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Autumn is here – does your body know?

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As we head deeper into autumn, we may find that our energy is changing. Nature withdraws and becomes more yin – turning its energy inwards to strengthen and restore. Our bodies, too, need to adapt and change with the seasons. They are part of this world, not separate from it, and so they appreciate the nurturing aspects of the inward turning energy. If we fight that need by becoming more active instead of less, we create strain – and that will weaken the body rather than strengthen it.

Listen to your body because it is listening to you

Please take care of your body and listen to what it needs. Maybe it will not appreciate the cooling foods of summer so much now. Instead, it may relish warmer, moister and a little more unctuous, food more often. Soup, anyone? According to traditional Chinese health advice, and to Ayurvedic understanding, the autumn can be drying on the body. This can particularly affect the lungs, and to some extent the skin. A tendency to a dry cough or some itchiness may be a sign of this. Pears, incidentally, are said to be a very kind fruit for our lungs. Sipping warm water at times throughout the day (or, better, yin-yang water1) can help balance the body, too.

Spirituality includes flesh and bones

Being kind to the body is an important aspect of spirituality. Your body listens to the messages you give it. If we cannot be kind to ourselves, it is difficult to cultivate compassion and kindness for others. Not to be confused with indulgence, this is about living from the heart, fully and completely. Let’s celebrate autumn and indeed every change of season as it comes, and be happy and peaceful. The world needs us to be just that, particularly now.

  1. Yin-yang water is said to be very balancing for the body at any time of year. It is easy to prepare – simply add boiling water to cool or room-temperature water, 50-50. Drink it while it is still warm. Some people like to fill a flask with it to use during the day. ↩

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Smile, and tap into your joy

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When we smile at someone, a genuine smile from the heart, we do more than just smile. There is a communication, of course – a communication of friendliness and perhaps understanding. Most say that love must be unconditional to really mean anything and the same must go with a smile, surely? And when we receive a smile from someone, does it not light us up in some way?

Smile and touch your essence

This world of ours is very technical and very materialistic. In a way there is good in this. Humanity has made major strides over the centuries to make life better – eradication of disease, improvement of hygiene, living conditions and so on. There is, some would also say, a curse with that. We have lost sight of our spirituality, our inner essence. If we are pleased to see someone, we smile without any thought. Our response is spontaneous. We don’t have to look it up on some database or search engine – we just smile and convey, dare I say it, love.

Let joy and universal law support you

For life to be worth living, it has to have joy in it. Joy springs from the heart, as does love. We may not have what we think we should have and others may have what we think is an unfair proportion of wealth. But if we think in that way, it is like pouring water on the fire in our heart. If we can simply be, smile and be grateful for whatever we have, however small, and without judgment of others, the quality of life – the internal quality that springs from deep within us – can manifest. Then the laws of the universe, the unseen support that comes from way beyond the realms of man’s little thinking, can be tapped and flourish in our own lives. And it all starts with a smile.

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Healing energy, the Universe and You

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Healing energyHealing is not a great mystery – everyone has healing energy and the ability to help heal themselves and others. Everything in the universe is energy, from a star to a rock to a speck of dust. Your body and mine are both energy, as is the plastic waste in the sea. Energy is not destroyed, it just takes different forms. Problems arise when there is an interruption to the  flow of energy and too much accumulates in a particular place. In the environment, this excess gives rise to pollution and imbalance, and in the body to congestion and disease.

Healing is dealing with excess energy

When we are ill or simply out of sorts, it often feels as though we are lacking energy in some way rather than having too much of it. We may feel lethargic or headachy, or there may be pain or soreness. Whatever the symptoms, there is inevitably a blockage or blockages somewhere in our system. If a river is flowing well, everything along its course is fine but if something blocks that flow, silt builds up and flooding occurs in that location. Elsewhere, there may be a shortage of water. Our energy or qi is rather like that – too much in the wrong place throws everything out of balance.

Giving it back to the Universe

When too much energy has accumulated, it does not stay still, hanging around until someone invites it to a party. By its very nature, energy is always moving and, like water, will always find somewhere to go. If there is no outlet, it will form unwanted complex patterns and it is these that can cause health problems, possibly severe, over time. As the body is energy, the essence of healing is to create the right conditions to allow the excess to return to the environment – the Universe – and restore balance.

The healing power of the mind – and a smile

The flow of energy, qi, in the body is directly affected by our awareness, by our thoughts and by our feelings. In traditional Chinese health systems, it is said “the mind leads the qi”. It is difficult to feel cheerful in every waking moment, perhaps, but the more positive we are, the healthier and happier we are likely to be.

A very easy thing we can do is to smile more often. Smiling helps to open the energy channels in the body and release little blockages. Breathe in, smiling to your body; breathe out, letting your smile extend beyond your body. Try it for a minute or two. It is so simple but is extremely effective at making us more receptive to healing energy.

Books

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Being happy: why we should choose to flick the switch

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HappinessBeing happy is really rather good. Have you noticed (well, of course you have) that when we are happy, life seems so much lighter? It is also really rather good to be in the company of people who are lighter in spirit. Lightness can be catching. Unlike winter lurgies, happiness is a wonderful infection to pass on. Feel free to pass on your lightness! Indeed, let’s lift the cloak of gravitas that hangs heavily over so much of life today! We need inspiration, not gloom; but what can we do about it?

