Brisbane Yoga Fest, Sunday 29th May 2011

www.yogafest.com.au

Being invited to submit an article on the theme of ‘Loving Now’ my first thought was to write about the heart, as it is in traditional Chinese medicine; the emperor of the organs, the seat of the soul and the transmitter of love. I was going to write about the chi-cycle time of the heart, the magical two hours between 11am and 1pm each day when you have an audience with the emperor, when you are closest to your soul and to your purpose. This is the time of the Fire element, when you can fan the flames of your love and spread this to your partner. But traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is nothing if not practical and successful relationships are about much more than the heart. A healthy sex life is considered essential as well and this means a compatible sex drive is important. If you are in a relationship with someone that you love but you have a mismatched sex drive it doesn’t matter what your heart is up to, you are heading for an emotional challenge. Our sex drive is connected to our kidneys not our heart. So really on the topic of Loving Now I should be writing a long, poetic essay about kidneys, but it just doesn’t sound romantic. If you mention ‘kidneys’ people tend to think of a dish you can order in a restaurant, and one that no one really likes. But in a good relationship our kidneys play just as an important role as our heart does. They store our life force, known as jing and this is directly connected to our sex life. But our kidneys are also ‘the mother of yin and yang’ and in TCM everything is about yin and yang including sex and relationships, so this is the angle I’m going to explore the idea of Loving Now from.

Yin and yang are the big forces that shape the universe. But, like a set of Russian dolls, there are layers within layers. There is the yang part of each day and the yin part of the day, there are the yang humans – generally considered to be men – and the yin humans, generally considered to be women. But then each individual, regardless of their gender, is either yin or yang. We even have a yin or corporeal soul, the Po, and a yang or ethereal soul, the Hun. Life is a shifting dance between yin and yang from the macrocosmic to the microcosmic. If you want a loving and lasting relationship you need to understand the forces of yin and yang and whether your own nature is more yin or yang. Sex drive is a great indicator of this. If you want lots of sex lots of the time chances are you are a more yang type. If you don’t think about sex for months, chances are you are a more yin type. Sex drive is not gender related. There is a stereotypical version of the yang man who wants sex five times a week (or day) and the yin woman who wants have sex once a month. But I see just as many yang women who want sex daily (or more) in relationships with yin men who are happy with once a month. This mismatch also happens in same-sex relationships, and it is not about men or women but about yin and yang or life forces. All sex drives are normal. It is only an issue when one partner wants more or less sex than the other and it has a negative effect on a relationship. By the time two people sit in front of me for relationship counselling a mismatched sex drive has become the source of emotional pain and blame, guilt and judgement. The partner who doesn’t want sex decides the other person’s sex drive is abnormal and then tells them so, and vice versa.

I always start these sessions by telling the yang person there is nothing wrong with them for wanting sex all day (unless it’s a pathological high sex drive coming from an organ malfunction rather than their constitution). Likewise for the yin person there is nothing ‘wrong’ with not wanting sex for months. I believe we choose a body before we incarnate and that might be either a yin or yang type and each naturally has a differing sex drive.

Regardless of this though, there is a recommended healthy level of sexual activity. Just because you feel like having sex daily doesn’t mean you should and just because you don’t feel like having sex doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. In some cases I treat, the simple step of devising a ‘sex schedule’ resolves the issue. Once you are over 30 and under 70 and in fairly good health, I recommend scheduling sex for twice a week, at a certain time on a certain day and then sticking to the plan. No excuses. People initially really, really resist this. We think that love is spontaneous and driven by the heart and assume sex, as a physical expression of love, should be too. Sure, when you are young, but as you get older or spend longer in a relationship things change and sometimes a more practical approach is needed. People plan their career, their weekends, their grocery shopping so why not sex too? Once you try the sex schedule things really start to change.

As well as implementing a sex schedule you need to work on understanding your nature, whether it is yin or yang. The great thing is you can control and change this. We can be masters of our own inner universe. Yang people can moderate their sex drive by doing chi-gung and having regular acupuncture to control excessive energies. Yin types can build their yang through martial arts and kidney building herbs. So within ourselves yin and yang are not finite states. I was originally more of a yang type but after a couple of years of hard drugs I became a yin type. I’d get a fright if a rabbit looked sideways at me. But you can change this. We all already know how. Right now you can put this magazine down and charge into the kitchen, have three cups of really strong coffee, turn on the tv and radio, get hyped-up and make lots of phone calls. This is a yang state. Or you can go and do relaxation therapy and experience yin.

