Do You Want to Feel More Alive?

CHARGE: A New Way to Look at Energy Psychology

 

It's not the meaning of life we seek but our aliveness. 

Once we have that the meaning of life is obvious.

Everybody's talking about Energy Psychology these days. We seem to have finally figured out that the mind alone does not heal, and that the body is an essential component of mental health. We also know that allopathic medicine, while capable of many wonders, fails to address the psychological role in the perpetuation of disease. We desperately need models that address this integration in order to become whole.  

Energy is the interface between mind and body. Just as the electricity in your computer allows the hardware and software to interface, the life force that runs through you connects your body and mind. That life force is known by many names: Yogis call it prana; Oriental medicine calls it chi; the Star Wars movies called it "the Force." Bioenergetics is the study of the human personality in terms of the energetic processes of the body. In Bioenergetic therapy, we call this energy "charge."

By whatever name you call it, the internal software of the mind - our thoughts and beliefs-- tells this energy where to go in the body-- and where not to go. It tells us to hold our bellies in, or hold our voice back, to take action or to shut down. How we distribute this energy through the body can make us feel anxious or depressed, vibrantly alive, or full of blockages. When we block our charge we shut down our chakras, our feelings, and our sense of aliveness.

I like to think of the word "charge" as standing for: 

Consciousness Having A Really Genuine Experience. 

If we're full of charge we are intensely alive, regardless of whether that charge feels pleasant or painful. We feel especially alive when we're charged up with excitement or pleasure. But even when we're angry or afraid - we at least feel real and present.  That's because we're having a really genuine experience!

 

We seek charge because we seek aliveness. An experience with a strong charge-- positive or negative-- has a lot of meaning. If we minimize our charge, we minimize our aliveness and life begins to feel meaningless. 

The human body/mind/spirit complex keeps a balance or "economy" of charge throughout life by charging and discharging. We charge up by engaging in challenges, having fun, or receiving love and affection, as well as through more biological activities like eating and sleeping. We discharge through releasing emotion, such as crying or yelling, as well as through work and physical activity.  

However, our "economy" of charge may get stuck at a high charge level, which we call anxiety, or a low charge level which we experience as depression. This is because of faulty regulation in the charge/discharge cycle, where charge is instead bound into body armor, such as excess weight or chronic muscular tension. This body armor forms patterns that can only be broken up by contacting the vital life energy that is bound. No matter how much insight we have, no matter how many cobra poses we do, it is the charge that is the glue of all our complexes, patterns, and behaviors.

Mind-Body Integration teaches you to connect with the basic "charge" or life force, learning to follow it deep into the core, and allowing it to move through the body. Energy then awakens the chakras, clears blockages, brings insight, and dissolves body armor. This process of deep healing is an art, but it can be learned. It will transform your understanding of yourself, your relationships, and your clients.

   

