Master FaXiang Hou - The Body in Balance: Qigong Healing at Any Age with Energy, Breath, Movement, and 50 Nourishing Recipes

CONCLUSION

Keeping the Body in Balance

I hope this book has given you some new ideas for taking the best possible care of yourself and your family. One of the reasons I wanted to write it is to communicate all that I have learned about proper nutrition to the widest possible audience, because I believe that eating the wrong foods makes you sick, and eating the right foods can cure you and allow you to live the best, healthiest life.

I see so many people, both in my office and out in the world, who are afflicted with all sorts of disease and discomfort that could be avoided if they only considered what they eat and drink each day, and became aware of how those choices affect their essential well-being. Perhaps reading about the traditional Chinese way of maintaining physical health through simple, thoughtful eating and moderate qigong exercise will inspire you to make a few changes in the way you take care of yourself.

When I go into an American supermarket I am overwhelmed by the amount of packaged food and drink. The qigong way of eating, focused on fresh vegetables and whole foods, may take a little more thought at first if you are accustomed to tossing frozen dinners and snacks into your shopping cart, but you will soon find that its a much simpler and less costly way to feed yourself and your family. Once you understand how to heal yourself and others by the choices you make in the kitchen, and see how those choices help you thrive, the beautiful logic of this way of eating will be clear.

Our world is noisy and chaotic. Many people, especially women, are stressed and overwhelmed by their daily responsibilities and the circumstances of their lives. Their physical health may suffer as a result. Finding a few quiet minutes to perform my simple qigong exercises is a gift you can give to yourself. At first, these movements may seem awkward or improbable, but they really do help make positive changes in your life if you keep at them and learn to feel your own qi, or essential energy. I wish everyone would do them, and I am doing my best to spread the word about how great they can make you feel.

FIND YOUR VITAL ENERGY

An Introduction to Qigong and Traditional Chinese Medicine

If you come to my office during the Chinese New Year, which occurs in midwinter, you would notice a stunning red amaryllis plant in full bloom in a pot by the window. That in itself is not unusual, for many people force flowering bulbs to bloom out of season in order to enjoy their brilliant colors in the depths of winter. The difference here is that I have kept this particular bulb for more than twenty winters now, and I purposely use my powers of energy concentration to make it bloom for the beginning of the new year and sometimes for other special occasions as well.

That is one way of explaining the essence of qigong: its about connecting with the universal energy that is all around us, and using it to open channels and correct imbalances. Since I have studied and practiced qigong for so many years, beginning in childhood, I dont expect you to be able to harness the power of your own internal energy to make flowers bloom on demand. But I am here to tell you that there are so many accessible ways for women to enhance their own physical and emotional health using the simple tools of qigong.

The secret to a long and healthy life begins with qigong. As previously noted, the word refers to the movement of vital energy, or qi, through the body to clear blockages that cause illness, pain, and discomfort. In external qigong practice, people can learn to move in ways that detoxify the body by releasing harmful substances such as gases, air, germs, andin terms that may seem abstract to Western thinkersillness. This displacement of the bad by the good can also be performed on a person as internal qigong, meaning that an experienced qigong practitioner such as myself gives the person a targeted acupressure bodywork treatment, acupuncture, or both, to help them detoxify and rebuild. The patient usually requires more than one treatment, and up to ten visits to clear many common conditions; in acute situations, I may treat someone every week for a year or more. Furthermore, a person can balance her own internal qi by consciously eating and drinking in a way that brings yin and yang into qi harmony. All these things constitute the healing science, art, and spirit of qigong.

Qigong has no side effects. When I perform an external qigong treatment on a patient, my goal is to increase his or her blood flow, sending oxygen to troubled areas of the body, and hasten the removal of waste products that can cause pain or sickness. These two meanings of the word qigongthe personal health practices you can implement in your own life, and the bodywork I practice in my officeare two sides of the same coin, promoting the same health effects with the same basic principles, just in different ways, one drawing on external energy and the other on internal energy.

First recorded in the second century BC, qigong is a practice based in Taoism and Buddhism. Both religious systems use exercise and meditation to reach a higher consciousness in which healing energy can thrive. Our Chinese ancestors have passed down lessons learned through life experience, spiritual philosophy, and culture, proving their healing theories on human beings, not on mice in a laboratory. There is a beautiful logic to this way of thinking. For 2,000 years it has provided explanations for everything on earth, including the human species, our behaviors, and the bodys responses to illness and trauma as well as to good health. In traditional Chinese medicine, the individual is seen as part of a bigger picturea piece of the natural universe. Like the universe, we are all controlled by certain undeniable rules of nature. The body, like the rest of the natural world, can be understood, and even manipulated, once the basic concepts of the universe are understood.

Fascinating as they are, you dont need to know all about the fundamentals and philosophies of this ancient Chinese healing system to put its power to work for you, but I will review them here briefly because they provide insight into how qigong works within your body, and to help you begin to understand your own condition, whether you have lower back pain, headaches, anxiety, a sore neck, carpal tunnel syndrome, or any other complaint that never quite goes away.

As I hope you will come to understand, the wisdom of qigong is simply a basic human intuition that most of us have lost touch with: learning to sense blockages and imbalances inside our own bodies and those of our children and others we live with. By tuning into the energies around and within us, we can learn to normalize ourselves and maximize the flow of our vital energyour qifor relaxation, general well-being, and, most significant, relief from pain and various kinds of physical and mental distress. This awareness and ability is as valuable for people with depression or illness as it is for athletes looking to improve their performance, or indeed anyone hoping to be the best, healthiest, most tuned-in version of themselves that they can possibly be.