Lee Holden
Appearances
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
89% of primary doctor visits are stress-related. So emotional stress causes pretty much 90% of the reason why people go to a doctor. I got a headache, I got digestive issues, my heart's acting funny. It's emotional stress that's causing it. And I don't know if you know this, Alyssa, but
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Are you sensing them from your head? Are you looking down at your hands? Are you feeling from your head, from your heart, from your belly? And most people, it's from the head. And so we say, oh, we self-identify from this upper center because we're trained and we're constantly thinking. But thinking is just one form of wisdom and one form of intelligence, and it's very limited thinking.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
if it's not in alignment with your whole team. It's like one player trying to do everything and everybody else is like sidelined and you're like, gosh, we should really play with the full team. We'll be a lot more productive. And so the heart is another wisdom center, another treasure, emotional intelligence. empathetic intuition.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
So your intuition is more like on how other people feel or sensing somebody's energy behind their words, reading body language. You tune into emotions and your intelligence of emotions is really a high level. Also, your sense of inner purpose and calling rather than I should do this job because I'll make money even though I don't like it. That will go against the flow of your heart center.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And sure, we're in modern life and we have to do that. We have to weigh the options, but the heart will lead you to joyful expression of your unique self. And it has to be in communication with your head. They have to like, well, we have a lot of responsibilities. Okay, well then how about we bring heart flow and joyful activities after work every day at five?
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
You know, you just, you have a little negotiation with your team and then you're an integrated human being as opposed to a disconnected human being.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
So happy to be here too.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Absolutely. And the belly center, you said it just exactly right. We hold and we digest emotions like we digest food. So we eat food and it goes into our bellies and then we process it. Well, we metabolize life experience as well. And we go through life and we're like, mm, that was yummy. I had a nice conversation. Oh, that was yucky because I got stressed out in traffic.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And we just all day long are metabolizing. And I think most people, as they go through the day, have emotional indigestion. They're just like, that did not sit well with me. Then if it emotionally doesn't sit well with you, the head starts to go, well, let me think about it. And it just ruminates over and over and over again.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And a lot of internal dialogue we say in Chinese medicine will cause depletion of qi. It will just consume energy. So that's why it's so good if you know how to quiet the mind. And it'll replenish your energy system. So these centers do try to help each other, but often we don't know quite how to let go of emotions, let go of experiences that didn't sit well with us.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Just in the same way we eat food, we want to let go and detoxify. That's what's not nourishing or not nutritious. So energy works really similarly. So we can on each of these centers. And I love that they're called treasures to Alyssa. They're not called burdens. And I think so that these energy centers are burdens.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
We've got these stressful emotions and a heart center and, you know, feeling anxious or depressed and they wouldn't feel like a treasure of energy and the body. We have a, we often have an adverse relationship to our bodies and, where we don't like certain things and we have an emotional reaction to how we perceive.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And it's not often that we're thinking, God, my body, how beautiful, what a treasure. I get to experience life with these things or our attitude about these energies. They can be burdensome and they can also be golden elixirs. And we have to, our work really is to excavate the gold and the treasure from each of these areas through a practice.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
So we're not just ingrained by what society tells us and habitual patterns. And often the habitual societal patterns will make the energy feel heavy, which will cause stress. And we'll go through life looking for the lightness and the treasure of the golden energy, which we call the elixir in these areas.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
feel more of that energy and energized absolutely and i think you know that's the key concept too is like how can we feel our energy and i think there's a quick little exercise it's not in the book it's a secret teaching
