Wisdom of the Body: Mary Morrison

In a world where modernization often leads us to perceive our bodies as problematic, Mary's approach offers a refreshing shift in perspective. She invites us to recognize the body's inherent capacity for healing and self-awareness, encouraging us to listen to the messages it communicates through symptoms and discomfort.

Mary brings a unique perspective to our understanding of the body, steering us away from viewing it as merely a problem to be fixed and instead encouraging us to see it as a wise teacher. Drawing from her extensive background in Chinese medicine, acupuncture, and Zhineng Qigong, Mary emphasizes the innate brilliance of the human body's design.

Throughout our conversation, Mary emphasizes the power of simplicity and awareness. Rather than rushing to interpret bodily sensations or immediately seeking solutions, she encourages us to cultivate a deep sense of presence and observation. By honing our awareness skills, we can begin to unravel the subtle messages encoded within our bodies, leading to greater self-understanding and holistic well-being.

Join us as we journey into the depths of bodily wisdom with Mary Morrison, exploring how embracing our innate wisdom can transform not only our health but also our leadership and way of being in the world.

Mindful Moments:

• The body as a wise teacher rather than as a problem to be fixed, contrasting with the Western medical paradigm.
• The body is described as a brilliantly designed entity with inherent wellness mechanisms, emphasizing its pre-programmed capacity for healing and resilience.
• Symptoms or discomfort are seen as messages from the body, offering insights into one's life and habits.
• The importance of simplicity in practices is emphasized for sustainability, making them accessible and feasible for consistent engagement.

Links & Resources

More about Mary here: https://howweheal.info/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/howweheal.info/

Body and Mind Method and other Zhineng Qigong Methods:
https://www.zhineng-qigong-students-hub.com/training-videos/

🎙️🌟Explore more podcasts, events, and resources visit:
https://www.zhineng-qigong-students-hub.com/

📘📚 Get your FREE E-book on the "Eight verses meditation" by Dr Pang:
https://www.zhineng-qigong-students-hub.com/exploration-of-the-eight-verses-of-zhineng-qigong-meditation-e-book

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Transcript

Welcome to the Zhineng Qigong Community Podcast, Wisdom Qigong Uncovered. My name is Torsten Lueddecke and this is today's story.

Far too often do we see the body as a problem. Something that needs to be fixed because it is broken. Something we need to act upon because we want to tackle a disease. But my guest today, Mary Morrison, suggests to view the body as a wise teacher. No matter the symptoms or the disease, the body has a message for you.

Let your body become a tool for leadership. That is what today's conversation is about. So she studied Chinese medicine, acupuncture, and she's combining all of that into her practice where she helps people, all over the world, online and offline, to get in touch with what's going on in their lives, what's happening in their lives and to heal, through that knowledge.

And the theme for today is the wisdom of the body, because that is something very, that you believe is an important thing to listen to. So maybe you want to explore a little bit about what that means to you. 

Mm hmm. Oh, yes. Thank you, Torsten, for having me. It's delightful to be, in your presence. And, , so yeah, wisdom of the body.

That's a curious statement, isn't it? , because my experience as a, over 13 years of being in acupuncture and then of course the five years of studying with Master Liu and Britta, , the Zhineng Qigong. So there is, I have been trained to look at the body as a wise teacher rather than the current pair or the Western medical paradigm is the body's a problem.

So that's a completely different. worldview, , the body, that the body is wise. And, , so that is my work in the world is to, is to have people see their body as a brilliant, absolutely brilliant design, right? It's, it's, it's, you know, you cut yourself, your body starts healing right away. , so it's really an, there is an, abundance of pre designed, wellness built in.

It's like you come pre, pre programmed, pre designed when you're born on this, into this, into this life with a body that's brilliantly designed. And I think, , in modern, you know, modern life, the modernization of life over the hundreds, thousands of millennia, it's, we've been. Told that the body's a problem, experienced the body as.

