Two Sources of Energy

Two Sources of Energy

There are two sources of energy that we have access to as human beings.

The first one is our physical energy or body energy. This is a limited and yet also renewable resource. It's limited by how much we eat and how well we sleep. If we exercise, we have more. If we exercise too much, we have less. It's renewable because our bodies are designed to renew and heal. Every morning when we wake up, we have a new allotment of energy. During the day when we eat food that fuels our body and when we allow our body to rest, we gain energy. It's a bit like a video game where you navigate around getting treasures and energy. Or running around and expending your collected energy having adventures.

The other source of energy available to us as human beings is the unlimited energy of the Universe. We are surrounded and swimming in the energy of life at all times. It's what our body is made of. It's what fuels inspiration, creativity, joy, love, and those ideas that come to you out of the blue. Our natural state is being connected to the energy at the heart of life. It fuels the feeling of aliveness.

You may have experienced a time when you were tired from the day and then as you quieted down for the night inspiration struck! All of a sudden, energy flows through your whole body and you are compelled up and into action. You create without a sense of time until it's done with you. Then you rest.

You may have experienced not having a whole lot on your mind and just feeling happy for no reason. There is a quiet energy in this. My daughter told me this morning "Mummy, I felt so happy at school yesterday for NO REASON!" lol. Yes.

These are a couple of examples of when we don't have a lot on our minds, we naturally start using a different source of energy. We feel naturally relaxed and energized. Our bodies switch from running on battery to running on being plugged into the mains. We are in natural flow.

Another analogy is that it's like being online versus offline. When we are offline, we have access to what is loaded on our computer system versus access to all the content and experiences on the internet.

Our system is designed to run on the internet of the Universal Intelligence. We can run for a while on our renewable body energy only.

Given the choice, I'll take the effortlessness of the energy of the Universe.

With love,

Sara Joy

Bandwidth

Bandwidth

What is bandwidth? In internet terms, it's the amount of capacity for information carrying that our computer or internet service has. How much information can our system handle per minute. 

This term can also be applied to our personal capacity in any moment. 

There are three general approaches I've seen to increasing our bandwidth in order to get more done in a day or simply be more content and not feel overwhelmed with everything. 

The first approach looks to increase our overall capacity. This is like buying more bandwidth from an internet provider or upgrading to fiber. It can take the form of physical practices like meditating, exercising, drinking more coffee, going for a walk, motivating yourself with stern talking to's or energy drinks. 

This approach can rev us up and in the short term make it look like we have more bandwidth until you burn yourself out. 

The second approach understands that what we have going on in our heads takes up a lot of our natural bandwidth and looks to dump it out or clear it in an effort to then free up some of that mental and physical bandwidth. This approach might look like awareness and mindset practices. Replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts. Affirmations. Perhaps meditation. 

The third approach is understanding how we are designed to function and relaxing into that. We are designed to return back to full bandwidth after using it up. We use up our bandwidth by focusing on tasks we are doing, by thinking about things that are not currently happening, by all the mental chatter that goes on, when we are physically tired, and when we are distracted by things. This might sound like "Oh no! I have so much going on all the time! I'll never get that bandwidth back!" What we don't realize is the only problem lies in our misunderstanding of how we use thought and thinking. 

What we have going for us is that we are always operating on a full clear perfect divine bandwidth and the only reason we don't always feel like it is our thinking muddying it up. When people have an understanding of how thinking works, they realize that nothing needs to be done. Thinking is a flow and if left to its own devices will keep on flowing allowing the clear fresh bandwidth to be available for clear fresh ideas. 

If personal bandwidth was like bars on your cell phone for how much connectivity we have, how many bars are you right now as you read this? One bar? Two? or all the way up to five? The bar scale goes to five in my imaginary bandwidth measuring scale. We kinda know in any moment how clear we are. One and two feel tense and scattered, maybe angry. Three feels pretty neutral, four and five feel energized and good. Throughout your day check in every now and then and see How many bars? The simple act of noticing where you are triggers our inborn mechanism to clear our bandwidth. All that's needed is to notice and let your design bring you back to clarity.  

With love,
Sara Joy

Deep Listening

Deep Listening
 
My friend, Katerina Fiserova of the Czech Republic, is the co-founder of The Listening Project. She and her colleague Carolina travel around the Czech Republic giving free workshops on listening. Their workshops have gone viral.
 
They found that when people began deeply listening first to others in their lives and then secondly to themselves, people's lives began to improve. People relax and enjoy their lives more. Their bodies release tension.
 
