What Happens Next?

Editor’s Note: Christian was accredited in November 2024

Justin talks about students not recognizing their “self” before T’ai Chi Chih (TCC), and I empathize with this. I was introduced to TCC in Athens, Georgia, some 25 years ago. I can recall many details of my life at that time, but I struggle to place myself in those shoes, to identify with the anxiety and uncertainty of those years. I can see my discontent, my stubborn impatience, amidst my search for meaning and direction. But I also recall a sense of order and certainty that slowly grew with my daily TCC practice, along with my own reliance on its steadying influence. I also recall, amidst the intoxication of youthful enthusiasm, thinking that TCC would fix me, and I spent many years passing through that particular gate. To quote Paul Reps, “If you had not been on the spiritual path for 35 years you would have never known there is ‘nothing to be done.’” (Spiritual Odyssey, “The Self of All Things”)

In recent years, I have found myself faced with some semblance of a midlife crisis. As a parent, spouse, colleague, sibling, and a child of aging parents, I found the drive and enthusiasm of open-ended possibilities fading even as the warp and weft of obligations and daily routines grew tight. The point of crisis was in facing my own naked self, absent diversion or delusion. Who am I, anyway? It’s an uncomfortable question to face, upon awakening, alone in the quiet dark of early morning hours.

This past November I attended Teacher Accreditation in Colorado with a remarkable collection of students, auditing teachers, and the inimitable Sandy McAlister. Amidst my own reckoning with self, the week stood as a bright beacon that I’m still metabolizing. Already it feels like an eternity ago that I left, but also just last week. I watch my movements evolve as I digest and embody the bounty of lessons and insights gathered.

After accreditation, as I slowly integrated back into daily life, I found that I belonged in the world in a way that I hadn’t felt before. I discovered, by its absence, a long-carried burden: a sense that I didn’t deserve to be. This is quite apart from confidence and competence. Across the past decade I have worked as a mentor and teacher and feel comfortable sharing knowledge and skills. More recently, I have learned to give voice to feelings with care and precision. And still, beyond thinking and feeling, I sensed that I existed in community only by the leave of others. Leaving that mountain, metaphorically and literally, I found a grace towards the world that I began, tentatively at first, to extend inwards towards myself. Grace and gratitude.

I am forever grateful for a daily practice that has helped ground me within life’s rush and tumult. I am grateful for the clarity that has grown with my practice, allowing me to greet myself as I am, without ornament, and for the teachers who have guided and encouraged me along this path. I have learned to be gentle with myself and to befriend discomfort, asking it what it has to teach me. I continue to “chop wood and carry water,” to polish the mirror.

Reflecting on my own experiences, I see so clearly now the effort of effort, and effort of no
effort, and I am reminded that “you are enough.” As I begin teaching TCC, I hope to share this grace. What felt overwhelming now feels possible. I find myself drawn onwards by an abiding curiosity to discover what happens next, and to share it.