“Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the
awareness behind them.”
A big portion of a book that I read this summer was
about emotions. According to it, an emotion is an expression of energy in
motion – e-motion. In our Tai Chi classes we deal with emotions a lot: we try
to be aware of them, to control them, to make the most efficient use of the
energy generated by them.
Previously, I was curious myself about such subjects.
I watched a lot of videos and read books dedicated to the emotion control. Most
of them were focused on the same thing – letting go. There are, however,
different methods of letting go. Mano, a student of Osho, teaches us to let go
all of the old emotions and feelings, which were out of our attention, but
still remain in our body and mind, by simply screaming, moving in a dance,
jumping, and laughing. Pretty crazy, right? I do it all the time though, when I’m
alone.
In our Tai Chi class, during the past weeks, we
learned free moving Chi Gong, which I think is another good way to release our
emotions and emotional pain body. The clue is in concentrating on the things
that bother you – your physical or emotional pain, and then start moving. The
movements should come from your heart-mind, not from the “mind” that we use to
plan everyday activities or to solve math problems. Being aware of your feelings,
while you perform the free moving chi gong movements, is not the same as
thinking about your movements. You shouldn’t think about them at all. Things
should flow naturally. Your body knows how to relax and release negative
emotional “remnants”. Also, after you
let go physical pain, anxiety, impatience, etc. there is some free space which you
can fill with peacefulness. Free moving Chi Gong is not only about focusing on
negative aspects. It also helps to deal with positive feelings like love,
gratitude, happiness, etc. Again, you just need to concentrate on all the good
that you are feeling and move!
In class, when performing the free-moving chi gong, I
try to observe my feelings and look at the impact the chi gong exercises have
on me: I try to compare before and after the activity, and it does feel different.
It feels light and free. I would compare it to dynamic meditation. I think it
is important to feel comfortable “with yourself” and feel confident “in your
skin”. Someone said in class that he doesn’t want to move anyhow and he just
stays still. I think the problem is in being unable to connect to your
inner-self and discover who you are.
Usually, the only problem that I have to focus on during
the Free moving Chi Gong is so far is the lack of sleep. I try to deeply breathe
in all the tiredness and then breathe it out. Then I relax my body and mind. I
feel how my eyelids are relaxed, and I spread this state of relaxation across
my whole body. If there are some random thoughts – I observe them and then
picture them as birds flying away from my mind. I observe my breathing pattern.
It is usually breathing with my abdominal part – I expand it when I am breathing
out and contract it when I’m breathing in.
When I practice Chi Gong at home during weekends and
sometimes evenings of Tuesday and Thursday, I feel just a feeling of gratitude
and love, and I’m expressing it with Chi Gong. I entirely relax myself and
move. My movements are often just yoga stretching, or sometimes I’m just lying
on the floor and breathe in and out, trying to “clean” my meridians and fill my
whole being with light.
During the past weeks we also learned the Tai Chi
Forms, i.e. Preparation Posture, Beginning Posture and the application of them
in martial art aspect. We practiced a lot by ourselves and then later we
applied this knowledge to our opponents. I consider Tai Chi as a peaceful and
graceful kind of all martial arts. We do not harm, we just control the flow of our
energy and the energy of our opponents. We efficiently use it by applying tai
chi forms we learnt so far.