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Yeah, breathing is a great way. And I think I love somatics because I studied psychology at UC Berkeley for four years. And year three, I started to scratch my head. I was like, God, I've been really studying this a long time. I don't have one single technique to help somebody feel better after three years of studying psychology. And then I started studying Eastern philosophy.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And within like one day workshop, I had like 10 excellent techniques on how to feel better like immediately. So the somatics like to deal with emotions from the mind and from thoughts is often difficult because emotions, held emotions need to be discharged through the body. Their energy. I think it's important to remember that emotions are energy.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And I always think of emotion, energy and movement as And when energy moves, we feel it. So we often call emotions feelings because we feel something. It's not anything there physically. So it's energetic. So people say all the time, I love you with all my heart. But if we did open heart surgery, we're not going to see how much love is actually in your heart.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
We feel love, we feel joy, but it's nothing physical about an emotion. And in Chinese medicine, I think it's interesting, emotions are mapped out through the organs. So the liver stores anger and frustration. On the positive side, it's gonna store creativity and kindness. The heart is love, joy, and compassion. On the negative side, it's impatience, being too busy, being in a hurry, and hatred.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
The kidneys store fear. On the other side, they store inner peace. That's why we don't say, I love you with all my kidneys. That's not where the energy is. And so seeing and understanding energy, we can start to see a more complete picture of life because we are so, as a culture, obsessed with the forms.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
and the physicality of things and the stuff, like the material stuff that we want in our house, the material things, a car, a new job. But if you look at anything physical that we want, it's actually that we want some energy. We want to feel a certain way because I want a new house because I want security. I want a new car because I want excitement. We actually want the energy, not the thing.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
The things are just the means to an energetic end. So if we can go straight to energy, we can relax with all the stuff in life and not be so stressed out. So let's feel some energy.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Yeah, and I love how you just slowed it all down and just integrated. And I think that is so important. Like you said, theoretical concepts, the mind likes to chew on those, but to bring it actually into an experience has to be in through your body. And to go from cerebral understanding and knowing to body wisdom is a bit of a journey.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And that's slowing down and integrating and just like even questioning that and moving from, you know, what you just said, moving from the inside out rather than the outside in, rather than trying to get the outside thing to fill a need inside. Cultivate that energy first, like cultivate that inner love and open heartedness and kindness and compassion.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And all of a sudden people start showing up and resonating with your internal energy. And then it's just enjoyable. It's a bonus because it's already there. It's a little bit like radio waves. You know, if you have the right device, and my kids are always like, why do you say radio wave? What is that? Dad, you're like, get with the times. But if you have the right station, you get the right music.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Yeah, and this is one of the first principles of energy cultivation and energy management. When you slow down, you do all kinds of things in your nervous system. You know, going slower will put you into a parasympathetic state. It'll make you more efficient. It'll clarify your priorities. You're not frantic and scattered. You're much more focused.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And the music is all there. It's in the space. It's in the field. And if we had the right device, we tuned it in, we could hear the music. We're like, oh, yes, I like that station. I think a lot of us are just in the wrong station. And we're like, man, I'm on heavy metal again. And it's just discordant to what I'm feeling. My thoughts and my energy aren't aligning up with what I want inside.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Yeah. Love it. Okay. So energy, should we activate some energy?
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Let's activate it. And it's a really quick, let's call it a, a chi activation in the hands and the hands are very sensitive to energy. So you're going to touch your fingernails together and you're going to rub back and forth. Now your meridian lines, these are where all the acupressure and acupuncture points are. They end at the fingernail, the corners of the fingernail.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
So first knuckle and fingernails rub back and forth vigorously, and then just take a couple of deep breaths. And after about 30 seconds to a minute, we're gonna have an activated energy system in our hands. So nice deep breath in through the nose, and you can exhale out through the nose nice and slow. And then we'll just do that one more time. Nice deep breath, rub vigorously back and forth.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And then just put your hands, palms face up in your lap and feel the electricity, the buzz, the tingling, the life force. That work?
