Sunday, September 30, 2007

Mental IQ and Body Mind Spirit Integration

Experiencing happiness through the third or mental intelligence requires us to consciously choose joy: to focus on the positive aspects of our lives, or as the old song says, to “accentuate the positive” and “eliminate the negative.” The following bit of wisdom, which has probably made the rounds of every mailbox on the Internet, exemplifies this choice:

She is ninety-two years old, petite, well poised, and proud. She is fully dressed each morning by eight o’clock, with her hair fashionably coiffed and her make-up perfectly applied, in spite of the fact she is legally blind.

Today she has moved to a nursing home. Her husband of seventy years recently passed away, making this move necessary. After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, where I am employed, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready. As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet curtains that had been hung on her window. “I love it,” she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.

“Mrs. Jones, you haven’t seen the room yet; just wait,” I said. Then she spoke these words that I will never forget. “That does not have anything to do with it,” she gently replied. “Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not does not depend on how the furniture is arranged. It is how I arrange my mind. I have already decided to love it.

“It is a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice. I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or I can get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do work. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I will focus on the new day and all of the happy memories I have stored away just for this time in my life. Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw from it what you have already put in.”

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Emotional IQ, Happiness, and Body Mind Spirit Integration

At intelligence level two, the emotional layer, we experience happiness as well being, contentment and joy: the positive feelings that make life enjoyable. But to know happiness only as an emotion means that our delight is temporary, rising and falling with our moods.


After returning to college to finish my Bachelor’s degree, I spent some time in Guilin, China, working on a senior project. Though I love travel and exotic adventures, three weeks of Chinese sights, smells and foods left me longing for home. One night after returning to Hong Kong I spied the Golden Arches down a busy street. My pace quickened as I thrilled at the thought: “A hamburger, an American hamburger.” In Hong Kong, late at night, good old American junk food was the best I was going to get. Fortunately, the menu was spelled out in pictures and both English and Chinese words. I ordered a hamburger, French fries, and a chocolate shake.

As I waited for my fast food (though it couldn’t come fast enough), I remembered eating in our dormitory in Guilin. Our professor at the university, Dr. Wright, was highly esteemed, and as his students we were held in great respect. Our hosts considered us honored guests, and we ate better fare than the Chinese students. There were the constant rounds of rice noodles, soups, different meats and unfamiliar sauces. Often these foods were quite tasty but nevertheless remained a mystery. The webbing of duck’s feet, a delicacy in Guilin, was delicious, but I’m just glad I didn’t know what I was eating until I had finished. (I did manage to avoid the “grilled poisonous snake” in the open street markets.)

Finally, my tray arrived, and I savored the moment. I hadn’t eaten in a McDonald’s in a decade, since I rarely ate beef or fried foods. The burger came with ketchup, and my first bite was heaven. The entire meal was scrumptious. It’s not that the food was even that tasty, or that I was really that hungry. Or even that I wanted to experience just the physical pleasure of eating. It was the return to home, to civilization as I knew it, garish and cheap as only a McDonald’s could be. I loved it. I felt warmly happy and satisfied. But my passing feeling of happiness, sitting in that McDonald’s in Hong Kong, represented merely emotional satisfaction. As fabulous as it was, it was fleeting. It just didn’t last.

Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Friday, September 28, 2007

Happiness: The Body Mind Spirit Question

The United States Constitution guarantees the pursuit of happiness.
You have to find it on your own.
Benjamin Franklin

We humans prize happiness more than anything else. We seek it for its own sake, and we pursue all our other goals—romance, power, money and health—because we believe they will make us happy. The Greek philosopher Aristotle agreed with this opinion over 2,300 years ago, and little seems to have changed since the first toga party.

But what is happiness, this glittering prize we humans so long for? We often take it for granted as an end in itself, but happiness can be difficult to explain, hard to achieve and perhaps impossible to hold on to. For me, happiness is a state of being: enjoyment of everything life offers. It allows for making the most of life’s difficulties and celebrating life’s pleasures. Although defining happiness could require an entire dictionary, we can understand happiness through the body’s essential intelligences: as a sensual pleasure, a feeling, an attitude, a behavior, and a vibration.

Happiness at the physical layer of intelligence simply means the enjoyment of our bodily pleasures. Imagine these sensations: touching silk fabric, tasting a crisp apple, smelling a spring bouquet of flowers, dancing at a party, or listening to a favorite piece of music. Just listing these activities triggers positive emotions. Satisfying our bodily pleasures is the source of an immediate, delicious, sensual happiness, but alas, such responses are fleeting and cannot deliver long-lasting contentment. Martin Seligman, in Authentic Happiness, says, “Neurons are wired to respond to novel events.” The neurons—and the brain itself at this layer of intelligence—seek a constant stream of new and varied pleasures.

Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Body Mind Spirit Perspective

In all tests of character, when two viewpoints are pitted against one another, in the final analysis the thing that will strike you the most, is not who was right or wrong, strong or weak, wise or foolish.... but who would go to the greatest lengths in considering the other's perspective. Don't you agree?

The Universe/ Mike Dooley

P.S. Well, yeah, I did mean the final, final analysis, but you’ll see, that one really counts big.

Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Spiritual IQ and Body Mind Spirit Integration

Spiritual IQ: This fifth intelligence quotient embraces the mysterious life force, the subtle knowledge of the divine and man’s relation to that wisdom. In the Hindu chakra system this life energy is called prana; to the Chinese it is chi, and for Westerners it is the auric field: all descriptions of the magical, spiritual connection between humans and something greater than themselves.

A shining example of spiritual brilliance is the 13th Century Sufi Jalal-ud-Din Rumi, still revered today as a man completely attuned to the subtleties of the spirit and the joyous recognition of those connections with another.

Rumi was born into a distinguished family on September 30, 1207, in Balkh, now part of Afghanistan. Torn by the chaos of the Christian Crusades, threats to the Ottoman Empire and the usual doses of graft and corruption, the early 13th Century was a period of great turmoil. Fleeing the Mongol armies of Genghis Khan when young Rumi was twelve, he and his family wandered for ten years over Persia, Arabia and Asia Minor.

The boy learned the ways of a Sufi, living with a master until he had learned what each man could impart and then traveling on to the next. By the year 1244 Rumi had succeeded his esteemed father as a great scholar and head of a college. He excelled in mathematics, physics, law, astronomy, Arabic and Persian language and grammar, Koranic studies, jurisprudence, music and poetry. His knowledge of Sufi ways gave him leadership over many disciples. And he could have spent the rest of his life secure in his position and the fame and adulation it generated.

But that was not to be. In December 1244, Rumi met Shams-i-Tabriz, a wandering dervish and spiritual explorer—the “ultimate theological hippie,” according to Jean Houston in her book The Search for the Beloved. Rumi recognized in Shams the total sublimation of self into the spirit of the Divine, and he fell instantly in Love. Rumi described this Love as being burned, cooked, annihilated, yet he was ecstatic to have found one who so completely and intensely transformed him.
Shams, which means “sun,” was an itinerant mystic in his sixties when he met Rumi, a well-respected young scholar and head of the college in Konya, now part of Turkey. In The Way of Passion, author and Rumi scholar Andrew Harvey speculated that Shams had been totally enlightened and needed a disciple, a mouthpiece capable of receiving the burning immensity of his knowledge. Shams may have begged God to give him this man, this crucible for his fire, and offered his life to God in return.

Although several accounts of their meeting exist, Harvey preferred the one that had Rumi riding a donkey on his way to the bazaar, accompanied by his students on foot. Shams ran after him and, grabbing the bridle, asked quite madly whether the teacher thought Mohammed or the Sufi mystic Bayazid was the greater. Rumi answered conventionally that Mohammed was the Prophet, therefore the greater, but Shams demanded, “What is the meaning then of this? The Prophet said to God, ‘I have not known Thee as I should have,’ and Bayazid said, ‘Glory be to me. How high is my dignity’.” Rumi remembered that Mohammed had regretted not knowing the Sufi better—in other words, that the Prophet revered Bayazid, making him the more enlightened.
At this, Rumi supposedly fainted and fell off the donkey; when he regained consciousness, he took Shams’ hand and walked with him to a private cell at the college, where the two men communed in ecstatic harmony for forty days—Shams transmitting his knowledge of the divine with the intensity, violence and speed required of a man who knew he would die soon, and Rumi receiving all of that wisdom in his open heart.

Jealousy and hatred overcame Rumi’s disciples, however, prompting Shams to leave abruptly. Rumi went insane with grief, seeking his Beloved everywhere. After months of searching, he learned Shams was in Damascus, and he sent his second son, Sultan Walad, to bring him back. Their reunion was as joyous as the first meeting, and they sang and danced and shared the divine mysteries. Again the disciples’ jealousy outran their love for Rumi, and in December 1247 they probably murdered the mystic. He was never seen again.

Rumi once more descended into madness, weeping and whirling to cope with his grief. The whirling, attributed to Rumi and practiced by Sufi dervishes thereafter, was thought to bring space and time into the center of God’s being. Rumi also wrote some of the world’s most beautiful poetry in an effort to heal his pain. Eventually, however, Rumi understood that Shams had imparted all he had, and that Rumi, cleansed in the fire of his agony and loss, had been redeemed in the Light of Divine Love.

Rumi wrote:

Love is an infinite Sea whose skies are a bubble of foam.
. . . Without Love, nothing in the world
would have life.
. . . Every single atom is drunk on this
Perfection and runs toward It
And what does this running secretly say
but “Glory be to God.”

Every one of us, in our heart of hearts, may suffer the excruciating pain of abandonment—the searing separation from God—that comes from our often feeble attempts at enlightenment. The redemption of Jalal-ud-Din Rumi reminds us that peaking our spiritual intelligence soothes our anxieties and helps bridge the chasm of separation. Such is the goal of every seeker of truth.


Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Moral IQ in Body Mind Spirit Integration

Moral IQ:

The fourth essential intelligence represents discernment, our ability to distinguish right from wrong and make the correct choice based on more than just facts. This level of intelligence reflects our values, our behaviors, our purpose in life and how we recognize the rights and worth of others. Moral intelligence is characterized by the growth from selfish concern for “me” to interest in others and ultimately caring for everyone. The “little voice” of our conscience speaks from this IQ as well.

Sometimes that voice calls out so loudly that one cannot stifle it with the noise of the status quo. For Mel White, an evangelical Christian pastor, seminary professor, author and ghostwriter for prominent evangelists like Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, Oliver North and Pat Robertson, his conscience kept telling him that hiding his homosexuality in the fundamentalist closet was wrong.

So when White was challenged to speak out against Christian fundamentalist ideas about gays; to live openly as a gay man in front of his former evangelical friends and co-workers; to speak to hostile audiences; to fast or protest on the steps of the Capitol or at the gates of the White House—he accepted the mission.

In 2002, White and his partner of 20 years, Gary Nixon, leased a house across the street from Jerry Falwell’s church, Thomas Street Baptist, in Lynchburg, Virginia. Every Sunday White and Nixon brought gay and lesbian worshippers to services so that members of the congregation met them on a person-to-person basis.

Falwell doesn’t like it (he and White are not close friends anymore), but White’s efforts are slowly bearing fruit. The movement, called Soulforce and boasting chapters in over twenty communities, draws on the principles of love and civil disobedience put forth by Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi and executed by Martin Luther King Jr. White sees his goal as not just acceptance for the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender community, but permission for its members to seek justice for themselves. As Mark Twain once remarked, “Of going along to get along, maintaining silence that obscures the truth . . . is timid—and shabby.”

Mel White probably doesn’t consider himself a hero, but sacrificing his comfortable position for what he knew was right took radical courage. His honesty reminds us that recognizing one’s moral intelligence is an essential guidepost on the path to development of body and soul.

Be Brilliant.
Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder of www.ThroughYourBody.com and author of Body Brilliance:Mastering Your Five VitalIntelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance MovieDedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Monday, September 24, 2007

Mental IQ in Body Mind Spirit Integration

The Mental. Mental intelligence refers, plainly enough, to the thinking mind or cognition, but also includes the functions of the subconscious mind and the inspirations of the super-conscious mind. This third essential intelligence encompasses the nerves and the brain, whose mysterious, amazing functions facilitate communication, memory and information retrieval. Mental consciousness also includes the search for knowledge and the development of one’s education.

Considered the greatest thinker and scientist of the 20th Century—and maybe for all time—Albert Einstein represented the development of a highly refined mental intelligence tempered by his modest, unassuming personality and spiritual humility. For Einstein, scientific endeavor only heightened what he called true art: the search for the mysterious.

Einstein (1879-1955) was born in the German city of Ulm. His parents, Hermann and Pauline, were non-observant Jews that placed their son in a Catholic elementary school. Young Albert was often tagged a slow learner, but rumors of his failure at math are untrue. At age five, Hermann gave his son a compass, and Einstein credited his fascination with the unseen “something” that controlled the needle as one of the revelatory experiences of his life. He dropped out of school before graduation, at odds with the European educational practice of rote memorization, but finished in Switzerland a year later.

In 1896, Einstein entered the University of Zurich, where he met a young Serbian woman named Mileva Maric, the only woman at the university that year to pursue the same program as Einstein. He described her as his equal. They became lovers and had a daughter, Lieserl, in January 1902. Einstein relinquished his German citizenship in 1896 and became a Swiss citizen in 1901. Albert and Mileva married in 1903; Mileva bore two sons—Hans Albert (1904) and Eduard (1910). Unable to find a teaching post after graduation, Einstein became an assistant technical examiner at the Swiss Patent Office.

Einstein described 1905 as his “miracle year,” publishing four articles that became the foundation of modern physics. The first, on the photoelectric effect, proved the existence of photons and confirmed scientist Max Planck’s theory of quantum energy. The second explored Brownian motion and provided empirical proof of the existence of atoms, converting even the most ardent “anti-atomists.”

The third paper, “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” introduced the world to Einstein’s theory of relativity. Einstein’s lectures at the Prussian Academy of Sciences in 1915 on relativity theory concluded with his replacement of Newton’s law of gravity: no longer was gravity a force but a function of the curvature of space and time. The British scientist Arthur Eddington confirmed Einstein’s theory in 1919 when Eddington measured how much the light emanating from a star was bent by the sun’s gravity when it passed close to the sun, an effect called gravitational lensing. When The New York Times published the results of Eddington’s experiments, Einstein’s fame was assured.

The fourth paper, “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon its Energy Content?”, outlined Einstein’s famous equation: E = mc², or the energy of a body at rest equals its mass times the square of the speed of light. Any of these papers could have earned Einstein a Nobel Prize in physics, but the committee recognized Einstein with a Nobel in 1921 specifically for his work on the photoelectric effect—no doubt because Einstein’s other theories were as yet too controversial.

Einstein divorced Mileva in 1919 and married his first cousin Elsa. He returned to teach in Berlin, reclaiming his German citizenship, but fled the Nazis and emigrated to America in 1933. Einstein taught at Princeton University until his death, becoming an American citizen in 1940 (he kept his Swiss citizenship, however), where he continued to publish papers and push the envelope of accepted physical theory.

Those who knew Einstein described him as kind, friendly and modest. His wild, white hair, moth-eaten sweaters and ability to concentrate solely on his thoughts are iconic with the absent-minded professor. Politically Einstein was a social democrat, believing in a world economy and government with emphasis on human rights. Although he petitioned President Franklin Roosevelt to consider the development of an atomic bomb before the Nazis did, he embraced pacifism and opposed nuclear testing and armament.

Einstein supported Zionism and other Jewish causes and was invited to be the second president of the new state of Israel: the only American offered a position as a foreign head of state. Nevertheless, he did not observe the religiosities of Judaism but instead believed in a great mysterious spirituality that he felt should surround all men, particularly those who sought scientific proof.

In an essay reprinted in 1931, Einstein mused:

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds—it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity; in this sense alone, I am a deeply religious man.

Although we remember Einstein for his astounding theories and proofs, he did not let his mental intelligence eclipse his sense of wonder about the depth of man’s incapacity to know everything. His ability to concentrate prevented his conscious mind from succumbing to irrelevant chatter and foolish opinion. Most of us may never achieve Einstein’s brilliance, but we can refine our cognitive abilities and turn our sharpened talents to better understanding the mysteries of ourselves and of the universe.

Be Brilliant.
Love your way, ad
Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Whisper Buddha

40 Mile-an-Hour Greyhound, Prize Winning Athlete, and Canine Incarnation of Buddha Himself, Dies in Houston, Texas

Whisper, my fourteen-year-old friend and canine-other for the last nine years, died this morning in my hands.

I’m reminded, as I often am when an animal friend dies, of a story by a small town vet:
Belker was a ten year old Blue Heeler, much loved by his owners and their four year old son. Belker had cancer and there was no miracle to save him. The local vet made arrangements to come to their home and euthanize Belker.

The owners wanted Shane, their son, to witness putting Belker to sleep. Maybe he could learn something.

Shane seemed so calm, petting the old dog for the last time, that they wondered if he understood what was going on. Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away. The little boy seemed to accept Belker’s death without any difficulty or confusion. They sat together for awhile, wondering aloud about the sad fact that animal lives are shorter than human lives.
Shane, who had been listening quietly piped up, "I know why."

Startled, they all turned to him. What came out of his mouth next stunned them – They’d never heard a more comforting explanation.

Shane said, "Everybody is born so that they can learn how to live a good life - like loving everybody and being nice, right?" The four-year-old continued, "Well, animals already know how to do that, so they don’t have to stay as long."

Whisper had mastered “Loving everybody and being nice” long before I met him. He was his name sake, quiet as a Whisper. I can count on two hands the times I heard him bark. But he could give a look that spoke a thousand barks, and launched more than one trip to the dog house for me. He was dignity incarnate, a bit timid, and wise beyond knowing. I and everyone who knew him--loved him.

The voice told me to adopt a greyhound. I sometimes get messages inside my head. Shocked at the directive to adopt a dog (at the time I thought of my self as a cat person), I found myself at Greyhound Pets of America Houston looking for a retired racer. I’d already seen several beautiful dogs I liked, when I asked to meet five-year-old Whisper. Immediately out of his cage--he ran lickety-split down the long row of the kennels to throw his lanky black body up to look out a port-hole window. A minute later he turned and ran full speed right at me; hurled his front paws to my shoulders and looked me in the eye. I knew Whisper was a sign from the gods and, that day, we became a family.

During our long walks up and down prestigious North and South Boulevards, people stopped to admire his elegant good looks: dark black fur with a blazing white star on his chest, short white socks on his feet, and a soft white tip to his whipping long tail. In winter we’d tromp through Herman Park, where he strutted-his-stuff in a black fleece jacket and long black leash. Whisper stopped traffic everywhere we went.

He was his most handsome when he met a new dog friend. He’d stand stock still, chest held high. His long ears pointing straight up and his equally long tail arching back and up. What a striking, handsome dog he was.

Whisper was soon going to work with me. He’d curl up on his bed in the corner of my massage room. Some clients came to see him as much as me. He was so serene, still and quiet. I called him my Buddha dog. Peace just seemed to flow from him. When I was agitated, he’d nuzzle me with his cold long snout and remind me to pet him…and to chill.

