Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Somatics: Body Mind Spirit Integration

French mathematician and philosopher RenĂ© Descartes delivered another “body blow” when he declared, “I think, therefore, I am.” Descartes’ statement defined the Age of Reason, placing emphasis on the mental IQ at the expense of the other intelligences and reducing the body to a crude bundle of organs and nerves that supported the intellect. Modern medicine, with its trove of technology, doesn’t treat the body much better, often seeing it as an object—even a project—to be poked and prodded, analyzed and diagnosed, rather than as the physical manifestation of a person.

Somatics, on the other hand—the focus of study at the Lomi School—is a body-centered approach to living. The Greek word soma means “living body.” In ancient India, Brahmin priests drank a hallucinogenic concoction called soma, named after the Vedic god Soma, in rituals to expand consciousness. Richard Strozzi Heckler defines “somatic” as “the living body in its wholeness; or mind, body and spirit in unity.”

Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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, October 30, 2007

The Living Body Mind Spirit


The great mystery of the world is not the
invisible, but the visible.
Oscar Wilde

Western civilization has not been kind to the human body. The past 2,400 years have seen the body worshipped, debauched, vilified, denied, ignored, and mechanized. The ancient Greeks celebrated the human body, glorifying it in art, sculpture and athletics. The philosopher Socrates taught that the supreme understanding of beauty started with the body: through the body a transcendent understanding of beauty and the virtues of all life itself was achieved. The Greek Olympic Games were the ideal test of physical strength, endurance, and mental and spiritual purity.

With the dawn of the Piscean age power shifted to Rome. The Romans absorbed much of Greek culture, including body worship. (Celtic warriors, however, who always went into battle totally naked, terrified the Roman legionnaires.) But by the 3rd Century of the Common Era, Christian bishops targeted the drunken debauchery and sexual excess associated with pagan Roman festivals initially for sublimation into Church-approved celebrations and eventually for total elimination.


Church fathers portrayed the body as carnal, gross and prey to base appetites for 1,700 years, convincing the faithful that sex and pleasure were to be avoided, not celebrated. The seven deadly sins of greed, lust, gluttony, pride, anger, sloth, and vanity would not even exist without the body. The road to Heaven lay in transcending the body, an idea common to most of the world’s religious and mystical traditions, not just Christianity.


Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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, October 29, 2007

Body Mind Spirit Brilliance with your Five Vital IQs

We were a diverse group: a police lieutenant and a paramedic, an arch Democrat, other massage therapists and chiropractors, a psychic, psychotherapists, students and teachers, a carpenter and a director of nonprofit organizations. We agreed to meet for nine weekends throughout the year and a weeklong retreat in July. Some of us were there for our professions, but we were all there for ourselves.

At the break we mingled and ate delicious pastries from the Tomales Bakery on Highway 1. Still feeling self-conscious, I cautiously visited with my classmates and won the prize for coming from the greatest distance. Some of them had traveled for several hours to get there, but I was the only non-Californian. I remembered that California is as long as Texas is wide. Thankfully, my classmates welcomed me, and I began to relax and feel more comfortable with the group.
With the preliminaries over, I looked forward to participating in the Lomi School’s regimen of bodywork, exercise, meditation and group process. I was convinced that Robert, Richard and the class would help me heal my depression and all the sadness of my recent life. As you will see, I still had much to learn.

But first, if I am going to show you how to peak your essential intelligences to achieve body brilliance, I need to discuss how perceptions of our bodies have changed over time and the theories and techniques surrounding that metamorphosis.

Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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, October 28, 2007

Body Mind Spirit: Alan Check's In


After presenting a short overview of the training, Robert and Richard wanted to hear from us, asking, “Who were we? How did we come to be at the school? What do we want from our year together?” Richard took notes as we introduced ourselves. I tuned in as the first of my classmates shared, but I didn’t hear much. As usual, I felt shy and anxious about telling my story. I realized, however, that I wouldn’t hear anything about the others if I didn’t raise my hand and give my own introduction. I remembered my vow to make 1994 different, and why I’d traveled so far to be here, in this dojo, with these teachers. Normally I would wait until the last to share, but now I seized the moment and raised my hand.

With a Southern drawl I nervously introduced myself, telling tersely of Ann Lasater’s teaching and how she was my inspiration to be here, about my depression, the close of my business, Michael’s death, crushing debt, being gay, and David’s generosity with the airline tickets. It took just a few minutes to cover the basics, and I was deeply relieved as the spotlight shifted to the next person. My breath calmed and my listening sharpened as I quietly celebrated my little victory.


Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Lomi School: Pioneering Body Mind Spirit (Somatic) School

Lomi work [is] . . . demanding of people. It asks that
people wake up—wake up to their bodies and their lives.
Robert Hall


RANCHO STROZZI, March 1994: The next day dawned spectacularly. I snuggled warmly under layers of blankets, yet my visible breath confirmed that the fire in the cabin’s small stove had died out hours ago. I lazed for a few more minutes, anticipating the shiver of throwing off the covers and dreading the thought of the unheated outdoor shower. With the precision of a military campaign I launched out of bed, built a roaring fire, started the coffeepot, and braved the colder outdoors. The cabin was toasty hot by the time I returned from my freezing, yet oh-so-invigorating shower. Satisfied with a breakfast of fruit, cereal, and coffee, I went to the aikido dojo and waited for the others to arrive.

The dojo is divided into three rooms. The largest is stretched with padded mats for classes, and there is a small sitting area with couches and a rough-hewn kitchen. Twenty-one students gathered with Robert Hall and Richard Strozzi Heckler that morning, and the two men outlined our time together, saying that:

· The Lomi School teaches somatics: a body-centered way of living.