One of the related things that comes up in relationship counselling when addressing yin and yang and sex, is the misconception that women and men have a different ‘nature’ and accordingly different roles; for example the man initiates and the woman receives. It is a popular idea and there are plenty of books on how we come from different planets and some can read maps and others can’t. But I don’t agree with this view. If you go into a relationship thinking that because you are the woman your job is to support or nourish someone else and be receptive, you are imposing external conditions on yourself that may not be in accord with your nature. If you enter a relationship thinking that because you are the man, you are the driver, the provider and you have to give someone else what they need to make them happy, it can become a big a problem. I think we are past all that divisive men and women stuff now. For me the topic ‘Loving Now’ also means loving in the 21^st century, in the year approaching 2012. It is no longer about men and women, it is about people. We are humans on earth and we have a common goal, we need to be working with yin and yang, the forces that shape us so we can shape a new world. I believe that we should enter a relationship not as a man or woman, but as what I call a ‘self-contained unit’. Our partners are not there to make us happy, we are here to make ourselves happy. Part of this is working on not needing anything from anyone else and understanding your own nature, rather than behaving according to a gender-specific concept of what your nature should be.

I’m not saying we don’t need each other, of course we do spiritually and physically. We have our two souls, Hun and Po. The need for physical union is Po and the need for spiritual union, for our soul mate, is Hun. Our Po or corporeal soul is form, it is connected to our body. It is how we experience vigour, power and energy. Our Hun or ethereal soul is about feeling and ‘discovery’ and is connected to our mind and spirit. In a relationship the idea is to have both Hun and Po engaged. If this is the case, when you have sex the sense of discovery never ends, even after 50 years, and this nourishes the relationship deeply. Sex without the Hun engaged, is Po. It is physical sex and is what is experienced in sex addiction, prostitution and pornography. It leads to separation because Po is all about separation. In a relationship sex without Hun becomes physical and it can lead to both parties losing interest in sex and then seeking extramarital affairs to recapture the sense of discovery.

Loss of interest in sex is a big issue in relationship work, and it has given rise to plenty of books on spicing up your sex life, by getting into PVC outfits and using porn for stimulation and so on. It has also given rise to a new range of high-tech sex toys, but these things are temporary. Spice it up metaphysically I say, with Hun. This is permanent. So, how to engage our Hun is the question. Luckily this was sorted out centuries ago with the development of practices such as yoga and tai-chi. These get you in touch with your Po and your Hun. So on Valentines day it is nice to buy your partner flowers and chocolates and tell them you love them, but its even nicer to get into yoga or tai-chi and learn to manage your own yin and yang. Get in touch with your souls and bring your inner union to the relationship, this is what I think Loving Now should be all about!

When Chi flows freely even the biggest burden loses its power of influence. Long live Tai-chi, Yoga and any modality that promotes free-flowing Chi.

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I reckon weight training is a necessity to succeed in life. Its so easy to give in to inertia & negativity when waking up – and then the whole day feels like driving a car with the handbrake on. Weight training transforms inertia & negativity like no other discipline I’ve ever worked with. Doesn’t matter what age or sex, muscle growth stimulation regularly & sensibly applied is the ticket to liberation. Halleluja.

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Just wondering how can we know the Outer without knowing the Inner first? Buddhism, Particle Physics & Chinese medicine state that things are not the way they appear to be – so we can’t trust what we see as being real. Life iis confusing. Exploration of the Inner through rigorous daily practice establishes a reference point to what is real. This equips us to deal effectively with the Outer world. Bingo…

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Life’s definitely getting tougher for a lot of us. I keep my spirit up with daily weight training, by putting mind over matter till obstacles & challenges become manageable. I sink deeply into my body, I unite with the weight and I melt the tension while advancing my spirit via my body. We are only here for a short time, but we’ve got to make a difference – we’ve got to kick ass. But this requires a strong body.y.

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Get frequently asked about how do you know if a spiritual practice works? I think its simple: If you talk & think about the things you do in your life, the practice is working. If you talk & think about the things you are missing in your life and you blame conditions & others, then the practice isn’t working – it lacks transformational powers. Shape your body > shape your soul > shape your life.

