Ep. 50: AI vs. Soul: what are we empowering & what is the cost to our health?

As AI becomes more and more prevalent, I’ve heard questions asked about its cost in terms of resources and energy (to power the machines). But what about the cost to our own life force energy, our Qi? We say that “where our attention goes, energy flows”, so where are we placing our power when we outsource our thinking, creation and communication to a non-living entity? And how does that impact our own vitality, which rests upon the cultivation of energy – Qi – within our body, mind and soul? As we will discuss, health is so much more than just the absence of disease. Rather, it manifests when we are living as the most glorious expression of ourselves, deeply embodied in body, mind and soul. In this episode, I share my thoughts as a doctor of Chinese and Taoist Medicine – and offer powerful ways to empower our connection within. (05:08) Heart, Soul, the organs of creation & our unique voice: Fire element (11:23) The Three Treasures and how they relate to our expression & integrity (16:51) Heaven, Human, Earth: we are conduits for cosmic & earthly Qi (19:43) What is health? (22:44) Outsourcing to AI, and loss of joy and inspiration (24:02) AI makes mistakes and provides incorrect information (28:26) The unexpected gift of generative AI (31:51) Content vs. connection (34:11) Rituals and habits to reclaim soul connection and inner empowerment Subscribe to the YouTube channel to be notified when I share my embodiment mediation https://www.youtube.com/@drmaz_qi You can access the whole collection of Qi rituals in the Radiant Energy Reset Transcript Welcome Hi everyone, welcome to the Balanced Natural Health podcast where we share insights from the ancient science and timeless wisdom of Chinese medicine. Information from the old natural ways of healing can support us in leading more beautiful, more vibrant and more vital lives today. In this podcast I share simple, natural and accessible tips that you can incorporate into your everyday life for more vibrant health and wellness. I’m so glad you’re here. Episode Intro Hi everyone, I’m Dr. Maz and welcome back to episode 50 of the podcast. In today’s episode, I will share some further musings on what we touched on briefly in the previous episode (episode 49). We talked about the Year of the Fire Horse, and all of the energies that are coming through – which some people are saying will go towards the growth of AI and the proliferation of AI… but there is another way that can go as well.  So the question that I’ve been pondering – and having lots of really rich and beautiful conversations about – over the last few months, and even longer actually, is about:  What does it mean to be human? What is the place of AI? What are we creating with our engagement with AI, ChatGPT, Claude and all of the generative AI models? What kind of world and reality are we contributing to? What is the true cost of AI? We hear about all of the environmental, or energy, costs from a fuel perspective of running the machines that generate all of this content that is flooding the world around us – but what about the cost to our own life force energy, to our Qi, and the cost to our health? Is there actually a cost to our health? Does it interfere with living our truest-most expression of body, mind and soul? What does Chinese Medicine, and Taoist Medicine, have to say on the topic? This is something that I’ve had a lot of thoughts about as I’ve watched the flood of AI in our mainstream society, and watched as things become more and more airbrushed, more and more unreal and more and more un-alive. The reality is that everything that we touch and create through our living beings is imbued with some of our life force energy – that living Qi that is in us, and in all living things and in the natural world around usa. And this is what is missing in the echo chamber of generated stuff, because it’s generated by non-living entities.  In this episode, I’ll share with you some perspectives from Chinese Medicine, and from Taoist medicine, about what it means to be human, what true health is, what our definition of health is and what our unique role as humans is here on this realm.  We will ponder the question of what are we empowering: where are we placing our power?  We know that where attention and intention goes is where energy flows – where Qi flows. This is how we practice Qi Gong and many forms of energy healing: it’s about the impeccable nature of our focus and our attention, and so when we continue to keep placing that energy, that Qi, that living life force outside of us, are we taking power away from within ourselves? Are we disempowering ourselves and what are we empowering outside of ourselves? Are we outsourcing our life force energy and what is the cost?  