I don't know what's going on. I need to, you know, go to the doctor. And absolutely, yes, that is still the case. I don't ever talk anybody out of doing that. But I get curious about, h what do you know about your symptoms? Like what is, what do you, do you want to learn about how your symptoms could be teaching you about how to, live life differently?

Is that a possibility? And so that's, that's basically where. I start with people and but, but the last two years I've been pulling it out of the wellness community and apply it toward leadership because I have a background in as a business. , and I have an MBA master's in business. , social responsibility, like how to do good with through business, , how to make your corner of the world a better place, whether it's your community, you start with your family, the community, if you have a passion project, or if you want to build a business that lifts other people, that's who I love working with because we need more of that.

Type of business to, , based on what's happening all around the world, a lot of conflict and conflict, starts though in the body first, a han body first before it scale, you know, scales up to what we see now all over the world. So, if I can get at the genesis or the beginning of, what do you notice about your body?

Like what are the symptoms you're noticing? What are, what are the wisdom teachers? Your body that you notice. Can we start there? 

So basically, I mean, all aware of, of the self-healing, ability of the body when you, just, as you explained, when you cut yourself, the body would, whatever it needs to do to heal its head.

Now what? When you cut yourself, yeah, it might just be an accident. Nothing to worry about. No bigger idea behind that. But what you are talking about is more, it's not just the healing ability. What you're also saying is that if you have any discomfort or any disease or any illness. That is a message from the body.

The body is wise enough to want to communicate something to you. Do I understand that correctly? 

That is correct. And even when we have an accident, 

right, 

right. That's very human. And , could it, could we just get curious about, well, what was I doing? Like was, did I have, , so I, there's usually a moment, like if you think about, you know, You did something and then you like hurt yourself or you jammed your finger, you know, say something benign, but perhaps maybe a minute before that happened or a moment, you had this sensation that says, Oh, maybe I should stop, but for whatever reason, valid or otherwise, you didn't, and now your fingers bleeding or whatever, right?

That's what I'm talking about. Like there's, right. There's a lot of things, many things, maybe every, that doesn't come out of the blue necessarily, maybe it comes out of oblivion or not being aware. So if we can use our capacity as han beings, because we do have it, we have this immense capacity to, like, how is, what is your, how do you, how do you know?

That's my question always. I'm interested in how you know when to pull back and go, I need to rest a moment because I actually might hurt myself. But then what's the sensation that says, actually, no, I'm fine. I'm going to keep going. Like, what is that? So it's a very nuanced, , conversation and practice that I, that I, that I have people do.

And I have 12 skills. I call them skills because You've got to practice them for them to work, but they work pretty quickly and they're pretty sustainable to keep up. They're very sustainable because they're, they're very simple. , because simplicity in my world is elegant and it's powerful. Too complex, you know, people won't do it.

They like to think, Oh, I'll do it. But if it's too complex, someone will not do the Qigong movement, right? We keep it very simple, for example, right? 

Right. 

So the practice skills that I have people to pay attention to their body, not interpret it though. We get into like, well, I, my shoulder is tight because of blah, blah, blah.

Let's suspend. that and just notice, when do you tighten your shoulders? Body's wise, right? The tightening is wisdom. What do you, what are you resisting? Like, what are you tightening to? Could you still do what you need to do and not tighten and relax? Because a lot of people don't notice. I notice, but it's no good for me to notice and you not notice.

Like that's unsustainable healthcare as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. And not leadership either, because I was just writing a blog post. Everybody's a leader. People that were like, I'm not a leader. What do you mean? I'm not like, but you are, because you are leading your life. You're leading likely a family, right?

Could be two or more people, kids. You are a leader. , but we have, as we were talking earlier, terrible examples of leaders out there. We don't have really good modeling for what I say leadership really is, is the ability to lift and guide, guide others. So, they lift not only themselves up, but other people with them.

So, so what I understood so far is the, is the topic of awareness. So, what you're saying is that now when, once the shoulder, you know, tenses up, are you aware of what's going on? And you that you did that. Yeah, you're aware that you did that, right? And you're aware of what else is happening at that moment.

Yeah. 

