Along these lines, there are two tendencies that have emerged: free hugs, almost anywhere in the world, offered by complete strangers without any afterthoughts or sexual connotation; and lately, hugging bars coming from Japan.
After my divorce, my naturopath prescribed regular massages to rediscover the physical limits of my body and my sensory stimuli. I therefore recommend regular massages and touching, because the tactile contact is vital for your equilibrium. The sense of touch is often associated with sensuality and sexuality, but that is a very limited interpretation: It seems to me that it has a much wider role to play. After all, many therapies base their treatments on the sense of touch. I have tried one of these that is rather unknown, the “clay block” method, which permits us to reconnect to our inner depth by touching the soil.
In order to get used to and to rehabilitate your everyday sense of touch, to get back your sensory stimuli, and to increase your good vibrations, surround yourself with smoothness, silky cream, and soft textiles; massage yourself; cuddle people around you; take somebody into your arms, and tickle and hug them; pat an animal; make love; dance in the arms of somebody . . .
Improving your sense of touch will enhance your mental and physical balance. Renew contact with yourself, let yourself be touched . . .
Shiatsu
Japanese massage is called shiatsu, meaning “finger pressure.”
It’s recognized by the Japanese Health Ministry as a therapeutic technique utilizing fingers and the palms of the hands to apply pressure to certain well-determined body parts. It is practiced while fully dressed, without use of any oils. It concentrates on acupuncture points and body meridians, to circulate blocked energy.
Stimulating and eliminating tension and muscle spasms, based on the theory of yin and yang, the two opposite yet complementary energy centers, shiatsu visualizes human health in its wholeness: physical, psychological, and spiritual.
What About You?
Do you have enough tactile contact every day? What if you reconnected with yourself with hugs, touch, massage, and cuddles?
It’s Time to Act!
Massage Therapy
What if, step by step, you were to bring back the sense of touch to your body?
Swedish, Californian, Ayurvedic, Korean or Thai, Fasciatherapy, shiatsu or Japanese sitting amma therapy, foot or palm reflexology, auto massage, among friends or family or with a professional, with or without oil, upright, sitting or lying down, naked or dressed, relaxing or stimulating—there are innumerable massage techniques. Try out a few and find the best one for you.
Go Further . . .
Develop your tactile sense of touch on a daily basis by offering free hugs to the people around you, and why not to strangers? Cultivate the habit of lightly (without ambiguity) touching the person in front of you.
Start Here and Now!
Make an appointment for a massage, or massage your own neck and feet.
Apply
The world is full of good intentions, what is lacking is to apply them.
—Blaise Pascal
With a small brush apply a first layer of black lacquer (roiro-urushi) to all the joints.
By concentrating on applying a thin layer, the kintsugi master prepares the object for the following steps. The cracks are thus completely smoothed out, ready to receive the final layer: The repair can proceed harmoniously.
Life also invites you to begin all of your activities harmoniously with a fine layer of good principles. Don’t leave them on the road of good intentions. Even with the strongest resolution in mind, it’s sometimes difficult to put this into practice. And the worst part is that we have the tendency to procrastinate with the execution of what is most important! “I start tomorrow.” “I am getting ready.” “I will begin after vacation.” Do these remind you of someone? By procrastinating for the longest time possible, you water down your intentions until they become completely out of sight. Every missed opportunity distances you from your goal and from your real self.
I have to admit that I have fallen into this trap, like many others. When I first discovered kintsugi, it was love at first sight, a real revelation! Of course I researched the subject, but I didn’t dare begin my first repairs, because I was intimidated by the complexity of this art. In addition, I felt deep inside that this was a serious step from which there might be no return.
So I remained shyly at the edge of the swimming pool, testing the temperature of the water with my toes . . . What a delight and what a pleasure when I finally stopped procrastinating and dived right into the techniques! It felt like discovering long-lost ancestral gestures buried deep within myself. I, the impatient bulldozer, took pleasure in preparing the materials and assembling the puzzles. Sometimes, after hours of work, the repaired piece would break again, but then I patiently started again, without any rush or frustration. I even learned to enjoy the wait!
I am mentioning it simply to remind you that the first step is often the most difficult part. We are all a bit like a tank, difficult to start moving but advancing straight for our target once we get going. We must fight this tendency toward inertia and act now. The smallest action is more valuable than the longest speech! It’s not the theory that counts but the execution. It seems there are three things most successful people have in common: They meditate, they get up early, and they floss! Intriguing, isn’t it? Obviously, it’s not that dental floss is a key to success, but if one is sufficiently disciplined to use it every day, the same discipline can be applied to other activities . . . What about you? Do you floss?
