liminal_luke

Thanks for mentioning Lam Kam Chuen, Soaring Crane. Went to his website, and he has a new qigong workbook out specifically for anxiety. Might be just the thing for me and my partner. Liminal

Here´s a somewhat controversial choice: Max´s Kunlun spontaneous movement practice. An easy way in is to get Sifu Jenny Lamb´s self-healing DVD (she calls the practice Yi-gong) which also contains some very useful before and after practices. Liminal

If it can be taken back without asking, and we´re just supposed to sit there and be all philosophical and zen (or tao?) about it, then it wasn´t much of a gift in the first place. Anybody wants to give me something like that, don´t bother. Liminal

As far as the sounds go, I think what´s most important is the feeling. You can do them soft or loud, for a short time or a long time, sitting standing or lying down...but in the end what´s is important is only this -- did you feel the corresponding organ? The sounds are just a tool to get to the feeling. It´s like taking a bus to get home from work. What´s important is not so much the bus ride, it´s whether you made it home. For this reason, I recommend really taking your time with the period after the sound to feel into the organ. You can´t release what you can´t feel, so take time with this part. Liminal

Please take care of yourself Josama. The being of service to other people sounds great. If you are having suicidal thoughts I recommend also reaching out to professional mental health services, counseling or psychiatry. They may not know much about the whole entity thing, but that doesn´t mean they can´t help. I believe you have the power to feel good. Liminal

Well, whatever happens with all this, I´ve got to admire your courage putting yourself out there to be critiqued like this. You asked for help, received replies, and actually seem to have taken advantage of the collective wisdom thrown at you. That´s actually pretty rare in my experience. Kudos! Liminal

The like button makes me very aware, as a poster, of how much I like to be liked. Probably everybody does, I guess, but one of my personal goals is to be more self-contained. To get to a place where being liked feels less flattering, and disliked less onerous. Where I´m simply me and content with myself. Checking whether or not I´m liked can move me in the opposite direction. Then again, that´s life. People like some things and don´t like others, and part of being social beings is letting each other know what´s what.

There´s a lot to be said for "eating to live" rather than the other way around, but I also think that cooking is an art and savoring food can be as valuable as going to a museum or reading a great book. Liminal

Ok...mystical or not I´m not sure, but I wanted to share this poem by James Broughton. Autobiography I took a sharp look I took a long prowl I questioned the serpent I questioned the owl I called up the mayor I called on the sage I tried reading Proust I tried life on the stage I went into therapy I went out for sports I suffered every ailment from sniffles to warts I went to the dogs I went to the Pope I climbed Annapurna I fasted on dope I dug up the desert I delved in the sea But nowhere I looked could I recognize me So eventually I had to give up my plan of escape to Siam and accept myself here just as I am But it wasn’t easy James Broughton.

MooniNite, Do you have a personal story around this? Your own weight-loss journey achieved by putting your ideas into practice? Stories from others you´ve coached? I think personal stories -- and especially yours as the author -- are what motivate people, helping to bring abstract principles of wisdom into the realm of practical advice. Liminal.

I don´t mean to be nitpicky, but I´d question the truth of that last sentence. In many cases, sure...but it´s hardly universal. There are lots of reasons why a woman might want, or just happen to have, a great body besides a desire to attract men. Liminal

Oh I dunno. As a single person the idea of finding solace in a tree seems laughable, I suppose. But I´ll bet there´s more than a few married people who find a nice oak more companionable than their spouse. Liminal

Having a romantic life-partner can be a wonderful thing, and I´d encourage anyone who wants one to take steps to find that special somebody, including online dating. That said, I think it can be useful not to narrow down one´s focus too quickly on that particular brand of love. There are so many ways to be, and feel, connected -- to ourselves, to the larger community, to the universe as a whole. Especially when a person is lonely, and yearning for a lover, embracing the smaller, but still significant, intimacies of life can help ease the pain. Some suggestions... Cultivate connection with oneself through all the practices people talk about here on taobums. Breathing, meditation, smiling. Perhaps something explicitly relational like Metta. Also journaling, artmaking, anything creative. Also, communing with the artistic work of others. Great literature and poetry. Paintings. Feeling the kinship with others through shared understanding. Commune with nature, especially trees. Work on relationships with friends and family. Appreciate all the little opportunities to reach out to people you might not even know. A friendly hello at the grocery chair. Waving to a neighbor. I get that none of these things can replace that one partner that so many of us look for. And I´m not saying to stop looking. Not at all. Just that until you find that person, appreciating the broader possibilities of connection can provide a kind of lifeline that will get you through. Liminal

