The Flow of Power
I need to engage your imagination to establish a shared vocabulary to help you feel what I feel. If I fail at this, I will lose you, and I don’t want that.
Imagine your body is a conduit for energy flow. Perhaps it’s a pipe that water flows through.
I often imagine it like a copper electrical wire with many individual strands, each flowing with electrical power, wrapped and intertwined.
The Tibetan Buddhists invested 1,500 years and the lives of countless monks to develop highest yoga tantra visualizations, far more intricate — and delightful to engage in.
See: Mahamudra Tantra.
Imagine the flow of energy through this conduit — Qi, if you like — as the sum of all your personal power that makes you want to do something.
The emphasis is on the doing.
Qi = Do.
It’s passion.
It’s Go energy, the feeling that pushes you to chase your dreams.
The source may be love, relationships, your religious beliefs, your committed intentions, and of course, money.
While it’s possible to have strongly flowing Qi without money (monks do it), for many of us, money is a huge component of the flow of life.
Concepts of fairness of distribution aside, it is what it is.
Pink Floyd is always worth a minute or two of your time.
Money is a Pecker Pump
Particularly for men, when I feel flush with cash, I feel strong, vibrant, and fully alive; when I’m broke, I feel weak, deflated, and, dare I say, flaccid.
Rich men are attractive to women for multiple reasons.
Selfish Desire for unlimited spending money is certainly part of it, but the more powerful reason is that rich men often have powerfully flowing Qi.
These men are vibrant, fun-loving, charismatic people magnets.
Who wouldn’t want to be around that?
Another Brick in the Wall
We all experience some baseline level of Qi based on personality, experiences, and life circumstances.
Before my change, my Qi was normal and as healthy as one can expect in a capitalist system that drains worker’s souls.
I didn’t struggle to get out of bed, I enjoyed some entertainments and pleasures, and I sustained good health. I was a standard brick in the wall.
Pink Floyd again.
My Qi was on a life-sustaining trickle.
When I got the news of my good fortune, my 20 amp wire got hit with 100 amps of power.
I touched a live wire, and I lit up.
Euphoria.
The Body is a Qi Conduit
Unfortunately, if you pull 100 amps of current through a 20 amp wire, it melts.
Physical effects accompany the increased energy flow.
A strongly flowing Qi, or any sustained strong emotion, also has physical effects.
My heart-rate sped up, which wasn’t surprising at first, prompting me to stop all caffeine intake, but in the weeks and months since, it still races with increased adrenaline.
I like it.
Abandonment of Financial Distress
My adrenals were accustomed to frequent pounding by fearful thoughts from financial stress. That is the fate of every struggling worker in a capitalist system (except in Socialist Europe, where they don’t.)
Financial fear thoughts arose out of habit, but since I stopped energizing fear with a feeling of truth or certainty, my mind dismissed the thoughts as meaningless information.
Without the energy to bring the thoughts to conscious attention, they slowly faded away.
I no longer hear or feel the Siren’s Song of financial distress.
That’s a plus.
Great!
My adrenals didn’t get a break though.
As the stress thoughts faded, every latent thought of fun, newly energized with intense Qi flow, began dominating my mind.
When my mind serves up non-stop thoughts of fun and excitement — and the only thing stopping me from acting is the doing — then my body responds with a constant flow of adrenaline.
It feels great!
Recapturing my Youth
I started craving higher-energy foods in smaller amounts, and I lost about 20% of my body weight over a four-month span.
I look and feel like a young man again.
Even now, I struggle to eat enough. I don’t like feeling weighed down and slowed up.
Previously, I didn’t mind a Friday evening gut-buster with a 14-ounce rib-eye eased down by cheesecake, coffee, and ice cream (lubricate the slopes, right?)
If it weighed me down, so what? It isn’t like I had anything else to do or the Qi to do it. (See results in body photo above.)
Now, I recoil at the thought of a 2,500+ calorie blowout. That would stop me from having fun afterward.
Screw that.
The Beatles were popular when I was born. I’m old.
Home scale extremes 194 to 152
Doctor’s scale 186.6 to 158.2 (Based on times of measurement. Doesn’t capture peaks.)
Hover range, 158–160 home scale.
Diet and Nutrition
The internet is a cesspool of misinformation on health and diet.
Let me share a few simple observations that don’t require complex bullshit to understand.
Calories in minus Waste (defecation) equals calories available for Consumption (burning) in metabolic processes.
If Consumption does not equal calories available, the body will store some as fat and expel the rest as waste.
