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

index and middle fingers pointing straight up.
4. Then open your straight arms to the sides of your body, keeping them in line with your shoulders.
Rotate your arms so your palms face the floor and breathe in deeply as you bend your wrists so
that your fingers point down toward the floor. Press the backs of your wrists away from the
center of your body. Inhale and exhale in this position.
5. Inhale again as you flex your wrists and point your sword fingers up toward the sky, pressing the
heels of your hands away from your body in opposite directions.
6. Focus on your breathing. You will start to feel what will likely be intense sensations in your arms
and hands as you hold this final position. Breathe into these sensations, knowing that your breath
will facilitate the smooth flow of chi to your hands through the meridians in your arms. As you
breathe, continue to think of keeping the Bubbling Spring Points open in your feet and drawing
chi from the earth up into your body and into your Lower Elixir Field.
7. Hold the position for eight complete cycles of breath, in and out.
Goddess Breaths
The empowering exercise Goddess Breaths reinforces inner confidence, self-esteem, and willpower.
It opens and activates the navel center and solar plexus, clearing anger and doubt. As you perform this
action, you should do it vigorously, with real conviction, as if you were Michelle Yeoh in Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Bruce Lee elbow-checking an enemy trying to sneak up on you from behind.
Instead of thinking about an enemy, however, consider this a confidence-building exercise that
represents the assertion of your power, because you are rooting your feet firmly into the earth when
you are singing out your truth: HA!
1. Step your legs three feet apart, then turn your toes out, so that your legs are externally rotated, and
bend your knees deeply, taking care to align your knees with your toes.
2. Inhale and reach your arms up to the sky in front of you with your palms facing forward, away
from you, and your fingers spread wide to collect heaven chi.
3. As you exhale, pull your arms down swiftly, forming fists with your hands at the sides of your
hips, and make a HA! sound that comes from your solar plexus—your very core. Your elbows are
bent and behind your body. The HA! sound is both an exhalation and a sound vibration, and it
serves two purposes. First, it can help you move anger and frustration out of your body-mind.
Second, it can be a primal declaration, a way of announcing yourself and taking your place in the
world, as in, “I am woman (or man). Hear me roar!”
4. Repeat the actions of reaching your arms up and pulling them down to your hips several times. As
you pull the arms down to your hips with bent elbows, root your feet even more firmly into the
earth and feel the power in your legs and entire being. Start these repetitions slowly at first, like
an engine that is warming up. Inhale and stretch your arms up to the sky, and exhale and pull your
elbows back to your hips, securing them there suddenly and with great intention, almost ferocity,
without going over the top.
5. Then, like an engine that has reached its stride, inhale as you lift the arms and exhale as you pull