Understanding "Your Energetic Barometer" allows you to re-examine how you tune into your energy on a daily basis and what you discover that your body really needs. How we feel in each moment, directly impacts how we react and respond in the world. This is why it's so valuable to understand how your energy moves every day - and what it needs to thrive.

When we become masters of supporting our own energy everything in our life shifts, because we have the energy to hold space for what we really desire. Understanding Your Energetic Barometer allows you to re-examine how you tune into your energy on a daily basis and what you discover that your body really needs, may be very different than what you've been told you should be doing.

How we feel directly impacts how we react and respond in the world. When we become masters of supporting our own energy everything in our life shifts, because we have the energy to draw to us what we truly want. AND YOU? Please leave a comment and let me know your questions and/or insights. How does your intuition support you? Have you trained in medical Qigong?  

 Transcript Your Energetic Barometer ep 94 | Maria Furlano, DMQ (China), MTOM, L.Ac.

(00:00):
Hello everyone. Welcome to The Art of Tuning In Podcast. I'm Maria Furlano. Great to have you here in episode number 94. I'm calling this episode Energetic Barometer. This is actually something I really love to talk about because it can really change your energy system once you understand this, once you understand your energetic barometer and what to do, your entire life can shift because of how you feel. So I hope to give you some good insights today and also some things that you can leave with and begin to look at right away in your life. And if you're new here, welcome. Thank you for finding this episode. It's great to have you here. My name is Maria Furlano and I'm a doctor of medical Qigong, a physician of Chinese medicine and acupuncture. I'm a spiritual medium and I've been teaching the energetic arts for over 25 years.

(00:55):
I just love it. I started martial arts when I was 12 years old. I started meditation, learning all about the energy of the body, and it's always felt like home to me and I love what I do, and I'm so glad you're here. And if you've been here before and you are returning, welcome, welcome back. Really appreciate every single one of you. I also just want to mention and remind you that we have a lot going on at The Art Of Tuning In.com private sessions, Tuning In Studio, Holding Space free meditation every single week and all kinds of things. So I would love for you to go over there, sign up for the energy insights where I share what's happening. I also share special discounts at times, love for you to be part of my community over there, TheArtOfTuningIn.com. Links will be below.

(01:49):
I would love to see you there and let's jump into energetic barometer. What does it mean? It is so valuable. Okay, here we go. So first of all, let me explain. Qigong is an energetic way of cultivating your system. Qi means energy. Gong means practice or skill. The skill, the practice of moving energy in your body, the way of healing your body energetically. Qigong has so many practices, but what we focus on is clearing the energy of the body because it's all rooted in Chinese medicine, clearing the energy of the body, restoring the energy of the body, and balancing what we've restored so that the energy flows in balance. In our culture, we tend to use our energy very well. We're very active, action, action, action we're always doing and doing and doing and accomplishing and accomplishing. But what people forget about, we have a certain amount of energy that we are born with.

(02:59):
And when that energy is gone, we transition from this lifetime and move on and every day we have a certain amount of energy that we have to use before we need to replenish it again. But what many people do is they go and they go and they go and in their mindset they think, replenish that later I will rest later, or I'll just take another dose of caffeine or another something and I'll feel better. I'll get energized and I'll finish this. And they never really connect that they are using energy the way that a car uses an energy and the way that the gas tank goes down and we need to fill it up. And that's what I mean by your energetic barometer. It's not only what you have to fill up like a gas tank. What an energetic barometer also means. How do you feel?

(03:55):
What's happening emotionally with you? What's happening mentally? How is your focus? Are you ready to do that task that's in front of you or are you so mentally exhausted that you're just going to make mistake after mistake and push yourself through? I mean, I've done that. I think we've all done that. We know we should rest. We know we're not up for it, but there's this deadline or there's something we need to do. So we push and we push and we make mistakes and it's all because we just didn't reset our energy and we think we don't have time to do that, but we actually really don't have time not to take care of ourself because what happens in the long run is that we tend to use so much energy and not replenish it, and then we fall down, we get sick, we're out for a few days, something happens a lot of times we injure ourselves.

