Love Yourself by Feeling the Qi!

Morning qigong practice in a lush meadow in the Blue Ridge Mountains at Healing Tao summer retreat near Asheville, N.C.

1. Summer Solstice Ceremony – Sunday June 21, high noon, at Mars Hill, N.C. open to public, free. See Travel Info on http://www.healingtaoretreats.com for directions to Dixon-Palmer Unit B residence hall. Ceremony is in large meadow behind it. Please email if you are coming.

2. June 26 – July 22, 2015. 14 FANTASTIC TAO SUMMER RETREATS left! SPACE STILL AVAILABLE!. Reserve online now – Low prices, high energy, very cool people! http://www.HealingTaoRetreats.com

FEEL FREE TO HIT REPLY and RESPOND. I love hearing from you!

Inside Chi Flows Naturally:          

Dear Lovers of Loving Yourself,

I have observed that one of the toughest things to do in life is LOVE YOURSELF. There are lots of great souls out there doing wonderful things for their local community or globally for humanity. Some are wannabee saints, their idea of sainthood is humbly ringing a bell on a cold snowy night for the Salvation Army. Most are unsung heroes who are loving others as the spirit moves them.

I feel it is easier to LOVE OTHERS than it is to love thyself. Why? Because that is our culturally dominant notion of love – a path of sacrifice for others. Mother for her child, spouse for their partner, child for their aging parent, soldier for his country, anyone willing to die for their cause, etc. Loving others may be challenging, but at least there is a clear path trod by others before us.

So when you follow that well-beaten path, and love someone else, you are fulfilling that role model. No one will fault you for it, or for the suffering it may bring you. The model is that the spiritual joy you feel now, and the karmic rewards awaiting you in heaven, will outweigh the suffering. Plus there is the bonus of looking in the mirror, and feeling greater self-worth: “I have loved another, and my worth has grown larger.” But has it grown larger in the eyes of others, or from your own self-valuation?

Self-love is considered by many to be self-ish. This is due to some people having an allergic reaction to the word “self”, or their inability to distinguish between self (as individual being) and self-ish (as quality of greed, lack of compassion, etc.). I have written before about the confusion between the Latin ego (“I”) and egotism (“imbalance or excess”). Even more confusing is the negative phrase “that person is very self-centered” as opposed to the positive phrase “that person is very centered in their self”.

If we cut through all the religious and cultural foliage and word obfuscation, the bottom line is that the more clearly and securely one is centered in themselves, the more effective they will be in loving others. Centered to me means grounded, both physically and spiritually. To make it even shorter and more concise: Self-love is a pre-requsiite to effective Other-love.

    Love is Energetic Merging without Losing Our Center

I define love as the act of merging energetically with someone else without losing one’s center. If you cannot keep your center, your ground, while loving another, then you may not be actually loving them. You may be feeding on some dependent energy that is not healthy for you or them, and calling it love. It may actually be an attempt to shore up your self-worth, or borrow someone else energy, or control them, etc.

This is the vein in which I promote Taoist self-cultivation. To me, cultivating Qi is Self-Love. It gives one the strength and wisdom to love others without losing one’s balance or center. But what is the best Way to self-cultivate? Life will eventually teach us that skill, sooner or (unfortunately for many) later.

The best path of self-cultivation is something everyone must decide for themselves. We each have different lessons to learn from love. The purpose of studying with others is to take a shortcut. It’s called education. There are lots of good teachers out there. I prefer the Taoist teachers in general because I like to deal directly with the universal medium in which love is expressed – Qi.

I also think it’s important to study with different teachers to more quickly gain perspective. It would have been much simpler to organize trainings for my own courses only. But that is why I go to great effort every year to make a wide variety of Taoist teachers available for in-depth study.

20th Anniversary of Healing Tao USA Retreats

I know this strategy works, because this summer will be twenty years that I’ve offered retreats. Wow! it’s been the longest running Tao Reality Show in the West. 🙂 People don’t come back for more retreats every summer unless they are getting what they genuinely need. Over the decades, I’ve watched how people get what they need most from different teachers at different phases in their life.

