The need of life-affirming energy for health and spiritual well-being cannot be stressed enough – especially with the rise of depression, anxiety, and early childhood disorders in advanced technological societies.
Life-affirming energy goes by many names and has been venerated in many societies. Taoists in China call it Chi and Jing. In India, it’s called Prana and the Kundalini-shakti. It doesn’t matter what name it goes by – this extraordinary energy can be used to heal physical disease, restrictive patterns, and energetic traumas that can limit you and disrupt your relationship to yourself, Gaia, and other sentient beings. Because life-affirming energy has universal qualities, it can also enhance your ability to experience pleasure, love, intimacy, and joy.
Some of you may already recognize the extraordinary power of this energy. You may realize that this force is so powerful that, when it radiates through your subtle field freely, it can catapult you into a state of transcendence where problems and worries disappear, and you can participate in the bliss that is continuously experienced by the living universe.
To enhance the flow of life-affirming energy through your subtle field, the field of consciousness, energy, and etheric matter that interpenetrates your physical-material body, there are things that you should stop doing – and several things that you should start or continue doing.
Activities that you should stop doing include smoking and imbibing alcohol and drugs to excess. Inactivity as well as stressful mental activities, such as worrying, also interfere with physical health and spiritual well-being. All these activities interfere with the flow of life-affirming energy through your subtle field and disrupt the energetic balance between your physical-material body and subtle field.
Promoting good health and spiritual well-being therefore means less smoking, less drinking, fewer drugs, and a less sedentary lifestyle. It also means that you must get more natural. You have a physical-material body that is designed to interact with the natural environment. And although life in the twenty-first century may force you to spend long periods of time in man-made environments, it’s natural things that have the most positive effect on your health and well-being.
Food is one natural thing that promotes good health and spiritual well-being. You may be forced to work in an office building and drive a car on the highway to and from work, but no one forces you to eat processed foods that provide empty calories but little else. The truth is that food has an immense effect on good health and spiritual well-being.
Fresh foods that are natural and not adulterated have the most life-affirming qualities. They protect you against free radicals and other toxic substances. And they contain vitamins and nutrients that will keep your metabolism healthy.
In the following text, I’ve listed several foods that you can add to your diet. Each has beneficial properties that promote good health and spiritual well-being.
Mangos: have Carotene, which protects you from UV damage and enhances the health of your skin. They contain zinc, which improves the strength and luster of your hair. Mangos improve the health of the gums and tighten the connective tissue. They’re rich in vitamin A, which enhances vitality – and they have mood enhancing properties. Eating Mangos can make you feel euphoric.
Papayas: contain large amounts of vitamin A, which will improve your vision and give your eyes a healthy glow. They enhance the function of enzymes that promote vitality and other essential life processes. Papayas improve the functions of your heart and circulation. They also enhance the function of your colon, which will enhance the health of your skin and strengthen your immune system.
Cherries: contain folic acid, which improves cell metabolism. Folic acid is one of the most important vitamins a woman can take during pregnancy because it plays a prominent role in the production of nerve cells. Cherries also contain large amounts of iron, which has rejuvenating properties that promote healthy gums and skin.
Saffron: has aphrodisiacal and regenerative properties. In Ayurvedic medicine, saffron has been used to fight depression and to harmonize and balance a woman’s menstrual cycle.
Garlic: In Ayurvedic medicine, garlic is known for its properties of rejuvenation and regeneration. Garlic can lower your cholesterol level and help your body discharge metabolic waste. It’s good for your heart and can be used to fight infections, skin diseases, and sciatic problems.
Avoid Eating at Night
Although fresh, healthy foods enhance physical well-being, eating too much – or eating late at night – can have a negative influence on your health and spiritual well-being.
Eating at night will add pounds to your body because nighttime metabolism is incomplete. In addition, your body is rebuilding cells while you’re sleeping. If you eat late at night, your body must perform this essential work along with the difficult work of digestion. This stresses your body by increasing your blood pressure, increasing the production of LDL cholesterol, and increasing blood sugar – all of which are risk factor for diabetes and other diseases. In Europe, an old proverb states, “Frühstücken wie ein Kaiser, Mittagessen wie ein König und Abendessen wie ein Bettler” (Eat breakfast like an emperor, lunch like a king, and dinner like a beggar).
Physical exercise: enhances physical health and spiritual well-being in a host of ways. It enhances muscle tone and increases mental alertness. By improving blood circulation, it helps release toxins that are responsible for aging. It improves sleep, which has its own health benefits. Physical exercise also increases the production of serotonin which enhances pleasure – and helps you overcome the effects of projections that can lead to depression.
Strenuous, regular exercise will help you transcend your limitations, which in turn will help you overcome fear and anxiety. Stress hormones will be reduced when you exercise regularly – so will physical tension.
For those of you looking for a regular regimen of physical exercise, I recommend Hatha Yoga or Tai Chi. These forms of exercise not only provide health benefits – they help to integrate the activities of your physical-material body with the activities of your subtle field.
Natural environments: Good health and natural environments go hand in hand. So, don’t listen to what the cheerleaders of patriarchy tell you about the natural world. Natural environments, especially forests, have a rejuvenating effect on people. But not all forests are the same. Old grown forests are renowned for their ecological complexity and the age of their trees. Less appreciated is the fact that old trees radiate vast amounts of prana into the environment. When there are several old trees growing together, the atmosphere around them will be saturated with prana. The effect can be so pronounced that depression can be lifted and anxiety reduced. The enhanced radiation of prana – and the pleasure they bring – will benefit you physically and energetically by enhancing your ability to connect to Gaia and to other people.
Almost all national forests in the U.S. and Canada have groves of old growth, especially at higher elevations. Take a hike – take friends – and take some natural fresh food along for a picnic.
Enjoy beautiful things: When you enjoy beautiful things, art, nature, and beautiful man-made objects, your pupils will widen, and you will have a positive emotional reaction. Music can have a particularly positive effect on your health. The complexity of certain types of music stimulates parts of the brain linked to creativity, concentration, and abstract thinking.
It isn’t well-known, but the seven tones in the major musical scale are linked energetically to the seven traditional chakras. Baroque composers – and even some modern composers – were aware of this connection and created music that stimulated the chakras – and simultaneously provided listeners with an endorphin rush.
Negative ions: are created in nature as air molecules break apart due to sunlight, moving air, and water. They’re odorless, tasteless, and invisible molecules that we inhale in abundance in certain environments. Think mountains, waterfalls, and beaches. Once they reach our bloodstream, negative ions are believed to produce biochemical reactions that increase levels of the mood enhancing chemical serotonin. It’s believed that enhanced serotonin levels will help alleviate depression, relieve stress, and boost energy – all of which enhance health and well-being.
Fortunately, every home has a built-in natural ionizer – the shower. I suggest that you give yourself a negative ion bath by spraying your body with cold water from the shower head at least once a day.
Control Your Mind
Nothing wastes life-affirming energy more than a mind that is unstable, prone to negativity, and/or out of control.
The easiest way to get control of the mind and to enhance its well-being is to find a place within it where there is silence, space, and stability. Places such as these are ubiquitous in your authentic mind. They include your chakra fields, dantians, and functions of mind, such as the field of will, desire, and love. Even if you’re new to energy work, you can use your intent to locate one of these fields and center your awareness in it. Then you can observe how waves, in the form of intrusive thoughts, emotions, and feelings impact your subtle field. By becoming the observer of the movie of your mind, you can find a place where you can enjoy the peace of mind that is the natural state of well-being shared by all sentient beings.