December 2009 Newsletter

An Inspirational Quote

"There is no way of overcoming one's fear of the world because there is no way the world can be controlled to end one's fears, nor can fears be overcome by changing society, by changing the law, or by changing the rules. The source of fearfulness is within oneself."

Dr. David Hawkins, Healing and Recovery

How To Respond To Incoming Energy Without Fear
by Rick Barrett, www.taichialchemy.com

Although his subject matter was tai chi and qi gong, what Rick was teaching about was really how to stay present, grounded and coherent in the moment no matter what kind of energy is approaching us. Fear contracts the body, tightens the muscles and makes us lose positions that many of us may have spent years working to attain. Although Rick has won been a three-time national championships in push hands, his main focus is the same as mine - in empowering others to become healthier.

The Edge: An Exercise to Expand Internal Space

Push hands is a two-person Taijiquan exercise to help practitioners inculcate taiji principles in gradually increasing levels of challenges. It may be done as a simple patterned exercise, a gracefully co-operative energy dance, or even as a fiercely competitive training for fighting. At its finest, it is transrational, transpersonal and transformative.

In order to take push hands beyond simple patterned exercises and crude shoving matches into something quite remarkable, we must overcome deeply held fear-based response patterns. Perhaps the biggest challenge in taiji push hands is overcoming a rigidity stemming from fear and ego attachment. Incoming energy is perceived as a threat and is avoided, resisted or batted away.

Higher level Taijiquan develops the skills necessary to deal effectively with increasing energy (force) without fear. We create internal space, which allows us more time to respond calmly, intelligently and powerfully.

Purpose: To train the student to receive energy without contraction, to increase awareness of insubstantial tools available to assist integration of energetic challenges, to function transrationally and transpersonally even when challenged.

Description
("Coach" is the pusher. "Student: is pushee. Take turns.)

1. Receive. Student stands with feet parallel and hip width. When coach slowly pushes student's chest, student makes no effort to resist, evade or neutralize the incoming push. Student just receives the incoming energy while maintaining his structure until he is uprooted. The student maintains contact throughout by slightly leaning into the push. The object is to receive a push without fear and contraction. You let yourself be pushed, releasing your need to hold a position. Don't move away from the push. Receive the incoming energy as a gift from your partner. You take a step back only to regain your balance; don't step to maintain balance. Make the step with full awareness, not allowing yourself to get caught up in fear or ego attachment, and then step back in ready to be pushed again. Repeat this step until comfortable being pushed. Take turns with your partner. (This step helps develop ting jin - "listening energy" in both pusher and pushee.)
2. Edge. Student receives push and allows his body to go to the edge of his balance. You will want some of your weight leaning on the pusher's hand. Coach must be sensitive to the "edge," feeling where the student is almost falling backward, but not quite. Hold that position. Student maintains calm awareness while on the edge. Student is the kite. Coach holds the kite string. Repeat. Explore the edge and notice how it changes as you become more familiar. Let go of physical strategies to resist or neutralize the push. Surrender to the control of the coach and the uncertainty of being at the limit of your balance. Notice how being relaxed and aware expands your internal space and frees you from fear and need to contract.
3. Coherence. In this step, the coach pushes as in the other steps but the student establishes energetic coherence by pointing index fingers and reaching past the coach. Enhanced tensegrity permits the student to receive much more energy without resisting. Here it's ok to bend your knees, drop your sacrum and lean back, lit the crown point, etc., providing you are still accepting the energy. You can also imagine tractor beams extending from your fingers, sink your qi into your dantien and explore various insubstantial techniques to expand your internal space and expand your field.
4. Presence. This step incorporates the previous ones but explores the effect of enhanced presence. Presence means to occupy this point in space and time with as much awareness as you can muster. When present you have access to more of your gongfu than when your mind is elsewhere. When your mind seizes up or drifts off, your presence is diminished and you have fewer skills at your disposal. There are many ways to re-establish presence, but most require some time to implement. Here we simply ask ourselves the question, "Where am I?" and answer, "Here I am!" (This can be done sub-vocally.) Each time you feel yourself getting pulled out of the present, repeat question and answer to bring your attention back to NOW.
5. Engagement. It is easy to objectify someone who pushes you. Fear-based responses come from our inability to understand the nature of the incoming energy and therefore it is rejected as a threat. In this step, we move beyond objectification by relating to our partner as I-You rather than I-it. Our relation is transpersonal in that separation is momentarily transcended and we join with our partner in a shared state. To do this look your partner in the eye and say (to yourself), "Where are you?" and answer, "Here you are!" We do this not just to get all chummy with our partner, but because we are empowered by engagement. Presence is further enhanced as in our ting jin, energetic coherence and tensegrity.

