Childrearing & Healing Our Inner Child-A Talk on Nov. 13th

Having the main focus of my practice and search on becoming the master of my own life for over a decade, doing long intensive meditations and solitary meditations in mountains, I found myself needing to apply what I have learned in all aspects of daily life.  For another decade, I have immersed myself in the Mongolian culture, an ancient nomadic culture which is still sustaining natural connections to nature, to earth, to all living things, to each other, to oneself in the most profound ways, to our own souls, to ancestors and all souls beyond physical limitations.  The connections are tangibly felt in every aspect of life, especially I found, in childrearing, now that we are rearing one.

I once mentioned to Jerigtu that we need to communicate with our child more often.  He replies, it’s not about how much to communicate, but whether how to communicate.  Most conflicts between parents and children come from communicating from the mind.  Rather communicating through the heart makes true connection.

How to communicate through the heart?  For this we must know our own heart.

Many of my sessions lately have been focusing on one’s early years, when we vividly experienced our emotions, but had not the language to express them.  Some emotions are naturally expressed through behaviors such as throwing things, stomping and outright temper tantrums.  Our body knows naturally how to grow into our potentials and how to heal.  When our natural instincts are suppressed, we lack the nervous connections to carry through this emotional growth process.  Sometimes this suppression seems normal and seemed to make sense because it’s been in existence for generations, and may have served a survival purpose at one point in the family history.  To fulfill our emotional and energetic potentials is to release these old survival mechanisms and holding patterns from our body, from our organ systems.  This is also an expansion to our heart and to our capacity to release into our true self.

I especially find new mothers with babies ripe for this personal growth.  It’s an perfect opportunity to heal the self and the family.  Many subconscious memories without word expression get awakened by our baby mirroring back to us.  For example frustration may be felt between an inexperienced mother and the baby, and exacerbates with passing back and forth.  Babies can wake up the family suppression patterns that we have gotten numb to, and remind us there is another way, to release to a more free, joyous and powerful self.  When we take time to heal ourselves, we are also creating a greater containment for our baby to develop to their greatest potentials.  Our heart is greater to mirror back to our baby.  Furthermore, we are healing the family wound in the lineage on the soul reincarnation level.

For these reasons, we are building our Earth Shaman Center in Inner Mongolia, aiming to support the natural growth, healing and expansion of humanity, regaining our sustained connection with nature and with our soul’s journey, in this complete cycle of life.  

If you’d like to hear us talk more about our center, the healing and self-development programs we will provide, and about the Mongolian Shamanic culture, please join us at: 

Greenwood Library 

Wednesday, Nov. 13 

6:00-7:30pm

By donation

We will show videos and photos of our center and answer questions about Shamanic Healing and Energy & Soul Psychology.  Please share this email with your friends and family, and help us pass on the words to all who may be interested.

Three Intertwined Aspects of Human Beings

A client in her mid thirties came with chronic pain for more than twenty years since her childhood. Many therapies and practices either did not help or made things worse.  Jerigtu’s scan reveals, 80% of her chronic pain is due to energy deficiency and blockages.  This is why when treated physically or localized, the pain just kept on moving around.  And the pain would get worse when a treatment is using up some of her limited energy.  Also because of low energy level, she is being affected by spirits in her sleep, therefore wearing down her system even more.  

In the modern world, we have often forgotten two third of who we are, just focusing on the physical, and not knowing about our life force (energy) and soul.  A human being must be seen as a comprehensive whole comprised of these three intertwined aspects: our physical body, our energy and emotions, and our spirit and soul.  A practice must address all aspects.  For example when yoga is practiced as calisthenics, our life force is not being regenerated but used up, and the weak links in our body will eventually show, as injuries or permanent wear.  For example when massage therapists focus more on the physical, their own body will wear down and they may be taking on clients’ stagnant energy into their own bodies.  Also when practices only focuses on emotions, the mind or the soul, our physical body will suffer.  The more powerful the practice, the more it accelerates the decline of our physical health.  Therefore balance is necessary for our comprehensive wellness.

A case of Shamanic healing:
Jerigtu gets tested all the time. Clients would only offer a symptom, for example this morning, someone from Europe text us and says he has strong low back pain, and wants to come see Jerigtu. Jerigtu looks and text back, your problem is in the gut, not the low back. He texts back, yes I have had to take out big part of my intestines. Jerigtu says, yes, you must treat your lower stomach, otherwise the condition will begin to cause memory loss. Then he offered a Shamanic ritual that the client could practice for now, until he is able to travel to come and see Jerigtu.

