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Listen to June-Elleni interviewing Howard on My Spirit Radio by clicking here
Howard's latest book, The Tao of Holism, was published earlier this year. For more information, click here.
Look out for Howard's most recent articles in:
Kindred Spirit, Spring 2008 - A World Without Music.
Healing Today (NFSH magazine), Issue 112, May-July 2008 - Why Healing Isn't Superstition.
Network Review (Scientific & Medical Network journal), Issue 96, Spring 2008 - The God Confusion. (The publication of this article coincided with a lecture Howard gave at The University of Wales in Lampeter on 28 May 2008).
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Written by Jenny Jones
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Friday, 25 April 2008 09:59 |
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This article is based on a free lecture Jenny gave at the Vision For Living Health Show in Cardiff on 19 April 2008.
Everything is made up of energy. Everything material - all our possessions, the buildings we live and work in, the vehicles we drive - is simply a mass of vibrating particles and atoms. Our physical bodies can be viewed as bundles of light energy, seen as solid on the Earth plane. Energy cannot be destroyed but it can be transformed, and energy is infinite. So, if we feel we have little or no energy for most of the time, it's either because we are allowing our energy to drain away before we've used it effectively, or because have a health imbalance - often brought about by allowing our energy to drain away. The more energy we use, the more becomes available to us, so the phrase 'use it or lose it' means a great deal in this context. We know that, from a physical point of view, if we are feeling tired (but not completely exhausted), doing something physical like a brisk walk, gentle jogging, swimming or cycling, makes us feel energized afterwards. Energy is there for us to use if we choose to.
Relaxation
One of the greatest ways to expand our energy is to relax deeply. Allowing ourselves between 5 and 20 minutes once a day (or preferably twice a day) to really relax has a huge effect on the way we respond to the events in our lives. It is a wonderful investment of time to commit ourselves to focused relaxation on a regular basis. The relaxation exercise that follows can give you the type of deep relaxation that is so beneficial, and which can lead into meditation if you wish, but relaxation is the main focus here. You need to find yourself a time and place each day where you will not be disturbed by anything and allow yourself this vital re-energizing session. If we do this on a regular basis, those we live with soon accept that it is 'our time' and leave us alone - but only if they can see that we are deeply committed to the practice!
- Sit in a comfortable upright chair and push your bottom into the back of the seat and allow the back of the chair to support you.
- With your feet flat on the floor to keep you balanced, place your hands loosely in your lap or flat on your thighs.
- Close your eyes, if you can, or if not direct your gaze downwards to a point a few inches in front of your knees.
- Take a few deep breaths, breathing out any initial tension you can feel. You are going to relax down through the body using the breathing to release any residual tension.
- Allow your breathing to return to your normal level.
- Focus on your face and allow any tension in the jaw and mouth to be released as you breath out
- Moving down to the neck and throat area, breathe out any tension in the muscles here.
- Focus on the shoulders and, as you breathe out, allow them to drop by a couple of millimetres as you relax them.
- Feel your spine supported against the back of the chair.
- Check that your hands and fingers are also relaxed and that they feel a little heavy in your lap.
- Focus now on your hips and feel the chair under your body and the weight of your body on the chair as you breathe out.
- On the next out-breath, let your thighs relax and allow your knees to move apart to allow these joints to relax.
- Breathe out any tension in the ankles and feet and let your heels and all your toes feel the floor under your feet.
- Finally, take a deeper breath and feel any tension leaving your body and flowing down into the Earth.
- The only thing that matters at this moment is now - there is nothing that cannot wait for our attention until we have completed our relaxation session.
- Know that you are safe in your own space and that you are allowing yourself to focus on relaxing and re-energizing over the next few minutes.
- Promise yourself that you will simply observe the thoughts about your life that might come into your mind while you're relaxing - nothing will remove your serenity.
- When you feel comfortable that you have relaxed for long enough, keeping your eyes closed or your gaze downwards, gently wiggle your fingers and toes.
- Feel your body once again on the chair; feel your feet on the floor.
- And when you are ready, open your eyes and just sit for a few moments making sure that you are fully aware of everything around you before you get up from the chair.
Living in the present
When we focus on relaxation, we are living in the present moment. We are not concerning ourselves with the past or the future. The present is the best place to be, even when life is unpleasant, because it lasts for a very short moment. We can adjust to cope with anything that only lasts a moment. If we have a block of unpleasant moments, living just in each particular moment allows us to adjust gradually. We are very resilient if we allow ourselves to be so. Agonizing over the past and the future is one of the greatest drains on our energy. And it is futile because we cannot change the past, and we don't know what's going to happen in the next few minutes let alone the next day, week or year.Our influence on the future is greatest when we live in the present for most of the time, making the best use of it by learning from every single experience in our lives.