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If Kidney’s are strong there is no delay between intent & application. Procrastination is not a fault of the mind, it’s a fault of the body. Kidney Chi & Jing is the engine behind consciousness and awareness. Chinese herbs in conjunction with Chi-gung will align intent with action. If the mind is a bother, focus on the body to resolve the issue of the mind. Simple!

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The physical world is never quite right; even outright weird & wrong. Always aches & pains somewhere, perfection is a vision – but not a fact. I myself never experienced it any other way, however starting the day with Chi-gung & weights processes the  discomfort by conditioning ourselves to accept the physical as it is while gravitating steadily towards perfection.

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Did 3 months trial of Tai-chi, Yoga, Chi-gung & weight training but NO CARDIO to see if benefits of cardio can be drawn from other practices. Common consensus says Tai-chi, Yoga or Chi-gung is all you need but my 3 months trial showed me differently. Benefits of vigorous cardio work-outs are entirely the domain of running, swimming or bike. Doesn’t matter how efficient the practice, there’s no substitute for cardio.

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Talented people constantly tell me that their ideas about life are unreal because their family tells them to stop dreaming and to get realistic. Well, in Chinese medicine REALISTIC means Kidney & Liver = Structure, Rhythm, Power. Structure your day (Chi-cycle), establish rhythm, build a strong powerful body. Dreams will naturally develop as Water (Kidney) feeds the Wood (Liver).

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People constantly say that life is getting tougher but I think its getting easier. We’ve got access to all the information needed to understand our reasons for being in physical form. We’ve got access to all practices required to realize ourselves. We can make 2 hours available every day for spiritual practice and we’ve got the freedom to practice anywhere. This is the life we have been waiting for for so many incarnations…

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Many people are in jobs they don’t like. I never liked being told what to do, or doing jobs that numb and kill the soul. The rules are simple but non-negotiable: either let jobs and Bosses put conditions onto you, or take charge of life and put the conditions onto yourself by following the Chi-cycle, meditation and rigorous Chi-practice to learn the laws of creation. Freedom is simple…

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I strongly believe that this is a pivotal incarnation for most of us, but its also the easiest one to give up on. I think this is due to the accelerated rise in awareness. We’ve got to follow the Chi-cycle as this keeps us linked to our souls destiny. We need to get as much acupuncture & transformational bodywork as possible to ‘lighten’ the body. I have 2 sessions a week. I’d rather invest in the future of the soul than material security.

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Whenever I recommend a cooked breakfast lasting 20 minutes in serene conditions I frequently get told that no one has that luxury of time anymore. Even a well-known radio presenter ‘reminded’ me of this ‘obvious fact’ during an interview about my book on the Chi-cycle. We are definitely in for some strange times when a 20 minute breakfast is considered a luxury and Plasma TV, big houses and jet-skis a necessity…

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The Dalai Lama has become an icon for compassion & happiness, but the fact that he mediates 5 hrs a day and follows the Chi-cycle is somehow overlooked. Instead an otherworldly stigma is attached to people like him. If the Dalai Lama would stay up late, get up late, skip breakfast, rush around all day, eat a salad sandwich for lunch while working I am sure he would be called the ‘Grumpy Monk’.

22nd January 2011      Melbourne - Rainbow Serpent Festival

www.rainbowserpent.net

Step one for setting etherically integrated goals, is to follow the chi cycle because if we know where we are at all times and what we are supposed to be doing, it allows our etheric system to function and part of this is insight into our purpose. This is why life in religious orders is so disciplined. At any hour of the day or night, monks, nuns or religious initiates know where they are and what they should be doing. This allows their focus to be on their spiritual development. We don’t want to live like monks of course, but neither do we want to be spending all our time confused about when to get up, if to eat, what to eat, what to do next, what to have for dinner, whether to invite friends over, what to watch on TV, or what to do with our lives. This lifestyle leads to pathologies and drifts us further from finding our purpose. Back in the 90’s I lived this way and as a result I established material goals that were not necessarily connected to my bigger picture. Each day I wrote pages of affirmations and visualised chains of busy healthcare centres, fleets of cars with my logo on them, and myself leading crowded seminars on wealth, health and success – wearing a head-mic like Anthony Robbins – I could see the whole thing. But this vision wasn’t connected with my soul purpose because I wasn’t connected to the universal intelligence. It wasn’t etherically integrated so it didn’t work out the way I intended.