Blessings,

Anodea Judith 

Optimizing Sustainability

Optimizing Sustainability    Blessings of the Equinox! If you've had a long dark winter, you can take a breath now and smell the first fragrance of Spring. For a short time, the nights and days are equal, and at last, the light will begin to overtake the dark. Balance is the key to this Equinox holiday and indeed to the renewal of Spring. Imbalance is simply unsustainable, whether it's the imbalances between rich and poor, humans and the environment, or between men and women. Imbalances always seek to right themselves and come back into balance once again.   We often speak of checks in the same breath as balance, as in "checks and balances." To become sustainable, the inimitable human urge toward maximizing everything has to have some checks, and I don't mean the kind we deposit in our bank account. In truth, I have never been crazy about the word "sustainable." While I wholeheartedly agree with it in principle, the word speaks more about maintaining than thriving, holding back rather than moving forward with a good balance of joy and common sense.   I prefer the word optimization, asking the question: What is optimal for our future? Optimizing is not maximizing - it's not going as far as we can whenever we can, but invokes the ideal conditions for evolving and thriving. Below you will see a new series of free telecalls from Shift Network, called THE SPRING OF SUSTAINABILITY. Check it out, it features some of the best minds on the subject of renewable energy, green technologies, and sustainable practices.     Meanwhile, in honor of the balance of the season, what is optimal between men and women? And may I begin where I left off on my last post. . . . For those who read my tirade on Rush Limbaugh in my last blog, please know that we were not alone. There was enough protest that even the U.S. Army pulled its advertising from Limbaugh's show, along with at least 140 others. When such an uber male institution as the Army joins forces with the causes of women, we know we're getting somewhere. Thanks, Guys, we really appreciate having your support! However, not all the news is so good. Mitt Romney declares he wants to do away with Planned Parenthood, denying women low cost health care, breast exams, pap smears, and birth control.      Meanwhile Senate Republicans are looking to repeal the 18-year-old, formerly bipartisan Violence Against Women Act, which has been highly successful in reducing domestic violence.  Apparently the bill has been amended to now include Gays and Native Americans, and I guess that's just going too far, so let's can the whole thing, and turn our backs on roughly 12 million women per year who were victims of domestic violence (according to CDC's calculations) and ignore the fact that45% of women murdered are killed by their male partner. But hey, that's one way to keep population down while making it harder to get birth control. But really, I don't get it. We're told that single mothers - women who stick by their children when the fathers run off - are the downfall of the American family. But we're not supposed to use birth control, and we're not supposed to have an abortion either. And now some factions want to deny us any protection when we try to fight off those who would force the aspirin out from between our knees. Maybe we should all just put on Burkas and hide out until this insanity is over.   Lysistrata anyone?   For those who might have skipped out on studying Greek literature, Lysistrata is a comedy by Aristophanes, performed during the time of the Peloponnesian War (4th century B.C.). In this play the women of Greece start a powerful peace movement by withholding all sexual activity from their heterosexual relationships until a peace treaty is negotiated and signed between Athens and Sparta. It works! And the celebration afterward was spectacular, to say the least. Let's instead imagine what is optimal - safety and protection for all. Women safe in their home and on the streets; men safe from gangs and going to war. Women able to earn an equal salary for the same work; men not having to carry the financial load by themselves. Children who are planned, wanted, and cared for through adulthood. A way that men and women can thrive together, working in partnership, mutual respect, protecting what is sacred to each.   Let's become sustainable in our relationships  to each other, to the earth, to a glorious future that awaits us all. Let's celebrate this Equinox as a love affair between heaven and earth, light and dark, masculine and feminine. And let's fall back in love with our world once again. Brightest Blessings, Anodea Judith

Rushing Out on a Limbaugh

RUSHING OUT ON A LIMBAUGH

 

  

I thought it would be old news by the time I got around to writing this, but it looks like the gender storm is just beginning. This time shock jock radio host Rush Limbaugh has gone too far and ignited the kind of feminist outcry I've been wanting to hear for a long time. Maybe it took a blowhard like him to wake us up to the fact that things haven't really changed all that much in the new millennium as far as women are concerned. That's an awakening that will ultimately benefit all of us.

If you're not up on the latest set of insults aimed at half the human population, suffice it to say that the abortion debate has now taken a back seat to arguing about women's right to have any birth control at all covered by insurance. Rush Limbaugh made such derogatory comments to a female law student that Obama himself was compelled to call her and apologize. I won't belittle this blog by repeating Limbaugh's adolescent taunts here but if you really want to know, you can discover for yourself why his advertisers are fleeing in droves.

   

If you want to join the wave of pressure to have him removed from some of the 600 radio stations that host his show, sign the petition here!

It's not like this little comment exists in isolation. The panel of five conservative Congressmen who held the forum on whether insurance coverage of contraception violates religious freedom, refused to allow testimony from any females, saying that the women chosen were not "appropriate witnesses."                                      

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Chair of the House Oversight &  Government Reform Committee.

