After 6 days without food you’d think I’d be exhausted. Alas, I was playful and practicing yoga for 10+ hours a day. Totally naked, free, and happy. I would go on to fast for several more days before returning to food for energy.
The physical human body is one aspect of the mindbody-spirit complex or extended human energy matrix.
Life force is broad term for the energy that is coming and going in and out of the body.
The main conduit of life force energy that comes into the body is through the breath. We breath in life force energy or prana and it nourishes and maintains the body. We also have a reserve of life force, we inherited some of this energy when we were born, and we can also ‘charge’ our battery through energy cultivation. We can receive energy from the breath, food, inspiration, and practices.
A decade or more ago I was quite unaware of the subtle energy exchange of my body and being and the cosmos. Being a young buck with lots of energy to burn, I ate a ton of food, which supplied some energy, and my natural reserves of being young and healthy supplied me with all I needed. As such, I was quite unintelligent with my energy, eating excessively and relying on calories for energy, wasting semen regularly through ejaculation, and I was unattuned to my breath, and the energy exchange of giving and receiving I was making with the cosmos. I was out of balance.
Fast forward a number of years as I started years of celibacy, semen retention, fasting, mindbody practices, and meditations. I began to rewrite my understanding and relationship to energy. Through fasting I developed a delicate awareness of how to take in and cultivate energy without the need of calories. Through semen retention and not pursuing sexual activity for a period of my life I became deeply aware of how my sexual behaviours were drawing my attention and often taking my energy. Through retaining and learning to re-circulate my semen I found a reservoir of energy and a doorway into mastery and alternate states of consciousness. No longer a slave to the impulsive sexual seeking, I was fully satisfied without sex. What a beautiful transformation to have in my early 20’s.
Next level energy awareness.
I currently practice a high level of energy awareness. Food is no longer the dominant source of my energy, my practices of yoga and qigong and breathwork charge my body with prana/energy. Food serves a truly vital role, but I am no longer attached to eating as I once was. It was a curve to learn to live in this way, especially during exercise…but, there exist a new intelligence that arises. For energy is couples with information, and the energy we take in is filled with information…when there is excessive energy and information coming from food sources our body has to deal with sorting and restructuring this information to turn it from a banana or pickle into a human being.
This process, and the more complex the diet, will effect on the energy of the bodymind, and particularly the thinking processes. For the brain and stomach compete for energy, and if you want to clear mind, diet is an excellent place to start. Further, when one exercises with a calorie deficiency, they will quickly learn the most intelligent ways of moving and breathing. When there is an excess it is easy to effort and use energy without intelligence, when there is a small reserve of energy, one learns to manage through energy with precision.
[transition]
Here are some of the non-food items that give me energy: breathwork, semen retention, maintaining my energies (not looking excessive energy into the world through the 5 senses), and through inspiration.
Let me touch on the last two.
Maintaining my energies; sense withdrawal. The senses of the human body take in information and energy and the nervous system must process it. We are always being bombarded with energy and information, whether it is simply noise or visual stimuli or marketing and people begging for your attention. It all takes a toll on one’s mind and energy.
Meditation and breathwork has taught me how to withdraw my energy internally which takes the energy that may have been leaking out into the world and places the energy and information processing power of my nervous system into the internal processes of my body for self-healing, thinking, and resting. It is a truly valuable skill that I am happy to share.
Taking in energy through inspiration.
On my extended trips to the forest to fast I am without the ordinary access to calories for energy. I become acutely aware of how inspiration inspires action. To inspire is a beautiful word that also refers to breath. It is through this internal inspiration to action that the life energy of breath comes in. I will express it is an internal reservoir of energy that humans can tap into. For example, there is a tradition known as the Sun Dance, in which participants fast for 4 days, without food or water, dancing, and praying. There is much more to this ceremony, but I can assure you the participants are not running on the ordinary energy that most people do, they are tapping into a dimension of energy and information that is beyond the bodymind. It is known as source energy to some, or spiritual energy. It is a beautiful inspired action that creates fundamental changes to the bodymind of the participants and can bring about powerful prayers and action.
Review and contemplations:
The extended view of the human is that we operate as a larger energy field-matrix. Our individual energy is always in a dynamic interaction and energy exchange with the larger cosmos. The human energy matrix is born with a reserve of life energy, and we operate like re-chargeable battery. The subtle art of navigating energy exchange comes through an awareness of how we give and receive energy.
Energy is used for metabolism, processing sense data and information, desire, ejaculation (in men), and actions. Energy use can be balanced by practices that help to cultivate and maintain energy.
Energy can be cultivated and stored in the body by receiving breath, love, food (especially high pranic foods), inspiration, and rest.
Practices that help to maintain, circulate, or best utilize energy include: breathwork, yoga, qigong, grounding, gratitude, giving, volunteering, kindness, semen retention, Taoist sexual energy or tantric practices, meditation, exercise, and rest.
– How are your energy levels?
– Does energy get blocked in any area of your body? (ex. Legs, hips, stomach, heart, throat)
– How is your relative balance of giving and receiving?
– Do you have a connection with source energy?
– Do you want help with energy management, have questions, or would you like to try some of the practices I have discussed? DM me and we can explore
Bonus exercise:
5 minutes time to complete
Take a piece of paper and split it in half, on one half write energy in, and on the other half, write energy out. Then list all the things that give you energy and those that take your energy. (yes some things depending on how you do them can be both) the exercise is helping for identifying these and building a deeper awareness of how you use your energy
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