· We will use bodywork, breathwork, yoga, aikido movement and sitting meditation to bring attention to our bodies.

· These disciplines are taught as ways of working toward physical vitality, emotional stability, and personal effectiveness.

· This focus on the body develops awareness and self-acceptance. It allows us to know ourselves more fully—how we stand and breathe, how we express our emotions, how we perceive the world and experience it.

· Group process is the primary tool we use to explore the edge of our fears and leave the comfort zone of our everyday lives; to share the stories of our hearts; to develop trust and community; and to support each other in self-discovery.

· Lomi work also explores how social activism grows from self-discovery and our connection to the social issues of our time, “including birthing, dying, conflict resolution, education, violence, community, the arts, and health care.”


Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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, October 26, 2007

Robert K. Hall: Body Mind Spirit (Somatic) Pioneer


With Michael’s death I vowed that 1994 would be a turnaround year for me. I was utterly depressed: we had lost the Garden, I was nipple deep in debt, Michael died, and I weighed 320 pounds, at least a hundred pounds too much for my height and stature. I had to do something radical to change my mood and regain a sense of my life.

One day my friend and massage teacher, Ann Lasater, was reminiscing about the Lomi School, where she went in the late 1970s. Four friends, Robert Hall and Richard Strozzi Heckler and their ex-wives Alyssa and Catherine, founded the school about 1970. They were the first to synthesize psychotherapy, breathwork, bodywork, movement, and meditation into a cohesive method. (“Lomi” is a Hawaiian style of massage, but the word lomi was chosen for the school because it means to touch.)

Off-handedly Ann remarked that Robert Hall, one of the founders of the school, was gay. In all my years of studying spirituality and human potential, I’d met only a few gay men. They, like me, were novices on their path.

Incredibly I now learned that Robert Hall was gay, too. He was no novice, however, but a pillar in the transformational community: a psychiatrist and an assistant to Fritz Perls, the co-founder of Gestalt psychology. Robert was one of the first Americans to learn Ida Rolf’s bodywork system. Later, traveling in India, he met Dr. Randolph Stone, the founder of Polarity Therapy, and brought him to California to teach.

I knew I had to study with Robert Hall. It took a few months to make the necessary arrangements. I combined all my debts with the Consumer Credit Bureau and agreed to a monthly payment plan. Included in my living budget was the cost of the Lomi School tuition. My friend David Arpin, with lots of frequent flyer miles from his travels as a health care consultant, graciously agreed to trade facials for ten airline tickets to San Francisco (he still has beautiful skin).

But now, outside Petaluma, all the pieces had come together. Here I sat, nestled on a cliff, savoring the spring sun and biting Pacific wind, and anticipating this next stage of my life. When I first sat down I felt tired and weary with grief, but an hour later my heart was lighter (although my cheeks stung with the cold). Acute gratitude for life’s generosity temporarily replaced my sorrow, and I sensed a familiar longing to follow the advice of an old advertisement: to “be all I can be.”

Even after conquering the AIDS demon, embracing sobriety and turning my life around, I was buffeted by the loss of friends and financial security. And my body suffered as a result, making recovery much more difficult. As the sun and wind comforted my soul, I dared to hope that through the Lomi bodywork I could learn how to shine again. Maybe one could squeeze lemonade from life’s lemons. I would soon find out.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

HIV AIDS in Body Mind Spirit Integration


By January 1994 Michael had been admitted to Twelve Oaks Hospital, and on a cold January night I went over to visit. Feigning a warm hello to the receptionist, I thought about how many times I’d ridden this elevator car to the AIDS floor and wondered again why I had remained healthy, potent and alive when so many had dwindled away in pain.

Utterly helpless, I stood outside Michael’s room, trying to muster up a thin cheerfulness before I entered. Michael lay quiet but alert as I kissed him on the cheek. His mother, Mary Lou, busied herself with little chores, and Jon (aka Cha-Cha), Michael’s roommate, sat near the bed. In hushed whispers he filled me in: “He can go anytime. Dr. Rios says there’s nothing else to be done.”

My usual chatty cheer, however strained, vaporized in the inevitability of my friend’s death. I had no words. So I did what I have always done: I went to work, offering Michael a foot rub. He mumbled his assent as I pulled up a chair, grabbed some coconut lotion, and un-tucked the sheets. I began with the right foot, gently pushing, pulling, and rolling. As I rubbed, pressed and stroked his feet I conjured all the love I felt for this man and pooled it in my breaking heart. As I continued, I feebly directed my love through my hands into his feet and to his heart, and silently thanked him for all the fun and friendship we’d shared. But I did not cry. I haven’t cried for years. As I finished with his left foot, Michael gave me a cold look and pulled both his feet up toward his butt, signaling he’d had enough. I visited for a while longer then said good night, kissing Michael on the cheek as I left.

It was late and I felt weary to the bone. I debated whether to turn off the ringer of my phone, as I always did, finally deciding a full night’s sleep was more important than the sad news I was expecting. When I woke up the next morning, my mind still tired, the light on the answering machine blinked. Sure enough it was Jon, telling me, “It’s all over. Michael died peacefully about 3:00 am. Call when you can.” I sat motionless; Charlie, my Burmese cat, sensed my despair and hopped lightly onto me. I petted him absentmindedly as he licked my hand, eventually curling up in my lap. I sat, unmoving, with Charlie for a long time, until I had to shower and go to work.




Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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, October 24, 2007

Bette Midler: Body Mind Spirit Diva

Meanwhile, as The Enchanted Garden spiraled to its demise, a more devastating loss cut my heart: my dear friend, Michael Mosley, was dying. Michael and I, along with Jon, Ms. Hill, Bobby and Harry were the foundations of the “gang,” or more accurately “the girls”: about thirty guys who traveled in a large pack to concerts, the bars, movies, dances, and just about anything that was fun while overindulging in drugs and alcohol. Michael and I were especially close as we had similar tastes in music, movies, the arts and architecture. Having both worked in the club scene for years, we understood the trials and tribulations of a bartender’s life.