Most people believe they know how to listen or what listening is. The problem with this is that most people have been taught a version of active listening. We strive to listen "for something". When we do that, we are not present with the person or with ourselves. We are present with what we are listening for and our own thoughts.
 
Deep listening can be described as listening with nothing on your mind or listening like a movie camera. Take them in. Listen like a rock with ears. Listen neutrally.
 
At first, this type of instruction seems counterintuitive or confusing. What do you mean "listen like a rock with ears"? Rocks don't have ears. Crazy.
 
As with many things, in actuality, it's the opposite of what we think that is true. Listening with nothing on your mind or deep listening allows for a space of who we are to open up. People settle into a clear mind and find that they can hear and understand much more of what the other person wants to convey.
 
The person speaking feels heard and seen and so opens up more and more. Space for who they are opens up. The conversation becomes deeper and more heartfelt.
 
Try the following exercise for yourself. To get the full insight, actually do the exercise without deciding ahead of time what it's going to be like or what you will experience.
 
First, listen to someone with the intent of listening to correct them. Listen for what they have wrong. Don't say anything, just listen with the filter of where are they not correct.
 
How does that feel? How did the other person respond? Were you engaged in what they wanted to convey to you? Anything else you noticed?
 
Next, listen for agreement. This time you agree with everything you hear and you want to hear more of it. Again, don't say anything, just listen with the filter of agreement.
 
Again, how did you feel? How did they respond? How engaged were you? Anything else you noticed?
 
Finally, listen like a movie camera. Listen like a rock with ears. Just take them in as they speak.
 
How did you feel? How did they respond? How engaged were you? Anything else you noticed?
 
You can play around with this exercise with different listening. Try it out with "active" listening. Try with listening for encouragement, with listening for judgement, listening for your turn to say your piece. And as always, what did you notice?
 
The extra bonus round is to listen to yourself this way.

With love, 
Sara Joy

Oprah Said It

Oprah Said It

The basis of the coaching and the chiropractic work that I do is that we are powerful creators in the world. If you want to know what you have been creating, look at your life, without judgement. The results of where you place your attention and what you are creating for yourself are in the life you are living. In this short video, Oprah hits the nail on the head about creating. Getting clear on what you want, moving in that direction, and then the forces of life rise up to meet you. The Universe conspires with you to create your vision in the world. Pretty cool, eh?

Watch Oprah tell it here:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aF_a--8gVOk

The coaching work I do spends a lot of time looking at being clear about what is it that we actually want. People often have a lot of beliefs and thinking in the way of their clear wanting for themselves and their lives. We often think what we want isn't possible or only for other people. One of the most powerful things in the world is being absolutely clear about the direction you want to go in and starting that journey.

Once a person knows what they want, we look at the forces of life. There are really only 3 principles or forces of life that govern how things work. There's an energy at the heart of all life and we are made of it. As is everything else. We are aware of ourselves and this energy of life. We have the ability to use this energy as a creative force in the world. 

Knowing what you want comes first and is the most important aspect of any endeavour. With clarity, the forces of life will rise up to meet you. And not only because Oprah said so.

With love,
Sara Joy

The Eternal Now

One major source of mental and physical tension for people is ruminating about the past and time-traveling to an imagined future to work it all out before it happens. This is often called living in the past or living in the future. 

The Universal remedy is to be present. Live now. Be here now. Smell the roses. Slow down and just be. 

But what does that mean? What is The Now? 

It's talked about a lot as if it's a tangible thing. Or a place to get to. Like Los Angeles. 

There are a few ways people (including myself) conceptualize the idea of living now or living present. 

Forward through time: 

The first idea is as if the past is somehow pushing you forward through time or the future is pulling you forward through time. This concept is inherently not going to result in being present or relaxing into the present moment. It's a forced hanging-on feeling or an always catching up feeling of time always getting away from us. Hurry up so I can be present. I used to see life this way and it's exhausting to always need to manage a push/pull through time. A battle along the stream of time. 

Train of Moments:

The second one is viewing the present moment as a series of discreet moments through time linked together sequentially. Like a train of box cars relentlessly rolling along and you are running to catch up trying to get the timing just right to climb aboard. This is a very common view of life. We might say live in the moment. Savour the moment. As if the moment is quickly going away. The fleeting moment. Life is short grab the moment. Our moment-to-moment life. This is also inherently tension-making because you're needing to hurry up to get in the moment. "Oh darn, I just missed the moment".  Another version of being really busy aiming to just be. 

