to this is not working:
i read your message and immediately felt great compassion for you. you practiced qigong for months and felt no relief and so gradually you lose hope.
about 3 and a half years ago i too bought the program and started practicing the active excercises (sp?) and the small universe meditation. after 8 months nothing happened . i have spinal stenosis plus severe arthritis in both knees and hips plus i have parkinson's disease. as a result i am unable to walk without a walker and even with that i can only walk about 25 - 50 feet at best. i am house bound unless someone takes me out in a wheelchair.
so after 8 months of calling learning strategies (what am i doing wrong) and with no clear answers i gave up. i should mention that i was doing a program called "centerpoint" at the same time and i did TM (transcendental meditation.) my life was one of hurrying from qigong to centerpoint to tm day in and day out. I was wound so tight with scheduling these activities that i couldn't let any healing in even if it clamored at my door. then i gave everything up. the hell with it all i said. i played tape programs and music and read and i relaxed and got used to my pain which was so severe that i would fall many times. but i got used to it nonetheless. so was my retirement - not as i had pictured it but we do adjust to difficult things. i never put the qigong program on the shelf though - i kept it on the corner of my desk even though i did't look into it again for another 2 plus years. then i got the "invitation" togo to the qigong retreat. my heart jumpedand said GO. after many phone calls i signed up for it. then having paid my tuition and made all the necessary arrangements, i opened the program and reread the booklet that was in it. let me say that i read this book when i first bought the program as i do whenever there is a book of instructions enclosed. as i read (that which i had already read) i was amazed that it told me things that never registered with me the first time. like - the pain may get worse before it gets better . i listened to the tapes again and heard chunyi lin say the same thing and to hang in - not give up - that healing will come when your body and mind are readdy for it.
in the 3 months between signing up for the retreat and going to it, i did much soul searching about my illness and pain. from sonewhere in the universe came love and blanketed my life. i started to honor my body and the pain. i thanked it for knocking at the door of my consciousness to tell me that i hadn't done a good job in my youth, putting work and responsibilities before me (the inner me) i never did anything slow because if i worked fast i could get 2x as much done. i relaxed in all that i did (in a sense i had to because parkinson's slows one down. but it was also that i deliberately relaxed as i did the qigong excersizes. i do them with love in my heart and when chunyi lin says "put a smile on your face" mine is genuine not contrived as it once was.
SO can you take anything from my story that can help you??? i sense that you need love and so i send you love. let it blanket you and warm you and fill you with joy. relax relax relax!!! take 2 weeks off from doing qigong and when you are filled with joy go back to it with a new outlook. reread the booklet and relisten to the tapes. you may see and hear something new. pperhaps when chunyi lin says "put a smile on your face''
perhaps yours will be genuine also.
i know my story is long. i didn't want to leave out anything that might insprie you to continue doing qigong but with a new attitude. good luck and God bless you
love and light
marrisha
(this name means little mary which i was called as a child)
