Finding Your Power - Yoann Regis Incredible Qigong Journey

Zhineng Qigong became a transformative path for Yoann Regis, offering him a profound journey of self-discovery during a challenging period of his life. In today’s Qigong podcast, Yoann Regis talks about his struggles with feeling out of place and how his spiritual journey through Qigong opened up new possibilities of healing and connection. This feeling of disconnection and separation propelled him to slow down and reflect on his life, ultimately guiding him towards the transformative power of Qigong.

The Huaxia Centre holds great importance for Qigong practitioners and students alike - and it was no different for Yoann. It is here that he learnt that joy, was not something to be achieved, but a natural state to be rediscovered by reconnecting with one's inner child and the fundamental energy of life with the help of a fellow Qigong student who faced a life threatening illness.

Dr. Pang's philosophy that we are all both students and masters in our own right - resonates with Yoann. It shifts the traditional hierarchical dynamic. This perspective encourages oneness, another foundational principle of the Zhineng Qigong practice, community and collaboration. Connecting with your true self is essential. Yoann mentions that it’s an important step to personal growth, when we have self doubt we often create separation and therefore anxiety. Ultimately complicating our lives instead of embracing simplicity.

Openness is a cornerstone of the Qigong practice. He encourages individuals to start where they are without the need for perfection. This creates a community where everyone can share in each others wisdom through sharing the Qi field and enabling self discovery.

Yoann's wisdom remind us that while we may face challenges along our paths, embracing our authentic selves and trusting in our abilities can lead to profound transformation and joy in life.

Mindful moments:

• Yoann's Journey: Qigong helped him heal and connect during a tough time.
• Healing and Connection: Qigong emphasized mindfulness and reflection.
• Rediscovering Joy: Reconnecting with his inner child led to joy.
• Philosophy of Oneness: Dr. Pang's philosophy promotes unity and collaboration.
• Self-Discovery: Self-doubt hinders personal growth.
• Openness in Practice: Openness fosters a supportive community.
• Embracing Authenticity: Authenticity leads to transformation and joy.
• Collective Wisdom: Sharing experiences enhances self-discovery.
• Transformational Potential: Trusting oneself can lead to profound change.

Links and Resources:
Yoann’s email: yoann.chikung@gmail.com
Yoann’s Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgTokI1zDTpKxyfNTgqFwbA
Discover Qigong Game: https://tinyurl.com/ymuywb6x
La Qi Method E-learning Course: https://t.ly/iHe79

🎙️🌟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

Facing a life crisis at the age of 25, Yoann left home and joined a Qigong master in a foreign country. After three years of deep insights and learnings, he discovered that there is more to it than just following a master. It is learning to trust yourself, as we are all students and we are all masters.

Here is what he has to say. My name is Torsten Lueddecke and this is the Wisdom Qigong Podcast. Today I've got Yoann Regis with me and, Yoann is gonna share about his own personal experience and his experience, at the center of Hainan, the beautiful island of Hainan, where he and she is teaching. So, Yoann, welcome to the show and let's get started and tell us about your experience, please.

Thank you so much, Torsten, for having me on the, on your podcast. And, thank you for your beautiful, work in the, in the, in the community. So that's the first thing I wanted to share. So maybe a few people might know me, might have seen me working in some online events with, teacher Jianshe, and, and other people maybe saw me sharing things on the different Facebook groups, there as in, Zhineng Qigong.

But, basically, I'm just a 31 year old guy from France and Holland, and, I've been, Yeah, discovering the magic, the new life, the magic life of, of Qi, Qi energy and just the, the Qigong way, since I'm 25. So it's, it's still fairly recent. And I did study a few years, three or four years in Spain with a teacher, a Malaysian teacher, which, is a Qigong and Tai Chi master.

And, there where I was with a community. Growing vegetables in Spain and just enjoying deepening with nature and discovering the spiritual path connected to Tai Chi and Qigong. It was a very intense experience for me and yes, very transformative because before this, when I was in my 20s, early 20s, I was really Doing a lot, but I was quite lost in myself.

So I had no particular health issues, but my mental health was not, was not great. And, my self esteem and I had a lot of things to transform in myself. It came from a background for me where I was, as a child, not, not, not always finding my, my place, in the human world where I really found it difficult to, to be myself around other people, and to be accepted as such and accept myself.

So this was really the core of a lot of pain that just flourished in a lot of different directions. And it's all boiled down when I just had no choice but to stop and slow down when I was around 24, 25. So I was fortunate that my family, my cousin, my Dutch cousin was already studying with this teacher for a few years.

