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

alancing our emotions and cultivating our inner calm, so that we refrain from giving our power and
energy away by going to extremes. In the Waking Energy practices, the primary reason the movement
sequences are so effective is that the body is treated as an integrated whole, like nature, which is also
whole. As you stretch and breathe, you’ll direct your energy in such a way that you can boost your
calm and mental reserves and transcend negative unconscious emotional predispositions, helping you
find a place of peace. In this way, you create a balance in your own personal ecosystem that
influences every decision you make.
To do this, we need to dedicate ourselves to cultivating inner awareness, a kind of open-minded,
open-hearted curiosity, that helps us to remember that we are all part of a bigger world than the one
we inhabit on a daily basis. When we open to this broader awareness, we can tap into the energy
from the world around us. When we engage in conscious movement practices that draw upon the
limitless stores of energy in the fields of heaven and earth, we reconnect with ourselves, the planet,
and the universe around us.
A sense of belonging arises in our own body—a reflection of our growing awareness of the unity
and interconnectedness of all things in our world. As we start to observe nature and explore the same
energies in our own bodies, we become more naturally attuned to the presence of life’s opposites in
others and feel more connected to one another. We start to shift from a Western perspective, in which
we convince ourselves that the secret to living well and long is like an unfathomable mystery to be
solved, something beyond what we actually see with our own eyes, to an Eastern approach, which has
us look no farther than what is right in front of us.
The truth of what is, what we see reflected in our own bodies and in the world around us, then
becomes a clear vision that we can integrate into our consciousness. We can start to cultivate
essential awareness and aliveness—the energy we need to balance the two worlds. When we acquire
the tools necessary to harness these universal energies and invite them to flow with our own, we
become enlivened, excited, and empowered. We become more self-reliant and self-realized. We start
to experience, to believe, and then to know that we have the power to heal ourselves and live our best
lives. This is heaven on earth, and only we can create it—when we are present to what is.
If, through the cultivation of consciousness, you’re able to maintain equanimity (at least most of
the time), then you will have the internal capacity to make choices that serve you well. Feeding your
spirit by making life-enhancing choices gives you more energy, so that then when life presents you
with its inevitable challenges, you’re better equipped to deal with them. By going the way of nature,
you not only preserve and maintain your energy reserves, but in your best moments you can also
supplement and reinforce preexisting stores. It becomes a kind of beautiful and self-sustaining domino
effect.
When you align yourself with the universe and understand that you contain the universe within
you, that you are one with it, you will start to feel truly whole. When you can align with what you feel,
you can know your true needs and be independent and self-sufficient. When you see that your own
body and mind are themselves fields of energy that reflect and interact with the larger fields of heaven
and earth, and when you are living in alignment with your own instincts, everything just feels right.
Before you know it, you have returned to your own original, natural rhythms, you are living “the
way,” and you are on your way to becoming self-realized. Deep ease settles into your body, and you
feel a sense of total well-being. You are able to surrender more easily, literally to go with the flow of
the energies that surround you. When you can open to nature and receive her, you become more