Unleash Your True Self: Through Energy, Breathe, Movement, Meditation, Voice

I have designed a new intensive workshop, to be held in Ashland, OR Sept. 29-Oct. 1 (Three full days including two evenings).  I will be teaching my own practice, what have been working best for me over the years, with qigong movements, meditations of different paths, breathe and voice work.  A combination of these practices have been most effective in getting more and more in touch with my own body, and through my body to my true self, my soul's journey in this realm, and my unique expression into this world.

So I welcome you to join me in these three intensive days, to deepen our practice into ourselves and expand our true selves into this world.  

Unleash Your True Self

Through Energy, Breathe, Movement, Meditation, Voice

An Energy Qigong Intensive With Claire GuYu Johnson

Sept. 29-Oct. 1 (Three full days including two evenings), Ashland, OR

For workshop registration: Taylor at taykohn@gmail.com or 541-512-2569Lodging and limited camping options nearby are available. $395, $325 returning students of ZY Qigong.

• Emotional turmoils are our soul’s on-going record for a chance to grow and to expand.
• Not facing it or trying to control it through the mind creates suffering, and inner conflict.
• Life has given us the perfect tool to heal ourselves and our relationships: our physical body.
• The mind may be in the past or future, may tell a story; The body is in the now, in its truth.
• So let’s dance, sing, move, stand and sit with our body. 
• Wake up the blind spots, release old holding patterns, feel life force rushing in the vacuum to strengthen and expand our body, our energy and our soul.
• Feel our beings unfold, become real, and expand.  
• Let our being ground in our truth, and solidly and firmly move closer to the universal truth.

Claire's gift as a teacher is her strong scanning ability of others, so she can feel and see where one's blind spots may be, where one's most life force is entangled and being wasted or exhausted.  She can sense in which direction a group need to move into, and lead meditative movements to untangle, untie the underlying energy and emotional knots.

Once we see it, feel it, we shed light into the dark.  And it can be healed.

When energy, breath and sense of flow is coherent in our body, it manifests in our lives as coherency of flow, ease of flow.  The practice letting our energy and breath be fully engaged in our body, and can support our physical being and our expression into the world. 

Master teacher Claire GuYu Johnson has personally come through depression and anxiety brought up by severe family and societal traumas.  She has developed this healing process and teaching path, and has been helping others to do so for 17 years.  She has incorporated Taoist, Buddhist and Zen meditations, psychology, energy and spiritual practices around the world in her own practice, and is currently teaching and healing throughout the US, Europe and China.

Psychology & Meditation, An Article & some of my thoughts

This is a very good article as it speaks for me, in the way that I first came to psychology when I was 19.  Seven years later feeling it’s limitations, I came into meditation.  After practicing meditation extensively for nine years, my need from daily life again brought me deeper into psychology, but not in the traditional sense.  

Whereas psychology is now for me no longer based in the mind, but rather firmed planted in the physical body, in our bones and organs.  And the connective tissue in psychology that is emotions, now to me, is energy carrying information, which can be tangibly felt and seen, by the hands, by the second heart and by the third eye.  Therefore emotions can be tangibly processed as our best guardrail for spiritual growth, for the individual, for an immediate family, for the family lineage, and for our community at large.

So here are some of my rather unstructured thoughts after reading this article, to share with you all.  Please read the article first, then my comments may make more sense to you.  In the intensive workshop Sept.29-Oct. 1 in Ashland, OR, we will go into detailed practice on how to gain these abilities to heal ourselves and others.