By 1993 we had seen the ranks of our gang destroyed by AIDS. Of the thirty-plus guys who played, partied, and loved as friends and sometimes boyfriends, there were ten of us left. Jon, J.D. and myself are the HIV-negative ones. Ed, Robby, Danny and his Robby, Bill and Trent, Joe and Michael, Bobby, Ronny, Art, Ms. Ricky, Tessy, Phyllis, Gavin, Jeff and the others had died, one by one, whittling our numbers down. And now Michael was dying too.

Michael had wasting syndrome, which reduced his once rugged good looks (he was a magazine cover boy) to skin and bones. His face had become a skeletal mask. He had no energy. I had to shout to be heard as his hearing was gone. One of the last things we did as a group was see Bette Midler in concert. Michael needed help getting dressed, then we escorted him, step by painful step, into the Summit Arena for the show. He couldn’t hear a thing, but he insisted on seeing the Divine Miss M and going out with the girls one last time. Friends were scattered throughout the audience, and as we waited for Bette they came over to say hello and pay their respects to Michael one last time.


Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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, October 23, 2007

The Enchanted Garden: Body Mind Spirit Oasis

Nineteen ninety-three was a breakdown year for me. Richard Strozzi Heckler says, “When life breaks down, break through.” It’s his twist on, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” The year before, two friends of mine, lovers David Arpin and Mikel Reper, and myself opened a business. Mikel dreamed of opening an aromatherapy gift store. In those days, aromatherapy—the use of essential plant oils—was bursting into popularity.

I dreamed of a massage clinic and day spa, a center where all my fascinations converged: hands-on healing, face and body care, exotic baths and muds, meditation and tai chi combined with aromatherapy. We agreed that a little vegetarian sandwich shop would be a nice addition to the mix. The vegetarian food would accent the healing arts and attract people to our business.

We rented a grand old house on West Alabama in Houston’s Museum District. Never mind that the building had seen a series of failed restaurants and bars. Our friend Craig (Ms. Craig Ann we called him) joined us as kitchen manager. Mikel and I consulted a Buddhist psychic and feng shui master, who made suggestions on color schemes, which doors to use, and blessed our business to insure its success. After twelve years of bartending to the fabulous, I resigned to build a career in the healing arts, confident in our venture.

The Enchanted Garden opened in March of 1992. The aromatherapy store was a big hit, and my private massage practice flourished. People loved the vegetarian restaurant, too, but it was expensive to operate. The spa, however, with seven treatment rooms, never succeeded well enough to keep all the therapists busy. And conflict began even before our opening. Mikel and David’s relationship was unraveling, and they were soon in divorce court—or as close as two gay lovers could get. It wasn’t long before David and I spent as much time and energy managing Mikel as we spent running The Enchanted Garden itself. David and I, willing to be fair and generous, cut Mikel ample slack, but after a year tolerating his alcohol and drug problems, an intervention, and rehab, we finally cut Mikel loose.

Unfortunately, by then our enthusiasm, momentum and finances had suffered permanent damage. Ms. Craig Ann, bored with the conflict and politics, quit. David, a health-care consultant, was on the road during the week and returned to the Garden to work weekends. That left me to supervise the spa, the restaurant and the aromatherapy store through the week. By October1993 The Enchanted Garden was insolvent, the victim of our own poor management and under-funding, and David and I, exhausted, closed the business. We lost our investment and then some, and I was saddled with more debt than I could have imagined. (David says ours is the most expensive friendship he’s ever had.)

The Garden was a success on other levels, however. I did have a solid massage practice that supported me well. When the Garden closed I moved the remnants of the spa to an office building on Richmond Avenue near Greenway Plaza. Essential Touch, like a phoenix, rose from the ashes of The Enchanted Garden. I had learned many hard and valuable lessons on how to run a profitable and professional business.




Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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, October 22, 2007

Living Through Your Body Mind Spirit at Rancho Strozzi


We are arriving at one of the most fruitful and important
turnings in the history of the race.

The self is entering into relation with the body.
Edward Carpenter


PETALUMA, California, March 1994: My rental car rolled along Middle-Two-Rock Road in the glorious California sunshine, with the backseat stuffed with luggage and groceries for the long weekend. Petaluma, an hour’s drive north of San Francisco, lay a few miles behind me. I savored the crisp March air breezing in through my open car window. It was a welcome change from Texas’s humidity and heat. The road crested and I stopped to enjoy the view: a valley of rock formations, farmhouses and sheep in just-greening pastures. I love this part of California; its beauty and isolation speak to me—so different from Houston, a sprawling city of concrete and glass. With a deep breath I realized just how good it feels to be here.
I continued my drive to Rancho Strozzi, a lovely place with grazing horses and buildings of weathered wood. My assigned cabin was tucked away behind the martial arts dojo. Once inside, I chuckled. The cabin, charmingly rustic, was a tall but small octagonal room with a loft just large enough for a mattress. There was a wood-burning stove for heat, a small refrigerator, a sink, and a round table with one chair. Windows opened out onto the surrounding fields of hay. Only the occasional gust of wind broke the blissful silence.

