We hear today about a lot of organizations hiring mindfulness coaches and mentors. But what are these individuals doing and how does it help with the everyday challenges in life? Mindfulness is being aware of the present and our surroundings. Sounds easy doesn't it? But I would offer everyone a simple challenge - find a quiet space, turn off the lights, light a tea candle and place it 10 feet in front of you. Now take your smart phone and set the timer for two (2) minutes. Now find a comfortable seat, clear your mind focusing just on your breathing and hit start on the timer. GO. If your like a lot of us, your mind is instantly filled with a thousand thoughts, don't focus of any of them, just let them fly through without putting any significance on these thoughts. Wow - just two minutes. Now that it is over - you see just how "crazy" our minds is and how busy a place it is inside our head. If you continue doing this, eventually the thoughts slow down, you breathing will slow down and you will begin hearing the subtlest of sounds in your world. As you stretch your time, start going for 10 minutes, 30 minutes or 55 minutes. As you get you are going to notice other changes in your mental state but more on that later.

People new to acupuncture sometimes get anxious about whether or not the needles are going to hurt. Some are unable to relax during the entire treatment due to worrying that any slight movement with the needles in them will result in pain. So what strategy do you have for helping a patient relax? I use qigong - either 9 threading breaths or the Inner Cosmic Smile to prepare the patients for their acupuncture session.

I was talking to my son yesterday (Father's Day) and he mentioned that he was having back issues recently and discovered that qigong was a wonderful way of ridding his back of pain. That's right, not only can you do qigong in for meditation but also a form of qigong can be used to heal the body through gentle motions that focus on specific parts of the body. There is one group of practices called Lian Gong, it is 6 different groups with 6 exercises per group for 36 movements. What qigong do you use for body aches?