Even the Best Meditators Have Old Wounds to Heal

by Jack Kornfield

For most people meditation practice doesn’t "do it all." At best, it’s one important piece of a complex path of opening and awakening. In spiritual life I see great importance in bringing attention to our shadow side, those aspects of ourselves and our practice where we have remained unconscious. As a teacher of the Buddhist mindfulness practice known as vipassana, I naturally have a firm belief in the value of meditation. Intensive retreats can help us dissolve our illusion of separateness and can bring about compelling insights and certain kinds of deep healing. Yet intensive mediation practice has its limitations. In talking about these limitations, I want to speak not theoretically, but directly from my own experience, and from my heart. Some people have come to meditation after working with traditional psychotherapy. Although they found therapy to be of value, its limitations led them to seek a spiritual practice. For me it was the opposite. While I benefited enormously from the training offered in the Thai and Burmese monasteries where I practised, I noticed two striking things. First, there were major areas of difficulty in my life, such as loneliness, intimate relationships, work, childhood wounds, and patterns of fear, that even very deep meditation didn’t touch. Second, among the several dozen Western monks (and lots of Asian meditators) I met during my time in Asia, with a few notable exceptions, most were not helped by meditation in big areas of their lives. Many were deeply wounded, neurotic, frightened, grieving, and often used spiritual practice to hide and avoid problematic parts of themselves. When I returned to the West to study clinical psychology and then began to teach meditation, I observed a similar phenomenon. At least half the students who came to three-month retreats couldn’t do the simple "bare attention" practices because they were holding a great deal of unresolved grief, fear, woundedness, and unfinished business from the past. I also had an opportunity to observe the most successful group of meditators - including experienced students of Zen and Tibetan Buddhism - who had developed strong samadhi and deep insight into impermanence and selflessness. Even after many intensive retreats, most of the meditators continued to experience great difficulties and significant areas of attachment and unconsciousness in their lives, including fear, difficulty with work, relationships wounds, and closed hearts. They kept asking how to live the Dharma and kept returning to meditation retreats looking for help and healing. But the sitting practice itself, with its emphasis on concentration and detachment, often provided a way to hide, a way to actually separate the mind from difficult areas of heart and body. These problems exist for most vipassana teachers as well. Many of us have led very unintegrated lives, and even after deep practice and initial "enlightenment experiences," our sitting practice has left major areas of our beings unconscious, fearful, or disconnected. Many American vipassana teachers are now, or have recently been, in psychotherapy in order to deal with these issues. It should also be noted that a majority of the 20 or more largest centers of Zen, Tibetan, Hindu, and vipassana practice in America have witnessed major upheavals, centering on the teachers themselves (both Asian and Western), related to issues of power, sex, honesty, and intoxication. Something is asking to be noticed here. If we want to find true liberation and compassion what can we learn? Some Helpful Conclusions for Our Practice 1. For most people, meditation practice doesn’t "do it all". At best, it’s one important piece of a complex path of opening and awakening. I used to believe that meditation led to the higher, more universal truths, and that psychology, personality, and our own "little dramas" were a separate, lower realm. I wish it worked that way, but experience and the nondual nature of reality don’t bear it out. If we are to end suffering and final freedom, we can’t keep these two levels of our lives separate. 2. The various compartments of our minds and bodies are only semi-permeable to awareness. Awareness of certain aspects does not automatically carry over to the other aspect, especially when our fear and woundedness are deep. This is true for all of us, teachers as well as students. Thus, we frequently find meditators who are deeply aware of breath or body but are almost totally unaware of feelings and others who understand the mind but have no wise relation to the body. Mindfulness works only when we are willing to direct attention to every area of our suffering. This doesn’t mean getting caught in our personal histories, as many people fear, but learning how to address them so that we can actually free ourselves from the big and painful "blocks" of our past. Such healing work is often best done in a therapeutic relationship with another person. 3. Meditation and spiritual practice can easily be used to suppress and avoid feeling or to escape from difficult areas of our lives. Our sorrows are hard to touch. Many people resist the personal and psychological roots of their suffering; there is so much pain in truly experiencing our bodies, our personal histories, our limitations. It can even be harder than facing the universal suffering that surfaces in sitting. We fear the personal and its sorrow because we have not learned how it can serve as our practice and open our hearts. We need to look at our whole life and ask ourselves. "Where am I awake, and what am I avoiding ? Do I use my practice to hide ? In what areas am I conscious, and where am I fearful, caught, or unfree?" 4. There are many areas of growth (grief and other unfinished business, communication and maturing of relationships, sexuality and intimacy, career and work issues, certain fears and phobias, early wounds, and more) where good Western therapy is on the whole much quicker and more successful than meditation. These crucial aspects of our being can’t just be written off as "personality stuff." Freud said he wanted to help people to love and work. If we can’t love well and give meaningful work to the Earth, then what is our spiritual practice for ? Meditation can help in these areas. But if, after sitting for a while, you discover that you still have work to do, find a good therapist or some other way to effectively address these issues. Of course, there are many mediocre therapists and many limited kinds of therapy. Just as in meditation, you should look for the best. Beyond the traditional psychotherapies of the ‘40s and ‘50s, many new therapists have been developed with a strong spiritual basis such as psychosynthesis. Reichian breath work, sand play, and whole array of transpersonal psychologies. The best therapy, like the best meditation practice, uses awareness to heal the heart and is concerned not so much with our stories, as with fear and attachment and their release, and with bringing mindfulness to areas of delusion, grasping and unnecessary suffering. One can, at times, find the deepest realizations of selflessness and non-attachment through some of the methods of transpersonal psychology. 5. Does this mean we should trade meditation for psychotherapy? Not at all. Therapy isn’t the solution either. Consciousness is! And consciousness grows in spirals. If you seek freedom, the most important thing I can tell you is that spiritual practice always develops in cycles. There are inner times when silence is necessary, followed by outer times for living and integrating the silent realizations, as well as times to get help from a deep and therapeutic relationship with another person. These are equally important phases of practice. It is not a question of first developing a self and then letting go of it. Both go on all the time. Any period of practice may include samadhi and stillness, followed by new levels of experiencing wounds and family history, followed by great letting go, followed by more personal problems. It is possible to work with all of these levels in the context of a spiritual practice. What is required is the courage to face the totality of what arises. Only then can we find the deep healing we seek - for ourselves and for our planet. In short, we have to expand our notion of practice to include all of life. Like the Zen ox-herding pictures, the spiritual journey takes us deep into the forest and leads us back to the market place again and again, until we are able to find compassion and the sure heart’s release in every realm.

