The Tao of Exercise & Self-Care

There was once an efficiency expert who visited a chocolate factory and watched the women hand dipping chocolates. Their gestures always included various spirals and twirls in order to prevent drips as they lifted the chocolate from the vat to the paper.

Considering this a loss of time and efficiency, these women were taught to make a more direct in, out, over, down pathway. Within a week they were complaining of wrist pain (carpal tunnel symptoms). Having fallen out of interplay with their core creativity, the small, ingenious variations within each repetitive task were eliminated, and the women became more prone to fatigue and damage.

In the accelerated pace of our nanosecond world, if our goal is truly to be one with the nature of the Tao, we must be mindful to never lose the fluid, water-like language of the body. For in Taoism, the closest thing in nature to pure effectiveness is water. Water is the communicator, the informer and the transporter all in one.

Taming the 'Monkey mind'

With more than 2,500 years Taoism and Buddhism has been teaching people about the human mind so that we might understand ourselves better and discover that there is a way out of suffering. These two philosophies are intelligent insights into human nature.

Both trains of thoughts describe the human mind as being filled with drunken monkeys 'The Monkey Mind', jumping around, screeching, chattering, carrying on endlessly. We all have monkey minds, with dozens of monkeys all clamouring for attention. Fear is an especially loud monkey, sounding the alarm incessantly, pointing out all the things we should be wary of and everything that could go wrong.

Meditation through sitting, Qigong and deep breathing tames the drunken monkeys in our minds. It's useless to fight with the monkeys or to try to banish them from your mind because, as we all know, that which you resist, persists. Instead, if you spend some time each day in quiet meditation -- simply calm your mind by focusing on your breathing and/or Qigong -- you can, over time, tame the monkeys. They will grow more peaceful if you lovingly bring them into submission with a consistent practise of meditation.

Meditation is a wonderful way to quiet the voices of fear, anxiety, worry and other negative emotions.

Learning to manage your monkey mind is one of the best things you can do to transform fear, anxiety, stress and tension. Take time to practise simple meditation on a regular basis. Learn how to change the conversations in your head.

Practise kind, loving, positive mindfulness and see how it can transform you.