In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) the etheric world is the primary concern. This is where it all goes down. Health is regulated by the etheric body and pathology arises and develops in the etheric organs. These are different to our physical organs. People keep asking me what happens (in relation to following the chi cycle) if you have your spleen or another organ removed. In traditional Chinese medicine there are two types of organs, the dense physical organs of your physical body and the etheric organs of your etheric body. If the physical organ is removed the etheric organ is still there and it still functions. This invisible aspect of our organs is not sounding as farfetched as it once did either. In Deepak Chopra’s recent talk in Brisbane, he stated that science has ‘discovered’ and ‘proven’ that our emotions are housed in our organs. In TCM this has been known for thousands of years, but it is also known that our organs have spiritual resources and connect us with the universal intelligence. The spiritual resource of our liver (the organ associated with purpose), is the Hun, our ethereal soul. In five element theory the energetics of goal-setting could be described as follows: the Hun relates to the wood element and water nurtures wood. Water is also related to your kidneys and jing, your life force and thus your etheric blueprint (because water and kidneys are the basis of life). If I am sensitive to my etheric energetics from living the chi cycle, I sense the relationship between water and wood and set etherically integrated goals that factor in my true purpose. This is what I work on with my clients because otherwise goal-setting can turn against them. My past success goals were based on a mental concept, a picture of myself having recognition and wealth. This was not my true purpose and I created friction in the wood element because my goal-setting was not supported by water. If wood is not nurtured by water it doesn’t grow. This leads to stagnation and eventually a heat pattern arises. As illness originates in the etheric body, this is the beginning of a pathology. It usually starts by affecting the etheric spleen and this impacts on the production of chi and blood. In my case, as production of chi and blood decreased I was not receiving energy from my post-natal Jing, the energy derived from food, water and air, but had to draw from my mental energy instead. This meant I drew from my precious pre-natal Jing, the energy given to us at birth by the universe and by our parents. This is like a savings account but constantly drawing from the account without ever putting back into it guarantees collapse.

I didn’t know this was happening at the time and was still determined to do whatever it took to reach my goals. But this increased the stagnation in my etheric liver. The liver’s job is to circulate chi throughout the body-system but it couldn’t do it so my other organs didn’t receive vitalizing chi and suffered accordingly. My spleen was affected so I developed dizziness and constantly lost the thread of conversations in pressured or stressful situations. My blood and yin was depleted and I had mental energy I couldn’t control. I couldn’t sink-in, couldn’t switch off and then couldn’t sleep. My Hun’s ability to access my spiritual guidance during sleep was affected and I drifted further and further away from health and my soul purpose. So despite all my goal-setting I felt empty.

Sleep is critically important to our etheric system. We are designed to function on the ‘sleep of meaning’. I think it is only now that I have finally understood and experienced this. In my drug days I couldn’t sleep without smoking dope. Because dope creates a (artificial but corrupted) smooth flow in the etheric liver, it made falling asleep feel purposeful and subconsciously I recognised this as being right, but the drugs were impacting negatively on my etheric organs. In my days of wanting to be a success-guru, sometimes alcohol could put me to sleep as it too affects the liver but it wouldn’t be long before the heat pattern would come forward to wake me up. Without alcohol I often couldn’t fall asleep at all. These days, if I have integrated myself etherically throughout the day, I can easily fall into purposeful sleep and I can sense the significant activity that is taking place as I drift away. I’m handing over to the bigger picture. The more of this sleep I get, the more clear I am about my life. As a result my meaning in life is not derived from what I do or acquire, but from being connected to the universe. Without this quality of sleep your goal-setting can be random and can create pathologies. To avoid this make holistic health your prime goal because the outcome is soul-realisation. I’m not saying get rid of your material goals or dreams of fame and fortune, I’m suggesting a re-shuffle so that your soul gets a look-in. Get etherically integrated goals, it will change your life and it will change the future of the planet.

