Beat the Heat with Qi Gong

Heat comes in many forms, not just the weather. It can represent struggle, inflammation and illness (particularly cancer).

Visualize a large ice cube at the top of your head melting downward and washing away all tension, stress, pain and struggle as the coolness flows to your toes.

Use this visualization every hour for one to three minutes today and notice what happens to your energy and perceptions.

Often times, the conscious choice to shift our energetic states creates deeper states of peacefulness and acceptance in our lives.

Qi gong movement with its gentle repetition can help transform heat by releasing it especially when combined with deep breath work.

Augmenting that movement with qi gong bodywork, can help to release energy around old wounds or injuries, ancestral karma, and emotional patterns that may be deeply embedded.

Processing heat and embracing “coolness” in life is a process that takes time because heat can exist in many different forms.

Heat can be the result of having lived in an abusive environment as a child or suffered other types of traumatic experiences.

People who experience physical, verbal or emotional abuse often hold deep layers of heat manifesting as the struggle between their wounded parts of self (that are told over and over that they are not worthwhile or empowered), and the parts of self that are capable of achieving positive movement in life.

This struggle between parts of self can create anxiety as the more wounded parts feel overwhelmed by life when stress increases.

Thus, stress can create a special type of anxiety characterized by sudden onset feeling of being pressured and insomnia that does not respond to traditional western medicine interventions. It can also result in behaviors that cause one to push others away by repeating abusive behavior, creating an excessiveness of heat, which can be very destructive to relationships and to the person exhibiting the heat.

With physial trauma, energy patterns of the injury can get stored on the physical level as heat, such that years later, people can still manifest symptom patterns of the earlier injury. This is particularly true of skeletal injuries as in Chinese medicine, the marrow of the bones is said to hold the energetic pattern of injuries.

For example, a gentleman shattered his ankle bone as a young man during a physical activity with friends. Preceding the injury, the man recalls that he was filled with an egoic sense of wanting to “show off” and out perform his friends, a sensation that caused him to take unnecessary risks and injure himself.

Years later, he experienced chronic pain around the ankle joint although doctors could find no evidence of arthritis or scar tissue although scans showed that circulation to the bone of the ankle was less than normal.

He used medical qi gong bodywork, a form of energy healing, to gently work through the layers of stuck energy, such that he was able to release not only the energy of shock still stored in the joint itself but also the energy of emotions that he experienced at the time of the energy such as fright, shame, and embarassment, all sources of internal angst and heat that were fueling inflammation and comprising circulation to the ankle.

After several months of work with energy techniques, the man experienced a greater level of blood profusion to the ankle bone, reduced pain and greater range of motion.

Other times, heat turns inward, overwhelming the liver, which rules the nervous system in the Chinese medicine system. Thus, we might see neurological issues emerging such as chronic pain, numbness, tingling and some forms of paralysis. Heat can also overwhelm spleen, creating dampness which can manifest as sluggishness, heaviness, weak muscles, poor digestion and increased anxiety.

Excessive heat in the heart center can create rapid heart beats, a racing sensation that is often present in panic attacks. The excessive heat in the heart center can also create a disconnect between our spiritual processes that allow us to manifest purpose.

With excessive heat, we often find the metal element of the body, the immunity system compromised, such that we become more vulnerable to illnesses such as common colds, cancer and auto-immune illnesses such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and fibromyalgia.

We need to be diligent and consistent with the process of releasing heat, through performing meditations, visualizations, qi gong movement and receiving medical qi gong bodywork to effectively create new states of calmness and “coolness” in the body.

Even on a dietary level, we can reduce heat by avoiding foods that have a hot property such as peppers, high amounts of carbohydrates, foods in the nightshade family such as potatoes and tomatoes, and high fat foods.

Often it takes a synergy of therapies to create shifts to release the deeper layers of heat in our lives. Thus, the Chinese medicine system that emphasizes attention to diet, movement, and a variety of bodywork therapies such as acupuncture, acupressure, medical qi gong and movement forms (tai chi and qi gong) can provide a comprehensive approach to healing heat in our lives.