I’ll also share some rituals, habits and invitations of different things that we can practice in order to come more into deepre connection with that wellspring of life that is within us all: the life force energy that flows through us as living beings and that can guide us. The reality is that even though we’ve been maybe encouraged or invited to look at AI as some great bastion of intelligence and all-knowingness, that is simply not the case. It’s just a collector of information – and not all of that information is even true or even accurate.  I’m going to share some interesting conversations that I’ve had with the AI overview in Google, where it was telling me blatantly incorrect information and then justifying why it was doing so. This was about things like times and dates of full moons, that were wildly inaccurate. And yet, we’re giving our power away to it, and taking its advice on how to make choices, or how to act in living our lives.  I’ll share some different things that we might weave through our daily life in order to bring us more into connection with that current within – to bring us more into empowerment and embodiment, so that we can make choices from there.  The Chinese Medicine perspective on health, and fulfilling our unique destiny in this life To begin, I’d like to share some concepts from Chinese Medicine thought, about what does it mean to be healthy? What does it mean to live a rich, fulfilled and complete life, and to embody our existence here on this earth completely. And there are several concepts I’d like to talk about here, and one is about the Fire element and its connection to creation, to our Heart and to our Soul – or our Shen, as we call it in Chinese Medicine. Shen roughly equates to our soul or spirit, our consciousness, our present awareness. The Fire element s also connected to our sexual organs, and our tongue as well – organs of creation, and what we create or speak into the world.  I will also share about the Three Treasures of Chinese Medicine: the Jing, Qi and Shen – or the Essence, the Qi (our life force energy) and the Shen (again, this is the spirit). And, I will share about the unique position that we see humans as holding between Heaven and Earth, and our role of being an integrated and capacitated conduit between Heaven and Earth energy – our role in grounding the cosmic and etheric energy here on Earth. In light of this, we will also talk about the importance of having internal coherence and integrity, in order to support that process.  The Fire Element: creation, connection, expression, our unique voice and the spark of life Okay, so we begin with the Fire element. You may have heard me talk before about the Five Elements of Chinese Medicine: each are connected to an organ, and an organ system, and also to an aspect of our consciousness. And in the case of the Fire element, it rules the Heart, it rules the life force within, and it’s also connected to our Shen, which is loosely translated as our soul or spirit, our present awareness. It’s the spark of life that we respond to in someone’s eyes.  We all carry that divine spark of life force energy within. And interestingly, in Chinese Medicine, the Heart is connected to the Womb and the testes (or, the “Room of Sperm”) and to the tongue, and it’s linked with the bitter flavour. And what is really curious -and  I’ve talked about this on a beautiful podcast that I was invited to speak on recently – is that the bitter taste receptors are found not only on the tongue… but also in the heart and in the womb as well! Somehow the ancients understood this connection between those vital organs, which are considered to be organs of creation. So we’re birthing the divine in material form – through the form of a new human, a new soul here upon this Earth – and we’re birthing it through our words and our unique voice and our creations. And I think it’s interesting that in this Double Fire year that I’ve talked about (according to the 60 year Stems and Branches calendar of Chinese thought, we’re now in a Double Fre Year of the Fire Horse),  many people are talking about this being a year that is really going to see the rise of AI.  But I think that there’s also another invitation – and an opportunity – for us to bring more of this embodied divine creation through our beings, bringing this Fire energy through our beings, and creating with our words and our unique voice. And this is a big part of my concern, and why my spidey senses have always felt really ick about engaging in creating content or even modifying content with AI or ChatGPT, Claude, whatever – because in doing so, there is a certain frequency or tone of our unique voice that is modified, that is also censored, possibly – and it can happen so slowly that we don’t even notice it’s happening.  The modification can be subtle, but it changes our unique voice, it changes our expression – and our connection to other living beings. Becuase this is how we connect – with our voice and our expression, with our deepest thoughts, our unique turns of phrase, and everything else that pours through us.  