Always Now:

It occurs to me that the moment never actually goes anywhere. It's always now. It's always the present moment. Being in the present or living now is actually possible. Especially when the now doesn't ever go anywhere. The now doesn't travel forward in time. Our brains make up time so that we can make sense of the world. We are always in the present moment. We can't not be. We are never anywhere else. 

I'm imagining if people literally disappeared when they thought of the past or worried about the future. "Where did Joan go?" "Oh, Joan? She's in the past. She'll come back." Then reappearing for a second only to wink off to the future. A whole town full of people popping in and out all over the place. 

Now is eternal and we live in it. Whether we are aware of it or not. All that's needed is for us to notice and slow down enough to have a good look around. 


With Love, 

Sara Joy

Principles of Golf, Competition, and Life

I have been writing a lot lately about three basic principles that govern how life works. These principles are a description or metaphor for how we as humans function in the world. They can be "applied" or looked at in the context of anything because like gravity they are just true for everyone. When people understand how it works, life gets pretty easy. Flow states become an everyday occurrence. People's bodies relax; regardless of life circumstances. 

A friend of mine was telling me about a book he loves and reads once or twice a year. "The Three Principles of Outstanding Golf: How a Golfer's Mind Really Works" by Sam Jarman. My friend finds that by reminding himself of these principles, he creates an effortless flow state while golfing (hint: you can experience this at any time not only during a golf game) and so improves his game and his enjoyment of the game. 

The heart of this book and of this understanding is that life happens from the inside out. We use the creative energy of Thought to make sense of our world perceptually, to make meaning out of what we see around us, to think our identities into being, and to imagine and create new innovations. There is an energy behind all life enlivening us and everything else, called Mind. And a third flavour of energy allows for our Consciousness. Our ability to be aware of it all. 

Putting these three principles together is our experience of life. 

Mind + Consciousness + Thought = Experience. 

Put another way Mind + Consciousness + New Thought = New Experience 

And yet another way Mind + Consciousness + Slower Thought = Flow Experience 

I am fond of trying new ideas out in real life to see if they hold true or what my experience of them will be. So, I did an experiment. As many of you know, I compete in Olympic weightlifting. If awareness of how these aspects of life work together can improve one's golf game, surely, I could do the same with my upcoming competition. Oh Wow! And how it really worked!! 

I realized the only reason I (or anyone) would feel pressure or stress is because I was thinking thoughts related to pressure in performance. Humans (I'm a human!) live in the feelings of our thoughts. I looked at slowing down and how that would affect my feeling and experience.

In slowing down internally, my thoughts also slowed. I didn't feel the need to add pressure. I had focus and I had excitement going for me. At the competition, I was joking around and very relaxed as we all warmed up for our session. I could see the other competitors getting faster and faster and more and more worried or stressed as their time to compete came closer. 

When my time came to do my lifts, I was so relaxed that I missed the first one of three allowed attempts in the snatch. lol. ok. I get two more tries. I decided to think about some things that generally I feel angry about to generate a bit of adrenaline. Then I went out for my second lift. I absolutely slammed it up overhead so strongly my shoulder felt surprised at the speed! It was a bit too light now. By the third attempt, I had the Thought/relaxation mixture just about right because I went out and got a maximum snatch with good form. 

I then went on that day to nail three excellent attempts in the clean and jerk. I finished the day with a 5 for 6 record, meaning I only missed one of my allowed attempts. An optimum fun performance at competition for anyone! 

Whether you play golf or any sport, slowing your internal speed will slow your thinking and allow for a flow experience. Depending on the activity or game you may need a little bit more or less thinking for an outstanding performance. Hint: This also holds true for anything you may be up to in your day. 

With love, 

Sara Joy 

An Experiment with Thought

One of the simple principles behind life is Thought. I capitalize it here to distinguish the principle from our habitual thoughts or individual thoughts that arise and fall away. 

Thought is a word used to describe the creative force of the Universe that we as human beings have access to. 

Thinking is one type of use of the energy of Thought. Another is unconscious spinal cord filtering functions to streamline information processing in the body. I consider the brain to be part of the body. The bodymind or mindbody is often spoken about. It's all one thing. It's all our bodies. 

Another use of Thought is to dream and imagine. Yet another to ruminate about the past or worry about the future. Following an inspired idea to bring it to life is also Thought. 

