My Podcast Site

Qi, Energy and Awe

Kim interviewed by Joyologist Pat Armistead on Radio Improv. We discuss the subjects of awe and joy, plus what is energy?

How to stop your 'Inner Mean Girl'

During this podcast Kim was interviewed by the 'Inner Mean Girl' team on how to look after yourself and make sure you stay well. It includes expert advice, tips and exercises on how to de-stress and nurture yourself to maintain good self-esteem, happiness and health.

Bringing the Senses inwards to rest

Podcast – bringing the senses inwards to rest, with Kim Knight, Director of Tao Health, Auckland, NZ
In this podcast I’m going to share with you some ancient secrets which have been passed down for thousands of years from China. What we’re going to do is an energetic healing practice called ‘Bringing the Senses inwards’. We are continually losing energy as we talk, see, hear and smell. Bringing our attention inwards at least once a day helps to prevent and reverse ongoing loss of energy, and gives the body a chance to rejuvenate and regenerate.
"Hello and welcome to Tao Health, the Taoist branch of the ‘Art of Health and Science of Wellbeing’. My name is Kim Knight and I’m here to inspire you with information and tools to look after your own health and wellbeing.
In this podcast I’m going to share with you some ancient secrets which have been passed down for thousands of years from China. What we’re going to do is an energetic healing practice called ‘Bringing the Senses inwards’. This is a segment from a longer meditation which is one of the practices from the school of Qi Gong called the Universal Healing Tao.
To begin with, I’d like to give some background to the exercise that we will shortly be practicing together:
According to Taoist philosophy, we lose huge amounts of energy - or Qi as they call it - through our sense organs.
So what do I mean by sense organs? I’m talking about the sensory organs which you use every day to perceive and interact with the outer world with: that is, your ears, eyes, nose, tongue and mouth. Sometimes these are also referred to as the 7 openings in the head: we have two eyes, two ears, two nostrils and one mouth.
Most people are unaware that we use a lot of life energy up when we continually sending our attention and focus outwards through these sensory organs. That means we are continually losing energy as we talk, see, hear and smell.
Qi Gong, which is the art of ‘cultivating our life force energy’, has been used by the wise masters of the East for centuries to keep themselves healthy. One of their recommended daily practices was to bring attention inwards at least once a day. This helps to prevent and reverse ongoing loss of energy, and gives the body a chance to rejuvenate and regenerate.
So, let’s get straight on with the practice. As one of my teachers says, “an ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory”.
Here are the notes to remind yourself of what to do without the recording:
1. Make yourself comfortable, deep breaths, come into your body, feel yourself sitting on your chair
2. Become aware of your body, put your tongue on the roof of the mouth, and turn the corners of your mouth up into smile
3. Tongue to heart
4. Mouth and lips to spleen (under left ribs)
5. Nose to lungs
6. Ears to kidneys
7. Eyes to liver (under right ribs)
8. Notice how feel. Calm?
So this is a practice you can use at any time to calm your mind, and relax and rejuvenate your body. As you can see, it’s very simple and yet quite profound.
And remember, according to these wise teachers of old, we should discipline our children (senses) at least once a day.
So go ahead, give it a go, and see what happens!
For more information see http://www.taohealth.co.nz or http://www.artofhealth.co.nz

Chronic fatigue is too MUCH energy!