Where are we investing our attention, intention, energy, focus and power? So there is an interesting thing to consider in relation to this thought: what are we empowering? Where are we placing our life force energy? Are we giving our power away to something that’s inert and dead? It’s not imbued with life force energy, it’s not connected to the Heavens and the Earth, the cosmos and Gaia – the living being beneath our feet – and the web of life that’s all around us, and that we depend on for life.  We’re putting our attention, our power, our questioning. into something that’s external and not alive, and we are allowing our living life, our living beings, to be guided by that. Can we maybe turn back towards looking within, towards looking to the world around us for answers as well, towards aligning with the cycles of Mama Nature, the laws of Mama Nature. It is such a potent choice point now that we all face.  And iit’s an individual choice. Everyone’s going to have different spots on the spectrum where they sit. But I think it’s an important thing to bring to awareness and to consider, so that we can make choices consciously. Because, and I’ll come back to this again later, like any tool, AI is a tool that can be used to our benefit – but it’s when we give our power away that that balance shifts.  Are we using AI – or is it using us? I see many instances around me where I see that it is using us, it’s harvesting knowledge about our thinking patterns, about what it is that makes us human, about how humans react. And there’s that famous saying about “if you are not paying for the product, you are the product itself”. So I wonder, what are we participating in? Why are we giving so much of our power, focus, attention and time to something that is not of this living world. That’s my thoughts on the Fire element and how it relates to creation, and the world that we are creating with our expression and our connection to other living beings.  The Three Treasures and how they govern health, longevity, radiant aging and resilience The other idea that I’d like to touch on is that of the Three Treasures in Chinese Medicine. In Chinese Medicine, everything that we do is about cultivating these Three Treasures, which are so called because they are the foundation of a vibrant, well-lived, long and abundant life.  The state of our Three Treasures – and how well we cultivate and look after them – will dictate how quickly we bounce back from injury, how resilient we are, how joyfully and completely we experience this lifetime, and also how we move through each stage and season of life. They are at the root of our health. They are the Jing, or Essence; the Qi, our life force energy; and the Shen, or the soul, spirit, consciousness, present-awareness that I talked about earlier.  You may have heard me talk quite a lot about our Qi, our life force energy, if you’ve listened to me before, but we also tend to our Jing – our Essence, and our Shen – our Soul-Spirit.  Our Jing – Essence – can also be called our Pre-Heaven Endowment, or our genetic endowment. This is what we come into this worldly embodiment with. And it is our, in a way, our earthly connection. So it’s a connection to the Earth part of that Heaven-Human-Earth trilogy, or trinity.  And then we have the Shen, or Spirit. This is our connection to the divine, to the great-all-that-is, to the zero-point field of all possibility, to maybe the Akashic Records or the Kordylewski clouds (the big plasma clouds in the sky), maybe to the consciousness of water all around us, and to the abundant wisdom and all knowingness of Mama Nature as well. So that is the Shen aspect, and it can be said to have some relationship to the Heavens, or cosmos, within that trinity of Heaven-Man-Earth.  How nourishing our Qi each and every day supports our Essence and our Soul Everything that we do, through practices like nourishing our daily Qi, stops us from dipping into our genetic endowment, our Essence. And the more that we nourish our daily Qi, the less we dip into those deep reserves of energy that are intended to last us through this life. And also the more that we come into alignment with the expression of our Soul or Spirit here on this earthly realm – or plane, or whatever you want to call it, within this experience of reality – and the more that we can be a conduit for the divine, for that cosmic energy, that heavenly energy, then the more that we can create Heaven on Earth, and be that connection.  