 |
|
 |
| |
| Departments |
Home
Columns, Special
Topics & Features:
The Columns:
Angels, Guides, &
Loving Spirits:
Angel Blessings:
with Dr. Doreen Virtue
Ask Valerie Morrison,
Internationally
Acclaimed Psychic
Trust Your Vibes
By Dr. Sonia Choquette, PhD.
Internationally Acclaimed Psychic Healer & Author
Body Mind & Spirit with John Holland
Psychic Medium, Author
& Teacher,
Astrologer's Notes:
Carin Martin,
Astrologer
Donna Cunningham, MSW, Astrologer
Basil Fearrington,
Astrologer
Diana Stone,
Astrologer &
Huna Shaman
Jeff Jawer
Astrologer
Glenn Perry,
Astrologer
Ray Merriman,
Financial Astrology:
MMA Market Week
Noel Tyl,
Astrologer
Daily Aspect Calendar
by Care
MoonWatching with Dana Gerhardt and Friends
Creating Bridges:
The Spiritual &
Philosophical
Act of Power
Discovering the Key to Living Your Sacred Dream
by Lynn Andrews
The BUT Doctor
Healing America's Real Crack Problem One Person at a Time
by Eddie Conner
Avant-Gardening:
Insights by Frank &
Vicky Giannangelo
From The Heart:
Alan Cohen
Teachings from the Western Mystery Traditions: The Esoteric "Paths of Return"
by Jacquelyn Small, Eupsychia
"Letters from Heaven:" Spiritual Guidance from
the Hebrew Alphabet
by Avigayil Landsman
Spirituality in Daily Life: by Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron
The Conscious Column
by David Ault
Spiritual Mastery
for the 21st Century
Dr. Gwen MacGregor
Pearls of Wisdom:
with Care & Aeon
Encounters on the
Shaman's Path with
Dr. Hank Wesselman, PhD.
Anthropologist, Zoologist, Author, Shamanic Healer & Teacher
Feng Shui & Chinese Metaphysics:
Inside Chinese Metaphysics
by Barbara Finch,
Feng Shui &
Chinese Astrology
In Practice:
How to Create a Successful Holistic Practice- from Start to Success
by Shaun Brown,
CMT, BA BeWell Publications
Pet Care:
Dr. Carson's Holistic Animal Care
by Dr. Kathleen Carson, D.V.M.
Tarot:
Moment to Moment
by Gigi Miner
Author, Tarot Consultant, & Teacher.
Reviews:
Tarot, Cartomancy,
Oracle Decks,
Books, & Software.
by Bonnie Cehovet,
Tarot Master
Humor:
Wake Up Laughing.Com:
Swami Beyondananda
Features:
Blessings & Messages
Event Calendar
Historical Notes & Data
The MetaPersonals
Opinion-Editorial
Symbols, Seals,
Amulets & Talismans
The What in the
World Department
Trivia & Other
Novel Moments
Interviews:
Watch for Upcoming Announcements
Healing & Alternative
Health:
Living in Harmony-Astrology, Yoga & Ayurveda:
Venkat & Christine Machiraju
"Spirit and Practice
of the Wise Woman
Tradition"
By Susun Weed
Tai Chi & Qigong
by Bill Douglas
The Holistic Mystic,
by Lonny Brown
Medical Intuition: Tune
in to Your Body and Improve Your Health
by Caroline Sutherland, Sutherland Communications
Conscious Breathing
for Health and Self Transformation
by Dennis Lewis
Transformational Healing through the Violet Flame!
by Eva Kettles
Herbs for Health
with Kami McBride
The Directory
The Book Nook
Archives:
Past Issues
The Book Nook
Archives:
Past Issues
|
|
|
|
|
|
Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy: T'ai Chi |
|
|
The Social Web of Stress
|
|
|
by Bill Douglas |
|
|
The Social Web of Stress
"Could Tai Chi and Qigong be one of the root solutions
to the dilemma of modern human challenges?"
Urban sprawl and suburban flight are causing massive traffic jams on freeways nationwide, as individuals are working longer and longer hours. The invisible effect is a nation buckling under accumulating stress that affects parents, children, and society in budget busting and heart wrenching ways.
70% of all illness is due to unmanaged stress according to the National Institute of Mental Health (US). Longer work hours and thickening traffic are part of the problem, but it goes deeper. Family stresses are piled onto this work/traffic stress. Children are often left on their own between 3 PM and 7 PM, after they get out of school and while their parents are working or fighting traffic. Tragically, and not coincidentally, this is when most crime is committed.