Our thoughts
Our thoughts provide us with the greatest potential for expanding our energy and the greatest potential for allowing it to drain away uselessly. We have hundreds of thoughts in an hour - we can choose to think creatively or we can choose to think destructively. There is a two-way communication between our thoughts and every single cell in our bodies. When we think creatively, our cells respond healthily and collaborate with us in living our lives in the best way for us as individuals. Whatever we think is reflected in our outer lives - as within, so without. So, for example, if you feel a relationship is not as good as it could be and you continue to hold this thought, the relationship will probably continue to be disappointing. Conversely, if you think before an interview that you are the best possible person for the job, you multiply your chances of getting that job. Experiences are attracted to us because of what is within us - they are a reflection of our inner selves. But how do we talk to ourselves in our heads during the constant chatter that is our inner thought process. What's the tone of voice we hear? Is it a teacher, parent, carer or boss who criticizes us at every opportunity? Or is it a loving friend who gently encourages us to be the best we can be? If we are constantly criticizing ourselves, we are allowing our energy to drain away without using it creatively. If we remember that each of us does the best with the knowledge, wisdom and experience we have at any given moment, the voice in our head can become that of the loving friend. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. After the event, we have moved on in our growth, development and knowledge and we would approach any situation differently now. But now is a great time to be living - we have a fast pace of life that allows us so many opportunities for growth and development, but it can also be a fearful time for many people.
Fear
This is another huge drain on our energy reserves, and the planet is fear-based right now, consciously and unconsciously. There are many things that souls tend to fear on a daily basis, for example, failure, success, unhappiness, happiness, loss of a job, financial insecurity, lack of friends, intimacy, life ... and even fear itself. This is just a very small list of the numerous fears that many souls have. When channelling the healing energies I have frequently felt the fears that people have, most of which have actually impacted on their physical health. The best way to reduce or eliminate fear is to identify exactly what our fears are and this can be difficult for many people because they are often well disguised by our subconscious. We often bury our fears deep inside us so that we don't have to deal with them. Instead we just start to feel uneasy and edgy when they start to surface as a result of a trigger. So this requires great honesty and courage for many souls. Once we have identified our fears, it is helpful to try and understand the origins of our fears, which are frequently found in our relationships with other souls. Painful past experiences can often be traced back as far as our childhood in many cases, but it can also be related to events or situations in the more recent past, which can make the process of identification easier.  As children and in our adolescent years moving through to our early twenties many relationships, situations and events can cause us great pain emotionally, which can remain with us into our later years. But once we have identified our fears and understood where they come from, we can take back control of our responses so that our fear levels are gradually reduced or perhaps even eliminated. It is a fact of life that most of the things we worry about - or fear - on a daily basis will probably never happen. We often use up a huge amount of emotional energy worrying about and fearing future situations and events only to find that they either never happen or are much better than we had anticipated. If we can learn to accept that every single thing that happens in our lives is simply there for us to learn from, we take the emotional sting out of them and allow our fear to gradually disappear. We have not come here to the Earth plane to suffer; we are here to enjoy the life experience.
Breathing
If we wish to be more active physically in reducing our fear levels, we can do this through our breathing.
Many of us tend to breath by expanding and contracting the chest only to allow for the expansion of the lungs. This is a very labour-intensive way of breathing because we have to expand the ribs, which are quite cumbersome to move.
If we can allow the diaphragm to move downwards to give room for the lungs to expand, it requires less energy. And the way to allow this is by expanding the belly area as we breathe in and to contract it as we breathe out. On the out-breath, the contracted belly area encourages the diaphragm to rise again and allow a full out-breath.
Breathing effectively in this way makes the best use of the air we breathe - it allows more oxygen into the blood, the brain and every cell of the body. This gives greater clarity of thought, more physical energy, and greater optimism about everything in life.
Another advantage to this type of breathing is that it is impossible for the belly and solar plexus muscles to remain tense, and this is the area where fear tends to reside. Releasing the physical tension helps to release the emotional tension.
If you practise this type of breathing until it becomes your natural method, you will prevent the tension of fear before it gains a hold.
The three core certainties of life
These are the certainties that many people tend to fear:
- Uncertainty: we never know what the future will bring
- Change: nature is constantly changing through the tides, the cycles of the sun and the moon to bring day and night, the weather, the seasons - these are natural processes that we do not question. So it is inevitable that we, as souls evolving on the Earth plane, should also change and bring change constantly. Change is what promotes our growth and development.
- Death or disincarnation from the planet.
And the order of priority for these three certainties is different for all of us.
Back to the topChange is happening at breakneck speed right now and it can be a huge drain on our energy or it can expand our energy. Many people tend to either resist change instead of going with the flow and conserving energy, or they are rushing around trying to keep up of get ahead of the changes, thus creating tension in their lives which drains their energy.
If we are to expand our energy, we need to accept change as a natural part of our learning process and allow it naturally into our everyday lives, so that we can enjoy the many changes that can be very exciting. We can never stop change but we can adjust our response to it so that it rarely knocks us off balance.