And so everything that we do in Chinese Medicine is geared towards the cultivation and nourishment of these Three Treasures. For example, we nourish our daily Qi, our life force energy, with foods that are well digested, with making sure we have a balance of rest and activity, with processing our emotions so our Qi doesn’t get snagged or scattered. And in that way, we can avoid having to dip into our deep reserves of Jing or Essence, that Pre-Heaven energy. So I think of Jing as our long-term savings deposit – It’s like a term account that’s meant to last us for a whole lifetime – whereas our Qi or life force energy is like a daily spending account. And the more that we can make sure that we’re well resourced for every day, the less we dip into those deep reserves. And the Shen is our connection to the source, to all-that-is, to the greater universe, to Mama Nature. The clearer that our Spirit, Soul, awareness is – which we do through practices like emotional alchemy, like moving our emotions, like stream of consciousness journaling, cultivating our awareness with Qi Gong and meditation – so the clearer and brighter that Shen, then the more of that divine, cosmic, Heavenly energy we bring through into this embodiment on Earth.  Somatic work and embodiment practices are everywhere, but are we truly embodied in our beings? We’re hearing a lot now about somatic practices, about embodiment, about getting grounded, about being embodied in our body and souls, and rebalancing that over-reliance on the mind and the rational aspect. But again, I think when we see how much many are relying on the external mind through AI, we can see that we are moving in fact, further and further away from embodiment – away from deep grounding, from deep connection.  Humans as conduits between Heaven and Earth: embodying the cosmic in our reality Because (and this will bring me to my next point about Heaven, Human and Earth) when we are deeply embodied in our bodies, in our flesh and blood living bodies – when our mind is connected to our body and our soul, when we have integrity and coherence and alignment with every aspect of our being, when we know our mind, when we know who we are, when we know our Heart, when we know our Soul, when we are connected to the whispers of our beautiful beings, to all the messages that they are letting us know all the time – then we are a beautiful conduit between Heaven and Earth.  And that is something that we talk about in Chinese Medicine – we understand that humans have a place here connecting the heavenly upon the earth. I mean, I believe personally that all living beings – whether it’s animals or trees, flowers or rocks – play that same role. I don’t actually place humans above other living beings. However, traditionally in Chinese Medicine, all life here on Earth – but especially humans – is that connection between Heaven and Earth.  In a way, we have a responsibility – or maybe an invitation – to be that conduit, that hollow bone, that capacitated vessel to allow information from Heaven and Earth to flow through us. And that is where inspiration, intuition, divine guidance, inner knowing, new ideas, insight, and yes, intelligence as well, spring from. They’re informed from the integrity and coherence of all aspects of our being.  “Intelligence” is only one aspect of knowledge, understanding and responsible decision-making And this brings me to another concern that I have- that in placing our power in AI, in giving up our reasoning, or the sorting-through of information to see if it has the ring of truth about it, then we are placing all of our power in something that focuses only on one aspect of knowing, of understanding, of perceiving the world. And that is, intelligence. AI being artificial intelligence, is using only one aspect of the whole spectrum of thinking.  And in fact, there are many others – and really learned and amazing scientists, for example, like Einstein, who many see as the bastion of intelligence and intellectual brilliance – who acknowledge that intelligence is only a servant to intuition and insight.  There are many stories of great leaps of understanding, and great leaps in our view of the world, that came not from intelligence as such, but from divine inspiration, from following instinct, from following intuition. And my concern is this: what are we doing with placing so much attention and intention in this model of artificial intelligence that’s external to us? Are we then missing out on our own divine inspiration, on those new leaps of thinking and understanding? And how can we cultivate that quality within ourselves, that inner connection, to allow more of that power to empower us from within? How can we cultivate that inner connection to light us up from within, and to inform our expression in the world, and our contribution to the world around us? This is vital, because this has an impact on how we live our lives – and on how healthy and vibrant we are.  