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

order to do that, we had to become intimately acquainted with our bodies, demonstrate reverence for
them, and show them love. Only then could we enliven our spirits and tempt them back into their
headquarters after taking our power back and establishing balance in the household.
As he spoke, everything fell into place for me. We were learning the Inner Smile, a Taoist inneralchemy
practice that focuses gratitude and joy on the internal organs to resolve the physical and
mental tensions that can lead to illness. For me, it was the logical progression after yin yoga, which
had opened and energized my energy pathways and introduced me to my organs and their emotional
resonances. Now we were about to learn unequivocally that they had feelings and needed our love
and attention. It all made sense; we have more than thirty-seven trillion cells in our body, and they all
naturally seek balance. Possessing incalculable innate intelligence, these cells develop a positive
imprint when they receive positive energy along with the healing power of specific sound currents.
This instantly boosts the life of each cell, and they all join forces as a united front to ward off disease.
Master Chia told us that our focus naturally brings energy to the place our mind is directed
toward. Energy follows intention. When you don’t take the time to focus and generate your own inner
chi, when you don’t replenish the well, when you continually give it away, you are giving your power
away. You keep using the energy you have “on reserve” inside, and then it runs out, and that stress
makes it run out faster.
The solution was quite simple, he explained: clear out the negative emotions inside your actual
organs and make them into a team that works for you. To manage stress, slow down, turn inward, and
create your own calm. Focus your mind and look inward, to the heart, to the liver, the spleen, the
lungs. “Sing to them their favorite song, which I will teach you, and they will be inspired to thrive
within you. When they come together, they will be ‘good soldiers,’” he said, “strengthening your inner
resolve and serving you faithfully” as formidable opponents to life’s vicissitudes.
He sat there with his eyes closed, and his hands, palm over palm, facing his own body, floating
directly above his heart, “Delete anger, jealousy, impatience . . . breathe, let it go.” Raising his palms
to the sky, he inhaled deeply and then projected the sound for the heart, “Hawwwwww,” and his hands
returned to the space just over his heart. “Believe that your mind has the power to bring love to your
heart, radiate the joy, the love, the happiness into your heart and then take that growing love and now
bring it into your liver,” and his hands went down over his liver, the gallbladder, the small intestine,
the spleen.
I followed his every movement, taking a peaceful, but deeply cathartic tour through my own body.
With each sound I made according to the organ it was meant for, I intuitively felt my organs smiling
back at me, making the decision to rally, to unite, because I was taking the time to focus my energy on
each one, telling my kidneys, my liver, my heart that I appreciated their hard work and that I was
working with them now, keenly aware of their existence. I was even learning new songs to sing to
them and smiling at them the way I would smile at someone I liked. It paid off, and faster than I could
have imagined. At the end of that weekend in North Carolina, I had truly learned the power of love,
and my back pain was gone for good.
Even all those years ago in North Carolina when, as a group, we did the Inner Smile and Cosmic
Healing Sounds together, it was fundamentally life-altering for me. Discovering that I had the ability