EP09 The Power to Heal Lies Within Ourselves - Full Transcription
Janelle: You're listening to "Staying in the Game," a Plum Dragon Herbs podcast where we have conversations about mindset and techniques for staying at the top of your game. I'm your host, Janelle Leatherwood. In this podcast, we are speaking to Sharron Rose, a filmmaker, choreographer, composer, author, teacher, and healer who has imparted her vast knowledge of ancient and traditional cultures throughout the world. She is currently directing and producing the forthcoming documentary series "Quantum Qi," the Taoist Art of Nurturing Life. This groundbreaking series will feature numerous well-known qigong and tai chi masters, TCM practitioners, teachers, and scholars. We're excited to find out more about this series today, and to talk with Sharron about ways we can connect with our true nature and life force, and to learn how to deal with pain and emotions in healthy ways. We'll be walking through some simple techniques we can use anywhere to help our body to heal itself. Welcome to the show, Sharron, we're so glad that you're joining us today.
Sharron: Oh, it's a pleasure to be with you.
Janelle: I'm so excited to talk to you about what you've got coming down the pipeline. Could you just introduce yourself little bit to our audience?
Sharron: Oh, sure, I'd love to. Well, I've had a really amazing life. I started very young in the arts, dance, music, theater. I was performing at five in hospitals and nursing homes, maybe that started my whole desire to understand the world of healing, the world of performance, and what could I do to really help humanity, my family, my friends, community from very, very young. I just was very energetically aware, and was trained very young. At nine years old, I went into theater, in which they had us as an exercise, go to the mall and watch people, and look at how they held their bodies and look at if they had strange mannerisms, and just really start to perceive the physical. But I would also say, the energetic, you know? And I just kept with that, with the dance, with the music.
In many cultures, I was a senior Fulbright scholar, and had other fellowships to India in the '80s where I lived with the early Bollywood stars, Sitara Devi, who had also...was buried deep into Hindu mythology, philosophy, and tantra. Then I reconstructed the music, and dance, and ritual from the temples of Egypt. I got into filmmaking in '78, mostly doing, in New York, music videos, world music videos. And then 20 years ago, I met my husband, Jay Weidner, and we started our film company, Sacred Mysteries. We really wanted to show that we're way more than what we...this physical body that we have, these energy fields, we have emotional bodies, we have mental bodies.
And now, let's say, three years ago, when working on another film, I met 12 qigong, tai chi, martial arts, Taoists, masters, teachers, scholars, and I jumped into it, I interviewed them, the next thing I know, now it's three years later. I've been working on my "Magnum Opus," which is a film series, documentary film series. But not just documentary, they'll be exercises for everyone, because I feel that we need to embody, we need to experience these practices, not just think about them. And so, I'm deep into that right now, and that's just a little.
Janelle: Right. I know, it's so exciting, though. I'm really excited about this documentary series. And tell us about the Crowdfunder that you've got going for it.
Sharron: Well, we have a Crowdfunder. The easy way to find it is go to our website, quantumchimovie.com. I've been working on this as a total labor of love, I have for three years. I just feel that it's time for these teachings to come forth. You know, being rooted in the Tao, first of all, there's meditations, etc., that bring you to a sense of, really, grounded, centered awareness. You come into a new level of grace in your body, and harmony, and balance in your psyche and your emotions. And there's so many simple, amazing exercises that really empower you, any age. Even if you're, you know, lying in bed, you know, you have some serious illness that you can't get out of bed, these teachings are just incredible in helping you to bring this qi, this life force energy into your body.
So, I've been taking other jobs, the last two years, I just finished, again, the second Qigong Global Summit for the Shift Network, that's another really wonderful online network. And, you know, did other things just so I could pay my editors and camera people to help me do this, and, oh, of course, animator, to help me really create a work of art. It's not just..."Quantum Qi," is not just like a regular documentary. My vision was to, in the animations, to have the style of ancient Chinese water color paintings, I really want to pay tribute. I've been trained in so many deep ancient traditions that their art is incredible. But in this one, it's not just the art, it's the art that's related to the healing of humanity.
And also, I've been very involved for many years as a filmmaker, and as a speaker, and teacher in trying to help us in these very strange, these very divisive and confusing, chaotic times that we're living in, where we're just being bombarded by, I would say, kind of, mental programming that really doesn't speak to who we truly are. You know, we are amazing human beings, we're all gifted. And what we're being told is that we're all victims, and we're all this, and we're all bad, and we can't ever be good enough, and that's just not the way it should be.
And so, these teachings, they've just taken over my life. And the Crowdfunders there, we've been building a community of people interested, and the crowdfunding is there to really help me realize this vision, because I'm out there for all of you. I really see what's going on, and I really feel the pain that we're going through, and we do have these, you know, the internet, and all these different technological devices where we can reach each other, but why can't we reach each other in joy, and in upliftment, and in healing? So, that's why I'm doing the Crowdfunder, so that I can really continue with this project, and do something that I believe will help to bring these incredible teachings to a very wide world audience, and, you know, from very young children, all the way to seniors.
Janelle: Yeah. And I love how you talked about, even if you were lying in bed, these are techniques and principles that could help you. You think about people who are really suffering with heavy illnesses, and they feel like, "What's the point of living?" You know? "What's the point of going on?" And you're saying, "Go back to your life force and reconnect." And tell us a little bit more about that.
Sharron: Well, in the Dallas tradition, life force is called qi. You know, it's called prana in India. It's called different name... bio electricity, it's called all kinds of things. And, you know, we all have access to it, we're alive, right? But we haven't learned, we haven't... In this medical system, and with the teachers, the masters, and the researchers, because I have talked with people that have grants from the National Institute of Health, and people who've worked with the... like Roger Jahnke, who's my one of my associate producers. Dr. Jahnke has worked with the Veterans Administration, he's worked with Kaiser Permanente. And, you know, I really feel we're in this time, where we're looking at us, at a society, you know, there's Medicare for all. But as...I think it was Marianne Williamson and Tulsi Gabbard who both said that, right now, we're dealing with what we would call sick care. It's not health care, it's not preventative care. And what's so beautiful about these practices and acupuncture, which is part of this whole system, is that we're looking at the whole being, and, you know, it's not just a symptom.
And so, these practices are there to help us all understand that we have this energy, we have all of these real simple techniques for healing, even in in the qigong system, which is really the foundational practice for all of tai chi and the martial arts. This is like where you really begin, because it grounds you, it connects you with nature. It connects you not only with outer nature, but what we would call your inner nature. So, that's your emotions, and your thoughts, your mind. And then it goes all the way to your true nature, and the true nature, in many of these traditions, that is who you are beyond all this programming. The part of you that already is just so clear, and pure, and beautiful.
And so, just simply, you know, if you're someone... I mean, there are a lot of exercises for people sitting in chairs, you know? Just in bringing this energy from the earth, because it's all around us, right? It's in us, it's all around us, but particularly, it's in nature. And so, these simple exercises were, like, just clapping your hands, rubbing your hands together. If anybody out there wants to try that, just clap your hands, rub them together, and then feel that heat, and then take them apart a little, and back, and you'll feel this kind of tingling, and almost like taffy, right? That's the qi, that's the life force energy. And you can learn through these practices, to gather this qi from nature, to bring it into your organs, to bring it into your systems, if you have a headache, you can bring it there.