Whisper’s greatest gift to me was his knack for just being. When I took the time to study him I was impressed by how easy it was for him to BE his true self. A dog that walked, ran, and slept when he wanted to; a friend who showed kindness and care when I needed it most; a being who demanded I tear my focus away from my selfish-self and pay attention to something, anything else—HIM, usually. He taught me responsibility—the basic art of doing what needed to be done. Walk him. Feed him. Love him. Even when my ego preferred to indulge my self-absorption, Whisper taught me, “It’s not all about me. It’s about all of us, other people, our animal friends, and the sky/earth song around us.”

My first Koan, the Japanese Zen cosmic riddle, asks, “Does a dog have Buddha nature?” My mind will never grasp the answer. But my Big Heart just has to remember Whisper, a master of being his true/unique self, to know, “Yes!” Dogs, as all things, have Buddha nature. Being (Wu) is being. It’s everywhere I am conscious. Every time I’m BEING my true self, I’m Whisper, I’m Big Mind, I’m Buddha nature.

Whisper’s legs had gotten shaky and his hips pretty weak these last few years. He’d already lived a couple of years past the life expectancy for a big dog and a retired racer. I like to think all those years of sleeping at the foot of my massage table, or curled up next to me while we meditated, kept him healthy and whole.

Yesterday he slipped in the kitchen and he couldn’t get up. His back legs wouldn’t hold him. Jim, my husband, and I had to carry him outside. He’d walk a few tottering steps, stop, and cautiously move on, or fall down…there was no way to know. I spent a lot of the night (and morning) on the floor next to him. I held him, petted him, and thanked him for all the many gifts of friendship he’d given me.

At the vet’s Whisper seemed serene to his fate. There was nothing else to be done for him. Leg shaved and the port in place he rested, alert, head up, ears at attention, eyes wise and comforting. I held his long snout in my palms as Dr. Michelle pumped the gentle death into his vein. He gave us each a last look, closed his eyes, and died. Moments later I let his head rest on the pallet. In death he looked elegant, as always; he had a gorgeous way of curling up, his long body a graceful line, his ears surprisingly still at attention.

Whisper had one more gift for me. I felt the shell I’ve carefully constructed to protect my Big Heart, breaking open—wide open. As I surrendered to the immensity of our friendship together, I cried. I trusted the pain I felt just as I trusted my opening heart.

He was true and giving, as always, up to his very end. Thank you, Whisper, my teacher, my Buddha friend.

Love your way, ad
Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/
Watch the Body Brilliance Movie
Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Emotional IQ and Body Mind Spirit Integration

Emotional intelligence principally covers the body’s systemic responses, like circulation, respiration, digestion, reproduction and elimination. Unconscious nerve reactions like pain or pleasure fall into this category as well, as do the basic emotions of anger, sexual arousal and the “fight or flight” reflex.

Actualizing emotional intelligence also encompasses what Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, defines as “emotional brilliance”: the development of our own emotional self coupled with the ability to empathize and redirect someone else’s emotions. Rage is especially difficult to control; even trained hostage negotiators cannot say with certainty what tips an angry gunman to surrender or to self-destruct. As evidence of such skill, Richard Strozzi Heckler, cofounder of the Lomi School, recounts this story from his friend Terry Dobson, who lived in Tokyo during the 1950s:
Dobson was one of the first Americans to learn aikido, an ancient Japanese martial art devoted solely to self defense. While riding the subway one afternoon, a large, aggressive and very drunk man got on the train. Staggering and cursing, he swung at a woman holding a baby, sending her sprawling, and frightened the remaining passengers. Dobson stood up to take on the man, believing this was definitely a case of self defense, but stopped when the drunk decided to teach the “foreigner some Japanese manners.” The drunk was about to slug Dobson when someone yelled “Hey!” in a cheery voice.

Spinning around to see who called him, the drunk found a small man in a kimono, probably in his seventies, smiling at him. He waved the drunk to come sit with him, asking what the man had been drinking. The drunk rudely answered, “Sake, and it’s none of your business,” but the old gentleman didn’t let on and began extolling the virtues of sake and how he and his wife enjoyed opening a bottle in their garden. He rambled on about his garden and the persimmon tree there until the drunk’s anger began to recede. The drunk admitted that he, too, liked persimmons, and when the old man commented that his new companion’s wife was probably lovely as well, the man revealed that his wife had died.

When Dobson left the subway, the formerly violent drunk had his head in the old gentleman’s lap, sobbing about his late wife, his lost job and his overwhelming shame. Using no force or even harsh words, the old Japanese gentleman had completely diffused the situation by simply “being there” for the other man, giving the drunk his sympathy and undivided attention. Such skill exemplifies human connection and true emotional brilliance.

Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Friday, September 21, 2007

Physical IQ in Body Mind Spirit

ROME, Italy: On September 7, 1960, Wilma Rudolph made Olympic history by becoming the first woman, not to mention the first African-American woman, to win three gold medals. Her accomplishments in track and field—taking first place in both the 100-meter and 200-meter dash and in the 4x100 relay—opened the door for women and girls in previously all-male track and field events. Graceful, fast and slender, the Italian press called her La Gazzella—the gazelle.
“Gazelle” would not have been young Wilma’s nickname, however. Born in segregated Clarksville, Tennessee, on June 23, 1940, the twentieth of twenty-two children, she weighed just four-and-a-half pounds. Her parents were hardworking but quite poor. Wilma’s mother nursed her sickly child through the measles, chicken pox, double pneumonia and scarlet fever.

When Wilma’s left foot and leg drew up and turned in, the diagnosis of polio seemed final. Doctors gave the little girl no hope of ever walking without braces or crutches, if at all.

But her mother didn’t accept the doctors’ opinions. Twice a week for two years she drove Wilma the fifty miles to Nashville for treatment at Meharry Hospital, part of Fisk University, a black college. The doctors showed Mrs. Rudolph how to exercise Wilma’s muscles, and she in turn demonstrated the therapies to other family members. Everyone helped, and by age eight Wilma was not only walking unaided but playing basketball in the backyard.

Wilma joined her junior-high basketball team, but the coach didn’t put her in a single game. By her sophomore year in high school Wilma started as guard. Her performance caught the attention of Ed Temple, coach of the Tennessee State University Tigerbells, who offered her a full scholarship when she graduated. Besides guiding the basketball team to a championship Wilma also excelled at track and field, earning a spot in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, where the sixteen-year-old brought home a bronze medal in the 4x4 relay.

But it was her outstanding accomplishments in Rome that brought Rudolph fame and influence. When her hometown of Clarksville wanted to have a parade in her honor, Rudolph insisted that the celebration be open to whites and blacks, not just one or the other as was customary; the parade and dinner following were the first integrated events in Clarksville. Rudolph returned to Tennessee State and earned her B.A. in education in 1963. She was a lifelong advocate of racial and gender equality. Rudolph died on November 12, 1994, of brain cancer at age fifty-four.

Rudolph’s successful pursuit of her athletic goals, coupled with her mother’s fierce determination, serve as a testament to the body’s capacity for greatness when the power of physical energy is in harmony with one’s emotional and spiritual centers. Such alignment allows not only health and well-being but the knowledge that we can count on our bodies as a foundation for further development. In Wilma Rudolph’s case, developing her physical capabilities probably saved her life.

These levels of energy represent the layers of our “intelligences,” or the Essential IQs. According to Howard Gardner in his book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, humans do not have just mental intelligence—the ability for thinking and learning—but emotional, physical and spiritual intelligences: the potential for being fit, for seeing themselves through others’ eyes, for the journey toward contentment and enlightenment. I would add moral intelligence to Gardner’s list: a level of intelligence that enables not only understanding of another’s pain but the desire for justice.

The Tantric philosophy of India describes five distinct koshas, or layers of consciousness, weaving together to create our human lives. The sports psychologists Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz point out the value of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy in their book The Power of Full Engagement, joining Gardner in a contemporary explanation of what the yogis explained in their ancient texts: that each of us, although unique, is a bundle of intelligences that can be felt, measured and fully experienced.

I’ve distilled these principles into the Five Essential Intelligence Quotients. These five IQs—physical, emotional, mental, moral and spiritual—represent the sum total of energized living. These layers of intelligence are nested one within the other—the physical and densest layer holding the others. Each of them is a layer of consciousness, a field of quantum energy, a capacity for growth, and an often-unrealized potential. And although few of us have succeeded in maximizing even one, much less all, of our essential IQs, it’s never too late.

So just what are the five intelligence quotients anyway?

1. The Physical. Physical intelligence controls our body’s ability to stand upright, walk, turn, twist, bend and, as in Wilma Rudolph’s triumph, to run. The body’s densest layer of intelligence, it is the body we see: bones, muscles, tendons, joints, and limbs—in other words, our structures, our gross anatomy.

In Service, Alan Davidson

Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Body Brilliance: Body Mind Spirit Training

A life lived in fear is a life half lived.
Strictly Ballroom

HOUSTON, Summer 1987: A silver film filtered the glare of the grueling Houston sun as I stared out at busy Richmond Avenue. Like a mirror, the reflective glass revealed my blue eyes and my six-foot, four-inch frame, tanned and fit from my years at the landscaping company, curled into an uncomfortable chair. But my eyes didn’t linger on my reflection long, darting nervously around the room, as opposed to my foot tapping the floor and my hands gripping the arms of the chair.

As I sat and waited at The Montrose Clinic for the results of an HIV-AIDS test, I sensed the very walls around me thrumming with fear: the fear of all the other men and women who waited here for the news that they might be sick, that they might die. Once I understood that a virus caused AIDS I assumed I too would die of it one day. And why not: I tended bar through the wildest nights, and until recently injected speed directly into my veins.