Some uses of the energy of Thought feel nice, some great, and other uses feel terrible. That feeling is a literal body signal for "you are going the wrong way". When the use of Thought feels tense, anxious, or scary, it's not telling us anything about the world in front of us. It's telling us about the quality of our use of Thought. Our bodies work much better when we feel good. Like the "I have to go pee" signal. Negative feelings are a body signal for "slow down a minute". Take a breath. Slow your roll as my kids would say. 

We are designed to operate with less overall use of Thought than we realize. We have a habit as a culture of overthinking or even glorifying thinking. 

You can think of body tension like rumble strips on the side of the road inviting you back to the middle of the lane. Or like my husband's newer car, the car will steer you back into the lane if you let it. You can fight the car if needed. Or allow the indicator to do its job when you've drifted out of the lane. We can fight the signal or let our system work as designed. 

We only think that the cure for too much thinking is even more thinking. 

I became fascinated by the question "How much thinking or use of Thought do we actually need?" 

I found in quiet moments in nature (especially at Lac du Castor Blanc near Gracefield QC), I would naturally slow down. As I slowed down, so did my speed of thought. It slowed down so much; I had trouble doing things e.g., driving a car. I found that I needed a little bit more thought so I sped up a small amount. 

To me, this felt like in chemistry class, when we would titrate for an amount of a substance. For example, in antibody testing they will titrate to see at what point of adding in a reagent substance does a reaction occur. It's at this point that you can then measure the amount of antibodies present in the sample. 

My experience with adding in and then removing Thought was like this. Not enough and functioning isn't smooth and too much is unsustainable and doesn't feel good. We start running like a hot engine. Too long in this way creates burnout and shutdown.

When I had a series of bad concussions in 2016 and 2017, my brain and upper spinal cord got highly inflamed for a while. The brain shuts down functions to heal and wait until the inflammation passes. Like a swollen knee, you just can't use it. At that time, I would have rotating brain functions cut out sometimes unexpectedly. My ability to integrate sensory information would turn off. I would say things like "I can't get the sandwich off the counter because the fridge is on the ceiling and there's no floor." Visual information was disjointed. Sounds came from weird places. This integration of sensory information is also a use of the energy of Thought. An unconscious one. And a really important one it turns out. 

So, like a cake baker, we are adding in and using different amounts of Thought all the time in order to make sense of reality, to have a sense of time, to be able to do complex tasks and interact with the people and the world around us. 

If we use Thought energy, in just the right amount we are calm, happy, and fulfilled. Our nature is peace. If we use not enough Thought energy, as with my injury, it's hard to make sense of the world. And lastly, if we use too much Thought energy, we feel tense, overwhelmed, and stressed. 

The key is to pay attention to your feeling. It's also very simple. Feels good? Great. Carry on. Feels bad? Slow down. 

Have fun exploring this perspective for yourself and let us know what you discover.

With love,

Sara Joy

Neutral Eyes

I was recently listening to a masterclass with long-time Three Principles teacher and therapist, Linda Pransky. She was asked by someone in the group how to handle when other people were negative. They were fine on their own but when interacting with a negative or complaining person they became anxious, upset, or irritated. 

Linda's response surprised me with her quickness, her accuracy, and her laser focus to cut to the heart of the matter in a very down-to-earth way. 

She burst out "Oh that's easy!". 

She told a story of how she'd become aware that when she was with people who were feeling good and loving and positive, she also felt good. When she was with people who were negative and complaining, she felt angry and irritated. She struggled with this for a long time. Alternately blaming the negative people or judging herself for being affected by their mood. 

She got a lot of clarity around this when she realized, and it became actually real for her, that the only difference between the two situations and the two feelings was her judgment. 

She said, "I was judging the people for being negative and so was living in the feeling of my judgment or judging myself for whatever failing I decided I had. When I felt good, I had no judgment of the people or the situation." 

Linda and her husband George call this "Neutral Eyes". When you see the world around you as it is with neutral eyes, all the extra thinking or judgement falls away. It allows you and your body to relax into life. If something needs doing, it will become natural and obvious to do. 

I realized that I also was doing this. Any time I was judging something as less than optimal, wrong or what have you, I didn't feel good. I had tension in my body. For me, my neck tightens up, I clench my jaw. My gut churns. When I saw the world and people around me with neutral eyes, like a movie camera, everything dropped. At first, it feels like relief or sometimes very neutral. Over time a quiet joy arises. The love for life, as it is. 