This is a priority for all of us now. Our desire for material goods is unsustainable and it is contributing to the death of the planet, but I think goal-set for this because we are out of synch with the cosmos and the process by which we gain meaning in life and access our soul. I’ve been reading Worldshift 2012 : Making Green Business, New Politics, and Higher Consciousness Work Together by Ervin Laszlo. He states that ‘possessing material goods beyond what’s needed to ensure a decent quality of life is not a sign of achievement; on the contrary, it’s an indication of backward thinking’. I’m also reading The Wolf of Wall Street – about the infamous Wall St trader, Jordan Belfort, who went from multi-million dollar success to jail – to get the other side of the story. The Wolf achieved material wealth beyond most people’s wildest aspirations. He could spend several hundred thousand dollars on entertainment in a weekend. In a recent interview about his exploits, which famously included once earning 12 million dollars in a couple of minutes, he stated that money in itself was meaningless, he had to attach it to material possessions to try and find meaning. But it is obvious throughout his book that no amount of caviar, mansions, cars or luxury goods was enough to deliver him meaning or happiness. Laszlo proposes that ‘real wealth lies not in the possession of money, but in living a fulfilling life’. Of course we have all heard this many times over in many ways from many spiritual sources, but once a similar thread underscores the thinking of the cashed-up hedonists such as, The Wolf, who really do know about material wealth, I think its significant.

I believe real wealth lies in nurturing our etheric organs and their magical connection with the universe because this connects us to the journeying of our soul. The sleep of meaning reinforces my knowledge that this current incarnation is only one little identity amongst countless others, so in my daily life I can’t act as if it is all there is. We all have to die so I believe the most important thing is to stay connected to our true nature. In this context purely material gaols are never going to be enough for us because none of us are taking that stuff with us when we go, and deep down we all know this. We commonly say ‘I lost everything’ when we hit a financial crisis and lose our houses, cars or possessions, but no one says this on their deathbed – at the only truly appropriate time for such a comment. Why? Because at that stage we know what is important. If we catch onto that earlier in life it will make a difference. So, make the chi-cycle lifestyle a goal because as inner wealth increases, your perception of what you need externally shifts. This is exactly what needs to happen globally as well. I believe my soul purpose threads across all incarnations and the chi cycle connects me with this magical lineage.

• Where does the desire to take drugs come from?
• What are the ‘real’ senses that drugs stimulate?
• Why aren’t mainstream rehabilitation methods working and what is missing?
• Psychosis as the language of the unconscious mind. Deciphering psychosis can accelerate spiritual and personal growth.
• Post-drug success principles. Non-ordinary experiences require non-ordinary recommendations for a successful drug-free life. Don’t try to become normal. Become an unprecedented healthy individual – outspoken, different and creative. Become the vision the drugs have shown and allowed you to feel.

• What is a spiritual practice?
• The most effective times for yoga, tai-chi and meditation to accelerate personal and spiritual growth
• The purpose and meaning of sleep. Where do we go, how do we get there and how do we return?
• Realising your energetic type for better and more appropriate performances. The principles of etherically integrated goal setting.
• ‘Being in the zone’. Utilising the Chi-cycle to design a perfect week.
• The Three Treasures and the Chi-cycle: the esoteric aspects of Chinese medicine to go beyond life and death.

This approach to success is the old way of the old world. But it is constantly being encouraged in success books. I still read this literature but not long ago I lived by it. Back in the 90s I put business goaIs first and when I wasn’t working I was either listening to success CDs in my sporty cars or going to success seminars. Anthony Robbins, Jim Rohn and Brian Tracy, were my heroes. They promised me a bright future and I willingly handed myself over to it. The present and my inner world were irrelevant. I had no time for anything but work. Eventually my body reached the point where it was no longer able to process the constant yang of that lifestyle and it all came crashing to a halt via Grand Mal seizures. After the second time I went through this cycle I got the message, or so I thought. I really understood how important health was, so I took stock of my life and identified my soul purpose. Visits to renowned psychics were a part of this process and they all saw me writing books and – being highly successful. Sharing my knowledge of health through books seemed noble but deep down and unacknowledged, was the lure of success. So the house got sold to finance this new publishing venture but before long the old patterns to succeed at all costs crept up. Deadlines came to dictate my life but I had learned my lesson and I made time to maintain physical and spiritual health. However, it took time from my clinic work so I began living on credit. I wasn’t worried about this. Being thoroughly trained in success techniques I knew everything would work out because I was following all the guidelines. When funds ran low, I simply applied for more credit. Eventually three books were published and available in several countries. But the lengthy periods of writing meant I had neglected my business and I crashed again. This time it was a financial collapse. The car went, along with any possession that had any value. I simply couldn’t believe it. It seemed you could have health or wealth but not both.