And the exercises, which...That's why, in "Quantum Qi," every episode will be like 40 minutes of speaking and gorgeous drone footage of the masters doing the practices in nature, in these gorgeous locations. Like, I really also wanna reconnect people with nature, with our beautiful planet. And I think if we could start seeing it from it's, you know, in all its beauty, it might be able to change everything. The climate change, you know, the inner climate change, the outer climate change, and bring just way more joy. Right now, I mean, I just see so much suffering, and it really, really touches me, and all I can do is create this series that, hopefully, many people will see, and will be uplifted by it, and, you know, also take the time to understand that they have the power to heal themselves.
Janelle: Right. Which is such an amazing belief in Chinese medicine and, you know, all these Eastern medicine practices, that the body does have the ability to heal itself, and it's tapping into that natural mechanism that the body has, rather than just treating symptoms, or, you know, masking the symptoms. And so, I really love that.
Sharron: Yeah. A lot of people that have illnesses like autoimmune disorders, or PTSD, or terminal cancer, they are coming to you, as qigong, as a way to help them. They're not necessarily dropping their conventional medicine, but any use of it, any work with it, you know, it just enlivens your spirit, and enlivens your energy, and makes you feel like you can begin to take your healing into your own hands. It's just a great adjunct to any Western medicine.
The other thing that's interesting that, you know, what they've told me, Dr. Effie Chow, she's 85, and she's called the mother of qigong in the West. She worked in the Clinton administration trying to bring alternative medicine, she's been working this forever. And she said that it used to be, in China, that the doctors were only paid when you got well. It wasn't, like, a whole system of just greed. I mean, I've met wonderful doctors, believe me, but it's so based on money rather than, you know, the Hippocratic Oath of true healing. I mean, it's what I love about that qigong people, they're just so giving, and they're so alive. My teacher, Master Lijun Fang, he was a martial arts film star, and then he was head of the kung fu wushu team in Beijing, they won all these gold medals. And then as he got older, went more and more into qigong. Although, at 81, he's still teaching, also, martial arts, and deep, deep meditation. And this man, who's been doing this all his life, looks like he's, maybe, 50, and he moves like he's 30.
Janelle: Ah, that's incredible.
Sharron: So, that's the other piece of it. You know, there's all this sexy talk out in the world about immortality, and longevity, and life extension. Well, this is a... The Taoist system, and qigong, and these teachings have been focused for centuries and centuries on how to live a very full, long, joyous life.
Janelle: Yeah. Well, and I don't even know if I get the sense, when I go to a medical doctor, that their goal is to heal me, it's all about whether they can fix the problem through surgery, or something, or just give me something to deal with it, you know? The symptoms.
Sharron: Oh, no, that's happening all over the place. My son got a stomach virus, I guess he was throwing up, he's in L.A. And he was throwing up, and, you know, just really, really fever, and everything. He went to the doctor...well, he went to the emergency room first, and they kept him...and he was there eight hours, they gave him some Gatorade.
Janelle: Yeah. Gosh.
Sharron: And the doctor didn't do anything. And finally, I said to him, I was on the phone with him and his father, and I said, "Do you know of any good Chinese acupuncturists, China TCM, traditional Chinese medicine doctors?" And his father said, "Oh, yeah, I'm going to...I have a great one who also teaches qigong, and I have an appointment." So he took my son, and my son was just amazed. I mean, he had been when he was younger, but, you know, he said, "This man really cared about me. He looked at my tongue, he read my pulses, he told me what was going on with my liver, he gave me these herbs. You know, he just really cared about me as a whole being." And you just don't...it's rare to find that with a Western medical doctor, they just want to give you a pill and make you pay a bunch of money for it, or, you know, tell you...
I mean, I had... My mother took this drug called diethylstilbestrol when she was pregnant with me, and it caused this propensity for a strange form of cervical cancer in the women, and it manifested. And I go to the doctor and said, "Well, what's the prognosis?" And she says, "Chemo, radiation, surgery, and death." That was her response. I said, "I am out of here."
Janelle: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Sharron: And I went to...I did a lot of alternative stuff. I reduced it and reduced it. Finally, I had just some basic surgery, it wasn't that big, and it was over. The surgeon was great, I really have a lot of respect for surgeons, but I don't, you know, just...I don't know, I'm kind of an alternative person. And the other piece of it that I keep saying is that, it gives you tools to help yourself. I think that that's what's really disturbing about this world right now, you know? This whole idea that everyone's a victim, and, you know, this kind of dislike for the other. You know, from my perspective, who...I've been in many Eastern traditions, very deep, you know, I believe there's such a thing as reincarnation. So, that means that, in other lives, we could have been any race, you know? We could have been male, we could have been female, but we're... For some reason, I don't know who is doing this in the end, you know? Why this is happening. But, you know, we're just being taught to really dislike each other, and not to enjoy who we are, and realize that we are each one of us. Every one of us has special gifts within. And those gifts...
I mean, I worked in schools in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Connecticut for about six years, through the arts, teaching stories, and dances, and music from cultures around the world, and it was so amazing to see, and I was bringing meditation. I didn't have qigong, I only wish I qigong then, because I know kids would love it. So, you know, I was... And I had a dance music partner from Lebanon, and we just brought this sense of, you know, the beauty of every culture. And so, kids...Because, I mean, in Queens, New York, there's like every culture in the world. And so, you could see, as you would bring the beauty of, like, you know, Hindu culture from India, that these little kids who are from India, and felt, maybe, marginalized, all of a sudden, they have these big smiles, and the other kids are getting to experience their culture. It's like we all are human beings, you know? Why can't we learn to love each other and appreciate what we have?
Janelle: Right. I mean, it's so true, because our differences in our culture is what makes us all unique, and those are our strengths. And how boring would life be if we were all the same?
Sharron: Exactly. Exactly.
Janelle: Yeah. That's so neat, that you worked with the children, and children are so accepting of everybody. You know, I have an eight-year-old son, and I love when we take him to the park, or...whoever he plays with just becomes his friend, you know? And that doesn't happen as the kids get older, they're just more withdrawn, and feel more self-conscious, and stuff. And so, if we could foster some of that childhood innocence back into our lives, I think we would all be so much better off.
Sharron: Well, I think part of the disturbance is social media. I think that people are getting...and younger and younger...getting caught up. They're losing contact with the physical world because they're in these virtual worlds. Like, I would say that Twitter is a virtual reality, and that people are obsessed with it. If they could only just go out and sit by a stream, or go to the ocean, or just look up at the sky, look at the stars, if they could even see them, and start to come back, you know? Let all these wild, angry thoughts out, you know? I think it would be a much happier world.
Janelle: Yeah. We need to disconnect more with the internet and connect more with people.
Sharron: Oh, for sure. You know, I remember, as a child, we all eat dinner together, and we all talked. Now, if you can even get everybody together for dinner, then everybody's on their phones.
Janelle: Right. It's so true.
Sharron: You know, my husband and I just made a deal, that when we go out to dinner, our phones are staying home.
