5 Fundamentals of Energy & Enthusiasm

After I wrote about the 7-levels-of-energyI’ve had quite a busy month at work which brought my attention back to the fundamentals. I’ve also had many profound conversations with people who took the challenge to recognize their average level of energy. It is a bit sad but not too surprising that only one person spends most of his time on level 7… So I keep on asking: Does it really have to be that way? How could we live up to our full energy potential?

Everything around us including ourselves is in fact energy, and all of this energy is vibrating at different frequencies. In a sense, each of us has a unique signature frequency which we radiate out to the world. It’s nearly as if each of us broadcasts on a specific radio channel others can tune in. Our vibration provides context for other people’s vibration which is how we affect and influence each other all the time. Knowing just how busy our lives have become, and with too many of us being so low in terms of our personal energy, I’d like to share my own experience and learn from the perspective of others. The more we talk about energy the higher our awareness goes and that knowledge can perhaps motivate us to do something about it!

So how could we raise our vibrations to live the best possible version of our life? We’ve done the first thing i.e. started noticing our energy levels, our perceptions, feelings, emotions as well as our thoughts, values and deep beliefs which might be getting in the way of our energy flow. Now that we are conscious of it we are able to lead our energy where we wish to go.I realize that everyone has their own, sometimes specific ways to change their frequency; so lets skip some of the extreme “reset” techniques. What do you do for your life to work well? How does one recharge their bateries? Considering how we actually spend our free time or weekends might be a good starting point. I know people who raise their frequency by dancing the whole night, some prefer to take a really long sleep. Some of my friends spend their weekend with their family, some like to stay alone in their pyjamas reading a book. Hey, one of my friends goes to cemetery to get the right perspective! Why not? Whatever helps you is available for your own goodness! Let me share a few habits which work best for me. I follow these five fundamentals and during busy periods such as this time of the year they become essential to keep my energy vibrating high:

1. Fresh air

Our cities are quite polluted and since I live in the country I leverage the location to get some fresh air whenever possible. I typically go to deep forest on the weekend and enjoy breathing clean air. I see the breath as the easiest link between our consciousness and our body. You can watch this video if you’d like to find out more about that connection.

One of my favorite breathing meditations is to be aware of what goes on outside and inside. While breathing in and out I notice all my perceptions and literally smile at anything I notice. So it can look like this: I walk and breathe… I notice a beautiful view of a valley. I feel the lovely smell of woods. I hear the sounds of birds singing. I sense my feet stepping on a rock. Suddenly I notice a slight headache (chocolate craving, tension etc.) I don’t resist anything. I simply notice and accept all that comes. That means I also accept the headache (or whatever else I noticed), I give it a smile and keep on enjoying walking and breathing. You can find many breathing meditations on the web or discover your own… The main point is to breathe!

2. Hydration

I wrote about the importance of water for our life energy in my previous post.How much I drink depends on the season, temperature and the amount of movement I get. I follow intuition, but sometimes need to remind myself to drink; this way my drinking is spread throughout the whole day. I also have an incredible experience with freshly pressed fruit and vegetable juices. Some twenty years ago I was able to recover from serious liver problems by drinking a glass of fresh juice every morning for about three months. Back then my doctor couldn’t believe the effect that had on my liver and was close to declaring it a miracle Nowadays it is already well known that freshly pressed juice can cleanse our bodies and nourish it with a variety of vitamins, minerals, and enzymes. There are stands selling juices and smoothies on every corner now and we can easily prepare a fresh juice at home as well. I can’t forget mentioning tea, because I love tea, especially green and white sorts which make for a great alternative to coffee.

We can drink a large amount of water (2-3l) throughout the course of a day, but drinking too much at once overwhelms the kidneys. They can’t process the water fast enough, and the levels of sodium in our blood can get too low which is very risky. I use common sense and body signals which usually results in about 2 litres a day including juices, soups, tea etc.

3. Nutrition

The more fresh, tasty and lighter my food is the better I feel. Though not a vegetarian I do enjoy eating quite a lot of raw food such as fruits, vegetables, nuts and oils. Such food prevents a typical “post-meal hangover” i.e. sudden drop of energy caused by redirecting most of it to digestion. Raw food helps to get rid of toxins which the body may have accumulated and which may be the reason why one lacks energy. I am also a big fan of variety of home-made food…and until lately I had no idea how much joy and satisfaction it can provide to bake bread with my own hands!