I love the description of qigong as an in-the-body experience, because that´s exactly the benefit it has for me. Years ago, when my first therapist asked me what I hoped to get out of our sessions I said I wanted to feel more in my body. That kind of stumped him but I still think of it as a very worthy goal, maybe the worthiest goal. When qigong works for me I feel like I´ve "gotten myself together." And I mean this in a subtle but nevertheless quite literal sense. Not that I´ve had the more sensational out-of-body experiences people talk about when the consciousness floats up to the ceiling and you look down at yourself lying there in the bed. That sounds fun and all, but I suspect beginners would do better going in than out. Some speculative thoughts. Maybe the best, and certainly safest, way to go out is to go in. If you go in deep enough and your BIG SELF bodymind would benefit from going out, it will rocket you where you need to go. Automatically. Maybe you don´t need to do anything to go out except keep working on going further and further in. Practices that begin in the other direction seem questionable to me because they can reinforce a tendency we already have to be beside ourselves, to feel alienated, disconnected, fragmented. Going out sounds like more fun, but if you get to the center of yourself you´ll also be at that magic place which is also the center of everybody else, everything else. And what could be cooler than that? Liminal

Thanks Soaring Crane! So hilarious... In a hostel in Spain I came across this sign announcing, I think, a curfew. The hostage will be shot at 10pm.

Oh never mind. I was momentarily snippy over what I perceived to be unwarranted ...well, whatever. Chilling out now.

I´ve bought and practiced from quite a few of Winn´s dvd´s and tapes, as well as gone to retreats. Nothing but good has come has come from the experience. In his retreats he gives a very intellectual framework for understanding the material which might not be right for everyone, but worked for me. I consider his primordial chi gung an underappreciated gem, and simple beginning practices like healing sounds and inner smile can take you far. Have you downloaded the free (I think you have to sign up for a newsletter) ebook on the inner smile? Good stuff. Liminal

To know when its time to stop posting here at TDB and be able to do so. Of course this is partially in jest but a person who can do this one action, when it´s difficult to do so, will also have all sorts of other interpersonal maturity and wisdom. You can´t stop posting unless you can also... (1) let go of the need to be seen as right (2) let go of concern about other people´s opinions (3) allow other people to have their own process, even when you know they are "wrong" (4) recognize the many times in life when the best course of action is no action at all Liminal

Another thought. Consider whether there might be something that your body wants to say that you aren´t allowing yourself to voice. It´s so common to have things to say that we don´t allow ourselves, for whatever reason, to express--especially at work. The anxiety could be your reaction to this inner conflict: part of you wants to get out some pent up emotion, part of you is scared as hell that you just might. Liminal

Neck circles and stretches. Yawning Talking aloud about your difficulties in a nonsensical made-up language. (from Julie Henderson) Self-massage of the jaw. Find a tender point somewhere on the neck, and a corresponding tender point on the opposite side. Alternately massage one point and then the other freeing up the energy in a line between the points. (from polarity therapy) Consider the "meta" level of the problem (ie. how you feel about having this issue) and release any judgement.

Begging is like kissing: there´s so many ways to do it. It can be a beautiful invitation to gain merit that fosters good feelings in both parties, or an aggressive shakedown. To answer a previous posters question about what young Mexican children might be doing if they weren´t begging, well, I suppose they might be playing. Play, after all, is the activity favored by the 5 to 10 year old set all over the world. Begging is a little bit like cold calling--you have to weather a lot of rejection--and young children just aren´t equipped, in my opinion, for the job. As a child, my mother-in-law was regularly locked out of the house until she had collected her quota of coins for the day. Good times.

Security personnel at the international airport in Phoenix weren´t pleased with my spontaneous movement practice. Can´t win em all I guess. Liminal

Where I live (Zacatecas, Mexico) children, often very young children, wander through downtown cafes and restaurants asking for money. I don´t have anything to say about this other than I think it´s sad.

I have no idea if quantum mechanics is bunk or not, but the word "quantum" is a useful marketing tool for those who want to give their stuff a super-duper aura of spiritual superiority. You got your quantum shiatsu, your quantum healing, quantum touch, and so forth. As opposed, I suppose, to the hopelessly outdated Newtonian versions of such things. People who understand physics might not be impressed, but they are likely not the intended market. Liminal

I figure The Dao Bums must really be doing something right. Otherwise why would anybody ever make a stink about being suspended or banned; they´d just shrug their shoulders and go. Liminal