And when I was talking with him, it felt like the way he answered to me and the things he was saying resonated with me even much more than any psychologist I was talking to. And And all the things I was looking for in myself. So I was so happy to, to, to find this. And, and when I went there to, to, to discover really physically in person, what it was to practice Tai Chi and Qigong together.

It was so, so special that I, I just left everything behind to, to go in this journey. And I made a lot of friends, a lot of young people were there in this community from my age, a bit older, English people, Dutch mainly. And, we were just learning a lot with this teacher. But over the years, I found that, in my heart, something was still missing.

And this is the openness and the horizontal way that I see is happening in Zhineng Qigong community. So when the teacher, the, the, the, our time with the first teacher stopped, we all looked into ways to continue this journey. And I found the online training from Xian center. And this is where, yeah, we just decided to enroll with a few other students from our first teacher.

And, yeah, we were amazed by, by the, the depth. And, yeah, the wisdom that was in Dr. Pang's, teachings and the way Xian presented it was very, yeah, very open, there were, that was amazing because this online training we were maybe. Hundreds of people following it. So it was very successful and very inspiring for me to see such a big group of people practicing together, elevating their consciousness.

And just seeing life from a whole different perspective was very, very transformative because beforehand I was only, In a group of 10, 15 peoples. So yeah, this is my background and how I discovered Zhineng Qigong my first teacher also was, introducing Zhineng Qigong he himself studied, in, in, Huaxia center, long time ago when the center was at its peak and, it was given to us in, in his teachings.

also next to Tai Chi and a lot of different things. And yeah, I thought it was very interesting also the healing part because, , I have, also, along the years, accumulated a few health conditions, with my ears. I am a musician, pianist, and, I, I had a tinnitus for a few years. So I was really motivated to find a way to, to heal it, and transform my, my relationship with my ears.

Basically, and yeah, the, the, when I started to practice in depth, what, what I was learning with Xian Center, I really found it, it was one of the most peaceful and enjoyable place where I have ever been. And that's where I found Jianxie because he was teaching, in this Xian Center training. He was sometimes just giving a talk.

And, yeah, I was immediately touched. And my girlfriend also, we were immediately touched by his purity, the way he shares from his heart in simplicity. Because when I look at myself over the years, my biggest row, hindrance to, to, to my progress, I would say is that I tend to over complicate things. I make things too complicated, get stuck in my head.

And, yeah, just to, to, to, to see how, how teacher Jianshe. was very simple, like a baby, just here on this chair, just buzzing in his qi energy, and just sharing such simple words, but you could feel it, not only understand it, was for me, wow, amazing. And I recognize this quality in all of us when we really sit in our hearts.

It's not only the teacher, John Shay, it's everyone. It's, it's in all of us. And this is why I, I wanted to, to, to get more of this. And I, I worked with Jianshe. I met him first at a workshop in Spain. And in this workshop, we met amazing, inspiring people. And, and it was just a very beautiful human experience to, to be there together from all kinds of backgrounds.

And for example, there was a person with a cancer, and he had a final cancer, prostate cancer that got everywhere. And he was so weak that, these doctors told him you shouldn't never go to Spain or you should always stay where you are. And it was during COVID also. So there was also still this possibility that he could have COVID and all these fears and he, he just took his courage and he was there.

In this workshop, his name is Jonathan, and, unfortunately he, he passed away, but just the way he, he was, and the human experience to see someone like this. To be here, there in his full joy and to touch our hearts. He played some piano. He sing and we saw him transform over the time of the workshop. He came very weak, but he came out such a vibrant, bright man.

And it was so touching. So yeah, this is just a, from my heart, what. What, what inspired me in, in, in, in Jianshe meeting. Yeah. Now you've come quite a long way on your journey already. I mean, the first thing to notice is that you have discovered qi deng qi gong at a rather young age because most people discover it later, you know, when they get serious health problem here or there.

But it seems that you had, you know, some kind of life crisis already in your mid twenties. And you were fortunate enough to have someone in your environment that you trusted that knew about Qigong at that time. And then, yeah, I think it's also quite remarkable that you made a commitment because you went to another country and it seems to state with this master for quite some time.

Is that so? How long have you been there? Exactly. Three years. It was three years with, his name is, Master Choi. That's, that's, how, we called him. And, yeah, it was quite an interesting experience because, even though he did teach us a lot of things about Zhineng Qigong, his approach was still quite traditional in the way, there was one teacher above and the students kind of under, and kind of following his, directions and totally, completely different.

trusting and, and giving, totally opening themselves to transform by the guidance of the teacher. It's like as if he's a kind of surgeon operating his work into, into your life. And it's, it's quite a lot because to totally give up something like this, and, you know, you, you, you have to really trust that person.

