T’ai Chi, Emotional Energy and Recovery

Justin has stated several times that he does not understand why T’ai Chi Chih instructors who are doing very well sometimes suddenly stop teaching and disappear. Likewise, I believe every teacher has had students who seem to be doing very well and then suddenly stop and disappear. My experience suggests the answer lies in how T’ai Chi practice, in particular the circulation of the chi, stirs up emotional energy stored in the body from old traumas or unresolved issues.

I believe a perfect spirit resides within each one of us. However, the human plane of existence covers this up with many layers of conditioning and damage. Most of this occurs during our receptive years as children. Another view is that our spirits are still evolving and the karma we bring into our human lifetime dictates what occurs to us and what we have to work through. For some, the karma, and resulting emotional damage, is slight. If this is true of you, then rejoice for your main task is simply to apply discipline in the recovery of your perfect spirit. For the majority of people, however, the damage that occurs in childhood is substantial enough to seriously interfere with life. In fact, probably the majority of people in the U.S. experienced some form of serious abuse in their childhood. This might be sexual abuse, physical abuse, or emotional abuse and the degree can be quite varied. Even some aspects of our cultural conditioning are abusive. Usually the emotional energy generated by the abuse has no outlet and so becomes stored in the body. In cases of extreme abuse even the memory of the abuse might be blocked out until rediscovered many years later through recovery work or some triggering event. Such stored emotional energy then exerts major control over our view of life and the choices we make. Also, such emotional suppression is physically unhealthy. Most people can not see the damage in themselves very well. They think (privately) only that they are bad or flawed. How to know if you are emotionally damaged? It is very likely if you find yourself reacting to other people or external events a lot.

It is important here to not condemn the parents responsible. They were probably also severely abused as children. The problem is most certainly multi-generational. Only now are the taboos coming down about looking at and talking about these problems.

The point is that T’ai Chi practice circulates the chi and also tends to mobilize and ultimately liberate such stored emotional energy. We usually do not know why we are experiencing the emotional turmoil and we certainly are not comfortable with it. Also, a damaged ego self nearly always resists any substantial change. The result can be an emotional resistance to T’ai Chi practice. The practice of T’ai Chi acts to gradually release such emotional energy but if the emotional surge is strong it can overwhelm the positive influence of T’ai Chi. In such instances continued forward progress with T’ai Chi requires more than just discipline; it probably requires some level of active involvement with uncovering and release of the stored emotional energy – the emotional interference is simply too great for T’ai Chi to stand unassisted. I believe that we must repair the ego self (rebuild the ego boundaries – “where I stop and other people begin”) before consistent spiritual (ego dissolving) progress can occur. The process is to begin with acknowledgement of the emotional pain, then discovering what happened to you, how it controls you, and expression of the emotions. This is not a short process and must be accomplished slowly and gently. Finally you learn how to live uncontrolled by the emotional energy of the past. This is what the emotional recovery movement (as opposed to the more familiar substance abuse recovery movement) currently gaining so much momentum in our country, is all about.

For many, myself included, a real sticking point is allowing the emotional expression. We are generally conditioned not to express our emotions. Furthermore, to a large extent we have only very dysfunctional models of emotional expression (for sadness and anger in particular) that have been displayed to us. So hand in hand with gradual expression of the emotional energy is learning how to express difficult emotions functionally. No emotion is a bad emotion; emotions are our teacher. Our expression of emotion may, however, need some major work. Finally, as major emotional repair is effected, strong emotional responses become weaker and are triggered less frequently. We are then free to be more in our pure natural state of joy and harmony. I strongly believe we are evolving toward this state of increased joy and harmony. I also believe that some of us, at least, will probably have to shed some tears along the way.

Lastly, I have had a few students who began T’ai Chi while they were already doing emotional recovery work whose experience was a nearly overwhelming surge of emotional energy. It was so scary for them that they felt compelled to stay away from T’ai Chi.

To summarize, T’ai Chi is a major tool for the emotional recovery process as we recapture our innate pure state. It acts to both trigger stored emotional energy and to gradually assist in its release. If, however, the emotional damage of the individual is severe enough, it is likely that some active emotional recovery work will be needed to assist in the cleansing process. As teachers, it is important that we do not make the mistake of thinking that emotionally damaged people should be able to (functionally) think, or do something, in a certain way that we might find very easy. In other words, we must be careful about extrapolating our experience of life to other people. Much progress can be made if we proceed with awareness, compassion and reassurance. This is true with respect to others as we teach and also to ourselves as we work on our own evolution.

I hope there is information here that assists you and/or your students or helps to explain some experience you have had. If anyone wishes to provide feedback or continue this discussion I can be reached.

Namaste,

– Bryan James