"What I want to know is, where are the women?" Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) asked Rep Darell Issa before walking out of the hearing after the first panel. "I look at this panel, and I don't see one single individual representing the tens of millions of women across the country who want and need insurance coverage for basic preventative health care services, including family planning.Where are the women?" 

Now, I may sound a bit cynical but I don't know whether having women testify would have done all that much good. We just get labeled as angry bitches and you might be thinking that about me even now. What I think would be more effective is for each of those men to be locked alone in a room with a couple of two-year-olds for 48 hours while strapping a large watermelon to their bellies. If they survive that, then they might be eligible to vote on this issue.

Now of course, the debate has not been balanced where Viagra is concerned. CNN talk show host, Jack Cafferty says it's not the same issue: "Viagra is used to treat a medical condition, erectile dysfunction. Birth control is a lifestyle choice."

Excuse me?  Medical issues are exactly what law student Sandra Fluke was trying to address.

Sandra Fluke: Law Student who was the target of Limbaugh

  

But really, folks, this is much more than a feminist issue. In a world dying under the weight of overpopulation, where 20% live in bone-chilling poverty, where food production is declining as climate temperatures rise, where clean drinking water is becoming an upper class privilege in many parts of the world, where one out of every three women is raped or beaten--refusing contraception digs a grave for the future of all humanity.

We're better than this. We can work together. We can co-create a glorious future. It's in our hands. But sometimes it requires going on a rant like this one to get us to wake up. Thank you for listening and making your voice heard in this swelling outcry against injustice and stupidity. Please help take Limbaugh off the air. At least  make the statement that we're out here and paying attention. At least half the people of the world will thank you.

Blessings,

Anodea Judith  

Can You Create a Miracle?

Can You Create a Miracle?

Image borrowed from Care2.com

Whether you think 2012 is going to bring disaster or delivery, it's pretty obvious that it's going to take a miracle to make the kind of changes necessary in the world today.

And that's a good thing, because how else would we learn about miracle making? How else would we learn to harvest divine power and bring it down through our core and out through our chakras? How else would we really grow up and shift from being Children of God to becoming Adults of God? (Thank you Swami Beyondananda for that phrase).  

The world needs people who can step into their power, take a stand, and create change. And there're people everywhere who need support in doing just that.

    

That's one of my missions - to empower people to take charge of their life, so they can create the life of their dreams. My deeper mission is to create heaven on earth, but that's a big job, and I'm not delusional enough to think I can do it alone. For that I need others to play with, people with big dreams, people with visions, people who want to learn how to manifest their deepest purpose.

I can't tell you what to create, but I can share a process that makes creation fun - even ecstatic. If you have a dream (and who doesn't?), I can offer you a step-by-step process for bringing your dream into reality.  

It starts with the highest you can reach for in the crown chakra, then takes you down to the realm of Vision in the sixth. Then you Communicate your visions effectively in the throat chakra, which brings you into Relationship at the heart. Loving relationships can give you support and inspiration and make the job so much easier. With the divine coming down and through you, it's easy to keep your Power focused and blast through obstacles and distractions. Take it down through the second chakra and it picks up the waters of your Passion to fertilize the ground and become real on the final plain of manifestation.  

Everyone experiences blocks in the process of creation. They are more than figments of our imagination. They're real and they can be tough. But having a way to handle those obstacles when they arise keeps you on track from conception to completion. Blast through blocks at each chakra level and you have a clear path to manifestation your highest purpose. Creation then becomes ecstasy.

Image borrowed from acceleration.net

This is the downward path through the chakras. It's a spiritual technology for manifestation: for bringing heaven down to earth. There's a lot more to it, but it's easily learned and can be used for anything you want to create. Why not get started now on your dream?  

Our Creating on Purpose book will be out in late October (written with Lion Goodman). But if you don't want to wait that long to get started on your dream (and we don't have time to waste) check out the live experience of this breakthrough workshop, coming up February 20-24 at Kripalu in Lenox, MA. It's the only manifestation workshop scheduled in the US this year, so if you miss this one, you'll have to catch us in Holland in July.

