Effortless Healing & Qigong: Dr. Cynthia Li's 7 Steps to Flow

In today's Qigong podcast, we explore one of the most powerful questions in healing: what if trying harder is actually getting in the way? Dr. Cynthia Li, medical doctor, Qigong teacher, and author of The Medicine of Flow - joins host Torsten Lueddecke for the second time to share her revolutionary approach to effortless healing through Zhineng Qigong.

Effortless healing, rooted in the Daoist principle of Wu Wei, isn't about giving up or being passive. Qigong teaches us that true healing happens when we stop fighting our bodies and learn to move into a state of flow - a peak healing state where all inner systems sync up and work as one.
In this Qigong episode, Dr. Cynthia Li walks us through her seven simple steps from the book: Pause into Stillness, Soften Your Intentions, Empty the Mind, Open the Heart, Inhabit the Body, and Tap into the Collective. Each step is a portal — not a rigid sequence — designed to help you release resistance and let healing happen naturally.

Qigong flow state isn't the same as relaxation. It's an activated calm — the state where intuition sharpens, the heart and brain sync into coherence, and the body can finally receive healing at its deepest level. Whether you're dealing with chronic illness, emotional blocks, or simply feeling stuck, this conversation will shift how you think about the healing journey.

Dr. Cynthia Li also brings modern neuroscience into the picture — from the heart's electromagnetic field being 100x larger than the brain's, to how collective coherence in Qigong practice creates a healing field that goes far beyond the individual. This is Qigong for the modern world.

Mindful Moments: 

• Qigong healing happens effortlessly when we stop resisting and surrender to flow
• Pausing into stillness in Qigong is the foundational step — without it, nothing else begins
  
  
• Softening your intentions in Qigong creates space for the body's natural wisdom to emerge
  
  
• Emptying the mind in Qigong means partnering with your thinking mind, not fighting it
  
  
• Qigong opens the heart field — which is 100x larger than the brain's electromagnetic field
  
  
• Inhabiting the body through Qigong grounds expanded energy and prevents bypassing
  
  
• Collective Qigong coherence means your individual healing contributes to the healing of the whole
  
  
• Qigong flow state is an activated calm — not relaxation, but peak healing potential
  
  
• The Golden Triad of Qigong: mind empty, heart open, body inhabited
  
  
• Practicing Qigong daily rewrites the body's subconscious programs from resistance to flow

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Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:29:02
Unknown
The true spirit of it is doing or healing without resistance. The hard effort of healing with willpower, with more optimization, with more efficiency, is very much distilled down to: no, no, no, no. Like, how do we move more into flow? How do we surrender to something that's much bigger than us, that may be guiding us in a way that we cannot see, but our body knows?

00:00:29:04 - 00:00:36:22
Unknown
My name is Torsten Lueddecke, and this is the Wisdom Qigong Uncovered podcast.

00:00:37:00 - 00:01:05:18
Unknown
Welcome, everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Wisdom Qigong Uncovered podcast. Today, for the second time, I've got Dr. Cynthia Li with me. Cynthia is a very experienced Zhineng Qigong teacher, and she has put her knowledge into a book. And this is also the reason why we talk today, because this book, if I might just broadly sum it up, is about healing in an effortless way.

00:01:05:20 - 00:01:30:17
Unknown
And I think this is something that all of our audience will be very curious to hear. Now, what does that mean to you, Cynthia? Effortless healing — that phrase. I adapted it from the translation, right? Effortless doing, which is very Daoist, very much a foundational Qigong principle. Really, in practical terms, what we can do with the mind is describe kind of idleness or passivity.

00:01:30:17 - 00:02:02:06
Unknown
Like, I'm not going to do anything. I kind of need to be resigned and accept my fate. The true spirit of it is doing or healing without resistance. Right? So the hard effort of healing with willpower, with more optimization, with more efficiency — you know, what kind of modalities do I need to do? What Qigong practices do I need to do with great effort — is very much distilled down to: no, no, no, no.

00:02:02:07 - 00:02:27:10
Unknown
Like, how do we move more into flow? How do we surrender to something that's much bigger than us, that may be guiding us in a way that we cannot see, but our body knows? And can we tap into our intuition? Are there ways that we can just begin to — I guess a good metaphor is that we can come into this state of flow, which is embodied.

00:02:27:10 - 00:02:53:04
Unknown
It's not just in the mind, it's not just psychological. It's an embodied state which Qigong practitioners have been cultivating for millennia. And yet sometimes it can still remain elusive. Like, what is that? And so, the metaphor is sort of like having — everybody knows what a device is, a phone — and it's like having lots of apps open.

00:02:53:06 - 00:03:13:02
Unknown
And so it's just draining batteries, and it's taking up a lot of space. That's actually what happens in the body as well. There are these programs that are running all the time. So even if we're feeling calm, or even feeling clear in the mind, open in the heart, the body might just be still running

00:03:13:02 - 00:03:44:01
Unknown
these programs that have been conditioned to run since the time we were young. And so there's a tremendous energy drain. There's also a tremendous physical, physiological load on the body, because the body, when we're not in a flow state, all the different parts are trying to do their own thing optimally, but they're not really integrated. They're not functioning as one collective being.

00:03:44:03 - 00:04:11:08
Unknown
And so when the mind is in flow, the thinking mind is much quieter, right? It's deeply observing. And then you can go — as many Qigong practitioners know — you can go into this very, very trance-like state as well, which is also flow. But it's hard to operate and live your life that way. So, no — you can come into a flow state of deep observation and be fully embodied as well.