The past ten years had disappeared in a fog of drugs, booze, and parties. My grandmother remembered me as a quiet and polite child, and I was still shy when I entered El Centro Junior College in downtown Dallas during the late 1970s. College introduced me to psychology, philosophy and the human potential movement, and I loved what I heard. I dropped premed in favor of psychology. I also experimented with methamphetamines: “uppers” or “speed.” Certain I had life figured out, I danced away from the chairmanship of the student council, from selection as a prominent student of the year, and a potential scholarship to Southern Methodist University, eventually dropping out entirely to deal drugs.

Drugs and alcohol reduced my shyness. For the first time I felt I “belonged,” and all it took was a few hits of speed to join the “in” crowd. I failed miserably as a drug dealer, giving away more crystal meth than I sold, but I had fun, laughs and good times.

My popularity soared when I moved to Houston and became bartender to the fabulous. Everyone knew me; I was famous (or infamous). I was also a mess. I caught hepatitis B at a cocaine “shooting party” and shared needles with friends who had already died from AIDS. Finally, in early 1987 I hit rock bottom. Unable to trust the love of friends and family, I succumbed to self-imposed isolation and became desperate with fear and loneliness. I knew I needed help or I would kill myself.

Fortunately, my friend Gary D. took me to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and the hope I heard there gave me the courage to make some changes in my own life. I began life anew, clean and sober. The next step was facing the truth about my HIV status. My roommate at the time, Dr. Wayne, kept assuring me that I seemed too healthy to be HIV positive, and so I finally surrendered to a test. Hoping against all odds to hear good news, I sat anxiously in the clinic and waited, looking out the window.

Then, a miracle. Despite all the bad choices I’d made, I am HIV negative. Stammering my thanks to the counselor, my mind cleared as the anxiety drained from my body. Relief flooded my senses with a rush of energy. I felt ecstatic, bristling with energy. I knew I experienced a miracle, to be healthy in the face of so much sickness and death—I’d been given a reprieve from the executioner. I walked into the Houston sunlight not noticing the scorching heat.

Many of us have had these moments of crisis, instances in which a split second determines the course of our lives: waiting for the results of a biopsy, the fracturing news of divorce, the cold certainty of death, selection for a favored job, a hair’s breadth from termination. The “coulda, woulda, shouldas” crowd in to remind us of our choices. In these moments we are naked, vulnerable to absolute truth. Blessedly, not all of us have faced the executioner as I have. But life is a choice. Day in and day out we are pelted with options, some of them harsh, each with its own consequences. So I left The Montrose Clinic that day knowing that Mystery had placed her hand on me. That the gifts I’d been given in this life should no longer be squandered. The choice offered me was to live, to use my knack for talking and writing and healing to make a difference in my life and my world. I have felt that fierce burning of purpose ever since.

Flash forward a few months: I was waiting impatiently at the information desk of Whole Foods Market, an organic grocery store. To pass the time I picked up a brochure for a local massage school. I read about the benefits of massage and a career in helping other people. As I stood there the Voice from deep within me said, “You can do this.” I was surprised at the Voice’s clarity. As a child I knew things before they happened. I often felt and understood things that other people didn’t seem to notice. As I grew up, the more I trusted and followed my hunches, and the more I relied on them for guidance. Eventually my intuition evolved into a voice deep in my mind, encouraging me to overcome my doubts and believe in my capabilities.

Sobriety agreed with me. The dull fog I lived in for so many years lifted. My original plan was to return to college and finish my undergraduate degree in psychology, then obtain a Master’s in social work and start a counseling practice. Yet here I stood in the grocery store, hearing the Voice and knowing my life had taken a new twist.

After checking out the local massage scene I enrolled at the Winters School. Over the next six months Nancy Winters and her friends, Joe Lindley, Debbie Starrett, Don La Guarta, Pete Lidvall and Dr. Liang, introduced me to the wonderful world of massage. For them massage was not just therapeutic touch, it was a spiritual practice. I explored the place where my body (long ignored), my mind (long indulged), my feelings (long buried), and my spirit (long denied) were interconnected. I experienced how touch called forth forgotten memories and soothed my mind, so that my body could heal and my heart could open. As my mind relaxed I began to unlock the shackles of fear that confined my life. Through massage therapy I learned how to awaken my body and call forth all the dormant energies at the center of my life, how to discipline my mind, to express and acknowledge my emotions—in brief, how to caress my spirit and let it soar.

Our yearning for the answers to questions like, “Who am I? What is the meaning of life? How can I be happy? What’s my life purpose?” (or as the song asks, “What’s it all about, Alfie?”) calls us to explore and seek the heart of our relationships, to understand the mystical experience of truth. We are all taking that journey together, and occasionally our paths cross. Simply by reading this book you have signaled your willingness to stretch and reach for happiness and healing. I hope I can reinforce that resolve by encouraging you to move your body and thereby hear your own inner voice, for the best teachings in the world are useless without action.

We are often victims of our conflicting desires, and how we reconcile those desires defines the path of our happiness. For instance, I have always believed in monogamous relationships, but once I lived with a man who believed in open marriages. It was never about who was right or wrong, but what was important to me. On the one hand I wanted a life with him, but such a life went against my convictions. After much struggle I chose the way that was true for me, realizing that my deepest beliefs were more important than any of the other gifts we shared.

Fear no longer paralyzes me but instead serves as a warning signal that I have a choice. I wrote Body Brilliance as a testament to love and healing: that by sharing the story of my journey to overcome fear and pain I could offer you the exercises and practices that continue to inspire and sustain me. I sincerely hope that they will give you the courage to embrace a fuller, richer and happier life of your own.

Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Make Your Body Mind Spirit Meditation Easy and Enjoyable

What if you had a tool that made it much easier for you to meditate on a regular basis?
We know that meditation can help us to reduce our stress, calm our minds, relax our bodies, and even increase our developmental progress. With all of these benefits available to us, why don’t most of us meditate every day? Well, if you are at all like me, you either feel that you don’t have time or it’s just hard to motivate yourself even when you do.

Before I tell you about this easier way to meditate, I’d like to talk briefly about how it works. As we meditate, we are accessing an expanded internal state (in the upper left quadrant). This state has corresponding activity in our brains that can be measured (in the upper right quadrant). There has been much research conducted on long time meditators, where specific brain wave patterns have been correlated to states of deep meditation.

Based on this research, an audio technology has been created that can effectively induce these same brain wave patterns of experienced meditators, in anyone using it. So if you stimulate these same patterns in your brain (in the upper right quadrant), you can access these same deep states in your consciousness (in the upper left quadrant). Pretty cool!

This revolutionary tool is called Holosync. I first came across it when Fred Kofman wanted us to use it for meditation practice during our inaugural seminars at Integral Institute. I, along with many of our seminar participants, got hooked by how easy it was to meditate while listening to Holosync.

And not only is it extremely helpful for beginning meditators, even very experienced practitioners find it useful. Here’s what Genpo Roshi, the creator of the Big Mind process, has to say about it:
“When Bill Harris first sent me Holosync, I loved it. In fact, I found it to be the same as sitting in Big Mind/Big Heart. Then I found that many of my students were already using Holosync, including Diane Hamilton and her husband, Michael Zimmerman, and were also big fans. Holosync and Big Mind compliment each other perfectly. I highly recommend Holosync, whether you're a beginner or have been meditated for 30 years.” Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi
If it’s good enough for a Zen master, it’s good enough for me…

As part of our Integral Life Practice program, we recommend engaging in the four core modules: Body, Mind, Spirit, & Shadow. Within the Spirit module, we particularly recommend the practice of meditation because of its many benefits. In fact, it is the only practice demonstrated to significantly accelerate growth through stages of development.

And even with the clear value of establishing a regular meditation practice, it can still be one of the most difficult practices to maintain. So why not make it easier and do it more often?
I don’t use Holosync every time I meditate, but I find that it is a great tool to help me keep a regular practice. When I am particularly busy and my mind is racing, it makes it much easier to settle into a meditative state. I even use it when I need to focus or be creative at work - like right now, as I’m writing this.

Another thing is that since it makes it easier to meditate, I find that I have more time for it. Isn’t that interesting how we find the time to do the things we enjoy?
Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Monday, September 17, 2007

Body Mind Spirit “This Is How to Do It.”

The Peaceful Warrior’s Way. Body Mind Spirit “This Is How to Do It.”

with Dan Millman

Many of us have been told about the spiritual life, but how do we begin to actually live it? Author Dan Millman has devoted his writing career to exploring this very question. Here he shares his own personal story behind his impulse to develop a "ground-up" approach to daily life, a wonderful reminder of how simple and practical an Integral Life Practice can be....
Dan Millman is the best-selling author of The Way of the Peaceful Warrior—now a major motion-picture starring Nick Nolte, Scott Mechlowicz, and Amy Smart—and 12 other books, published in up to 29 languages. Ken Wilber is the founder of Integral Institute and is widely regarded as the leader of the Integral movement, explored in detail in his own 25 books, which share the same kind of worldwide readership as Dan’s work.

Many teachers tell you about the spiritual life, but Dan Millman shows you how to do it, in your own life, day-to-day—and how you can start right now. Many of us are familiar with Dan's first book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior—which has at least 2 million copies sold, and probably 6-7 million readers. But what many people often miss is that Dan has spent the twenty-five years since Peaceful Warrior’s publication writing 12 more books, and it is in these books where Dan lays out how you can actually take the inspiring impact of Peaceful Warrior and put it into practice. Do you want more than just inspiration? Do you really want to change your life? Dan will show you how, in literally twelve different ways.