Living our destiny, becoming who we truly are, who we embodied here to be I see health as being so much more than merely the absence of disease or symptoms. Rather, I see health – and a life beautifully lived – as us being the most gloriously-expressed versions of our true selves. Carl Jung put this beautifully as well: he said that the “privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” And this is what we talk about in Chinese Medicine too. The question to ask is, how do we live our destiny here? How do we express our genetic endowment, our Jing or Essence that we have come into this world with, through our Qi and through our Shen, which is our connection to the source to the zero point field of consciousness? How do we bring our unique perspective, our unique fragment of the whole to that? We do this through being completely ourselves – and through completely expressing ourselves as well.  Health is about connection – both without and within And also, I believe that being human is about connection. It’s about recognising our place in the great web of life around us. And this is at the heart of Chinese Medicine: we understand that health comes from alignment with Mama Nature’s cycles, and observing her wisdom and her natural laws.  And health is about connection with other humans as well. So, how do we connect? We connect with our voices, our ideas, our unique expression. And what I’m seeing in the world now is a dilution or a “beige-ing” or “vanilla-making” of those ideas. Expression is being sanitised and airbrushed: the potency and the life force energy behind it is being diluted. Everything that we touch, everything that we labour on, that we pour through us is imbued with our life force energy.  And you can really feel it, like, I’m sure I’m not the only one -in fact, I know I’m not the only one, because I’ve had many conversations with people about this! These days, I actually can’t be bothered with social media, because it’s a wasteland and an echo chamber of the same reiterated beige slop of AI, and the same kind of AI-speak. So much content has lost its heart, it doesn’t speak to my heart anymore. There’s no connection there. It’s content overwhelm, which is, in my opinion, as a Chinese Medicine doctor, further contributing to our disembodiment.  What happens to our health and vitality with information overwhelm? I’ve talked before about the Spleen, and how our ability to digest our food and our nutrition here on this Earth – and our ability also to direct our intention, and look after our own intent and rational thought – comes also from the Spleen. And the Spleen is also tasked with digesting mental information and content. And right now we are existing in a flood of data, most of it heartless, meaningless, and it’s just filling up space. There’s no connection there. It’s just an overwhelm that is depleting our Spleen energy, depleting the Qi that we need to fuel a beautiful, vibrant life.  Where did the joy go? And how to rekindle it through Fire And I also think this goes some way to answering a question that I get often, which is people asking me, how can I get more joy in my life?? How can I feel more motivated, more focused? And I think that this is also part of connecting to that Fire element within – the Heart and the Shen, the spirit – because the Fire element rules joy.  If we are not allowing that Fire element to express through us, if we’re not flexing our expression – or flexing the muscle of expression, connection, communication – then our joy can go by the wayside as well. And if we’re not within ourselves – if we’re not at home in our bodies, but we’re externally somewhere else – then it becomes harder to connect with that joy and inspiration. So I think a big part of reclaiming more joy, more radiance, more connection, more inspiration, more motivation, more focus is coming back home to ourselves. As you can probably tell, I’m quite fired up about this topic and what it means for us as humans, and what it means for the world that we’re creating! But in the interest of not flooding the world with more content and overwhelm, I will start to wrap this up. And there’s a few more ideas I’d like to talk about before I do.  AI is not perfect, nor is it an all-knowing bastion of intelligence and wisdom The first is that because I’m a scientist, I have tested working with ChatGPT, AI Overview in Google, and a few others, because in order to pass my opinion or judgment on something, I like to be informed about it. And what I found, as I touched on earlier, was the mistakes that it was serving up in the information it was presenting me with.  For example, I wanted to find out what time of day the most recent full moon was. And with great confidence and assurance, the AI Overview in Google informed me that it was on the 19th of March, and then told me a whole other little story about the particular name of this moon. And I was like, “hello, I think it’s actually on the 3rd of March, isn’t that right?” And it was like, “oh, yes, it is. Yes, oh, you are correct. I saw your query about a full moon, and I just jumped straight to the new moon phase”.  