One day . . . later . . . too late! The only right moment is now! In a year from now, you’ll wish that you had started today. So shift into a higher gear and execute your plan of action!
The Miracle Morning
This book by Hal Elrod is a true bestseller, improving life for millions of people. It’s extremely motivating, proposing a morning plan of action to finally work on everything you have the tendency to postpone. You start early in the day to tackle the principal tasks you’ve identified for yourself. In this manner . . .
They automatically become part of your daily program.
You finally put your good principles into action.
You start on the right foot, generating enough energy for the remainder of the day.
Everybody is free to determine his own morning program. For example, the author proposes six “life SAVERS” steps: S stands for Silence (meditation, prayer, gratitude, respiration), A for Affirmation (motivating phrases about what you really desire to program your subconscious), V for Visualization (visualize your objectives), E for Exercise (sport, gymnastics, abs, stretching, yoga), R for Reading (read a book about personal development, an inspiring work, a collection of motivational citations), and S for Scribing (notes in your journal, personal action plan, reflections about life).
Personally, I start with a quick morning wash to wake up, including my Ayurvedic oil detox mouthwash and a tongue scraper. (This only takes ten minutes, and to save time, I take my shower the evening before.) Then I continue with a twenty-five-minute yoga session. After that I sit down on a meditation pillow for five minutes of mindfulness, two minutes for my affirmations, two minutes to visit my inner child, three minutes for my objectives, three minutes for a fast body scan to check whether there is anything blocked, one minute to verify my energy level, twenty minutes to sit comfortably on my bed reading a book on personal development, and five minutes to enter a few notes in my journal.
At this point our little household wakes up. I continue my miracle morning with the famous organic and vegan Budwig cream by Dr. Kousmine, an essential recipe I couldn’t live without, my six spirulina pills, and my morning drink, a big mug (two cups) of lukewarm water (according to Ayurvedic principles) filtered by reverse osmosis, to which I add an organic rosebud.
No need for coffee or tea: R
egaining energy is quite fabulous! It’s just a habit to adopt. After a month it becomes easy. By carefully preparing for this “miracle,” one feels the same excitement a child does on Christmas Eve, ready to unwrap the presents of one’s life.
What About You?
Are you disciplined in your daily life or are you a procrastinator? What life-changing good ideas should you be following? What if you started by applying the first one, here and now?
It’s Time to Act!
The Application
No need to listen to long speeches. The time has come to put theory into practice! Stop reading and immediately implement one of the things you have postponed for a long time.
Act on that good advice in your head, take that step you’ve postponed, send that tedious e-mail, make that difficult phone call, send that late invoice, go to the meeting you have canceled twice. In two words, start now!
Go Further . . .
Start every day with a task you normally put off. By tackling it with a clear morning mind, you will finally begin to act.
To accomplish this, write down the morning task on a sticky note the night before and put it on your desk in plain view. You are programming your brain and your subconscious, preparing yourself psychologically. In the morning, you can’t forget, and you’ve programmed yourself not to delay this task any longer. Remember this wonderful sensation and the relief you feel when you’ve finally accomplished a task that you postponed for months . . .
Start Here and Now!
Really? Are you still reading now instead of starting?
Concentrate
For each moment of our lives is essentially irreplaceable; you should learn to sink yourself in it utterly.
—André Gide
Breathe calmly, concentrate, and execute slowly, using measured and precise gestures to apply thin lines to the joints. Let this first application dry in the box for one to two weeks.
Like a calligrapher, the kintsugi master measures every one of his gestures, perfect, fine, and precise, to cover each line of the broken object. This is an important phase. If the layer is too thick, it dries in a coarse manner, ruining the surface. He, therefore, has to be completely centered and concentrated, so he can master his moves, almost in a state of meditation. Here and now, nothing else exists except the lacquer line. All his energy is concentrated on this instant and the line he’s applying in one breath. He is the paintbrush, he is the bowl, he is the entire universe, and the complete universe is contained in this line and this single breath.
This is a beautiful metaphor for life, in that it’s important to concentrate all your force and all your energy on one precise goal. You’re never more efficient, than when your attention is completely turned toward a single objective, in this state of grace, this altered state of mind described as “flow” by positive psychology, when you are “in the zone.” Every one of your moves and thoughts is being suspended in another time zone, with a precise slowness where time expands until it doesn’t exist any longer.
Personally, I am “in the zone,” feeling the flow, when I’m writing and when I practice the art of kintsugi. In my previous life, I would have been busy with too many things at the same time to savor this pleasure. I would have found it too slow and inefficient . . . Now I have daily proof of my progress. For instance, when speaking on the phone, I now prefer to concentrate completely on my conversation, so focused that I can even detect if the person on the other end of the line is doing something else while talking to me. Now I concentrate 100 percent on my current activity and enjoy the journey instead of trying to arrive before I’ve left . . . The art of kintsugi is a good teacher for patience and concentration!