Janelle: Yeah. That's great. Tell me, what are some other problems that you think are causing people to get stuck, or to become ill? And what do you feel, like, are some simple solutions that they can incorporate to start healing?
Sharron: Well, I mean, my main thing, really, about illness has more to do with how we work with our emotions. I've done a lot of study, I've trained in craniosacral therapy, and in this other system called the psychophysical method of neurosensory reeducation. And that is...I think that one of the problems, and it's beyond just... I think that the social media, and all of that, and the obsession with it has whipped up our emotions. But, I mean, emotions...I read a lot about ancient cultures, Right? So, emotions, and war, and all this stuff has been going on for a long time, you know? And anger towards each other, and fear, and wanting to protect ourselves.
And so, I really feel that we need to start looking at ourselves, and looking at how quickly we're triggered. You know, these trigger things...I mean, it's gone beyond now, with micro aggressions, that's ridiculous. I mean, I feel that it's really nice to say to somebody, "Where were you born?" "Oh, you have a beautiful accent." "Oh, you're..." The way it is now, you can't even...And many people trying to say something positive to somebody else is somehow thought as a negative, it's interesting.
You know, we made a film, my husband and I, with our company, Sacred Mysteries, in 2006, and it was called "2012: The Odyssey." And it was about the 2012 phenomena. And we interviewed shamans, and all these researchers, people who had been involved in looking at that moment as a turning point. We wanted to get the idea out that it could be positive, rather than what the History Channel and those places ended up saying, like, it was gonna be the end of the world. But a lot of the shamans, especially, we're saying, you know, and people involved in ancient traditions, like the Hindu system, they were all saying that, "We're going into this phase where we're in it, in which the lie would become the truth and the world would be turned upside down."
And so, even then, I was asking, "Well, how do you survive within this?" And it was always the same, it's that you have to, you know, take time in nature. You need to find yourself that's beyond all these voices, and everybody telling you that you're a victim, or you're this, or you'll never get well, there's no way you're ever gonna heal yourself, you're gonna have to have, like, you know, some kind of steel rod in your body, and be in pain all your life.
I mean, if anybody knows of the work of Joe Dispenza, he was a chiropractor. You know, he got out of chiropractic school, and he was riding his motorcycle, and he had this horrible crash, and that's what they told him, they said, "You're not gonna be able to...we're gonna have to put this rod in your spine, and do all this surgery after surgery, after surgery." And he said, "No way." And he went off and spent, I don't know how long, many months, just completely... He was fortunate in that he had people that could help him. But in terms of helping him eat, feed him, and take care of him...But he healed himself completely, completely. And we are capable of that, it's just that, it's hard in this very intense lifestyle, where we seem that we have no time to really be able to take the time, and nurture yourself, and just spend even half hour a day...or go for a walk, spend half hour a day doing qigong, or meditating, or something that will bring you back from all these wild thoughts and craziness, into a centered, clear, calm place in yourself.
Janelle: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, walk me through, maybe, what a qigong session might be like for somebody who is not dealing well with the crazy and wildness of life. What are some steps that they could do to bring themselves back to ground, to center themselves?
Sharron: Okay. Well, it depends. I mean, if you can stand or sit, the first thing is that you're taught to feel your feet and connect with the earth, right? You feel that. And then you're given very simple breathing exercises, and particularly...I mean, they're all different ones. Generally, you know, you have a certain amount of counts in, and you're breathing in, and you're filling your lungs completely, and your diaphragm, and you feel...at the same time, you feel like you're bringing this light, this healing energy, from the center of the earth, up through your feet, right? As you breathe in, it's coming through your feet, and then into your ankles, and up your calves, and into your knees, and your thighs, and into your pelvis, and then all the way up your spine into, you know, your stomach, and your intestines, and your sexual organs, and then up into your liver, and your gallbladder, and your stomach and pancreas, and your spleen, and up into your heart, and your lungs, and also into your, like, your adrenals, and climb at your glands, and all the way up into your brain, and down your arms, and, you know, you just feel, as you breathe in, all this light coming through you, right? And then you breathe out, and you breathe out all of your suffering. You just let it go, you just let it go, and let it go.
And then you do a bunch of that. And then also, then you can start with maybe... I mean, it's different if you're lying in bed and you're able to move your arms, right? Then you'll clap your hands together, and you'll feel the qi, and then... I think the next thing would be to, like, also receive this energy from the sky too. So, you know, you can breathe, also breathe in the light from the stars, all the beautiful star light, that healing light, and you breathe it in into the top of your head. And then the same thing goes all the way down, down, down, down, and fills your body with this really delicious, I would say, luminous light. And that's the light of grace, and that's the light of healing. And then if you can just...a simple thing is even just clap your hands, rub them together, and if your shoulder hurts, you just place your hands on your shoulder and feel, you know, just keep breathing into it, and really feel it, really feel it, and perhaps move it very subtly, and just let that light come into it and fill it, right?
Janelle: Yeah.
Sharron: That just very basic. And then there's lots of exercises for gathering this energy into the body. So, a lot of that is like...I mean, even if you were just lying in bed and you could lift your arms, and just feel the light like you're bringing it in to your heart, let's say that, right? You're bringing the light into your heart. And then you could, kind of, bring your hands forward like you're releasing all of the pain that's in there, right? And you can do that emotionally. It's very interesting, also, in the in the Taoist qigong system and the acupuncture system.
So, the organs are all related with emotions. So, you might find... I mean, I've worked with people who've had serious liver problems. Well, you know, first of all, many of those people were alcoholics, so they're already doing an activity in their lives, drinking, drinking, drinking, that is hurting their liver. But there's another aspect, which is, why are they? Why are they drinking? What is it? And in the Taoist system, they say the liver is connected with anger, the negative aspect, what would damage the liver itself, or cause, not serious damage, but anger is the emotion that hurts the liver.
And so, then their exercises, actually, they're called the six healing sounds. Like, you clap your hands, you rub them together, you put them on your liver, you look into your liver. And first of all, you're looking, and you're taking your eyes left and right, and left and right, and left and right into your liver, and you're just kind of looking at it, right? And, you know, you're seeing that, but also, you're looking at, in your mind, any situation in your life in which there's anger, and what you believe it's caused by, like, if it's another person, you're seeing the situation in which that brings up anger in you. And then as you're doing it, then you're, kind of, like, releasing it, you're letting it go. In your mind, you're thinking, "I'm letting this go. This is what's causing anger, I'm just gonna let this go."
And then you do some movements...it's hard to do talk about when I'm...you have to see it. And you sound this, for the liver, it's a sound like, "Shhhh." And you send that sound into your liver. And then at the same time, you're allowing all that anger and that pain to leave your body completely, completely. And you do this a number of times. And then after each time you do it, then you imagine that you've cleared out all this stuff. And then this gold light from the center of the earth, the light of healing, the light of health, wealth, and longevity comes in through your feet the same way when you were breathing, and it comes up, and it comes in and fills your whole body with this healing light. And then your liver, you know, you really bring it around your liver, right? And then you start to feel this light, not only fill your liver, but come out, maybe, a foot from your liver, so that it starts to glow with a whole new level of health.
