During my graduate student days in San Diego, I was introduced to certain Taoist practices which help promote health and longevity. Having already had to deal with healing a breast tumor which I had discovered at age nineteen, I was already an avid explorer of new ways to heal the body and keep it healthy. Thus long before the renewal of interest in health spas, through sheer necessity I discovered ways to detoxify and rejuvenate.
The Taoist philosophy, which emphasizes the importance of longevity practices to enable one to live long enough to complete the most important human endeavor one can strive for in one's lifetime: enlightenment, somehow hit a strong chord with me. One of th e most important aspects of the Taoist practices is the importance of keeping a positive attitude. In fact, the first longevity practice which is taught, known as the inner smile, helps fortify an inner confidence to help carry the individual through all of life's ups and downs.
Through my first introduction to the Inner Smile, where you visualize a luminescent smile in your third eye and learn to carry it throughout the body, I discovered the importance of discipline in regard to spiritual practice. To change one's mental conditioning, initially takes concerted effort. As my later Guru H.W.L. Poonjaji would say: effortless effort. With a positive attitude all kinds of health problems are healed. Along with the Inner Smile, I also practiced the Microcosmic Orbit and Tai Chi, the first a meditation on the flow of energy through the two main channels and the second, a martial art which when viewed appears like a graceful moving meditation.
At this same time in my life, I discovered Reiki, the art of transferring universal life force energy to oneself or others. After receiving my Ph.D. in psychology, I devoted a number of years to sharing this simple healing technique around the world. Sharing Reiki was a great blessing, because as you give treatments, you also receive treatments. Reiki when practiced on a daily basis is also a longevity practice.
Over the years, my students have remarked about my "glowing health" and youthful demeanor. I have been asked on numerous occasions to share some of my personal health and beauty secrets. In response, I have begun to share some of my health secrets such as the use of tri-atomic oxygen or ozone to maintain super health ( the Queen Mother who lived to be 100 is known to have used ozone extensively). Also I have turned a lot of my students on to the importance of keeping an alkaline diet, and how this simple discipline alone can heal a myriad of diseases.
One of my previously best kept secrets, which I now share, is my use of facersize which keeps me looking a good ten years younger. People who have known me for years, have wanted to know why I seem to stay so young, while they seem to pass me by. Although in truth, I am as vain as the next woman and enjoy looking youthful, as a very practical person, I find seeing myself in the mirror looking much younger, makes me feel younger as well. It encourages me to exercise more vigorously. I even run up and down the stairs like a twenty year old and train with weights. In addition, facercise releases all the emotional tension we all unknowingly store in the face, and it enables me to not have to wear my normal distance glasses when I teach.
There are numerous other health practices I follow such as periodic fasting, and raw food diet. But most important to me is meditation, which is what takes us beyond the mind to the realm of pure awareness. It is here we find the real elixer of life which helps take us to the realization that finally, there is no birth or death, no youth or old age that we need to conquer, where youth is just a state of mind where we can laugh at ourselves and all of our silly notions…..and just enjoy.
Dr Paula Horan is a well known seminar leader and author on Reiki, Meditation and Alternative Medicine. To find out more about Paula and her programs you can click on www.TheNewAgeFoundation.com
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