Don't Stress

Someone new came to ki class one Monday recently. It was just him and me so I chatted for a little bit. Half way through ki exercise he looked very stressed. I asked him if he was okay. He said that he had seen us many times through the windows and it seemed so easy, but actually he was finding the whole thing very difficult and was noticeable getting more and more stressed by this. "Is it normal to be struggling to move and breathe?" He asked. I told him that it was new and different - that I was asking him to step outside of his normal way of being, to let go of things that he might be holding on to. I told him that I would be quite surprised if he didn't find that initially quite stressful. "Oh really!" he responded. He physically relaxed in an instant. "So it's okay to find it difficult!"

A considerable percentage of our suffering is linked to the anxious desire to suppress it.

In Ki Class a few days later someone told me about the nephew of a friend of his. The boy had a pronounced stutter so he asked his friend about it. Apparently up until a year ago the child (5yrs old) had not spoken at all. He would make a little bit of noise and then go crazy, braking things and hitting things. They taught him sign language. As soon as he was able to say what he wanted, he relaxed. As soon as he relaxed, he started to talk!

A student spoke to me the other day. She said, "Saboumnim you often talk about not worrying that the opponent is big etc... I've been worrying, 'how will I ever not recognise that my opponent is big?' But now I realise, I will always notice that he is big, but it is about not being controlled/paralysed by that."

Don't worry if something is difficult. Don't worry if the opponent is big. If you worry you make things twice as hard. Just face reality. By transforming our minds we can transform our world.