Janelle: Yeah. I love that imagery. That's so beautiful. Does any particular experience with someone who you felt had an amazing healing experience come to mind for you?
Sharron: Well, there's a lot of them. What I see with qigong is that, it's people with very difficult illnesses. It just kind of gives them, like, a renewed energy to heal themselves, to take it upon themselves, to take the time, because you can feel it very quickly, you know? If you start doing qigong and doing these exercises, it's very quickly you start to actually feel it. And I think it's just been very beneficial. I've heard stories, really, that it's helped people with PTSD.
Janelle: Yeah. That makes sense.
Sharron: I mean, I wouldn't say that it's an incredible... Because, also, you're moving, you know? Your flowing, you're moving very, very slowly, it's these beautiful, simple, just so graceful movements. And in order to do that, you have to slow down. So, just by doing the movements you begin to come to a more centered place. I mean, here's another situation. Daisy Lee, who is one of the people in the film, she's had a number of people in her family with cancer had, and she helped them through, even just being a qigong healer, and just sending the energy into their bodies, like, brushing their bodies from head to foot over and over again, and bringing that qi into them, take away the pain. And one of the beautiful things about many of the teachings I've learned, and what, also in qigong, is that you're able to learn how to bring your consciousness into the tissue, you know?
And, for example, if you have a problem with your shoulder, and all you need to do...like, you're lying down, you have a shoulder problem, right? Or you have a neck problem, right? So, you're lying in bed, and instead of trying to be like you're out at the gym trying to work on your neck, doing fast, like, "10 to this direction, 10..." You start with your focus on your chin, and then very slowly, you move your chin to the left, right? Like, to the count of 16, very slowly, and your eyes are going to the left very slowly, but your focus is on your chin, and then you bring it back 16 counts, and you do that maybe five times, and then you take it to the other side very slowly, and you bring it back. And then you do it again, but now, the focus is on your mouth. And then you do it again, and the focus is on your nose, and then with your eyes, but you're still moving your head to the side very, very slowly. And you're feeling into your neck too, and then you take it all the way up to your forehead.
And so, your chin is connected to, you know, the lower part of your neck, and then the mouth is to the... So, you're actually, by doing this very slow, concentrated movements, you're releasing, you're bringing awareness and energy into these different vertebra in your neck. And, you know, your healing yourself.
Janelle: Yeah. And I think what's interesting is, it takes time what you're describing, and we're always in such a big rush. So, we might think, "I don't have time for this," until we really can't do anything but take care of ourselves, because we have some health crisis or obstacle come up that forces us to deal with it. And so, what you're coaching us on is to take time now so that you don't have to suffer unnecessarily. And so, I'm curious, what are some of your, like, daily health practices that you can give to us? What do you recommend?
Sharron: Oh. Well, first of all, have a good diet. Sugar is really bad for you, sugar feeds cancer. Most people can't do this, I drink water, I drink lots of water, we wanna stay hydrated. A lot of people with kidney problems, they're just not drinking water, or they think that they're drinking sugar drinks and they think they're drinking water, but it's not. Water is very good for you, or tea, or, you know, there's lots of things like that. So, we wanna start there, but we wanna spend some time in nature, just looking beyond the computer, looking at some trees, if you can, you know? Or going for a walk. I do qigong. I also spend at least an hour and a half to two hours, five days a week, doing a combination of qigong, yogic stretching, stretching exercises, strengthening from when I was a professional dancer for many, many, many, many years around the world. And so, I have lots of interesting, you know, exercises for strength and for flexibility.
And then I do those exercises that I was just talking about if I'm feeling, you know, like my neck... I had whiplash many times, so those neck exercises are a fundamental part of what I do. And, you know, I am constantly exploring, in my own body, something that I call holding patterns. So, that is like, if you've been wounded, like, say that you had a shoulder injury. And so, often, people then just wanna protect that shoulder, you know? Because they've had that experience, and they're afraid that something might happen, and they'll protect it. But what happens in that protective act, what's happening is that, they're also, like, pulling away, it's affecting their whole torso, and probably their hips and their feet, you know? And it's putting their body into...that's what I call an emotional holding pattern, in which, you know, maybe it's twisting their body, because they're pulling their shoulder back and it's twisting their body. And then after years of this, then all of a sudden, they'll start to feel...So, if it was their right shoulder, they'll start to feel achy in their left hip because it's been compensating, right?
So, I'm always looking, in my own work, at these patterns, to see, you know, how to release them. And so, the first thing you do is you recognize what's going on, you have to get your consciousness into your body and not out there thinking about all your problems, right? So, you know, you feel your shoulder, and then you feel into, "Oh, my hip's this way," and then you breathe into them, and just really breathe, and release. You just keep wanting to release the tension in your whole being. So, that's part of what I do. I go to, like...I'm 70, I go to African dance class. But I have to say that, the qigong has kept me... People think I'm much younger.
Janelle: You do look younger.
Sharron: Thanks. Because I'm spending time taking care of myself, and I'm spending time doing these healing and graceful movements that keep your body flexible. You know, our spines, they're very important, and most of us, we're sitting at these computers, hours, and hours, and hours, and hours, and staring into a screen. Well, how's that gonna affect your vision? You know? And how's that affecting our posture? And how's that affecting our spine? And so, even if I'm sitting looking at the computer, I'm probably rocking back and forth, and feeling energy move up my spine, right? Or swaying back and forth, or doing something, and, you know, looking up every now and then, and looking out so that...I mean, I'm 70, and I'm still not wearing glasses to read.
Janelle: Wow. Well, thank you so much for speaking with us today and sharing all these great tips with our listeners on how to harness the qi in our lives and release some of the pain and tension that we carry. And I just wanted to give you a second to say goodbye to our listeners, or anything else that you wanted to add.
Sharron: Yes. I just wanna tell you all, you have the power to heal, you have the power to let go of all of this stress. Yes, it might not be easy, you know? Of course, when you're going through healing, you'll go through a period where everything seems like, "Wow, it's going forward." And then all of a sudden, you're what we call the shadow personalities, you know? The ones that are in doubt start to come. But that only means that you're ready for the next level. And I'm just reaching out to all of you, all of you who are feeling what we're going through right now. And, you know, please, let's do everything we can, let's work together, let's build a global movement for healing, and for grace, and for joy.
Janelle: That is great. So, I will make sure that we post links to your Crowdfunder on our show notes page after we post this podcast. And then I believe you had a special offer for our listeners as well, did you wanna describe that?
Sharron: Oh, yes, yes, yes. I also have 20 minutes of audio qigong meditations that bring, you know, just help you to visualize bringing this life force energy into your body, finding that still centered place in your being, experiencing empathy, experiencing bliss, experiencing love. And so, they're very inspiring, that's what they were created to do, and begin to just help you relax, and feel this qi flowing through you.
Janelle: Oh, fantastic.
Sharron: And the way you can get that...
Janelle: We'll post a link to it, for sure.
Sharron: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then I'll give you...There's a direct link to the Crowdfunder, but people can always just find it by going to the website, the "Quantum QI," movie website, and if it says at the top, "Crowdfunder," and you click, and it takes you right there.
Janelle: Oh, perfect. Thank you so much. I'm excited to make this offer available to people, and for them to learn more.
