POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE by Phillip Starr Because we are emotional creatures, we experience many different emotions on a daily basis. However, some of these feelings can be harmful and may weaken your ability to apply the Four Principles of Qigong to your life. Negative emotions such as anger, hate, greed, lust, and jealousy actually affect the life-force (qi) and your ability to control it. We’ve all met at least one person who seems to be negative most of the time. If you sit and visit with this person for more than about five or ten minutes, youll feel absolutely drained when you part company. Such a person is seldom happy and you don’t dare ask, “How are you?” If you do, you’ll listen to her expound on her many health problems for the next thirty minutes! Whenever a particular virus is known to be roaming through the area, she’ll be one of the first to get sick. In fact, she’s rarely, if ever, healthy. She has few, if any, real friends. She usually likes to gossip in an effort to feel better about herself. Her life is full of drama and negativity. Such people draw energy into themselves because their systems are starved for it! Fear, hate, bitterness, jealousy, anger, and greed draw qi inward, preventing them from extending it. Qi is only useful if it can be extended. If it is withdrawn it cannot be used at all and this can result in blockage of qi in the body, which often results in pain and illness. Bitterness and anger scatter qi so that it cannot be focused and used. At the other end of the spectrum is the individual who always seems happy and smiling. If you sit and visit with him for a short time you actually feel energized! He can walk into a room of ten strangers and leave with ten new friends. His health is usually very good. This isn’t to say that he never gets sick but if he does, he tends to get over it quickly. His life is one of happiness, contentment, and joy. We would say that this person has a very positive spirit. He naturally extends energy. I often remind my students of this important universal law: “Like attracts like.” The more positive you are, the easier it is to stay positive and become even more positive. Your positive spirit tends to draw positive things to you. If something negative should occur it is handled quickly and effectively. On the other hand, the more negative you are, the more negative you tend to become. You sink slowly into an ever-deepening quagmire of negativity. We’ve all had days like this; you get out of bed and the first thing you do is stub your toe on the bed frame! You might shout out a couple of very colorful adjectives or verbs as you hobble into the bathroom. But more disasters seem to be awaiting you. You flush the toilet and it overflows, you put on your shirt only to find that one button is missing, you burn your toast…and this is just the beginning of the day! As the hours wear on, it’s as if a dark cloud hovers above your head. You wonder if some sort of evil spirit is wreaking havoc with your life. Everything you do is wrong. Instead of turning to gold, everything you touch seems to turn to coal! Its interesting to note that people who are in a negative state of mind; people who are depressed, angry, or bitter usually cannot perform the the basic qigong exercise known as the Unbendable Arm! This holds true for everyone, including those of us who can do it under normal conditions. Its because a negative mind “pulls” energy; that is, it draws energy inwards rather than extending energy outwards. And if you cannot extend energy adequately, you cannot perform the Unbendable Arm. This started me thinking, “If someone feels that they are beginning to become angry or depressed, could they prevent that state of mind from manifesting if they quickly practice the Unbendarm Arm exercise?” I tried this with a number of students and they all found that they were indeed able to prevent themselves from falling into a negative state of mind by performing this basic exercise as soon as they felt the negativity filtering into their minds. So, back to our story about your sore toe. If you stop and think about it you’ll realize that it all started when you stubbed your toe. You allowed yourself to become negative. You forgot that negative draws negative and your day became progressively worse. So, what should you have done? You should have taken a few seconds to stand straight, focus on your dantien (“tanden” in Japanese), and extend qi through an Unbendable Arm. Imagine qi radiating around your body. This keeps your energy extended, which helps to prevent negative emotions from gaining a strong foothold. Remember, “Like Attracts Like.”
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 15:14:02 +0000
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