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Be rooted again: how a simple trick enhances life and wellbeing

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Be rooted treeBe rooted and you can become almost unshakeable. This is a common principle in martial arts, especially taiji (tai chi), where we can become so firmly grounded through the legs and feet that another person finds it impossible to push or pull us over. It gives an illusion of enormous strength but there is little muscular force in it, in fact quite the opposite. To be rooted, we have to learn to become centred and to relax. Although this technique, if we call it that, we express through the body, it is a mental approach that we can apply throughout life.

Be rooted: find your centre

When we are anxious – and we are living in an age where there is much anxiety – whatever we think or do plays out on a background of instability. Our energy is unsettled and our minds are too active, too yang. As a result, events in life and even what people say can pull us this way and that. Our stress responses go up and quality of life goes down. We have forgotten how to be rooted.

The first step in coming back is to find our own centre. Instead of letting our energy go up through the chest and into our head, creating chaos on the way, we bring it to the centre of the body and down into the belly. Just focus. Let the energy build. Focus at the navel or slightly below and slow the breath down. The energy will come home to its centre. It’s a good feeling and is entirely natural.

Relax: keep your head up but let your feet sink

Letting the energy come home to the centre is the first stage. To be rooted well, we also need to let go of everything and relax. Relax your legs and feet, too. Your feet are designed to be in contact with the ground, so let them enjoy that. Let them sink. Really feel the earth through your feet. Thich Nhat Hanh used to say, “kiss the Earth with your feet”. Or we may like to feel as though we are breathing through the soles, drawing in nourishment from the ground beneath us. Once we have learnt to be rooted like this, there is no cause for anxiety. Centred and relaxed, we belong to the Earth and wherever we are, we are at home. Life is so much better like that. And it’s easy.

There is more like this in The Great Little Book of Happiness and my other books, available here.

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Strength: 3 reasons why balance is better than muscle

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Strength taiji
Strength and balance

Strength is wonderful. When we are strong, whether in body or mind, and preferably both, we feel great and can achieve many good things. Cultivating strength seems very worthwhile. It often results from dedication, application and discipline – from gong fu. A strong character is developed through life’s experiences and, if we are lucky, sound education. Daily, we see the actions of those who have used strength in order to become powerful and perhaps wonder if it is such a good quality after all. In taiji (tai chi), we emphasise balance as the way to become strong. Being powerful should be of no interest whatsoever. Here’s why this is essential, not just in taiji, but to leading a happy life.

Strength lies in the beauty of the play of yin and yang

Life is a continual play of opposites. Once we accept and understand this, we don’t need to cling onto what is good, nor fear the bad. When we cling, we become very yin. When we fight, we become very yang. Both are states of weakness and imbalance that are detrimental to health and wellbeing. They can also cause problems and unhappiness for those around us. No good points there, then. But all we need to do is let go. In taiji, we learn to relax in our movements so that the blood and qi can flow through the body unimpeded. Good upright posture but relaxed and open. Strength is in grace and poise, not power. The principle in life is the same. Balance yin with yang, and yang with yin. No forcing – just play.Strength tree

Head points to Heaven, feet to Earth – don’t forget the feet

There is a very valuable principle in taiji of being rooted. When we begin learning the movements, the placing of the feet in the correct position is drummed into us. Only much later can we understand why this is so important. When we know how to relax the body, including the feet, and to open the joints, which takes a long while to develop, the experience of being rooted comes. It’s a wonderful feeling. There is enormous strength in being connected to the Earth in this way. It is very difficult for others to push or pull us off balance. In modern life we tend to focus in the head and forget the feet. The world is more than a little crazy because we have become very clever but in the process have lost our stability.

The Goldilocks effect

Muscles are better than porridge. Even if you are a porridge fan, you can’t eat porridge without muscles. Some people like to build up their muscle bulk to acquire an impressive physique. Oddly, you don’t see animals going to the gym or lifting weights, but you do see them stretching. Strength isn’t about having big muscles but having a body that is fit for purpose. Too little muscle, and we are weak; too much and we become tight and lose some of our flexibility. Like Goldilocks’s choice of porridge, there is a midpoint that is just right. In taiji, there are moves that involve standing on one leg. Most people wobble a bit at first. Gradually, through doing relaxed movements, strength builds up. A stiff leg isn’t strong, we discover. We learn, too, that a taut abdomen makes us weaker, paradoxical though that may seem. In life, too, there is a midpoint in everything. The Middle Way. Now, that’s strength.

For an exploration of finding the middle way in life, read my book The Art of Not Doing available here.

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Action: Why everything you do and say is more important than you think

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action consequencesEvery action generates karma – an outcome of one sort or another. Nothing is without a consequence, so what we do is important because it carries the seed of the future. This doesn’t mean it is safer to lead a life without action – omissions have consequences, too. Rather it suggests that whatever actions we undertake need to be carried out with care.

Action can be good and bad at the same time

Ideally, all activity should create positive seeds for the future. A positive consequence is that the result of the act will benefit others. We must also take great care to see that no harm is done to anyone else. For example, if we steal in order to provide material benefits for ourselves and our family, a narrow view might cause us to think that that’s acceptable. A more intelligent view is that although there is some benefit, the action may be causing disadvantage or harm to the victims. That is an obvious example but in the world of human affairs there are limitless variations on that theme, some of them so subtle that we may not perceive them as negative in effect.

