The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines empathy as:

Empathy is one of the most essential skills. With it you will find success in most walks of life. It will allow you to experience many different perspectives which are necessary for personal growth and understanding. In my opinion, empathy is the one skill that will begin to transform this world and create the type of societies that we all envision.

To empathize means to be successful with the opposite sex. Through empathy you can become a dynamic powerful speaker. You can become a great business person, and in general achieve many of the things that you set out to do in life.

The reason for this is that empathy allows you to understand what the other person or being is thinking. It allows you to know the desires of others so that you can do your best to meet them. If you are a businessman, you will be able to know what the customer wants, and by satisfying these needs, you will achieve success. As a lover, you will know what your partner needs, sometimes even before they consciously know it themselves, which will make you the best lover that they have ever had.

Being able to empathize with your environment and the people around you will keep you safe. By understanding the intentions of others, you will be able to steer clear of those that would harm you. You can also learn to empathize with a geographical area so that you can actually read subconsciously all of the signs that can warn you of danger. Through empathy you can learn to avoid that dangerous alley or stay away from a certain building or vehicle that might be doomed.

Empathy will also make you a better, more creative human being. Remember that famous saying that implores you to, “walk a mile in another man moccasins”, before you judge him. This is sound advice that will allow you to get into the perspective of someone other than yourself so that you might be able to understand their actions, feeling and motives.

The ability to empathize is really the ability to get outside of your ego. Another way to say this would be to say that empathy allows your ego to grow so that it learns to see through different eyes. In order to begin to understand what I mean by empathy, I want you to do the following exercise.

Empathy Exercise

Take a comfortable seat in front of a plant. A house plant would be perfect but if you don’t have one, you can always go sit outside in front of a bush or tree in a nice quiet area. You will want to place yourself in a position where you can comfortably gaze upon the plant. Hopefully you are indoors in a quiet room or outside in a nice place where you won’t be disturbed.

Next, lightly gaze at the plant. From this light gaze, I want you to slowly begin to focus exclusively on the plant before you. Without strain, I want you to try and see into the plant. That is I want you to pretend that you can see into the plant and into its inner soul. This exercise will take a number of imaginative leaps. These imaginative leaps should be performed without strain, think of them more as a child’s pretend game rather than any kind of work.

As you gaze into the soul of the plant, imagine that you feel a tug from the plant so that your soul and the plants soul are now directly connected. This connection that feels like a small almost surreal tug at your insides, allows you to send a piece of yourself directly into the plant. You are now imagining entering the plant with a small thread of yourself. This little thread becomes one with the plant so that now you feel that you are you but you are also the plant.

Imaginatively feel what it’s like to be this being that you are gazing at. How do you as a plant feel the world around you? Using your imagination, try and feel what the plant is feeling at this very moment. Plants do not have eyes but they can feel the world around them in a way that is most amazing. Plants are very sensitive to emotion, temperature and humidity. Their entire bodies are very complex receptors that can tell them about the most minute things in their environment. Imagine that you can see the world through the plants eyes. What do you see/feel?

Practice seeing the world through the plants eyes for a while. Through your empathic vision, you might begin to understand why it is a little droopy or why it’s starting to turn a little yellow. The plant might be able to show you the room or the environment it sees, which will allow you to see this environment in a whole new way.

This kind of exercises is basis for all empathic work. You don’t have to work with plants. Anything animate or inanimate will work. It is pure egotistical garbage that makes you believe that a chair or a pencil don’t share as much individual reality as anything else. All things are rich in information and experience that you can tap into.

As you grow in your empathic work and become better, you will start to see a greater depth of detail. You will have access to more information and understand some of the subtleties of that information better. Finally you might want to try this exercise with another person. Perhaps your lover or best friend. The intuitive understanding that you will develop with each other will blow your mind!

The body is flexible. It is supposed to be flexible. You must be able to bend and reach that something you dropped on the floor. You must be able to zip the back of your favorite dress on your own. You must be able to reach that book you need to read at the top shelf.

These are simple activities. Nothing grand about them, you merely stretched out a bit. However, if there are difficulties in doing such simple motions, then you have to stretch your limits. You already need a stretching program.

