A difference

There are moments in my life when I suddenly look up and realize that people are different and there are more ways to do something than I thought possible. And in that moment, I gain enormous perspective on how I actually do things. Tonight at Tai Chi class was one of those moments.

We were doing some very beginner push hands techniques trying to sink down while pushing our partner away from us. I am not very good at this at all. Most of my partners pushed me off balance while I was unable to move them at all. While I was working with one partner, I realized that both of us were trying to feel the connection and not really push the other. So I reverted back to my healing connection and started to establish a heart connection with him, and it was then I realized that the push hands connection was very different.

I realized that the heart connection I make brings the person Love. It can bring them to an altered state of consciousness, but fundamental to it is the lack of desire to move them anywhere. The connection becomes the most important part and all of the work is in establishing and maintaining the connection. The push hands is all about projecting one's Qi outward, and in particular, finding your opponents weakness and pushing through it to knock him/her off balance.

In my healing work, I don't project my energy outward, I invite souls into the room to heal. But this has recently been one of my issues, I need to learn to project myself outward, so this means either a change in the heart connection, or I have to learn to be able to do both and use either as appropriate. Very exciting to be learning a new way of moving energy around.

Receiving and sending

In Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point", he talks about how people are influenced by the moods and emotions of others on an unconscious level. The study he cites is that two minutes in the presence of another, not even talking to them, can change one's mood. He goes on to write that there are people who are senders and people who are receivers, that is, some people influence others (charisma) and some are more influenced by others.

It's clear to me that we are all a mix of both, but one type can dominate. For me, I am often a receiver. One of the ways that I can learn about the emotional state of my patients is to observe how my own mood changes when they enter the room. At times, I will even feel their symptoms in my own body. But I am also a sender when I heal. I enter a trance like state in which I am deeply relaxed, and I can feel my patients relax as well.

but I also know that I can be a good sender when I am in a dark mood - making those around feel agitated and annoyed very easily. So I guess one challenge is to figure out how to send out warmth and love when needed so people feel nurtured.

Often I will feel myself changing who I am in reaction to others. My manner of being, my responses sometimes seem foreign to me and I wonder if I'm doing this because it is what the person needs to heal, or if it's because this is what the person wants or expects from me. My guess is that if I stay connected to God, then however I react to a person will be healing, even if it's not nice on the surface (though that's rare).

The image I always had was to aspire to be that person who stood tall, commanded attention, and inspired all around him to a new direction. But I think, as a receiver, that my healing will mostly be one on one or in small groups. That way, I can react to the person, where I can be different with different people and not aspire to treating everyone the same way.