"And then he said the one sentence that turned my life around in two seconds: “Chronic fatigue is not a lack of energy, it is excess energy that is dammed up". Wow! In two split seconds my understanding about chronic fatigue changed. If I was strong and I had plenty of energy, this meant I could get well as long as I found a way to unblock the energy...
Good day!
This is Kim Knight here from the Art of Health in Auckland, New Zealand. Thanks for deciding to listen to this podcast, I hope you find some gems that will help you on your way to good health.
Today I’d like to share a story with you that happened many years ago and which was my turning point for understanding the real cause of chronic fatigue.
Most people, including myself at the time, believe that when they have chronic fatigue, they have no energy available to them. This could not be further from the truth! And in this story I’ll show you why.
I had been unwell for several years, experiencing over that time what is commonly known as ‘M.E.’ or chronic fatigue. I also had low thyroid function, which made the tiredness even worse.
By that time I had been unable to work for 5 years, and finally, after trying over 140 different therapies, and not really seeming to be making much progress, I had decided to sell my house and travel round the world. The reason for this was I had truly come to the conclusion that maybe I was going to die. Sounds a bit drastic, but at the time it felt quite real.
Despite the fact that I really didn’t know if I would ever get well again, there was still a part of me deep inside that continued to search for answers. As I travelled round the world, occasionally ‘crashing’ with chronic fatigue (and those of you who have experienced cfs will know what I mean by that), I was led by a series of events to meet with a very skilled health practitioner, Gilles Marin, who subsequently became one of my teachers.
Gilles is the Director of the Chi Nei Tsang Institute in San Fransisco, California. The day that I was due to see him, I was so exhausted I could not muster up the strength to take the train, and had to take a taxi, which cost over USD100! I was feeling absolutely retched, and as I arrived at the door, promptly burst into tears as soon as he asked how I was.
I was not scheduled for an appointment that day, but Gilles offered me a session on the spot. I was in no state to refuse.
Now, sometimes one is ripe for change and ready to ‘let go’ - and I really was. I had absolutely had a gutsful of being ill.
As he started to work on me he said to me in his lovely French accent "Well, the good news is you are strong". Having only just been able to crawl out of bed I seriously doubted it.
He continued on and said, "the bad news is, you use that strength to keep everything inside”.
And then he said the one sentence that turned my life around in two seconds: “Chronic fatigue is not a lack of energy, it is excess energy that is dammed up"
Wow! In two split seconds my understanding about chronic fatigue changed. If I was strong and I had plenty of energy, this meant I could get well as long as I found a way to unblock the energy.
As he continued to work on me, I started to connect with very deep, old and hidden emotional pain, and I just started to spontaneously let it go. I cried and howled for what seemed like ages as he and his assistant (who had stepped in to help) worked on me.
I remember him repeating 'feel the familiarity of the feeling - emotions don't need to be understood, they just need to be felt'. This was a core piece of information that I have taken away and used with clients. Emotions are irrational and cannot be solved with thought, but most of us are trying to do just that, and of course it never works.
At the end of the session, as I sat up Ifelt very strange and dizzy. He gave me a cup of tea to help the body to integrate the session. Strangely enough I could not find the way to my mouth with the cup and spilt the tea down my front. In my slightly dazed state I thought to myself, “how ridiculous that I could not find the way to my own mouth!”
He then told me to get up and walk around but when I tried to I couldn’t move forward. He explained that in cases when big energetic shifts have taken place, the body's nervous system needs to ‘be recallibrated’. He instructed me to walk backwards, which apparently re-sets the nervous system. This I did, and was then able to slowly walk forward.
After that session, having arrived in a cab, I was well enough to take the train home. Within the space of one hour I had gone from feeling like I was half dead to very much alive.
So, what are the gems from this story? Well, there are several, and I’ll summarise them here:
First of all, one of the things I have come to understand for chronic fatigue clients is that underneath symptoms of fatigue there are usually hidden, unacknowledged and unexpressed emotions.
• Emotions are actually a form of energy, which if left unresolved, literally clog up our body at a cellular level.
• If this emotional energy starts to ‘back up’, just like a drain or river clogging up with leaves and branches, the energy will start to stockpile and get stuck.
• This stuck energy is experienced at a physical level as chronic fatigue.
• So, chronic fatigue is not a lack of energy, it is blocked energy!
Secondly, emotions are irrational, and cannot be thought or rationalized away.
• Emotions want our attention – they want to be acknowledged and validated.
• You can think of your emotions a bit like a little child who has just hurt themselves falling over, and they want consoling and cuddling. They want your loving attention. Once they have a cuddle, they forget the physical pain and run off smiling again.
• In order to heal from chronic fatigue, it is essential that we learn how to identify, release and fully manage our emotions.
So, I hope that this will have given you some useful insights into your current situation!
If you’d like to read the transcript of this podcast, you can find it on www.mickeltherapy.co.nz under the podcasts tab.
I also recommend reading the article on cellular memory called ‘ A Quantum Leap in Healing of Dis-ease by Dr David Mickel, the founder of Mickel Therapy, which you can also find on the website on the magazine articles page. http://www.mickeltherapy.co.nz/p-articles.htm
I really appreciate you joining me and look forward to meeting you in other podcasts!
For more information on my work see www.artofhealth.co.nz
Many blessings to you.
Copywrite Kim Knight 2010