Self-Care Energy Management for Elderly By Douglas K. Chung, Ph.D. , MSW, MA Yin and Yang Forces within the Mind, the Body, and Environments As
you walk around the room or street, the way your body is standing on
the ground is a reality, in fact, of energy balance; your counter
forces between your left and right brain as well as external counter
forces. Internally, walking has a high degree of energy system
coordination among the left and right brain, nervous system, motion
system, cognitive system, visual system, muscle and tendon systems,
breathing and blood circulation systems. Maintaining a walking posture
is also an integration of energy system balance between the internal
and external energy systems. When you walk well, you are enjoying good
health. When our human energy system is out of order, such as a
musculoskeletal disorder, disorder of the spine, sense of balance and
direction, one may have a difficult time walking. This internal energy
system is interacting with the external energy system, such as air,
gravity, sunbeam, air pressures, humidity, which shapes our balance and
ability to walk. This energy system balance form and define our health
and enable our daily activities. They enable us to move physically in
an accountable and a predictable way. The counter force creates balance
for human beings as well as in the nature. Ancient Chinese called the
natural energy balance Yin Yang dynamics. Social Construction of Mental Reality As
you walk around mountains, fields, roads, lakes, and rivers as well as
downtown streets, buildings, cars, and stores, all the things you look
at in reality are, in fact, an expression of someone’s opinion. A store
is designed according to the designer’s opinion (blue print) on how to
construct it. When you see it and admire it, you are expressing your
opinion. Our human internal mental reality, such as the perception in
our daily life, life philosophy, and metaphysics is similarly
constructed. These internal feelings and opinions are shaped through
family culture, authority figures, and personal experiences. These
opinions form and define our attitude and define our reality. They
enable us to live in an accountable life and a predictable way. Opinion and Feelings Our opinions are shaped according to our social labeling. A
social mechanism exists to define the definition of that particular
thing. From time to time, if not all the time, our opinions cause us to
react in anguish, frustration, fear, guilt or even worse to enslave us
through desire and want. In this paper, Mental Reality Construction and Energy Transformation,
we examine the opinions and labeling prevalent in our mass psychology
that can cause our daily struggle and how can we transform our energy
and therefore liberate us from the collective emotions and the burdens
that comes with it. If you would like to integrate your mind, body, and
spirit for personal healing, psychological integration, and spiritual
growth, read carefully and try to practice it. How the negative emotions are generated? When an external reality runs into a contradicted situation with your opinion, the negative emotion is raised. Negative
emotion is nothing more than the experience of being contradicted
(Wilde, 1994). One has certain opinions and expectations and life comes
along and contradicts those opinions, therefore generating a negative
emotion. In other words, there are two opposing mental forces that
exist in your mind and create what is called Yin Yang tension. When you
have certain opinions/expectations but the experience of life
contradicts these opinions, thus generating negative emotion as showing
in the following diagram. Contradiction Your Opinions/Expectations Experience of Life/Reality Negative Emotions Anguish If
you can transform the two contradicting forces from either expectations
or negative mentality to both a complementary mentality, then you can
become free from negative emotion or anguish. It means if your
perception or personality were programmed to accept contradictions as
natural, you could not experience negative emotion or anguish. It means
if you can integrate conflicted or contradicted opinion in a particular
situation into an integrated part of Yin Yang complementary system,
then you can sense no negative emotion. When you accept both your
opinion/expectation and life's realities are co-existing in life
naturally, you no longer generate negative emotion. Your efforts, thus
become maintained to the middle line/balance rather than cling to your
own opinion/expectation and suffering from frustration, anguish, or
negative reaction. Energy transformation is nothing more than learning
to accept the contradictions of life without resistance as can be seen
in the following Yin Yang diagram. Yin Yang Diagram Yin Yang integrated Tai Chi Ball perceives countering forces as a whole Benefits of Shifting Either Or Contradiction Mode to Both and And Yin Yang Paradigm There
are many benefits when you shift your paradigm from an either or
contradicted mode to both and Yin Yang integrated paradigm. First, you
can eliminate some of contradictions immediately. Second, you can
design your life blue print to avoid most of them. Third, you can
establish mechanisms that enable you to accept, unemotionally, those
contradictions you can’t avoid in reality. The
either or contraction mode is building upon the physical body through
our mental programming. Our feeling and expectations are inherent to
our cultural programming through our brain that involved with ego and
personality. Intuitively and logically we would like to operate in a
secure zone while in life or reality, there is no guaranty for safety.
That sets up an uncomfortable contradiction in the life. The ultimate
contradiction is between the physical body and spiritual eternality.