Check it out below, while there's still a few places left. Who knows what you will create?

Brightest blessings,

-Anodea Judith, Ph.D.

We are all the 1%

WE ARE ALL THE 1%  

(from somebody's perspective)

Image borrowed from csmonitor.com

 It's so easy to identify with the 99% Occupy movementthat has now reached 600 communities in the U.S. and 82 countries worldwide. Certainly, the financial difference between the elite rich and the rest of us is off-the-charts bigger than it's ever been in recent history and shows little sign of slowing down. Economist Paul Krugman  writes that the number is really more like .1%, making this gross inequality even more mind-boggling. If even a portion of this difference were redistributed to those in need, it would be an enormous benefit across a wide spectrum of the population.

But are the elite 1% the only ones unwilling to give up their advantage to better others less fortunate (or less ruthless)? Just as Obama's lack of audacity may represent the way many of us exhibit our own wishy washy complacency, I find it useful to see how the major archetypes in the news reflect something in the general public. Let's be conscious as we hurl that first stone.

Image borrowed from thefreemanonline.org

If you are reading this Blog on a computer, you are in the 1% from somebody's perspective, just on a different scale. You have a roof over your head, electricity, probably food in your belly, and a place to sleep. You may even have some disposable income, even if it's a meager pittance compared to Wall Street insiders.  

Yet how willing are you to relinquish some of your cash to the beggar on the street, to organizations like Oxfam or Women's Earth Alliance or Amnesty International, or any of the other thousands of organizations set up to address social inequalities? Is it worth passing up that cute little necklace or foregoing a few soy lattes?

I recently considered buying myself the new iPhone 4 for a mere $200, even though I already have an old 3G model. Then I heard a chilling description from Mike Daisey's monologue aired on NPR. It's about Apple technology and Foxconn, the plant where they make all those nifty life-changing products we love so much. Foxconn is a plant in China the size of a city -- 430,000 people. Many of the workers he interviewed are age 12-16, crammed together like sardines, doing meaningless repetitive work for 12- to 16-hour shifts. Their hands get crippled by their work before they reach adulthood and they have to put nets on the buildings because there are so many suicides. Terry Gou, chairman of Foxxconn, refers to them as "animals."

Image borrowed from businessinsider.com

I'm not sure what to do about this problem, but it's keeping me awake at night. I love my Apple products the way Wall Streeters love their bonus checks. Daisey's monologue has produced a flurry of letters to Apple, and apparently they have their own rebuttal about attempts to change the situation.But we know this is happening, not just in China, but all over the world, where slave labor brings us cheap products that we in the first world get to enjoy.

Whenever I am tempted to complain about my life, or vilify the 1% that are soaking up the general circulation of funds like a blood clot soaks up blood, I have to remember that whenever I point a finger outward, three fingers point back at me.  

It's all just a matter of scale.

Brightest blessings,

-Anodea Judith, Ph.D.

Finding Grace in Transition

Finding Grace in Transition

 Evolution. It's not just a good idea, it's inevitable.

   

   

  

One thing about evolution: it's always moving to the future. Even when it seems like we're moving backward in some kind of bizarre regression like the Tea Party -- the actual movement is still forward -- sort of like the planets going retrograde every so often. They haven't actually changed direction, it just appears that way from our stationery perspective. Astrologers will tell you that retrogrades can represent the disruption that leads to a new order. Retrogrades are also times to clean up the past.

  

So here we are, at the front end of 2012, perching on what we believe will be evolution's Big Shift Year. Decades ago, when I first thought about it, I imagined we'd be much farther along by now -- that we would have figured out how to live in peace, share wealth, take care of the environment, and live elegant lives supported by advanced technology. I certainly didn't think a world teeming with overpopulation would be arguing about women's legal right to use birth control (thank you Rick Santorum), or that 115 days into the Occupy movement we'd be listening to Wall Street brokers threatening to quit if their bonuses were reduced.  

