Feeling Peaceful
Outer chaos, inner calmness, and healing
Master Glenn Tobey
Addressing your emotional response to the pandemic.
March 29, 2020
A lifelong practice that is always with you.
My focus today is on feeling peaceful. With this crisis going on, with this virus going around, we do need to respect the danger. Respect the physical things we do need. But the response to this virus is really closing down to a way of life. Staying at home. Being cut off so many things. The services are closing down. I have no access to them.
With that in mind, it gives us a chance as if we had a house arrest for 30 days we can’t leave. How do we use the best use of it? Don’t waste your time. Find a way to look at what is going on now. When you complain sort of speak, “I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time for that. I am too busy for this. I am too busy for that.” Well, now you have some time.
Spend one hour to think about all the aspects of your life. This might be time to focus on some old habits. This might be time to look at your life differently. What will your life of this 30 days look like? Old patterns. This might look at life differently.
What if you are sentenced 30 days in a monastery? You are surrounded by 8 ft. Walls. You can’t leave for 30 days. How can you structure your life inside the monastery? What are the things work for inside of you? How would that be important to you?
Out of the walls, what if you have 60 days to live? 6 months to live? 6 years to live? How would you structure that inner life? Maybe begin to look at those kinds of questions. Very powerful. What I love about Spring Forest Qigong, no matter what closes down, no matter what takes shape, no matter what events don’t go on any longer, I have this practice of calmness and healing. I love Western medicine. However, people have access to it now is iffy. Spring Forest Qigong, we always have access. The healing qualities of Spring Forest Qigong. This energy practices. This energy balancing. Remember if the Qi balances, then the physical body does better.
Now it’s time for a lot of thinking and worrying a little bit. But when we overthink this, if we over worry things, it affects the digestive system. The vibration of overthinking, the vibration of over worrying affect how we digest things inside the system.
Remember we talk about the value of how to change the vibration in the body. The higher the vibration, the healthier the body response will be.
Over thinking and over worrying has a lower vibration inside of us. One thing you need to do in the Spring Forest Qigong, here is the movement. Hold up your hands above your head. Have both hands face each other. Fingers are open. Arms face each other. You can do this standing or sitting. Try to drop your shoulders so you are not holding your arms with the muscles of your shoulders. This might take a little bit of practice because you are not used to it. Drop the shoulders down. Don’t let the muscles of your shoulders holding your arms up. As if your arms are floating. This helps to detox the body. Clear the energy blockages with the energy moving down. Clear up the acidic energy in the body. The over thinking and over worrying don’t have to take the control of your digestive system. So, you work on your inner healing.
The other part of the calmness is about meditation. You got these 60 days or 30 days in the monastery. Learn how to meditate. It is really important. You can’t go to a mountain top because you are quarantined. How do you do that in your home? If you haven’t meditated on your own, sit on your couch. You don’t have to get a cushion or special position at the beginning. Just sit in your chair for 5 minutes or 10 minutes. Then don’t think. As if you are just looking around. Just sitting in your chair. Just sitting on your couch for 5 minutes. Breathing slowly. Doing this deliberately, purposely. I might look out of my window. I see trees. No thinking. No judging them. No valuating. I am just sitting here. Home meditation. More and more you can sit still. Sit peacefully. You can sit in calmness. There are many meditations you can get online or through Spring Forest Qigong very valuable.
Learning meditating for 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes becomes a way of life. So, you are not wasting your time. Learning how to meditate is about calmness. You can always go back to the calmness. You can always go back to the peacefulness. No matter what other chaos are going on, you can always go back to the peacefulness. You can always go back to the calmness.
Qigong Master Glenn Tobey
Master Glenn Tobey, M. Div., M. A. in Management, is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker in private practice in Duluth, Minnesota.
He has almost forty years of experience in the Human Service field and has worked in both urban and rural settings, and values the collaborative community-based model.
He has also taught at the college level, and conducted numerous SFQ workshops and trainings in various community settings. Glenn continues to teach and to share his knowledge and wisdom of Spring Forest Qigong which is at the center of both his professional focus and his personal passion.
Glenn is a member of the SFQ teaching team. He teaches Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Instructor Certification, and other workshops.