00:04:11:10 - 00:04:41:13
Unknown
So then opening the heart, inhabiting the body — these are all things I call the Golden Triad. So: mind empty, heart open, body inhabited. Those are really foundational teachings in practice. And yet myself, having had a lot of health challenges, which is what brought me into Qigong as a medical doctor — it was completely outside of my framework of healing.

00:04:41:14 - 00:05:00:23
Unknown
So that's what brought me in. And even though I was doing the embodied practices and I was doing everything, it was very difficult for me to fully experience embodiment, because the body was not a comfortable place to be. This book — and this is the galley copy — it's called The Medicine of Flow.

00:05:01:01 - 00:05:30:23
Unknown
Harmonizing your inner state for effortless healing is really a synopsis of everything that I've learned, and been studying and practicing and experiencing as a human being trying to live her life, since 2014, when I came into Zhineng Qigong, and then since 2000, I've been deepening into the practice, into pure consciousness and that dimension.

00:05:31:01 - 00:06:04:12
Unknown
Oh, you know what — I wasn't really fully understanding what pure consciousness was. What does embodied consciousness mean? So this is a very accessible book in terms of breaking things down and then systematizing it into seven steps. I then realized, oh, this is a way to systematize the beautiful, intricate, also complex teachings of Zhineng Qigong, both on the individual level, collective, and then the universal levels.

00:06:04:14 - 00:06:28:04
Unknown
I would love to go through these seven steps with you, Cynthia, but before we do this, I have a question, because you spoke about how trying so hard to heal is not working. And also, you spoke about — I love this metaphor about the device with all the open apps that all drain your energy.

00:06:28:06 - 00:06:49:23
Unknown
And now, for me, it seems to be like two interconnected but yet separate things. One is that I think, okay, I've got this disease, I have to fight it. And that obviously means that when I fight something, I'm in conflict just by the act of fighting it. And being in conflict is obviously not a healing state.

00:06:50:01 - 00:07:11:03
Unknown
So I think this is one of the things I understood. Now, the other thing is, when you talk about shutting down the apps as a metaphor, or closing down all these programs that run in your body — these are often unconscious programs, as you rightly said. Now, how do you identify these programs and how do you shut them down?

00:07:11:05 - 00:07:35:14
Unknown
Yeah. So those are great points. To your first point — fighting is resistance, right? So there is a role for resistance, and it's growth. It's change. Right? Like, when we're just one with everything, it's a oneness state. But the change and the growth happens when there's a little bit of resistance.

00:07:35:14 - 00:08:02:13
Unknown
And that's where individual expression happens. That's where individual healing paths happen. So there is a role. What happens with chronic illness is the resistance becomes chronic, right? So we stay in that state, and then that is the underlying program that's running in our bodies. So there are many ways, and actually each of the steps that I'm going to go through are ways in which we can transform.

00:08:02:18 - 00:08:26:09
Unknown
So we have two paths in terms of resistance. We can release it, or we can transform it. And they're different. So releasing — again I'll use a metaphor, it's just easier to understand — if you have a lot of pressure building up in a pot because the water's boiling and you've got this tight lid on it, right, you can release that pressure valve and it will be helpful.

00:08:26:11 - 00:08:49:21
Unknown
Definitely in the short term. But because those patterns are still running, the water is still boiling. And so we can continually release. Now when we transform, we begin to transform. So there's not so much heat anymore, right? So it's both a release and a transformation. The patterns, the energy expression of this boiling water, has actually —

00:08:49:21 - 00:09:09:21
Unknown
oh, it's cooled down. Whoa, what's happening? Oh, there's more light energy now. It's not so much heat. And so then we don't have to expend so much pressure keeping that pressure down just so that we can live our lives, which is usually what we do. We suppress things, right? So, oh, we have resistance, or something uncomfortable is coming up.

00:09:09:21 - 00:09:30:13
Unknown
We suppress — even the phrase we have here in the American West is like, keep calm, stay calm and carry on. It's internal. It's kind of an outside-in. Keep it together, you know, and keep going. So this is really — yeah. How do you release it and how do you transform, so you're not continually having to do that?

00:09:30:14 - 00:09:58:15
Unknown
So the beauty of Qigong, the beauty of these practices, is that we don't even have to really identify any of these things. Right. So there are an infinite number of methods in healing now — mainstream, alternative, holistic, whatever you want to call it — in terms of ways to identify resistance. Oh, what are your childhood wounds?

00:09:58:15 - 00:10:23:04
Unknown
What are the traumas? And those are helpful. And yet they can also be limiting, because we get stuck in the story. And each time we even say the word trauma, something gets triggered. There's such a strong association with that word, or a lot of other words like wounds. And you know, we hear a lot right now — the world is wounded, right?

00:10:23:08 - 00:10:52:19
Unknown
The world, the nature is wounded. Humanity has all these wounds. And that can also, again, it's important to identify. And yet it also keeps us identified. So the wisdom and the beauty and the simplicity of Zhineng Qigong is that it's going at the root. So we can just practice and things will begin to transform. We don't even have to know what the story is.

00:10:52:19 - 00:11:17:11
Unknown
We don't have to identify anything. One easy way, right, is — for me, when I began practicing Zhineng Qigong, I came into this beautiful empty state of the mind and the heart open. I could still fool myself. My mental frameworks — I could fool myself. I could be like, oh, I feel so at peace with myself, with my family, with the world.