Claire's thoughts:

We are who we are for a reason.  We must know who we truly are, before we can know another.  I must see myself wholly and fully, will I see others.

Seeing is not grasping, is not attaching.  But rather seeing is the first must step in releasing, in expansion.

When we can gain full compassion for our own pain, will we able to gain true compassion for others in pain.

Getting caught in our story is not seeing to the depth of our pain.  It’s staying on the thin surface and refusing to dive into the bottom of it.  It’s using the mind as an outside observer of the pain, and not opening our heart to actually feeling it.  It’s a way out, an avoidance, not dealing with the true issue. Perpetuating our story is putting the blame outside of ourselves, therefore we stay a victim and do not own our power to take our life in our own hands.  

Therefore stop telling our stories and come into deep feeling, own our journey of healing, and regain our power as a human being, and walk step by step toward greater freedom.

As a human being, I am a piece of God, and I am God.  Who is to say, I am not worth the attention to be see fully? And to be healed completely?  My personality is here for a reason, a holy one at that.  So look at it, accept it, and then we can release it to a greater capacity.

Any method serves the person.  What you want, will attract the right method to you.  The same method could do totally different things for two different people.  It could complete resolve something for one, while it can not touch the other.  It depends on the person seeking it.  We are our lives creator.  We are responsible.  It’s not so much about the method, but the person.  Though there are tons of thousand of methods out there, all for good reasons.  We pick up different tools at different times of our lives.  So no need to have attachment, or judgment of different tools.

Jerigtu and I have very exciting news to share with you: our healing center in Inner Mongolia is on its way!  

We have been building our residential teaching and healing center in Inner Mongolia for the past five months.  After much intensive effort, with thirty some workers working together at times, the ground work is finally done.  And the place is feeling more and more wonderful each day!  We will continue to finish building the infrastructures next spring.  And we will build a website to share our progress and vision with you soon!    

Practice of the Day: 

Choose to be in love, in this moment.

Let our heart fall wide open, crack open if we must,

And notice.

Notice what we are doing, and let our heart open to the moment, and love with abandon.

Notice what is surroundings us, and let our heart fall open, love with all of our might.

Notice the ones with us, love them entirely.

Notice, inside, who we are, and love, love, and love some more.

Let the tears fall, tears of joy. 

Tears of gratitude.

Tears of love.

In this moment, right here, fall in love with life, with myself.

What is Illness, What is Wellness?

A short talk by Jerigtu at the OKC Unity Church

We’ll talk about illness.  What is an ill patient and what is illness? They are completely different concepts.  What is illness and what is wellness?  Also very different concept.  When someone has passed the physical exams, we don’t say this person is healthy.  Mongolians say when someone’s mind and consciousness is healthy also, one is truly healthy.

When one is in a happy circumstance, one does not feel joyous, or when one is in a sad situation, but does not feel much grief, one is ill.  If one sees another person slip and fall, and want to laugh, this person is ill.  This person is not bad.  His or her character is not bad.  He and she is ill.

