The C.H.I. Exercise And Goal Setting
April 27, 2014 10 Comments
“What is it you really want, Veronica?” Scooter from The Saddle Club Series 2
In the above quote, Scooter confronts Veronica with a fundamental existential question: “What does one want out of life?” Veronica has put on a series of masks that enable her to dodge this crucial question. Her parents have instilled in her their values of wealth, position, and consequent prestige, but are those values what she really wants? In our commercialized American society we are told how to look, to smell, what to eat, what pills to take, what cars to drive, what constitutes romance, what constitutes beauty and what love is about. Our parents give us their own values, but what do we really want? For some people that question remains unanswered and unexplored. The Chi exercise is a means for approaching this problem.
Rod and Brooks Newton of the Hidden Springs Wellness Center in Ashland Oregon have developed brief morning and evening chi exercises to put the mind in a receptive state for deep thinking. They begin the exercise by asking you to be aware of your life energy and your heartbeat. Then, you take three deep breaths and let go of any remaining tension. This clears the body and mind for concentration. They then ask you to focus on a candle flame, which grows brighter and brighter until it fills your whole body with light and energy. The energy takes you to your creating workshop, and you are asked to invite your creating guide, who is a source of intense energy. Together you try to create the kind of day you want to have. Two questions arise: “What has your life really been about?” and, “What do you really want out of life?” Not easy questions to answer, but essential if you are to lead the most fulfilling life possible. By increasing your ability to concentrate and by intensifying your energy level, you are more likely to clarify issues that prevent you from answering these questions. Once you can truly state what you desire out of life, you can begin setting goals of how to get there. Remember that a major part of life’s magic is process and the surprises that may occur when you take that first crucial step towards getting towards your goal.
About Robert M. Weiss
Site of Discovery and Wonder 
I can feel the exercise already just reading it. 😀 It sounded like deep-muscle relaxation plus the added clear thinking. 🙂 How I need some of these exercises. But I probably wont last long, maybe a session but not the second.
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Thank you for writing this blog. I shared it on my Facebook page. It is an important question you are asking to ask ourselves. Personally I’m bad setting goals for myself. as I “know” I will hardly ever achieve it.
At least I understand the question as it becomes a wider question of what does my life mean to me.
It is interesting, too, that in a materialistic society, like the US, that there are people who reject that way and search for an alternative.
Prehistoric man was not bothered by this question as he struggled to survive. As mere survival fades into the background we have time to think. Were once the daily goal was to survive we now try to get to the shop before the “Special” has been sold.
The “Special” in my life is, that I’m alive and I’m in the “magical process” in living it and perhaps this is “what I really want”.
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Thank you for sharing my post. That’s what it’s there for… My generation(the 60s) sought alternatives to crass materialism. Unfortunately, some alternatives were destructive. For instance, my generation shares much of the blame for the drug culture that persists today… I wonder whether prehistoric man did ponder the meaning of his life. When he looked at the starry sky, and beheld the magnificence around him, he must have had some reaction… Allan Sherman said that God gave us the gift of life, and that we don’t need anything else. He would have agreed with you about the “magical process” of life.
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“I wonder whether prehistoric man did ponder the meaning of his life. When he looked at the starry sky,”
When I wrote my comment I was was thinking about the very point. Sure, he must have stopped sometimes and wondered. The Australian Aboriginals call this time, aptly, the “Dreamtime”. All their dreamtime stories give expression to their search for meaning.
Drugs are a big problem here in Australia as well. I think they are taken by people who have given up on their search for meaning. In the end, they have to understand, that they are right in the middle of it and they only need to open their eyes to see.
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I tend to easily become short of breath. This is why I become very aware of how I exhale.
This is why I think that concentrating on correct breathing as well as muscle awareness are very important and any exercise that helps in this regard is beneficial.
Thank you very much for this post. Robert. Everything from your post is so very much worth thinking about. You say your post is there for sharing. So I decided to reblog it on Auntyuta.
🙂
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Reblogged this on auntyuta and commented:
I hope that some of my blogger friends would love to read this blog that was published by Robert Weiss. Myself, I was very interested in reading it. It provides a lot of input for discussion! 🙂
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Visiting from AuntUta’s site. This is a wonderful exercise. I am in the process of revising my memoir, and determining whether I want to pursue publishing it or get a part-time job in order to bolster our kids’ college savings accounts. Although the original writing provided its own rewards, enabling me to get clarity on unresolved issues and resulting in a calmer and happier me, I wonder if the whole focus on self is a product of my ego, which I am trying to minimize or eradicate all together. I will stop if the underlying motive in writing it is ego. But I think this exercise can help me gain clarity on this issue, so thanks, and I’m now a follower.
Fondly,
Elizabeth
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Dear Elizabeth, don’t worry about “ego” too much. I have the feeling you see the negative aspect of the term.
“Ego” is a motivator who tells us to do things because of our conciousness. It does not mean necessarily “selfishness”. Of course we want to be remembered. Write your memoir so none of your descendants can say, “Aunt Elizabeth? We know nothing about her. I wish she had left something for us.”
Peter
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Welcome to the site, Elizabeth!
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Right on. Love this post. A related tangent: my husband and I have been so sad there is no taichi class where we live. Way back, our experience with it was so wonderful: we were sweating profoundly by the end of the warm-up aNd I was pregnant by the third session. I love your connection with the breathing and focusing to the deeper issues of our heart.
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