(04:46):
There's weird things that can happen when we need to rest, somehow our body will make us rest. So if we listen to the energetic barometer that we have, we can avoid that. We can move much more smoothly through life. There was a client I worked with recently who is dealing with healing an injury and he was talking to me about how many times does he need to do the Qigong practices that we're working on right now specifically. So something else that you should know, if you don't know, medical qigong are prescriptive exercises and they are very specific to whatever it is someone needs. So let's say you have high blood pressure. You can use specific exercises to help regulate to help lower that blood pressure. Let's say you have an injury, there are specific exercises that you can do to help heal that injury and so on and so on.

(05:51):
When we're talking about working with healing our body, sometimes we need things that are specific. And so we were discussing about how often is needed, and it's good to understand that your body soaks in energy and absorbs energy at different rates, meaning you can't just do one big Qigong exercise or one big meditation or one big breathing practice and be, I'm all good, I don't need to do anything anymore because your body has learned to adapt to a certain frequency of energy that it carries. So let me see if I can make that a little more simple. When you are vibrant and alive and rested, your body is able to hold energy because it doesn't have to be repairing what's depleted. So when you are depleted, your body is only managing what it needs to replenish. When we're tired, the body can only take on a certain amount of energy and then it has to hold that energy.

(06:58):
And then as you use your energy, that energy gets used. So again, remember the energetic barometer when we're dealing with healing something or we've been very depleted, the best way to work with ourselves is to do short bursts of energy practices. That means for just a few minutes, depending on what is prescribed to you for just a few minutes, you do this practice, but you focus the quality of your focus and the quality of how you practice is determining how much energy you're actually going to release and absorb. When I talk about releasing, there are times when we talk about this energetic barometer. Let's say you are dealing with a lot of stress. Let's say you're dealing with a lot of tension at work. Let's say you're dealing with something big, you actually need to discharge or release that energy more than you need to restore at that time.

(07:55):
Doesn't mean you won't restore, it just means that at that time it's more important for your health. You release what you need and those are the times when we do more actively moving Qigong. Or you go for a really nice active fluid walk where you break a little bit of a sweat, maybe you're a runner and you run or you do something a little more physical because you need to discharge energy because your body is holding a lot of tension and is holding a lot of energy, and that energy needs a place to go. And when it goes, your body relaxes and you have more balance. That's a form of energetic healing. In our culture. In the United States, we've been taught to exercise, exercise, exercise, and to get stronger and stronger and stronger by exercise. And exercise is great. Okay, don't misunderstand me. Exercise is really, really important.

(08:49):
But in eastern energetics, the kind of exercise that you do determines what you're needing to revitalize in your body. Again, the energetic barometer. If you have a lot of tension to release, then you need to do more vigorous exercises. If however, you are depleted and you go out and you say, I'm going to go to the gym and I'm going to really work it out because I'm tired, but I know that if I do more exercise, I'm going to energize my body and I'll feel better tomorrow. That is not actually nourishing the body. If your body is depleted, it needs a different kind of event exercise, which is where the energetic practices come in. It really needs to be restored. Being depleted is different than being stagnant. So stagnant, let's say that you have a job where you sit a lot and it could be high performance job where you have a lot of focus and you have a lot of stress and you're tired.

(09:51):
Maybe you're mentally tired, there's a lot of focus, but you sit a lot, which means that your body is not moving during the day, which creates a lot of stagnation in your body, which can make you feel very depleted. That is where you would want to be moving more during your day, but also especially at the end of your day to get your body moving and you will be more energized. So I just want to make those distinctions so it's very clear. You can be very stressed and very tense and you need to release that energy. Then you would restore your energy. You can be very stagnant, meaning you could still be working a lot, but you're not moving a lot. So your body is very physically stagnant. It's not flowing, the lymphatic isn't flowing, it's just not enough movement, and you need to move more, and then you feel more energized because now your system is moving more When you're depleted, when you really tired, when you've used your body and used your mind to a place where you just don't have that energy, a lot of times what happens is you don't sleep well.

(10:59):
Your body is so out of balance and so depleted that you're not even resting at night. That is where I've had many clients who will go and say, okay, I've got to get it together. I'm not strong enough. I've got to go work out. I've got to do this, I have to do that. And they just push and push and push because they think that they're helping themselves. They think that they're so tired because they're lazy or they're just not strong enough. When in fact, in energetic practices, this is where you really move into tonifying and restoring your system, meaning that you would do very different movements and those would not be going and running for miles at the gym or lifting weights. You would be restoring the body so that it has the energy to really support you. And when you do that, you notice huge changes in your system.