The majority of clients come to me are females.  Does it mean women have more illness?  No.  It’s because they are more tuned into their senses, and their limbic brain is more connected to the frontal lobe, so they know when something is not right, that they need to ask for help.  Whereas men have as many illnesses, but their senses were more suppressed, so when they are ill, they may also suppress the sensations or the cry for help.  Women feel sadness much more readily and respond by crying, thus allowing the body to release the energy/emotion.  This is a sign of connection.  That’s why women have longer life span than men.  

Explosive crimes are caused by these beings who systemically suppress their emotions and senses, so the illness becomes more and more severe, until it causes social disturbances.  And this is also why more men are involved in crime because their emotions and senses have been suppressed more early on.  Illness is accumulative.  

For example, if we often think, “I don’t have enough money, and only if the money in the banks would come into my account…”  If we keep on thinking these thoughts, thoughts eventually accumulate into things, or actions, such as robbing a bank on a spur of moment, or even with planning.  This is illness accumulating.  If a man looks at a woman and think of sex, enough times this man will have kidney deficiency, kidneys functioning will slowly go down.  Each time a thought activate the kidneys and drain them little by little.  A Mongolian saying goes, “Thoughts of sex shortens life.”  This person is not bad.  This person is ill and needs help.

When more females are in power, it signals that our society in large is getting more and more connected with our senses and emotions, and empathy.  And it signals there will be peace prevailing in the world.  An open heart is at the center of peace. 

15% of the population may be well.  15% may have illnesses that can be seen in examinations.  The rest 70% are ill but cannot be seen in the exam results.  Earliest Mongolian healing do not separate into parts of body, but rather in three categories: qi or energy, soul or spirit, and imbalance.

Human beings relate to different realms or systems, within our body it is a system, humans relating to our environment is a system, relating to nature is a system, relating to society is a system, relating to the universe is yet another system.  Therefore when we are ill, we must find out in which system the illness is caused.  When we find the cause, we come into healing by activating the natural healing mechanism of each organ system.

For example when we suddenly enter into an air conditioned room from the heat, our pores stand up like goose bumps.  This is because our body feels the change, and the pores are closing so the sudden cold do not enter into the skin.  But if the skin does not respond in this way, it means we have lost our natural healing mechanism.  Even if we get rid of the cold through medicine, because we don’t have this natural protective mechanism, we will catch cold again and again.  True healing is to re-activate the natural healing mechanisms of organ systems and the body.

Capacity to Perform depends on Our Capacity to Relax

Taking a lunch break from the Yi Jin Jing workshop, I stared at the TV in the restaurant for a moment and felt my mind zoned out.  Sudden the realization entered that this is why so many of us watch TV or surf the web at times, while feeling like we are wasting our life doing so.  This is because the TV and web actually alleviated our busy mind, so that we could zone out for brief moments. 

Our body needs these zoned out moments to recuperate.  Kids zone out for no apparent reason all the time.  It’s a crucial but forgotten part of life. We used to chat amongst friends and family, and in between talk, we naturally zoned out.  The villagers in Inner Mongolia where Jerigtu is from still do that, and that’s one of many reasons why I enjoy being amongst them so much. 

Now that our days are packed full of activities, of actively doing, we are lacking these moments of zoning out. Our modern city lives place too much importance in doing, and not in undoing.  Our lives tend to be too yang and not supported by yin activities, such as resting, letting go, surrendering the mind and the body, zoning out, observing and meditating inwardly.

There is a saying that the muscle is only as strong as it is flexible, which means the muscle’s ability to engage depends on its ability to relax and lengthen.  To broaden this concept into our lives, this means our actions are only as powerful as our capability to relax and regenerate.

Through years of teaching and healing, I notice that almost all of us, myself included, don’t know how tight we are until the moment we are able to release.  So we are unaware of how much our own power is restricted, and how much our life is limited until we begin to explore into our capacity to relax.

So if you feel a little more relaxed from the busy day after watching TV or surfing the web, can you imagine the capacity of relaxation would happen while your whole being is intending on that one purpose only, to relax.  The main goal of Level One ZY Qigong is relaxation.  All the exercises and meditations help us release and surrender fuller into our capacity to relax.  When our physical body and mind relax enough, energy naturally begins to flow and accumulate. 

If you feel chronically lack of energy, lack of focus, clarity or the ability to persevere, you may consider joining us for the weekend June 10-13.  If you are working on healing a chronic illness, this practice would serve you well.  If you would like an overall shift in your productivity or creative energy, this practice could be the jump start for the change.