What's going on around you? Like, what, where, like, the questions I ask, you're like, can notice some, like, when's the last time you were, I call it. Upset, meaning not necessarily angry, but any type of resistance. Oh, I don't like that. Someone, you know, my client is late or my dog is barking or traffic is, right, traffic is heavy.

Like any moment of like, I'm in a fight with the world right now, as it is. Right. That's kind of like a waste of time and Qi right? Mm-Hmm. . It is how it is, right? And we tend to resist. Very common. Again, not a problem, it's just noticing that I do it is the first skill because the more you notice kinda it dawns on people.

Like, oh, I wonder I'm not sleeping well. I'm like kind of like upset at so many different things and I, by the end of the day. I may be exhausted, but I can't fall asleep because there's like, not just one upset a day, but there's, I call them, I actually call them chi leaks, chi leaks that were like, oh, that doesn't really bother me most of the time, but it's still enough.

It's still enough of a leak where, you know, chi flows where attention goes, even if it's only like 5%. You're still kind of leaking. So the practices is eventually, once you have these awareness practices that I, that you practice, then we start with like, well, then how do you use the, the, the newfound awareness, the shoulder tension to then un tense, but we don't jp to the solution right away because honestly, I want you to notice and notice So you can see, oh wow, I really do spend a lot of time tightening and tightening and tightening.

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And then you, there's something else I picked up, yeah, which is, I think, worth noting that you said, don't jp to a conclusion, don't jp to an interpretation, right? So what, what, what are you suggesting instead? What am I supposed to do with this information? Okay. I noticed my shoulder is tensing, , tensing up.

So what is the next step? 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the. The, the 12 skills, you know, they'll have like, I have a, you know, a workbook and a thing and right to walk people through, but it's not even necessary because this, what I offer people is like moment to moment and the areas that matter to you in life. So it's not everything, but in the areas that matter to you, like relationships or family or work, you notice some tension.

, we eventually get to practices to, okay, so maybe I'm telling a story, I'm interpreting my, the sensation or what I'm experienced as like the, like, this is how it is, which is tight. Right. If I, well, I'm, I'm tensing my shoulders, Mary, because so and so is a jerk. Well notice your body as you say that, if you're like, oh, it's tight.

I mean, you. You may be right, right? That's, that's, there's no argent there, but it's the fact that you tense when you say that. So guess what? Is it useful? Maybe there's another story or interpretation here that would Soften you or relax your shoulders in the moment and how could we, so reframing a situation is kind of a skill that I teach.

We're storytellers, right? We're hans, right? Are you even aware of the story you're telling? about the thing you're upset with, because this, 

go ahead. Sorry about that. No, this is something, you know, that I, I kind of get now. So I choose a different story and then I can also choose to relax my shoulder, for example.

Yeah. Well, exactly. You can, you can, because here's the, here's the interesting kind of paradox with what I teach or as not even teach, I guide, I'm a guide. I mean, because I trust you like Torsten, you've been in that body for a long time. You have a, you are skilled and I treat everybody with high respect because you've been living in your body, you know it the best and there are likely some practices you do that are very effective.

But what I hone in on is like, just like a little. little nuanced thing that I'm observing as I'm listening to you tell me, like, why you're upset with X, Y, and Z, and that I just get real curious and I ask you to be, do the same. It's like, h that story about, you know, your neighbor. Okay. Well, is that, is that upset making a difference?

I usually gets people. They're like, like, is it because you're, you're creating all this sensation. And then now what do you, is it worth being right about the story you're telling about your neighbor who's playing loud music, for example, you get to decide. That's the thing. It's like you get to decide if that's being upset.

So rather than run over upset and pound on the door. Well, you could say, well, maybe, I don't know, I tell people, make up a silly story like you can tell any story you want because you do anyway. But do the point is, though, do you know you're telling the story that's generating the ups, the tension? Because if you could, See, really, really, really get that because we have to unwind some, I have to unwind somebody's story about how they're living.