I shifted focus back to my clinic, but I attracted one hugely successful client after another. They were driving cars I no longer had and living in houses like the one I had let go of. Once again I was confronted by success and wealth. A voice inside my head kept telling me this was the only reality worth aspiring to and I struggled with feelings of failure. I went through a reactive period of rejecting the success gurus, telling myself that they were only rich from presenting theories people were prepared to pay for, they needed people to buy their ideas. Where would Anthony Robbins or any of them be without their followers? I decided spirituality was the path and success and goals were irrelevant. I experimented with getting rid of my dreams but that didn’t last very long and I don’t believe it is the solution. According to the philosophy of traditional Chinese medicine, it is our job to develop our physical world with the ultimate goal of bringing heaven onto earth. Abundance is part of this. Then the penny dropped for me. Although a lot of my successful clients were exuding material abundance, I felt their pulses and internally they were presenting defeat and scarcity. Most were on a minimum of three medications to take care of their blood pressure, cholesterol and stress. In addition they needed medication to sleep as all of them complained about being unable to ‘switch off’ their minds at night. They were often control-freaks or unable to regulate their moods which led to regular outbursts which they regretted the next day. They might have pulled up in luxury vehicles and gone home to fabulous mansions, but their organs had a lifestyle of driving cheap bombs and living in run-down caravans. This is not heaven on earth. Heaven on earth is outer luxury matched with inner luxury: a body that feels as sumptuous as a Bentley, a mind that is as fast and smooth as a Ferrari and a spirit that knows the unconditional joy of a young child. Also, being non-reactive to others, in particular family members, and having so much mental space when dealing with stressful situations that you can consider options before deciding how to act. Who wouldn’t want this? But at the same time who wouldn’t want the nice cars and houses (myself included). So the next big question for me was – how can you have both? How can you be successful and healthy? I started asking my clients if they thought this was possible and everyone delivered the same answer: ‘well of course you can, look at ‘so and so’. David Bowie was a frequently cited example. But Bowie became healthy after his success. I saw him on stage at the height of his fame and he looked just as bad as me and my speed-addicted friends. No one could name anyone in their immediate environment who was successful and truly healthy. Maybe the two were mutually exclusive?

But the universe is perfect. If our job is to bring heaven onto earth we need to be seeking success, so there had to be a way. I now firmly believe the chi-cycle lifestyle is it. Firstly, because it is a system in which you can feel good if your dream doesn’t work out or you don’t achieve your goals, and secondly because it is a system that automatically reassesses the importance of your goals for you. In regards to the former, a chi-cycle lifestyle allows you to engage with material (temporary) goals while simultaneously establishing reference points for happiness that come from something that is permanent. The material world is extremely fragile and can collapse instantly. If my books don’t sell or no one wants my services and my wellbeing is dependent on that, I’m in big trouble. This does happen in any endeavor, it is part of the journey, but it is meant to happen with a fallback position of universal support and a connection with the eternal. The material world is temporary. We all know this of course but it is theoretical until you can feel it. I feel it by following the chi-cycle. Each morning at 5am colon time, I get up and while I do my chi-gung and weights I focus my thoughts on ‘emptiness’ or ‘mortality and death’ as that tunes me into the idea of eternity, the ‘bigger picture’ as the Dalai Lama likes to call it. I used to project my business goals and do positive thinking and affirmations in the morning during my practice, but I no longer do this as it means I am seeking support from the temporary and fragile physical world. When that falls through, as it inevitably will, I am left out on my own. If, however, I am connected with the universal energy flow, from following the chi-cycle and connecting with my eternal self at this time in the morning, I have permanent ‘back-up’ and the bigger picture in mind.