00:11:17:13 - 00:11:38:16
Unknown
And I'm going to respond, right? It doesn't mean that I just accept everything as it is. It's like, oh, I have a role to respond. How do I bring more harmony into the places where there's disharmony, or more organization into places where there's disorder? But then if I go into the body, it's like, oh, the body doesn't lie, right?

00:11:38:16 - 00:12:02:14
Unknown
So why do I still have resistance in my shoulders? Why is that knee bothering me? Why are my hormones acting up this way? So for a lot of people, it might express as emotions. For other people, it might be just continual thoughts. So resistance can manifest, you know, in the body, the heart and in the mind.

00:12:02:16 - 00:12:40:08
Unknown
But all of the practices in Qigong, at the essence, they address all of those at the root. So it's simple in that way. I think this is a great moment to maybe take us through your steps and share a little bit more about the book, which, by the way, for the audience — we obviously have all the details about the book in the show notes, so anyone can just look it up and get access to your wonderful book that you've written here. But maybe you would like to take us now a little bit through these steps, or explain in more detail how you're approaching it.

00:12:40:12 - 00:13:00:04
Unknown
And I must reinforce that this is not just a clever idea you came up with. This is really based on many, many years of experience, many years of practicing. And you are sharing this knowledge and expertise with your readers here and with our audience, of which I am very grateful. So, please go ahead,

00:13:00:04 - 00:13:24:02
Unknown
Cynthia. And, you know, I should add — I want to highlight Master Mingtong Gu and Teacher Wei Feng, who are my primary teachers in this lineage, and also, of course, Dr. Pang. And this is not a book that I wanted to write. It wasn't sort of like, oh, I've experienced all this.

00:13:24:04 - 00:13:47:11
Unknown
And as a doctor, I have the science. So it's a convergence. It's not just a Qigong book — it's a convergence of Qigong with modern science. And what does the science tell us, actually, about energy fields and consciousness fields? And how do we utilize that in a way to make these ancient teachings more accessible? Right.

00:13:47:11 - 00:14:11:18
Unknown
So it's kind of a new thing unto itself. And then we have technology where you're in Cyprus and I'm in California and we're connected. So we're also in a time where — thousands of years ago when Qigong began, it was a very different time. And so people had small teacher groups that practiced together.

00:14:11:19 - 00:14:36:18
Unknown
Now we can be interconnected in very, very powerful ways. So all of this can enhance the information. And so I'll just give a little caveat about flow. Flow states — be careful. You know, people tend to think, oh, I want to cultivate it. Oh, it's like a bliss state, the flow state. But it deeply connects individuals with the collective — it's like being on a river.

00:14:36:20 - 00:14:57:20
Unknown
It will take you where it's going, not necessarily where you want to go, but you have agency in how you're going to steer. And you might have agency in maybe taking a different path at times. So the first step — there are seven simple steps — and the first step is to pause into stillness. And it sounds so simple.

00:14:57:22 - 00:15:21:13
Unknown
It is so important because without that, none of the other steps happen. And so the pause can be, you know, even like a second, right? As long as there's a pause. What tends to happen — and this is part of effortless healing — what tends to happen is something's happening, and actually even before it finishes happening, we often already know how we're going to react.

00:15:21:15 - 00:15:47:16
Unknown
Right? Oftentimes in a conversation, someone is speaking and it's like the other person is ready to speak in response before that person has even finished their thought. So the ancient Chinese wisdom is to pause. So when we pause and we come into this deeply observant state, we're not judging what they're saying. We're not thinking about what we're going to say.

00:15:47:16 - 00:16:14:20
Unknown
We are listening and receiving in a way that is very generous, that is very open and without judgment. We're just like, oh, wow, I'm really curious — what are they going to say? And from that state, we begin to receive more information. And so we may respond with nothing except our presence. We may respond in a way that's different than what we might have been thinking of responding.

00:16:14:22 - 00:16:48:06
Unknown
And so, you know, there's that saying: a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And when I was on my deep healing journey, which is continuing, it was very much a kind of a motivator — like, okay, just, not a big leap, just a small step, just a small step every day. And when you go back to the original Chinese Lao Tzu writings, it's more accurately translated as: the journey of a thousand miles begins beneath your feet.

00:16:48:08 - 00:17:17:19
Unknown
So the doing, the process, begins with being. So you center yourself, you fully come centered. You connect to your feet. You connect to the earth below — like you're supported by something much, much bigger than yourself. So just by pausing and being, something is already happening. So that's really the key to that. And each of these steps — at the end of the chapters I have a little one-line summary.

00:17:17:19 - 00:17:44:14
Unknown
And so the one-line summary of that is: in the pause, everything begins. Right. So a lot of effortless healing is paradoxical. For me — you know, not being as educated in all these philosophies as you are — still, the pause symbolizes two things. First, a pause means it's an interrupter. So whatever my mind is usually doing — the continuous judgment, the continuous thinking process —

00:17:44:17 - 00:18:16:22
Unknown
it stops through the pause. And the other function that the pause has for me is it creates space. Because if I'm pausing and I'm not doing or being anything, then there is suddenly space. And I think that connects beautifully to what you described. How can I start my journey if there isn't this moment of me interrupting — interrupting what I'm doing right now and creating this space to go on this journey?