Creativity and Energy

I like to write and to create.  For me I know that when I feel exhausted, it’s impossible for me to be creative.  This is because life uses the same energy, same life force for all conditions.  Life shares this same source of energy for all the vital organs, as it does for our sexual energy, our well power, and it does for our creative energy as well.

So when feeling exhausted, first I must revitalize myself.  And the most effective way is through qigong practice.  When I meditate and tap into the energetic state, it is much more effective than sleep, or just resting.   Sometimes five to twenty minutes would do it, and then my energy feel full and my creative juice feels vibrant again.

I found at times when I am exhausted, but I don’t go right into practice.  The reason is that somehow I feel bad about being exhausted, and I cannot accept that is my current state.  So feeling bad about being exhausted makes me putter around doing nothing much, or numb out by surfing the web.  In another word, not dealing with what’s happening now. 

In order to address the issue at hand, I first must accept my current state, that it’s okay that I am feeling exhausted.  I am not bad because I feel exhausted or not well.  It’s normal that all of us feel exhausted or not so well at times, and not have the energy I think I “should” have to deal with tasks at hand.  And this accepting means literally opening my heart to me, to me right here right now.  When my heart feels my current condition and feels compassion for it, I release the bad feelings and the need to do, to accomplish, and I take care of myself by going into practice.

Then I feel the energy flowing and I return to the natural flow of life.  I can flow more easily and effortlessly in life.  Our external flow, the flow of life reflects our internal flow.  It’s a direct extension or manifestation of how we are flowing energetically within.  So pay attention to me, to my bodily sensations, right here right now.

I invite you to two upcoming qigong workshops.  The Yi Jin Jing practice is one of the most effective movement practice I have found to date.  It activates flow in all areas of our body, brings flow into our blind spots.  The practice builds strength that not only empowers our body but our lives.

Through my own practice, the way I lead the ZY Qigong workshop changes.  This year seem to be an ending of a cycle in my self-development, and this will manifest directly into how I teach this workshop.  I hope to share this joy and grounding with all of you.

NOW

Now, it is for ME.

Now. Right here. This moment.
It is for ME. No one else. It is for me.

Now is for ME. Because this is MY life. No one else's.

I have manifested this moment. I have manifested everything before. And I manifest everything beyond.

This IS my life. And NOW, this moment is mine. It is for ME. I fully inhabit it. Deeply.

I breathe throughout my body. I own now.

I fully own this moment. And this moment. And this moment. And this moment...

Lean into Pain to Resolve It

One of my students once said to me, when doing Big Tree, she has learned to lean into pain to eventually resolve it.

 This is precisely what’s effective in healing, physical pain or emotional pain. Often when a condition becomes chronic, we have learned to ignore it to some extent and numb it in our awareness. This is why the body has learned to co-exist with the condition. In order to heal it, we must bring our full awareness into it, look right into it, lean into it, wake it up, hear it, see it and experience it fully. Then the healing may start.

I have remembered to try it again this morning when my persistent stomachache finally got my attention. So it’s a meditative practice that can be done anytime in life, not only in Big Tree Standing Meditation. It’s not a “oh, it’s hurting again, oh no, oh what can I take to stop it” kind of going-outward-for-help notice, but rather, “what is it trying to tell me, and how can I change” kind of going-in-deep awareness.

This requires me not afraid of what the body is trying to say, therefore allowing it to cry out fully, which could mean at first experiencing more and deeper pain. Know that the body would not give us more than what we can take, so relax into the pain. The more I relax, I feel more spacious in my stomach area. I see, I have been tightening it chronically without notice. As I release more space for the stomach, I do feel the pain spread and intensifying. I ask, what are you trying to tell me? It says, “Give me space. Always allow space for me to work, to breathe. Protect my space even when you feel tense, nervous, worried or pressed in by outside demands.” I hear you. And this will require on going practice in life.

Then the pain begins to subside. It moved to the spleen. My spleen felt hot. I relax around my spleen and ask, “What are you saying to me?” “I am empty. I have been working too hard at times when you over ate. I need rest, too. So please take breaks.” I see. I must not over eat out of nervousness or fear. Be in the moment in my body when I eat, and stop when I feel the signal for the first time. My stomach and spleen slowly begins to calm.

This is all practice to be in the body while living life. And when we feel pain in the body, it’s a wake up call, telling us how we must change for healing to start. We are powerful. We can heal ourselves. Now take that one step and begin to really listen, really see, and begin to release that old familiar tightness pattern. This is a life time practice, and we are doing this together now.