So I want to sing praises to the faculty (past and present) at my summer retreat program, and thank them for sharing their skills and helping so many people find their Way of Self-Love. Let me mention a few names, in case you are sitting on the fence and still trying to decide whether to blow your vacation time and money at the beach or cultivate Qi on the cosmic shore of Self-Love.

Note: in recent years, nearly 25 percent of signups come in the final week. Fence-sitting has become a national hobby. So don’t let that slow you down – we’re ready for you, as you slide off the Fence of Uncertainty and into the warm hot tub of Tao of Self-Love.

We are about to start Week 1 tonight. If you cannot make it, but want to attend our powerful Solstice ceremony, show up this Sunday at high noon. Cultivators everywhere should be taking advantage of the infusion of Yuan Qi as the planet shifts (in northern hemisphere) from Yang to Yin cycle.

In Week 2 we have two rising stars Steven Sy and Andrew McCart. They co-teach a great course on Fusion of the 5 Elements level 1 for emotional alchemy and Iron Shirt Qigong level 1 for grounding. Getting both teachers in one course is one of the best bargains of the summer – you will find out just how and where you are not grounded by the end of this week.

(The other bargain in Week 2 is my Taoist Secrets of Sex: Healing Love retreat, which always has a male and female teacher).

Steven Sy trains Tai Chi Qigong (slow and fast-fighting forms) in Week 3. I did this form every day for ten years and love it for its amazing groundedness and its cosmological simplicity (8 movements, 5 directions, goes left and right in a circle). This is what the Yang family masters practiced behind the high walls of their compound.

Steven Sy is also offering Deep Healing Qigong in Week 4. This is a medical qigong form from Chinese clinics that I evolved, and that “does it all” in terms of reaching into multiple dimensions of the human energy body. Steven has pushed his practice of it to the limit and I heartily applaud his offering it for the first time to the public. You will leave this week with a Energy Body buzz that will not quit.

Andrew McCart teaches in Week 4 the key piece of internal alchemy work, Fusion 2 & 3: Eight Extraordinary Vessels-Macrocosmic Orbit combined with my favorite, Primordial Qigong. This is a dynamite and magical combination that brings out the alchemical principles of Primordial Qigong using Fusion practice.

In Week 5 Andrew McCart offers the rarely taught Iron Shirt Qigong levels 2 (tendons and joints) and 3 (bone-marrow hitting and Qi weight lifting to boost sexual energy). This work is amazing, and its benefits are not limited to martial artists. The amount of energy generated actually requires one to increase meditation time to process the huge amount of Qi.

Jampa Stewart combines his skills an oriental medical doctor and Senior Healing Tao instructor in his two part series, Chi Nei Tsang (CNT) levels 1 and 2 in Weeks 3 and 4. This is extremely powerful integration of energy work and body work that reaches much deeper than many other forms of body-work massage.

The great thing about CNT is that you can do this deep navel massage on yourself – the courses are not just for professional healers. Jampa is a wizard at marrying a huge amount of technique into an entertaining and energizing format. People emerge from a week with Jampa feeling totally transformed.

In Week 5 we have New York City’s “dynamic duo” of Frank Allen and Tina Zhang. Frank has over forty years experience with Bagua Zhang and each summer shares a slice of his vast store of experience. This summer he integrates I Ching philosophy and meditation with the martial spiralling aspect of the art.

Tina Zhang is teaching her favorite tai chi form, Northern Wu Classical Taijiquan, along with taiji sword for those ready for it.  Tine has emerged as one of the top female martial and healing artists in the USA, and her retreats always generate a feeling of awe and gratitude.

If you want a great Way to LOVE YOUR SELF, please get out of your armchair and study with the teachers and teachings that attract your soul! If you cannot make it our wonderful Tao summer camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, hook up with another Taoist closer to your home. Spread the Self-Love around.

Blessings on your Creative and Loving Way,

Michael Winn