Waking Energy 7 Timeless Practices Designed to Reboot Your Body and Unleash Your Potential

3. Take three full, deep breaths, inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth with
your lips pursed in the shape of an O to release tension in the face, specifically the jaw.
The Practice
Rite One: Spinning
Children naturally spin while they play. Since Waking Energy is about reclaiming your original self,
here is your chance to remind your body of something it already knows how to do. Become a child
again. Without thinking too hard about it or giving in to preconceived notions about how it might make
you feel, prepare to be surprised—it could be fun! That’s why children do it! So why not seek it out,
the way a venturing child would?
Spinning stimulates the body’s total energy system, waking up all the chakras. It gently accelerates
the overall flow of your life force. By bringing the vortices to an optimal speed, spinning has a
calming effect on the mind and the emotional body. When we spin clockwise, the Tibetan monks say
that negative residues are flung out of the body. The bridge between the left and right hemispheres of
the brain is strengthened and balance improves.
This exercise strengthens the vestibular apparatus—the balancing mechanism in the inner ear.
With regular practice, your initial dizziness will stop. The spin will become easy and fluid, even at
very fast speeds. This is the same motion practiced by Sufi whirling dervishes, who twirl at rapid
speeds for long periods of time to achieve a state of prayerful transcendence.
1. Stand erect with your arms outstretched horizontal to the floor and your palms facing down.
Without moving from your place, slowly start to spin in a clockwise direction, rotating around
that one spot on the floor, breathing naturally, and working your way into spinning as fast as you
can without losing control.
2. It is important to keep your eyes focused on a point at your starting place, or “spot,” in the front
of the room for as long as you can, until your head turns naturally to follow the rest of your body
as you spin. Then turn your head around quickly and find your spot with your eyes as soon as you
can, leaving your gaze there while your body rotates until you have to turn your head again.
Spotting will enable you to preserve your equilibrium as you spin and diminishes the dizziness
that occurs as a natural consequence of the spinning action.
3. Continue to spin until you start to feel dizzy. Once this happens, stop. Feel free to rest, to sit or to
lie down until the dizziness subsides and resolves entirely. When you first attempt this exercise,
you may not be able to spin more than a few times without getting dizzy. As your chakras attune
and your inner balance mechanisms get stronger, you will be able to spin up to twenty-one times
without getting dizzy at all.
Rite Two: Leg Lift