As for the second aspect of the chi-cycle system, the goal reassessment, it was something I just didn’t expect and I only discovered it as a result of what I now think of as my ‘priceless’ financial crash. For the first time in my life, I found myself in the situation of being able to start again from a position of inner luxury. Not that long ago my version of success was to be healthy and happy and have a couple of houses a holiday unit on the coast, a boat, a motorbike, a sports car a 4-wheel drive and a luxury sedan, as well as a big bank account. But over time, following the chi-cycle lifestyle generated internal changes that I wasn’t even aware of. It creates inner luxury and as that increases, your version of what constitutes outer luxury decreases. For me a comfortable house and car now feels luxurious. If you follow the chi-cycle long enough, your need to achieve material goals definitely changes. Part of this is because the chi-cycle creates a better balance of yin and yang. It was a deep-seated need to prove that I wasn’t a hopeless drug-addicted loser that triggered my initial desire for material success, but regardless of what kicked it off, I’d secretly revel in the deadlines, goals, caffeine, acceleration and excitement of the yang success world. It is highly addictive because the more yang you get the more you need. You can’t do ‘yin’ anymore. So nothing can rein in your urge to keep going, keep achieving, and there is no ‘space’ or time to see what you are really doing to yourself. I now believe this yang addiction is a worse addiction than drugs and it has a higher mortality rate than drugs. I will be permanently grateful for discovering the chi-cycle and for my financial collapse (funnily enough it was the research for the chi-cycle book that contributed to the collapse, so maybe there was a master-plan in play) because it freed me from the ‘yang trap’. I finally appreciate yin. I can even watch Eckhardt Tolle YouTube videos! Once the passivity of his delivery would have irritated me, but I enjoy it now. The chi-cycle lifestyle also changes your perception of time. In traditional Chinese medicine time is not a dimension it is organic – it is an extension of our organs and linked directly to bodily functions. As you follow the chi-cycle your organs change and you gain time – it reverses the aging process. The chi-cycle system is the ultimate success strategy. It creates ‘heaven on earth’ through building outer and inner wealth together.

In my clinic I am now regularly seeing female clients who are sexually dissatisfied because their husbands or partners no longer want sex with them. At the same time, I treat large numbers of male clients who are internet porn users and no longer feel like having sex with their wives or girlfriends. This is an historically unprecedented situation. Back in the day you could buy a Penthouse or Playboy magazine, not purely for their excellent articles, but it was rare to find anyone who preferred that experience to a human sexual encounter. This is one side-effect of internet porn usage that is problematical but the other is the physical, spiritual and emotional implications of exchanging chi or energy with an electronic stimulus.

These problems are going to increase because internet porn viewing is increasing dramatically. A recent study from the University of Sydney found that 70 percent of men and 30 percent of women already access it, and it is highly addictive. But internet porn usage is such an emotionally loaded topic that it is hard to find a non-judgemental analysis of its effects. When I bring up the subject with women their comment is: men that ‘do that’ must be ‘sad and lonely’. Men make comments such as male internet porn users are ‘afraid of intimacy’. Any response is automatically judgemental. So, as with the drug issue, the first step is to find a neutral position to be able to look at it from. Traditional Chinese medicine is the perfect vehicle for this. A healthy sex life is considered an important part of health and over centuries the Chinese physicians documented the symptoms of excessive sex and lack of sex and arrived at guidelines for how much sex you should have depending on your age and state of health. But they never envisaged the development of internet porn and its implications. I went on-line to check it out (as research of course) wondering what has changed and why it is so compelling for so many people, male and female. Physiologically, the visual stimulation of internet porn is instant. The viewer is immediately triggered on a primal level and for men (as I can only speak for men in this instance) the urge to see that through to ejaculation is almost irresistible. Afterwards you want to do it again. And you can because it is so easy. This aspect of internet porn has contributed to the development of the latest addiction – internet porn addiction.

I recently treated a male ‘internet porn addict’ who I will call Steve, an intelligent, friendly, good-looking guy in his mid thirties with a pretty wife and a couple of kids. For him it all began when he received pornographic images on his phone and by email from friends. This practice is endemic. I have guys sending me this stuff all the time without any encouragement on my part. For my client this was like the marijuana of the porn world, it led to one or two curious sessions at work viewing internet porn, of ‘trying’ the harder drugs, but he soon found himself wanting to do it again, and then more and more frequently. He got to the point where he purchased a small laptop computer, basically as a sex toy. It had wifi access so he could get on-line easily and untraceably and he was able to duck into the toilets at work and satisfy his need. He was doing this several times a day and rarely having sex with his wife. He felt weird about it, because they had had a great sex life before, but said he ‘couldn’t get away from it’. He started viewing porn on-line at home late at night after his wife went to sleep. She surprised him doing this a couple of times and felt angry, betrayed and rejected. She couldn’t understand how he could ‘do that to her’ or why he didn’t want to have sex with her. She would tell him that the girl he was looking at was someone’s daughter, and how did that make him feel? She thought this alone would be enough to make him stop. She wanted the computers out of the house or filters put on them so he couldn’t access this material, and for him to swear to never look at internet porn again. She joined a group trying to get internet porn banned. But this is like trying to ban drugs, it is not a solution, it is suppression and the attraction is resting not resolved.