Instead of following diets or rigid systems I prefer staying in touch with my body’s signals. In terms of food choice and shopping I also listen to my body’s wisdom. Guess why is intuition called gut feeling? It simply means that when I see, smell, taste or even imagine a particular food I can ask: Is this food good for me right now? If I notice any resistance or hesitation I usually consider eating or buying something else. When I eat I try to be fully present and enjoy the meal. It’s not worth the time saved to multitask during eating. When we are present it is easy to know when we’ve had enough. I also like to be aware of why I am eating. I used to crave a particular food especially sweets when I was stressed. But that only added additional stress on top, because of the negative effects sugar has on our body. Being unconscious during eating, focused on something else or immersed in emotional eating (triggered by fear, sadness, anger or worry) usually results in me not feeling good afterwards. Over the years I learned to slow down while eating and to opt for quality over quantity. Every time we eat we are making a choice of the direction… what that really means is that 3-5 times a day we are literally heading either towards health or dis-ease. The truth is it is completely in our hands to decide what we eat, how much, when and why! I believe we are what we eat and I don’t like to be fast, cheap or fake!

4. Movement

In my eyes there are two basic types of exercises with two different objectives. The aim of the first is to get rid of excess energy – I mean sports such as aerobics, squash, boxing, running and similar. The other type of exercise combines breathing and movement in order to consciously focus on our body and balance our energy. This type is best represented by yoga, taichi, martial arts, cchikung, dancing 5 elements etc.Both types of exercising have their value. Any movement is good!We don’t have to sign-up for marathon, but even standing or walking is much better than sitting the whole day in front of a computer. Regardless of how much we need to sit, we can always engage in physical activity – use staircases instead of lifts, walk instead of driving, do sports, exercise or clean the house. Anything that makes us move more will do! It might not be ideal, but it’s a good way to increase our physical activity and build a momentum. One of my favourite movements is walking while re-connecting with nature. I simply love mountains, rivers, trees, flowers… They are here to let us feel grounded and more balanced. I enjoy feeling part of this amazingly beautiful and wise system. In fact, I see Nature as the greatest healer!

5. Sleep

Sleep happens naturally, we don’t have to learn it. So how come we sometimes struggle to get a quality sleep and feel rejuvenated when we get up? Again, I personally needed to recognize the things that prevented me from sleeping in the first place. In my case the root cause of bad sleep quality was working for too long, too much stress during the day, too much watching of a screen (computer, TV, mobile phone or any other screen of that sort). Sometimes also a deficit in the other four fundamentals – lack of fresh air or water, very little movement in general, eating too much or too late… How many hours of sleep each of us needs is highly individual. I know I am at my best when I sleep about 8 hours. Eating high quality food, exercising and being excited about something I am working on lowers my sleep needs. On the contrary, illness, stress and lack of fresh air or sun makes me more tired thus needing more hours of sleep. So the one thing that helped me the most with sleep was overall more mindfulness around it. If you sometimes don’t sleep well you might want to review for example this process.

If I take care of these five fundamentals, my energy flows, I am full of enthusiasm and my life just works. The point I am trying to make is this – being conscious of our energy and where it comes from is the first step in raising our frequency. The awareness creates an opportunity and motivation for change. And change can trigger much more vitality and overall satisfaction in life. Once we feel the inner joy we don’t wish to go back to outdated habits. When we get to a place of more energy and enthusiasm anything we do holds higher vibrations and therefore leads to better results. Our new radio channel attracts new people and experiences so to say…

Whywould we do what doesn’t serve us and our bodies well? What might be more important than to take care of the one thing which we were given in this life and which remains our main tool for the rest of it? After all, only once I truly take care of myself I can be of any service to others… You might be thinking: C’mon, all this is just a common sense. Everyone knows that breathing, eating, drinking, moving and sleeping is important. I agree, it is a common sense. Yet, unfortunately, it is not a common practice…

Or is it for you? What are your fundamenals? What do you do on a regular basis to keep your energy vibrating high? I look forward to be inspired by your tips… you can share what works best for you in the comments!