brain, a little bit below and behind the top of the brainstem, lies our pineal gland. This part of the brain is considered the physical location associated with our spiritual energy cente—our divinity. Our divinity is pure, original energy and consciousness untarnished by the thoughts, memories, and intellectual knowledge we’ve gathered in our lives. It is the same level or type of consciousness as cosmic consciousness, also called universal consciousness.

Without clearing this energy center as well, it can be hard to sense our soul’s energy, and we can easily get lost in illusion, missing the truth. To awaken this energy center, I teach pineal gland meditation, such as the one in my book Connect: How to Find Clarity and Expand Your Consciousness with Pineal Gland Meditation.

Try this Pineal Gland Meditation ►

Even if our divinity is awake and our soul is clear and bright, however, they may still be separate. The part that connects them is the throat (the fifth chakra). The energy of the soul needs to be clear and light enough to pass through an energetic filter in the throat in order to meet with the divine energy in the brain. This combination is the true self that is waiting for us to let it out into the world.

We can help this unification along by practicing gibberish meditation. In this technique, we speak words and sounds randomly, without trying to add sense or meaning. It’s a way to use our voice without letting our judgment oppress our ability to express ourselves. It’s a way to set our soul and divinity free.

Watch this video for an example of gibberish meditation or find a written description here.

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Does all of this sound complicated? It can seem complicated when we see so many steps written out in an article. But once we get a sense of our true selves, we can connect to it more quickly, easily, and simply. And speaking from our true selves becomes intuitive and automatic.

But it is a life practice. To me, however, living as my true self is the most rewarding and powerful way to live. I encourage all of us not to lose our sense of our true selves, even amid our busy lives and many challenges, for it’s the part of us that will carry us through them and make them worthwhile.

 
For a deep experience of your true self, you can participate in the Finding True Self workshop I designed. It’s offered by Body & Brain Yoga Tai Chi centers around the world. Find a center in the United States here ►

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[Video] Walk Barefoot with Me for Longevity

Walking barefoot stimulates all of the acupressure points in the feet, especially the yongchun point (K1) at the center where ball of the foot meets the arch. This helps the energy flow in your whole body; it creates the Water Up, Fire Down flow we all need to be healthy. If you walk slowly while focusing on your soles and ankles, your ankles and knees become stronger and more limber. Mindful barefoot walking like this is a way to help your body and brain feel more awake and alive and lets you feel closer to nature.

In this video, I’m walking on the special path for barefoot walking around the Healing Garden of Sedona Mago Center. This path around the lake has small gravel that stimulates your feet without hurting them too much. It’s a beautiful time and place to refresh and reflect.

Learn more at https://sedonamagoretreat.org/.

Subscribe to the Ilchi Lee YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/IlchiLee

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What Does It Mean to Speak Well?

Speaking well means speaking from your true self.

There is a proverb in Korea that says: “You can pay a thousand dollar debt in words.” It means that if you speak well and impress the other person, you will be able to solve difficult tasks. But what does it mean to “speak well”?

Brown nosing, pandering, and manipulation may come to mind when you hear the words “speak well and impress someone.” But I choose to focus on the meaning, “speak from your heart.” Words have energy, and positive words have positive energy. The purest, most positive energy inside us lies in our true self: the connection of the energy of our soul in our hearts with the energy of our divinity in our brains. The nature of our true selves is love, compassion, hope, gratitude, forgiveness, and conscience.

Learn more about the true self ►

What if we spoke with this energy? When we speak, we spread energy. By spreading pure, positive energy, we reach out to the true selves in the people around us. We are speaking on the purest level, which creates interactions on this level—positive interactions that yield positive results that are good for everyone.

Words sometimes save people and sometimes kill people. Depending on what they hear, people are greatly hurt, or they receive great comfort and strength. You can make other people happy with words, and you can make them awaken.

Build Our Speaking Power

The more we spread the energy of our true selves with our words (and actions), the stronger that energy becomes inside us. The stronger that energy gets, the wider its influence on the world.

This is an important time. It’s a time in which what and how we speak has a greater impact than ever before. We can put our words on the Internet, and they can be seen and heard by people around the world. With the words from our true selves, we can awaken the true selves of people across the globe. That’s how powerful each of us is. Our words matter. They can be instruments of the evolution of our own consciousness while helping the consciousness of humanity to evolve.

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The first agreement in don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements, is “be impeccable with your words.” We can do this by doing what global phenomenon Korean boy band BTS encourages their fans to do: “speak yourself.” What comes from our true selves is always impeccable; it comes from love and from the recognition that we are all one. It’s the greatest thing we can share. I hope we can all speak ourselves boldly and courageously, overcoming the fear of censure and the threat of being cancelled.

Speaking ourselves means letting our true selves be seen and by doing so, giving other people the permission to be seen as well. If people can see our true selves, that means our true selves are powerfully acting in the world. Because of the nature of our true selves, that means we are automatically loving ourselves and each other as well as healing ourselves and each other.

That is how powerful we all are.

In my next blog post, I’ll share ways we can connect our speech to our true selves.

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[Video] New Water Up, Fire Down Vibration Exercise for Boosting Immunity

In Asian medicine, health is related to the state of your energy. One of the most important energy state for a healthy body, mind, and spirit is called Water Up, Fire Down (or Suseung Hwagang in my native Korean). In this video, I show you a very simple vibration exercise for getting yourself into a Water Up, Fire Down energy state for better immunity and emotional wellness.

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