Sorry I missed this, Dean. I’m glad this article was helpful!

Sorry for replying to an old comment, but this is something I´m also very interested in. Perhaps Tomas means something like this. Say someone has been extremely frightened by loud noises in a combat situation. After the traumatizing event, this person might startle at everyday noises in his daily life even though the situation is safe.

For this mechanism, I would like to quote a yoga site which says ¨[The] Autonomic system is at work when we react unaware, in an unusual manner whenever faced with an emergency, because the autonomic nervous system has access to the sub conscious mind from where it retrieves the information for handling the emergency at hand without the knowledge of the conscious mind.¨

Perhaps Tomas believes Qigong cannot as it were access that kind of information (about how the nervous system reacts to threats), nor overwrite/´unlearn´ those reflexes.

My TCM practitioner, however, has said that it might be possible to rewire your brain if you are in a parasympathetic state (through the vagus nerve) for an extended period of time and then gradually expose yourself to the stimuli again.

I´m extremely curious what your thoughts are on this Sifu, and also thanks for your great book, it has motivated me to practice Qigong twice daily=)

Aha,trauma often being stored at the hips would explain why I also have a lot of difficulty with Tai Chi Chuan.
I recall its heavily based on dantian/hip area movement and work
whenever I try to practice it,I have to stop practicing rather quickly,otherwise it becomes overwhelming for me.

I’ll definitely keep closing at Mingmen for the foreseeable future untill things calm down in the hip area.

Thanks for the info Anthony!

I think dantian can be a trigger for some people. Trauma is often stored in the hips, and dantian is pretty close. But it doesn’t matter why you’re getting triggered. If Mingmen feels better, then use that!

Closing at Mingmen doesn’t purify/cleanse more. It’s just an alternative. But it also nourishes the Kidney Meridian, which in turn helps with fear-based triggers and anxiety.

1.I felt whenever I close at the Dantian that alot of emotions surface,like a battering ram that hits my body and stresses me out,I am curious as to how closing at the Dantian causes this reaction.
Is it because the Dantian stores the trauma as trapped energy inside of it?
Does closing at the Dantian mean that the rush of fresh energy causes that very same traumatic energy to surge out in the body’s attempt to be rid of the trauma held in the Dantian?
Or is it something completey different?

2.Does closing at the Mingmen helps the Dantian to more gently purify/cleanse/whatever the trauma locked inside of it?
If so,how does it do that?
If not,what does it do when I close there?

Yes I mean the mind-body practices, so Qigong or sitting meditation. It is as if when I stumble and miss a day, certainly if I miss more than one day, no matter that I may have been practicing for 21 days or 100 days, it all goes, and it can take months to pick myself back up and start practicing again.
At the moment I’m trying to get back on track with your 2 minute emergency willpower routine. I figure for survivors of trauma, taking bite sized pieces may well work better, because we can do 2 minutes even on the days when life feels overwhelming.

Try changing the thought of “I should practice” to “I get to practice”. And start with 2 minutes a day rather than trying to do the full routine. See if that works!

Thank you for the comment, Giles. When you say that “everything collapses seemingly overnight,” are you referring to mind-body practices? Can you tell me more?