(11:55):
So this is where that energetic barometer, learning to understand how you're feeling day to day and situation to situation has you become an energetic master over your own energy, over how you feel, and it allows you to be so productive, so much more productive in your life because you know how to manage yourselves. You know how to manage your energy. So how do you today put this into practice for yourself? I want to give you a couple suggestions for you to play with and explore. When we talk about the energetic barometer, we need to remember, we're never criticizing ourselves. We're not saying, "oh, I don't have enough energy, or, oh, I'm so stagnant." We're just looking at our energy. We're looking at what's happening. It's kind of like we're noticing which way is the wind blowing right now? The wind's blowing this way. Okay, I'm going to go this way.

(12:46):
It's just very simple. Make this very simple. Something that I will ask my private clients to do, pay attention during the day, but at the end of the day, the first thing I'll have them do is to just find a quiet place for themselves, have something very delicious to drink and just kind of nourish their body and to just sit and think about from the moment they woke up until now, what have they been doing with their day? And not hash it out every single moment. This should only take about 10 minutes. You're just kind of looking, when I woke up moving through my day until now, what did I do today? And how do I feel? And you start to see how much energy you gave that day because most people are kind of brushing off how much they're doing. They don't realize how much mental focus their day had.

(13:42):
If they work with people, a lot of healers, therapists, people who work with people, they don't realize how much energy they've taken on that day from holding space for other people. They're so used to doing this that they don't really pay attention to it anymore. And by the end of the day, they're so much energy that they have held that they kind of forget about it and they're not understanding why they're so depleted. But when you start to look at, boy was today a really kind of an easy day emotionally and physically and mentally, or What did I do today? Boy, that took a lot of focus. That was really tiring. Wow, I could still feel that. And you start to tune into that and you check in with yourself and you say, oh, okay, I understand what happened today. And you just make it very easy.

(14:38):
You're being a conscious observer. This is something that I teach where when we observe something in our life, we're not trying to pull apart every detail. We're just kind of stepping back and we're just consciously observing it, meaning that we're paying attention, we're paying attention with love, with peace, and we're just noticing what's going on instead of pushing past and ignoring it. And then the key is to say to your body, what do you need? What do I need right now? Do I need to go for a walk? Do I need to move? Do I need to do some yoga? Do I need to get on that treadmill? Do I need to get on that bike? Do I need to jump around or do I need some peace right now? Do I need really nice, beautiful, warm shower and maybe some simple stretching? And do I need to do breathing practice to nourish my energy?

(15:30):
And you pay attention to what you need. So if you're someone who regularly has a schedule that you go to the gym every single day, that's fantastic that when you're done with your workout, really begin to notice how you feel and the next morning begin to notice how you feel. And if you feel depleted, if you feel sore, if you start to feel like you're injuring yourself a little bit more, start to pay attention that are you overusing your body? Does your body actually need more restorative practices for a period of time rather than exerting so much energy in a strong workout? Okay, that's that energetic barometer that we're learning to pay attention to. And it can be scary because we've done something maybe a similar way for so long, we get afraid to move away from that kind of pattern. But when we learn to tune into ourselves, we really listen and hear what we need, which means again, the next day we do better.

(16:39):
The second day we're even better, and the third day we're better. And the reason why I say that is because when we learn how we feel, we also learn. It shows up oftentimes three days later, feel something in our body, exhaustion, fatigue, swelling. Maybe we ate something that didn't really agree with our body, maybe it had too much salt, whatever it is. But that often shows up two and three days after what we've done. And so when we learn the energetic barometer, we also understand that if I take care of myself in this moment, I'm affecting the next day and the next day and the next day when I don't take care of myself in this moment. I think because I've been taught through culture, if I just push through it and keep going and keep going, keep going, it'll be fine. Somehow it'll work itself out.

(17:30):
But when you really step back and you realize, wait a minute, I only have a certain amount of energy, and how is that energy going to be replenished if I use all this energy? What is happening? Because sleeping is wonderful, sleeping is highly restorative, but it's often not enough. We're to sense how we feel, and if that's new for you, if you're someone who is used to getting a lot done, maybe you're in a very stressful job. Maybe you have a family that you're really taking care of, maybe you don't feel like I have any time to pay attention to myself. Well, especially when we need to learn the energetic barometer, understand that the energetic barometer is about you just getting in touch with what you're doing. It doesn't mean you have to shift everything in this moment, but it means you start paying attention on a different level to the energy that you're putting out and the energy that you're taking in.