00:18:17:03 - 00:18:39:09
Unknown
So, you know, in my everyday language, that would be what a pause symbolizes. So it's not as eloquently said as you did, but even with common sense, it makes perfect sense to me to say this is important, no matter how simple it sounds. Yeah, it doesn't sound like a great insight, but it actually is, because without that, nothing would ever happen, right?

00:18:39:11 - 00:19:10:00
Unknown
Yes, absolutely. And pausing into what? Pausing into stillness. There's a stillness that is deep within us and it's everywhere. Right? It contains the movement of everything. And so pausing into stillness could actually just be the one step that summarizes everything — if it's really, really understood, not just in concept, but in the body, in the experience, we would be done.

00:19:10:01 - 00:19:32:02
Unknown
Like, that's basically it in a nutshell. And talking about shutting down a lot of extra programs — some of the programs are inflammatory, right? Some of them are, like I was mentioning earlier, trauma — you know, really, really difficult experiences of survival, or perceived need to survive when we were young. And so those start running.

00:19:32:05 - 00:19:56:22
Unknown
But a lot of the programs are like what I was just sharing — this program that's always running where the mind is always thinking and then already going to respond. And so that's where we become a very complex and entangled advocate for our own healing, because those are just subconscious programs.

00:19:57:00 - 00:20:32:05
Unknown
We already think we know how we're going to react. And there's a relief that a lot of people feel when they can, even for 30 seconds, right, listen to a guided meditation. And then the meditation stops and they're just in stillness. Even if it's 30 seconds, it can feel like a relief, because guess what? Suddenly we've given ourselves permission and we've learned how to turn off those programs. So tremendous energy can come from that, tremendous vitality.

00:20:32:05 - 00:20:54:11
Unknown
And then, as you're saying, this tremendous freedom, this spaciousness — it's like, oh my God, I have space. Step two is: soften your intentions. No need to totally let them go, right. So I can focus on healing, on individual healing. But someone listening can also think about collective healing. But again, everything begins with ourselves.

00:20:54:13 - 00:21:22:13
Unknown
So even softening the intention to try to heal — you know, to heal the community, to heal the planet — is okay. Let's soften that a little bit. Return to ourselves. Intentions are wonderful to set in terms of, okay, I want to practice Qigong and I need to be a little bit more disciplined about it, or I want to heal and I'm going to begin to investigate what it is that I need to do.

00:21:22:15 - 00:21:55:04
Unknown
So those are all wonderful, and they're wonderful steps into the door. But then once we cross that door and once we're kind of walking this path, can we soften what it is that we think is our goal? Can we soften what we think is our path? Because what happens with the way that the conscious mind connects with the emotional brain, right —

00:21:55:04 - 00:22:26:09
Unknown
the limbic system in the center of the brain — and the limbic system connects with the whole hormone axis and the nervous system, the autonomic nervous system. So when we are really, really strongly holding on to the intention to heal, whatever that means to us, we begin — over time, chronically — we begin to block the body from coming into a flow state.

00:22:26:11 - 00:22:49:13
Unknown
We begin to block the body from even coming into a relaxation state. So relaxation and flow are different. Relaxation — parasympathetic — a lot of people have heard about that now: rest and digest, or rest and restore. Then you have sympathetic — fight or flight — and stress. And we often hear it like it's very dualistic. And so, relaxation is wonderful.

00:22:49:15 - 00:23:16:00
Unknown
It's not the flow state. It's a low energy state. But it is the portal — it's important. And then flow state, which a lot of Qigong practitioners have experienced, is the activated calm state. So it's calm, it's relaxed, it's open, deeply observant, and it's activated, right. So there's a vitality to it. It's a higher energy state.

00:23:16:06 - 00:23:45:11
Unknown
And that's why healing can happen much more quickly in the flow state. So if we can understand the science also of the energetics of these fields — which I can show you a few simple images later from the book — the healing happens as a side effect. So just being in the embodied flow state, it is a healing state.

00:23:45:13 - 00:24:15:15
Unknown
In fact, it's a peak healing state. Right? So we hear a lot about psychological flow and peak activity, peak performance. This is peak healing. So all the systems become integrated as one. Going back to the phone analogy with the apps — it's like whatever apps you do have open, they're all synced up and integrated and they're functioning as one, so that all the data is consolidated instead of separate apps.

00:24:15:17 - 00:24:47:07
Unknown
And that's what happens with the body. So the inner systems become synced up and they're just humming along, optimally functioning, so that whether you're doing your Qigong practice, choosing the foods to eat, whether it's supplements, herbs, or a treatment like acupuncture or osteopathy — the body can receive that in a much more coherent, efficient, effective way.

00:24:47:09 - 00:26:17:13
Unknown
And then whatever the body doesn't need — whatever is not serving that highest purpose — it can also discern, like, okay, you know what, that's not useful. So it's a profound state. So softening the intentions. The one-line summary for that is: the softer the grip, the firmer the opening.

00:26:17:15 - 00:26:39:09
Unknown
Right. And I like that you say that, because we have to make sure — when you say softening the intention, it doesn't mean forget about the intention or let it go completely. It just means, you know, don't be obsessive about it, because then you're hindering the flow. You are so strongly trying to get somewhere, and that is actually in the way of the natural flow.

00:26:39:09 - 00:26:57:08
Unknown
So, yeah — I like how you put it with the grip, because a soft grip doesn't mean you're not taking the — well, how do you call it — the portal. Yeah.