So it's, it's, it's deep work in the sense of like, we bring all of our life's experience to this moment right now. So I'm asking you to do something radical is to suspend the judgment and go, well, I notice I am tight and my jaws tight and, , I'm like saying that they don't care about me, the sound, I got to work, right?

So people like, well, I'll just go over there and handle it. But you're going to go over there in a tense body. You're going to perpetuate the chi of your over there. You're going to like spill it over there. Instead. Right? And this is getting like, this is, this one exercise doesn't happen until like seven or eight because there's 12 of them.

So I don't have you jp to this, but as a quick thing for everybody listening is like, you have an upset with somebody. Could you relax your body first? Could you notice, Oh, this really shoulder tension, this jaw tightening isn't useful. It's not helping my unlikely. If I were to put a cuff around my arm, my blood pressure would be up, right?

This is how we create sickness and we don't realize it. But this is, this is the genesis of upset is like optional. If you're going to be upset, let's find a worthy cause to be upset about because there are plenty in the world, not your neighbor who you don't even know might be hard of hearing. You have no idea.

Like, what if, you know, they're celebrating a win, something really, and it's only going to be for a few minutes, like, there's a ton of stories you could reframe the whole situation to help you generate relaxation and go, you know what? I'm not going to spend my life force. My energy focuses on tightening my body.

That's not helping. That's actually creating the conditions for a disease state. I say, and then go spread it over next door. No, I'm not going to do that in the world. I'm committed because I have a commitment in the world. In my presence, you experience calm and peace. That's another factor. It's like, what are you committed to in the world?

Now, but now if somebody comes to you and it's not the tense shoulder and that they feel stressed, but say the whole thing is on a different stage already and they've developed a serious illness, which you can't, you know, you, everybody's at a position to untense their, their, their shoulder. But yeah, if it's something serious, I've got a liver problem, I've got a heart issue or cancer or something like that.

How do you use the wisdom of the body to take them backwards, resolve whatever needs to be resolved so that this illness disappears? 

Well, I don't even do that. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm clear still with these labeled diseases that Western medicine hands us. Yes. It's like how my question is, well, okay. So this is, this is what's so right.

This is more of this like, Okay, I'm not going to fight this. This is, this is what I'm dealing with. These are the test results. These are my symptoms. So my question I begin with is like, I'm not here to fix you. You're not because fixing, I actually say fixing has been part of the problem with Western medicine because fixing doesn't involve a co, a partnership, a co like, and it gets back to the question, if someone's has come to me.

And someone recently did with, , Parkinson's, how are we going to live now from birth, right from birth to death, but really from right now until you die, how do you want to live in this body, given all the labels that you've been labeled in the test results, because I know when I'm in a relaxed body. The body actually has an opportunity to regulate, right?

In a tense body, inflammation, right? We, I, that's how I think of it. Like inflammation is wise and there's different, there's body inflammation, but there's also organizational inflammation. And that's what we get back to the leadership. Like, where are you in flaming of like, where are you spreading heat in your organization?

Inflammation though, is rushing around your busy life. Not aware of the impacts. of your rushing, which is, to me, a visible form of inflammation. So, back to someone with a serious illness, they're not a problem to be fixed. They have to, I really start with them as like, well, what if you didn't get any worse?

Would that be, is that a good, Would that be a good, like, goal? Like, it's really taking each person one by one and saying, I have a set of skills. I can teach you to really relax and calm yourself, and so you can be clear headed about the decisions you do have to make about your health. The surgeries you are coming up.

I worked with somebody recently who, , she realized she was on medication that was driving up her blood pressure and then she had to take another medication for some other side effect. But she, she realized I don't wanna be on any of these medications 'cause it's not for me to say, for them to be on it.

I'm not living their life. You gotta do what you gotta do. But like, how are you making that decision though? Are you making it in a tent? Could we get you to relax and then choose? That's really what's important. That's where your power is. Noticing that I'm like tensing. Oh, I have a choice now. If I choose out of tension, there's going to be a ripple effect.

There's going to be a weight behind that boat. You're driving called your life. 