(18:31):
How are you feeling? What are you doing for yourself and do you really have to take that next step right now? Or can you take a moment? Can you manage your energy? It makes such a huge difference. We don't push through anymore and we don't keep going and thinking it's all going to be okay, and then we end up sick or we end up hurting ourselves, or we just end up emotionally up and down and up and down. That's the other thing with the energetic barometer. You want to look at your emotions. It's an emotional barometer. It's a mental barometer. It's a physical barometer. It's an energy barometer. Energy is all about emotional, physical, mental, spiritual. The other thing about the energetic barometer that's so important is when you learn energetic practices such as Qigong and you learn to fill your energy system, you know how much energy you need to refill because you can feel it in your energetic barometer.

(19:32):
You know where you are. Are you going to go halfway? A hundred percent? Do you only need 10%? You learn to know exactly what it is you need. When you do that, you become a master over your energy. You become a master over how you feel, how you react, how you respond in your life. Because we are reacting and responding, and I've talked about reacting and responding so much, but it is so important. How we react and respond in our life is directly tied to how we feel. How we feel is directly tied to how much energy we have. If we're depleted, we're not going to be able to react and respond in the ways that we really want to. We're going to be reacting, responding from whatever we can hold onto in the moment. Our emotions are generally up and down when we're depleted.

(20:24):
So again, we're reacting and responding from an imbalance of an emotional state. But when we're feeling really good, when we feel nourished, when we know we've taken care of ourself, when we know how to support our energy, we can take great pauses before we react and respond to something. Because we're in, we don't feel like we need to rush through like it's an emergency. We're able to hold our space completely differently. We listen differently. We're able to stand or sit or just be and allow information to be given to us. We don't feel like we're being pummeled by information because we're so tired. We can barely hold our own self up and we're dealing with all this other stuff. So do you see what I mean? It's a whole different way of looking and being in your life. It's so different when you are energetically supported.

(21:25):
I think we all know that when we know how to tune into our energy and this beautiful energetic barometer that we would be moving through our life in a different way because we would be really supported. A lot of people in life don't feel supported because they are so depleted, because they are giving so much. When we know how to replenish ourselves, when we know how to stop ourselves and say, wait a minute, maybe I need to take a moment. I'm going to do this now so that I feel better later. When we start to do that for ourself, our whole life changes and things start to fall into place in beautiful, beautiful ways because we're not chasing them, but instead, we're able to securely hold ourselves and allow things to come to us because we're holding space for ourselves. We're supporting ourselves and allowing what we need to come to us.

(22:18):
It's a very different way of moving through life, and that's the beautiful thing. I mean, it is so beautiful when you learn how to manage your energy and you start to tune in and you start to do these beautiful things for yourself. It's amazing what begins to show for you in your life, in your relationships, in your abundance, in your health, in just everything in your life, because you are totally tuned in to how you feel and totally tuned in to how you are going to support yourself so that then you can give what you want to the world, a really different way of thinking, but it is so incredibly valuable for health, for emotions, for relationships, for every single thing in your life. It can be a really different way of thinking, especially if you are someone who has been giving and giving and giving, and you have been taught that action is everything and that doing more is really important, and that if you don't do enough that you're lazy or you're not going to achieve. Those are all ways of thinking that deplete your energy. And when you learn to step back and really take care of yourself, it's amazing what falls into place for you, but you have to give it a little bit of time. You have to give yourself a little bit of patience to adjust to paying attention to yourself. And if you start to pay

(23:44):
Attention yourself and you start to restore your energy and you start to really notice how your energy moves and shifts every day and what you need to replenish it, you're going to feel amazing. Things are going to come into your life that you never expected because you're going to be on a completely different level of energy. You're going to be able to build more and more energy and hold that space of what you have built for yourself.

(24:12):
And I'd love to hear in the comments on YouTube, how do you feel about your energetic barometer? Does this make sense to you? Do you think this is something you could tune into? How do you nourish yourself now? Do you feel depleted? Do you feel energized? I'd love for you to share your insights. Thank you so much for being here. Have a beautiful, beautiful week, and I will see you in the next episode.