Sharron: Thank you so much, it's been a real joy to be with you. And, you know, I love your questions.
Janelle: Oh, good. Thank you so much. And thanks to all our listeners for joining us today. To find out more about Sharron and her "Quantum Qi," documentary series, be sure to visit us at plumdragonherbs.com, where we will post show notes and links to Sharron's work and Crowdfunder. And if you like this episode, we'd love for you to share, comment, and follow us on YouTube, iTunes, and everywhere else you love to listen. Until next time.
Sharron: Oh, it's a pleasure to be with you.
Janelle: I'm so excited to talk to you about what you've got coming down the pipeline. Could you just introduce yourself little bit to our audience?
Sharron: Oh, sure, I'd love to. Well, I've had a really amazing life. I started very young in the arts, dance, music, theater. I was performing at five in hospitals and nursing homes, maybe that started my whole desire to understand the world of healing, the world of performance, and what could I do to really help humanity, my family, my friends, community from very, very young. I just was very energetically aware, and was trained very young. At nine years old, I went into theater, in which they had us as an exercise, go to the mall and watch people, and look at how they held their bodies and look at if they had strange mannerisms, and just really start to perceive the physical. But I would also say, the energetic, you know? And I just kept with that, with the dance, with the music.
In many cultures, I was a senior Fulbright scholar, and had other fellowships to India in the '80s where I lived with the early Bollywood stars, Sitara Devi, who had also...was buried deep into Hindu mythology, philosophy, and tantra. Then I reconstructed the music, and dance, and ritual from the temples of Egypt. I got into filmmaking in '78, mostly doing, in New York, music videos, world music videos. And then 20 years ago, I met my husband, Jay Weidner, and we started our film company, Sacred Mysteries. We really wanted to show that we're way more than what we...this physical body that we have, these energy fields, we have emotional bodies, we have mental bodies.
And now, let's say, three years ago, when working on another film, I met 12 qigong, tai chi, martial arts, Taoists, masters, teachers, scholars, and I jumped into it, I interviewed them, the next thing I know, now it's three years later. I've been working on my "Magnum Opus," which is a film series, documentary film series. But not just documentary, they'll be exercises for everyone, because I feel that we need to embody, we need to experience these practices, not just think about them. And so, I'm deep into that right now, and that's just a little.
Janelle: Right. I know, it's so exciting, though. I'm really excited about this documentary series. And tell us about the Crowdfunder that you've got going for it.
Sharron: Well, we have a Crowdfunder. The easy way to find it is go to our website, quantumchimovie.com. I've been working on this as a total labor of love, I have for three years. I just feel that it's time for these teachings to come forth. You know, being rooted in the Tao, first of all, there's meditations, etc., that bring you to a sense of, really, grounded, centered awareness. You come into a new level of grace in your body, and harmony, and balance in your psyche and your emotions. And there's so many simple, amazing exercises that really empower you, any age. Even if you're, you know, lying in bed, you know, you have some serious illness that you can't get out of bed, these teachings are just incredible in helping you to bring this qi, this life force energy into your body.
So, I've been taking other jobs, the last two years, I just finished, again, the second Qigong Global Summit for the Shift Network, that's another really wonderful online network. And, you know, did other things just so I could pay my editors and camera people to help me do this, and, oh, of course, animator, to help me really create a work of art. It's not just..."Quantum Qi," is not just like a regular documentary. My vision was to, in the animations, to have the style of ancient Chinese water color paintings, I really want to pay tribute. I've been trained in so many deep ancient traditions that their art is incredible. But in this one, it's not just the art, it's the art that's related to the healing of humanity.
And also, I've been very involved for many years as a filmmaker, and as a speaker, and teacher in trying to help us in these very strange, these very divisive and confusing, chaotic times that we're living in, where we're just being bombarded by, I would say, kind of, mental programming that really doesn't speak to who we truly are. You know, we are amazing human beings, we're all gifted. And what we're being told is that we're all victims, and we're all this, and we're all bad, and we can't ever be good enough, and that's just not the way it should be.
And so, these teachings, they've just taken over my life. And the Crowdfunders there, we've been building a community of people interested, and the crowdfunding is there to really help me realize this vision, because I'm out there for all of you. I really see what's going on, and I really feel the pain that we're going through, and we do have these, you know, the internet, and all these different technological devices where we can reach each other, but why can't we reach each other in joy, and in upliftment, and in healing? So, that's why I'm doing the Crowdfunder, so that I can really continue with this project, and do something that I believe will help to bring these incredible teachings to a very wide world audience, and, you know, from very young children, all the way to seniors.
Janelle: Yeah. And I love how you talked about, even if you were lying in bed, these are techniques and principles that could help you. You think about people who are really suffering with heavy illnesses, and they feel like, "What's the point of living?" You know? "What's the point of going on?" And you're saying, "Go back to your life force and reconnect." And tell us a little bit more about that.
Sharron: Well, in the Dallas tradition, life force is called qi. You know, it's called prana in India. It's called different name... bio electricity, it's called all kinds of things. And, you know, we all have access to it, we're alive, right? But we haven't learned, we haven't... In this medical system, and with the teachers, the masters, and the researchers, because I have talked with people that have grants from the National Institute of Health, and people who've worked with the... like Roger Jahnke, who's my one of my associate producers. Dr. Jahnke has worked with the Veterans Administration, he's worked with Kaiser Permanente. And, you know, I really feel we're in this time, where we're looking at us, at a society, you know, there's Medicare for all. But as...I think it was Marianne Williamson and Tulsi Gabbard who both said that, right now, we're dealing with what we would call sick care. It's not health care, it's not preventative care. And what's so beautiful about these practices and acupuncture, which is part of this whole system, is that we're looking at the whole being, and, you know, it's not just a symptom.
And so, these practices are there to help us all understand that we have this energy, we have all of these real simple techniques for healing, even in in the qigong system, which is really the foundational practice for all of tai chi and the martial arts. This is like where you really begin, because it grounds you, it connects you with nature. It connects you not only with outer nature, but what we would call your inner nature. So, that's your emotions, and your thoughts, your mind. And then it goes all the way to your true nature, and the true nature, in many of these traditions, that is who you are beyond all this programming. The part of you that already is just so clear, and pure, and beautiful.
And so, just simply, you know, if you're someone... I mean, there are a lot of exercises for people sitting in chairs, you know? Just in bringing this energy from the earth, because it's all around us, right? It's in us, it's all around us, but particularly, it's in nature. And so, these simple exercises were, like, just clapping your hands, rubbing your hands together. If anybody out there wants to try that, just clap your hands, rub them together, and then feel that heat, and then take them apart a little, and back, and you'll feel this kind of tingling, and almost like taffy, right? That's the qi, that's the life force energy. And you can learn through these practices, to gather this qi from nature, to bring it into your organs, to bring it into your systems, if you have a headache, you can bring it there.
And the exercises, which...That's why, in "Quantum Qi," every episode will be like 40 minutes of speaking and gorgeous drone footage of the masters doing the practices in nature, in these gorgeous locations. Like, I really also wanna reconnect people with nature, with our beautiful planet. And I think if we could start seeing it from it's, you know, in all its beauty, it might be able to change everything. The climate change, you know, the inner climate change, the outer climate change, and bring just way more joy. Right now, I mean, I just see so much suffering, and it really, really touches me, and all I can do is create this series that, hopefully, many people will see, and will be uplifted by it, and, you know, also take the time to understand that they have the power to heal themselves.