And that if I go, That's probably the opposite of what people usually do when they get a diagnosis. 

It's very scary. It's totally like it's no, it's really, it's challenging to be clear headed when you're afraid. And I have so much sympathy and empathy for that because I, I've been very sick myself.

And luckily I had somebody asking me, well, how do you, how do you want to navigate this boat? Do you want to do it out of fear? Or do you want to just kind of like, See what your choices are, but from a calm, relaxed body, choose. I, I, I'm definitely, , even in, in kind of like the, kind of what we consider worse diagnoses, all diagnoses are, are a set of like symptoms, right?

Kind of lped together and you have this, right? Or you have that. But in, but still I use my Chinese medicine and go, well, It's more than the box. It's, it's like the label cancer or Parkinson's or whatever. Your body's still wise. Could that be true? Right? And then how, so how do, from this moment forward, how do we, how do you want to live life?

Because I think quality of life and how people want to live, they do have agency in that, but like this one person with, , this, She was, has this arrhythmia diagnosis and she's like, I think it's the blood pressure medication. So we just kind of like, she did come to me for wellness. She wasn't coming to me for leadership.

So I'm kind of, I can kind of pull out and really help guide people. But in her personal leadership, I think we've abdicated that a lot with Western medicine. We hand it over to the person with a stethoscope and say, they know more about me. No, no, you know more about you. You just need a guide to remind you of your wisdom.

But she was like, what do I say? Well, what? Like notice your body when you think about your different decisions and she chose the path very calmly. And now she's not on any medication. She can always go back to them, but her blood pressure's naturally low now, right? For arrhythmia, it doesn't, it doesn't exist anymore.

She did the work. And I think that brings us back to what you initially said, you know, we started with the simple example of cutting your finger. The body knows how to heal. Now that is the wisdom of the body. And I think our job is, if I may. Do this. It could go to the separation here. Our job of the mind is to allow the body to heal.

And in order to allow it to heal, we have to, we have to make sure, you know, we are core, we are relaxed because the moment we stress, there's no way the body can do its work because it's all on survival mode. So it doesn't do the necessary repairs. A lot 

harder for sure. 

There we go. And, and so, so the best thing you could do is, okay, you trust your body that it knows what needs to be healthy or what it needs to improve.

What it means to do whatever needs to be done, but do you have to give the body permission that you can only do this by de stressing, by being calm, by, you know, taking charge again, by coming from a relaxed, calm place, just as you described. And I think that is where, you know, where in an indirect way, you are.

supporting the, the people, to, to let the body do the work that it has to do. Exactly. Is that a fair way to say, or do I get something wrong? 

Yeah, no, that's, that's it. And, and I'll add the, you know, the, the, the connection of, like, every thought you think, Every thought you think your body like people say mindset and I'm like, yeah, maybe that's like a good start but There's no thought separate from the body.

There's no emotional reaction separate from the physical. That's that's that's Western medicine That's like with the thoughts of noticing. Oh, I have this thought about my boss notice your body How did you do that? And it's always like, huh? How did I do what? You thought of your boss and your shoulders tensed.

Oh yeah. But like, like kind of like, so what, but it's like, well, you just told me your shoulders hurt.

It doesn't dawn on people. Cause we've been trained out of being in our body, right? When we're little, we're kind of like very much more open and that, right. Cause we're, we're a little, our brain hasn't developed. Like there's a lot of development. yet to come. But culturally though, I like to help people design a really thriving culture, but it starts with your internal culture.

Are you observing the thoughts are so connected to the body that when you think something that matters to you, of course, do you in that moment, immediate feedback, am I tensing? Well, that's interesting. Could you be curious? That's been my big message for everyone. Could you be curious about your symptoms?

Because when I say that I feel this, like, opening, like, curious isn't just a word, I'm using it intentionally. When I say that, my shoulders, it's kind of like, like, because you can see me on Zoom, it's like, 

ah, 

h it's kind of like, the world seems a little bit bigger, not so narrow. H could I be curious about my shoulder?

Hmm. 