As Dan mentions to Ken, “Spiritual life, by whatever name, begins on the ground, not up in the air.” Ken goes on to note that what Dan and Tony Robbins (another Integral Naked guest) share is an emphasis on taking physical action right now as a practical means to seeing actual change in one’s life. Further, Ken mentions that Dan is “one of the masters of mastery,” which can be seen not only in his incredible body of work, but in the fact that Dan was a world champion in trampoline gymnastics at only the age of 18. However, as Dan is quick to make clear, none of this would have happened without four radically different mentors he worked with over the course of two decades, who he refers to as The Professor, The Guru, The Warrior-Priest, and The Sage. Now, Dan is a full-blown mentor himself: accessible, practical, and always moving towards a more complete, comprehensive, and indeed integral approach to living a deeply awake life.

Why Integral?: The reason an Integral Approach is so valuable is because it explains why “taking physical action right now” actually works, and it explains it with more depth, and in more detail, than any other known system. The whole idea behind an Integral Approach is finding “the patterns that connect,” and one of the things that connects directly to the way Dan works is the Tantric traditions, and particularly Buddhist Tantra. As Ken elaborates, Vajrayana Buddhism understands the notion that, “get your body to do something, and your mind will follow.” But in Vajrayana (and also Vedanta Hinduism), you have at least three bodies, not just one: a gross body, a subtle body, and a causal body. Each body literally carries and supports the three major states of consciousness: waking (gross body), dreaming (subtle body), and deep sleep (causal body). And to round out the picture, there are also sheaths of consciousness, or actual developmental layers or structures of consciousness surrounding one’s primordial Self (and these also are supported by the gross, subtle, and causal bodies). But in the same way that you can choose to make your gross-physical body respond to practice and intentionality, you can make your subtle-energy body and causal-emptiness body respond as well—and if you change the body, you will change your state of consciousness. That’s the secret Tantra has known for ages, and that’s the secret—or rather, one of the secrets—that Dan is adapting and evolving for today’s world.
Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Sunday, September 16, 2007

A Well Intentioned Body Mind Spirit Pause

Katy was tired, her body exhausted and her mind scrambling to keep up. Refugees from Hurricane Katrina teemed through her doors like hordes at the gates. The world watched as walls of wind and water ravaged cities from New Orleans, Louisiana to Mobile, Alabama. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes and the worlds they knew. Some lost their lives. The Gulf Coast reeled from the one-two punch of the killer storm and the flooding of New Orleans. The whole country jolted as rescue efforts spiraled into mayhem and chaos. The botched response from the ill-prepared and devastated city governments and the achingly slow federal response shocked hearts across the globe.

Katy, the Director of The Montrose Clinic, was stretched thin in the best of times. Her clinic served Houston’s swelling indigent, uninsured, and gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender (GLBT) communities. For twenty-five-plus years, they’d provided sexually transmitted disease care and were at the vanguard of responding to the HIV epidemic. New Orleans’s gay, lesbian and HIV community swarmed to the clinic. Katy was in hyper-drive. Far under the radar screen of the relief efforts going on across town at the Astrodome, suddenly, patients at the Montrose Clinic, with no medical records, no homes and no funding, needed care, and more importantly, expensive medications. The clinic’s dedicated doctors and staff welcomed patients over the Labor Day holiday. Katy scrambled to find the money for their meds. Two weeks of this kind of pressure had taken its toll on Katy. She came through the door needing a spa get-a-way to unkink her body, soothe her anxious nerves, and calm her ricocheting mind. She was already looking forward to next month’s birthday gift to herself—a spa vacation to rest and relax.

These are extraordinary times. Spiritually committed people around the world are feeling the call to excellence in all avenues of life: loving and raising families, success and respect in business, human values and relationships, nurturing the natural world, and the realizing of truth in our everyday lives. We are called upon to stoke the brightest light of our selves and to shine brilliantly into the world, especially into the darkest crooks and crannies of our human condition. We are called to vision the very best that humanity has to offer and live fully into that vision. We spiritually minded, values held firmly in hand, stride into the day with our best intentions.

But the task of lifting the world from darkness can feel daunting. The specter of every ism known to society: sexism, racism, classism, poverty, hate, and greed can zap the energy, along with all the good intentions, from many a spiritual activist. The evening news is a steady stream of war, tragedy, horror, and violence. The environment and our precious resources are under siege; offered on the world market at discount prices to the highest bidder; a too high percentage of our human family scramble for enough food to eat or safe shelter to sleep the night. If life is a school than surely times like these are our mid-term exams.

Yet we are born for such times. We are called to fortify our truest selves, to marshal our physical, emotional, mental, moral and spiritual energies and direct them for all that is right and good in this world. And in the scope of all the work needing to be done, it’s easy to exhaust ourselves in the process; to run on fumes; or worse, flat out of gas. This is where practicing the simple “Power of the Well Intentioned Pause” comes in handy.

The very nature of energy is to expand and contract. It’s one of the few constants in the universe. The stars and their moons rise and set, waves of water crest and fall, electricity pulses, hearts contract and then pulse, lungs rise and fall, orgasms come and go. Energy may be constant but it oscillates. The energy keys in our bodies are the same.

Physically we have times of effort and times of rest and sleep. Emotionally we balance our sense of individuality and our need to connect with the people around us. We can be mentally muddled and confused or focused and clear. We can pursue lives and ideals we don’t truly want for ourselves or we can live our deepest values in the world. Spiritually we can remain dormant or we can sparkle and thrive. There is a fine line between efficiency and burnout. The fulcrum that makes the difference is respecting your body’s need for pause and rest. This simple directive sounds, well too simple. But in these times of over stimulation, hyperactivity and multi-tasking, our bodies consume tremendous amounts of energy that we simply must restore. If we are to continue to thrive we must learn to balance performance with pause.

A prime example comes from the laboratory of pro sports players. For thirty years sports psychologists Jim Loeher and Tony Schwartz have helped professional athletes define what it takes to succeed at the most competitive levels under the highest pressures. Beginning their work with tennis pros, Loeher set out to determine what separated the top-ranked stars from the rest of the pack. He was frustrated during his studies. He couldn’t separate much difference between the peak performers and the other players during points: their strokes, speed and strength where often similar. He discovered the key difference when he focused on what the players did between the points, not during the points. The topped ranked players, each and everyone, had a personal ritual for calming their breath and heart rate, sharply focusing their attention, and preparing for the next point. These rituals might last only ninety seconds between points, but practiced often were highly effective. It gave the players the extra stamina and focus to leap ahead of the pack.

The importance of a “work-rest” ratio was first introduced by Flavius Philostratus almost two-thousand years ago. Flavius, a trainer of Greek Olympic athletes, understood that after intense training, his athletes needed time to rest and recover their energy. Modern science calls this “compensation. As Jim Loeher states in his book The Power of Full Engagement:
After a period of activity, the body must replenish fundamental biochemical sources of energy…Increase the intensity of the training or performance demand, and it is necessary to commensurately increase the amount of energy renewal. Fail to do so and the athlete will experience a measurable deterioration in performance….Balancing stress and recovery is critical not just in competitive sports, but in managing energy in all facets of our lives.

“A well intentioned pause” is an extension of Loeher’s discovery with tennis players. A strategic pause becomes a practice for everyday life. It is simply remembering, on a regular and consistent basis throughout the day to completely unplug from the all-consuming tasks at hand: a chaotic workday fraught with calls, meetings, and deadlines; demanding children, navigating the stresses of family and relationships; driving in traffic; balancing the demands of personal life and community service, or fighting for social justice.

It is our focused intention that sets this kind of pause apart. The power of our intention is source of tremendous energy in, and of itself. When I turn my intention to rest, restore and refuel my energy; when I turn my intention to calm and soothe my feelings and mind, life naturally responds. Possible pauses can be just about anything that unplug us from the consuming thoughts of our day and refuel our energies. Anything you consciously do to disconnect from the intensity of your day and nourish your energy will make a big difference. They include:
a few minutes of breathing or meditation, a set of stretches, sit-ups, or push-ups going to the gym,a dance, yoga, or aerobics class,reading a juicy novel, a phone call to an inspiring friend or a loving family member, a walk outdoors in nice weather is mighty helpful, a nap, savoring a healthy meal.

A well intentioned pause can last ninety seconds, ten minutes, one hour, a day, or a week. Don’t underestimate the power of a deliberate ninety-second pause. Remember the tennis pro’s in Loeher’s study. Between points, they each had a ritual that rested their energy, calmed their breath and heart-rate, and then focused their attention to the next point. It was this consistent rest and recovery, brief as it was, that separated the top-ranked players from the rest of the pack. The key is to train your mind and body to relax and restore energy in concentrated pauses. Our bodies respond quickly when these ritual pauses become a well trained habit.
The ten to twenty minute pause is a good place to start for beginners. This is ample time to unplug from the demands consuming your attention, soothe frazzled nerves, and to refuel spent energy. Ten minutes of focused breathing is excellent. Train the people around you to respect your pauses. A ten minute pause interrupted by a phone call and an officemate poking their head through the door is barely a pause at all. You’d have to be as skilled as a tennis-pro to get much benefit from such a pause.

Your lunch break can be a strategic pause. Simply savor a healthy meal, sit by your self or with friends. The key is not to read or work—enjoy your food. Go to the gym, take a dance, yoga, or aerobics class that both challenges you and gives you pleasure. Take a walk outdoors in nice weather is good, reading a juicy novel, or a nap if you can (I take a ten to fifteen minute nap most every day). Find the pauses that work best for you, but take the time to stop. Do something that you enjoy. Pleasure refuels our energy tanks. Anything that feels like work or effort drains our fuel tanks.

A day long pause sounds easy enough, but how many of us really take a day off? In our hyper-drive world, it’s easy to cram two days worth of “home” work and repairs, seeing friends and family, shopping, and errands into the weekend. There’s little left over for fun and play. I love taking a day trip to the beach or to the Texas Hill Country. We pile the dogs into the Ford and head out of town. Another great pause is a romantic weekend away. What a gift to myself and to my lover to travel away from our world and just enjoy our time together, exploring some place together.