An hour later I was back on Highway 1, cautiously maneuvering the hairpin curves, until with a dip and a wide turn the rocky hills finally revealed the coast. Thrilling with excitement, I drove on for a while, splitting my attention between the road and the spectacle of ocean before me, then parked and sat as close to the rock’s edge as I dared. In wonder, my eyes were riveted to the ocean below me: the towering cliffs, the boulders jumbling out to the sea below, the play of light changing the color of the water. The waves roared far below with the constant frigid blow of the Pacific wind. I’ve always loved the ocean; I used to rent an apartment in Galveston, on the Gulf of Mexico, but this stretch of the Pacific was the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. Feeling calmer, I returned to Rancho Strozzi and settled in, ruminating on this day and how I came to be here, and anticipating my start at the Lomi School tomorrow morning.


Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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, October 21, 2007

Well-Intentioned Pause

I used to run myself ragged, starting my day at 5:00 am, staring at the computer, and finally dragging home by 9:00 pm after a long day of teaching and clients. I filled my days helping others find their way to brilliance and trying to raise my own levels of essential intelligence through bodywork and exercise. But by the time I stumbled through the door I was too tired to talk or eat. I longed for personal time and time to share with my partner Jim.

So I took back my time, vowing not to forget the benefits of a well-intentioned pause. My new schedule, enhanced by strategic pauses throughout the day, allows me to come home ready to enjoy my partner and our evening together. Such time is like a mini-vacation. I’m convinced I even accomplish more with less aggravation.


Whether you decide to take a six-month sabbatical or just expand your lunch period to a full hour, you are acknowledging the body’s need for rest and rejuvenation. Go ahead, make your escape. Or as a woman in a bath-soap advertisement said as she sank into the tub, eagerly anticipating the bliss of a bubble bath, “Calgon, take me away.”




Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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, October 19, 2007

Re-Balance Work and Play in Body Mind Spirit Integration

Finding equilibrium in one’s life—determining the point of balance between activity and rest—is more difficult than hanging a picture. We Americans, in particular, steeped in the work ethic of our Puritan forefathers, seem to feel guilty if we are not completing a Herculean task in record time. We don’t procrastinate well.

But all our attempts at harmonizing the essential IQs will fail unless we stop and re-balance work and play, set limits, and distinguish between “hard-charging” and “re-charging.” In other words, we have to find the fulcrum that equalizes our active lives with our down time so that efficiency doesn’t end in burnout. For some people, that well-intentioned pause could require an “force” of will. If that describes you, make the effort.

Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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, October 18, 2007

Equilibrium in Body Mind Spirit Integration


In The Power of Full Engagement, energy-management expert Jim Loehr spells out the need for taking a pause:

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. . . . Balancing
stress and recovery is critical not just in
competitive sports, but in managing energy
in all facets of our lives.

The point at which an object’s weight balances perfectly on a base is called a fulcrum. The most obvious example is a playground seesaw; the beam rises and falls on its point of equilibrium. Hanging artwork on the wall requires finding the fulcrum of the wire, or otherwise Uncle Thaddeus appears a bit tipsy. Determining the fulcrum varies by the weights of the two sides; if one side is heavier, that greater weight must be shifted toward the fulcrum to regain the perfect balance point.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Disappear Into a Spa for Body Mind Spirit Integration


My friend Katy Caldwell is the director of Legacy Community Health Services in Houston, encompassing The Montrose Clinic and other medical services available to anyone, no matter what they can pay. Founded originally to test and treat those suffering from HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases in a non-judgmental environment (the Clinic is where I learned I was HIV negative), the clinic now offers health counseling and wellness programs, in addition to more traditional doctors’ visits and an in-house pharmacy. Katy works miracles every day to find financial support from businesses and the general community, as tightly stretched resources accommodate a growing clientele of the indigent and uninsured, no matter what their gender orientation.

Since late August 2005, The Montrose Clinic has become the primary medical provider for victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Over 150,000 refugees from Katrina alone poured into Houston, most without anything but the clothes they were wearing when they arrived. Staffers at the Clinic have spent hours attempting to re-create destroyed medical records, get patients into counseling and patient services, set up doctors’ appointments and dispense costly medications.

The needs of former and new patients—and finding the funds necessary to minister to those needs—never cease. But the escalated pressures of Katy’s frenetic schedule have made it even more vital that she remember the power of pause and take time for herself. Besides receiving massage therapy, Katy disappears into a spa every now and then. Working out the physical kinks helps realign her thinking as well. Katy would not be the only loser if she didn’t acknowledge the importance of down time.

Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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, October 16, 2007

Simron, or total isolation for Body Mind Spirit Integration


Okay. You’re ready to graduate to week-long vacations and maybe even longer. People who boast that they haven’t taken a vacation in years have not done themselves any favors. These longer pauses do not have to be car trips to ten different destinations or a week with the relatives. You’re supposed to relax, not need a vacation from your vacation. Consider a retreat, a cruise—anything that refuels your energy, not saps your strength.

Author and spiritual advisor Dr. Deepak Chopra maintains a grueling schedule of writing, workshops and personal appearances, often working on four or five books at once and traveling frequently. To restore his equanimity he sets aside four to five weeks of vacation with his family, perhaps skiing or visiting sacred sites. But his most important rejuvenation practice is called Simron, or total isolation—no books, telephones, magazines, radio, or any communication—for five to seven days, every three months, for reflection and meditation.


Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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, October 15, 2007

Power Pause: Necessary for Body Mind Spirit Integration

A “power pause” of ninety seconds probably won’t be enough time to rest and refuel. Relaxation novices need at least ten to twenty minutes to soothe frazzled nerves. Ask your colleagues, kids or partner to respect your down time; try to avoid answering questions or the phone. Don’t be embarrassed by taking a break. We all need one. Unfortunately, most of us do little more than reach for the remote control at the end of the day, thankful to have survived another one. Relying on the tube alone to refuel your energies overlooks so many other means of healthy, fulfilling activities. Consider these suggestions for rest and relaxation:

· Simple exercise such as stretching, sit-ups or push-ups, even at your desk
· Walking, preferably outside so you can enjoy the day
· Taking a class in dance, yoga or tai chi for balance and movement
· Calling a good friend just to talk
· Savoring a meal, either alone or with friends
· Eating lunch away from your desk, and taking your entire lunch period for lunch, not errands
· Sneaking a nap
· Getting a massage
· Luxuriating in a bath
· Listening to music
· Reading
· Pursuing a favorite hobby
· Praying or meditating.

