SHARING SOME STORIES ABOUT STRESS & DANCING QIGONG from Karen Steinbrecher

The September issue of Shambala Sun, a magazine,  speaks about finding Peace during stressful times.  Are you familiar with that word, stress?  Here are some inspiring ideas   to share with you from this issue.   .

“Life is stressful, and no matter what we do, that blunt fact will never change.  Yet we’re not powerless.  The way we think about stress and the way we react to it-that is always up to us.”;  Judy Lief’s article on the “;Middle Way of Stress” tell us that  “Not only do we have to lean into our own stress at times, but we also have to be willing to allow others to learn in that same way.  It is hard to watch someone struggle without feeling anxious and wanting to help out…but it is not always so simple.  For instance, if you see a butterfly struggling to break out of it cocoon, and you try to ease its struggle by prying open the cocoon, that butterfly will emerge in a weakened state and may even die.  The butterfly needs the stress of working its way out of the cocoon to build up strength and to dry its wings.  Clearly, a certain amount of stress is part of life, but how much stress and what kind of stress?  How can we navigate a course that is challenging but no overwhelming?

We think that if we were smarter, prettier, wealthier, more powerful, living somewhere else, younger, older, male, female, with different parents-you name it-things would be different.  But things are not different.  It makes more sense to learn how to deal with the stresses that inevitable arise.  Yet Lief teaches that there is real hope for relief and that it lies in practice.”

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This leads us to  QiGong.  Here is a flowing dance with gentle, stretching movements that help us, enable us to let go, let go of the stress, the pain and the worry as we seek to find our balance.  Balance is like happiness, it can be fleeting.  But the practice of QiGong,  the Gong, the focus, the intention as we move the Qi [Chi – life force, energy]  toward aligning Body, Mind,  Heart,  Spirit and Soul towards who YOU ARE, is my secret that I want to share with you.  And her basic suggestion about getting to know your own mind by following the breath RESONATES with Qigong.  The Breathwork is an important element in QiGong practice.  As Lief suggests, and also in QiGong practice, we bring our attention to our inhalations and exhalations, thereby discovering that there IS something steady and reliable about our mind.  That when life becomes stressful, we can draw upon that inner strength that lies within each and every one of us.

Join me and others as we Dance and Practice Qigong here at the Resiliency Center

every Thursday @ 2 P.M. and @ 6:15 P.M.  in the open work space.   $10.00 charge.