From my perspective as a chi cycle therapist and my experiential and theoretical interest in addiction, the problem is not internet porn (or drugs), the problem is we have senses. Internet porn activates the senses. This makes you feel alive and energised – how we are all supposed to be feeling all the time. I believe it is normal to be stimulated by sexual imagery and natural to want to follow up on that stimulation. Many internet porn viewers, male and female, want to continue the feeling of heightened sexual stimulation so add drugs like ice which allow them to maintain that state for up to 18 hours straight. I think it’s the right idea to want to hold states of heightened awareness but drugs and internet porn are not a sustainable way to go about it. Our senses were given to us by the creator, they are divine, our job is to work with them by putting our desire for sensory stimulation in the context of the universal consciousness. We are here to evolve and uniting the stimulation of our senses with the universal mind is how we do this.

For Steve it wasn’t the internet porn that was the problem, it was that he had not been trained to interact correctly with the overwhelming sensory stimulus. None of us have. In terms of his ‘addiction’ step one was to be able to look at internet porn but not climax as it is climaxing that represents the loss of control. Climaxing to internet porn is an energetic exchange with an electric circuit. Your actions are not ‘supported’ so you lose energy in the exchange and don’t feel in control of life. Using internet porn to satisfy your sexual needs is like creating an individual or separate energy circuit that loops within your own mind and body and depletes your organs. We are designed to have our sexual activities linked with the universal energy field. This allows us to access powerful universal forces and it nourishes our organs and spirit. I suggested Steve take up chi cycle lifestyle changes because it is this that provides the tools to stop getting ‘sucked in’. Living the chi cycle allows you to train in and experience the union of stimulation with the universal energy forces. It’s a reference point to something better and in any addiction scenario, you always go for the better substance. The key to freedom is repetition of chi cycle living. If you get stuck in the internet porn cycle, and set up your own loop, what can happen (and I have other cases where I have seen this) is a desensitisation to certain types of pornographic imagery and the need for more extreme types of stimulation and material that is more disturbing and dehumanising. Internet porn is an empty experience compared to what sex in harmony with chi cycle can offer so, if you live the chi cycle, you naturally lose interest in porn. If that happens to everyone it’s the end of internet porn.

Sex, like sleeping and eating, once the simple things in life that we all took for granted, are now becoming the complicated things. I have clients who use internet porn because they don’t feel they have the perfect bodies necessary to have the hot heavy exciting sex pitched to us all in movies and advertising campaigns. The myth that men want sex all the time is not helping either. Women then feel less desirable if their male partners don’t want to have sex with them, and men with a ‘yin’ constitution, which means they naturally have a low sex drive, feel inadequate for not wanting sex all the time. In fact well over half the men I treat these days are not interested in sex. Tiger Woods, the kind of ‘yang’ man that apparently does want sex all the time is becoming increasingly rare, and he ended up in a sex addiction clinic where a period of enforced celibacy was part of the treatment. I have to say, leaving all the ethics of his activities aside, I felt really sorry for him. He is a ‘yang’ man as any successful athlete is. Along with that all that natural ambition, drive and energy comes a naturally high sex drive. Filling it by sleeping around doesn’t mean you are addicted to sex, it means you are not understanding how to work with your own nature.

But getting back to the clients who no longer want sex, this is a direct result of depleted organs and blood from an unsustainable lifestyle. They just don’t have the time or energy for it. I hear this from men and women all the time. They simply ‘can’t be bothered’ having sex. In this context internet porn is the ‘takeaway’ of the sex world. Its fast and convenient. If you are feeling tired and lethargic and then get onto a porn site, you experience instant change and stimulation. Its effortless and to top it all off, its free. Just as millions of us turn to takeaway food, millions of us are turning to takeaway sex. But this is McSex. And, like McFood, its not deeply satisfying and it costs us energy. It all comes down to the way we live. We can’t ‘hand over’, we can’t sleep so we take medications and have McSleep. We have so much yang rising we can’t eat, food just doesn’t go down, so we turn to McFood. We don’t have the time or energy to have deep sexual experiences with our partners so now millions and millions of us are having McSex. We keep losing energy, we become imbalanced and all sorts of addictive and obsessive behaviours arise. This is all because we have lost touch with our universal support system, the mothership. We weren’t meant to do this on our own, none of it. We don’t want to become McPeople. We are designed for so much more, for the ultimate experience of our chi flowing in accord with powerful universal forces and a soul-awakening experience with all our senses permanently activated. Living the chi cycle opens the door to this incredible state.