If consumption exceeds the calories available, the body will first try to be more efficient with what comes in, reducing waste. This is why restricted calorie diets often fail.
If the body can no longer extract useful calories from food, it will burn fat.
If you eat carbohydrates, your body produces a host of different digestive enzymes than if you consume fat and protein. Changing gears from carbohydrate digestion to fat digestion is very uncomfortable, which causes most people to abandon their diet. Staying in fat-burning mode all the time is preferred, even if all the fat comes from food.
Once you start burning fat, you don’t want to eat much food, particularly if stored fat burning is what you are attempting. Every calorie you consume is a calorie not taken out of your stored fat.
Fasting is good for the body. It burns fat and allows the body to remove toxins, generally through urine if you drink a lot of water, but sweating happens too.
Excessive fasting causes muscular degeneration, but that is way, way down the road. You won’t lose much muscle on a 5-day fast. I’ve done several. Don’t fear fasting because you believe you will lose your muscle mass.
You can’t drink too much water. You will pee it out.
Electrolyte depletion is a thing. Add salts to your water occasionally. It’s not as big of a thing as diet gurus make it out to be.
Hunger is a signal from the body that the stomach has finished digesting the last meal. How that signal is interpreted is completely up to you. Appetite is a phantom of the imagination.
A Hunger signal can be safely ignored.
Fear of Death shouldn’t be part of it.
How and What I eat now
When I was started college, the four food groups were candy, Coke, alcohol, and caffeine. I consume none of those today.
I east mostly eggs, lean proteins, fruits, vegetables, and greens, olives of all kinds, and yogurt. That’s it.
I love foods with natural water. Eighty Percent of my foods are found in the produce section of the supermarket.
Hat Tip Tony Robbins.
Fruits and vegetables provide more energy than proteins. I’m biased toward energy since my heart races much faster than before.
Bread and grains always make me drowsy. I refuse to eat them.
Basmati rice is okay, but starchy rices or raw starches of any kind put me to sleep.
Sugar, or foods loaded with processed sugars and fats cause flushing and sometimes nausea. I avoid those like the plague.
I eat 6 or more times per day, often in 100–500 calorie bursts. Rarely do I eat more than 500 calories at one time.
I only schedule eating if it’s with my family.
I never eat out of habit.
I never struggle with portion control.
Sorry, I think I will pass….
Feel the Body
My body improved because I was strongly motivated to improve it.
I maintained a disciplined habit of exercise for most of my adult life, but I needed to rely on reminders of health or vanity to motivate myself to continue — at least, I knew that much about self-direction.
But when motivation is weak, the results are similarly weak, but it was better than nothing at all.
When this change came, I suddenly found a thousand reasons to go to the gym and work out.
The workouts became painless and energizing.
I had to be wary of pushing myself beyond my aging body’s limits.
The mind was willing.
It was fun again!
I remembered those intense sessions doing heavy squats with my workout partner from 30 years ago.
I craved that feeling of complete physical exhaustion and deep personal satisfaction caused by pushing my physical limits.
Pink Floyd reminds us that making yourself Comfortably Numb through drugs or emotional eating is literally a dead end.
Chakra Flow
I did notice several unusual physical effects that I can best explain using the concepts of Chakras, the language developed by Indian mystics from antiquity to communicate their internal subjective states.
I hope I don’t lose you here. Chakra’s aren’t something you either believe in or you don’t.
There is a detectable physical phenomenon that begs for an explanation.
If you don’t like this one, I’m open to hearing yours.
Failure to believe in Chakras doesn’t wish away the effect.
I assure you I feel everything I describe.
The Chakra system provides a useful framework for conveying these internal subjective feelings.
I use Chakras to tell you where to look and why for certain feelings or signs you should pay careful attention to.
There is no other way to cross the Ultimate Divide.
Qi Cleanse
When the intense Qi burst hit me, I lost my appetite. I attribute it to the extreme activation of the chakra in my solar plexus, pointing right at my stomach.
Over a few weeks, I had episodes of nausea and night sweats as my body expelled every flesh toxin I had accumulated over the years.
I changed sheets a lot.
I scheduled a checkup, but the symptoms, which weren’t in any way painful, had subsided. My GI doctor gave me a clean bill of health.
Prior to this experience, I had no idea that powerful Qi flow could, in and of itself, cleanse the body.
Good to know.
Give yourself a reason to live, and you will live a longer, healthier life.
Another valuable fact.
Simple.
Cool!