00:26:57:13 - 00:27:20:14
Unknown
The portal. It means you do hold it and you do open, but in a very sovereign way versus a, you know, panicky way. And I think this is what I'm getting from what you're saying — in my everyday language — it's not about giving up your intention. It's not about saying, oh, it doesn't matter now.

00:27:20:14 - 00:27:42:06
Unknown
You are your intention at that moment, but without any effort. It's an effortless way of manifesting the intention. And I totally get why this is subtle, because you were describing very nicely what's actually going on in the body and how the whole organism works.

00:27:42:12 - 00:28:03:05
Unknown
And it can only function well if we don't put any blockages in between and don't put any pressure. And I think that's, in my words, what you're describing here. Right? Yes. And, you know, as a doctor working with a lot of people, there's so much information that they have and they're trying to sort out what is important for their next step.

00:28:03:07 - 00:28:36:01
Unknown
And we need to recognize that what we know is so limited, also. Right? Even though it feels like there's so much information, what we know compared to what we don't know is just a drop in the ocean. And so, just like step one, this one creates more space. So each one is kind of deepening into more and more space and stillness and just observing. And so there might be something that shows up that we never considered, you know, in terms of the healing path, or it becomes very clear.

00:28:36:01 - 00:28:58:05
Unknown
So what happens to the brain in flow is that intuition becomes much more heightened. And so there might just be a really deep knowing, like, oh, you know what, I thought I was going to do this, but actually I'm going to try this instead. So it again feels counterintuitive, or counter-logical. Paradoxical.

00:28:58:07 - 00:29:24:22
Unknown
And yet the more we can soften, the more we can pause. And then the next step — empty the mind. Like, those are just kind of softening things. And this one is completely like, okay — empty, so that more can show up, because we're just creating more space. So emptying the mind. And at the end of each of these chapters I have a method, right, that can also help.

00:29:24:22 - 00:29:43:00
Unknown
And then there are also corresponding videos with really cool special effects that one of my dear friends made — audios and videos to accompany these. Like, oh, what does it feel like to pause into stillness? And then that's like the inner observer breathing, right? And then, how do we soften our intentions?

00:29:43:00 - 00:30:12:11
Unknown
And that's like the inner smile, right? We begin to smile at these intentions that are very well-meaning but can be very narrow, very, very narrow. So then empty the mind. The one-line statement for that — it couples with the Lao Tzu concept of open and close — which was deeply helpful for me to empty the mind.

00:30:12:11 - 00:30:20:07
Unknown
Right. Because my mind was always going — the way to empty the mind is to mind the emptiness.

00:30:20:08 - 00:30:41:11
Unknown
So that gives my mind something to do. You know, if we fight the thinking mind, we're creating more resistance. And that's often what we do. Oh, we're going to suppress those thoughts. Oh my God, there's those thoughts again. We judge, and the meditation itself becomes like a mini battlefield. So we create more challenges for ourselves.

00:30:41:14 - 00:31:01:22
Unknown
And Qigong was a godsend, because I was like, oh, I can partner with my thinking mind. This gives my mind something to do. So I focus on the emptiness — whether it's between my palms, in my lower Dan Tian, the vast emptiness. And of course, all of it merges into one for those who practice more and more.

00:31:02:00 - 00:31:26:19
Unknown
And so there's a natural quieting of the mind. And that's what I mean — these steps, they're built in. So I don't have to think about what is my resistance in the mind if I practice in the way that these beautiful methods were intended. There's a natural quieting of the resistance. And so it's powerful. It's really powerful.

00:31:26:21 - 00:31:56:07
Unknown
And then the next step is: open the heart. Right. So, okay — mind open, now open the heart. And what I've really come to understand about the essence of the Dao heart — right, or the collective heart, the universal heart — in Qigong is that our individual heart merges with the universal heart.

00:31:56:09 - 00:32:20:02
Unknown
It becomes one and the same. But again, we start with our own heart fields. And so, oh, this is where I can actually show you an image. So whereas the true mind can get really, really buried under tons and tons of thoughts, right? The heart can get really buried under tons and tons of strong emotions.

00:32:20:03 - 00:32:46:00
Unknown
And so what is that light-heartedness, the pure-heartedness that is always spoken about? It is not this moral innocence, right — it's this energetic radiance. So how do we release that? In neuroscience we know that this is just the EMF field, the electromagnetic field of the heart. So it's measurable — at least the effects of the field are measurable.

00:32:46:02 - 00:33:11:13
Unknown
But in Qigong, we've been practicing with fields that are much subtler. Right. So this is a really useful thing to know — the EMF field of the heart is about 100 times bigger than that of the brain. So it's really, you know, and it goes around us like a toroid, a toroidal fountain.

00:33:11:14 - 00:33:38:04
Unknown
So it's just, you know, bathing us, infusing us in this continual shower. So when we're really contracted emotionally, or physically, or mentally, the heart field can become blocked. And so again, these practices that we have — so much of what lifts you up or brings you down — is just opening the heart to flow.

00:33:38:06 - 00:34:11:09
Unknown
So much of body-mind is also about opening up the heart field. And then the practice — the pure consciousness practices — we focus a lot on consciousness being in the brain. But the Chinese word for mind, xin, is actually heart and mind — not the thinking mind, but the true mind. And so in neuroscience, now we know that the heart and the brain, when they are in coherence, when they're in flow, they sync up as one organ.