Releasing Main Holding Pattern, Finding Main Life Mantra, and Becoming a Greater Self

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.

My Blog moving While I am in China

Dear friends,
I will be flying to China tomorrow, and still haven't found the "perfect" way to continue this blog from China. So I will try two ways, and see which may work better.
I have started a google discussion group which I like even more because then it's a dialogue between all of us. The address is: http://groups.google.com/group/heart-centered-image-therapy?hl=en
Please email me and let me know if you would like to join us.

Another option is a Chinese site, which all of the manuvering unfortunately are in Chinese. If the google discussion site is not available to me in China, I will utilize this Chinese site to continue my writings on traditional Chinese medicine and my practice. The address is: http://blog.sina.com.cn/claireg

Either way I hope to continue to share this journey with you in the new year.

May the new year bring peace, joy and light to you all,
Claire Johnson

Another Confirmation of Direct Experience

I had a client recently who seemed to have the perfect life. I saw her a year ago and she still believed that her childhood was perfect, and her parents were perfect. This year things fell apart for her. Both her children got into trouble, and she began to re-examine her life, little by little. When I scanned her, I didn’t know any of these.

First instead of seeing her aura bubble, I saw her energy all going downward, shaping like a pyramid. That was a first for me and made a strong impression. I saw her liver energy all suppressed downward, although a tiny bit were like pins, trying hard to rise. I asked her to face down which was also not how I usually treated the liver and gall bladder. There was a point in the back of her liver that was not on any chart that looked very blocked. I woke the point up with softness, and she was already crying. Then the energy jumped up to underneath her armpit. Another surprise, I thought, there is no channel that went this way. I followed what I saw and worked on the point under her armpit. The thought that came to my head was “self hate.” I relaid the information to her, and she said how she felt that her father never approved who she was. I see. It was a good session, but the intensity of emotional release was still scary to the client. She decided not to come back this time and waited for next year to continue this work.

The story continued with me. One day during the Thanksgiving holiday, I felt a painful point on my back that was familiar from collage days. It was so annoying that I asked my dad to help me. When he needled it, I almost jumped off of the table! My right arm swang up without my control. The qi sensation was so strong I had to breathe deeply to keep the needle in. Then I noticed a point below my armpit started hurting. Another needle there may be of relief, I thought, but I was still having to breathe so hard to get used to the other one, I chickened out. A bit later I also felt a pain in my elbow. Why is that? I kept on asking myself.

Things didn’t dawn on me until I was brushing my teeth absent mindedly. All of a sudden a light came on. I was just reading my current favorite Chinese medicine book in Chinese, and the author talked about how for women, the small intestine channel is very important. Suppressed anger is vented through the small intestine channel, and especially for menopausal women, there may be very painful points along this channel. So massaging, pounding and scrapping along this channel help women release old, piled up suppressed anger.
Aha, again experience made sense of knowledge. Again the scanning was able to pin pointed the necessary healing at that specific time. How nature works, how our bodies work continue to fascinate me.

Continuing from Previous Writing

Knowledge is dialectic. It can always make sense simply by shifting the circumstance. Knowledge can be used well when combined with one’s intuition that may come from extensive practical experience. Knowledge is endless, and too much can become tiring. Our scanning abilities are before duality. It may simply be an image. It just is in the moment, not depending on the past or future circumstances. Using our abilities and intuition in life energize us, and furthur expands our capacity. Knowledge can be used as a communication tool after but not before we have checked with our abilities.

Trusting Our Scanning Abilities

Here is another reminder of trusting our scanning abilities versus what our mind currently know. I have been working a lot with the spine lately in my healing work. As it is our back bone, it literally tells us how we are standing up for who we are, and how we are giving our power away. Different vertibraes signifies different psychological patterns of giving away our own power. Releases in physical and energy blockages unleash psychological patterns we have been holding in our bodies, perhaps since childhood, or perhaps in many life times.

An Image Therapy student asked me if I also work with points along the bladder channels. I said yes, since they hold gates to the organs. Yet there is something else I didn’t know how to explain at the time, because I actually used points an inch from each side of the spine more than the bladder points. My hands feel their blockage, and my third eye sees stored information in them. Yet they are not on any acupuncture charts.

Then my father told me about the Hua Tuo Jia Ji Points that he uses often that treated everything. Oh, I said to myself, so these points do exist to others, not just me. So again trusting my scanning abilities served us practically versus just following the knowledge I had at the time. It’s always good to get these little reminders from time to time. It’s impossible for us to know all the existing knowledge. But it is possible for us to feel and see the thousands, perhaps millions of energy points in the body.