Guarding vested interests can be dangerous for this precious world of ours

In spite of best efforts, sometimes we may find ourselves guarding our own interests. It is easy to be more concerned for ourselves and our own than for those we don’t know. It is human nature to do that and naturally we do our best to protect our home, money and resources as well as our loved ones. If that causes no harm to anyone else, all is well and good – but what if, in protecting our own concerns, we cause or prolong the unhappiness or suffering of others? Then the actions or omissions are not right. Along with the immediate positive consequences for ourselves, we have also sown negative seeds. The impact of those we may never know.

action good badActions may speak louder but words can still devastate

Although none of us knows what life is going to throw at us, whatever we do today will almost certainly affect the future. Some things are more obvious than others, such as the long-term effects on the body of an unbalanced diet, too little or too much exercise, and so on. And we know, too, that if we act or speak violently, the results can be devastating. Tweeters (and that includes you, Mr President) please take care. However, it is the more subtle factors that usually provide the greatest challenge. Our concern should be to identify any tendencies to negativity in our speech and every action and to winkle them out.

More than harmlessness

If we want to achieve self-realisation, it is essential to cultivate an attitude of harmlessness. Ensuring that our action does not create any suffering or hardship is important but harmlessness means something more than that. Rather than creating an ideal of causing no harm, the evolutionary path requires that our actions become beneficial – positive rather than merely neutral. To put it in a simple way, we should feel that we are doing our best to contribute to making the world a better place.

This is an extract from my book The Art of Not Doing – How to Achieve Inner Peace and a Clear Mind. More details here.

Free guided meditations here.

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Seeds of happiness – sowing the greatest investment

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Seeds from the garden of the mindSeeds of happiness are possibly the greatest investment we can make. Sowing them ensures good returns, exploits nobody, contributes to better health, slows down the ageing process, reduces stress levels and, oddly in our capitalist and commercial age, costs nothing.

Seeds or weeds?

The truth of the matter is that we are sowing seeds all the time. Actions and words affect those around us. We know that doing or saying the right things at the right time can have a positive, indeed sometimes a healing, effect. It is also surprisingly easy to go the other way and mess things up or put our foot in it. I know – I manage it often. Maybe we don’t think of this as planting seeds. But when we reflect and realise that all we say and everything we do are causes that produce effects, it’s not so difficult to see. Pleasant and helpful words are like seeds that produce beautiful flowers and productive actions are like planting nourishing vegetables or crops. Our thoughtless ones just lead to weeds.

The garden of the mind

The mind is very much like a garden. If we don’t look after it and tend it, it becomes a rampant jungle. Some people are fond of gardens like that but probably their neighbours are not so appreciative. When we begin to look after the mind, we might come across things we would rather not. A rusty old bed frame or bicycle wheel may lie well hidden in the weeds of an untidy garden. As we tidy up the mind, we may find old and useless things there, too. Relics from the past that are waiting to be sent to the recycling yard. With time and care, we can tidy up the clutter of our mind.Watering seeds

Cultivating seeds of happiness

Our words and actions are not autonomous. They result from our thoughts. How the mind is, is the key to everything. That means we have choice in how we respond to what life brings us. The more positive thoughts we have, the brighter the mind becomes. As we make our mood lighter, it becomes more difficult for negativity to take root. Amazingly, that is all we need to do sometimes. And right now in this beautiful but crazy world, it may be one of the most important things we can do.

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Free meditation videos

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Diet: the Vegans may have landed but don’t lose the feeling

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Diet and feelingDiet is a strange thing. The word itself dates back a long way to Middle English and beyond, and it essentially referred to a way of life. More often than not, these days it seems to mean a temporary trend in a way of eating – except in January when it means how to sell a lot of books, of course. Diet used to be a part of one’s culture, for good or otherwise, but now it’s a fashion.

Diet – a matter for the intellect or intuition?

Never before has there been such a wealth of information on the subject of nutrition and diet, nor such a diversity of types of food available to us. There is so much material to read, watch or listen to. Always, someone somewhere is saying what is good for us or what will surely kill us off. Advice is so plentiful that it can give us indigestion of the mental kind. But why is there so much? Are we really so out of touch with ourselves and our bodies that we need someone to tell us what to eat and drink? Sadly, I think the answer to that may be yes but it needn’t be. I believe it’s not too late to escape this madness.

Listen to your body and give your mind a break

Slowing down and listening to the body can provide all the information we need. But because we are bombarded by so many stimuli, we forget to listen. Diet should be the result of intelligence – innate intelligence – not the intellect.

A simple and effective technique to avoid diets

Next time you are thinking about what to eat or drink, slow down and feel your breath. Place a hand on the abdomen for a few seconds. Gradually, as this becomes habit, you will always know what is good and what your body needs. Your body will tell you, through the sense of touch and through the faculty of inner listening. It’s simple, it’s satisfying and it works. (Oh yes – and it’s free.)

Being in touch with yourself and your natural rhythms is set out in much more detail in The Great Little Book of Happiness – A Guide to Leading a Happier Life 

For free meditations and information on occasional workshops, take a look at the Joyousness website.

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  3. Be rooted again: how a simple trick enhances life and wellbeing
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