Taking responsibility
When we think about this, it can sound as if it is a heavy load to carry but, if we take responsibility for everything in our lives, it can make us feel lighter because it is part of living a full and rounded life. The only time it becomes a burden is if we take on responsibility that is not ours, for example, that which should be taken on by others. If we accept that we always have a choice in all that we do, we can choose how we respond to what's happening to help us flow with  our lives instead of resisting. We always have to remember that it is our choices and decisions that have got us to this point. Taking responsibility means being honest with ourselves by identifying and understanding our fears, identifying what gives us security, satisfaction and joy, and which issues are, in fact, our responsibility. This includes being honest with others without causing hurt, although this may not always be possible. Taking care of our body is our responsibility by not putting things into it that we know damage it or leave us feeling drained of energy, and working our bodies in the right way for us as individuals. If we honour our body as the vehicle for our soul in this lifetime, we will naturally do everything that is necessary to keep it in good condition. We need to be true to ourselves by being the sort of person we want to be, not what our friends, family, teachers or others want us to be. This is what enables us to participate fully in our lives rather than holding back all the time because we don't resonate with the way we live our lives.
Going with the flow
However much life changes, we need to go with that flow and that means making sure we take care of our selves by being kind to our selves, which is not something that many of us do. Giving our selves time to assimilate the many changes into our lives instead of expecting that we will just bounce through life from one crisis to another conserves our energy. Regardless of how we have lived in the past, we do have time to stop, absorb and adjust to change - the relaxation exercise above is one way of achieving this.  Allowing our selves to experience a passion for life, not by rushing around trying to fit as much as possible into this life - quantity rather than quality - but by slowing down and actually appreciating the infinite beauty around us. Valuing our relationships with family, friends and co-workers, accepting our children as miracles and viewing it as the honour it is to nurture them in this life, appreciating the beauty of nature, art, music and literature. There is beauty all around us if we stop and look for it and when we find it, our energy expands with the awe of what we discover.We live in a wonderful age where we can have or do almost anything we like - it is the stuff of miracles and yet we take it for granted. Reminding ourselves to be grateful for everything in our lives is another wonderful way of lifting our energy levels. Briefly running through all that we have to be grateful for just before we go to sleep creates a serenity and joy that can bring us a sound night's sleep surrounded by the light of love for everything in our lives. We also need to remember to be grateful for everything that has happened to us up to now - the good and the not so good because the lessons we learned have brought us to where we are today - all the choices we have made have provided us with lessons to help us grow and develop. Learning to say 'no' in a loving way when we know we cannot take on anymore is the kindest thing we can do for our selves and others. Our energy is not used effectively when we either fail to do what we promise or do it poorly for lack of time. Going with the flow means learning to just 'be' rather than constantly 'doing'. Taking a little time each day to simply relax and 'be' re-energizes and rejuvenates us, if we commit ourselves to doing it with a passion.
The global picture
Up to now, we have only considered ways of expanding our energy on a personal level but looking at the global picture can also expand our personal energy and that of every other soul on the planet.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, everything and everyone on this planet is connected - every plant, tree, animal and soul. And we are all part of this incredible universe.
Building good relationships with all those with whom we come into contact, and particularly those closest to us, is essential and it would not be overstating the case to say that this is a lifetime's study for every soul.
I know with every fibre of my being that we are all also connected to the Source from which we originated - the Source of infinite love.
Whatever we do to ourselves or another soul, we do to every single sould on the planet. So whilst you may think that what you have read up to now does not apply to you - think again. You just still view yourself as separate!
We need to honour everything on this planet and treat it with respect. The animals and plants give themselves up so that we can be nourished. Any mistreatment of them or waste of food is a dishonour to the sources of our nourishment and only serves to allow our energy to drain away without effective use. Wherever possible, only eating food raised or grown by those who respect the living organism, preparing food with loving care and taking the time to enjoy it fully in a focused way is how we expand our energy.
There is a significant energy drain from most of us because we forget that we are all one.
We engage in behaviours that separate us - elitism, sexism, racism, competition, wars. We are allowing our energy to drain away because we are not using it creatively in looking for the many, many things that connect us. We are inextricably linked and when we accept this and live our lives accordingly we have a healthy exchange of creative energy with all other souls.
Putting aside the spiritual aspects for the moment, logically we are all connected:
- We all breathe the same air - for example, some believe that we all have a molecule within us of the air Socrates breathed!
- Our physical bodies are the same.
- We have to work together to be able to live on the plant - those countries where there is disharmony and war are impoverished so the evidence is there for us all to see.
- We all feel the same emotions - happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, contentment, joy - and particularly love.
The greatest energy expander of all
I believe that our purpose here - and the reason why we keep reincarnation - is to learn unconditional love for everything and every soul on this planet.
Every time we give love to another, our energy is increased.
Every time we feel compassion, our energy levels rise.
Every time we feel the welling up of love for those closest to us, we can feel our energy expand.
And, most importantly, every time we love, accept and forgive ourselves and others for any perceived harm, disrespect or disagreement, our energy expands the most.
All loving exchanges create love energy, which is the most powerful there is.
This is the Spirit of Oneness.
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