The Edge Exercise is designed to be done as a foundation for gongfu. Ability to receive energy consciously is enhanced by frequent practice.

An Exercise To Retrain Your Amygdala
by Catherine Carrigan, catherine@totalfitness.net

I wanted to share with everyone an exercise that Rick Barrett taught me that I have found extremely valuable.

The exercise has to do with the amygdala, the part of brain that governs your fight or flight response. The purpose of this exercise is to retrain your brain to be calmer and happier.

You have two amygdalae - a right and left one - inside your brain. Each one is the size of an almond inside the medial temporal lobes.

For those of us who are not brain surgeons, that means you have one amygdala on either side of your head about three quarters of an inch inside your brain about at the level of your hair line in front of your ears.

The amygdalae trigger the release of our stress hormone cortisol. Severe traumas may cause our amygdalae to become overactive, causing post traumatic stress disorder. Variations in the size and activity of the amygdalae have been found in numerous psychiatric disorders, including anxiety, depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

If your amygdalae are chronically hyperactive, you may find that you have a very hard time healing from stress and may suffer from chronically burned out adrenal glands.

Although it is best known for governing our fear response, the amygdalae also govern other emotions. As a kinesiologist, I find the emotions fear, anger, shame, sadness, love, enjoyment, surprise and disgust also to be ruled by the amygdalae.

Rick sees the amygdalae as a relay station. When sensory input enters our brain, the amygdalae determine the direction of that information. Will the information be sent to the reptilian brain, where we react out of fear? Or will the amygdala send the signals to our frontal cortex, where we can think logically and remain calm?

• Step One. Visualize your amygdalae inside your brain. Using your imagination, visualize a feather gently brushing the back of each amygdala.

  Observe your reactions.

  For many people, this may immediately invoke anxiety and a contraction in the muscles in the back of your body, the tendon guard reflex.

  Notice how quickly you go into fight or flight. Your heart may race, your blood pressure may rise, your breath may quicken.

• Step Two. Visualize your third eye. This is your sixth chakra located directly between your eyebrows. Imagine a white light coming into your third eye, splitting in the middle of your brain, and gently bathing the front of each amygdala on both the right and left side with white light.

The front of the amygdala can redirect sensory information to the frontal cortex where you can react more calmly.

While I was practicing this exercise, I found it very helpful to stand in direct sunlight and visualize the sunlight coming in to my brain.

Once you learn how to do the visualization, you can practice in a matter of a few seconds. Practice on a regular basis.

For more valuable information, please visit Rick Barrett's website, www.taichialchemy.com, or read his book, Taijiquan: Through The Western Gate. Although Rick is a tai chi master, his work is valuable to all of us who want to raise our level of consciousness and focus on our own personal healing. In addition to teaching tai chi, Rick practices polarity therapy and craniosacral balancing in New York City.

Release Your Fear, Heal Your Kidneys
by Catherine Carrigan, catherine@totalfitness.net

Every emotion you feel affects specific body organs. Fear is the quintessential emotion that adversely affects the kidneys.

If you would like to learn about other emotions that affect your kidneys, you can download our free chart, Emotions and Your Health, at the following link: www.totalfitness.net/radio_show_free.htm.

The muscle associated with the kidneys include your psoas, a key postural muscle, and your upper trapezius muscles at the top of your shoulders - areas that in most people are chronically tight and overfacilitated.

According to Chinese medicine, our kidneys are more stressed in the winter time. Many people remember to drink water when it's hot, especially here in the South, but the dry and cold of deep winter is a time when we most need to nurture our kidneys.

