By Alison J. Kay
“Wow Ms. Kay, that’s totally cool! I wanna do that too!”
“Ok Jeremy, hold on, let me make sure everyone saw it first, and then everyone can watch again. Ok,” I redirected my focus back to the group of middle school boys and girls standing outside next to the row of bushes and trees in the corner of the schoolyard, where I had taken them.
“So who didn’t see that, or wants to see it again?”
“Me!”
“Me too!”
“I wasn’t able to see it when you walked by the bushes, but I saw the tree move! Will you do that thing with the tree again?”
A few of the boys pushed up from behind the front row of students so they could see better.
“Yeah, I wanna see the tree one again. That was cool!”
“But didn’t you see the bushes too? That was even better. It was like she was a fan. The leaves were perfectly still until she got close to them, then they kinda softly waved as she walked by, and then they stopped after she’d walked by. It was like magic! You gotta see it! Seriously,” Carlos announced to the group.
The group was an after school club that my friend and fellow Language Arts teacher, Mr. R, had agreed to facilitate with me. In our “Stress Reduction Club” I taught them yoga, meditation, Chi Gong, and some basics about how to work with the subtle energies, while Mr. R assisted. I have formal training as an energy medicine practitioner, blending five different modalities, as a: meditation teacher, yoga instructor, Chi Gong teacher, personal trainer, and Holistic Life Coach, PhD. Our “Stress Reduction Club” took place before I moved to Asia for a decade to study subtle energies. At that time, the combination of energy medicine, yoga, meditation, and holistic life coaching was my part-time business outside of teaching. So, Mr. R. wanted to deepen his understanding of these practices by assisting in the club.
We did a bit of each of these practices with the students, most of whom were boys, surprisingly. I remember that some of this was due to Mr. R’s and my reputation as the “cool” teachers, and his efforts to recruit some of our more active boys, the ones who had difficulty settling down to read and write.
So, I led the kids through meditation each time the club met (twice a week), and they were able to settle down rather easily. This was no surprise to me: After 21 years of teaching meditation to more kids than adults, I have found that kids—especially teens—really take to meditation. They seem to like to “go in” and have time with their minds. I wonder, too, if they intuitively sense the health benefits cultivated by the practice, before I even point out what is known by Buddhism and considered by the Dalai Lama and leading teachers and practitioners like myself, and now many Western scientists, as a “Science of the Mind.” They seem to get it.
And the more intellectual and older high school students actually react the same way, although they seem to be able to wrap their brains around the science of it with some sense of… you know what?… As I write this, now having taught Western adults meditation for six years and kids for 15 years, I know that kids—no matter what age or level of intellect—really don’t require scientific explanations or validation to accept meditation. They just take right to it naturally once they go through the standard learning curve, which applies to kids and adults alike.
Back to that day 15 years ago in the schoolyard. I was showing “The Stress Reduction” club members the Chi in all animate life, after we’d just meditated and done a bit of Chi Gong and yoga. I wanted them to see more tangibly the Chi, Prana, or Universal Life Force Energy that they were learning to access more of, once they’d experienced clearing out the mental chatter, and getting a sense of flowing energy within them through the yoga and Chi Gong. I also taught them a bit about how their limiting beliefs closed down and restricted the flow of certain energy centers in the human body, which are called chakras (which means “wheels” in Sanskrit). By tying these practices together in this unique way, I was now showing them how they could go beyond their own mind/self/”fields” and access the greater field of universal Chi.
When I was first asked in media interviews about this ability to sense the interconnectedness and interact with the subtle energies, I explained that, yes, it had been cultivated by me, and that I later lived in Asia for 10 years, moving there with the precise intention of learning how to work with subtle energies better so that I could improve my energy medicine practice with clients and the quality of my life overall. Yet, in reflection during one of these earlier media interviews, it helped me to see that this is naturally who I am. It seems like I’ve always done this since a little girl, going out daily and playing in the woods with my older brother, and then picking up meditation practice at 22.
The science of consciousness, and specifically morphic fields, as they’re now referred to in science, I explore in my book What if There’s Nothing Wrong?, written in my last of 10 years in Asia. Yet underlying and beyond the scientific explanation is the experiential understanding that this first group of teens experienced. I turned them onto this idea of us existing in a world that is alive, and all is interconnected, and they weren’t the same after. When reading this it’s just words; when experiencing it, you can’t remain the same because of this knowing that results from experiencing these sensations. If the mind requires explanation, it’s now there; but the belief and trust and life choices come from the experience.
This awareness seems to bring so much relief to both kids and adults. If we can, in fact, Observe ourselves thinking when in meditation, and then redirect our focus back to our breath, then we can ask, “Who is doing this Observing and disciplining of the mind?” And once we recognize that we are not just this self-contained, self-absorbed thought factory, we can then move beyond the everyday mind and connect with the brilliant, beautiful, supportive energies that are all around us, at all times.
In my view, it is just a choice to stay shut down, only half alive, and barely awake. There is so much more aliveness, awakeness and energy abounding that if we spend one minute in depression—a.k.a. to me as “Self-suppression”—then it’s one minute too many! Ooh, there it is, a thought about tomorrow; it’s just simply “thinking,” as the mind does. Come off of the thought and back to the breath, to the here and now. And in this redirection you will cultivate presence and be present. All the better to be able to create your best lives ever!
When we’re connected to Source energy and when we work with consciousness instead of staying closed down to it and stuck in our minds—, “figuring stuff out” and “making stuff happen” everything is not so difficult. Why choose that, when you can have ease and celebration? Duh.
Alison J. Kay, PhD is a Holistic Life Coach, an India trained YA Yoga & Meditation teacher, an ACE Certified Personal Trainer, and an energy medicine healer/shifter of 18 years nicknamed “the lightning bolt” due to the power of her energy. The unique blend of credentials, use of multiple modalities, and the experience she acquired during the 10 years she spent in Asia studying subtle energy practices, make her incredibly powerful. She is a former Talk Radio host of, “Create Your Best Life Ever! What Else is Possible?” which was in the top ten on the mind-body-spirit 7th Wave Channel of voiceamerica.com. Dr. Kay is the author of What If There’s Nothing Wrong? Visit www.AlisonJKay.com
This article is a chapter from the book Transform Your Life! written by 60 real-life heroes and experts and available at Amazon.com, BN.com, www.Transformation-Publishing.com and all ebook formats.