Being happy: is it a matter of choice or fortune?

We cannot solve the problems of the world, nor can we necessarily change many of the things that affect us, such as health and living conditions. What we do have control over is how we respond internally . When we are feeling down or serious about life, our internal energy takes a bit of a nosedive. Our emotions are very much affected by our energy or Qi; in turn, our Qi is influenced by our state of mind and our consciousness. This is where choice comes in.

Choose to look on the bright side and sow seeds of happiness

Looking on the bright side is not to be unrealistically optimistic but to realise that good can come out of anything. It really is like turning the light on. I sometimes imagine that there is a switch in the heart energy centre. To throw it from dark mode to light relies simply on intention. The significance of this little mental step is that our energy immediately becomes lighter. Energy follows intent. There is a very deep truth in this. We don’t need to analyse, though; just do it. And who knows? Make it a habit and we could well start off an epidemic.

The Great Little Book of Happiness is filled with tips on what we can do to improve our happiness and sense of wellbeing.

Energy circulation meditation 

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Unconditional love? Is there any other?

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Some speak of unconditional love as though it were something superior  that has to be distinguished from a unconditional lovepoor relation called “conditional love”. Few human beings are capable of it, apparently,as it is only something that one’s pet dog can express (seriously, I’ve heard that said).

Visions come to mind of pure souls sitting atop mountains in cross-legged postures with beaming smiles radiating unconditional love for the benefit of the world, pausing from time to time, no doubt, to sip pure water or perhaps some green tea. Some talk about unconditional love with as much dispassion and dryness as a dehydrated tea-leaf. That’s not love, not in my book anyway.

Unconditional love can still have passion

Love needs fire, it needs heat and it needs the fluidity of water and the reality of earth, otherwise it isn’t real. There is no such thing as conditional love because love is pure. If there is love, there is love, full-stop. A pond may have lots of dirt in it but it’s still full of water.

Someone said to me once, “I love everybody, all humanity, unconditionally.” She may well have believed it. Had it been true, she would have been filled with a passion so great that she would not have been able to rest until every last drop of suffering was removed from the world. There are precious few great souls like that. Love is like water. We all love to some degree but none of us is perfect. We are like ponds or rivers – not as pure as a bottle of Evian maybe but supporting life, nonetheless.

Love or attachment?

What can mar the expression of love and is sometimes mistaken for love is attachment. Attachment is when we hold onto something – or someone – because we want to keep it. If it is taken away from us, we are bereft and if we think we might lose it, we may feel threatened or insecure. This can happen with regard to material things, to our health, to our lifestyle – in fact, if you can think of it there can be attachment to it. As a general rule, though, we don’t mistake attachment to those things as love.

With relationships, it is not so easy to distinguish between attachment and love. Do we become attached to people? Of course we do, because we know that when many sorts of relationship end, people feel loss, grieving, anger and so on. But it isn’t love, that gives rise to these difficult, and very human, reactions and emotions.

Suppose, for example, that a young woman – let’s call her Jill – falls in love with Ben. They start a relationship and Ben tells Jill that he loves her very much. They soon decide to live together and at first everything seems to be going well. Then one day, Jill sees Ben flirting with her best friend in a way that suggests to her something might be going on between them. Later Jill challenges Ben; they argue and become angry with each other. That’s a very simplistic outline of a fairly common type of situation but the question is, to quote the title of a famous Tina Turner song, “What’s love got to do with it?”

Love or attraction?

When we start a relationship with someone, it is because there is an attraction. There is something in that other person we are attracted to, something that we like and don’t want to be without. “Isn’t that love?” one might say and the answer is, “No, it isn’t.” Love may arise, and often does, but the desire for the other person is attachment. That isn’t meant to sound mercenary but the truth is, when we start a relationship, or have the desire to start a relationship with someone, it is because we see something in the other person that will help to make us feel more complete. It is a natural thing that we seek things in life to make us feel “whole”, more fulfilled; but that in itself isn’t love. What we are doing is seeking something for ourselves. Sounds harsh, doesn’t it? But it’s true. This is attachment and the result of attachment is that when the object of our attachment is threatened, or rather our relationship with it is threatened, we feel pain.

Love is inherently unconditional and stable

Love, on the other hand, is nothing so volatile or unstable. Love is totally selfless. To love means we don’t seek anything for ourselves; if we love someone, we want them to be happy for their own sake – not because seeing them happy makes us feel better. Most personal relationships will have an element of attachment in them but the important thing is that there must be the selfless aspect also. It has been said that “ideal relationships are based on giving” and we must be able to receive well, too. And love doesn’t just occur in personal relationships; we all develop love for all manner of people, and many for animals and nature. It is possible and natural, for example, to love those we work with or meet with. The point is, love does not involve desire for the other person nor sentimental attachment, or at least if it is there, we should be able to distinguish between desire and attachment on the one hand and “true” love on the other.

The purpose of us spending a little time differentiating between love and attachment is not to condemn attachment but rather to emphasise the difference. We can then guard against strengthening attachment, with the inevitable pain that will someday cause as the object of our attachment changes or is lost, and instead build up the selfless aspect, love, which will reduce pain and bring about lasting happiness.

More on this in chapter 4 of The Great Little Book of Happiness

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