Janelle: Right. Which is such an amazing belief in Chinese medicine and, you know, all these Eastern medicine practices, that the body does have the ability to heal itself, and it's tapping into that natural mechanism that the body has, rather than just treating symptoms, or, you know, masking the symptoms. And so, I really love that.
Sharron: Yeah. A lot of people that have illnesses like autoimmune disorders, or PTSD, or terminal cancer, they are coming to you, as qigong, as a way to help them. They're not necessarily dropping their conventional medicine, but any use of it, any work with it, you know, it just enlivens your spirit, and enlivens your energy, and makes you feel like you can begin to take your healing into your own hands. It's just a great adjunct to any Western medicine.
The other thing that's interesting that, you know, what they've told me, Dr. Effie Chow, she's 85, and she's called the mother of qigong in the West. She worked in the Clinton administration trying to bring alternative medicine, she's been working this forever. And she said that it used to be, in China, that the doctors were only paid when you got well. It wasn't, like, a whole system of just greed. I mean, I've met wonderful doctors, believe me, but it's so based on money rather than, you know, the Hippocratic Oath of true healing. I mean, it's what I love about that qigong people, they're just so giving, and they're so alive. My teacher, Master Lijun Fang, he was a martial arts film star, and then he was head of the kung fu wushu team in Beijing, they won all these gold medals. And then as he got older, went more and more into qigong. Although, at 81, he's still teaching, also, martial arts, and deep, deep meditation. And this man, who's been doing this all his life, looks like he's, maybe, 50, and he moves like he's 30.
Janelle: Ah, that's incredible.
Sharron: So, that's the other piece of it. You know, there's all this sexy talk out in the world about immortality, and longevity, and life extension. Well, this is a... The Taoist system, and qigong, and these teachings have been focused for centuries and centuries on how to live a very full, long, joyous life.
Janelle: Yeah. Well, and I don't even know if I get the sense, when I go to a medical doctor, that their goal is to heal me, it's all about whether they can fix the problem through surgery, or something, or just give me something to deal with it, you know? The symptoms.
Sharron: Oh, no, that's happening all over the place. My son got a stomach virus, I guess he was throwing up, he's in L.A. And he was throwing up, and, you know, just really, really fever, and everything. He went to the doctor...well, he went to the emergency room first, and they kept him...and he was there eight hours, they gave him some Gatorade.
Janelle: Yeah. Gosh.
Sharron: And the doctor didn't do anything. And finally, I said to him, I was on the phone with him and his father, and I said, "Do you know of any good Chinese acupuncturists, China TCM, traditional Chinese medicine doctors?" And his father said, "Oh, yeah, I'm going to...I have a great one who also teaches qigong, and I have an appointment." So he took my son, and my son was just amazed. I mean, he had been when he was younger, but, you know, he said, "This man really cared about me. He looked at my tongue, he read my pulses, he told me what was going on with my liver, he gave me these herbs. You know, he just really cared about me as a whole being." And you just don't...it's rare to find that with a Western medical doctor, they just want to give you a pill and make you pay a bunch of money for it, or, you know, tell you...
I mean, I had... My mother took this drug called diethylstilbestrol when she was pregnant with me, and it caused this propensity for a strange form of cervical cancer in the women, and it manifested. And I go to the doctor and said, "Well, what's the prognosis?" And she says, "Chemo, radiation, surgery, and death." That was her response. I said, "I am out of here."
Janelle: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Sharron: And I went to...I did a lot of alternative stuff. I reduced it and reduced it. Finally, I had just some basic surgery, it wasn't that big, and it was over. The surgeon was great, I really have a lot of respect for surgeons, but I don't, you know, just...I don't know, I'm kind of an alternative person. And the other piece of it that I keep saying is that, it gives you tools to help yourself. I think that that's what's really disturbing about this world right now, you know? This whole idea that everyone's a victim, and, you know, this kind of dislike for the other. You know, from my perspective, who...I've been in many Eastern traditions, very deep, you know, I believe there's such a thing as reincarnation. So, that means that, in other lives, we could have been any race, you know? We could have been male, we could have been female, but we're... For some reason, I don't know who is doing this in the end, you know? Why this is happening. But, you know, we're just being taught to really dislike each other, and not to enjoy who we are, and realize that we are each one of us. Every one of us has special gifts within. And those gifts...
I mean, I worked in schools in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Connecticut for about six years, through the arts, teaching stories, and dances, and music from cultures around the world, and it was so amazing to see, and I was bringing meditation. I didn't have qigong, I only wish I qigong then, because I know kids would love it. So, you know, I was... And I had a dance music partner from Lebanon, and we just brought this sense of, you know, the beauty of every culture. And so, kids...Because, I mean, in Queens, New York, there's like every culture in the world. And so, you could see, as you would bring the beauty of, like, you know, Hindu culture from India, that these little kids who are from India, and felt, maybe, marginalized, all of a sudden, they have these big smiles, and the other kids are getting to experience their culture. It's like we all are human beings, you know? Why can't we learn to love each other and appreciate what we have?
Janelle: Right. I mean, it's so true, because our differences in our culture is what makes us all unique, and those are our strengths. And how boring would life be if we were all the same?
Sharron: Exactly. Exactly.
Janelle: Yeah. That's so neat, that you worked with the children, and children are so accepting of everybody. You know, I have an eight-year-old son, and I love when we take him to the park, or...whoever he plays with just becomes his friend, you know? And that doesn't happen as the kids get older, they're just more withdrawn, and feel more self-conscious, and stuff. And so, if we could foster some of that childhood innocence back into our lives, I think we would all be so much better off.
Sharron: Well, I think part of the disturbance is social media. I think that people are getting...and younger and younger...getting caught up. They're losing contact with the physical world because they're in these virtual worlds. Like, I would say that Twitter is a virtual reality, and that people are obsessed with it. If they could only just go out and sit by a stream, or go to the ocean, or just look up at the sky, look at the stars, if they could even see them, and start to come back, you know? Let all these wild, angry thoughts out, you know? I think it would be a much happier world.
Janelle: Yeah. We need to disconnect more with the internet and connect more with people.
Sharron: Oh, for sure. You know, I remember, as a child, we all eat dinner together, and we all talked. Now, if you can even get everybody together for dinner, then everybody's on their phones.
Janelle: Right. It's so true.
Sharron: You know, my husband and I just made a deal, that when we go out to dinner, our phones are staying home.
Janelle: Yeah. That's great. Tell me, what are some other problems that you think are causing people to get stuck, or to become ill? And what do you feel, like, are some simple solutions that they can incorporate to start healing?
Sharron: Well, I mean, my main thing, really, about illness has more to do with how we work with our emotions. I've done a lot of study, I've trained in craniosacral therapy, and in this other system called the psychophysical method of neurosensory reeducation. And that is...I think that one of the problems, and it's beyond just... I think that the social media, and all of that, and the obsession with it has whipped up our emotions. But, I mean, emotions...I read a lot about ancient cultures, Right? So, emotions, and war, and all this stuff has been going on for a long time, you know? And anger towards each other, and fear, and wanting to protect ourselves.