A week long pause can be more than a vacation. How many people come home from their vacations needing a vacation? I asked Deepak Chopra what he did to sustain the momentum of his life and teaching. To my surprise, in addition to service and charity work, working in a community of like minded people, and studying the world’s scriptures, he said, “Principally through meditative discipline… every 3 to 4 months, I go into a week of total silence where I have no communications with anyone, not even my family, not with phone or fax or a book or a magazine or a radio set or a television set; total silence for about 5 days to 7 days.”

I used to run myself ragged. My days started between 5 and 6 AM writing at the computer, shift to teaching yoga and Nia dance classes, and then I worked giving massages till 8:30 PM. I would come home exhausted with barely enough energy to eat and say hello to my husband. With my strategic pauses built into my day, I arrive home ready for dinner and a good conversation. I have the emotional energy to listen, share, and engage. And I’m happier and healthier for it (Jim likes it too).
Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com ,
author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs),
owner of Essential Touch

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Body Mind Spirit PRACTICES FOR THE 3RD CHAKRA:

The Hindi Squat—Dr. Stone writes, “This posture is ideal for the release of gases, constipation, excessive abdominal fat, and toning the walls of the abdomen by the muscular exertion and squeezing of the thighs.”

Relax, standing straight with the feet about hip’s width apart (or a little more for comfort). Relax the neck and allow the chin to gently drop to the chest. Slowly let gravity pull your head down towards the floor, one vertebra at a time. When you are bent over at the waist, gently rock front to back and side to side to relax the shoulders and neck. Pause and take a deep breath. Bend the knees and slowly drop into a squat. The feet should remain flat on the floor, pointing forwards for the best results. If this is not possible, you may use a small pillow under the heels until you master this posture. Bring your elbows to the inside of the knees. Bring your hands together in prayer position over the heart. The pressure on the knees will stretch them out. Rock gently from front and back and side to side. Relax and take a deep breath.

To stand back up, place your hands upon your knees. Get a sense of your tailbone pointing backwards. Press the tailbone up first as you come to standing. Pause, take a deep breath and notice the sensations of your body.

The Fire Breath—Sit comfortably cross-legged on the floor. The spine is straight, the body relaxed. This breath is done through both nostrils. One breath, or round, is a relaxed inhalation with a forced exhalation. A slow pace is 60 rounds per minute; a moderate pace is 120 rounds a minute; a rapid pace is 240 rounds a minute. If you are a beginner, stay with a slow breath. This breath over oxygenates the body, reduces carbon dioxide and encourages energy flow through the chakras. This is a very invigorating breath.

Aromatherapy Bath—
1 cup Dead Sea mineral salts
1 cup baking soda
½ cup apple cider vinegar
20 drops total of any of these essential oils: juniper, vetiver, rosemary, sage, lemon, clove, peppermint, spearmints.

All of these oils support self-esteem and self-confidence. They inspire making decisions and taking action. A word of caution: don’t use rosemary, peppermint or spearmint before bed as they are energizing oils.

Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Friday, September 14, 2007

Working Through the Body Mind Spirit:

The subtle energies of the body, Polarity Therapy,
Tantra and cultivating sexual energy

Empirical science has yet to prove the existence of the subtle anatomies. Yet the mystical traditions have articulated them for millennium. The Sepherot of the Kaballistic Tree of Life, the meridians of the Chinese acupuncture system and the chakras of the Ayurvedic system are examples. They all convey the knowledge of a subtle energy which they assert is the link between the spiritual realms and life as we know it. Each uses their unique language and concepts to describe the precipitation of the mind of God into energy and into physical manifestation. The Chinese call this is energy ‘chi’, ‘ki’ by the Japanese and ‘prana’ by the Hindus. The Kahunas of Hawaii call it ‘mana’; Christ called it ‘light’.

The system of Ayurvedic medicine has evolved over the past 5,000 years. It is based on the Hindu scriptural Veda’s, which are the world’s oldest documented spiritual writings. Ayurveda offers a highly specific description of the subtle anatomy. It recognizes five sheaths, or layers of energy through the body. They are described from the most dense to the most subtle. The first and outer most layer is the bones, muscle and skin. The next, more, subtle sheath is respiration. Next in subtlety is the sheath of cognition, associated with the nervous system and the thinking mind. Next is the sheath of discretion, which relates to our moral choices and their consequences. Most subtle of all is the chakra system; the interface between the cosmic vibrations of creation and the grosser anatomical systems of the physical body.

Chakra, from the Sanskrit, means ‘wheel of spinning light.’ The ancients taught there are seven chakras in the body. They are located just in front of and along the spinal column. These generators and reservoirs of energy are also areas of consciousness. The first five chakras are associated with an element of nature (earth, water, fire, air, or ether) and with one of the senses (smell, taste, sight, touch and hearing). All of the chakras are associated with a tonal quality, a numerical and alphabetical value, and a color. When the chakras are in tune the body, mind and spirit experience harmony. Charles and Caroline Muir offer an analogy:

Consider the chakras as the strings of a guitar. Each string vibrates at a different frequency and gives off a different note. Over time the strings may resonate sharp or flat, and they require tuning. When they are in tune, the sound the guitar produces is harmonious. Similarly, when the chakras are in tune, one achieves harmony.


· The Base chakra is found at the coccyx bone at the tip of the spine. It resonates with the earth element, the adrenal glands of the endocrine system and the sense of smell. It rules the organs of structure such as bones, muscles, and connective tissues as well as elimination. There is a correlation between the earth element and our need for structure and safety in the world.
· The second chakra is found at the sacrum. It resonates with the water element, the reproductive glands and the sense of taste. It rules the fluids of the body such as blood, lymph, sexual secretions and tears. It correlates to sexuality and all creative energies. There is an interesting link between the sense of taste and sexuality in this chakra. Mantak Chia, in his book Taoist Secrets of Love, states:

Many people confuse the hunger for food and sex as being similar biological desires that are both necessary for survival. Clearly they are connected, as many people feeling sexual frustration turn to food for gratification. An imbalance in ching (sex) energy ranks as a major cause of obesity---when you are sexually frustrated, food is the easiest substitute.

· The third chakra is found at the solar plexus. It resonates with the fire element, the Isle’s of Langerhan (which produce insulin in the pancreas) and the sense of sight. It rules the organs of digestion and metabolism. This chakra correlates to the assertion of and the abuse of power.
· The fourth chakra is found at the heart. This is the center for the Air element, the thymus gland and the sense of touch. The heart chakra rules respiration and immunity. With the arms it addresses how we bring the world to us and how we share ourselves with the world. It correlates to a sense of altruistic love in the world.
· The fifth chakra is found at the throat. It rules the Ether element, the thyroid and para-thyroid glands, the organs of speech and the sense of hearing. The throat chakra correlates to “speaking one’s truth” and to taking action based on that truth.

The last two chakras transcend the denser elements and senses. These are the subtlest energetic harmonics.
· The sixth chakra, often called the 3rd eye, is found between the eye brows. It relates to the 6th sense of psychic and paranormal experience. It is associated with the pituitary gland of the endocrine system and is the source of spiritual vision.
· The Crown Chakra is found at the top of the head and it relates to the pineal gland. This is the seat of mystical experience. It is the place where the mind releases all boundaries and concepts and experiences life in its full unity.


· There are a number of energy therapy systems such as Reiki and Therapeutic Touch. In my own journey I have found Polarity Therapy to be the most effective way to effect the chakra energy system. Polarity Therapy is the life’s work and teachings of Dr. Randolph Stone. Dr. Stone was a doctor of osteopathy, a doctor of naturopathy and a chiropractor. He would treat clients for symptoms and then notice that they returned with the same chronic pains and illnesses. As well trained as he was he felt he was missing something. His curiosity led him to study mystical healing modalities across the world. Richard Gordon describes Dr. Stone’s search:

In China and France he studied acupuncture and herbology. In the orient, he learned reflexology and other eastern massage techniques. In the course of his work, he stumbled across the ancient Spagyric art of healing as taught by the great Doctor Paracelsus von Hohenheim, who had studied in Arabia. This provided Dr. Stone with essential knowledge of subtle electromagnetic fields of the body. Over the course of sixty years, Dr. Stone integrated this wealth of knowledge into a system he named Polarity Therapy.

Dr. Stone realized that successful healing must take place on the energetic fields as well as the physical level. That’s why chronic pain and illness often return when treatments just address the physical symptoms. Polarity utilizes gentle touch, rocking and deep pressure point work to release blocked energy in the energy fields. Dr. Robert K. Hall, MD teaches it this way: the work calls forth the spirit found at the very core of an individual. The essence of that core is Love. To experience true healing all the trauma and fear that is layered over that core of love must come out. That’s what we at the Lomi School call ‘working through the body.’ Many therapeutic models do their work ‘on’ a body, or something you ‘do’ to people. Working through the body calls forth the very essence of spirit.

Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Body Mind Spirit Nutrition

We are Physical Matter and have a physical body:
What we eat and drink, we become physically.
We are Emotion and have an emotional body:
What we feel and sense, we are emotionally
We are Mind and have a mental body:
What we think and dwell upon, we are mentally.

Dr. Randolph Stone


Nutrition is not often mentioned in the field of somatic’s. The emphasis of somatic work tends to the energetic, psychological or structural aspects of the body. Somatic’s is defined as “the living body in it’s wholeness,” or mind, body, and spirit in unity. A holistic view of the human organism must include diet and it’s effect for maximizing our human potential.