What is stretching?

Stretching is simply the act of extending to full length the body or simply a part of it. This activity involves straightening or stretching the structure or the limbs.

How do you stretch?

Stretching is fairly easy. As mentioned in the introduction, it is involved in the normal activities. It can be done by any people, regardless of age.

However the extent of stretching and flexing differs. The muscles tighten as a person ages. The range of joint movements can be minimized. This can very well obstruct an on-the-go lifestyle. That is why as the person grows older, bending or flexing becomes more limited. This is why stretching regularly, as part of a routine is very important.

Simple stretches can be done every day. It can be incorporated in the lifestyle and the daily activities. It does not require much of your time.

Stretching exercises can also be done while training. Actually, stretching is an essential part of any training or sport. It must be done first before anything else. Stretching the body and the limbs is a good preparation for a more rigorous activity.

Most athletes would do the sit and reach, wherein they position on the floor, extend their legs and reach the tip of their foot with the tip of their hand. Actually, most trainers actually require their athletes to really do the stretching before playing.

There is actually an ideal length of time in stretching. It is best to do it in 10 minutes. This will give the body enough opportunity to move and flex the muscles, thus preparing it for more complicated and strenuous movements.

Experts however would frown upon going way beyond 10 minutes. Stretching the exercise to 30 minutes or more will already wear out the body. This will not be favorable if you are preparing for a game.

What are the benefits of stretching?

Increase the Range of Movement

As you continue to do the stretching exercises, the length of the muscles and the tendons increase. This will help in increasing the range of your movement. Thus, the limbs and joints will be able to move, way before an injury can take place. You are definitely physically fit.

Increased Ability to Perform Skills

When you have a wide range of movement, the more you will be able to do more things. For example, you can jump high without feeling any pain when you land back on the floor. This will also help you start a new sport or improve more if you are in one. Stretching in this aspect also allows you to have a more active lifestyle.

Injury Prevention

You can prevent injury to joints, tendons and muscles with stretching. When the muscles and tendons are well-flexed, they are considered in good working order. This will help in a faster recovery and decreased soreness. The muscles of the body will be able to take more exhausting and rigorous movements with less probability of being injured.

Reduce Muscle Tension

If the muscles are given their regular exercises and stretching, it is less likely that they will contract. This will definitely relieve you of any muscle pain or problems.

Enhance Energy

Being able to move more will also give you more energy. Stretching will also help enhance your awareness, like knowing that you have a body that is capable of doing many things. As such, you are going to be more driven to move rather than sulk in the corner.

Reduces Cholesterol

Research also shows that doing prolonged stretching exercises, like yoga, will help reduce the cholesterol in the body. This of course must be done with a healthy diet at hand. This could prevent and even reverse the hardening of the arteries, allowing you to avoid coronary diseases.
Incorporate stretching in your everyday lifestyle. It has benefits you can’t say no to. It also does not require much. It can be your usual activities, bending and flexing every now and then. After all, your fitness is everything so do what it takes to keep the body healthy.

Self Esteem means staying positive about yourself, and having a real good Self Image. Self image is the idea that you have about yourself. When you look into the mirror of your mind’s eye, what do you see?

There are a number of things that can bite at our self esteem as we make our way through planet earth. Sometimes it even feels like the world is actually conspiring to give our self esteem a nice right cross. But we must realize that the way we perceive things has a great deal to do with how we perceive ourselves.

Knowing what you think of yourself, that is what image you have of yourself deep in your mind’s eye, can be a bit tricky. Usually when we introspect and try and catch a glimpse of our inner self, all we see is a mild mannered “just me”. It seems that the only time that we approximate seeing ourselves for what we really are, is when the world starts to throw pies at us.

So what I am trying to say is that we seem to have a really hard time knowing who we are as people until it hits the fan. Therefore next time that you find yourself driving down the road peacefully, and have some yokel do his best to send you to your early grave by driving his pick-up truck up your posterior, sit back, relax and watch the internal show. Certainly you will be perturbed and will most likely be very angry, but once that initial reactionary emotion wears off…What do you hear yourself saying to yourself?