I had one person say, well, can't sleep at night, it gets me so angry. I'm like, to help? No. I said, well. I said, have you ever heard about two sleeps? Our ancestors, apparently a lot would, you know, had to keep the fire burning. We didn't have, you know, HVAC systems to heat and cool our homes, right? So somebody had, somebody's had to keep the fire going at night, keep watchful eye on animals or other intruders.

So we only slept for a few hours and would wake up and right. And then we may have something to eat, but somehow in modern society, I think with the industrial revolution and factories, we wanted people to, We insisted, well, get enough sleep, so many hours straight through, so you can get up and go to the factory, get the work done.

So I say, listen, sleep doesn't have to look like what you think it looks like. The main thing is like, do you feel rested in the morning? That's really kind of the indicator. We use our, these watches a lot, right? These Apple watches and these Fitbits to tell us about our sleep. You're a Fitbit from head to toe.

I mean, you're like, you already got the design. So I'm an advocate of like, yeah, get your fancy gadgets. But it's kind of, it's, it's, I'll be like, how's your sleep? And people are like, well, wait a minute, let me look. And I'm like, wow. Right. But, but see, that's like normalized now, Torsten. That's the thing.

It's like, we can laugh at it, but it's like, people are like, huh? They don't realize they've, they've kind of like allowed themselves to be taken over to technology. Technology, I believe, is, can be very supportive of living a very full and vital life. But we shouldn't, Abdicator Wholesale to the technology to give us feedback when you know what 

happens it happens so easy I mean, I'm totally guilty when I want to know what the weather is.

I don't look out of the window and Absolutely Yeah, 

it's always like you can use both But, but, but, but your bodies, I mean, the thing about the skills and why they work really effectively and pretty quickly is you bring your body everywhere you go. Wouldn't it be cool if you actually really learned? How to use it as like, , barometer, right?

Because I feel like that's part of living a very full life is realizing, Oh, I do have choice here. I do have choice because my symptoms like, yes, you're going to have symptoms of joy. Symptoms of happiness. Love that. Symptoms called gratitude. Great. But that's not why people are sick. They're sick because there may be some things undistinguished that you maybe have a sense of, but you don't have anybody to really talk to about it or guide you through it.

And that's what I do. So I can do it in the wellness coaching, but what I'm really doing is like, if you're a leader, you want to learn how to be, what leaders could be again, as I said earlier, Can I, knowing myself, make my own decisions, taking all the data, kind of like think about all my options, notice my tension or less or more, so I'm not going to choose that because that feels too tight.

You know, like you kind of could run it through a thought. a choice through your body and know, Oh, I feel more spacious when I think about that. I'm going to go down that way. That's your power, right? Because it comes down, you're living your life. You're affecting other people. My original teacher would say, don't you dare, if you're upset, go in the closet because we don't keep our upsets to ourself.

We literally infect everybody around us. It's like the chief field. Like, do you know that you're infecting, like, so don't go over to your neighbor upset, truly, really deeply calm yourself, not superficial, because you'll know when you're, you know, BSing your way over there. It's like you, you have that internal barometer that says, okay, I'm calm right now.

And now I can clearly think about how to deliver, Hey, you know, I can hear your music. Just wanted to know, I've got a call coming up. , you know, is there a way we can work out when you could. Blast your music and I could have my call without, you know, carrying it through, you know, whatever, the Zoom. Wait, you're in partnership more so when you design it.

But in order to design partnership, for example, Calm Body is extremely useful. 

So, so I think this is. This brings us to the bridge of, you know, healing yourself and dealing whatever you need to deal with, and then what the impact it has on relationships, in, and the outside world. And yeah, I, I know from what you've said, it actually, that this, you know, it's about affecting your friends, your family, your workspace.

And, so is that something you would, you would address in your conversations with your clients? Or is that basically just a natural consequence of the work that you're doing? 

Yeah, well, people come to me because they still, a lot of, you know, people still know me as, you know, Qigong teacher or acupuncturist or, and I still do all those things.

