It often comes round through conversations with students that they use Qigong as a magic amulet!
The conversation goes like this..
âI love my Qigong.. I still take all my medication, but Iâm sure my qigong is really helping too..â
Those of you who have studied with me for a while will notice that our Qigong is going deeper in its nature. You perhaps are able to feel that we are digging into deeper emotional and psychological areas?
The Tuesday and Thursday classes deal with the physical aspects of Qigong. Thereâs never a time when doing these physical exercises will not reap benefits. The physical wellbeing that one can bring about using qigong is nothing short of a miracle. When we work on ourselves in a physical manner, we are also working on the underlying emotional state. In Chinese medicine itâs understood that the major emotions are stored in various organs, and that massaging and moving these organs will eventually bring about emotional releases too.
There are various muscle groups that people say are repositories for emotional stories, and that just by stretching them, that stuck emotions can be released.
Tip of the Iceberg
It is however my considered opinion that the physical emergence of a chronic illness is really just tip of the iceberg. They often say that illnesses such as cancer take three to five years to finally become manifest.
When you come to therapy sessions with me, and we discuss your past, Iâm often looking for traumatic events in your life that fit into these frameworks.
Very often itâs said that one trauma can be âriddenâ over by a healthy person, but if two of them occur close to each other, then thatâs often where chronic illness finds itâs root.
Iâll often discover that a student has lost their mother, and then a year later lost their father.
Sometimes a divorce will be followed by a redundancy, or perhaps by retirement.
These types of life change can leave us in a very emotionally compromised state.
Alcohol
The general method of dealing with such blows is to avoid having to look at them.
That will look like plunging oneself back into work, retreating into a bottle of wine in front of the television each night, or seeking solace in cakes and sweets.
Very often we impose a type of self-isolation on ourselves, where we close our hearts and remove ourselves from the emotional functioning of the world..
Whilst it is correct that Qigong can help in these cases, itâs not the quickest or most efficient way to heal oneself in these instances.
This is where the Wednesday class comes in. On a Wednesday morning, we go online, to spend time together in a quiet qigong state, delving into the patterns that have brought us to the place of illness or unhappiness. (In a very general way, not personal specifics!)
Life is a set of events. When these events âoccurâ in the space that we are in, we have two choices of how to deal with them. The first being âtake them personallyâ the second being âlet them drift past us without taking them onâ
Of course this is easier to write than to do!
Practice Diligently
One of the side-effects of diligent Qigong practice is that we build a certain resilience. We also inhabit our bodies in a more complete way, I donât really like the phrase but it resonates with most students, we become more grounded. (I always say âcentredâ rather..)
This new-found resilience helps us to not take on things as deeply as once we would have. We find a way not to become damaged by the events.
In Tai-chi we often encounter the idea of flowing with a punch. Our opponent goes to strike us, but rather than accept the strike the Tai-chi player gently turns their body away, allowing the strike to go past and not hit. (In so doing, the person throwing the punch usually becomes off-balance and falls forward, following their intended strike, to the floor!)
Flow like water..
The same is true in situations of verbal conflict. Perhaps a child or sibling makes a verbal attack on you. (As I write this, Iâm all too aware that Christmas is coming and that this presents many challenges for many people..) â every moment is a choice.
Will you respond and escalate the argument, or let it flow past you without scoring a hit?
We all know that problems tend to just dissipate when we donât retaliate.
The big question is, did you however, take on the criticism anyway?
Keep it all in
Weâre back to the storing things inside. The root of chronic illness.
Ladies tend to be much less combative than men. A good thing for the world, but a bad thing for ladies.
Chinese doctors always say âLadies, look after your liversâ â itâs a common observation that ladies tend to get more drunk, more easily than men, and have less tolerance for alcohol generally.
It’s has however become much more common to see ladies âout on the lashâ these days.
In our stress-filled jobs, and our emotionally overwrought times, equality has led to ladies feeling as entitled as men to this release. Perhaps it always took place quietly at home with a sherry bottle, but now itâs out in the open.
The emotions associated with the Liver in Chinese medicine is Anger.
Not surprising to see the connection between alcohol and bar-room brawling then..
In the fairer sex however, a punch-up is generally out of the question! Itâs here that we find one of the most toxic practices â âKeeping it all inâ
So often with my students, I find that Ladies would rather just swallow the insults and abuse, than confront the assailant. These slights get suppressed deep inside (The Liver as an example..) and remain part of the deep fabric of the person.
Breaking Point
The question is, how much can you take before you break.
The roll of the âlittle womanâ is a damaging one. The person who always can be relied upon to cook dinner, to clean the house, to mop up the family mess when factions go to war, the person who has to look after the parents unquestioningly, keep the kids from spinning out, and probably still hold down a job too.
Social Media amps up the pressure to be the perfect wife, with the perfect life.
Donât get me wrong, there are plenty of male students who have their own common set of problems that hurt the Heart and Kidneys.. but here my example uses the Liver and Anger, or more accurately supressed anger.
