This is practice-based education and training for personal healing, well-being, and growth that supports service to the world. The goal is to help you to design a personal practice, grounded in science and traditional methods of training.
Practice can open up doors within your life that nothing else can. It can lead you into an unshakeable connection to your intuition and the living intelligence (or “spirit”).
This is an educational project designed to help you become a master. Within the context of this training, this means falling in love with practice; mental development, and the process of leading yourself to become a prolific creative, benevolent force that benefits and lifts others up!
Contemplative Skills and Practice
The role of contemplative practice is key and not often taught. A beautiful life is something that dawns upon us: it’s a journey of discovery.
For a moment, think like a master gardener. It can take a lot of work, strength, and stamina but, at the same time all we are really doing setting up the right conditions and planting the seeds for peace, joy, energized tranquility, wisdom, compassion, creative potential, and radiant health to bloom in our lives.
This is relevant to you whether your aspirations are spiritual or simply about living and creating a beautiful life (and world).
Designing a powerful personal practice
The innovative methods taught embrace the following principles (adapted from SCT Principles):
1) Contemplative practice is for everyone (regardless of secular or spiritual worldview)
2) Trauma-Informed Practice is an effective and efficient practice
3) Practice deepens our connections to self, other and world (begin with a relational mindset)
4) Buddha nature is innate (we all have unconfined capacities for love, wisdom and creative expression that practice draws out and helps us to embody, more and more continuously)
5) The new and emerging science of mind, wellbeing and peak-performance can support safe, effective and robust practice
Embodied Energy Flow Method: 4 pillars of training
These pillars, and associated skills, support each other and can be integrated seamlessly to streamline the process of personal healing, well-being, and growth that supports service to the world.
- Meditation and Contemplative Practice
By drawing upon traditional methods of training, supported by modern contemplative science, we can be confident from the outset that our practice can deliver the goods. Never before have high-quality teachers and lineage teachings been so accessible. We can leverage this in becoming a badass, skilled mediator.
2. Alchemical Asana
Asana or postural yoga was traditionally developed to support the goals of meditative practice. Again, science can support this process. We can learn anatomically safe and effective methods to optimize our posture and breathing. This is foundational to well-being and the development of mental and physical pliancy. Asana can become a toolkit for transformation and trauma healing, we can use embodied practice to draw out innate capacities for love, well-being, wisdom, vision, and empowered creativity upon which we can build a conscious, purpose-filled life.
3. Chi Kung
Chi Kung is an embodied healing art that has medical, martial, and spiritual applications. The practice promotes optimal energy flow within the body and is excellent for releasing the tightness, contraction, stress, and tension that builds up within the body. Working directly with our energy in this way promotes stillness within the mind and, over time, abundant, overflowing health and vitality.
4. Functional Embodied Training (and Health Optimisation)
Often overlooked by many meditators and yogis, promoting physical strength and metabolic function through functional training is a way to promote deep fitness, longevity, stamina, and mental clarity that can be applied to seamlessly navigating our life duties, creative projects, and contemplative practice(s). Fitness can be a joyful, embodied, mindful journey of release and self-discovery.
Each pillar has sub-principles that can help us to know and understand how to go deeper and reap the benefits. But more important, is that you trust them enough to be consistent. I recommend picking a practice that particularly resonates, one (or more) that is particularly healing and connecting for you… then stick with it for 3 months. Any one of these pillars engaged in a dedicated way could potentially support the practitioner’s highest vision of life. After a prolonged period of practice then consider incorporating additional pillars into your life…and see for yourself how immensely beneficial and mutually supportive they all are to your practice and life goals!
3 Connecting Principles
These are central.
1. Connection to body
Mindfulness of the body (and the simple practice of whole-body awareness) is the foundation on which freedom and liberation can grow. It’s a supportive basecamp from which we can begin to explore mindfulness of feelings/emotions and mind/thoughts. It’s also where we can begin to access our intuition and abundant “Lifeforce.” Lifeforce provides us with not just energy, longevity, and stamina but also the mental clarity and intelligence for engaging with big, life-changing projects.
2. Relational Mindset/Connection to others
It’s essential to establish a secure base of trust and safety inside. This extends to how we relate, whether we can be vulnerable and feel safe to express ourselves and connect openly with others. Also, to flourish we must feel supported and held in a field of care, seen by others (and life) in our deep dignity and potential. Without this, we cannot heal and/or access our Buddha Nature more consistently. It’s also foundational to co-creating with others and leadership in general.
3. Buddha Nature/Connection to Self
Contemplative Practice connects to our Soul’s Purpose and Work. The work that is ours to do, the gifts and message that is uniquely ours to share and express. The value that we want to provide… and the songs we want to sing. Our practice can place us firmly on this unique path or “Soul’s Journey”.
Lifeforce is the key
Self- Leadership allows us to create, and become masterful in the art of conscious living.
When the 3 connecting principles (see above) have been established, as a byproduct of practice and devotion, then leadership is easy. We live with more flow, and challenges can be metabolized into opportunity and growth.
If you don’t know where to start or need a refresher then the practices shared on this channel can help you. Begin by working on your “Lifeforce” which is the place to start and to come back to again and again whenever you feel lost or that you have strayed from your path. Or perhaps you have connected to your path already but you wish to deepen it and make it unconditional/unshakeable then the prescription is the same: come back to cultivating lifeforce.
Maybe you have the vision but you are scared or emotionally blocked. No need to wallow in self-pity or frustration, just relax and come back to cultivating lifeforce and connection. This is a traditional tried-and-tested approach for effortless expansion, now grounded in modern science.
Develop a practice that you can fall in love with, a healing art and contemplative practice that meets all your multi-faceted needs and fulfils your highest aspirations. Embodied energy flow is here to help support that process.