Our human body wishes to be secure and live forever while reality runs
into contradiction. It is natural to see and experience both love and
hate, abundance and shortage, freedom and control, self-worth and
self-pity, beauty and ugliness, positive and negative attitudes, safe
and fear. Although these contradictions are naturally co-existing in
life, to integrate them is not natural to us. In any culture we are
taught as child to resist. Losing a horse is a bad thing to villagers,
the lost horse brings back another wild horse is a good thing, not
until the wild horse hurts the farmer’s only son, a broken leg
certainly is bad, but it became protection from serving in the military
with possibility of facing death. These are our common feeling and
expectations. We popularly perceive a loss in life as negative and
gaining as positive. If you just accept losing as a part of life, you
can relax and feel free from frustration. The farmer obviously has
transformed his paradigm from popular belief of either gaining or
losing which both are good and positive mentality. He is free from the
negative emotions through the ever changing situations. Like gravity
affecting human weight, human resistance to these life contradictions
falls to zero. It is our expectancy programmed in our mind that sets up
the possibility of contradiction. We must accept and love nature and life when it does not go our way. By
taking a neutral course between “positive” and “negative” circumstances
one can manage and balance their energy system. When faced with any
contradictions, don’t resist but put your energy into the solution, not
the emotion. Energy Systems Imbalances as Opportunities for Transformation: Energy Unbalanced – Confusion: energy lost its direction Energy Unbalanced – Frustration: needs unmet led to defeat/ situation Energy Unbalanced – Guilt: energy turns inside to blame oneself Energy Unbalanced – Anger: energy externalized Energy Unbalanced – Depression: energy internalized Energy stagnation – energy flow stagnated leads to pain/sensivity Effective Energy Management: Human energy can be effectively managed to regain the strength, promote immunity, and achieve system balance. There are various ways for effective energy management. 1. Physical postures Self test for energy strength through various postures Toes in vs. toes out Praying palms in the middle line vs. out of the middle line Tongue touches inside the upper middle plate vs. non-touched position 2. Breathing – Diaphragm breathing Meditative breathing – mind and body integrated breathing with three dimensional channels 3. Mental Factor - Visualization Self test for energy strength through mind focus only Mentally visualize toes in vs. toes out (without visualization) Mentally visualize praying palms in of the middle line vs. out of the middle line (without visualization) Visualize tongue touches inside the upper middle plate vs. non-touched position 4. Combined body, mind, and breathing integration training Physical positions/postures: Sitting position, lying position, or standing position Toes in, Kneel down, palms bowl, chin pulled in, Place tongue on Upper middle plate tightening Huiyin (anal/anus) Breathing: Diaphragm breathing Mentally visualize Inhale – visualize three incoming energy channels flowing into lower Dan Tien The
universal energy comes down from the space through the crown down to
the middle of the lower Dan Tien (the spot between the naval and
Mingmen. The
environmental energy comes from environment (sunbeam, oxygen, sound
waves etc. therapeutic energies) through the palms goes to the middle
of the lower Dan Tien (the spot between the naval and Mingmen. The
earth energy comes up from the ground through the Yun Chuan cavity (one
third from the toes) goes up to the middle of the lower Dan Tien (the
spot between the naval and Mingmen. All
these three energy streams flowing into the lower Dan Tien, they are
transformed, converted, infused into your energy system. When you
exhale - visualize the internal old energy from the lower Dan Tien
flowing out of your body through the same three channels. (If you have
any health concerns, when you exhale, visualize these negative energies
were pushed out through the Yongquan cavity to the deep of the ground.). Energy Interaction and Generation for human medicine production Human palms can generate Qi – healing energy for immune promotion, strength improvement, strengthen energy level and quality. Place
your palms in front of you about shoulder width apart, palms facing
each other. Push the palms toward each other, before they touch each
together. Pull the palms away to the shoulder width. Repeat the
interactions with relaxation with the mind focused on the palms &
fingers’ sensation. Sooner
or later, you may have the sensation of the tingling, cold, warm, or
magnetic feeling in the palms or fingers. That sensation is called Qi –
life force, the breath of life that has healing functions to serve as
preventive, therapeutic, and developmental energy medicine. Energy Integration and Transformation When
the energy is well integrated, the impact can be a multi-dimensional
expansion. For example, a mind and body integrated energy can make the
fingers grow longer. Demonstration Mind, Body, and Spirit Integration After
you master this mind and body energy integration technique, then
practice mind, body and spirit integration for energy transformation. Spiritual Reconnection: Connect your spirit according to your spiritual tradition For example, when you inhale, visualize/pray that the Holy Spirit comes down on you for cleansing and healing. Spiritual journal sharing – Energy research through the Kolin camera photo pictures study. Managing and Integrating the Conflicting Energies: Yin Yang Theory, Five Elements Theory, Systems Theory, Meridian Theory Energy Generation Life Model – La Qi, Qigong Walking, Daily Life Cleansing Tai Chi Movement Model Wisdom Qigong Model Meridian Model Workshop conducted for the elderly at Ionia Community Mental Health 375 Apple Tree Dr. Ionia, MI 48846 On March 24, 2005 Time 9 to 11 am Workshop location: 115 Hudson St. Ionia, MI 48846 | 