And, it, it is, I, I, I discovered that there is no person on earth that has, All the wisdom in its, in its own to, to, to decide. all the aspects of someone else's life. So this was the conclusion, even though it helped me a lot this time in Spain with this teacher, and I'm eternally grateful for this time and for this teacher.

I really understood why it's very beneficial the way that Dr. Pang framed it, that we are all students and we are all teachers, all masters. And there is no, hierarchy. There is though a natural respect and openness towards each other, and a respect for the teachers of course, but it's not this kind of top to down, energy that you can feel where in fact, so you, you, you, you, you keeps yourself small.

And this is something that Jianxie also repeated a lot. When I talked with him about this, even in the Zhineng Qigong, even in the Huaxia Center, in many places, even though Dr. Pang insisted that no one should be put on a, high ground and, and everything, people still had a tendency to do this sometimes.

So this is a very big question. I asked myself, Oh, how comes that, that, that we, that we have this tendency to, to, to, to put other people so high, but ourselves, we have so, so many difficulties to trust ourselves. This is, I think, the essence of the spiritual path we are walking is to, to, to learn to, to trust ourselves.

And, and this, it sounds so simple, but it's, it's not. And even after years understanding this, I'm still learning a lot how to trust myself. I'm, I'm in a period of my life where it's, it's been challenging to trust myself totally. So I'm, I'm, I'm still a student of this. And at the same time, It's beautiful.

I think it's, it's great that you just covered it. With all the respect and the gratitude you have for your first teacher, because you understood some basic and very important concepts about Qigong and about how everything operates. You notice that there's nothing wrong with trusting someone else, but there is something that is about owning your own power.

And that is an important aspect. And I think that is also when you look in the history of Qigong, where Dr. Pang broke with the tradition of, of one master, you know, basically a master know it all. And then everybody has to follow and do exactly what he or she says. Exactly. And he broke with that and said, he said, no, this is a knowledge that should be available to everyone.

And the power is actually not really with the master. But the power is within the master. ourselves because the healing is, is facilitated by us. You know, obviously the, the, the, the master and the teacher, you know, can support and bring you on the right track and all of these things, but ultimately it's always our, ourselves that, that does the work.

And so I'm, I'm glad you discovered that. And it seems that it, it was already within you. You already knew that there is More than just. I'm saying, you know, just in inverted commas here than just following a master. There was more to discover. And that is probably why a Zhineng Qigong and Xian Center online course that you did at the time resonated so well with you.

Yes. And, and, yeah, for me also, and that's my personal view, you obviously, I, I am also looking at the various teachers. Whether they're from the east or from the west and, I can tell from the energy and from the way they interact with others, whether they are trying to create a distance between them and their students, like.

I know more than you do, I can do more than you do, or whether they are eye to eye with people. And that is also open heart, open mind, basic idea of Zhineng Qigong. And that is the kind of people I would like to work with. And, and fortunately enough, we have a lot of teachers that operate that way.

And others, you know, might be a little bit more challenged to get there because it's also an ego thing for many people, to be in a position of power or knowing more, Yeah. But it's not just the teachers, I must say, I must say the students are also, you know, part of this. Dynamic. If I, yes, because if I start to worship a teacher and say, wow, this man is so amazing and he helps me and he does that to me, then I'm contributing to this field.

Right. So, there's. There's a fine line between having respect for what this person knows and what he does and how wonderful he is as a human being and worshipping him, and putting him on a pedestal and saying, I'll just follow you blindly because you are my master. So I'm very glad we are having this conversation here today because I don't think we've touched upon this in the podcast so far.

I'm glad you're bringing it up. We have a way you can discover Qigong.

At the Zhineng Qigong Student Hub, we know that understanding Qigong is very important. And also, that Zhineng Qigong in itself has various nuances that people can't easily comprehend. So we've approached it in the style of a video game. On this page, Discover Qigong, you can select your character. So you can either be a beginner, a practitioner, or a holistic healer or self healer, and you click on your character and it takes you to these different sections.

In these sections, you can explore the nuances and when you click on a card, all of the resources pop up and we've made it really fun and not many people know about it. So if you are interested, have a look and discover Qigong. Let's move a little further to your, your own experience and what happened then.

All right. And what it meant for you, what it meant for you personally. What are your learnings then? Right? Yeah. Wow. Wow. That's a big question, isn't it? No preparation for this one. No, because it starts somewhere. It's indeed so big. I will start where, where I feel now, because, I look back to my six years on this journey and I, I can tell for sure, I, I, I learned a lot.