The requirements of being a modern mother, lover, wife and homemaker are so normalised that these resentments can be swallowed by the jugful without one even knowing that they are being taken in. Itâs just part of modern life. (âBut what happened to my freedom and my career?â)
Then we add something dramatic, like a death of a loved one, a divorce or a redundancy, and the toxic overload arrives.
The Chinese doctorâs talking about the liver, are referencing the tendency of Ladies to âkeep it all inâ and effectively block the smooth flow of Qi through the organ with supressed anger. The Liver is also intimately connected with our lymph system.
Lymph
The Lymph is a tricky one, all the toxins in their most extreme forms are flowing out of the body through the lymph process.
The lymph system however doesnât have a âpumpâ â like the heart, for the blood.
The Diaphragm is that pump.
Every stretch and bend uses this tautly stretched drum-skin as a pump to move the fluid in our lymph system. (this is why Qigong is so important to do daily!)
Itâs no surprise to then connect the dots.. the Lymph system flows past the Breast. Breast cancer is exceptionally common these days â especially in ladies who lead a sedentary life, perhaps with a regular intake of alcohol and a regular application of family and work stresses.
We often turn to Western Medicine in these cases. The best they can offer is similar in nature to inviting the Roman Legions into your country, they raise everything to the ground, and fill the fields with salt, so nothing will grow again! (This is where we get the word âAssaultâ from!)
Western Medicineâs slash and burn policy often deals with the manifestation of the problem, but thatâs a bit like cutting the top off a Dandelion.. unless you get the root out, it may well come back!
Zhineng Qigong
This is where Zhineng style Qigong differs from any other style I have encountered.
Dr Pang has woven Chinese psychology into the fabric, we heal ourselves using a combination of visualisation and Quantum thinking.
In Quantum Science, we discover that at any moment there are infinite possibilities awaiting our attention. When we finally decide upon one (be it intentionally or subconsciously)
Thereâs whatâs referred to as a âQuantum Collapseâ
From all the possibilities, we select one, âInformationâ from our Consciousnesses combines with Energy (we call it Qi..)
This turns something from non-being into being.
Sometimes we might have to do it repeatedly to get a result.
That however is  what our subconsciousnesses do for us. They repeat ideas.
It’s really useful for you to have the routine off-pat to get your teeth done. Itâs not so useful for you to have a voice in the background that continuously tells you that you are stupid, or unlovable.
Repetitive unconscious thoughts, eventually gel out of nonbeing into physicality in our body.
Add to the repetitive chiding we give ourselves, work stress and family arguments on a daily basis, and the recipe for chronic illness is born. (As they are apt to say.. âIf your best friend spoke to you the way you speak to yourself, they wouldnât remain your friend for long!â)
Wednesday’s class!
Itâs through our Wednesday morning class, that we start to discover the techniques that can break these patterns, and revert the illnesses that have subconsciously appeared.
What about the patterns from the beginning, students who still gobble pills.
Itâs a difficult process to convince yourself that you are able to do without a prescription!
(After all, the great white medicine doctor has made the potion for you!)
I tend to find that students are not up for experimenting with their medication.
Dr Pang always points put that the more you take the medication, the less your body can actually be bothered to engage the processes to make the particular substance!
You have to wean yourself off the medicine slowly.
Cut your dose by 20% for six months, and see whatâs happening!
(Sometimes it means chopping tiny little pills into even tinier bits!)
As you lessen the dose, your Qigong will slowly repair the process.
There are times when our medication become so complex, taking one thing to stop the side effects of another etc..
(I was just talking to a friend whose daughterâs medication to keep her âmentally stableâ had given her a type of Diabetes!!) What can you do! â  Hint⌠(I know..!)
Dr Pang
I think things were easier for Dr Pang than for I!
He was a trained medic, and for him to tell people at his Centre to stop medication and replace it with Qigong, was altogether safer and easier!
Please donât go flinging your prescription away and say that Jeremy told you too!
What I am asking you to do is consider the case for using your mind to heal your body.
(Iâd love to be able to have you come stay with me, so that we could practice together each day, and I could watch you as you lessen your medication! One day when the lottery finally pays off, then Iâll set up a UK Medicineless hospital for you, and we can work together to get you well!)
Until that time. Please understand that medication is an astonishingly low-level medicine.
You are the most powerful being in the Universe.
Clearly, this is not in our education curriculum, but it should be.
As long as you donât know this, then youâll have to work hard, buy insurance, give doctors and drugs companies your money ⌠you get the idea!
If you are brave, diligent and determined however, you can heal yourself of anything no matter how dire. I have personally met over 50 people who have brought themselves back from the edge of destruction, only using Qigong and a few other simple tools..
(Tip.. donât eat rubbish, give up stress, walk, swim and do lots of Qigong..)
And of course Contemplation â this is where we go on a Wednesday morning, this is whatâs on my Self-healing Youtube playlist (About fifty different classes!) Try them and see! They are all free!
Love, love love!
Jeremy