Certainly you should not pay too much attention to your internal reality or you will be the cause of an accident yourself, but lightly observe your emotions and reactions to this bad situation. Emotions are a wonderful source of energy and most importantly they are a great way to reveal hidden personal beliefs.

A positive self image would be telling itself that this kind of stuff happens to everyone. That if you were the cause of some bad driving, then you will do your very best to do better next time so that you won’t endanger anyone in the future. And if you were not at fault in any way that people are not perfect and they are sometimes mad and in a hurry and it’s not up to you to judge or hate this person without first really knowing why they would be driving so erratically in the first place.

A positive self image also allows itself to feel anger or fear or any other thing without self recrimination. It feels what it has to feel freely and then it doesn’t make any judgments but if it does, it makes positive judgments about itself.

So when yo-yo yokel just tried to run you off the road, what did you feel? And what did you feel about what you felt? If you felt anything but a positive feeling about yourself; weather its recrimination about wanting to kill someone, or self hate at the fact that you are always bullied, or at the fact that you are such a terrible driver, and then you need to explore what belief you have about yourself that makes you feel this way. The idea is to not patch up yourself by putting on a fake happy face that will have you going postal in a week. Learn to explore yourself at these critical times, so that you can learn about yourself and the personal beliefs that you hold.

But what do you do when you find a very negative personal belief that you have about yourself? Well the simple answer is that you change it. You change it by realizing that the belief that you now have is wrong and its causing you grief. You change it by replacing it with a positive belief. For example if your belief is that you don’t have the right to get mad because you are a terrible person and a bad driver, then realize that you are not a bad person at all. Truly make the personal realization that you are not a bad person and that driving is a relative thing. Realize that you are always improving yourself and your driving in all ways. Every time that you find yourself having these thoughts of self deprecation, stop yourself and remember that you are a good person. Don’t let your inner rambling go unchecked. As soon as you start to have negative thoughts about yourself, change them. Change bad thoughts through the realization of how good you really are.

It might take a little while at first but if you persist and learn to always examine yourself and you personal beliefs about yourself image, you should be able to change those negative ideas in no time. I have witnessed people make extraordinary changes overnight, this usually happens when the self realization of themselves as being good decent beings is so overwhelming that there is no more room for a negative belief. Aspire to overnight but be content with the idea that slowly but surely you will learn to create and foster a wonderful self image.

Be aware that beliefs on self image tend to travel in packs. You could be working on one belief that you might have uncovered but there might be many others that are related and need be uncovered and changed as well.

Don’t give up, and stay persistent in yourself examination. Self Esteem is created from the inside out and not the other way around as some of the more popular self help books would have you believe. Stay with it and you will be very glad that you did. If there is one thing that is most important in life its self esteem!

Everyone, at some point of his or her life, has dreamed of being somebody special, somebody big. Who hasn’t fantasized about being the one who scores the winning goal? Who hasn’t dreamed of being the hero? And how many times have we dreamed of being rich, or successful, wealthy, and happy in our relationships?

Often, we dream big dreams and have great aspirations. Unfortunately, our dreams remain just that – dreams. And our aspirations sit around collecting dust.

This is a sad thing and the moment that we realize that we have given up on our dreams can be devastating. Instead of experiencing exciting adventures in self actualization, we lose ourselves in the routine of our everyday lives which can turn into no existence at all. Just surviving from one day to the next.

How does life get better? Aim High and stay positive!

The biggest and most common problem is that people listen to all of the negative talk that goes on in their head. I can’t do this, that’s impossible, I’ll never make it, others will see me fail, etc.

However, if everyone thought like that, there would be no inventions, no innovations, and no breakthroughs in human accomplishment.

If you don’t think that the impossible is possible; then go tell the bumble bee that it can’t fly. Aerodynamically it should not be able to get off the ground but it does. I suppose it doesn’t know any better.

Others have huge and outrageous dreams that they never act on. The result? Broken dreams, and broken aspirations.

If you limit yourself with self-doubt, and self-limiting assumptions, you will never be able to break past what you believe to be impossible.