Once you’ve added small daily breaks to your routine, why not take a full day? At least start with a half-day. Too often the weekends seem like extensions of the work week, full of errands and chores. Sometimes even socializing with friends becomes a hassle instead of a treat. Try spending an entire day at a park or beach with your family; walking the dog; enjoying a sport or hobby; taking a picnic out in the country, or dozing in a hammock while you pretend to read. Take time to talk to your family and listen when they answer.

Love your way,

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, October 14, 2007

Pausing--The SImple Key to Body Mind Spirit Integration



"Liza in Child's Pose"
photo by Victoria Davis
from Body Brilliance by Alan Davidson


Pausing—taking a break, a rest—rejuvenates the body and prepares it for the next round of exertion. We won’t last too long without stopping to catch our breath. But in these times of over-stimulation, hyperactivity and multi-tasking (admit it: you eat, talk on the phone and drive at the same time), our bodies consume tremendous amounts of energy that must be restored. If we are to thrive, seeking happiness through the harmony of our essential IQs, we must learn to balance performance with rest.

Unplug yourself from the demands of your day and just stop for a few minutes. Take some deep breaths, try to clear your mind of all the chaotic details of modern existence, and focus on some place or event that was happy or beautiful. Sit quietly for ten minutes and relax. Don’t worry; the kids, the telephone, the projects can usually wait for ten or fifteen minutes. You’ll be amazed to discover that the project that seemed out of control before you took a break now seems quite manageable.

Flavius Philostratus, an Olympic athlete trainer in ancient Greece, wrote about the importance of this “work/rest” ratio almost two thousand years ago. More recently, sports psychologists Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz tried to identify what separated the tennis superstars from the good players. Both were technically competent, often sharing similarities of stroke, speed and ability to score. What they discovered is that the top players pursued a small personal ritual to calm their breath and heart rate after and between each point. These “well-intentioned pauses” might be as short as ninety seconds or less, but as techniques to focus the players’ attention for the next stroke they were highly effective.

Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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




Saturday, October 13, 2007

Rhythm of Body Mind Spirit Energy



The very nature and rhythm 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 beat, lungs rise and fall, orgasms come and go. Energy may be constant, but it oscillates. The intelligences in our bodies are the same.


Physically, we have times of effort and times of rest and sleep.


Emotionally, we try to balance our sense of individuality and our need to connect with the people around us.


Mentally, we can be muddled and confused, or focused and clear.


Morally, we can pursue lives and ideals we don’t truly want for ourselves, or we can exemplify our deepest values in the world.


Spiritually, we can remain dormant, or we can sparkle and thrive.

Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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, October 12, 2007

Power of Pause






Nature itself has a pulse, a rhythmic, wavelike movement between activity and rest.
Jim Loehr

These early years of the new millennium, the 21st Century, are heady, tumultuous times. In just five short years the globe has suffered heartbreaking death and destruction from war, terrorist attack, tsunami, hurricanes, violence, environmental degradation and hunger. Yet despite all this, spiritually committed people everywhere heed the call to brilliance in all avenues of life: business, government, health care, family, service. They—and we—answer the call to stoke the brightest lights of ourselves and greet each day with renewed effort to actualize our essential intelligences and bring peace and harmony to humanity. We are born for such times. We are called to fortify our truest selves, to direct our physical, emotional, mental, moral and spiritual intelligences and shine them for all that is right and good in this world.

Whew! Although a most worthy pursuit, lifting the world (or just ourselves) out of darkness takes a lot of energy. I believe that we possess the brilliance to accomplish this task; that by living through our bodies’ intelligences we can marshal our defenses—and offenses—and direct them toward the greater good. But if in our zeal to achieve these goals, whether personal or societal, we forget to take time to replenish our energies, we risk physical or mental collapse.

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 a well-intentioned pause” becomes a necessity. Type A workaholic personalities succumb to more health problems and risk sacrificing family and relationships for a very good reason: they don’t value the power of pause.




Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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, October 11, 2007

Body Mind Spirit Harmony with your Five Vital IQs


To achieve harmony, each one of the essential intelligences must develop through its own distinct stages:

· Physical Intelligence grows from weakness to strength to power
· Emotional Intelligence evolves from a sense of “me” to “us” to a sense of “all of us”
· Mental Intelligence starts with pre-rational (archaic, magical, and mythical thinking), then proceeds to rational thinking and ultimately integral (integrated) cognition
· Moral Intelligence grows from selfishness, to care for others, to concern for universal mankind
· Spiritual Intelligence includes one’s own vibrational, energetic signature, our religious beliefs and meditative skills, progressing from fundamentalist to liberal to mystic.

Our peak development of each of these intelligences, blending them together in harmony, is the heart of body brilliance. Every person’s peak level of brilliance is unique, dependent on the growth in each essential IQ. The goal is not to master all the intelligences, but to strengthen those intelligences that are so weak they are causing problems. Author Wilber concludes, “For some this will mean clearing up a serious problem or pathology . . . and for others, simply recognizing where their strengths and weaknesses lie, and planning accordingly.”

Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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, October 10, 2007

Isaac Newton and Pathology in Body Mind Spirit Integration


Most of us excel in one or two layers of intelligence. These are our strengths. Part of developing body brilliance involves a realistic assessment of your best talents so that you can build on that foundation. But don’t overlook the areas that suffer from neglect or intentional (God forbid pathological) wrongheadedness.

Perhaps one of the world’s greatest scientific minds belonged to Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727). Young Isaac was expected to continue the management of his father’s farm, but Isaac had bigger dreams. He worked his way through Trinity College, Cambridge University, keeping a notebook of his observations and experiments in subjects barely covered by his professors. He taught himself trigonometry to better understand astrology (then a legitimate science) and studied chemistry and alchemy.

But like many other geniuses, Newton’s brilliant analytical mind was often overshadowed by his anger, insecurity, pride, obsessiveness and vengeful nature. The infant Isaac wasn’t expected to even live, much less become famous. He was born in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, to Hannah Ayscough Newton; his father, Isaac Senior, died three months before his birth. Within two years the young widow had married a well-to-do minister named Barnabas Smith and moved away to start a new family. His grandmother raised young Isaac until Smith died in 1653, when his mother returned and tried to resume relations with her son, failing miserably. Isaac hated his mother and stepfather, and later biographers attributed his psychotic behaviors to his early abandonment.

By 1671 Newton had invented a reflecting telescope. Prior to Newton’s work, telescope lenses refracted light (broke the light into its color components) which made looking at the heavens difficult. The Royal Society, purveyor of all the new scientific discoveries in England, asked for a demonstration, and Newton published his findings in a paper entitled Opticks. Society member Robert Hooke criticized some of Newton’s findings. Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate about his work and counted Hooke his enemy until the man died.

Newton published a second tract on colors in 1675, but Hooke claimed Newton had stolen his ideas. Newton lashed out at Hooke again, and also vented his spleen at a group of English Jesuits that questioned his theories. Angry, formal correspondence between Newton and the Jesuits continued until 1678, at which time Newton sent one last furious letter, suffered a nervous breakdown, and then said no more. Newton’s mother died the next year, adding to the man’s anguish. He retreated into his laboratory for six years.

In 1687 Newton published the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, perhaps the greatest work on mathematics, physics and scientific method ever written, in which Newton laid out the three laws of motion. Newton did not discover gravity by observing a falling apple, but the great thinker did relate gravitational pull to elliptical planetary orbits.

Newton taught mathematics at Trinity College for many years but eventually grew tired of the students. He became Warden of the Royal Mint in 1696. Newton’s later years were devoted to his duties at the Mint and study of the Bible. He also served in Parliament. As Warden of the Mint he oversaw the “great recoinage,” and when Newton rose to Master in 1699 he took particular relish in pursuing counterfeiters and anyone debasing the currency. Seeking counterfeiters in the taverns and brothels of London gave Newton a socially acceptable way to vent his rage, and he sent many to the gallows.

Newton served as president of Britain’s Royal Society, whose members represented the best and brightest of the kingdom’s scientists and researchers, from 1703 until his death in 1727. Queen Anne knighted Newton in 1705, the first scientist so honored.

Sir Isaac Newton presented a classic example of near-pathological imbalance. Although his latter years were marred by the grudges and jealousies he harbored against his fellow scientists, Newton never lost his faith in what he believed was the kernel of incontrovertibility in scientific method: the true North of his own mental compass. Sadly, such a great man was rationally brilliant but emotionally stunted.

Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://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, October 9, 2007

States and Stages in Body Mind Spirit Integration

What is consistent in each of these models, in addition to mapping progress through the stages of growth, is the idea that once a level of development is achieved, it must remain achieved to ensure the success of each new rung climbed on the development ladder. Our higher growth rests squarely upon the solid foundation of lower-level accomplishment.

In his article “Introduction to Integral Theory and Practice,” author Ken Wilber notes that:

. . . by “stages” we mean progressive and permanent
milestones along the evolutionary path of your unfolding.
Whether we talk stages of consciousness, stages of energy,
stages of culture, stages of spiritual realization, stages of moral development, and so on, we are talking of these important and fundamental rungs in the unfolding of your higher, deeper, wider potentials.


Throughout this discussion of the body’s essential intelligences it may have occurred to you how unevenly developed you are. You’re really good in some layers and lacking in others. That’s true for virtually all of us. Some people are excellent thinkers but may have mean, selfish personalities—not exactly beacons of morality. Some people are talented athletes but have difficulty with simple arithmetic. And some people become so enchanted with the search for their own enlightenment that they ignore the needs of their fellow travelers.

Love your way,

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, October 8, 2007

Peaking Your Five Vital Intelligences: Body Mind Spirit Integration


Your capacities are trembling to be born.
Abraham Maslow


One may measure the growth of the body and mind by many yardsticks, and each of the various spiritual and psychological development models is useful in its own way. The Hindu system of chakras defined seven levels of consciousness, associating different parts of the body with those spiritual centers. The names of the chakras and their locations are:

· muladhara, at the base of the spine
· svadisthana, a few inches farther up the spine
· manipura, at the level of the navel
· anahata, at the level of the heart
· vishuddha, in the throat area
· ajna, between the eyebrows
· sahasrara, at the top of the head.

The anthropologist Jean Gebser, on the other hand, narrowed spiritual development into five stages: archaic, magic, mythic, rational, and integral.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow agreed with Gebser on the number of levels—five—but he believed the concept of self-actualization depended on a different “hierarchy of needs”: physiological satisfaction, security, love and a sense of belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization. Any one of these analyses provides guidance for the growth of our essential intelligences; it all depends on how one gauges progress.