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
That's great, right? So for example, like a Qigong practice, what we would do is activate all these energy centers in the body. So you get this buzzing electricity, not just in your hands, but in your whole entire body. And Qigong is, The translation way back when was the art of preventing disease and prolonging life. And so this is the ancient practice of health and longevity cultivation.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
The way the medicine was practiced, you would pay your Qigong doctor, your acupuncturist, your herbalist, as long as you were healthy. As soon as you got sick, you stopped paying. So they're like, oh, we're not doing our jobs because you got sick. Our job is to keep you healthy. It was health care, not sick care. And now we have a Western medicine that is all about sick care.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And I don't know if you know this, Alyssa, but the way the medicine was practiced, you would pay your Qigong doctor, your acupuncturist, your herbalist, as long as you were healthy. As soon as you got sick, you stopped paying. So they're like, oh, we're not doing our jobs because you got sick. Our job is to keep you healthy. It was healthcare, not sick care.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And speaking of intention, like you said, it makes a huge difference what the intention is. And now we have a Western medicine that is all about sick care. And nobody in a big way is saying, let's keep you healthy. It's up to us as individuals to maintain our health. The medical system is not going to even look at you unless you have a problem.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And so it is a counterintuitive approach that really works. So the ancient master said, slow down and relax to tune into effortless power because nature moves with effortless power, with effortless ease. There's no stress in a river moving down the mountain, even though at the top of the mountain, there's lots of boulders in the way.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And speaking of problems, we have more sickness, illness, problems, pain now than ever before. Medicine is a huge business and there's lots of people that are just struggling with sick care. And I think preventative medicine is so vitally important.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
I think it's what we're seeking, but we don't know because getting wrapped in the Western medicine loop with side effects of pharmaceuticals and long waiting times to see a specialist or a doctor and all the things can be very frustrating.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
The river is not like, oh my God, how am I going to get around all those boulders and get really neurotic about it? No, it's just, It just flows, and I think what I like to teach people is how to bring more of that flow, that natural rhythm into your life, because slow is a strategy that is a useful tool.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
You don't always have to go slow, but strategically going slow gets you in tune with your priorities, gets you calm and relaxed, gets you focused, brings more energy into your system, and then you can really go. So it is really the practice of Qigong and it's the practice of Tai Chi to bring this effortless ease into your life.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . . . . .. a, P. P. P. P. P. P. P,實 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , a Laboratory a ,,,,,,,. P P P P P P G實 ac la, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac a in in in in in in in in in in and.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P la generæ g� la� la� la� laст. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And I think people want to have more elevated moments throughout their day, more moments where they feel deeply connected to each other, to nature, to an experience. In order to have more moments of high energy, slowing down can be a key concept.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
sol a ,,,,,,,. P P P P P PG實...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G... g, en, don P P P P P P P P P P P P P P ,,,,,,,,. P P P P P P G實. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , a and a and a and a and a and a and a and a and a and a and P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P G dunplст.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
g. g. g, g. g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, And so it gave me just like serious Mr. Miyagi time. I was just like one-on-one with the master. I was 23, 24 years old, just one-on-one with the teacher and then training for four months at the retreat center in Thailand, in Northern Thailand. He comes one day and he has this tattered old manual.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And on the top of it was sexual reflexology. He's like, hey, this is our next book. And I was like... yes, cool. I'm going to read this and write it into a book and you're going to pay me for it? And he's like, yes. And I was like, dream job.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
So the sexual reflexology in ancient Taoist culture, so ancient China, the Taoist masters were asked to help pair couples because often there would be arranged marriages. And so by looking at people's faces, their energy system, they could tell if people were compatible or not. And so he, the master was like, I think people would find this interesting to see how compatible they are
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
as one part of the book. So compatibility was part of it. This whole idea of circulating energy through the body and cultivating sexual energy for health and vitality, as well as deeper intimacy and connection, that was another part of it. And sexual reflexology was interesting because it was healing through pleasure. Again, in the West, we have more of a model of healing through pain.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And healing through pleasure was you would go to the doctor and you say, oh, I got asthma. And the doctor would be like, okay, take out his prescription pad. You need to have sex five times a week in this position so that the chi goes into your lungs and starts creating this healing effect.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
So it would be prescriptive sexual energy positions because sexual energy and sex move so much energy through the body that they used it for healing. And, yeah, it was just like, wow, this is – how brilliant is this?
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And then everybody wants to go to the doctor.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Yes, exactly. Yeah. So in India and in China, they had sexual practices that were used for health and healing, energy cultivation, and even spiritual awakening. So it was all of these things because fundamentally, sexual energy is the energy of unifying.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
So unifying between you and your partner, unifying, if you sublimate sexual energy, move it through the system, you unify your personal energy with the cosmos or the divine. So there's different ways to express that energy, depending on what your intention is. Like you said, Alyssa. Right.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
I mean, that is such a big question. I think number one is just the patterns that we hold. Energy likes to move in patterns. So when you habituate something, you're going to habituate it in a pattern. And that's why, like you said, we will habituate anger, we'll habituate stress, anxiety. And to re-pattern energy takes a little bit of work. So the term qigong, gong means work.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
with that particular energy to get it out of a habituated pattern and into a new expression. And it's almost like digging a new trough so that the water can flow in that direction rather than being in its habituated pattern of expression that maybe isn't as life affirming as it could be. So some of those things is how do we break our own patterns and those ingrained patterns?
