Have you ever felt swept away by strong emotions?
Do you feel nervous when making presentations?
Would you like to have an unshakable inner stability?
I will always remember one of my first tai chi lessons, many years ago. It was the most fascinating experience and has stayed with me ever since.
The instructor asked two of his stronger students to attempt to pick him up. Now bearing in mind that he was quite an elderly and small framed gentleman you would have thought it fairly easy to lift him off the floor and yet no matter how hard they tried they just couldn’t shift him an inch. He appeared glued to the floor.
Not only that but he remained totally calm and unruffled throughout the process. He didn’t seem at all disturbed by the efforts of the two burly guys trying in vain to lift him.
This tai chi expert had mastered the ability to stay centred, balanced and grounded at will no matter the circumstances and it is at the core of all tai chi and qi gong practices.
As well as becoming physically grounded or rooted there is also a psychological and energetic grounding going on at the same time. Mind, body and energy all working together. This can be amazingly useful and effective when you find yourself in stressful situations where strong emotions like fear can literally ‘uproot’ you psychologically, making you ‘freeze’, creating tension throughout your body, stopping you from performing at your best.
The ability to release the emotion and energy down through the body and into the ground creates a very strong rooted connection with the floor, providing you with a source of physical and mental stability. It is as though we develop energetic roots beneath our feet, anchoring ourselves solidly with the ground. Now you will be in a better position to feel the fear and do it anyway!
The skill of being able to remain stable and centred both physically and mentally even when under pressure is one that can be learned and practiced daily until not only can you apply it in those situations but actually you begin to experience it as a permanent state of mind, allowing you to process and respond to events rather than react. In this way we learn how to live in flow everyday and stretch way beyond what we first thought was possible.
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Stay relaxed and in flow
Rob
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