I still teach online for Qigong and I still, , do Qi therapy and all that stuff. And what I really have come to realize is that part of who I am is a guide. So you can come to me with pretty much anything. Because of my extensive training and ongoing training in Chinese medicine, , it's kind of a unique, perspective on what's.

worldview, right? That everything's connected. We all affect each other. Do you even know, but I, I think I'm pivoting. I am pivoting more to the like the coaching and consulting because I want you to wake up. I want you to know that you matter. You matter so much, , that you can affect your health and the health of other hans around you.

And I want you to realize that and not, not feel bad about it. That's that would be common too. But like, instead of feeling bad about it, could we use it as a pointer? And it was like, what do you really want to do? So people can come to me with a health issue, a relationship issue, whether personal or work, or they're, they want to start a business because I have a business background and see if like, and I really want to talk to people that are like, I really want to.

Create a water system like they really have an idea for a business and they're like, but how am I going to be able to do that? Because I've been sick a lot a lot of times. That's what people come to me. I've not been feeling well, you know I have this vision. So I'm like, oh, that's interesting Yeah. Let's take why, like, not why, but how that's happening.

So then you can do your work in the world and much more calmly. So it doesn't, I tell people, it's like, I don't know about you, but I used to be, I used to be a big napper, but I wasn't necessarily because, it was because I was checking out. I was like, had a hard day. Oh, I need to go take a nap. Not a problem.

I'm, I love naps, but I realized it was an escape and the problem was still there when I woke up. So I realized, Oh, a lot of what people, how they kind of deplete themselves or leak chi is they don't have that unpleasant conversation or they don't say what they really want to say. Right. And so we hold on to it and then we create all these symptoms, right?

Jaw tightening or whatever. So what I decided is like my coach was saying, okay, napping is fine, not a problem, but just check out and see if it's, it is a, like, are you avoiding something? Handle the avoidance. And what I did is I found, Oh, I don't need a nap. Like, it was like, I need a nap. I don't need it. I can choose napping for the joy of ants, right?

And at the end of the day, I'm not exhausted anymore. I'm not carrying other people's stuff. I decided that my work in the world is to free your chi, but also not. take on your stuff either. And so I have way more built capacity of like, you know, I wish for you deep peace and calm as you move about the world because I know how much you matter.

, and you have important work to do, but. You've got to do the work, right? You've got to, like, like, like, my wish would be for people to go, Oh, Qigong is so powerful, but be careful not to use it as the fix, though, because when you can, when someone calmly comes in, like, I want to learn Qigong, they learn faster, they're more interested, like, they're like there, right?

I bet someone who's like, ah, It's, they're, they don't stay in the program or they, like, it's like, it's really important that people go, I want to choose something because I see what's possible for people when I teach them these, these, right. It's from a body of like, Ooh, like, you know, clients are easy to get, students are easier to enroll when it's from this possibility body, not you got to come in this tight.

So it's unlimited what you can do with the skills because it's, it's so. Everybody, we tense. It's, it's a fact. Tension, so upset is a fact. It's what you, the story you tell about the facts. is where the dis ease comes in. And I want to help people go, Oh, let's shift that. 

I think that is a wonderful closing word.

And it's up very nicely the work that you do. And so I want to thank you, , for this interview, taking the time to talk to us. And I could see that there are many other issues that you touched upon that I would love to explore further. So maybe there is a second or a third episode that we can do together in the future.

Thank you very much, Mary. It was very enlightening and, Yeah, we should luck with you there with your work. And I've, I've known you for many years, so I know you're a very capable practitioner and obviously all the contact details at the show notes of anybody would like to get in touch, they can do so and, work with you and, , and create this beautiful leadership that you are, , that you are promoting here.

so 

much, Torsten. I'm honored to have spent this time with you. 

Thank you, Mary. 

We trust you enjoyed this conversation, and we invite you to subscribe to our podcast so we can stay in touch and notify you of future episodes. We will end today's episode with the eight verses meditation performed by Zhineng Qigong teacher Katrien Hendrickx

Enjoy.

[Meditation]

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