by Claire | Mar 23, 2016 | energy, fear, healing, health, inspiring, life changing, practice, qi, spirituality, strength, wellness
We know it is utmost important to live in the moment, to be to present in the now. But why then, something else often takes over? What is it that takes over?
I know the pleasant feel of living in the moment from experience. It’s a visceral pleasure and overall fulfilled sensation. But I find, the present moment is often interrupted by thoughts.
Where do these thoughts come from? They are also from the body, often rehearsed patterns, what we were used to. The thoughts often accompanied by emotions such as frustration and upset, they are cries for help from the body saying, “Hello, there is still a holding pattern here, there is still tightness that’s limiting flow, the flow of life.”
For me, one of the biggest holding patterns in life was that I believed life is not mine, that I am living for others. It was due to a helpless child having to submit to an overwhelmingly controlling mother. (Of course there were perfect reasons in her life progression for her limiting patterns. We will focus on how to resolve our pattern here, and go into understanding others’ patterns later.) So what others want of me become so important that it overwhelm my own voice, my own needs and wants.
So after realizing this was my greatest holding pattern in this lifetime, or a karmic loop tape of multiple life times in me, I developed the mantra, “This is MY life. I am the center of MY life. I get to choose what serves my life and my spiritual development now. I get to decide where MY boundaries are, and choosing that I am doing this for ME…” The key is repeating the phrase “this is MY life” until I feel it viscerally in my being. And the utmost important word is “viscerally” because that is an overall being shift. I would feel my posture changing to more relaxed, supported and erect position.
This is also what we train and practice in our workshops and classes, to be able to connect viscerally, connecting the mind and the body. As a healer, I am also using myself as a mirror for the client and identify what disconnections I see, when and where the disconnect may have happened, and then extending my energy to help reconnect the neglected connections in clients.
This mantra is what counters the helpless feeling of the baby, and it starts to build strength of the adult. Each time it’s like an exercise of strengthening, just like bodybuilding or any physical exercise, in this case energy and awareness. When there is a weakness, we must repeatedly strengthen it until reversing the weakness pattern.
Lately I have also been envisioning at the end of life, when “judgment” time comes, I would like to feel that I have lived a life of my own, not for others. I have stood on my own and I have followed what makes me happy, not for others. The strong visceral image instantly brings the worried or fearful me back into my center, into grounding in my body.
With this on-going practice, I have been having more moments of feeling satiated, feeling at ease, feeling joy, and can snap out of state of worry, fear and irritation more readily.
The gradual change has been the biggest life-changing shift I have experienced, in my professional and personal life. I hope with my inner seeing and energetic hands I could help more people reverse their life limiting patterns and come into the fullness that is their life.
So do you know what is the main limiting pattern for your life, in your body? Do you know the countering mantra that can gradually reverse the weakness in your body and bring strength and power into your own life? This may be something we could find out sometime into the course of our healing sessions, or this may be something you discover through inner seeing in your persistent qigong practice.
by Claire | Apr 21, 2009 | acupuncture channels, healing, pain, points, soreness
If you want to learn TCM in a way where you can use right away, and get results right away, the best path is to learn about the channels. There are twelve main channels connecting to organs, and many sub channels. They form a web that covers the entire human being, from the core to skin and hair. Whenever an organ has problems, it manifests on the web as if lights light up. Correlating points will have discomfort, for example pain, soreness or numbness. But there are more than three hundred sixty points altogethers. Memorizing them seems a daunting task. Actually to resolve common illnesses, just knowing twenty some points can be amazingly effective.
For example on the stomach channel there are four points often used. For acute stomachache and chronic stomachache, massaging the Liang2Qiu1 point (ST34) can stop the pain immediately. If the pain is lower than the stomach more in the small intestine area, massage the xia4ju4xu1 point (ST39). If the pain is above the stomach and below the chest, massage zu2san1li3 (ST36). If it is chronic stomach and intestine pain, massage feng1long2 (ST40).
The important thing is, only when the point is uncomfortable and you massage the point until the discomfort is gone, the treatment is effective. If the point is not sensitive, there could be three reasons. One, you did not correctly locate the point. Two, the illness does not match this point. Three, qi and blood are too weak that it cannot reach this point on the leg. Both the sensation of pain and soreness means the channel is still flowing, but there is stagnation or blockage in this point so the flow is not well. Soreness usually means qi and blood is weak, need tonifying, therefore one cannot use strong force. Pain means there is qi and blood there but is blocked. Qi and blood is trying hard to open the blockage, therefore using stronger force in massage can help this effort.
