We know life will end, and we know it will never end. And we know both these things (subconsciously) at the same time. This makes life tricky for us humans. Having a temporary body that is home to an eternal soul can be confusing. Chinese medicine gave this some thought (centuries of it in fact) and came up with a great way to handle this.

We’ve got Hun, the eternal soul, and Po, the physical body, and the strategy is to create a happy marriage / balance between the two. That way all our actions on earth are done in the context of what we might be doing after our time on earth. And that changes everything. It breaks the negativity cycle.

It’s really easy in chaotic, challenging and changing times to ‘go full Po’ and become completely entangled in the negative side of everything. To give in to anger, cynicism or a desire for revenge. We’re not here for that.

My own strategy is each morning when I start my breathing practice I do the Daoist thing of acknowledging to myself ‘OK, I will die’. Then while I get on with my transformative chi and exercise routines I’m aware of being here and being gone.

It creates a feeling of emptiness (in a good way) and a feeling of being uplifted and free.

Then by the time the business part of the day begins (09:00 on the chi cycle clock!) I’m sorted. I’m way less likely to get entangled in negativity or seeing only what’s wrong with the world, other people, other drivers etc, and more likely to be creatively positive which is the path to change.

The trick is to do the “I’m going to die” thing while in a transcendent state though, not after waking up and scrolling social media. That screws it up because you’ve started out by handing over to Po, the purely physical (gossip, bad news, meaninglessness) and the Po / Hun relationship in the day ahead is heading for the rocks. You’ve got a Hun handicap.

Get Hun and Po into counselling by doing some medicinal movement (see my Magic of Medicinal Movement webinar recording on this) and remember to always wake up thinking ‘my soul comes first’!