I asked it – why are there so often so many errors, because this is not the first, it’s only the last, or most recent, in a long line of errors that I’ve seen when I’ve asked questions. And it said, “I’m just designed to provide answers with assurance and confidence in a conversational way”. Hmmm. And yet, I see and hear people tell me that they often ask AI Overview for information about things. But, the information is not correct!  The other query that I had with AI was about me (because the one thing that I know, with certainty, I know more about than AI does is myself!). So I asked it, “tell me about Dr. Maz”. And it went on to tell me a lovely story about how I offer three hour deep dives (which is not true!) It came up with names for protocols that I offer (I don’t offer any protocols!). It didn’t mention the Qi programs that I do actually offer, but it made up other protocols. And when I questioned it on that, it admitted, “oh, yes, yeah, no, you’re right. She doesn’t do that”. So it was just telling me a story based on what it thought I wanted to hear.  So, again, I’m curious – what kind of world are we creating when we’re living in an echo chamber of this machine reflecting to us what it thinks we want to hear? And what are we training it to provide us with more of? Like, is it true? Is it honest? Is it authentic? These are the thoughts that run through my mind. And it’s something I wonder about with this continued reliance, and complacency, on what AI Overview tells us.  Are we losing our ability to think critically, to search out information for ourselves – to test for that ring of truth in regard to the information that we’re being served up? And I’ll say once again, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer to this. AI exists on a spectrum of machine assistance, of technological assistance. And I think when we use it with consciousness and with awareness, and we weigh up the cost and the benefit, then it’s a different thing to just being lulled into a sense of complacency – of relying on it to feed us what it wants to feed us.  How is AI shaping (and censoring) our reality, our way thinking, our way of being The reality is that even if there are no nefarious or dark intents behind it, the information that it feeds us is still filtered through the lens, or the prism, of the creators of it. And who knows what it’s generating behind the scenes? There’s now that platform for AI agents only to connect with each other. My question is, for those who use AI as prompts or as a conversational partner, how is our thinking and our own process being shaped by the queries and prompts that are provided by AI? Who is providing that? And to what end? And is it a benefit to us? Are we missing an important piece of the puzzle? Because again, we’re engaging with artificial intelligence – and not artificial embodiment, groundedness, insight, intuition, artificial wisdom. These aren’t part of the equation.  It’s just intelligence. And what these models like ChatGPT and Claude rely on is an aggregation of information only, of data – some of which is incorrect, incomplete, biased – and it’s missing that essential spark of inspiration, that spark of life, that thing that animates our leaps of faith and insights.  The unexpected gift of AI proliferation I will say that the one unexpected gift of the AI boom, and the generative content boom, has been that for myself – as a recovering perfectionist – it’s given me the space to embrace my errors and my imperfections. And when a spelling mistake makes its way through, or I miss a word somewhere, or my grammar is not perfect, I’m now in a place where I can celebrate it because it’s a stamp of authenticity. And I see the same in those posts that I do read on socials, and the content elsewhere that I do read.  When there is a mistake, it just actually strengthens that connection that I have with the content creator – because I can see that it’s a real person behind the words when I’m reading and connecting to them. And aside from that, you can feel the difference between something that is imbued with soul and life force energy, and something that isn’t – it’s very obvious. That human touch is either there, or it isn’t. But it does put a little warm glow in my heart just to affirm that this is a real human writing it. And that leads me to another point.  The goal is not perfection, but being real Detractors to my opinion might say, well, what about people who aren’t naturally gifted writers? To which I would answer that there’s always ways around that, right? Ways beyond asking a machine to generate your content. To give an example, recently I read a book, and I’m pretty sure the writer said that she was dyslexic, or had trouble writing. So she would dictate her thoughts to a machine, it would get transcribed, and she would then re-read it and edit it accordingly. It was her unique voice pouring through, with machine assistance, but still her voice.  