I am thankful for the years of heart meditations to prepare my body for the new flow, or it might have killed me.
My heart rate is higher, a necessity to fuel the body to execute on the Go energy coming from the Qi flow.
My blood pressure is low. The moment-to-moment experience of my body is stronger, like the pumped-up feeling after a workout, but all the time.
I feel young again.
Pink Floyd again. Careful, I should be locked away. The Lunatic is in my head.
Fever!
Since my visions of the future were activated so strongly, the chakra in my forehead heated up, and it still runs a bit hot.
For weeks, I reveled in the relief of cold compresses on my forehead.
A stress reaction of mine is to contract the muscles of my forehead and face.
Frowny face, with 11s.
=:(
It’s frustrating because people react to what they see, and my forehead says, “He’s unhappy.”
People think I’m upset when I’m jubilant, bouncing off-the-walls happy.
As I coped with the tingly sensations and the heat from the forehead chakra activation, I secretly hoped it would flatten those 11s.
No dice.
Did you notice I just attempted to justify my desire for botox to the world?
Vanity.
~~Giggles~~
In truth, the center of chakra burn is actually about 1″ higher than my brow, so it’s just off the top of the image above.
Fortunately, no discoloration or skin irritation.
It can happen.
Stigmata Burns
From a Christian perspective, I might interpret this one as a sign of my Jesus Juice.
Since empowerment, I’ve had notable tingling and discoloration in the center of my favored right hand, similar to those who experience Christian Stigmata.
Except that mine wasn’t caused by an extreme empathetic reaction to the Christ story — near as I can tell.
Their experience is valid, their Compassion Flowing so strongly through their Hearts, that their Empathy for Christ becomes complete.
They are Christ. They experience His pain.
It manifests in the real world.
They are spiritual Masters.
Pink Floyd again. Hey You, Can you feel what Christ felt?
Your Guess is as Good as Mine.
For mine, which thankfully don’t bleed, I don’t actually have a clue. No ability to run an experiment, gather data, interpret results.
I don’t produce this on demand.
I observed four things:
- No previous discoloration.
- Coincidental arising implies cause and effect.
- Persistence for long periods (It’s been months).
- An ongoing phenomenon.
The sensation is so strong it warps and discolors the skin.
Prescription medications help with the symptoms, and it doesn’t bother me or my doctor.
It’s just one of those odd things that makes you go, hmmm…
Of course, I do have my own theory about it.
I’m right-handed.
My right hand directs my Qi in the physical world.
I suddenly channel an outsized power to influence events in the world, and that Qi power flows out of me through the palm of my hand.
Interesting only to me: My golf short game, which relies on feel in my right hand, has been particularly sharp since Empowerment. Of course, I practice a bit more too.
A spot on the outside of my left foot was delayed by a few weeks. Do you have a theory on this one?
Here’s what I chose to believe.
Chakras exit through the palms and the soles and in your Erogenous zones. ~~Giggles~~
The burn shouldn’t be on top. It should be underneath.
Perhaps this is all a delusion, and I have a skin rash that’s spreading.
Computer says no.
David Walliams, Matt Lucas, You are comic geniuses! I’ve loved every moment of every performance you’ve ever done. The scene of Desire for a Senior Citizen is nearly too painful to watch I laugh so hard.
My doctor says no, too. I cover all my bases.
Louise Hay provided me with a clue.
The empowerment I feel moves through my family.
My left foot is my least coordinated, least-used appendage. Therefore, it is the weakest and needs the most support.
My wife’s Qi flow is also vital.
In the weeks following the initial empowerment, the connection between us manifested.
She is pouring her Qi into me.
It enters me through the burn in the photo, connecting to my weakest limb, where I need the most support.
I’m witnessing the initial burn of connection. When my body adjusts, it may go away. (Since I began this draft weeks ago, it has nearly cleared up.)
She supports me.
It’s great!
On second thought, since our connection can’t be severed, the mark may never go away.
Isn’t that a lovely way to look at it?
So, is my theory correct?
I don’t know. I’m spitballing here.
Consider this.
Believing it’s True pleases me; it doesn’t hurt anyone, it makes me closer to my wife, and nobody can prove otherwise.
Why shouldn’t I believe that?
It’s like believing in angels or fairies.
It pleases me.
Pink Floyd again. I wish you could feel what I feel. Wish You Were Here!
Dry Mouth, Tingly Throat
This work (and the related one I linked to at the beginning) gestated in my mind for several weeks — I let my subconscious take care of that. I fed it the books it wanted but let it do its own thing.
