We were talking about Christmas jumpers in the kitchen after the Buddhist group meeting tonight.
I don’t have a Christmas jumper as such any more, having sent the one I had to a charity shop a few years ago. I do have a festive jumper though. It is warm and soft with a kind of Nordic pattern on it and I may wear that to the meeting next week.
We meditated on the ‘Om Ah Hum’ mantra with much of the teaching devoted to deepening our understanding of that mantra, which represents the body, speech and mind of Buddha.
Home to lovely Lydia, I give her a few treats and she’s now lying down on the other side of the room, ready I think for her ‘sleepy time’.
I’m not quite ready for my ‘sleepy time’ yet this evening. I may just sit up for a while and reflect a bit more on the mantra.
I first encountered Qigong when I was exploring anything and everything that I could find that I thought might help to restore my mental health from a point of crisis to some semblance of stability. That was over 25 years ago, and I had a long and arduous journey ahead of me. Along the way I took part occasionally in Qigong classes and workshops. It wasn’t until some years later, however, when I was struggling to push through the challenges of a demanding job – in itself part of my recovery process – that I considered a more regular commitment to the practise of Qigong.
Google searches came up with limited references to Qigong being offered locally. Luckily, one of these few was an evening class at a school just a few miles from where I was living, in Leeds.
An online Medical Dictionary notes:
Qigong (pronounced “chee-gung,” also spelled chi kung) is translated from the Chinese to mean “energy cultivation” or “working with the life energy.” Qigong is an ancient Chinese system of postures, exercises, breathing techniques, and meditations. Its techniques are designed to improve and enhance the body’s qi. According to traditional Chinese philosophy, qi is the fundamental life energy responsible for health and vitality.
The Dictionary goes on to state:
Qigong may be used as a daily routine to increase overall health and well-being, as well as for disease prevention and longevity. It can be used to increase energy and reduce stress. In China, qigong is used in conjunction with other medical therapies for many chronic conditions, including asthma, allergies, AIDS, cancer, headaches, hypertension, depression, mental illness, strokes, heart disease, and obesity.
Qigong is presently being used in Hong Kong to relieve depression and improve the overall psychological and social well-being of elderly people with chronic physical illnesses.
While I can’t claim that I commit to a daily practice – not yet anyway – I have been attending these evening classes – and some day workshops at weekends too – with the same teacher ever since.
When the Covid lockdowns first started, Sue Dunham – the teacher – was quick off the mark with setting up Zoom classes. Just as in the live classes, Sue’s commitment to her own practice and to sharing her knowledge and vast experience has shone through into these Zoom sessions.
Sue doesn’t just demonstrate what to do for us to follow. She talks through and builds up each movement step by step, repeating as necessary; infinitely thorough and always engaging. Her approach is very meditative and mindful, working deep on different themes in each group of three classes. During the height of the pandemic, focusing on the lungs could not have been more appropriate, and we’ve also recently worked on the spine and the digestive system.
Though the movements are slow and steady, I find that I sleep really well after a class session, and wake in the morning with the sense that I’ve had a really good workout, even though it isn’t ‘exercise’ in the conventional sense.
According to Sue:
“Qigong is an extraordinary practice: it can bring you to question fundamental beliefs about mind and your life, bringing you to that in a supported, gentle way. I have found it to be accessible and yet challenging, it’s enigmatic but intriguing!”
One of my favourite Qigong movements is called ‘Healing Form’, and Qigong has certainly become an essential part of my own movement towards health and healing.
When I started to become aware of my body, as a teenager, it was on the basis of how it looked. The negative compulsive obsessions I developed were – I realise now – associated with complex psychological and emotional traumas that have taken me 50 years to unravel.
Fortunately for me, my body was and is healthy and, while I continued well into adulthood to control my life by controlling what I ate, my body served me well. Deep roots hold tight, though, and it was a long time – being ultimately faced with the choice of life or no life – before I was able to find the strength, coping mechanisms, and resolve, to push through and come out the other side.
Qigong has helped me to work at a deeper level with my body – my amazing body.
It hasn’t provided me with a miracle ‘cure’ but it has helped to shift my focus into health and wellbeing, which is where it should be.
I feel a lot ‘lighter’ these days, even though I’m 65 and probably weigh at least 4 stone more than I did when I was 15. At six-and-a-half stone and still feeling the need to lose weight, I was weighed down and locked in as a teenager.
Some of the grief, sadness and regret linger on, but less so day by day. I’m thankful for a lot of things and hope that I can continue to be so for many years to come. Qigong helps me to nurture my body, with all its intricate mechanisms for feeding and flow.
One of the wonderful things about this practice is that it takes me beyond what I ‘know’, what I can measure or evaluate, into that sense of wonder, about what I don’t know, with all the associated mysteries of those realms.
When I’m practising Qigong, under Sue’s infinitely patient and painstaking instruction, I feel as graceful as a dancer, and that – for me – is something of a miracle.
The Covid pandemic has shown us just how vulnerable any of us can be, at any age, but also how those vulnerability factors can increase as we get older. The more we can do ourselves to mitigate those factors, the more likely we are to be able to lead fulfilling, meaningful lives for longer. That’s my plan, anyway, and I’m sticking to it!
The woodland walk this morning was wild and windy for Lydia and me. Winter seems to have suddenly arrived and missed out Autumn. Hopefully it will revert back again, at least for a while.
It was good to have yoga and Qigong to go to this afternoon.
I’m also keeping up with my meditation practice, on a morning before taking Lydia out for her walk. I still have dips into negative thought patterns, but am learning to recognise them for what they are.