00:34:11:11 - 00:34:38:04
Unknown
They just hum like they're one. And so the practices really guide us into that. The next step is inhabit the body. And the one-line summary for the heart is: gratitude is the attitude of an open heart. So we talk a lot about how gratitude becomes not a practice to do, but a natural side effect of a heart that is coherent.

00:34:38:04 - 00:35:04:16
Unknown
So you begin to experience everything as an opportunity to connect. I would like to ask one clarifying question here. Because, as you just said, we know from Chinese wisdom, but also from neuroscience, that there's a strong connection between the heart and the brain. And yet you have them separated into two steps.

00:35:04:16 - 00:35:24:15
Unknown
Yeah — empty the mind, open the heart. I would assume that if you do one, it would automatically have already a big effect on the other, right? Yes. And if you can come into that state of flow, they all sync up. So the three — you know, we talk about the upper, the middle and the lower Dan Tian —

00:35:24:17 - 00:35:44:16
Unknown
and conceptually we can talk about separate things. We can talk about the brain, the heart and the body. They're really one, right. So but conceptually it can help us. Right. If we have something that we feel like — oh, I feel a lot of resistance in my head — we can practice more focused on the upper Dan Tian.

00:35:44:18 - 00:36:11:22
Unknown
Right. And again, some of these practices that are the methods at the end of each of these chapters — they can apply to all of them. So what I see each of these steps as is: they can be separate, but they're all portals into the same experience, right? Right. So if I feel really stuck somehow in my brain, I'm like, okay, it's easier for me to connect with my heart.

00:36:12:00 - 00:36:34:01
Unknown
Okay, maybe that's my portal, right? Maybe that's my portal and I begin there. Or yeah, after years of practicing Zhineng Qigong, I finally realized — oh my God, I'm moving my body, but I'm not really inhabiting it. Because it was difficult. But then what happened was I continued to practice, and then it naturally happens, right?

00:36:34:01 - 00:37:06:04
Unknown
Because each thing is just a portal into the other, right? Everything is integrated. And so any of the methods — you're exactly right — can bring us there, they can bring us there. So inhabiting the body — there are a lot of different ways to approach the body in Qigong. I did not focus on the body. I was really focusing on the physical vessel, because I felt like that was the part — both myself and also patients that I've worked with —

00:37:06:04 - 00:37:34:10
Unknown
and I also coach Qigong students — I just see over and over again, because a lot of people are coming in for deep healing, but the body has not been a safe place for a long time. And so even with opening the heart, emptying the mind, we can bypass, we can dissociate. And it's like, no — your physical vessel — in fact, the more you empty your mind and it expands, and the more you open your heart and it expands,

00:37:34:12 - 00:38:03:22
Unknown
you need a really strong physical vessel to ground it. And so it's important to take care of the body as we're increasing in energy. So, inhabiting the body — I have standing meditation for that. And going back to the Lao Tzu philosophy about the journey begins beneath your feet — with standing meditation,

00:38:03:22 - 00:38:28:19
Unknown
it's just so grounding. And then you're connecting also to the earth that is supporting you. And so there's a really powerful way in which we can drop into the body. And what I realized — you know, this was just in reflection recently. It didn't happen when I wrote the book, and as I said, the book kind of came to me. I didn't even share this part —

00:38:29:00 - 00:38:49:18
Unknown
the instruction came to me. But then the book kind of just got channeled, like: these are the steps, and this is how you're going to write it. And so when I was beginning to write this, I was like, oh yeah, we really, really need to focus on the physical —

00:38:49:20 - 00:39:16:19
Unknown
the physical body. And looking at all the steps, I realized all of them are practices in surrender — they're practices in surrender. And so I use this phrase throughout each chapter: it's an invitation and a dare, right? It depends on how you relate to it — does it feel scary, or does it feel inviting?

00:39:16:21 - 00:39:50:01
Unknown
But they're all surrender. And I just realized — we're great at filling things up, right? And trying new things. And oh, I want to add this to my life. And even with diet, it's like people can add things much more easily. They can take supplements. But the giving up of something really challenging — mentally giving up something, right — giving up your thoughts, giving up your thinking — it feels like death, it feels like loss of control.

00:39:50:03 - 00:40:11:15
Unknown
Opening your heart when you've been hurt so much — and look at what's going on in the world today. Open your heart. So each of these — yeah, it's fascinating. I was like, whoa. So when we're really blocked in terms of flow, right — flow is this wave. So we go up and we go down. We go up and down, and we're great at going up.

00:40:11:17 - 00:40:35:21
Unknown
We do not like to go down. And so I found it fascinating — wow, each of these steps is really just about surrendering. And if we can surrender, and then we can remain — well, not mind empty. So empty can be a really far goal, but each one is incremental: mind emptier, heart more open, body more inhabited.

00:40:35:23 - 00:41:01:02
Unknown
That life can then flow into us. So it's not even like, okay, what am I going to do next? Okay, I've surrendered that, I've emptied that — what am I going to do next? No — you're still observing what's showing up, what's coming to me, and then how do I respond? So it's really — in that sense — effortless.

00:41:01:02 - 00:41:28:01
Unknown
It depends on how we relate to surrender, right. Because surrender truly is just letting go. So it's effortless. And then what happens? The other part of the effortless dimension is that healing does happen, and you're still living your life, still making choices and whatnot. But it's almost like it's happening to you. And that's a very common experience for a lot of people, and certainly for me.

