Now that you’re comfortable working with your breath it’s time to bring the rest of the body in. Continue breathing as I’ve outlined in my article on Breathing. In addition to feeling your breath flow and your stomach and ribs expand, I want you to feel the energy that flows into your body with each breath. For me it feels like a lightness, or a very light feeling. It may feel different for you so take some time here and just open up and feel the energy.

When you draw the energy in can you feel it pooling at your center of gravity just below your belly button? Take some time and just breath and feel the energy flowing. Energy follows thought so as you breathe you can just let that pool of energy expand throughout your body. On your inhale allow it to fill your body, as if you are an empty vessel. Let it start to fill your feet and then gradually, at your own pace, allow it to fill your legs and then your torso. After filling your torso allow it to overflow down into your arms and up your neck and into your head.

Once you’ve gotten used to the feeling of being filled with energy you can then start moving it around some. Energy follows thought, so you can direct it with your mind and allow it to go anywhere in your body that you wish. The key is to allow it to move rather than trying to force it. Your chi wants to do what you tell it, so give it direction and then stay out of the way. One of the mistakes that I see most often is that we try to micromanage our energy and in doing so we actually reduce our ability to get the results we want.

Can you feel the chi flowing through your legs and up your back and down your arms? Take some time here and practice feeling that energy pool expand through your whole body. Later we’ll expand it out even further, but for now just let it flow.

This exercise should help you to feel rejuvenated and refreshed as you’re drawing energy from an infinite pool. Do this exercise whenever you’re depressed or down, and eventually as you progress you’ll learn to do it all the time. It’s a habit that you have to grow into.

Awareness and Intention

EVERYTHING is about ‘Awareness’ and ‘Intention’. Now that you’ve begun to build an awareness of the energy, called Chi, Ki or Prana in some circles, you’ll be able to do things with it and move it around in your (and other peoples) body.

We move energy with ‘Intention’, and this is a very important fact. EVERYTHING is energy! Our thoughts, our actions, our beliefs, everything around us and everything we see, feel, hear, think and do is energy. Intention is what we do with that energy.

We are all connected in a vast energy pool that encompasses everything that is, was and will be. It doesn’t matter whether a person believes in it or can feel it; they still have the ability to affect it. How many times have you seen a person with a negative attitude who continually draws more negative reactions to himself? He’s broadcasting his intentions through his attitudes with the result that he becomes a human ‘crap magnet’, drawing in all the negative feelings and emotions and experiences.

The other side of this is the continually positive person who always approaches everything from a positive attitude. This doesn’t mean that everything always goes the way she wants it, but if you’ll watch you’ll see that even the bad times provide fuel for her growth and she tries to take every ‘bad experience’ as a lesson to help improve herself.

Just as our thoughts can influence Chi subconsciously, so they can move it around in our bodies. I will say it again; Energy follows thought, so when you think about moving energy then it will actually go where you send it. The important thing here is to stay out of its way. Energy moves in a spiral and at its own speed, so don’t try to micro-manage it, just let it flow.

Now take some time and do the Full Body Awareness exercise again, and this time feel the energy go where you send it. You can also play with this a bit. Send it down to your feet, now bring it back to your center and this time just send it down to your left foot, now to your right. Now send it up to your head, and down to your left elbow.

Now, the next time you’re stuck in traffic, or impatiently waiting in line at the Motor Vehicles Office, just relax and start to play with this. Isn’t this a neat toy?

“Full Body Awareness” is an excerpt from Greg Smith’s new book ’12 Easy Meditation Tools That Can Change Your Life’.

Greg is an author, Reiki Master and meditation teacher.