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
How do we break out of what society's constantly telling us who we should be and how we should express ourselves and really finding our authenticity, our unique qualities and what we want to express. And it comes back to like, can we slow down enough to enter into our heart space
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
to discover who we are from the inside out, and then start to have the courage to express that in the face of a society that doesn't necessarily want you to be your fully expressed self.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Thank you. Good question.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
I think it resonates with what I was just saying to remember that you are an individual expression. There's nobody like you. Your energy system is as unique as your fingerprints and a snowflake. And that to discover that unique energy. energy that drives you is the goal of life.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And that is what you'll, when you discover that it will get you into this flow state where it feels like life is working with you and conspiring with you and flowing with you, that you're not at this alone, that you are a higher force is moving through you. You're surfing the wave rather than getting pummeled in the ocean.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
That's a very different feeling, even though it's the same ocean.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Well, it's great and I love that because I take an approach always first from the Eastern mystics and the Eastern perspective of energy medicine. My background is in Chinese medicine and acupuncture and herbs and Qigong and breath work and all that. And then I go, how can we find Western research to support some of these Eastern practices? And there's lots and more and more.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Well, you know, it's this concept of slowing down because we use that technique to move our body slowly as a way to cultivate energy. And so the ancient master saw nature like a cloud moving across the sky, a tree in the wind, and just slow down and allow flow to move through you. That life...
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
is ruled by these invisible forces and most of life happens in effortless ways like for example most of the things happening in your body are happening in effortless ways there's no trying to beat your heart and breathe your lungs and digest your food most everything is just happening in this flow and the more we can relax into that the better we feel and the first step in doing that is to slow down
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
and then slow down and relax. And then we're much more receptive to pull in all this beautiful, positive energy. So the book is called Ready, Set, Slow.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Yeah. And it takes Qigong concepts and just shows both through an Eastern practice and Western research why slowing down is going to help you to be more productive, healthier, more energized, less stressed in three different categories, body, mind, and relationships.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And so just very specifically, how do I bring these concepts into strategic moments during my day that will make me more vibrant, more alive, and more connected?
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Why, thank you. Thanks so much.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
I think there's a big convergence right now, which is exciting. that Western research is supporting all of these Eastern practices, whether it's breath work, meditation, energy cultivation, Qigong, yoga, it's all being very much supported. So we can take something like, let's take something like eating. If you eat slower, Number one, you enjoy your food.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Number two, the research shows that digestion starts in your mouth. If you eat slower, chew more, more enzymes get in your food. When it hits your stomach, it's already partly digested. It can convert your stomach and your intestines convert that food into energy more efficiently. So you get a couple things when you slow down.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Your metabolism gets stronger, your food gets converted into energy faster, and you eat slower. You don't eat as much because your brain registers how much food is actually in your stomach. And you also enjoy your food more because you're actually tasting it. Let's say we take something like weightlifting. It's a good one because people can understand this and this applies to so many things.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
But when you weight lift slowly, you don't have to lift as heavy so you don't get as hurt. You don't have to do as many sets because you fatigue the muscles. Quicker, you'd only have to do one or two sets of weightlifting as opposed to five sets. And you only have to work out twice a week, maybe for a half an hour rather than an hour three or four times a week.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Now, if somebody is depressed, what are they going to do? Their body shape, the wind, the energy of the body, the chest sinks down, the face frowns, the chin goes down.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
So by going slowly, you actually save yourself time and you get very similar results.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
I love that. So we can say, okay, take a Qigong principle of slow body movement and apply it to weightlifting, apply it to eating, and you get really good results. So part of what people are seeing here in Silicon Valley, there is slow productivity, where that means if you're slowing down, you're going to get better results.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Like slow down and you get that view from the top of the mountain rather than just being right in the forest and you have clarity. You don't waste as much time and energy.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And just think about what feels better, grinding and stress and being rushed and hurried or being intuitive, insightful, creative and inspired. And creative inspiration comes when we slow down and give ourselves a moment.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Some of the research even is showing like for children, if we let them slow down and don't keep throwing task after task in front of them, if we actually let them get bored, their creativity and their imagination becomes sharpened. And those people, those kids that have been able, allowed to have that spaciousness to be bored become the most creative thinkers.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