I can almost hear some of you saying, "Yeah but, yeah but, what about this and what about that?"

I would say in response to experiment and try it out for yourself. See what you see for yourself. Try looking with neutral eyes and feel for yourself what life looks like. Does your body relax? What do you feel? What do you notice? Experiment with it for a day or even better, for a week. Keep it if you like it. Let me know what you find in your explorations. 

With love, 
Sara Joy

Falling In Love with Life

The first time I heard this phrase was from my mentor and teacher Michael Neill. He loves to love. Probably more than anyone else I've ever met. His family, his dogs, his cats (he's very allergic to), whatever comes his way in life.
 
It's a way of living in flow with life or in flow with nature.
 
At first glance, it seems like it would mean just putting up with all the crap that life brings or all the crap that other people dump. In reality, the opposite is true. When there is no resistance to life, a person could be described as "in the flow". More than no resistance would be being "in love".
 
So, what does it look like to live "In Love with Life"?
 
I began a joyful journey of asking myself "Could I love this?" "Could I love that?" Just as it is without any changing. "Could I love this person, just because they are alive and they are a person?" The answer wasn't always yes.
 
More and more often though it is a yes. You're not loving a bad action or behaviour. You’re not loving an abusive situation.
 
You're loving life. As it is. This led me to wonder "What is Life?" For me, it seems that Life is nature. Life is our felt sense of aliveness. Life is my beating heart and my breathing lungs. Life is perfection with all its imperfections. Life is slowing down to the speed of nature. Life is people and plants and animals and kids and things that happen.
 
Being in flow with life is slowing down to be with. Maybe stopping for a moment or two or three. And just breathe. Just listen to your heart. Live slow. Fall in love.
 
As you slow down and tune into the speed of nature, the speed of life, your thinking and thoughts naturally slow down.
 
And bit by bit I fell in love.
 
I fell in love with people. I fell in love with the trees and the sky and the grass. I fell in love with life itself.
 
Love is our natural state. When everything else is gone, love remains.
 
Slow down and you'll find love. It's from you, it is you. We can't help but feel it. Sometimes it's a gentle warmth or the joy of being alive. Sometimes it's an overflowing fountain.
 
Often the only thing keeping you from being in love with life is the idea that it should be different than it is.
 
“Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times.”
                ― St. Augustine of Hippo

With love,
Sara Joy

Second Chance

This is an excerpt from the book "Second Chance" by Sydney Banks.

Mamma Lila broke the silence by saying, "The knowledge that my kupuna kane taught me was a gradual process. It took many years to find out what he was trying to get me to See. It wasn’t until I was seventeen that I finally broke through to the world beyond our senses and found the secret of Mana.

"I remember as if it were yesterday. My kupuna kane cried with joy when the pearl of wisdom was handed to me from the spirits.

"It was only two weeks later that my kupuna kane decided to leave this material reality and join my kupuna wahine—my grandmother—who had died two years earlier."

As she spoke about her grandfather her face revealed her great love for him. It was obvious that there had been a very close bond between them.

We sat quietly for a moment, then I said, "Mamma Lila, please tell me more about Mana."

At this point she rose and walked toward the ocean. She stood gazing out at the sea for a couple of minutes then beckoned me to her. "You asked me to tell you about Mana. Mana, in essence, is a spiritual power that, when grasped, can open the doors to all cosmic consciousness. Mana is love.

"True love is pure spirit power being manifested. The manifestation can take many forms. There is a mother loving her child, a doctor caring for his patient, a father playing with his children, a child with a new puppy, people caring for the less fortunate.

"Love is a positive feeling and if people cultivate this feeling in their lives, they will free themselves from any unbalanced conditions that surround them. 

"Love is not just an idea. Love is a living, breathing essence that the wise can pluck from the air at will and then like a master artist mold it into something beautiful.

"Love, my dear Richard, makes the impossible, possible." When she stopped talking, an incredible tranquility came over me and before I could say anything Mamma Lila said, "Look within yourself for the answer you seek." With these words she stepped forward and embraced me saying, "It is time to part and if it be written we will meet again. Until then, Aloha, my young friend, and may God be with you."

I love when Mama Lila is speaking about Mana or love. This is at the core of all human beings. When we look to living from this positive feeling, life sorts itself out. We don't ever need to go into a negative feeling to "fix" it. If there is a negative situation that we want to change, actions will be obvious from the space of beautiful loving feelings. Look to the love, look to the Mana. 

With love, 
Sara Joy