The Chi Revolution
By Jost Sauer

I recently caught up with my brother-in-law who is working on an international documentary tracking the UN negotiations leading up to the recent climate change conference in Copenhagen. This is where the governments of the world needed to reach an agreement to set emissions targets to keep global warming under two degrees Celsius to avoid catastrophe. Consensus was that developed countries need to cut emissions and developing countries need to save their rainforests but the only way this will happen is by the introduction of laws to limit the amount of carbon that can be released into the atmosphere and penalties for those who don’t reach their targets. It is now evident that there is simply not the political will for this, as economic expansion is the ultimate goal of government and business. So, to create change fast enough we are going to need a revolution. But I think this needs to be a lifestyle revolution, not in terms of changing our light bulbs, recycling and driving hybrids (as this won’t make enough of a difference in time), but a chi or energy revolution in the way we live each day.

In Traditional Chinese medicine we are an integral part of the cosmos. The micro and macro are interlinked and the way we live our lives impacts on the health of the planet. Global warming has arisen because even though we are surrounded by solar, wind and hydro, all clean renewable, limitless and free sources of energy, we have been using up the planet’s reserves of energy instead, in the form of oil. In our own lives we are doing exactly the same thing. We have a limitless supply of energy available from the universe, which we can access by living in harmony with the 24 hour chi cycle, but we are making up our own rules (working late into the night, skipping breakfast, exercising after work, sleeping-in etc) and this means we too are drawing on our own reserves of energy or chi and creating imbalances ranging from depression to anxiety, panic and heart disease.

Like the earth, we are ‘burning out’. This is not the way things are supposed to be. In Traditional Chinese medicine we come with a set of instructions on how to live in harmony with the planet. Our chi, or inner energy, moves through our body in a regular twenty-four hour cycle. It spends two hours in each of our twelve organs. Each organ has a physical, emotional and spiritual role, so we are all designed to spend every 24 hours eating, working, exercising, meditating, having sex, or being creative at certain times. If we do this we will stop burning out, our consciousness will change and the future of the planet will change. In addition we will live with the momentum of the universe behind us and every aspect of life will be more joyful.

Jost’s latest book is ‘The Perfect Day Plan’ Visit:www.jostsauer.com