I progressed a lot, but at the same time. I'm more aware also of, wow, there is so much more to learn for me. I am, I am, and will never be perfect. And I think the first motivation, some, somewhere for me was. of course healing and, to find back this kind of natural joy that we have as a kid, that we are open to, to experience the world where everything is magical.

And I was in a place in my life where nothing was magical anymore. And I found this is not right. The, it is magical. I just can't feel it anymore. So how can I, how can I open myself and train myself to feel it again? How can I be in connection again with, with life? And over the years, it's been, it's never been a straight line.

There's been periods in my last years where I've been totally more in this natural connection. And then, Oh, again, you fall or something happens where Where, where, you, you, you forget for a time and then you, you bring it back again. So, this is the first lesson I learned is, I can't expect myself to have a, quite a straight line, like a rocket.

It's beautiful of course if, if I can, I think some people, they transform in, and have a revelation and BAM, they are, they are on the, on the spaceship. And, for me, it's, it's been a kind of a, yeah, a quite of a, a long road, a journey with a lot of, a lot of different obstacles and it's, it's, I'm just grateful for them.

So the first thing I really found magical is just the feeling. of chi in my body. It's, it's so simple, but this, just to feel again your blood flow, to feel again so this lightness, this grateful energy in you when you practice and then you keep it and if you stay focused and grounded and just have a stable system in yourself.

You can still experience this whole day. And this joy that then comes naturally, this was for me, so transformative because I'm like, wow, I I'm in control of this. I can rely on this, this love, this unconditional love that comes from Qi energy, from the earth, from the heavens. Like they talk about in Taoism, just to feel the, that nature and she interacts with me in this way.

It just made me so much stronger for all the challenges in life, because I was not anymore going to my mental world only where I will go find solutions for my problems on the phone on know how to how, how, how, why, when exactly like teacher Jianshe says, how, why, when it's, it's like this. And for me, just to have this extra.

Extra ally, unconditional ally, that is just, wow, let's connect again to who you truly are. Just the joy, just, just alive, just breathing this, this life, being this life is, yeah, just, just amazing. And then of course, after, I can still, think about a lot of things and, and, and find solutions. But I would say things came on my path more naturally the last years.

Yeah, definitely. And it's interesting when you describe this experience, which is inherent of who we are, how far away many of us have moved from this experience of joy and feeling alive. And, and, I think this is also why the exercises, the physical exercise, apart from all the other benefits that they have are so valuable because if I, if I use them as a, as a point of reminder.

That this unconditional love is within me, that this flow of life force energy is within me. That is a, you know, a great experience that will also carry me through the day when I'm busy with just, you know, sorting out whatever I need to sort out in my life, that I constantly keep reminded now it's a joyful moment.

And no matter what I'm dealing with this, I can see the beauty in, in, in life and in in the world and whatever is happening. And, so this is a powerful experience and I'm, and I'm glad Yeah. You, you, you, you are making this. And, the other point that you mentioned a little earlier that I also wanted to come back with is that of simplicity because, you, you said we tend to com overcomplicate things.

Mm-hmm. And I think that's true for most of us. And, but fundamentally things are very easy and, there is no need to necessarily study another book and another discipline and more of this before we finally get to that stage of You know, just being happy, like a teacher, right? I mean, he's all about, you know, being joyful and being happy and owning this inner child within him.

And, and that is a simple thing. You don't need to study, years and years in order to get there, but that's my point. How do you see that? I'm totally with you on this one, that the truth is simple. And if I connect this to what we said just earlier, that we have a tendency sometimes to make ourselves small and to look at ourselves from, Oh, I am flawed.

And maybe because this philosophy and the wisdom that you get from Zhineng Qigong or any other things that work on the same level. principles. You think this, this philosophy is so beautiful and so great and nearly perfect in the way it presents life and things that you say, I, and I'm just here with my life, my problems, my flaws, my things.

How can I get to there? And, and, and we, we might then always find that, Oh, I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. And reinforce this, this kind of feeling in ourselves. I see it in myself. I see it around me. For example, very concrete example. I've been subconsciously, I think, stopping myself to, to give Qigong lessons because I, I, I considered myself that I was not totally ready yet because I look at my life and I'm saying I'm not applying the, the principles and the wisdom perfectly in all moments, you know, Yeah, I've, I've seen that around me.

Like, am I authentic? If I'm, if I'm really sharing with enthusiasm, all these beautiful key keys to, to, to happiness, all these beautiful, exercises, wisdoms, if I myself don't apply them perfectly at the moment. Well, This is where I, I really want to change myself. I share this really honestly, but yes, I, I want to challenge myself to still keep going and still share it.