   

But wait, isn't it always darkest before the dawn? Aren't we just barely crawling out  of the  darkest time of year, still at the pink-orange sunrise of the new year, let alone the dawning light of the next era? Here's something to think about as the light grows around you: Like a holograph, whose parts always contain the whole, each photon of light carries information in a 360-degree perspective. That's what light does; it helps us see where we're going, helps us see the big picture. If we listen to each other's perspective, we can see the whole take shape.   

The dance of evolution moves toward greater bodies of wholeness -- more parts working together in larger numbers. From single-celled organisms that took 3 billion years to cooperate as simple creatures, to ego-based individuals who must now figure out how to run a planet together, evolution is a cauldron of creativity always finding new ways to melt its disparate parts into a greater whole.   

To transform into that whole, we first have to melt. We have to be willing to let go of old forms, attachment to outcome, to believing that we know everything. We have to let go of the illusion of separation, even as we hang on to our own important agency. Our unique note in the symphony is necessary, but the symphony is something we create together. We can consciously co-create with evolution -- as long as we understand that it's the senior partner in the dance -- much, much older and wiser than we are.

Where there's pain, that's evolution urging you somewhere else. Feel it, pay attention, then melt your stance. Listen to the heart, which moves toward greater expansion. Anytime you create more organization, harmony, beauty, truth, or goodness, you are moving in the direction of evolution. Where can you create more beauty in your life? Where can you find more harmony with your friends, neighbors, co-workers, home environment, or within yourself? How can you use this time to get more organized for the year ahead? Step outside, into the light, and see the bigger picture taking shape, one photon at a time, all around you.

Grace is the music that coordinates separate parts into a greater whole. When those parts move in harmony, singing to Divine's not-so-subtle urges toward greater perfection, try to surrender and ride the waves -- even through their ups and downs. Have faith that you really are going somewhere -- just like all the rest of us on this bumpy ride to the future.

Brightest blessings,

-Anodea Judith, Ph.D.

These are the Times

Beloved Co-Hearts:

  

The time we have all been building up to for lifetimes is now upon us: the time of the Big Shift, all hands on deck, for what many are calling the Great Turning. I call it the Great Awakening because we are on the verge of the greatest awakening that any species has ever had on this planet. Everything is accelerating toward this point and has been for some time. What is important must be anchored, tied down, for the storm ahead. What is not important must be released and recycled-it only becomes dead weight a we rise from the depths of winter, returning toward the light.

I could write lots more but for my New Year's gift I will leave you with this poem.

THESE ARE THE TIMES

These are the times we have been waiting for.

These are the times that our countless lifetimes

of living and dying have been leading up to.

Through endless cycles of hope and despair,

as master and slave, soldier and slain.

As a mother who lived through yet another childbirth,

and a child who died much too young,

All to continue the species to be here, now,

Alive at this time of Great Awakening.

These are the times that we have chosen to be here

Chosen to be part of the Big Change

The wonderful realization of who we are,

The recognition of who we've been in the past,

And the tantalizing vision of who we are becoming

Beacons of light co-creating a new world.

These are the times to say

"We were the ones!"

with a thousand, million others

We were the ones,

Who cared enough to change the world.

who considered the fate of the unborn children of the future

Who saw the immense possibilities of miraculous rebirth.

These are the times for us all to say

We were the ones who did turn away

Turned away from what was, turned away from what is

And joined our hands together to turn toward what will be

Birthing the phoenix of glorious possibility from the ashes of a dying world.

We are the ones who dared to see and dared to say

Who stopped at nothing to change the way

Who faced the darkness of our initiation

Faced the death and transformation,

To awaken our divine powers to create a new world.

We are the ones

Blazing with vision, bursting with truth

Weeping with compassion

Staggering with the implications of our understanding

For we are the ones who dared to love

When the world itself had forgotten.

  

 Brightest Blessings,

-Anodea Judith 

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