This is my 500th post and I would like to toast with Happy, a local Sake. I like this Scandinavian-looking boy on the bottle in the picture.
Actually, these are photos from last year when I celebrated the International Day of Happiness. I will do my 500th post celebration tonight.
I just wanted to share these pictures because I really like this sake bottle. It is a great combination of Japanese culture and Scandinavian culture. Just like I introduced the concept of adding a Danish hygge to the Japanese diet in my book The Ikigai Diet, it is fun to produce a new element by merging the two. Now, we have another commonality with Scandinavia, that is a sauna culture represented in Japanese new trend, Totonou.(There is a population of 12 million sauna loving people in Japan)
I showed you the picture of sake called Happy, and talking about happiness, Finland has been the happiest country in the last four years, and now it seems to be moving toward a healthy nation, too. Biohacking is big in Finland. Biohacker Summit has been held in Helsinki, and it seems to be the hub in Europe. I would like to write about it in another post sometime soon.
Today, however, since I am celebrating my achievement of 500 blog posts, I would like to share with you the concept of Ima Iwai, which I wrote about in Ikigai Bio-Hacking: Bio-Haching Based on Japanese Natural Health.
It is a mental bio-hacking method. Ikigai Bio-Hacking provides many biohacking techniques to help you improve your body, mind, and spirit, and this one particularly hacks your mind.
You are putting yourself with the same mentality as centenarians.
In a Japanese book called Hyakujusha No Kenko No Himitsu Ga Wakatta, I Grasped the Centenarians’ Secret to Health, the authors interviewed over 60 centenarians worldwide. When they asked the centenarians when they had felt the happiest in their lifetime, many answered that it was now. When they asked the same question to people in their 80s or 90s, they often said it was when they were younger. Once you reach the age of 100, you seem to develop a different mentality.
They are happy now. They enjoy here and now.
Ima Iwai helps you condition yourself to always feel happy and be here and now.
Be Here Now is a famous book by Ram Das, who in many ways was one of the influencers in the human potential movement, the forerunner of the biohacking movement, with people like Timothy Leary. It is still relevant today in the context of optimizing your consciousness.
I will discuss the connection between the human potential movement and the biohacking movement some other time, but this another Californian movement is the foundation of some of the biohacking practices today and the human potential movement itself was based on the Eastern spirituality where Japanese natural health is part of.
Anyway, Ima Iwai can help you put you in a state to be here and now.
In many ways, I feel this is the ultimate biohack since consciousness plays the biggest role in your existence. You are hacking yourself to live longer or optimize your performance, but why?
Why do you want to do that?
You want to feel good, right?
But it is not just a temporal feeling of pleasure or getting high.
You want lasting joy.
You want a type of joy that is integrated with your body, mind, and spirit. The blissfulness that is congruent with your source.
It can not be achieved just by a single technique. It is accomplished by combined daily practices; fasting, diet, physical exercises, and mental work. Ima Iwai is one of the mental works.
One mental work is Shinon Kansha meditation that I have shared with you many times. It is to appreciate gods for manifesting positive events in your life. It puts your focus into the bright side of your life.
That is how centenarians think all the time.
If you practice Shinon Kansha meditation every day, you will become a positive person.
However, in order to make it a lasting state, you need a further push.
Tony Robbins says physiology is crucial to change your mental state. If you want to feel confident, you need to feel it in your body. Move like a confident person. Your chest should be open, your body is relaxed and your face is smiling.
So, how do you create a physical sensation in your body to appreciate here and now?
Shinon Kansha meditation can do it, yet it is still in your imagination, and depending on your mental focus, you may not be able to feel the joy you want to feel. You are so used to having them in your life however positive they are you take them for granted and can’t feel excited about them anymore.
That is where Ima Iwai comes in.
Ima means now and Iwai means celebration. Ima Iwai means celebrating the present moment. You find things you feel grateful for happening in your life right now and celebrate them. You celebrate them with food and drinks. When you drink for them, you do actually experience the physical sensation in your body.
In the book, I recommended that you do it once a month on the full moon night. You reflect upon the month and think of all the positive things that happened to you and toast for them.
Another time you can do Ima Iwai is exactly the time like this when you achieved something. You always acknowledge an accomplishment however small it is. For some people, writing 500 blog posts isn’t anything special. It isn’t like your book became a bestseller or your video hit a million views. Yet, I always make sure to celebrate it. It is a step toward achieving my goal, and each step is part of the process, and it needs attention.
So, practice Ima Iwai from time to time to reinforce your positive thinking. Be happy!
Well, I am looking forward to my Ima Iwai tonight.
Have a nice weekend.
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