The Mind-Body Connection Pt. 5: Mind-Body Integration + My Birthday! + HLC3

Happy Monday!

I hope you are all having a great time living your dreams.

Today, my blog begins with some highlights of my birthday yesterday. Then we’ll get into Pt. 5 of my current series on the mind-body connection.

It has been wonderful being in England and the many opportunities to connect with my friends, Faculty and students.

A Visit with my Buddy Mathew Wallden

The day before we left Surrey, where the CHEK Conference was held, CHEK Institute Faculty and long time buddy, Matthew Wallden drove to see us from London.

Matthew and I have a long tradition of doing art together and talking about the intricacies of all things related to spirit, life, holistic health, rehabilitation, athletics, you name it. Matthew is one of the deepest thinkers I’ve ever met and we’ve always loved hearing each others views on various topics.

Angie, Matthew and I created this piece of art together after having a lovely dinner with Penny. We enjoyed expressing our inner-selves with each other as we created poetry to go with our art. It was a lovely time. One of those experiences you never forget.

Thanks for all your love Matthew!

Happy Birthday to Paul!!

Well, I’m a year older as of yesterday. I reached my 53rd year on planet earth this time round yesterday while teaching HLC 3 here in England.

I can only say I’m grateful to have learned as much about life as I have in 53 years, and that I feel the best I think I’ve ever felt in my life.

I am capable of loving myself, and am blessed with a lot of love in my life. The trend in my life is that as I get wiser, my life gets easier and more enjoyable, which is lovely and makes me more excited than ever for the future.

Thank you to all of you who gave me birthday gifts! There are too many to list here, but please know that I’m grateful to all of you!

Yesterday, I walked in to begin teaching HLC 3, day 4, and everyone was doing their usual. I rounded the students up to start class, and Hanna Richards says to me, “Paul, can I sing you a new version of Dr. Happy?” I thought to myself, “I hope this doesn’t take too long, I’ve got a lot to cover today.”

Then, in a flash, all my students began singing “Happy Birthday to you…”. They sang like pros too! Shortly after they started, they all began a beautifully coordinated dance.

I was flooded with emotion, to say the least. Tears came to my eyes and I felt very loved and blessed by my students.

My students then gave me this amazing collage of their individual artistic expressions as a collective art piece. It was fantastic to look at. There were many images that related to our teachings over the past few days.

I received a beautiful Birthday Cake from CHEK Blogger and 2014 CHEK Business Professional Karen Maidment who is attending the course.

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR LOVE my dear HLC 3 UK students!

I received many beautiful gifts from my friends and students. I am very grateful to you all for the lovely gifts.

When I came home for lunch, Matthew Wallden had emailed me this lovely mandala. There is a poem with it too. I love the feelings I get looking at it and feel as though Matthew is looking into my soul.

Penny and Angie took some time to visit Oxford. They went to the 
Ashmolean museum in Oxford, which is quite famous here. Angie enjoyed touring the museum and Oxford with Penny because Penny is a walking textbook on all aspects of history, not to mention developmental man.

They found some lovely deserts free of gluten, dairy, and nuts that I could eat on my birthday too! It was great to see them having so much fun together.

HLC3 is progressing nicely. Here you can see me teaching my students about the importance of beast feeding. I’m showing them the difference in the mechanics of the jaw, head, neck and spine during breast-feeding from a mothers nipple and typical bottle feeding.

In the photo above, you can see them practicing so they can feel the differences within their bodies. They could really feel the difference and understood the long-range negative effects bottle-feeding can have and how that relates to common problems we see in people today.

The Mind-Body Connection Pt. 5: Mind-Body Integration

It is my hope you are living fully and enjoying your life and our current mind-body connection series.

Today, we get into the basics of mind-body integration in my vlog. To explain mind-body integration, I refer to Daniel Siegel M.D.’s definition of mind:

“MIND: An embodied process that regulates the flow of energy and information.”

I use the Hindu chakra system of psycho-physical integration to explain how the mind and body are really one system, like two sides of the same coin.

To help people better understand the differences in the chakras (energy centers referred to as zones in my book, How To Eat, Move and Be Healthy p. 100-101), I break the chakras into two functional groups that are integrated by the 4th (Heart) chakra.

The lower 3 Chakras: These are what I refer to as the “animal” chakras because they largely deal with issues of body and base survival instincts. I classify this bundle of three chakras as yin for reasons I explain in the vlog.

Heart Chakra: Integrates the upper and lower three chakras when functioning in a balanced manner.

Upper 3 Chakras: I refer to these as the “Angelic” chakras and classify them as yang because they are related largely to subtle energies, such as thought.

I provide a basic explanation of how we progress in our psycho-physical development in seven year blocks and give the key themes at each stage of our development through the chakra system.

Chakras have been proven by hard science to exist now, so those of you who poo poo’d the notion of the chakra system may now need to give a blessing of forgiveness to all those who you’ve acted negatively toward in conversations on this topic.

To fully understand the chakra system requires training far beyond what I can provide in blogs, but I do offer a significant amount of education on both the scientific backing for this system in my Holistic Lifestyle Coaching program.

Suggested Resources:
1. PPS Lesson 10: The Great Polarities – online
2. How To Eat, Move and Be Healthy – book
3. The 1-2-3-4 For Overcoming Addiction, Obesity and Disease – audio MP3 + Workbook program
4. CHEK Holistic Lifestyle Coaching 1-3 Advanced Training Program

I hope you enjoy my vlog today!

Love and chi,
Paul Chek