The season of Winter calls on the wisdom of the Water element, in its myriad of forms from raging rivers to delicate crystalline snowflakes. In the same way, you can cultivate your ability to adapt and flow as you move into the hush of the season.
Associated in Traditional Chinese Medicine with the kidneys, winter is the season to nourish and support this important organ, which regulates and balances water and fluids in your body.
The seat of the adrenal glands, which produce the fight / flight response, the kidneys are associated with the emotion of fear. Whether that fear has to do with growing fully into your own power or wrestling with your “inner critics” or external challenges, this is a perfect time of year to turn and face those voices, while keeping the inner flame of your consciousness alight to sustain your vision of where you want to go.
For example: Registrations have been pouring in for my upcoming New Year’s event Nourish the Flame: From Resolutions to Results. A number of participants from last year’s event have been reporting some amazing results they manifested this past year because of their experience in that one short afternoon. One participant even told me that this is her VERY FAVORITE event of the year. All Great Stuff, right? Yet I find myself still needing to call on my commitment not to get bogged down by my own old fears and limiting beliefs. Guess it’s time to nourish my kidneys, get over it and get On with it. You in?
SAVE THE DATE! DEC 30 Nourish the Flame: A FREE Winter Workshop to Transform Ideas into Reality and Resolutions into Results. Bring in the Joy for 2016!
“Renegade-Woo” Vicki Dello Joio, founder of The Way of Joy: A Spiritual Fitness Program, brings together East Coast Attitude and West Coast energy consciousness as a master teacher, transformative speaker and performing artist. Integrating over 40 years of Chi Kung practice with other martial arts as well as her work in Yoga, Feldenkreis, physical fitness and theater, Vicki has developed a dynamic set of tools to transform obstacles into opportunities and enhance creative potential. Book: The Way of Joy, CD: Short Meditations for a Busy Life.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think as I type the title above, which is a quote by Fritz Perls. And I know that there is nothing to fear but fear itself, (Franklin D Roosevelt) at least in my mind. But when my demons are clattering at me, I forget that I have the option to invite them in, as the wise monk did in an old Tibetan Buddhist tale, to tea.
I guess it’s inevitable that as I prep my upcoming event to Turn your Ideas into Reality and New Year’s Resolutions into Results, that I need to face all the ways I get scared that I’m not up to the task of delivering these potent tools well, despite past successes and testimonials.
What helps me spiral out of those old tired doubts is the absolute commitment I have to passing forward this potent information to people who will use it well. Well — that and, of course, embodying it All with qigong.
SAVE THE DATE! DEC 29 Nourish the Flame: A Winter Workshop to Transform Ideas into Reality and Resolutions into Results. Bring in the Joy for 2014!
Vicki Dello Joio, founder of The Way of Joy: A Spiritual Fitness Program, is a teacher, speaker and performing artist. Integrating over 40 years of Chi Kung practice with other martial arts as well as her work in Yoga, Feldenkreis, physical fitness and theater, Vicki has developed a dynamic set of tools to increase awareness, transform obstacles into opportunities and enhance creative potential. Book: The Way of Joy, CD: Short Meditations for a Busy Life. On-line videos you can use to supercharge your energy in less than 4 minutes a day: From Muck to Mastery.
“I believe every time we make a fundamental shift of consciousness that opens a circle into a spiral, we face a kind of death. Sensing this impending death, we move through a period of fear, facing our demons. Like gargoyles, these demons are the protectors of the gates of transition.” The Way of Joy(excerpt)
As a kid, I grew up with some heavy-hitters from the arts world hanging out in my family’s living room. The classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz (Volodya to friends) played the piano in the living room of our summer house when he was too nervous to go home during a thunderstorm; Frank Loesser, humorist extraordinaire and composer/lyricist of shows like Guys and Dolls and How To Succeed in Business without Really Trying, used to try to convince my younger brothers and me to chop up my composer father’s piano with a hatchet; and Martha Graham listened to my young dreams to become an actress and looked directly into my eyes and told me I must always follow my dreams.
I think that one of the most important things I learned from being around these “big names” in my daily life was that being a star does not mean being protected from our inner demons. I learned very quickly that uncertainty, those nagging inner nay-sayers and crazy-makers, are a companions in our life’s journeys with our successes as much as our failures.
One of my treasured friends, the brilliant playwright, theater performer, and teacher, Jean-Claude van Itallie, once told a story in an improv class that I absolutely loved. It is about Milarepa, the great Tibetan hermit, singer, teacher who, it’s been said, lived a thousand years ago.
Vicki Dello Joio, founder of The Way of Joy: A Spiritual Fitness Program, is a teacher, speaker and performing artist. Integrating over 40 years of Chi Kung practice with other martial arts as well as her work in Yoga, Feldenkreis, physical fitness and theater, Vicki has developed a dynamic set of tools to increase awareness, transform obstacles into opportunities and enhance creative potential.Book: The Way of Joy, CD: Short Meditations for a Busy Life.
Despite encountering many of the mind power techniques out there in the market of self help and inner growth, I admit freely that there are still times I come face to face with my own anxiety, self-doubts, or inner resistance. To be blatantly honest. my first instinct is to open the refrigerator or look on-line for something (preferably shallow) to distract myself from painful feelings. Or maybe I’ll pop in a dvd or watch an online streaming movie to focus on other people’s problems for a change.
These are times I seem to forget how much I love qigong, meditation, stretching, hiking in Nature and other activities that pivot me from inertia to a zest for life. While I was writing my book, The Way of Joy, I realized that, in part, I was creating a manual I could go to when I felt stuck. I wanted a reminder of how to access some of those tried and true, “kitchen-tested” tools that really workto shift me out of an outlook and/or activity that actually drains my energy. One of my favorite themes in my work is I call the uses and misuses of resistance.
In other words how can we Drop Dread and Flow Instead?
What images or memories help you to shift out of feeling stuck or resistant? I’d love to know so comment below!
Vicki Dello Joio, founder of The Way of Joy: A Spiritual Fitness program, is a teacher, speaker and performing artist. Integrating over 40 years of Chi Kung practice with other martial arts as well as her work in Yoga, Feldenkreis, physical fitness and theater, Vicki has developed a dynamic set of tools to increase awareness, transform obstacles into opportunities and enhance creative potential. Book: The Way of Joy: An Evolutionary Process to Awaken Inspiration, Focus Intention and Manifest Fulfillment, CD: Short Meditations for a Busy Life.
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