If you examine the Say-Do-Be harmony, Say relates to the Mind, because you say what you think… Do to the Body because it is about action… and Be to the Spirit, because that's how you feel deep inside, Getting thinking, effort, and feeling in sync is what we spoke about in lesson 5.
Now I will tell you how to get this synchronicity, using what you do every day. What you do every day is move your breath, through inhalation and exhalation, which I will like you to remember as R, for Respiration. Remember, respiration is what you place your thought upon while being in awareness… so you bring in the mind.
Second, you move your Muscles, which is M. Obviously, this is the body we're bringing in.
And whether you are conscious of it or not, you also move Energy, which is E. And again, as you well know by now, that is subtle spirit. Being in consciousness about R, M and E will also, therefore, get your mind, body, and spirit working in unison. And this can result in fantastic productivity, efficiency, and freedom from stress. We will cultivate it shortly.
First, let us reflect on it theoretically. Imagine that you are writing an email. Let's say it will take you 20 minutes to finish. In one hour, you have a client meeting to attend. Before that, you have to have lunch and take a 10-minute walk to the meeting room. All this is M, moving muscles. All this also has your mental energy, E. And let's say your respiration, R, is normal. Suddenly, an insecure feeling related to the client you have to meet comes into your mind. You double-check whether you have copied the final presentation folder into your laptop. That is multi-tasking. Excellent, you have. You get back to the mail. Suddenly you remember that the client might be accompanied by his consultant, who was picky about your supporting materials the last time. Again, you click on the folder and smile contentedly because this time, you have taken care of that.
Meanwhile, you have lost the thread of your email, so you reread it. Right, now you restart, with a glance at the time. Ten minutes up. Whoops, got to hurry! Now, you are breathing shallowly. The R is out of sync with the M because the E took two trips mentally to the client and back. Suddenly 20 minutes are up, and you are messed up about how to end the mail. It has to be a strong statement. And again, your E goes an hour ahead, recalling the strong statement you made to the consultant the last time… and that's when he had started to get picky. Aha, better not a strong statement. And suddenly 40 minutes are up. You press Send. Run to the cafeteria and grab a sandwich. Still half-breathing. Energy is all over the place… calculating whether to walk or take a bicycle across the campus. Walk, it will be… fast. R is now really stressed. E is climbing with adrenaline. M is munching and walking. Exactly 3 minutes before the appointment, you skid into the room and brace yourself. The client walks in, and you greet them with a broad smile. Everything is perfect. Does this ever happen with you?
Well, now this is what was supposed to happen. The mail was supposed to take 20 minutes if R-M-E had stayed together. A decent – and may I add, healthy – lunch would have taken another 20 minutes, and the walk would have taken 10, leaving a good 10 minutes for refreshing and rechecking all the meeting documents. So, while outwardly, all the bases were covered, inwardly, there was enormous stress created. And while multi-tasking might score the same result on productivity, it is incredibly inefficient. Managers extoll its virtues because they merely manage. Leaders, on the other hand, lead… through focus. If you have read autobiographies of billionaires, you would note that they focus in pockets of time, during the day, on specific businesses. They do not multi-task between petroleum and retail and aviation in a 10-minute-spell. And neither must you. You must use your being-in-awareness meditative process to say hello and goodbye to trespassing thoughts, and – if they are important enough – they will come back to you in the 10-minutes you allocate to refreshing after you send the email.
But what if we are ill-prepared for the meeting… you ask?
Well, what we are talking about is not a random event, but a process of creating habits. Remember, we created the habit of brushing our teeth and bathing our bodies as separate activities. If we hadn't, could we be mindlessly cleaning our hair with a toothbrush under the shower?
You know, this sounds funny only because it is a habit you have created. Mixing energies of events an hour away with those in the present is equally funny. Because when you form the right habits, you would already have the documents in the meeting folder, and you need not either worry about them or keep double-checking on them. Worry arises because you are either in the past or in the future. If you stay in the present, there is nothing to worry about. And so, there is no stress. And so, there is a better future, created without impediments, through every present moment.
The habit that will help you get respiration, muscle movements, and energy in balance on a moment-to-moment basis is an ancient Chinese practice called Qigong. Qigong is meditation in movement. Qi, as you might know, is life-force-energy, and Gong is the word that means to work with. Working with your energy through a 5-to-25-minute routine every day will replace your gym or yoga or meditation time. Because it will build you up powerfully… using energy, spirit, rather than only using mind and body, which yoga and meditation do, or only the body, which gym does. Think of it as an internal energy cleansing bath.
Now that you have this background, what remains in the actual practice of Qigong, which will set up your R-M-E alignment as a habit, besides keeping you really healthy and well balanced with serotonin and endorphins. Qigongforbeginners.com is a great starting point for a virtual course your entire family can take up with live video coaching.
From the first 15 minutes of the class itself, you will learn how to connect with universal energy. And once you strike a partnership with that, you become unshakable to routine day to day energy suckers. And you stay in top physical and mental condition as well.
A condition that is greatly aided by the way you turn back into bed… which we shall talk about in the next lesson.