Many people are not aware of kidney problems until they discover they have kidney stones. However, many people are chronically dehydrated. This may manifest as hunger that is really thirst, dry skin, brittle bones and even depleted brain chemistry, as all our neurotransmitters work in water.

Here are a few things you can do to support your kidneys:

1. Drink half your body weight in ounces of water per day.
2. Take herbs like uva ursa, shatavari, pipsissewa, fo-ti, and buchu. I like alchemically processed herbs because they work not just on the physical body but also on the mind and spirit.
3. Eat asparagus, black beans, kidney beans and salty food high in natural minerals.
4. Put a pinch of celtic sea salt in your water so your kidneys can absorb it better.
5. Mix cranberry or black currant juice in your water.
6. Juicing. This is one of my favorite recommendations for people with kidney problems. Be sure to include celery, parsley, ginger and cucumbers.
7. Give your whole spirit to life. While fear, dread and anxiety suppress the kidneys, you can strengthen yourself by affirming, "Bring it on." Embrace all of life as a gift and realize that everything that happens is a blessing to you.
8. Practice qi gong and tai chi to cultivate your jing. In Chinese medicine, jing is the source of kidney vitality. Your jing determines your vitality, resistance to disease and longevity. Excess stress and overwork, too much sweet food, excess protein and toxins like alcohol and drugs deplete your jing.
9. Rest one day a week and go to bed earlier during the winter. Our circadian rhythms are affected by shorter days and longer nights. Give yourself permission to sleep more during this time of year.
10. Cultivate a spritual practice, such as selfless service, regular prayer and meditation. In alchemy, a system of herbology dating from the Middle Ages, the most spiritually-oriented planet of all, Venus, rules the kidneys.

Snacks: Gluten-free, Dairy-free, Soy-free
by Ru-tee Block, Ru-tee@totalfitness.net

One of the most important things you can do to keep calm is to maintain balanced blood sugar by eating small frequent meals throughout the day. Notice how each one contains a healthy protein. Plan these snacks to take with you to work. They are all free of the common food allergens gluten, dairy and soy.

1. Tuna with peppers or egg
2. Smoked salmon and eggs
3. Turkey slices and egg
4. Beef slices with mustard and avocado
5. Ham slices with cucumber or tomato
6. Bacon and tomato
7. Mackerel on gluten-free toast with an egg
8. Sardines and tomatoes
9. Protein shake, but make sure it is free of common food allergens and artificial chemicals - try Biodetox mixed with Immumomax www.totalfitness.net/1ShoppingCatalog/nutrition_products.html
10. Duck eggs with chilli sauces
11. Goose eggs with mustard
12. Hen eggs with tomato salsa
13. Organic chicken sausages and ketchup
14. Mini burgers with a nut butter
15. Meatballs dipped in hummus, or a sauce
16. Leftover meat from dinner from the night before
17. Nuts - almonds, pecans, macadamia nuts
18. Nut cookies - 500 grams cashews mixed with 1 egg baked at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Apple Sundae Recipe
by Charlenne Carl

Ingredients: (Serves 2-4)

• 2 apples
• 2 TBS almond butter (creamy)
• 1/4 cup organic maple syrup
• 1/2 tsp. almond extract
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 TBS sliced almonds
• 2 TBS unsweetened organic coconut flakes
• If preparing in advance for multiple servings, 1 orange

Directions:

Food Prep

1. In a small mixing bowl, blend the almond butter, maple syrup, vanilla and almond extracts until smooth. It should be the consistency of caramel sauce.
2. 2. Cut the apples into quarters and core. I use small Honeycrisp apples. I do my preparation with the kitchen gadget "apple slicer." It cores and slices wedges in one motion. Then I use a paring knife to cut the wedges crosswise into bite-size pieces.
3. 3. If preparing to serve later, apples are best preserved from turning brown by citric acid. So cut an orange into wedges and as you put diced apples into the storage bowl, squeeze orange juice over them and toss to coat them. Lemon juice works as well, but the orange maintains the sweet flavour of the fruit.

Presentation Prep

1. Place diced apples into individual serving bowls. Stemmed-ware, including martini glasses, makes a nice presentation for a dinner party.
2. Drizzle the sauce over the bowls of apples.
3. Top with almonds and coconut, then serve.

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