Here’s a simple example using the hierarchy of needs: my partner Jim and I are about to become grandparents. Jim’s only daughter will give birth to a baby girl around July Fourth (If I have my way, she’ll be the best-dressed baby girl in Baton Rouge). But regardless of her wardrobe, we recognize that:

· As an infant, our granddaughter’s basic physical needs of food, sleep, warmth and touch must be provided first.

· The unquestioned satisfaction of those needs allows the baby to recognize the stability and order of her life, and, as she becomes a toddler, to feel secure in her position and ready to test her limits.

· With our granddaughter’s basic physical and safety needs continually met, she’ll reach the third stage of healthy growth: love and belonging. A child by now, she will start to look beyond her parents to her extended family and to her friends around the neighborhood and at school for affirmation of her “self.”

· Once she thrives at this third stage of growth she will be ready for the fourth stage: the development of her self esteem through self-respect and recognition by her peers. By this time our granddaughter will be a young lady (and definitely choosing her own clothes).

· Finally, our granddaughter—surrounded by love and support and possessed with a positive sense of self, all her previous needs met—will be ready to satisfy her need for “self-actualization,” wherein she can confidently develop her innate talents and discover that joining with others enriches her own potential.

What is consistent in each of these models, in addition to mapping progress through the stages of growth, is the idea that once a level of development is achieved, it must remain achieved to ensure the success of each new rung climbed on the development ladder. Our higher growth rests squarely upon the solid foundation of lower-level accomplishment.

Love your way,

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, October 7, 2007

Harmonizing Your 5 IQs for Body Mind Spirit Integration

Harmonizing the levels of essential intelligence, however, provides the greatest increase in the body’s predominant vibration. While any individual may excel at one IQ level over the others, such dominance will not succeed if gained at the expense of the other four intelligences.

Consider this: I know many bodybuilders who are muscularly well built and look great. The time and effort they take to bulk up increases the energetic frequency of the first layer of consciousness: their bones and muscles. But some of those guys smoke cigarettes or use steroids. The smoking damages lung function, and the metabolic steroids (known as “juice”) interfere with the natural flow of the body’s hormonal system. Either one of these habits lowers, not raises, the energetic frequency of the second layer of intelligence, and the resulting disharmony reduces a person’s predominant vibration.

Here’s another example of disharmony and how it can affect vibration:

During the rise of Fascism in the 1930s, the Germans placed a remarkable emphasis on physical fitness. Health became a national obsession, as National Socialist (Nazi) sport clubs encouraged “true” Germans to participate in all manner of outdoor activities and exercises. Jewish athletes or other “inferiors” were forbidden to compete.

The Germans’ first and second layers of intelligence thrived on such a fitness regimen, and Adolf Hitler planned to show off his “superior” Aryan athletes at the 1936 Olympics, which were held conveniently in the German capital city of Berlin. Hitler’s triumph collapsed, however, when Jesse Owens, an African-American sprinter, won an unprecedented four gold medals in the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash, the long jump and the 4x100 relay.

Unfortunately for the Germans, their belief that they were superior to all other races lowered the frequency of the third essential intelligence: the layer of attitude and thinking. And the hatred fomented by the Nazis, as well as the commission of unspeakable crimes and the genocide of millions of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, Communists—anyone deemed a threat to Aryan racial purity—drastically lowered the vibrational frequency of the Germans’ moral intelligence. Leni Riefenstahl’s documentary on Hitler, Triumph of the Will, became a portrait of the subjugation of the will. The disharmony and crash of the vibrations in the third and fourth layers overrode any benefits gained by Germany’s physical fitness campaign.

The power of harmony—of all the layers pulsing in concert—is phenomenal. In contrast to the Nazi fiasco, Wilma Rudolph’s Olympic triumph (profiled in Chapter One) not only spotlighted her physical brilliance but gave her an opportunity to work for her causes: women’s sports, civil rights, equal opportunities. Her amazing physical accomplishments shone even more brightly when complemented by her emotional, mental and moral excellence.

The sum of the five essential intelligences is so much greater than the highest achievement of any one of them alone. And the Body Brilliance series can help you develop those IQs so that your spirit, too, will shine with health, happiness and harmony.

Love your way,

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

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Health and the 5 IQs: Body Mind Spirit Integration

In my last blog entry, I introduced Dr. David Hawkins’ “map of consciousness,” his groundbreaking study measuring the energy frequencies, or vibrations, emitted by each of the body’s emotions and spiritual intelligences. On a scale of one to 1,000—with one being near death and 1,000 a state of total enlightenment—happiness occurred at frequencies of 500-540.

Every layer of essential intelligence emits an energetic frequency, depending on the layer’s vitality, but these frequencies fluctuate with the ups and downs of day-to-day living. The specific frequencies of each layer combine to give a person his or her predominant vibration overall. Using Body Brilliance, one may refine and increase the frequencies of each of the body’s layers of essential intelligence, creating new harmonies and raising the level of the predominant vibration.


Throughout my book, Body Brilliance, I present different exercises and techniques to strengthen each layer of essential intelligence and increase that level’s vibrational frequency. Weight training and yoga are just two examples of bodywork that promote fitness of the muscles, bones and joints as well as elevating the vibrational frequency of the physical IQ. Adopting a particular diet, learning breathing techniques, or becoming more emotionally mature facilitate development of emotional intelligence.

Our mental/cognitive IQ could benefit from daily meditation or simply a more positive outlook. Regular acts of kindness—without expectation of formal recognition—lead to improvement in the fourth layer, or moral IQ. And once we have learned how to increase the frequencies of the first through fourth essential intelligences, there are many esoteric exercises for raising the fifth or spiritual level.