Body work, breath work, mind work. I do feel I’m continuing to make progress with my mental health, sticking with the things that work for me and repeating them in cycles that also work for me.
There were eight of us at the poetry group meeting this morning.
I hadn’t had breakfast before I went but I felt nourished by the nature of the group, sharing words that we’d prepared and formed in whatever ways we wanted to.
On the way home, needing food for body as well as soul, I bought buns and vanilla slices for me and Trev.
I then headed out again for the Open Day at the kennels that I take Lydia to when we’re away.
The kennels have a rescue and rehoming facility as well as the business side, so I like to support them in whatever way that I can. There were plenty of other people there to support them too.
Lydia and I had a rest together this afternoon. The importance of rest is a lesson that I’ve been learning only recently. Sometimes, the time and circumstances just have to be right.
Van Gogh featured in the discussion at the poetry group. He struggled to rest, with all the complex thoughts and influences going on in his mind, channelling his energies through paint. Quite how he found the focus for this I don’t know, in the time and circumstances that he lived in. But he did.
The theme for next month’s meeting was agreed and set as “something funny”.
I’m looking forward to thinking and writing about something funny. It’s time I had a good laugh. I’ve had to work hard and dig deep to turn my life around through decades of difficulties and distress. Now is the time to start having fun.
These were words spoken to me this morning when I picked Lydia up from the kennels where she’d been staying over the weekend.
I’ve always thought this myself, because she is.
We had a good walk together, before I took her home, and she’s enjoyed much of the day outside in the yard, in what is warm and rather windy weather.
After a two-week break I resumed my usual ‘Mental Health Monday’ activities this afternoon: yoga followed by Qigong.
So, I’ve had two-and-a-half hours of concentrated activity for health and wellbeing with the added benefit – for brief periods – of being a tiger, a dog, a cat, a tree, a warrior and a dragon.
I don’t feel a need to compare and say which of these I’ve preferred being, but I did like the dragon movements.
I can now relax into a mellow evening knowing that I have given important attention to my musculoskeletal system as well as my mind and spirit. I think my girl with the beautiful soul is quite relaxed too; still in the back yard; still enjoying the warm and windy weather.
Despite, or more likely because of the mind, body and breath work I’ve been doing over the last few days, I’m feeling quite stressed today.
If this sounds contradictory, it isn’t. When I do work on myself at a deep level, I find it releases stresses and toxins, and then it can take a while for them to work out of my system. So, I’m taking the time to be easy with myself for a few days. I’ve just been reading outside while it is warm and sunny, but with some welcome shade.
Lydia is loving it too. I gave her a few “rub-a-dub-dub” massages on our walk this morning, as well as a really extended one before we left the house.
“I choose to be peaceful and calm. Everything is unfolding as it should.”
I have a trip to the cinema with friends lined up for this afternoon and will then go on to the Buddhist meeting this evening. For now, I meditate and then go outside to enjoy a bit more of this amazing weather. One more cup of coffee for the road? Yes.
As I wake this morning, Lydia is lying at the foot of the bed. She is looking neither sleepy nor restless. I get up to go to the bathroom and, on the way, give her a “rub-a-dub-dub” around her ears, neck, chest and upper arms. I go downstairs, open the back door, make tea and take it back to bed with me. I need some more “sleepy time” and I encourage Lydia to have some more too.
Lydia comes from Romania. So, she’s not only had to learn about a different culture and adjust to a different climate, she’s also had to learn a new language.
I have found Lydia to be very quick to learn on a lot of things. She soon got used to me saying “stay” when we had to leave her alone in the house, and has never had separation anxiety, like a lot of dogs do.
Other words/phrases I’ve introduced to help us to communicate with each other are “peepie time” and “poopie time”. “Peepie time” was important for house training, although we never really had any problems with that, except in the very early days when she was inclined to occasionally have a wee on a carpet.
“Poopie time” was important as for a long time she was very reluctant to have a poo in the back yard. While she mostly did her poos when we were out walking, there were occasions in the early hours of the morning when she had a tummy upset but just would not relieve herself in the back yard. So I ended up driving her out to a quiet country road – one of our usual walking spots – where we would walk up and down until she eventually felt able to do what she needed to do, and then we could go home. There was a time when my partner’s grandsons were staying with us and I had to take Lydia out in the car in the early hours; then when I eventually got back into bed, a cry came up from the boys’ room: “Maggie, I’ve had an accident!”. Quite what was going on in our household that night I don’t know but we did eventually all settle down for a bit more sleep.
I have now managed to train Lydia to occasionally have a “poopie” in the back yard, so that we don’t have to have any more early morning drives out into the country. I’ve still got a long way to go in learning her language, but I do think the “rub-a-dub-dub” is a good development for both of us. I stop and give her quite a few of these on our walk this morning, hopefully helping to regulate her vagus nerve.
As I write there is a window cleaner cleaning next door’s windows. Lydia starts to bark and I say, “No!” firmly and call her to me. Eventually she does come to me and I give her another “rub-a-dub-dub”. I’m hoping this might start to become her cue to feel more settled and calmer when we encounter whatever triggers her fears when we’re out walking. We shall see.
I certainly feel more settled and calmer today after yesterday’s breath and body work, stretching and strengthening. To consolidate this, I’m going to now do some meditation, before visiting a friend this afternoon. Oh, but I think I’ll have another cup of coffee first, because I’m retired, and I fancy another cup of coffee.
My knee is healing, and growing stronger, each passing day”
Glad About 
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