And it was a very different read to reading a book, say, by someone who is a naturally gifted or trained writer. However, even though there were many things I would have edited differently, or that didn’t completely make sense, I could feel her essence – I could feel her spirit, her soul, her life force energy coming through that book. And becuase of that, it was engaging. Iit wasn’t perfect, it was a bit clunky, but it was vital and alive – and I loved connecting with it.  And again, perhaps that’s the silver lining here: releasing that grip on perfectionism and polished-ness. The trith is that where we find ourselves now is just one point along a long path. I mean, this is a whole other conversation, but we have been airbrushing and photoshopping and polishing up and making-perfect many aspects of our life. Look at fashion magazines! I mean, my life before Chinese medicine was as a designer.  So I spent many hours photoshopping models faces and making them look more perfect. So this, you know, AI and generative art, generative content hasn’t sprung out of nowhere, it’s been a slow decline, perhaps, I mean, in my personal opinion, into this dilution of what is real, what is alive, what is imbued with life force. And I guess the invitation is just to consider where we all sit on that.  Again, this is going to be personal – it’s going to be unique, but I think so long as we come at it with consciousness and with intention, then it changes the nature of our interaction with it. And then perhaps we become not the tool, but it becomes the tool in our hands, and we can use it in ways that are beneficial.  Yes, AI can save time – but what is the cost? What are we paying with? Now, one point or one objection that’s come up in conversations is, well, it saves time to use AI to repurpose my content, or to generate content for me. And yes, it does. But a question to ask is: what is the goal? Is the goal just stuffing a content hole? Or is it creating meaningful communication that comes from your unique voice – not something that’s been being sanitized through the lens or the filter of AI before it gets pumped out and disseminated?  I think that the time, effort and life force energy – the Qi – that we put into something, makes it glow from within, it makes it somehow weightier, more valuable, more able to be connected to – as opposed to something that’s pumped out in a fraction of a second, by a soulless machine. An enitity that’s not alive, and that’s not imbued with that energy.  I do hear also from some of my lovely friends who were saying that there’s pressure to pump out content all the time, and they acknowledge that that content being churned out is probably only read by other machines. So again, the invitation is to consider: how are we contributing to the flood of information out there? And what is that doing to our own body, mind and souls? Is it aiding our vitality, our health, our integrity, our coherence? Or is it overwhelming?  We can choose to unplug from that overwhelm as well. I’m definitely seeing that more and more in the community around me – that there’s less interaction with social media, people are spending less time on there, because they’re saying it feels like an echo chamber of repetitive beige slop.  Now before I finish up and move into some rituals that can help us to embody and ground, I’d love to share this quote from the book, The AI Con by Bender and Hanna. I’m about to read this book, but this quote jumped out at me straight away. It is, “if you can’t be bothered to write it, why would I be bothered to read it?” And that’s ultimately the question, isn’t it? The truth is that I can’t be bothered reading stuff that has been generated by AI: it’s not worth my life force energy and my time. And it makes me turn away from those creators who use AI to try to connect with me – that’s not real for me.  Maybe others have a different position -and that’s great, because we’re all different. But I’m just sharing my own thoughts on that.  I know this has been quite the download! And the invitation is there for all of us to contemplate (whether with respect to AI, orsoemthig else): Where are we putting our energy? What are we empowering? Where are we putting our life force?  Qi rituals to cultivate inner connection, intuition, inspiration and insight Now, I’d like to share with you some simple ways that we can call back that power within, ways that we can empower ourselves, so that we can become more embodied, more grounded, more full of our own life force. Ways to support us in being a capacitated and vital vessel for that infinite cosmic and earthly Qii that is wanting to connect with us and pour through us at all times.  