We are designed by nature to function effectively. Your body engages in literally thousands of functions from moment to moment to keep itself in balance. If your blood pressure becomes elevated, sensors in your blood vessels send signals to make adjustments that bring your blood pressure back down. If you are injured, resources are mobilized to heal the injury. With each demand placed on your body, processes are put into play to handle the demand. Fueling all these processes is your life energy or life force. The concept of life force goes back many centuries. It forms the philosophical basis of many ancient traditions, including the Chinese notion of qi and the body’s meridian system, as well as the yogi science of prana. Think of it as the flow of energy through and around the body.
For peak performance and resilience, you must master the concept of the life force. We don’t have an unlimited amount. It is important to understand the principles that determine the efficient use of this force, as well as how it can be replenished. Without such awareness and by continuing many of your habitual patterns, you interfere with the flow of this life force. This will likely result in fatigue, illness and less overall effectiveness in your life.
For most of us, this life force is used exclusively for survival. This was the default condition
of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, and it did help them to survive . . . usually to the age of 20 or
25. For resilient success—and, incidentally, for a long, healthy life—it is important to master the
factors that contribute to the optimal utilization of this force and its regeneration. This requires a
shift from an overwhelming focus on survival to a balance between survival and creativity/adaptability.
We might also say it involves a shift from the “survival of the fittest” orientation to that
of the Golden Rule and connectivity. The Golden Rule, which you may have learned in nursery
school, is to treat others as you would like them to treat you.
We actually start off in life set up for optimal adaptation and adjustment to our environment.
The process is referred to as “homeostasis,” the ability of the organism to achieve stability
and always return to a place of balance. This process is designed to maintain the life force and
continually return to a place of balance and renewal.
Ironically, it’s adaptation to your childhood environment that is the major cause of your
problems. Whatever its specific contingencies for reward and punishment, they get generalized to
the world, locking you into a pattern with reduced ability to adapt.
Dr. Stephen Sideroff is an internationally recognized expert in resilience, optimal performance, addiction, neurofeedback and alternative approaches to stress and mental health. He is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA’s School of Medicine, as well as the Director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Ethics. www.drstephensideroff.com