I associate the nutritional aspect of somatic work with the Third chakra. The third chakra relates to the element of Fire and the sense of Vision. The third chakra is found at the solar plexus, just beneath the sternum. Its color is yellow and with the fire element affects metabolism. The solar plexus chakra is sometimes called our seat of personal power. It’s about self-assertion, courage or cowardice (in astrology, Leo, the lion is a fire sign). It relates to the use or abuse of power. I think a constant theme of this century is the balancing of this ferocious power of fire. Thomas Edison’s harnessing electricity for the light bulb and Laser light used for surgery are beneficial examples. The ovens of Auschwitz, the atomic mushroom cloud over Hiroshima, the clouds of smoke over the desert of Kuwait and the burning of the rain-forests are examples of the extreme abuse of power this century has seen.

Our sense of vision is also out of balance with our other senses. Aries, another fire sign, rules the eyes (He is also the Roman god of war). We are a visually stimulated people. Carolyn Myss states that 80 % of our daily decisions are visually motivated. Terence Mckenna, in his lecture series History Ends in Green, suggests an interesting theory for this preference. Prehistoric people were nomads that followed the wild herds of cattle across the savannas. One of the foods found near herds of cattle are the hallucinogenic mushrooms that grow in their feces. Mckenna asserts that prehistoric peoples often ate the mushrooms; which stimulated the visual centers of the cerebral cortex. This expanded visual acuity assisted in hand-eye coordination; which in turn helped the hunters in killing their game. The mushrooms helped the evolution of the species with better nutrition and by strengthening the visual centers. As the human race has become domesticated we have maintained our dependence on visual skills. We, now, rely less on our sense of smell and hearing and more on our visual senses.

As I begin my discussion on nutrition let me remind you of the quote by Carols Chastened:

“Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself and yourself alone, one question…. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good. If it doesn’t, it is of no use.”

There are many opposing opinions on how, what and why to eat. You need only go to the book or health food store to discern that. When creating an eating program you must rely on your own mind and heart to find the balance that works for you…and you alone. I like the example of Mahatma Gandhi. He experimented with diet until the time he died. He believed that your body, including how you nourish it, should be your laboratory for your experiments in self-realization.

One of the primary ways to maximize the natural vitality, prana or chi of your life is the consumption of “Live Foods.” Eating live foods utilizes the natural energy of enzymes. Ann Wigmore, founder of the Hippocrates Institute says, “ You are alive only because thousands of enzymes make it possible. Every breath you take, thought you think, or sentence you read, is a result of thousands of complex enzyme systems and there functions operating simultaneously…They are the active construction and demolition teams that work 24 hours a day to maintain health and balance in your body.” Under a microscope an enzyme appears to be a protein. In reality protein is not the active agent of enzymes, but merely the material which stores the life energy of enzymes, just as a battery stores energy to light a flashlight.

Technically enzymes are globular proteins that promote specific chemical reactions within the cell. There are three distinct types of enzymes. Metabolic enzymes, which run our bodies; digestive enzymes, which digest our foods; and food enzymes from raw food which begin digestion. No mineral, vitamin, or hormone can do any work without them. Enzymes are found in fresh fruits, vegetables, nut and grains. Sprouted grains are the most potent with enzymatic life force as they contain all the energy a plant will need to thrive. Each raw food has its own hermetic seal, such as a peel, skin or shell, which protects the fragile enzymes. When the seal is broken the enzymes begin to immediately break. All cooked or processed foods are considered de-natured which means that all the enzymes are dead. There may be vitamins or minerals left for absorption, but there is no longer any life force left. The average American diet is deficient in enzymes. A diet of “dead” foods means that our own bodies must operate on an imbalance of declining enzyme levels. Decreased enzyme levels lead to poor digestion, illness and disease. That’s why eating a diet rich in raw foods and high in enzymes is vital. You absorb the life force of the plants you eat to maintain your own vitality.

The third chakra is the energetic correlation to the endocrine system’s production of insulin. Insulin affects metabolism by its conversion of sugars into available energy for the body. The Islet’s of Langerhan, which are found in the pancreas, produce insulin. Much has been made lately about the affects of complex carbohydrates and their effects on diet. The dietetic emphasis over the past decade has been on a low fat, low protein diet with a higher percentage of complex carbohydrates. Recent studies show that complex carbohydrates like pasta, bread, potatoes, peas and bananas create a surplus imbalance of insulin in the blood stream. This insulin imbalance adversely affects the body by im-balancing the rest of the hormonal system. Surplus insulin also distorts energy levels and directs the body to store extra glucose as fat rather than burn it for fuel.

Dr. Barry Sears, author of The Zone, has done excellent research on balancing the insulin/hormonal system through food. He says, “Food is far more important than just something you eat for pleasure or to appease your hunger. Rather, it is a potent drug that you’ll take for the rest of your life. Once food is broken down into its basic components (glucose, amino acids, and fatty acids) and sent into the bloodstream, it has a more powerful impact on your body—and your health—than any drug your doctor could ever prescribe.”

Drinking coffee is another food factor that imbalances the hormonal system. Uptown Health & Spirit recently printed a report from a Duke University Medical Center study of 72 habitual coffee drinkers. Participants produced more adrenaline and noradrenalin on days they drank coffee than days when they abstained. The study states, “People who drink four to five cups of coffee throughout the morning have slightly elevated blood pressure and higher levels of stress hormones all day into the evening, creating a scenario in which the body acts like it is continually under stress.” James Lane, associate research professor of psychiatry at Duke says, “If you combine the effects of real stress with the artificial boost in stress from caffeine, then you have compounded the effects considerably. The increase in blood pressure and stress hormones is elevated till bedtime even if coffee consumption stops at 1 p.m..”

Drinking sufficient water is another component of maintaining maximum health. Water is the single most abundant substance in your body: 70 to 90% of each cell’s weight is water. The average adult loses 2500 ml, or 76 ounces, of water each day through urination, feces, sweat and respiration. Your daily intake of water must equal your daily output. You must drink approximately 45 ounces of water. The balance of your daily requirement comes from eating moist foods and the metabolism of various nutrients within the body. It is important to drink pure, filtered water for the body’s use. Most public drinking water carries contaminants, heavy metals, and unhealthy bacteria. It is important to refrain from drinking much liquid during meals. The extra fluid decreases the effect of the digestive enzymes and hydrocloric acid of the stomach. It is also suggested to never take iced drinks during meals as the stomach works at !05 degrees F. The cold liquid lowers the temperature and slows digestion.

Personally, eating is the one area of somatic work that poses the most difficulty for me. Body weight and image is something I’ve struggled with as long as I can remember. I use the metaphor of meditation as my guide for eating. In meditation I know to focus on the breath. As human beings we loose focus and begin to think, and think, and think. The skill of meditation is to come back to the breath. Come back over and over again. Then the skill becomes a pattern and eventually a way of life. There are times when my eating program is better than others. I just regain my focus and come back to the eating principals that I know deliver the most benefit to me.

Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Healing Body Mind Spirit by Cultivating Sexual Energy

The Eastern traditions recognize that sexual energy can be a potent source of spiritual energy. The Kaballist’s have their ‘Sex Magic,’ the Taoists have their erotic rituals and the East Indians and Tibetans have Tantra. Tantra is the art and science of cultivating sexual energy and directing it to spiritual transformation. Deepak Chopra says,

“Tantra is the closest you can get to magic or alchemy or transmutation. Tantric rituals are basically spiritual disciplines that allow you to trap and transform power. When properly understood, tantra is one of the most dynamic and consistent paths to enlightenment. Of course, sexuality is a component of it. Tantra acknowledges that sexual energy is the most powerful energy in the universe because it is the creative energy in the universe.”

I think exploring the concepts and practices of Erotic rituals are important for westerners. We have a deep sexual wounding from our Judeo-Christian heritage. Our sexual natures were first denied when Adam and Eve “saw their nakedness” as they were evicted from the Garden of Eden. The teaching of original sin is a body centered, sexual one. Erotic rituals teach us to hold our bodies as sacred. To experience sexual energy as the cosmic creative gift that it is.

A primary key in Tantra is an ability to be present with your partner; to focus with eye-contact, to match the rhythms of the breath, or meditate together. Tantra also teaches the importance of mastering the orgasm. Women have four levels of orgasm: the clitoral orgasm, the vaginal orgasm, multiple orgasms and the amrita, or divine nectar. Men are taught to master ejaculation. Rather than lose their sexual energy out through the penis the orgasmic energy is directed up the chakras. Thus men become capable of multiple orgasms.

Tantric rituals are most effective in committed long-term relationships. The defenses and barriers of our personality are healed in the safety, intensity and intimacy of our primary relationships. My friend Sean Michael used to say, “Intimacy means In-To-Me- See.” Keith Hennessy defines intimacy as, “An un-armed encounter between two individuals.” Both of these describe the expression of a self without the armor of defenses, a vulnerability of just being with another person. Commitment is needed to create the container that allows all the personality defenses to present themselves. Safety and vulnerability come as those defenses are consciously healed. Mastering erotic energy has two primary results. As the art of love making it creates ecstatic satisfaction. It also generates intense energy for healing on all levels of body, mind and spirit.

As a teacher and a professional body-worker, I think it wise to add: a spiritual and body-centered transformation can be a personal journey and/or work with a teacher or professional. The practices that involve a teacher, a therapist or facilitator are not to be used for cultivating sexual energy. Healthy, consensual sex is defined as sex between two individuals who share an equal balance of power. This excludes professional relationships such as Doctor/Psychotherapist and patients, Lawyer/Massage therapist and clients, or teachers and students. Sex between a client and professional is abusive. Erotic rituals invoke powerful energetic experiences. Utilized unconsciously they negatively effect relationships and spiritual evolution.

Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Monday, September 10, 2007

Sacred Sex: The Body Mind Spirit Connection

Sacred Sexuality

I sing the body electric:

In a room high above SMU, serenaded by Donna Summer, I discovered a whole different way to be sexual ... and to be myself.

I lift my head up to look around the room and think, "This is decidedly weird."

I'm in an old hotel ballroom, in downtown Dallas, with 21 other men, giving and receiving Taoist Erotic genital massage. Then an intense wave of sensation undulates from my groin, obliterates my ability to think of such mundane things, and I relax once again into the massage. The ministrations of my masseur, the intense breathing techniques, and the music combine to create a sustained level of pleasure I never imagined possible. The music fades. The leader calls for the masseurs to move to the next table. New hands caress my body and the first strains of Donna Summer's I Feel Love pound through the speakers. I smile, remembering the fun of dancing to this song in the '70s. With a flash I gain a moment of insight. Ms. Summer is not just singing about the thrill of being gay as I had imagined, or "hot sex;" which was most of my priority during those times. Suddenly that '70s classic is saying so much more to me; it includes the love I feel now, on this table, vibrating with pleasure. It reminds me that conscious sex includes a love that dissolves shame and fear and instills courage and pleasure.

In the immortal words of the beloved teacher from Kung Fu, "Ah, So! Grasshopper." This is what sacred sex can be.

Western religions teach us that our bodies are the source of sin. They teach us that celibacy is the only path to God and that sex outside of marriage is a one-way ticket to hell. (Well, what if all the fornicators who have ever lived are in hell? Maybe there's a wing just for gays and lesbians. It could be a fun place to spend a couple of millennia....). Fortunately Eastern religions hold a broader concept about sex and spirituality. They teach that sex, when used properly, can be one of the most dynamic paths to God. Why wait for hell, live now!

The mystical traditions recognize that sexual energy can be a potent source of spiritual energy. The kaballists have their sex magic. The erotic rituals of a sect of Chinese Taoism cultivate transformative energies which are used for great benefits for self and community healing. The East Indians and Tibetans have Tantra. Tantra, which gave us the Kama Sutra, is the art and science of cultivating sexual energy and directing it to spiritual transformation.

Deepak Chopra says, "Tantra is the closest you can get to magic or alchemy or transmutation. Tantric rituals are basically spiritual disciplines that allow you to trap and transform power. When properly understood, Tantra is one of the most dynamic and consistent paths to enlightenment. Of course, sexuality is a component of it. Tantra acknowledges that sexual energy is the most powerful energy in the universe because it is the creative energy in the universe."

I believe exploring the concepts and practices of erotic rituals are important for Westerners. We have a deep sexual wounding from our Judeo-Christian heritage. Our sexual natures were first denied when Adam and Eve "saw their nakedness" and were evicted from the Garden of Eden. Original sin is the philosophical and psychological wedge that denies us the pleasures and experiences of our physical bodies. Healing erotic rituals allow us to experience our bodies as sacred, to experience sexual energy as the cosmic creative gift that it is.

I am standing in a circle of men. This is my first Body Electric seminar. I am anxious about what this weekend will hold. I know soon we'll all be naked and that at some point I'll be giving a complete stranger a genital massage. Not that that's never happened before. Just not in broad daylight, in a room full of other men overlooking SMU. (That's a cosmic joke in itself which gives me great amusement). I had heard of the Body Electric School before. It's based in California and offers sex-positive experiences for men who love men and women who love women-as well as for some especially brave straight people. They offer a variety of weekend seminars and longer retreats which facilitate sexual healing, intimacy, and exploring a variety of erotic pleasures.

With my own fears and insecurities about my body and sexual performance, I discounted the Body Electric School. Years passed while I explored other spiritual practices and slowly matured emotionally. I practiced Tai Chi, chanted the OM, discovered yoga and insight meditation. I went from being bartender at Rich's to becoming a massage therapist and teacher. As a massage therapist I am fascinated by the subtle physical energies that animate the grosser tissues of the body. I explored reflexology, polarity therapy, and deep-tissue somatic massage, which all have a spiritual component. However; my dream of a committed, intimate, sexually potent, life-changing relationship still eluded me. I had studied Tantra, but not practiced it. I was feeling inadequate about my sexual skills. My friend David called to share his own extraordinary experience with Body Electric. He assured me I'd love it. The emotional and psychological payoff (not to mention sexual payoff) of the class was well worth the risks he'd taken. I remember David as one of the more sexually modest members of our old group. If he could do it, I knew I could too. Insecurities be damned.

As the workshop unfolds I realize something quickly. This weekend is more about intimacy than sex. I have spent years moving through spiritual communities learning about intimacy. Much to my regret I rarely found much emotional depth with other gay men. The Body Electric work emphasizes connection over technique. And there are great techniques. John, our seminar leader, explains the penis is the part of a man's body which "gets the most amount of massage with the least amount of imagination." There are opportunities to reveal ourselves and to share; to look deeply into the eyes of other men ... or not. The thing I notice is the respect that each man is given. No matter where a man's at physically, emotionally, sexually, mentally, or spiritually, he is honored. There is a constant celebration of the male body and we are encouraged to embrace our erotic selves. For all my insecurities over the shape of my body or the size of my genitals I have never felt more welcome in a group of gay men. That is a gift I will take to my grave.

A primary key in Tantra is the ability to be present with your partner; to focus with eye contact, to match the rhythms of the breath, or meditate together. Tantra also teaches the importance of mastering the orgasm. Women have four levels of orgasm: the clitoral orgasm, the vaginal orgasm, multiple orgasms, and the amrita, or divine nectar. Men are taught to master ejaculation. Rather than lose their sexual energy out through the penis, the orgasm is directed up the spine through the energy centers of the body (called chakras in Tantra). Thus men become capable of multiple or "full body orgasms." As a friend recently observed, "If both partners are capable of multiple orgasms, how do you know when to stop?" What a dilemma.
Tantric rituals are most effective in committed long-term relationships. The defenses and barriers of our personality are healed in the safety, intensity, and intimacy of our primary relationships. My friend Sean Michael used to say, "Intimacy means Into-Me- See." Keith Hennessy, a San Francisco-based performance artist and spiritual teacher, defines intimacy as, "The ability to be naked with another person and relax. Naked in all its connotations." I explain intimacy as an undefended encounter between two or more individuals. Each of these describe the expression of a self without the armor of defenses, the vulnerability of just being with another person.

Trust is necessary to create a level of intimacy. I was having coffee at Starbuck's with my friend Joe the other day. He jokingly asked me for my definition of trust. I didn't readily have one. After some soul searching and contemplation, I came up with this: If I trust you, it means I've put my confidence in you, relying on your character, your strength, your truth. I believe trust is earned and sustained over time. There are levels of trust, as with trusting someone with my respect, my home, my dog, my money, my life, my heart. I also come back to something Keith Hennessy said about trusting in relationships. "Once I determine that the other person is not a psychopath or going to overtly abuse me, the emphasis of trust changes from them back to me. It's not an issue of whether I can trust them, but can I trust myself enough to take care of me in the relationship."

Once trust and intimacy are established, commitment is needed for that maximum healing. Especially with the intensity that tantric relationships generate. Commitment is needed to create the container that allows for all the personality defenses, or character armor, to present themselves (and they do!). Character armor is the defenses we habitually use to protect ourselves from being hurt. For example, when I feel vulnerable I may try to cling or grasp onto my partner for reassurance. In the brilliant way that the world works, I generally choose partners who feel smothered by that clinging and they retreat. Which usually creates a spiral of more grasping and retreating. A solid commitment and good dialogue skills can diffuse that spiral and allow real healing to begin. Dissolving those defenses does create more safety and vulnerability, which is the true measure of spiritual strength. Mastering erotic energy has two primary results. In the art of lovemaking it creates ecstatic satisfaction. It also generates intense energy for healing on all levels of body, mind, and spirit.

As a teacher and a professional body-worker, I think it wise to add: Spiritual and body-centered transformation is a personal journey The practices that involve a teacher, therapist, or facilitator are not to be used for cultivating sexual energy. Healthy, consensual sex is defined as sex between two individuals who share an equal balance of power. This excludes professional relationships such as doctor/patient (or psychotherapist/patient), lawyer/client, or teachers/student. Sex between a professional and his or her client is abusive. Erotic rituals invoke powerful energetic experiences. Utilized unconsciously they can hurt relationships and spiritual evolution.

It is the final afternoon of the weekend workshop. For the past two hours I have received erotic massage from six masseurs. I have breathed, thrashed, shuddered, moaned, and sighed. After 40 years I have experienced myself in a totally different and unique way. I am also delirious from the session. The music fades and John leads us in a minute of deep rhythmic breathing, then three deep breaths followed by a sound. We are instructed to begin the Big Draw which directs the accumulated erotic energy throughout the body. I tighten all my muscles, including my breath, and hold them as long as I can. I finally collapse onto the table. I am wrapped in the sheet from the table which gives me the sense of being shrouded. A stream of total relaxation spreads from my belly, through my legs and arms, and to my mind. I continue to breathe as the first strains of The Mission soundtrack begin. It is a most beautiful piece of music and one of my favorites. The next thing I realize is that my consciousness is floating above the massage table. I'm looking down on my body. I'm having an out-of-body experience. I am peculiarly comfortable with this event. I feel perfectly right with the world and my place in it. I am once again reminded that conscious sex, intimacy, and connectedness make something else possible: a way of being human that transcends the limitations I often place on myself. For a rare moment I feel free!

Ah, So! Grasshopper. So this is sacred sex.

Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder ofwww.ThroughYourBody.comand author of Body Brilliance:Mastering Your Five VitalIntelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance MovieDedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923