Your subconscious mind can become your servant if you read the user’s manual.
You can decode the green gibberish in the Matrix.
Eventually, the physical symptoms of dry mouth and tingly throat told me that my expression chakra was fully opened.
It was time for the written Emergence.
I arranged life to allow the inspiration and craft to cycle without interruption until the first full draft was complete.
I left my house rarely. I did nothing else.
I drank a lot of water.
During the most intense week, channeling the deepest emotional pieces, I lost another 3 pounds because my stomach was upset and my Adam’s apple felt swollen.
I’m not a particular fan of this feeling, but I gladly pay the Polyhymnia’s fee.
Polyhymnia’s voice is fresh, but she recoils at any trace of ego and falls silent.
Introvert to Extrovert
I’ve noticed significant changes in my personality since my empowerment.
The most notable is that I am no longer a devoted introvert. Previously, I was a loner, probably due to the fact I was an insufferably arrogant asshole.
Since I woke up, I suddenly found I want to be around people and Give to them. Not money but time, attention, Love.
Unsurprisingly, people respond well to that!
It’s making me an extrovert.
Not something I expected.
Precision of Dress
Previously, I didn’t care what people thought about me or my appearance. I paid no attention to fashion or my dress.
I wasn’t awkwardly dressed (most of the time), but I just didn’t care.
After my experience, I suddenly had a strong desire to see precision when I looked in the mirror.
Not for anyone else but for myself.
My mind feels very ordered and sharp, and I feel compelled to express that on the outside to reflect what’s happening on the inside.
Again, it was not something that I expected.
Of course, precision dress with a snappy style appeals to people, which feeds into my becoming more of an extrovert.
Funny how that happens.
Richard Prior (1940–2005) RIP. Loved your Work!
Brewster’s Millions
Richard Prior made a hilarious movie in 1985 about a poor man who stood to inherit a large fortune, but for one task: he had to spend a huge fortune without acquiring any assets in a short period of time.
By the movie’s end, he has lost all desire to spend money, which puts the remaining fortune in good hands.
In short, he needed to be emotionally prepared for the financial windfall to manage it properly.
No Money, No Problem
I contemplated that movie’s lesson often after Empowerment, and believe it or not, no spending spree.
Yes, more spending occurred than before, but we mainly acquired what my family previously wanted with immediacy. No deferring ductwork or removing grass from my yard.
We didn’t go on an aggressive program of lifestyle upgrades.
That was key.
Like most people, I previously managed my finances by spending everything that came in to create a lifestyle.
Post Empowerment, the inevitable and unending pull to spend and up our lifestyle concerned me.
I committed to no purchases over $10,000 to curb the urge. Of course, I violated that almost immediately when I bought my wife the Jeep she’s been wanting for several years, but that’s it. No more.
So far…
I still drive my white low-mileage 2003 Lexus LS worth less than $10,000.
Everyone else’s car is more expensive, which makes them cool.
I’m invisible to Pride. Cool owners don’t see me.
I cherish my car. Her name is Pearl.
She’s cute.
She brings joy to my heart.
I don’t want a new Bentley. I don’t want attention.
I’m not motivated by conspicuous consumption.
Marie Kondo I salute you!
It’s all about my son
So where does all that money go?
Simple. It pays for anything and everything my special needs son wants to do.
All of it.
Where would it be better spent?
Attachment to Power
The clearest and most obvious sign that I am not enlightened is the fact that I am attached to my newfound power.
If, by some disaster, the annuity which empowers my Qi was lost — I think that would suck.
It would suck comprehensively, in every way, swallowing my Qi in the process. (It wouldn’t be that bad, but I certainly don’t want to lose it.)
I like feeling empowered. I do not wish to go back to feeling un-empowered.
I have a preference.
My preference would be to keep getting the firehose of cash sprayed on me for life, like I do now.
That preference. That is my attachment.
How strong is my preference? How much do I want to suffer?
They come in equal measures.
Enlightened, I am not.
Time is the Ultimate Limitation
When you overcome your issues with money, you come to see that Time is the limitation you can never overcome.
You only have so much time, and you never know when yours is up.
One of the most hauntingly beautiful songs about time comes from Jim Croce. Don’t go look up the lyrics. Listen to the music.
Of course, any fans of Pink Floyd will remember that they addressed this issue too.
Pink Floyd again. Money and Time.
But my favorite of all time is from Kansas, Dust in the Wind.