So if everybody wants to try something, if you look up and just take your body shape and look up and expand your chest, bring a little smile to your face, look at your ceiling and then say, I'm so depressed with a little smile on your face. You're gonna be like, wait a second, my body shape doesn't match that statement. Sexual reflexology was interesting because it was healing through pleasure.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Right. I mean, there's a saying in the Tao Te Ching and everybody's probably heard this thousand mile journey starts with the first step. For me, if that first step is in the wrong direction, You could be quickly 1,000 miles off from where you wanna go. And if you slow down and get clarity, what happens is that first step is very clearly in the direction of your desired destination.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And I think that's really important because we are so habituated and we just grind through the day and we forget what we're all about as human beings. Why are we here? We're here to connect. We're here to be joyful. We're not here to just get as much work done as we possibly can and just grind through it in this like unhappy, stressed out way.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Oh, my gosh. And in this book that I'm working on or just finished, there's a chapter called Bliss Over Busy. And just talking about being like, let's listen to our hearts rather than just listening to our heads, because often we're just so tuned in to the responsibility of our intellectual wisdom. And there's many wisdom centers in our bodies.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And the heart, as a wisdom center, leads you towards joy and happiness and fun and play and lightness. And when I ask my children, you know, and I have teenagers and a toddler, hey, what did you do today? The answer is almost 99% of the time it's play. Play, play, play. And so what I love about the Qigong practice, it's not called we practice Qigong.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
They translate it sometimes as practice, but often the direct translation is let's go play Qigong. Let's go play Tai Chi. And so this playfulness, what it does is it keeps our hearts open. It keeps us in more beginner's mind, observer mind. And it keeps us in that childlike spirit where we have beginner's attitude when we're just kind of in awe.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Like I learn a lot from my four-year-old because she's always like, wow, a spider web. Wow. wow a leaf you know she's like wow there's an orange in the bushes and she's just like everything's wow and when we have that wow factor to get into that ah slowing down a little bit really helps us and like I said you don't always have to go slow because like for example I'm
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
making breakfast for four people, making lunches before school. I'm definitely going quickly in my actions, but what I try to do, and here's where it becomes kind of advanced ninja training, you keep a slow mind while you're moving efficiently and quickly forward. while you're doing things. And I think these techniques apply to parenthood, to business, to answering emails.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
You can really apply them to mundane tasks as well as your art. Like you said, writing a book, painting a picture, performing, seeing clients. You want to bring your best energy forward. I always think of being in the zone and being in flow state as something for athletes. Um, but it should be for all of us all the time.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Again, in the West, we have more of a model of healing through pain. You would go to the doctor and you say, oh, I got asthma. And the doctor would be like, okay, take out his prescription pad. You need to have sex five times a week in this position so that the chi goes into your lungs and starts creating this healing effect. And then everybody wants to go to the doctor.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
We should be getting into flow state because that's when peak performance happens. But more than peak performance is that the joy of the task heightens tremendously when you're in flow state.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
No, I love that. And it speaks to a concept in Qigong that called the three treasures. So the treasure of your belly is your kinesthetic intuition. So your belly is,
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
as a wisdom that relates to your body and so we say the energy center of our body that's our vitality that's our health that's how our body mechanics how are we moving our bodies it all comes from the belly and speaking of western science you know this is often called in japanese the hara or in qigong it's called the lower dantian the lower elixir
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Source of life force. Because you think about it, the belly is your navel. That's where your chi, that's where your life started from.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
That's the Dantian, it's two inches below and two inches back, let's say, approximately. So it's like you're very, very center. And in the gut, there's neurological activity. The science is like, wow, we found neurological activity. Why is there neurological activity in your gut? We thought that was only for your nervous system and your brain. No, your gut is a thinking system.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
And that's why we say, well, I have a gut feeling about things. I have a body sense. It's not linguistic, it's not internal dialogue, it's a felt sense. And so if you learn the language of your body and your body's energy, you can get a sense of something. And we just haven't learned that language
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
As a culture, we all intuitively know it and we'll tap into it, but it can be trained, especially for healers, movement practitioners, and it should be really a strong sense for people in business because we can really sense something from deep in our inner alignment.
Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Yeah, and I love that you say that listen from because we're so trained to self-identify from the upper center, from the head. So if people wanted to do a little exercise to see where, let's say, you are located within your body, If you close your eyes and perceive your hands, like if you just put your hands in your lap, where do you look and feel and sense your hands from?