And so, I really feel that we need to start looking at ourselves, and looking at how quickly we're triggered. You know, these trigger things...I mean, it's gone beyond now, with micro aggressions, that's ridiculous. I mean, I feel that it's really nice to say to somebody, "Where were you born?" "Oh, you have a beautiful accent." "Oh, you're..." The way it is now, you can't even...And many people trying to say something positive to somebody else is somehow thought as a negative, it's interesting.
You know, we made a film, my husband and I, with our company, Sacred Mysteries, in 2006, and it was called "2012: The Odyssey." And it was about the 2012 phenomena. And we interviewed shamans, and all these researchers, people who had been involved in looking at that moment as a turning point. We wanted to get the idea out that it could be positive, rather than what the History Channel and those places ended up saying, like, it was gonna be the end of the world. But a lot of the shamans, especially, we're saying, you know, and people involved in ancient traditions, like the Hindu system, they were all saying that, "We're going into this phase where we're in it, in which the lie would become the truth and the world would be turned upside down."
And so, even then, I was asking, "Well, how do you survive within this?" And it was always the same, it's that you have to, you know, take time in nature. You need to find yourself that's beyond all these voices, and everybody telling you that you're a victim, or you're this, or you'll never get well, there's no way you're ever gonna heal yourself, you're gonna have to have, like, you know, some kind of steel rod in your body, and be in pain all your life.
I mean, if anybody knows of the work of Joe Dispenza, he was a chiropractor. You know, he got out of chiropractic school, and he was riding his motorcycle, and he had this horrible crash, and that's what they told him, they said, "You're not gonna be able to...we're gonna have to put this rod in your spine, and do all this surgery after surgery, after surgery." And he said, "No way." And he went off and spent, I don't know how long, many months, just completely... He was fortunate in that he had people that could help him. But in terms of helping him eat, feed him, and take care of him...But he healed himself completely, completely. And we are capable of that, it's just that, it's hard in this very intense lifestyle, where we seem that we have no time to really be able to take the time, and nurture yourself, and just spend even half hour a day...or go for a walk, spend half hour a day doing qigong, or meditating, or something that will bring you back from all these wild thoughts and craziness, into a centered, clear, calm place in yourself.
Janelle: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, walk me through, maybe, what a qigong session might be like for somebody who is not dealing well with the crazy and wildness of life. What are some steps that they could do to bring themselves back to ground, to center themselves?
Sharron: Okay. Well, it depends. I mean, if you can stand or sit, the first thing is that you're taught to feel your feet and connect with the earth, right? You feel that. And then you're given very simple breathing exercises, and particularly...I mean, they're all different ones. Generally, you know, you have a certain amount of counts in, and you're breathing in, and you're filling your lungs completely, and your diaphragm, and you feel...at the same time, you feel like you're bringing this light, this healing energy, from the center of the earth, up through your feet, right? As you breathe in, it's coming through your feet, and then into your ankles, and up your calves, and into your knees, and your thighs, and into your pelvis, and then all the way up your spine into, you know, your stomach, and your intestines, and your sexual organs, and then up into your liver, and your gallbladder, and your stomach and pancreas, and your spleen, and up into your heart, and your lungs, and also into your, like, your adrenals, and climb at your glands, and all the way up into your brain, and down your arms, and, you know, you just feel, as you breathe in, all this light coming through you, right? And then you breathe out, and you breathe out all of your suffering. You just let it go, you just let it go, and let it go.
And then you do a bunch of that. And then also, then you can start with maybe... I mean, it's different if you're lying in bed and you're able to move your arms, right? Then you'll clap your hands together, and you'll feel the qi, and then... I think the next thing would be to, like, also receive this energy from the sky too. So, you know, you can breathe, also breathe in the light from the stars, all the beautiful star light, that healing light, and you breathe it in into the top of your head. And then the same thing goes all the way down, down, down, down, and fills your body with this really delicious, I would say, luminous light. And that's the light of grace, and that's the light of healing. And then if you can just...a simple thing is even just clap your hands, rub them together, and if your shoulder hurts, you just place your hands on your shoulder and feel, you know, just keep breathing into it, and really feel it, really feel it, and perhaps move it very subtly, and just let that light come into it and fill it, right?
Janelle: Yeah.
Sharron: That just very basic. And then there's lots of exercises for gathering this energy into the body. So, a lot of that is like...I mean, even if you were just lying in bed and you could lift your arms, and just feel the light like you're bringing it in to your heart, let's say that, right? You're bringing the light into your heart. And then you could, kind of, bring your hands forward like you're releasing all of the pain that's in there, right? And you can do that emotionally. It's very interesting, also, in the in the Taoist qigong system and the acupuncture system.
So, the organs are all related with emotions. So, you might find... I mean, I've worked with people who've had serious liver problems. Well, you know, first of all, many of those people were alcoholics, so they're already doing an activity in their lives, drinking, drinking, drinking, that is hurting their liver. But there's another aspect, which is, why are they? Why are they drinking? What is it? And in the Taoist system, they say the liver is connected with anger, the negative aspect, what would damage the liver itself, or cause, not serious damage, but anger is the emotion that hurts the liver.
And so, then their exercises, actually, they're called the six healing sounds. Like, you clap your hands, you rub them together, you put them on your liver, you look into your liver. And first of all, you're looking, and you're taking your eyes left and right, and left and right, and left and right into your liver, and you're just kind of looking at it, right? And, you know, you're seeing that, but also, you're looking at, in your mind, any situation in your life in which there's anger, and what you believe it's caused by, like, if it's another person, you're seeing the situation in which that brings up anger in you. And then as you're doing it, then you're, kind of, like, releasing it, you're letting it go. In your mind, you're thinking, "I'm letting this go. This is what's causing anger, I'm just gonna let this go."
And then you do some movements...it's hard to do talk about when I'm...you have to see it. And you sound this, for the liver, it's a sound like, "Shhhh." And you send that sound into your liver. And then at the same time, you're allowing all that anger and that pain to leave your body completely, completely. And you do this a number of times. And then after each time you do it, then you imagine that you've cleared out all this stuff. And then this gold light from the center of the earth, the light of healing, the light of health, wealth, and longevity comes in through your feet the same way when you were breathing, and it comes up, and it comes in and fills your whole body with this healing light. And then your liver, you know, you really bring it around your liver, right? And then you start to feel this light, not only fill your liver, but come out, maybe, a foot from your liver, so that it starts to glow with a whole new level of health.
Janelle: Yeah. I love that imagery. That's so beautiful. Does any particular experience with someone who you felt had an amazing healing experience come to mind for you?
Sharron: Well, there's a lot of them. What I see with qigong is that, it's people with very difficult illnesses. It just kind of gives them, like, a renewed energy to heal themselves, to take it upon themselves, to take the time, because you can feel it very quickly, you know? If you start doing qigong and doing these exercises, it's very quickly you start to actually feel it. And I think it's just been very beneficial. I've heard stories, really, that it's helped people with PTSD.