00:41:28:01 - 00:42:01:03
Unknown
And then the healing that I had was tremendously fast. Like, what I thought was going to take years happened over a few months — whoa, what is happening? Like, something's happening to me. I'm still doing my appointments. I'm still watching my diet. I'm still deciding what herbs or supplements to take, what medicines. And yet something feels so easeful. And that's a quality that a lot of people have also when they're practicing Qigong.

00:42:01:03 - 00:42:20:17
Unknown
Right — in the beginning it might be effortful, like you're trying to do standing meditation and it's just grit. You know, it's like, I'm going to do it. And then over time, oh, you know, the arms become more like Qi. Oh, can I allow the Qi field to support my arm? There becomes this effortlessness because of the surrender.

00:42:20:19 - 00:42:53:03
Unknown
So the discomfort that comes with Qigong practices — those are moments to practice surrender, right? We can fight it and we can push through it. It doesn't feel good. It also blocks the deep potential. And if we can surrender, it becomes a whole different experience. So I do feel like the Qigong practices are profound in that there are many — not even many, but

00:42:53:08 - 00:43:19:10
Unknown
they're potent practices for daily life. Right. So how do we meet that? It's like, oh, I know how to do that. Because when I was holding my arms at that time and it was really, really heavy and intense, I could breathe into it. You know, I didn't leave the pain. I went into it. And then, oh — pain shows up, you know, in a relationship, in my body, in world news.

00:43:19:12 - 00:43:42:07
Unknown
Oh, I actually I know how to do this. I remember what that's like. I know how to do this. I've been practicing every day. So the patterns in our bodies — these programs we were talking about — it's not just that we close down unnecessary ones. We change the programs that are running, and they become very empowered. They become very efficient.

00:43:42:08 - 00:44:17:12
Unknown
And instead of meeting difficulties with resistance, we know how to release the resistance. And then we also know how to transform, because we're just deeply observing ourselves. Right. And then the next step — the next step is: tap into the collective. And this is a whole other dimension. And it's really about — I feel like this is the call of this time, because we are so interconnected by technology and travel.

00:44:17:14 - 00:44:55:00
Unknown
And this is the opportunity. So, as I mentioned, as I showed earlier — right — the EMF field of the heart is several feet out. And so when we're standing side by side, right, we're standing in each other's fields, literally. And so what that looks like from above, right, is this Venn diagram. And some people who understand sacred geometry — these things have been passed down for a long, long time.

00:44:55:02 - 00:45:27:15
Unknown
So it's these heart fields. And then what happens? If there are many people, right — you might recognize that as a mandala, you know, as the flower of life. It's this other beautiful, sacred geometry. And so the coherence — right, cohere means to stick together. And what happens — right, I talked about in the individual body, the organs begin to cohere, the cells begin to cohere.

00:45:27:15 - 00:45:54:21
Unknown
They function as one, they stick together. And it happens also on scale. So if I'm in coherence and I'm sitting right next to you and you're not, I can bring you into coherence without you doing anything, right. So it depends on my capacity to stay coherent when you're not. It also depends on our relationship. So trust is a really big issue.

00:45:54:21 - 00:46:18:13
Unknown
So if groups have been practicing together for a long time, it's huge, right — there's a trust. And then that's also where theory and information can be really helpful — oh, they can help us trust the practice more. And so if you can imagine — and it's not just 2D bubbles, it's 3D, and it's 4D.

00:46:18:13 - 00:46:49:13
Unknown
It's moving in time. It's in flow. So a group in coherence is very, very stable — much more stable than incoherence, which is anxiety, fear, anger, and all those reactivity states. And so there's a tremendous opportunity to amplify that. And then through Qigong, because practitioners have been tapping into fields that are much subtler — again, everything's connected.

00:46:49:13 - 00:47:13:10
Unknown
Everyone is connected. So my own individual healing — if we understand that as the law of energy, the law of information, the law of the heart — my own healing will affect the whole. Period. It's not like I heal myself and then I can go do this for other people, right? Right. That's the old model — you restore yourself, and then you go, and then you drain yourself, and you go restore.

00:47:13:12 - 00:47:34:11
Unknown
So a lot of people have done that with Qigong. I certainly have done that too. When I really understood the laws of energy and the laws of the heart, I was like, oh my God, no — my healing is the healing of the whole. And then can I respond to other people? Yes, I can. But can I do it from a state of coherence?

00:47:34:13 - 00:48:02:05
Unknown
And then we can reach out. All we need is consciousness to connect to this field that is, you know, beyond time and space. It's just ever present. So the field can support us. Like if I'm feeling totally frazzled and I can't think straight — oh, can I open? Can I empty my mind, open my heart, inhabit my body, such that I can tap into the collective and allow wisdom?

00:48:02:05 - 00:48:36:14
Unknown
Teachers, other practitioners, to lift me up, to help me harmonize. This is a beautiful way of looking at it, because first of all, it means that you stay in your field of coherence. Yes. And secondly, you are not really doing something to another when you do your healing work. It is the mere presence that is radiating your coherent state that will, somehow, influence the field of the other person and then bring that field into a coherent state as well.