Heart Medicine Part I

Most Chinese words consist of two characters, therefore there are always two meanings contained in one word. For example the word illness is “ji bing.” The character “ji” implies an arrow shooting at us from the outside, such as coldness, dampness or viruses and bacteria. The character “bing” implies heart fire, which explains why an arrow from the outside could stay within us, and turn into chronic illnesses. Our heart fire could be caused by an imbalance in our emotions such as excessive worries, unexpressed anger, hidden fears, prolonged grief, over fatigue, unprocessed and repeated shocks, long term stress, or even on going adrenoline rushes. These emotions create weakness in our body that invites external enemies to stay. This is why in the ancient medical books, they say all illnesses arise from the heart and can be healed from the heart.
In the Yellow Emperor’s Internal Classic, it states obsessive thinking knots our vital energy, anger raises our energy up (into the chest and head), fear brings our energy down, shock makes the energy irratic, happiness slows down energy, grief decipates energy.” Normally energy would naturally flow throughout the body, making our blood flow and the organs function. If we chronically suppress qi flow or habitually make it move a certain way, soon we invite unwellness. For example when people chronically suppress their anger, they tend to have hot heads, maybe pain and dizziness, also heart burns and chestache. People who are chronically fearful may experience heaviness in their legs, even water retention in the leg and feet. When qi always go into one area, it would at first create excessive pressure and pain in that area, which turns into internal “fire” (i.e. energy fighting with the blockage trying to get through). If fighting goes on for long enough, qi and blood slow down and stagnate in that area, becoming cool and congealed. Blood in that area would come out dark and unhealthy. The area would easily be painful and bruised. In this case we would need to wake this area up physically and energetically, and help release the initial pent up emotions to complete the healing.
One of my client once said, “I thought I was being kind to my legs and feet by not touching them because they hurt so much. My mind was trying to avoid paying attention to the painful areas. But the evidence shows differently, doesn’t it?” Long term avoidance turns pain into numbness, and thus chronic stagnation that slowly clogs up the organs energetically, physically and emotionally. Another student told me after attending two consecutive weekend workshops that she was amazed, by simply pressing into a chronically painful spot, breathing into it and paying deep attention, the pain decipates. Two weeks after the workshops she was still off of her pain medication and doing well.
In our daily lives, if we can let our qi flow smoothly, expressing our emotions in healthy ways in a timely manner, illnesses may only pass through us and never stay. When our energy has become strong through qigong practice and natural eating habits, the arrows would not even be able to go through anymore. (To be continued...)

Thoughts

Enthusiasm is an external façade. Faith is the inner drive. A steady peace and joy come with the inner faith. Unwavering faith brings about focused, clear intent and perseverance, not burst of enthusiasm in different directions. Enthusiasm may bring extreme actions that could hurt us whereas faith keeps us taking each step firmly, trustingly and joyously. We feel increasingly grounded and well.

Conquering Fear with Joy

It was amazing fears were coming up. Before going to bed I was wondering to myself, why am I attracted to a Mongolian? I myself am already split between China and the US. Whenever I am in China, I miss the greenery, the clean air, the spaceousness in nature, and the curteous attitude, the deep, individually inquisitive spirituality of the Americans; whenever I am in the US, I miss the wonderful array of foods, the abundance of different kinds of fresh, in season greens, the richness of tastes from different provinces, the warm connection of the ordinary people in China and the long history of wellness, spirituality and wisdom. My fear was, am I getting more unstable by marrying a Mongolian?

Then it donged on me, I am of both places. I couldn’t just be in one place for the rest of my life. My life is fabulously rich because I am of both places, and I enjoy going back and forth! So it’s perfect that I am marrying someone who would also enjoy going back and forth with me. I am of China and the US. He is of Mongolia and China. Together we are of all three places. We are not less. We are more. Our children will be more. And since our hearts are happy together, our home is with our hearts. So I might as well feel right at home migrating through our three homes! Voila! Spontaneous explosion of joy blows out the fear yet again. Always, always remember joy and gratitude in each of my steps.

(In the five element theory of TCM, fire of the heart system controls and regulates water of the kidney system. When the heart fire is constantly vibrant, it can turn excess water into steam. But if we seek out adrenoline joy rides, ridinng on the ups and downs of the heart, we can burn up rest of the water, and deplete our kidneys and our energy. Again it’s about finding our personal balance in specific times.)