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Creating openness
Yesterday, a piece I wrote with my collaborator for Psyche Magazine on the importance of awe in childhood was finally published. This writing stemmed from my graduate research at the University of Chicago, where I spent several years closely studying children’s perceptions and experiences of awe.
As I reread the piece in its final form, I found myself once again faced with so many questions about the seemingly boundless capacity of children to embrace awe and the restriction of this capacity as we grow older.
Why do we become more closed to awe and wonder as we enter young adulthood and grow older? How does this happen? How can we stay more open?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, my thoughts wandered over to Chinese medicine, into concepts of qi. In Chinese medicine, the free flow of qi is essential, and every aspect of the medicine - herbs, diet, acupuncture, movement, breathwork, etc. - is in service to this free flow. The emphasis is on space and openness. Opening the mind, opening the lungs, opening the heart.
In contrast, so many pressures and responsibilities in our modern, everyday lives - like fixed schedules and identities - contribute to restriction, which is essentially the opposite of openness and free flow of qi. Even many of our common foods - caffeine, alcohol, chocolate, fried foods, spicy foods - bring heat and restriction to the body. These substances tighten the liver and constrain our emotions.
Openness allows us to be more aware or able to embrace awe, wonder, and the joy of life. Though not impossible, this becomes more effortful and trying when we become more closed and restricted.
So how do we move toward more openness?
Through action
Chinese medicine is full of teachings that can guide our lives toward more openness and free flow of qi:
Food practices and dietary therapy offer us techniques to incorporate into one of our most common daily habits - eating.
We can focus our diets on simple, wet-cooked foods, like congee and soups, which provide deep hydration through the time course of digestion and provide sufficient fluid to our bodies.
These fluids are nourishing and contribute to regular, healthy movment in our digestive systems.
Herbal formulas can support the free movement of liver qi or nourish our yin and blood, which can help us with aspects of life like emotional regulation, emotional expression, sleep, and ease.
Qi gong, which roughly translates to “energy work”, is a type of slow, flowing movement that maintains and restores the free flow of qi throughout the body. Regular qi gong practice, even for only a few minutes a day, can catalyze and support the movement of qi throughout our organs and circulatory systems, which often can bring an immediate feeling of more openness within.
My husband and I like to do a little bit of qi gong together most mornings. Sometimes it’s just a few minutes, sometimes it’s longer. We’ve learned a lot from Andrew Sterman, and we also like Mimi Kuo-Deemer’s instruction. Here’s one of her videos you might like. Maybe you could try to do just a few forms and notice how you feel.
Breathwork - even simply taking one big, deep breath and letting it out slowly - can create openness and space inside of ourselves.
Through perspective
In addition to the actions listed above, I think we all have the option to move our perspective toward a more open or more closed endpoint of the perceptual continuum.
We can simply ask ourselves: How can I approach this with more openness?
I have to do this inside myself all the time, especially when I feel more closed or constrained.
This perceptual element can also create space for some playfulness or humor in our attempts to be more open as well.
Is there anything you’re doing in your life lately that you feel brings you more openness?
Do you feel like you are struggling to be open to awe, wonder, and the joy of life?
I’m always curious to know how these ideas are circulating in the lives of all of you readers as well.
Warmly,
Artemisia
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Clinical Herbalist | Chinese Medicine
Upcoming Events 🗓️
TEA AS MEDICINE SERIES
I am teaching a series of classes on how to incoporate herbal tea as medicine with a Chinese medicine perspective at Lost Cultures Tea Bar here in Albuquerque, NM.
These classes will focus on the herbal selections available at Lost Cultures and will include a good introduction to Chinese herbal medicine.
The first class on digestion was so fun and I would love to see you at the next one on support for skin!
Tea As Medicine - Support for Skin is on August 10th | 1-2 pm
Tea As Medicine - Support for Emotions is on September 14th | 1-2 pm
Tea As Medicine - Support for Womens Health is on October 19th | 1-2 pm
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