SGM June 2013 Weekly Message Two: “How to Ground and Clear Your Energy”

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Welcome back to the June 2013 Edition of Spiritual Growth Monthly. I’m Kevin Schoeninger. It’s great to have you with us at SGM.

If you ever feel low on energy, have a hard time making decisions, or feel anxious and stressed, this week’s three energy exercises will become powerful tools in your mind-body toolkit. These practices are an excellent entry into energy work and important for all levels of practice. They will “ground” you, open your vital energy centers, improve energy flow, and release tension and stored stress or trauma. They are a great way to start your day and/or ideal to use any time you’ve reached the limits of your energy, focus, or ability to handle what you’re facing.

In addition, especially if you’re north of 40 in our “head-centered” culture, where the majority of our time is spent processing visual information, you’ve likely become energetically depleted. It’s likely that you’ve become cut off from your ability to replenish the energy in your lower vital energy centers. These three exercises are a great remedy!

The “grounding” aspect of these practices will get you “out of your head,” connect you to your body, and bring you mental-emotional stability. When you are grounded, you feel relaxed, balanced, and in touch with inner guidance. You are able to make decisions, take a strong stance, and feel confident in what you are doing. Grounding also facilitates vital energy flow through your feet, legs, and lower abdomen or lower dantian, which is considered the seat of your physical vitality. This is where you replenish your physical energy.

Our first exercise is quite simple and comes to us from Dr. Ann Marie Chiasson, in your excellent book, “Energy Healing,” (Sounds True, 2013). It’s called “Toe Tapping.” The second and third exercises are ones that I use in my weekly Qigong (“chee-gung” meaning “energy work”) classes in Boulder, Colorado, and I’ve included videos to demonstrate them for you.

My suggestion is to start with the first practice and feel its effects. Then, move on to the second and third practices. Once you have a feel for all three, you can use whichever ones work best for you at this time. I encourage you to make time for all three of them in your weekly practice schedule. However, doing any one of them consistently would be a great start!

Again, all three of these are great ways to start your day or to use anytime you feel anxious, tense, tired, or stressed out.

Energy Exercise #1: Toe Tapping

Toe Tapping is done lying down on your back, so it’s easy to do when you’re tired or when you’re lying in bed thinking about mustering the energy to get up. This exercise has a property unique to Qigong exercises in that it calms you down and re-energizes you. This is great to use when you feel anxious and unfocused or when you feel lethargic and unmotivated.

Here’s how to do Toe Tapping:

Lie on your back with your arms resting at your sides, palms up. Keep your legs straight so they rotate freely at your hip sockets. Allow a few inches distance between your heels. Keeping your heels in place, rotate your feet inward so the insides of your big toes tap together. Then, rotate your feet outward. Rhythmically repeat this rotating tapping motion of your big toes for five minutes. Below are pics of the start and finish positions.

Tapping faster may make this easier to do, as the momentum of one tap leads into the next. You can also do this while listening to rhythmic music to keep a consistent time. When you’re finished, lie still and relaxed and feel the sensations in your body. You may feel energy sensations running up the insides of your legs and up through your torso following the meridian lines of your spleen, liver, and stomach. If you’ve ever wondered what qi movement feels like, you may feel it after this exercise.

Precautions: this exercise is not recommended for pregnant women, as it could stimulate labor, or for those with hip or knee replacements.

(You can pause the audio to practice Toe Tapping for a few minutes.)

Energy Exercise #2: Shake Your Body

I’ve used this exercise for over a decade in my Qigong classes and found it one of the best ways to release tension, shake off nervousness, and get in touch with feeling relaxed energy sensations inside your body. It’s a great way to improve your circulation and energy and boost your immune response. It also aligns your ankles, knees, and hips. I do this every morning after my meditation practice.

How to practice the Shake Your Body technique:

Stand in a shoulder-width stance with your arms hanging down at your sides. Begin to gently bounce up and down on the balls of your feet by raising your heels up and down off the ground. Keep your knees slightly bent as you increase the speed and height of your bounce in a comfortable rhythm. Continue for a few minutes. Let your body shake out like a ragdoll. If you have any joint issues, you can do this gently.

Below you’ll find a video of me doing the “Shake Your Body” technique for a couple minutes that you can practice along with. (You can pause the audio to complete this practice.)

Energy Exercise #3: Energizing Qi Exercises:

This is a sequence that has been passed down with many variations for centuries from the Shaolin Temple in China. It is an overall energy tune-up that is a great way to start your day. It releases tension, stimulates and balances energy flow through your whole body—and it feels great. Doing this consistently just may be one of the most powerful things you can do for your health and energy.

I’ve created a video with audio instruction and babbling brook in the background, so you can really get into the feel of it. It takes 11 minutes. You can pause the audio and practice along with the video below:

I would love to hear about your experiences with the above practices in our Discussion below. You have some powerful tools here!

Enjoy your practice!
Kevin