Kintsugi, like other Japanese arts, teaches you how to focus your vital energy (chi) on one thing at a time. In today’s world, with its many demands and temptations, you can easily disperse and dissolve your energy through stress, agitation, and vain distractions. Rediscover your center and your chi. What is your goal? Be rigorous and focus all of your effort toward achieving your objective instead of dispersing your energy by fluttering from one thing to the next.
Centered and concentrated in every one of your moves and intentions, visualize your goal; nothing else is more important.
Control your thoughts, your moves, your words, and your actions. Focus, aim, hold your breath . . . Shoot and let your arrow fly toward your target.
The Way
The art of kyudo is the art of traditional Japanese archery. The required posture and concentration train the practitioner to recognize the sensations of his body. He channels his breathing, learning to calm his mind and to control his emotions, aiming for victory, not over his adversary but over himself.
The kyudo (Way of the Bow) follows the same philosophy as all the other Ways. In Japanese do means “the Way,” such as in:
Shodo: Way of Calligraphy
Chado: Way of Tea
Kendo: Way of Sword
Judo: Way of Suppleness
Aikido: Way of Cooperating Energies
Kado: Way of Flowers
All of these arts have three elements in common: mindfulness, alertness, and concentration. All of them are necessary to reach self-realization. When you are completely present, the sword, the bowl, the paintbrush becomes an extension of your arm, of your being, just as you, yourself, are an extension of the universe . . . In becoming “one” with your action, being present here and now, you take the first step “on the Way.”
The Way is a long path toward finalizing your self-realization by expanding your mindfulness to realize your true nature and enlightenment: total emptiness and permanence of the mind, the moment you touch eternity . . . Isn’t the art of Kintsugi a Way too? Kintsugi-do . . .
What About You?
Are you focused in what you are doing, or do you scatter and disperse your time? What if you concentrated all of your vital energy toward one unique goal, the one that’s really important to you?
It’s Time to Act!
The Target
The kyudo metaphor is here to help you concentrate your mind on one particular target with all your energy. Draw a copy of the Target below on a piece of paper.
Take some time alone. Make sure not to be disturbed during the next few minutes, and settle yourself comfortably. Concentrate on your target. What is it? What is hidden deep in your heart? What do you want to concentrate all of your vital energy, all of your chi, on?
Write this goal on the center of this traditional kyudo target.
Center yourself.
Firmly entrench yourself.
Concentrate all of your energy on your vital center, the Japanese hara, located on your belly, between your pubis and your belly button, corresponding to the second chakra (the sacred orange chakra, the zone of instinct and creative emotions).
Mentally focus.
Awaken your vigilance.
Lift up your bow.
Aim at your target.
Sense how your body, your mind, your heart, your bow, your arrow, and your target become one, “the perfect union.”
In kyudo, only the “true,” “good,” and “beautiful” gesture (shin, zen, bi) releases the arrow in the center of the target . . . Shoot the arrow: This is the moment of truth.
Follow the release of the arrow . . .
Visualize the arrow perfectly hitting the center.
Contemplate and self-reflect . . .
Go Further . . .
Look at some videos, or even better, arrange for an initiation to the Japanese art of kyudo.
Start Here and Now!
Write your goal on the center of the kyudo target.
Add
Hasten slowly, and without losing heart, put your work twenty times upon the anvil.
—Nicolas Boileau
Polish the s
urface and apply a second fine layer of red lacquer (e-urushi, or neri bengara-urushi).
The art of kintsugi requires a great deal of patience. Layer upon layer, slowly but surely, the cure continues.
In all areas, in life too, several passes are often required to succeed.
Challenges to be tackled anew, recurrent patterns, learning based on repetition . . . Twenty times, sometimes one hundred, you need to resume the Work of your life as if it were the first time. To start again, time after time, can be long and slow, and sometimes outright discouraging. You may have the impression that you’re not going forward but remaining at the same spot, without understanding Why! Actually, this is not completely lost time . . . it’s called “mastering.” Mastering of a practice, mastering of the mind. It’s the acquisition of mastery of one move and one thought at one time.
And suddenly, one day it all becomes clear! Suddenly a new lesson has been learned. You have reached another level of learning, the connections are being made, it’s an epiphany, the famous “eureka!” moment.
I love this moment when everything becomes clear and falls into place. Before, I was simply not ready to understand . . . For example, I enjoy reading books or watching movies over and over again, to enjoy a new aspect in every pass. By watching and rereading them, each time I reach a different level of the message, noticing a new sentence or a new scene, which gives me an entirely new understanding.
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