Change is Constant.

It’s an essential feature of nature. Change can be either good or bad. Either way, the best way to live with change is to simply go with it, to let things be. But oftentimes you don’t want change. 

In fact, you resist it and that’s because you’re holding on to how you think something is supposed to be. Your mind creates expectations based on certain values and beliefs.  It then judges. 

It is very easy for you to get frustrated and angry when you think something is supposed to be a certain way and it isn’t. A split is created. 

A judging mind is divisive. It separates. It closes your heart to somebody, and then there’s this “us versus them” mentality. Things can get very difficult from here. 

Your life can be a struggle and all hell can break loose. When that happens, your heart may be broken or even worse. You have a broken spirit.  You then plainly just give up all hope. 

Yin-Yang Philosophy

This is where Tai Chi can help you with your outlook on life. Tai Chi is based on the Yin-Yang philosophy and it recognizes the importance of coherence and balance in your life. 

When I was a student of Tai Chi, I used to think that yin and yang were two opposing forces acting on each other, fighting each other, struggling with each other – just as black and white were two opposing colors, just as male and female were separate and different from each other. I thought that yin and yang were just the same – two separate forces.

But the Chinese say “Yin-Yang”. 

There is no ‘and’ in-between yin and yang. That’s because Yin-Yang is an integration of complementary things.  Here are some examples:

• Things like ‘form and function’ where form follows function and function gives meaning to form. They enhance each other.

• Then there’s ‘mind and body’. You want to follow both your mind and body together. Your mind can’t say one thing and your body does another. That doesn’t work and you’re not in harmony. 

• Then there’s the ‘left brain and right brain’. You want to listen to both your logic and intuition at the same time to give you a good result.

Yin-Yang is all about creation. It’s the creation of coherence and the integration of balance. 

When these two are working together, there is a major change and great transformation. Tai Chi means the great ultimate stretch. You’re going from one end of the spectrum to the other end.  

You’re working with both to achieve unity. 

First, find your center in Tai Chi, then reach out and stretch from that center to find and integrate coherence and balance in your life. When you do this, you have great power.

Tai Chi is based on Yin-Yang Philosophy.

It’s a practice for living and this practice involves your intellectual consciousness, your emotional consciousness, as well as your physical consciousness. When these three consciousnesses come together, then you are in harmony and you have power. You can take back your power by doing that. 

So rediscover the Tai Chi that’s within you already. 

(Follow Along with My Video For This Portion.)

Find your center. It could be down here (lower dantien – belly button). It could be up here (middle dantien – heart center).

1. Reach out, OPEN wide to the sides with your fingers. Then CLOSE back in, come back to your center and gather yourself back in. 
2. Then there is up.  Reach up to the sky with your fingers. Then settle down, back into the earth. There’s UP and there’s DOWN. 
3. Then there is stepping FORWARD, and then stepping BACKWARD.
4. Then there is LEFT. Then there is RIGHT.

So these are the four basic contrasts in Tai Chi. They are not necessarily opposing forces because when something goes up, something else goes down. When something goes right, something else goes left.

They’re linked. They’re working together, not necessarily opposing each other. 

Yin-Yang is about working together, complementing each other, emphasizing one thing for the greater good, and enhancing each other. This is coherence and balance in life. There’s no more “us versus them” mentality, and your SPIRIT can be intact. 

There’s no more division.

Now that you know you can tend to your broken spirit with Tai Chi, you may be asking yourself: “How can I have more Yin-Yang integration in my life? What if I had more coherence and balance in my life? What would that do for me?”

I cover topics like this all the time. So stay tuned for more tips! Reach out to me on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube pages and I will talk to you soon.