Do this exercise. Take a piece of paper and write down some goals in your life. Under one header, list down things ‘I can do’. Under another header, write the things ‘I might be able to do.’ And under one more, list the things that that are ‘impossible’.

Now look at all the headers; strive every day to accomplish the goals that are under things ‘I can do’. Check them when you are able to accomplish them. As you slowly are able to check all of your goals under that heading, try accomplishing the goals under the other header, the one that reads ‘I might be able to do’.

Before long you will find yourself moving things from the impossible to the might be possible and then to the things that you know that you can do.

If you stick to this plan, you will soon realize that nothing is impossible and will discover within yourself those key actions that can bring the impossible into the realm of the very possible.

The trick is to let your imagination go and not bind it through personal fear. You also need to stay positive and not let negative ideas cloud the positive and joyful ones.

Those who just dream but don’t work towards that dream’s realization are always fruitless.

You would have been put in an institution for saying that men will land on the moon and that the World Wide Web will allow people to send information around the world in seconds, yet that dream is now a reality and everyone walks around with a modified version of the Dick Tracy watch (the cell phone). Sheer desire and perseverance have made these lofty dreams a reality!

Thomas Edison said that “genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”. He was probably one of the greatest inventors of all time. He basically was a master at taking the ideas that he had inside and making them real on the objective world outside. This is a man that all of us dreamers could learn a lot from.

Get out of your comfort zone. Let go of those limiting routines and begin to make the effort necessary to make those goals that you have a reality. Stay positive and have confidence in yourself and no effort will seem like too much.

Dream! Always dream! Never stop climbing until you one day find yourself at the summit of unlimited possibilities. All is possible, but only if we stay ever positive and never give up on our aspiration.

The best way to understand the energetic body is to think of it as a quantum biomechanical entity. What I mean by this is that the potential of any of its parts has a direct relation to the amount of attention that it receives. Your big toe has as much ability to create energy as does your head or heart. This attention is not located in any specific area, non local, and can be projected anywhere either inside or outside the body.

Chakra is actually a Sanskrit word that means wheel, which implies that there are certain energy vortices within the body. These energy centers are immovable and depending on their location in the body, exude a certain kind of awareness and energy. This energy can be tapped by the skilled practitioner in order to create some remarkable effects.

There is actually little similarity between the various oriental systems as to the location of these energy centers or Chakras. All these Mental Bridges (MB’s) are limiting to a greater or lesser extent in that they ask the user to accept a certain probability as fact and to refute everything that does not fit into its framework. As a result, these systems are incomplete and do not allow for the full potential of the energetic body.

Since all truth comes from sense data then one of the points of this article is; to create new sense data that is not at the whim of external circumstance but is controlled by internal intention. This allows the user to become free of the sometimes blind faith imposed by other systems of energy work or most MBs for that matter.

The concept of energy centers is quite useful though, I therefore wish to familiarize you with it if you are new to the game. I would also like to give some variance for those that are old pros.

Five is a very important number both physiologically and mentally. It represents the five limbs of the body, with five fingers in each hand and five toes in each foot. Intellectually it represents the five things that make up the universe; Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Void. Because of this, I shall designate Five energy centers in the body located vertically following the largest nerve canal which is the spinal column.

These energy centers shall be the head, throat, chest, stomach and reproductive region or feet as you prefer. If you wish to be more precise you can designate these centers as being the pineal gland(third eye), vocal cords, solar plexus, stomach[(!) see below](the individual organ) and the genitals.

I suggest that you do not give each of these centers a particular function. For example do not make the stomach the water center, blue and only responsible for good bladder control or the like. It is better that you start to see the energy that you are creating as a neutral entity that can be given function and purpose as you see fit. Think of it as a far more refined and powerful version of electricity and never forget that electricity can light your life or kill you.

As I mentioned earlier the more attention you give a certain area of your energetic body, the more potential that this area gains. Moreover this increase in ability is cumulative. By following a meditative regime where you train yourself in a given technique, you are then in essence working out. Working out a muscle that has too long been unused.