Janelle: Yeah. That makes sense.
Sharron: I mean, I wouldn't say that it's an incredible... Because, also, you're moving, you know? Your flowing, you're moving very, very slowly, it's these beautiful, simple, just so graceful movements. And in order to do that, you have to slow down. So, just by doing the movements you begin to come to a more centered place. I mean, here's another situation. Daisy Lee, who is one of the people in the film, she's had a number of people in her family with cancer had, and she helped them through, even just being a qigong healer, and just sending the energy into their bodies, like, brushing their bodies from head to foot over and over again, and bringing that qi into them, take away the pain. And one of the beautiful things about many of the teachings I've learned, and what, also in qigong, is that you're able to learn how to bring your consciousness into the tissue, you know?
And, for example, if you have a problem with your shoulder, and all you need to do...like, you're lying down, you have a shoulder problem, right? Or you have a neck problem, right? So, you're lying in bed, and instead of trying to be like you're out at the gym trying to work on your neck, doing fast, like, "10 to this direction, 10..." You start with your focus on your chin, and then very slowly, you move your chin to the left, right? Like, to the count of 16, very slowly, and your eyes are going to the left very slowly, but your focus is on your chin, and then you bring it back 16 counts, and you do that maybe five times, and then you take it to the other side very slowly, and you bring it back. And then you do it again, but now, the focus is on your mouth. And then you do it again, and the focus is on your nose, and then with your eyes, but you're still moving your head to the side very, very slowly. And you're feeling into your neck too, and then you take it all the way up to your forehead.
And so, your chin is connected to, you know, the lower part of your neck, and then the mouth is to the... So, you're actually, by doing this very slow, concentrated movements, you're releasing, you're bringing awareness and energy into these different vertebra in your neck. And, you know, your healing yourself.
Janelle: Yeah. And I think what's interesting is, it takes time what you're describing, and we're always in such a big rush. So, we might think, "I don't have time for this," until we really can't do anything but take care of ourselves, because we have some health crisis or obstacle come up that forces us to deal with it. And so, what you're coaching us on is to take time now so that you don't have to suffer unnecessarily. And so, I'm curious, what are some of your, like, daily health practices that you can give to us? What do you recommend?
Sharron: Oh. Well, first of all, have a good diet. Sugar is really bad for you, sugar feeds cancer. Most people can't do this, I drink water, I drink lots of water, we wanna stay hydrated. A lot of people with kidney problems, they're just not drinking water, or they think that they're drinking sugar drinks and they think they're drinking water, but it's not. Water is very good for you, or tea, or, you know, there's lots of things like that. So, we wanna start there, but we wanna spend some time in nature, just looking beyond the computer, looking at some trees, if you can, you know? Or going for a walk. I do qigong. I also spend at least an hour and a half to two hours, five days a week, doing a combination of qigong, yogic stretching, stretching exercises, strengthening from when I was a professional dancer for many, many, many, many years around the world. And so, I have lots of interesting, you know, exercises for strength and for flexibility.
And then I do those exercises that I was just talking about if I'm feeling, you know, like my neck... I had whiplash many times, so those neck exercises are a fundamental part of what I do. And, you know, I am constantly exploring, in my own body, something that I call holding patterns. So, that is like, if you've been wounded, like, say that you had a shoulder injury. And so, often, people then just wanna protect that shoulder, you know? Because they've had that experience, and they're afraid that something might happen, and they'll protect it. But what happens in that protective act, what's happening is that, they're also, like, pulling away, it's affecting their whole torso, and probably their hips and their feet, you know? And it's putting their body into...that's what I call an emotional holding pattern, in which, you know, maybe it's twisting their body, because they're pulling their shoulder back and it's twisting their body. And then after years of this, then all of a sudden, they'll start to feel...So, if it was their right shoulder, they'll start to feel achy in their left hip because it's been compensating, right?
So, I'm always looking, in my own work, at these patterns, to see, you know, how to release them. And so, the first thing you do is you recognize what's going on, you have to get your consciousness into your body and not out there thinking about all your problems, right? So, you know, you feel your shoulder, and then you feel into, "Oh, my hip's this way," and then you breathe into them, and just really breathe, and release. You just keep wanting to release the tension in your whole being. So, that's part of what I do. I go to, like...I'm 70, I go to African dance class. But I have to say that, the qigong has kept me... People think I'm much younger.
Janelle: You do look younger.
Sharron: Thanks. Because I'm spending time taking care of myself, and I'm spending time doing these healing and graceful movements that keep your body flexible. You know, our spines, they're very important, and most of us, we're sitting at these computers, hours, and hours, and hours, and hours, and staring into a screen. Well, how's that gonna affect your vision? You know? And how's that affecting our posture? And how's that affecting our spine? And so, even if I'm sitting looking at the computer, I'm probably rocking back and forth, and feeling energy move up my spine, right? Or swaying back and forth, or doing something, and, you know, looking up every now and then, and looking out so that...I mean, I'm 70, and I'm still not wearing glasses to read.
Janelle: Wow. Well, thank you so much for speaking with us today and sharing all these great tips with our listeners on how to harness the qi in our lives and release some of the pain and tension that we carry. And I just wanted to give you a second to say goodbye to our listeners, or anything else that you wanted to add.
Sharron: Yes. I just wanna tell you all, you have the power to heal, you have the power to let go of all of this stress. Yes, it might not be easy, you know? Of course, when you're going through healing, you'll go through a period where everything seems like, "Wow, it's going forward." And then all of a sudden, you're what we call the shadow personalities, you know? The ones that are in doubt start to come. But that only means that you're ready for the next level. And I'm just reaching out to all of you, all of you who are feeling what we're going through right now. And, you know, please, let's do everything we can, let's work together, let's build a global movement for healing, and for grace, and for joy.
Janelle: That is great. So, I will make sure that we post links to your Crowdfunder on our show notes page after we post this podcast. And then I believe you had a special offer for our listeners as well, did you wanna describe that?
Sharron: Oh, yes, yes, yes. I also have 20 minutes of audio qigong meditations that bring, you know, just help you to visualize bringing this life force energy into your body, finding that still centered place in your being, experiencing empathy, experiencing bliss, experiencing love. And so, they're very inspiring, that's what they were created to do, and begin to just help you relax, and feel this qi flowing through you.
Janelle: Oh, fantastic.
Sharron: And the way you can get that...
Janelle: We'll post a link to it, for sure.
Sharron: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then I'll give you...There's a direct link to the Crowdfunder, but people can always just find it by going to the website, the "Quantum QI," movie website, and if it says at the top, "Crowdfunder," and you click, and it takes you right there.
Janelle: Oh, perfect. Thank you so much. I'm excited to make this offer available to people, and for them to learn more.
Sharron: Thank you so much, it's been a real joy to be with you. And, you know, I love your questions.
Janelle: Oh, good. Thank you so much. And thanks to all our listeners for joining us today. To find out more about Sharron and her "Quantum Qi," documentary series, be sure to visit us at plumdragonherbs.com, where we will post show notes and links to Sharron's work and Crowdfunder. And if you like this episode, we'd love for you to share, comment, and follow us on YouTube, iTunes, and everywhere else you love to listen. Until next time.
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