Our national crime costs are near $500 billion per year, while our health care costs are $1 trillion per year. Our system's buckling from trying to repair damage that is already done to our bodies, our children, and our society, through backend spending on health problems and prison/court/enforcement costs. How can we deal with the front end, before these problems occur?
What if we went to the root of these stress related problems. Many children turn to the drugs and alcohol, which is behind most youth crime, for "stress management." Their lives are increasingly stressful in a rapidly changing world, and their parents are unavailable, battling their own stress issues and the lives that cause them. So, how could we affect the root problem, or stress? Government can play a powerful role in affecting this deteriorating situation, by affecting the direction of our economic development.
Tens of millions of Americans could begin working several days a week at home, telecommuting via the Internet. The technology is there, yet companies and employees do not utilize it. Government could provide tax incentives to companies to establish telecommuting days for employees. Dollars would be saved immediately on traffic costs, road wear, and emergency care as millions are taken off the hi ways daily. Air would immediately become cleaner, reducing the alarming increase in asthma problems nationwide. But, the most important benefit would be a national sigh of relief as parents and children can relax more around the demands of job and family. A parent who works 8 hours from home, rather than fighting an hour or two of freeway traffic, working 8 hours, and then fighting the same traffic to get home too late to truly relax, brings an entirely different parent home to the children. This may help a parent be one who has time to "be there" to help with the challenges of life our children face.
This would not only affect telecommuting parents, but others who must drive or bus to work will find the roadways much clearer and less polluted, leaving them healthier and less stressed when they get home much earlier than before. However, the other issue affecting all is the one of hours worked. Too many Americans are skipping breaks, and working way past the 8 hour work day that our ancestors sometimes fought and died for. Breaks and 8 hour work days were not fought for because our forefathers and mothers had nothing better to do. They were established because this limitation of work to find balance in life is "essential" to our quality of life. Again, when most crime is committed between the time school lets out and the time parents get home and we are building and filling prisons faster than ever before in our history, it is time to "take a deep breath." It is time to reevaluate how we are living.
We must decide whether human beings should be squeezed into a matrix that does not nurture us or our children, or whether we use the emerging technology to redefine our lives to flow around us like a soothing healing balm. We are entering an age of technological miracles that can provide an extraordinary quality of life -- if we choose to use these tools for that. However, right now the opposite is occurring, as stress overwhelms us and 70% of illness and the six leading causes of death are the result of stress. With the dawn of the information/computer age the average worker is many times more productive than their counterparts decades ago, yet we are working longer hours for little more money. How do we change this? First of all by lifting our heads up to see beyond "what is" -- to see what "could be."
There is an extraordinary book called Flatland. The main character is a one-dimensional worm who crawls through a groove seeing only the butt of the one-dimensional worm in front of him. This is his world. But, then one day he suddenly on impulse turns to the side, and finds a whole new two dimensional world expanding outward, left, right, front and back. This blows his mind and he goes wild and discovers that he can "lift up" off the two dimensional plane his expanded world had become into a "three-dimensional" reality. He can look DOWN, and look UP, and see LEFT, and RIGHT, and a whole new world expands all around him. But, when he goes back to his one-dimensional world, the worm in front of him thinks he's gone crazy dreaming up these ridiculous possibilities of an "expanded world."
Our society is at a point with the level of technological development to lift up from "the way we are doing things." We can literally redefine our society to fit human needs. A compassionate economy can unfold within, throughout and all about us, until we see crime and health care costs whither, and surpluses growing, effortlessly and simply by learning to live in ways that "feel good."
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bill Douglas,
World T'ai Chi & Qigong Day Founder, and Author
|
|
Bill Douglas is the author of the #1 most popular T'ai Chi book in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.
He can be reached at smartaichi.com His work, called "visionary" by the world's top T'ai Chi experts, is entitled, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to T'ai Chi & Qigong."
Bill is also the presenter in Britain's #1 best selling T'ai Chi DVD, Anthology of T'ai Chi & Qigong: The Prescription for the Future, and author of the acclaimed inspiration book, The Amateur Parent - A Book on Life, Death, War & Peace, and Everything Else in the Universe. It is available at www.smartaichi.com, and at amazon.com.
Bill is also the Founder of World T'ai Chi & Qigong Day:
worldtaichiday.org
and World Healing Day:
worldhealingday.org
now celebrated annually in 80 countries and recognized by the United Nations World Health Organization for it's healing work.
He is a media source on a host of natural health, social, & environmental issues and has been interviewed and/or published by media worldwide, including The New York Times and The South China Morning Post.
smartaichi.com
|
| 11111 |
 |
You'll find it in
The
Directory! |
|
|
|
|
