The activities of the day can all too often become too overwhelming for those striving to make ends meet. Anxiety, stress, and overwork can leave us feeling unfulfilled and burned out. At the end of the day, we feel like a leaf, being blown any which way by the wind, with no power to steer ourselves to the goals and ends we so desire; for the sake of the demands of our loved ones and our lives, we lose our selves.
For these reasons, it is important to give ourselves everyday a bit of time to quietude. In Chinese medicine, Quietness is known as “jing.” Jing means a place for a proper activity to happen, not an absence of activity. When your mind and heart is calm and quiet, you can discern reality more clearly whatever it is we are doing. This may be finishing a task, cooking food, or pleasantly conversing with friends. These are activities that go in a manner positive not only for us, but also, for others whom we are interacting with.
The mind and heart, in Chinese medicine, are one and the same, and are known as xin. The Chinese view the heart as a sovereign or emperor, who watches over all the empire’s activities (what we choose and the consequence of this choice on our body). In Chinese medicine, the spirit is called shen and it is associated with our consciousness. Shen is responsible for all of our body’s physiological and psychological activities. Our spirit becomes disturbed when our heart is agitated. This triggers reactions that reverberate externally from our heart. This in turn, agitates our mind and body, exhausting our resources and bewildering our intent and our will eventually limiting the effectiveness of how we participate in life.
We are given the opportunity to calm the spirits and empty the heart when we take the time to be quiet. From a distance, the heart needs to observe the activity of our life just as the emperor is shielded from the risk of invasion within the castle doors. In managing well the daily stresses of life, this moment of quietness is very crucial. The heart can issue the proper modifications to address properly the situation, and accurately observe their effects from this quiet, reclusive space where it can remain calm.
The question is how can this be done in the modern world? We first need to modify our environment. When we are assailed by the very things that are troubling us, it becomes almost impossible to become and/or stay quiet. We are changing how we are influenced when we change our environment. It becomes easy to change our internal state (our mind) once we are in a quiet surrounding. We can influence the mind through the body even while if it may be hard to affect the mind directly. Just as the affairs of our mind have an impact on our body, we may be able also to affect the mind by shifting our body. Our mental state can be profoundly affected even with simple activities such as walking. If done properly, exercise may help us positively modify our internal state. It can be nice to sit and curl up with a good book or just look out the window and appreciate a beautiful view after a good workout. But if you want to enter a state of quietness quickly and most effectively, you need to perform internal exercises, like qi gong or mediation.
These internal exercises apply the three regulations that allow the person to go into state of internal quiet and become peaceful. The three regulations are the regulations of the mind, breath, and body,
1. The Mind: When we focus our intention or mind on various acupuncture points (acupoints) of the body, these points can be stimulated. The fact is, acupuncturists use these same points by stimulating them with needles. When we stimulate certain acupoints in our body we can bring about positive physiological responses that bring us to the internal state we desire.
2. The Breath: Postures and movements should be in tune with your breath. We can induce a parasympathetic reaction (lowering of our heart which brings us to a state of tranquility), by emphasizing the exhalation and slowing down of our breathing.
3. The Body: To open the body and release stress and tension that have developed in our nerves, connective tissue, and muscles, and to boost poise, mobility, and balance we can do various sets of internal exercises through a number of different postures and movements.
We can attain our internal state when we fuse all these three factors into a single action, thereby altering the way we interact with the world around us.
We can use these techniques within our stressful environment after we integrate regular meditation, qi gong, yoga and other internal exercises in our everyday lives. This can give us the power to stop and just notice the feeling once we begin to feel agitated once more. These techniques can also help us reflect on the peace we experience whenever we perform them which can gives us the impetus to keep on doing them every single day. When we do an internal exercise we concentrate on some vital points and do slow breathing exercises to bring back a state of serenity within us. If we are doing a different form of exercise, we can recall those internal practices and learn to apply proper control of our body and breathing to this exercise which makes the results even more impressive.
We can look at our situation very well once we get back our balance. Now we can realize that in the great scheme of things, the reason why we were so upset is really of very little significance. We can choose to respond to our world by not reacting to hardships and problems. This gives us a better vision of what we really need, and the way to attain it.
From the perspective of Chinese medicine quietness is what first need to improve health and manage stress. Our relationship to the world and to ourselves can be greatly affected when just put a little bit of time each day to quietness. Instead of being a slave to our own emotional responses we give ourselves the power to choose. Focus on small issues first and gradually progress to much bigger ones in your own sweet time. We can view reality as it is through quietness which can help us lead a life that guarantees fulfillment and success for others and for ourselves.
Acupuncture Health Center
1303 Astor St #101
Bellingham, WA 98225
(360) 715-1824
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