And, and, and while doing this, I am reminding myself, I am teaching myself at the same time. And. This way I, I, I should not hold myself small, or feel like the imposter's syndrome if I involve myself in a community while I'm myself so young and I still have so much to learn. And any age, I think we can all just step in boldly.

And accept that we have, we are flawed, we are, maybe even laugh about it sometimes. And see that, yeah, there's just amazing things and presents to reach, and beautiful seeds to plant. And that's already something to celebrate in itself. Why should we stop ourselves by doubting ourselves so much? And you don't serve the people in your environment if you're holding back your knowledge.

So just because you think there's more to learn or you could be even better or something like that, you know, who's paying the price for not, for you not teaching, it's the other people. Now, just share what you know. This is, I think this is the fundamental idea because If you know something they don't know and you share it, they have already won.

Now, whether you are perfect already or nothing or not, it doesn't really, you know, it doesn't mean anything at this point because you're giving something. It's a bit like if you, if you have a hungry person in front of you and all you have is some, it's a, it's a, it's an old loaf of bread from yesterday.

It's not the perfect meal, but you know, it's, it's going to help that person. Right. So, Go for it. Share it. Right. And, and I'd like to come back to a thought, you know, the whole idea when you talk about being flawed or being not perfect, I noticed my resistance to that idea because I think this is just a belief that, you know, somebody has put into your head and into the heads of many other people.

You know, I remember a lecture I once heard from Alan Watts, who's, you know, many of the listeners might know him and he's talking about how nature doesn't make mistakes. So if you see Many, many a field full of flowers, all flowers are different, but none of them, you know, is, is wrong. It's just the way this flower is growing.

And he says, now, if you look in the sky and you see the clouds, now tell me which of them needs improvement. And then we laugh and say, well, obviously none of the clouds needs improvement. You know, just, just the way they are. And the same is true in exactly the same way for human beings. And, The, the, whenever you are struggling with something, this is just part of, of us being human and it is.

It's really important that you have this experience and it's important that you share this experience because that's what makes it relatable to people. They need to see, okay, there is not some artificial intelligence sitting there in front of me telling me the perfect things. No, it's another human being who's got issues like me.

And how does he deal with it? What does he do to remind himself of how beautiful he really is and of how wonderful life is? And that is what gets people. That's the way you can teach and you can communicate with others. So I would say it's an asset. To have these issues and to have these fallbacks, you know, don't see it as a liability.

It's an asset because it means, yeah, you are relatable. And, so yeah, congratulations. Thank you. Each before you get perfect, because once you get perfect, you won't get through with your message because people will look at you and say, yeah, but he's very different. So that's very what you say. I'm exaggerating now, but fundamentally I think it's true what I'm saying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm totally with you on this one. Yeah, it's very great to hear your thoughts about this and kind of mirroring to me, yeah, how I feel about this in the depth of myself. And yeah, that's, that's wonderful. And I hope the listeners will also relate to this and see how Every one of us, at times, maybe, we hold back who we are in some ways, we dim ourselves.

And, yeah, I certainly, have this also, so, yeah, I'm grateful for this topic to be raised because it's so important, especially in how we can open ourselves to the essence of Zhineng Qigong, how can we totally expand ourselves and not be afraid of holding back. Yes. Yes. And I think this is why it's, why it's valuable, hopefully to all our listeners, because we all have that.

And very few people are actually playing the game as big as they could. Most people are holding back. And I once heard in a training that, you know, I was part of it. There was something, something like you holding back does not serve the world. And that, you know, got stuck with me because it's true. So it's not just about, now many people think it's about us, but we are really doing a disservice to the outside world by holding back.

We are doing a disservice by not showing up fully. We're doing a disservice by not sharing what we know. And, we need to, to understand that because that will give us the, the, the internal force to say, okay, now, you know, Let me just get going because it's good for everyone and it's good for the world.

Yes. And okay. Thank you so much, Torsten. That's yeah. Nothing more to add to this beautiful speech. Okay. Wonderful. So, thank you very much, Yoann. And we also agreed before that we would do an episode in particular on the, center in Hainan on the beautiful island of Hainan, where teacher Yian Shi is teaching and sharing.

And because there are many experiences you made there, that are wonderful and that we would like our community to know. So this is going to be in the next episode that we're going to do together. Oh, fantastic. I'm totally looking forward to it. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much, Yoannn, and have a fantastic day.

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

To get your free e book on the Eight Verses Meditation, please check the show notes below.