Learning TCM, it’s best to learn something and be able to use it right away and see results immediately. Because the human body is complex and there are so many points and channels, if you waste your attention on things you don’t understand, you cannot use and wouldn’t understand it. It’s like carrying around a bunch of tools that you don’t know how to use. It’s much more effective to know the few tools you have well. Knowing these few points deeper will help you understand other points later. This is why TCM is best taught through apprenticeship and not in class with books. In a working clinic, you get an intuitive sense of how the environment and season change also is part of the whole picture as well. And you learn how your experienced teacher intuitively use points rather than through known knowledge.
by Claire | Jan 1, 2009 | Bratt Pitt, congestive heart failure, death, healing, heart diseases, Seven Pounds, suicide, The Curious Benjamin Button, Traditional Chinese Medicine, transplant, Western medicine, Will Smith
Some reviews say the movie Seven Pounds with Will Smith has a “graceful, moving revelations at the end.” I beg to differ. The writer of the film makes several assumptions. One, the assumption is doctor knows best. Two, transplant is the answer. Three, killing oneself can be martyrdom. Four, many years of upbringing by parents and loved one plus years of higher education plus a newly gained awareness to serve others is less than seven pounds of organs.
The main character is presumed to be a real person, which feels like an insult to my intelligence because the story cannot possibly be real. In comparison to another well debated movie, “The Curious Benjamin Button,” in which the main character is presumed to be fantasy, I respect the writer’s creative thinking though not perfect, but it provoked thoughts of “what ifs” in me, which is a sign of success for a movie I think. Because the main character played by Will Smith in “Seven Pounds” is so not believable, this is why Smith would shift from one character to another completely different person in seconds, playing an impossible role that is way beyond bipolar.
The Chinese culture renders suicide the most selfish act one can commit. How does one weigh one’s responsibility for his upbringing by parents and so many people’s hard work? One is most inconsiderate of his loved ones and irresponsible to life itself to end his own life. Even Jesus who knew he would die did not end his own life. A life is most precious because we can do so much good with a life on this Earth than any THING we can give. According to Buddhism, when one commit suicide, one is stuck in the middle realm for the rest of his natural life span, only an observer of the trauma his untimely departure has cost to others, but not able to live or change anything. It’s a compulsory time and space for inner observation. In Smith’s case, he’d have lots of time to think over whether seven pounds of organs is the most he could give to this world.
Psychologically when one wants to commit suicide, he is hopeless that there is anything more for him in life, sunk in darkness, shrinking away from living life and detaching from connecting with others. When Smith cannot forgive himself for killing many people, he would be incapable of forgiving others and therefore cannot be capable of giving to others, reaching out and connecting to others. When he cannot recognize the goodness in himself, how could he recognize goodness in others? When he is hopeless, how could he offer hope, inspiration and power to live their lives to others? We can see that dark, hopeless, disconnected and tortured expression whenever Smith thoughts of killing himself.
When he was thinking of helping others, his facial and body expressions completely shift to another character, one who is strong, powerful, making things happen, connected to his own feelings and others, able to love himself and others. In reality our thoughts are manifested into our words and actions. Our inside and outside are mirrors for each other. Smith’s character is at odds, conflicted because the story is trying to patch two impossibly opposite characters into one. No wonder the character felt like an extreme split personality to the extent of unbelievable.
Another aspect of the film is the western modern medicine’s myth that one can be instantly saved by a doctor, and one can be magically healed from a transplant. In modern alternative medicine, most of the heart diseases can be healed with nutrition. Some studies show that Congestive Heart Failures can even be caused by blood pressure medication. Whereas in traditional Chinese medicine, even the most debilitating heart diseases from birth can be healed easily and quickly from the subtle energy/emotional realm. Even if one receives a new transplanted heart, if one’s diet and emotions don’t change, the new heart will fail just like the old; whereas if one changes one’s diet and emotions, one does not need to go through a heart surgery or transplant at all.
Indeed it’s the patient’s responsibility to look at his life, how his past has made his present condition. If we go into spirituality, birth defects come from past lives unresolved issues that can be healed now in this life as well. Again we can help ourselves, and we are the only one who can truly change ourselves, not an all-powerful force from the outside of ourselves, like a doctor or a God that lives in heaven.
It’s unfortunate that actors have to portray such unreal characters in such impossible storylines. I hope as we shift into new energy, more movies will be more in touch with people’s lives and hope to inspire people to empower themselves through a process of taking charge, how people makes living responsibly for ourselves, our community and environment a daily practice. Because we could all use reminders from time to time.
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