Connect to Mama Nature – we are only alive thanks to her The first of these is connecting to Mama Nature. This doesn’t have to be necessarily going on a big nature hike, but it can be something as simple as getting your feet on the Earth, as taking time to study a leaf and the beautiful intricacy of it. Or maybe it’s a butterfly, a dragonfly or a bird. Maybe it’s the way that the light is hitting a flower or even a tree trunk, or maybe even your own eyelashes! This has been something I’ve been doing for decades – laying in the sun and feeling the sun’s goodness and warmth on my skin, and also watching how the light refracts around my eyelashes, and the beautiful rainbows that come from that. This is something that I could contemplate for hours. Likewise, watching the play of light on a droplet, or on a spiderweb,  or on my dog’s beautiful coat. She’s beautiful, shiny and black, and when the light hits, you can see all of the refractions of the whole spectrum of the rainbow in her fur as well. It can simply be feeling the breeze on our skin.  Move and express your unique thoughts and feelings It can also be as simple as stream of consciousness journaling. I’m such a fan of this practice,because it’s a beautiful way to work that Fire portal of the Shen – the Soul – the Heart, our tongue, and our unique voice. Whether it’s speaking our truth to each other, or writing all of our thoughts as they pour through us in stream of consciousness (not needing to be perfect, but just for the sake of allowing expressioncan), both can be a really beautiful way to come into clarity with our body, mind and soul. To allow more and more of that insight and inspiration, intuition to come through.  Honour the messages and desires of your unique being Another practice is in listening to the whispers of our body, getting curoius about what our body is speaking to us, and honoring those impulses. Am I hungry? Do I need to have a drink right now? Do I need to stop, actually step away from the computer and do some really deep, beautiful belly breathing? Do I need to lie down for five minutes? Do I need to close my eyes? Do I need to pee? There are so many different impulses – and beautiful vital messages – that we’re receiving at all times. The more that we listen to and honour those, the more they are available to us – the more and more they pour through and the more specific and powerful they can be.  Cultivate your Qi, Jing, Shen with Qi Gong and meditation Another way, unsurprisingly, is Qi Gong and also meditation. This doesn’t need to be seated or formal meditation. It can be walking meditation, for example. I’ve shared this on my socials before: just walking slowly, slowing down our steps and feeling the touch of our skin upon the Earth as our feet make contact, and as we move through each step of that walk. It could be contemplation on a candle flame. or on the clouds in the sky. or leaves blowing in the breeze. Whatever it is, just allowing time for that stillness and slowness, and allowing time for the busy-ness to settle so that those messages become clearer as they pour through us once again.  Look within for the answers. You already know. And one other practice that I might offer is rather than asking AI or chatbots for guidance, is to ask yourself for guidance – because you know, your soul knows, your whole being knows. Sometimes this can come through more clearly after we have been still – after we practice meditation or stream of consciousness journaling – once we bring that coherence to our conduit, to our vessel. And the fact remains that the same questions that people ask AI, we can ask of our own soul. We can ask our own inner wisdom, and the divine, = source, = all-that-is, Mother Nature,  God – whatever you want to call it. We can write tehse questions down, or we can ask them in our heart and wait for the answers.  Again, the more that we practice that and we flex that skill, the clearer those messages become. I’m actually going to share one of the beautiful, guided seated meditations from my Radiant Energy Reset Qi program. I will share that on my YouTube channel, so you can find that by going to the show notes. It will be up in a few days time. And if you would like some guidance on how to meditate, that can be a gentle way to begin that process and then to see what pours through.  I know for me, sometimes when I meditate, there’s insights and answers that are pouring through even while I’m trying to keep my mind still – but it can take time. Some days it’s more than others. So I would invite you just to practice that – to commit to practicing it for a certain period of time – and see what comes through for you.  I hope that has been interesting, insightful, thought-provoking. If there’s someone that you feel might benefit from this, I’d love for you to share – and let’s keep talking about this. Let’s have conversations about this.  Let’s have conversations with ourselves about what our intentions are, what we’re hoping to achieve with what we’re doing, what kind of world we’re creating, because we’re all learning. We’re all discovering as we go. We’re all expanding as we co-create this world together. Thank you so much for listening and wishing you all the very best. See you next time!