If you were to practice a certain physical movement over and over, you would not only develop a better musculature more suited for the task performed, you would also see an increase in the nerve tissue related to this task and an increase in the nerve speed. Similarly if you practice a mental task with the same intensity, you will see an increase in energetic power available as well as an increase in the nervous (nerve) energy and speed.

Therefore taking into account everything that I have outlined:

• Begin by relaxing your body. Close your eyes and perform the Baby Breathing as outline in the How to Relax article until you have a relaxed glowing feeling throughout your entire body.
• Imagine a warm tingling feeling in your third eye. The third eye is located between your two physical eyes, just above your brow ridge. If you were to drill a hole here, you would eventually hit your pineal gland.
• This warm tingling feeling grows in intensity until you can barely stand the pleasure of it. At this time you begin to notice that this great feeling turns into a little vibration, a little vibration that grows in intensity until it has your entire head vibrating.
• This vibration increases in power until it begins to produce a sound. The sound, like an electrical motor hums and grows like a great engine revving into higher and higher frequencies.
• The noise increases until it obliterates all other sound. This vibration creates heat which can be felt exuding from your third eye. And as the noise grows ever more intense then so does the heat grow until the entire world seems to be boiling.
• At the center of this universe, which is your third eye, there is a spark. This spark begins a fire. This fire begets a sun. And as the noise grows and the heat grows, this sun which is your third eye glows brilliantly white. a white so intense and powerful that all your thoughts are washed away and all that remains is this brilliant white sun.
• With this sun there is joy. And as this sun burns brighter and brighter so does this joy increase. Let this sun which is your third eye burn brightly for five or ten minutes.
• Unless you set some kind of timer and if you have done this exercise properly, I doubt that you will be able to keep time with any accuracy. Don’t worry since seconds in the intensity of this sun could seem like hours. keep going until you feel like stopping, worrying not about the time. Then when you feel like stopping, open your eyes stretch and move on to some other task.

This form of exercise may have some very intense effects upon your body. By concentrating on your pineal gland for example, you are flooding your brain with large amounts of blood. This alone can create some rather spectacular changes in your perception ranging anywhere from weird buzzing in the ears to seeing colored lights in front of your eyes and even reliving old forgotten memories. Then you add to this equation the increase in life force and the changes in your being can be earthshaking.

I mention the increase of blood in the area first because even medical science is willing to agree that this is possible and that these reactions then can be possible. But that is only the beginning of this exercise. Medical science is not yet ready to accept the existence of the ethereal energy of which I speak. Energy that has been accepted as fact by past western civilizations and modern eastern ones.

This energy goes by various names such as: prana, chi, ki, Vril, orgone, odic, mana and many others. It is basically bioenergetic; it can be produced by the body or gathered from the environment. This energy promotes health and will increase the potential of any place or thing where it resides. The more that you have the more that you can do but this energy must be channeled and balanced or else you can do damage.

Once this bioenergetic power begins to accumulate in you third eye, the effects to your being can become even more pronounced. You will begin to feel better and happier. Your mental capabilities will increase. Your memory will improve and your senses will seem more acute. Your focus will dramatically improve which is excellent since the more focus that you have, the better that you will become at the mental tasks promoted by this Site. If you develop this laser focus of which I speak and are able to concentrate on a thing to the exclusion of all other things then there is very little mentally or physically that you will not be able to do.

Imagine then as you start to perform this set of exercises on a regular basis, not only for the pineal gland but also for all of the five areas mentioned. As I have said, I do not believe in giving these energy centers any particular property but you will be generating large amounts of bioenergy in different areas of your body and as a result will be greatly stimulating the organs found in these areas. It is a wise idea to start a journal and begin a record of your feelings and experiences following the commencement of these exercises.

You can also use the Hara for the location of the stomach energy center. Take as accurate a measure of your body length as possible and divide this by half. Now measure the width of your body from shoulder to shoulder and divide that by half. X marks the spot to the location of your body’s center. This center is usually a little below the navel but there is variance depending on body structure. This is the Japanese Hara or Chinese Tan Tien and it is very important in the martial arts since it is where all movement originates.