00:48:36:14 - 00:48:53:12
Unknown
It's a little bit like when you put a magnet close to some iron — it's the field of the magnet that doesn't work directly on the iron. It's the simple fact that it has this magnetic field that will have an influence on the iron. And I think that's kind of what you're doing there as well. And this is why you're not draining

00:48:53:12 - 00:49:12:21
Unknown
energy when you're doing this kind of healing work, because you're not really doing it on someone — you're just, you know, staying in your own beautiful presence. And that has the effect. Yes. And it's a beautiful. Yes. And that is primary, right. So, like — to use your magnet metaphor — the magnet can also move closer to the iron.

00:49:12:23 - 00:49:36:12
Unknown
Right. And then it can have a different effect and it can respond to its environment. So we can do the same thing. Primary is: what is the inner state? Are you in coherence? Are you embodying flow? And even going back to what we were saying about listening — I'm still working with patients, right. You and I are talking in this podcast.

00:49:36:14 - 00:50:15:15
Unknown
We might be leading Qigong. We go to the supermarket, just ordinary things. We can be radiating that wherever we go. But it also changes the experience of life. Things become more playful. There are many more surprises, you know, because you're just more aware. You're paying attention and you're not judging. It's almost like being a child who's just waking up to a whole new world — waking up to your hands, like, I'm moving them — and kind of instead of just kind of doing the Qigong practice — there's like, oh my God.

00:50:15:15 - 00:50:33:23
Unknown
Like, so there's a sense of rebirth. And that's, that's again the other paradox. The emptiness is the abundance. They go hand in hand. It's not either or.

00:50:34:00 - 00:50:54:00
Unknown
Yeah. Can we be where we are and radiate, and know that there's a healing effect? And at the same time, we can go out in the world and we can respond. But what we know from the laws of energy and the laws of the heart also, is that what we tend to do now —

00:50:54:00 - 00:51:18:11
Unknown
because it feels like there's one crisis after another — is to respond. We've got to respond now. Right. And so we're responding, again from a place of goodwill perhaps. But there's very strong judgments on — well, we'll just call it two sides of what's happening on the global stage. Two sides, each feeling so convinced that that's the right way.

00:51:18:13 - 00:51:47:04
Unknown
And it's a state of incoherence. And so there's tremendous resistance. So understanding that — oh, can we respond in a way of coherence? So I also call in the book — because the doing nothing, the effortless doing, the state of doing nothing, is often misinterpreted as idleness or passivity. And no — this is peak healing state.

00:51:47:06 - 00:52:18:03
Unknown
This is then also peak activism state. So we become fully — because we're tapped into the collective as well — we begin to tune into the collective harmony. What can I do? What is my response that will bring greater coherence to the whole, not just to my life, to the whole? Because if it's just in my life — if we know, as that image shows, that everything is connected —

00:52:18:05 - 00:52:46:04
Unknown
it's not a longer-lasting harmony. It's a very isolated one that will dissipate. So yeah, it just changes our whole perspective as well. But always starting with the inner state. And yeah — sure, if we're in an acute situation where there's danger, either personally or with someone else, we respond.

00:52:46:04 - 00:53:06:17
Unknown
And sometimes we might not always be in that coherent state — we're just reacting to helping that person get out of danger. And then you know what? You come right back into that state. But the more that we practice — and this of course speaks to Qigong — the more it becomes our default state, because that's the program that we're building.

00:53:06:17 - 00:53:34:01
Unknown
That's the program we're writing. So then when an acute crisis happens, we respond in coherence. So we're totally open. We are paying attention. We're getting intuitive signals. Our body's feeling good. It's not contracted. You know, we're not holding the weight of the world on our shoulders. Everything kind of opens. And then the heart field will also continue to harmonize what is in front of us.

00:53:34:03 - 00:53:53:22
Unknown
We have covered a lot of ground, Cynthia. I must say, I'm very proud of us that we actually managed to get through all of these steps. And I'm very excited. The book is only published now, right when this episode is released, and people can get the book. Is it available internationally or is it only in the US?

00:53:54:04 - 00:54:23:01
Unknown
It releases on May 1st and it's on various outlets, including Amazon, I believe. Yeah, internationally. At least in the States, it's available on other outlets for people who want to choose other places. Yeah. So, it really feels like a gift from the field to the field. Okay, well, that's a wonderful way of putting it.

00:54:23:06 - 00:54:42:01
Unknown
And I can't wait to hold one copy in my hands, Cynthia. I would love to give you a copy. And hopefully I can see you one day so you can sign it. And that will be very, very nice. Yeah. So thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom and expertise here.

00:54:42:06 - 00:55:02:00
Unknown
And I love how you bring modern science into the picture, because as you said, it makes it more accessible to people. This is not just some airy-fairy ideas of Chinese people 4,000 years ago. It is actually something that is rooted in today's knowledge of what we know from science. And I think that makes it all the more convincing.

00:55:02:05 - 00:55:21:04
Unknown
Although even if it wasn't, I mean, you and I and other practitioners know how it's working and that it is working, because we have these experiences. But adding the scientific dimension to it — I think it's a great way of also reaching a broader audience of people that are not so familiar with Qigong.

00:55:21:06 - 00:55:43:20
Unknown
So I wish you good luck with this book. And I hope many, many people will benefit from it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Cynthia. 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 words

00:55:43:20 - 00:55:52:09
Unknown
meditation, performed by Chinese teacher Catherine Hendricks. Enjoy!

00:55:52:11 - 00:57:59:09
Unknown
[Eight Words Meditation]

00:57:59:11 - 00:58:05:04
Unknown
To get your free e-book on the Eight Words meditation, please check the show notes below.