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

it about their history and benefits, and then follow step-by-step instructions for incorporating them
into your routine. For the first week, you’ll follow each practice faithfully and consistently one at a
time for seven days.
I recommend keeping a personal “practice journal,” so you can log your progress and record your
feelings and impressions after each day of practice. By recording how you feel physically, mentally,
and emotionally both before and after your practice, what exercises speak to you, and what you notice
about your energy, you’ll develop your own energy expertise. You’ll come to know that any kind of
movement is good—the body appreciates it. But the radical difference between general movement
and Waking Energy is that with Waking Energy you are consciously exploring, making a conscious
decision to embark upon a purposeful expedition into the state your body is in and what it needs. With
a new sentient awareness, an embodied presence, you are “looking under the hood” each day.
Let’s be honest. It’s not easy to stay within the lines. I have always had a hard time walking the
path of a labyrinth (as you’ll discover in the last chapter, on meditation, but even though you may be
tempted, don’t go hunting for it yet!). However, it is structure that provides us with the greatest
foundation and affords the most creativity and the most expansive freedoms. Though you may be
tempted to stray from the plan, in order to truly become your own energy master you’ll want to be as
faithful from the onset as possible. Quelling your rebellious tendencies and giving in to a sense of
discipline are essential to the efficacy of the practice.
To really get to know the energy character of each modality in the Waking Energy Way, to truly
deepen your practice and increase your proficiency, after the first “seven-day sampler,” where you do
the first practice on the first day, the second practice on the second day, and so on, you will return to
the beginning and dedicate a full seven days to each separate modality. This means that you’ll be
practicing each modality in the Waking Energy Way for a full week, adding up to a full seven weeks.
Because the body and mind have a special affinity for ritual and respond in remarkably brilliant
and immediate ways to this kind of consistent practice and exposure to new stimuli, this method is
especially effective. During each week of study with each particular practice, you will continue to
take stock of how you feel before, during, and after and journal about your experience. As you
become well versed in each practice, you will become intimately familiar with your own energy
anatomy. Having journaled about the effects of each and how they made you feel, you will then be
equipped to know how to match each practice to what your body needs on any given day—
customizing the program to suit the needs of your life. In this way, you’ll be able to dance between the
yin and yang energies, truly understanding how they work together as an integrated whole, and you’ll
really start to tune into what your body needs and be able to deliver it. For example, if you’ve had a
stressful day, a yin yoga practice would be just the thing to send you off to a restful night’s sleep. On
the other hand, if you’ve been stuck at your desk for hours feeling mounting frustration, then a yang
practice like kundalini or Pilates would be the answer to revitalize and calm you.
At the end of the seven weeks, you’ll again make your return on the grand circle of the Tao and
repeat the first week, in which you did the seven practices on seven successive days, one on each day,
and see how you have improved. Like a true apprentice to Taoist adepts, you’ll explore each modality
thoroughly, channeling the ancient wisdom and ways of being and applying yourself to fully
embracing, learning, and integrating this precious knowledge.
After week eight, once you’re familiar with each component of the Waking Energy Way and you
have a good understanding of its history, philosophy, and purpose as well as the yin and yang qualities