Love your way,

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, October 4, 2007

Health is Body Mind Spirit Harmony

Health is natural, thus effortless, to the individual who
has achieved harmony between body and mind.
Ron Perfetti


The words health, whole and holy all share the same ancestry. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines health as the “condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit.” We understand it more often as the absence of disease and freedom from pharmaceutical drugs. But great health is a state of extraordinary well being. It relies on more than good nutrition and physical fitness. As George Leonard says in his essay “Towards a Balanced Way,” good health involves “a vibrant flow of ‘energy’ throughout the body. It implies body/mind/spirit harmony.”

Health and well being are the vibrant stream of life through the subtle and gross layers of the human body: truth itself flowing optimally through each of the five essential intelligences. Each layer, in turn, is in balance and in harmony with the others. Health is effortless. It is natural law—the simple flow of energy, undiluted and unimpeded. Some limits to health are found in genetic shortcomings. But most illness and physical ailments are rooted in the blocks found within the layers of intelligence. These obstacles constrict the natural flow of energy, affecting the overall health and well-being of the body. Richard Strozzi Heckler, co-founder of the Lomi School, sees ill health in this way:

All disease, whether physical, emotional, or mental, acute or chronic, is the result of an obstructed energy flow. The effectiveness of any healing art, therapy, or system of learning is determined by its ability to reconstitute life flow in a balanced harmonious fashion. Creativity is movement; disease is blocked movement. Healing reconnects awareness to areas lacking vitality and movement.

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

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Getting High vs. Body Mind Spirit High

The rush of the high explains why drugs are so popular. They produce a temporary euphoria but are usually followed by some crashing low. Afterwards we return to the reality of our lives; there is rarely an evolutionary shift in vibration. Sadly, the hope that drugs might be the path to happiness often leads to disaster—and the loss of happiness.

I’d studied spiritual principles for ten years, had been in therapy for more than that, and yet I was not happy. But when I gave up trying to transcend my body, when I gave up denying the reality of my body and its pleasures, when I shifted my focus to live in and through my body, I began to see real changes in my health and happiness. Once my focus shifted, my behaviors changed. And so did my life.

Spiritual contentment and evolution are like happiness and success. They are ephemeral and cannot be grasped. The more we strive for them, the further they slide out of reach. It is when we focus our attention, engage our hearts, and commit our lives to the “something greater than ourselves” that our vibrational frequencies rise, steadily and consistently. We eventually live into the states of love, happiness, peace and the bliss of unity.

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

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Happiness, Spritual IQ, and Body Mind Spirit Integration

Happiness expressed through our spiritual intelligence is best understood vibrationally. David R. Hawkins, M.D., developed a vibrational “map of consciousness,” which he outlined in his revolutionary book Power vs. Force. Hawkins calibrated the range of possible human vibrations, or spiritual intelligence, on a scale from one to 1,000: a vibration of one is very near death; a vibration of 1,000 was the highest possible frequency of consciousness for mankind.

Each vibrational range had a corresponding emotional level. Through Hawkins’s work we can actually measure the growth of spiritual intelligence. Here is a brief sketch of the “map”:
Spiritual intelligence vibrating below 200, the level of courage, was “life depleting” and considered negative. Consciousness vibrating above 200 was “live affirming” and considered positive. The vibration level of 200 was the tipping point in attuning our awareness.

Vibrationally speaking, happiness occurred when our conscious state of being peaked between frequencies of 500 to 540, or between love and joy. In Japanese, the word sartori represented a temporary experience of enlightenment, spiking into the 700-plus range of vibration.

Each vibration was also logarithmic. Hawkins wrote, “The calibration figures do not represent an arithmetic but a logarithmic progression. Thus, a level of 300 is not twice the amplitude of 150; it is 300 to the tenth power (30010).” Raising the vibration a few degrees meant a substantial increase in power.

Dr. Hawkins’ “map of consciousness” is just one yardstick to measure our journey of spiritual evolution. We may be fortunate enough to experience the states of higher vibration: love, extended happiness, even sartori. But these experiences, often all too brief, are signposts to show us the way. They give us a taste and feel of “the high life,” of an enlightened life that fulfills its potential.

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

Monday, October 1, 2007

Moral IQ, Happiness, and Body Mind Spirit Integration

We realize happiness in the moral layer of intelligence by performing a thousand acts of kindness. Aristotle, seeking the answer to the question “What is the good life for man,” studied the behavior and conversations of average people in their everyday lives. On the basis of what he saw, the great philosopher defined happiness as “an activity of the soul in accord with perfect virtue.” Aristotle understood that committing ourselves to our best virtues, as we understand them, every day, gives us a happy life.

But happiness in and of itself is not the destination; it is the by-product of our actions and intentions. The Austrian psychologist Viktor Frankl, in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, compares happiness to success, recommending, “Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue . . . as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a course greater than oneself.”

I enjoy helping people. Once I loaned a friend a thousand dollars for his tuition to massage school. He quickly defaulted on the loan. After a year or so of badgering him to repay the loan, and worse, suffering the gnawing anger and resentment I felt toward him, I had had enough. I wrote him a letter absolving him of his debt and asked that when the time came to repay the money, that he give it to a charity of his choosing. Releasing those emotions gave me surprising relief.

In the old TV show Kung Fu, Master Po instructs his young pupil, Caine, to take on the “obligation of ten.” For an act of kindness done to him, Caine was obliged to return, over time, ten other acts of kindness. I have turned the relief I felt from absolving that unpaid debt into other good turns. Now, when I help someone out in some way, rather than ask for repayment in kind, I invite them to “pay it forward”: to help someone else in the future. I trust the gift will ripple out into the world.

This quote from Dean Koontz’s book, From the Corner of His Eye, speaks to the power of kindness:

Each smallest act of kindness reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away.

It’s no wonder these small kindnesses, given often and regularly, add tremendously to my happiness.

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