Qi Gong Routine for Peace

Need more peace in your life?

In this 10-minute video, master Qi Gong teacher Lee Holden shows you the best place to start to create more peace in the world: within yourself. He also teaches you a Qi Gong routine to cultivate inner peace through a specific organ in the body. (Hint: it’s not the Heart.)

 Welcome to this short video on how to cultivate inner peace. Now, peace is a particular kind of energy that we all want, or we all wanna have access to, and we want access to peace within ourselves in a world that doesn't have much peace within.

From a doubtless perspective, they say first, cultivate peace within yourself. That piece then emanates into the community and in the space around you. So we start with inner peace and what we look out in the world around us, we can tell that this world needs much more peace. Contentment, relaxation and flow.

So the way to cultivate inner peace within ourselves from a Qigong perspective is not just sitting in meditation and quieting the mind. It comes from a particular area in the body. Emotions are energy, emo energy that moves through you, energy in movement. So how do we cultivate this particular frequency of peace Now, peace.

In Chinese medicine comes from your kidneys. Very interesting, right? These organs in our bodies have particular frequencies that resonate with particular emotions. Now, this might seem a little strange, but we do say, I love you with all my heart, right? We don't say, I love you with all my kidneys. We would think that was weird, but I love you with all my heart.

Isn't weird to us Westerners because love, we resonate with the hearts. Now in Chinese medicine, they expanded upon this concept much, much more. Peace comes from the kidneys and each of the internal organs has a particular emotional quality to it. So when we're cultivating peace, we're gonna work with the kidney qi.

The energy of the kidneys to cultivate that particular frequency within ourselves. And when we cultivate it, you will feel it. You'll feel, ah, I feel at peace. So let's do a little check in. Notice how you're feeling right now, and I'm gonna show you a little routine for cultivating inner peace. We'll check in afterwards and we'll see on the peace scale how much peace we feel within ourselves.

Alright, so just close your eyes. Check in, notice how you feel. Maybe notice the tension in your body. Notice the emotions that maybe have run through you today, this week. And then let's begin. Let's begin by taking a stance. It's about shoulder width, and we're gonna do spinal cord breathing to relax the nervous system.

So you're gonna inhale and look up. Exhale and round your back, tailbone, tuck, sun, and a nice deep breath looking up. Exhale round the back. We're gonna breathe in and out through the nose. Nice and slow. We want a clear stress, first and foremost. Clear stress out of the nervous system. Get our body in a state of relaxation.

How does this movement clear stress? Well, you're moving your spine and you're breathing slowly. The nervous system runs through the spine, so this gentle movement helps to calm the nervous system. We synchronize the breath with the movement. Exhaling as you round and inhale as you open the chest. Exhale round the back.

Inhale, open the chest. Spinal cord breathing is also a wonderful exercise to clear tension out of the back. Clear tension out of the neck and shoulders, the lower back, get the spine to move,

inhale, and then relax. And the way we cultivate peace is through relaxation, right? If you want more peace, first we relax. Peace doesn't come from trying or forcing, it comes through relaxation. So these next movements. Are gonna be flows that will help to relax the body and energize the kidneys and help you tune into the frequency and the vibration of peace.

The first one is called the fountain. Now the fountain is an exercise, what we would do for the kidneys, and it's a cultivation of peace and deep relaxation. We're gonna move the body like water. So first, back of the hands, come towards each other, hips, glide back just a little bit, tuck your tailbone under, and let's wave up through the spine.

Arms come up, and then the hands float out, glide the hips back. Back of the hands towards each other. Inhale, nice and slow. Little ripple and wave through the spine. Exhale out to the sides. Inhale, flow the hands up, exhale flow the hands out to the sides. And a nice deep breath.

Good slow movements. Relax your body. So first we relax the body and then we start to flow. And the result is inner peace and tranquility. The energy of the kidneys, the positive energy of the kidneys. Inhale, move your body like water, nice and slow,

and just imagine a beautiful river flowing down the mountain. And start to mirror the movement of the water in and through your own body.

Inhale, float the arms up. Exhale out to the sides. Nice and slow.

Let's do that one more time.

And relax. Very good. Let's do one more flow. It's called zen circles. Zen state of mind is the mind that's at peace and in the present moment. This one is another one that's very good for the kidneys. And what we're gonna do is just bring one hand to your low back. So like this, just break it across the lower back.

Once you guys do your right hand. So we're doing our mirror image and your left hand's gonna make a big circle like this. And the hand is moving and the arm is moving, but it's moving from the center. So move from here. So when I'm moving the arm, I'm moving from the center, arm and shoulder are nice and relaxed, and you're drawing this circle.

It's an invisible circle right in the space in front of you. Zen circles and inhale the arm up and over, and exhale down and across. A nice deep breath up and over. Exhale down and across nice and slow, and drop in a little bit deeper by feeling the air as it moves through your fingers and goes across your arm.

Nice deep breathing, moving from the center, relax your body and feel as if you are coaxing the energy of peace towards you.

And then let's switch. So take now your left hand and arm behind the back. Your right hand's gonna make the circle. Inhale up and exhale down

nice and slow. Relax your body and feel as if you're tuned into the frequency of peace. You know, energy is a frequency. And a frequency like a station on the radio or TV or a cell phone has particular information connected to it. So you tune in, connect to that frequency of peace and let it permeate through your mind and body.

Deep relaxation made it flow through you.

And hands down, arms to your sides, close your eyes and tune into how you feel. After we've done those three exercises, see if you feel more relaxed, more connected, and at peace within yourself. Take a slow deep breath through your nose.

All right. May you have peace in your kidneys. Thanks so much for joining.