How Qi Heals
By Caroline Hatfield
As an infant, if someone slammed a door on the other side of the house, I would jump in my crib. I was not able to make eye contact and if anyone tried to hold me, I would stiffen like a board. These, along with other aspects of my infant and childhood behavior, were related to me by my mother many years later. Like most with Asperger’s (part of the autism spectrum), I’m very sensitive to noise, light, and touch.
As a young child, I jabbered away in indefinable language that Mom said she was sure I knew exactly what I was saying but nobody else did. I bounced a ball against the wall for hours on end, until, out of desperation for her sanity, Mom taught me the card game of solitaire. I began to play solitaire all day long.
I recall Mom’s frequent suggestion that I not be "so literal," along with her frequent request, "Caroline, please stop perseverating!" These are both autistic traits.
I carried a tenseness with me always. Mom called it being "wound tight like a top" and said I threw tantrums every hour on the hour for no apparent reason. I had what is known as facial tics. And as a child – and for a good deal of my life – I didn’t have much of a sense of humor – just about everything was serious.
Even though I was an avid reader, had a photographic memory and was curious about everything, in school I felt anxiety, experienced tension and was distracted easily.
For these reasons, I had difficulty applying myself. For me, it was not a fun thing going to school. I wanted to stay home.
Needless to say, I had trouble at school making close friends. I just didn’t know how I could be "a part of."
I learned to navigate life through persistence and determination – typical Asperger characteristics – which Mom always said were my two middle names.
It’s always been very important for me to have structure in my life, like having set routines and plans – and sticking to them – to help me to deal with outside or internalized stressors and sensitivities. A challenge for me has always been in not knowing how to restrain my need to perseverate when something has bothered me or excited me. Similar to this, a big challenge has been to know just how to let things go!
It was many years before I began to understand personal boundaries – to find my own and to recognize the boundaries of those around me. I’ve had trouble with the simple thing of knowing when it is my turn to talk. Social cues and learning to make eye contact have not been easy for me. Making "small talk" has also been uncomfortable.
I can be too direct. Because of autism, I relate better to concrete, clear thinking and speech, while vagueness feels confusing to me.
Because of these multiple reasons and what Mom shared with me about myself as an infant and as a child and because of her strong urging for me to get evaluated, later in life, as an adult, I had an extensive evaluation and was diagnosed with Asperger’s. It felt good to finally understand myself and to understand why people often didn’t understand me. It all made sense now.
Along with the challenging aspects of living with Asperger’s, there has been a highlight for me that has been a "constant" in my life.
From a young age and throughout my life, never a conformist, I’ve frequently found myself standing up for the underdog or for what I feel is right, often against "the many," often with risk. Each time, it feels like I am being prompted or pulled to respond and to do something. When this happens, what pulls me feels bigger than me, but it’s not – it’s just that small inner voice, filling me with concern and making me feel moved to respond. There have been extraordinarily good outcomes doing so. Even when success was against great odds, life has yielded positive feedback.
Non-conformity is an Asperger tendency and peer pressure has less power in those with Asperger’s. I am pulled more by my inner voice and less by the "crowd."
When I first found the practices of taiji and qigong in 1988, these amazing arts started to help me to center myself. I began to relax more and have less anxiety.
After many years of studying and practicing taiji and qigong exercises, I became a teacher of these ancient Chinese mind/body/breath arts.
On July 4th, 2019, I put on my DVD of Master Wing Cheung’s Tai Chi Qigong Shibashi, a form of qigong, to study further. While I studied the Master’s movements, I practiced Shibashi with a clear determination to see and to do what I hadn’t seen before in the practice. I practiced Shibashi for over three straight hours that day and continued in spurts until almost bedtime. I spent the day enveloped in this obsession, paying attention to detail and nuance as I studied the Master’s Shibashi, then finished with some practice of taiji.
I went to bed in what was a different mental space for me – a good space, a delightfully peaceful space, actually, a dream-like state. What this space was I didn’t know, but I was smiling as I went to sleep. I was still in this same space the next day and the next and the next and every day after, all day long, for weeks.
I came to realize I had become fully immersed in my parasympathetic nervous system – a soothing state of calm – which was previously unfamiliar to me. Because of my autism, I had lived in my sympathetic nervous system – the state of "fight or flight" – my entire life.
My Qigong Master, Sifu Wing Cheung, calls it what is known in the practice of qigong as a self-healing. I learned from Sifu Cheung that the state I accessed is the "qigong state," which is a place of healing. Sifu taught me that "the qigong state is something more than the parasympathetic nervous system, but current limited science can only explain it as that."
While out in public, I felt I could understand people now – how they are different from me – I could feel this. Except now I had slowed and calmed to their pace, it was really as if I had just joined the human race – where I had been all my life and where I was now, it was that stark of a difference for me.
For weeks I was fully immersed in the calm of my parasympathetic nervous system and the qigong state. So much about me has changed from this that something remarkable dawned on me. Perhaps by being in such a continuous calming state-of-mind, my brain had the opportunity to literally re-wire itself! Many medical researchers are now attesting that, yes, this can happen. It was only relatively recently that scientists began to understand that the brain has the capacity to re-write itself.
From a personal perspective, being in this dream-like state was as if a channel had opened up and allowed me to move through life in those weeks in a new way, dealing with things differently and finally simply becoming different.
Qigong and taiji have truly gifted me in the past 36 years. It seems I have found a small slice of heaven for myself.
Fortunately, I no longer have to grip my electric toothbrush as if I am gripping a ledge from five stories up. I am flowing through life easier and laughing easier. These are things I have always wanted to be able to do. Many of my Asperger characteristics have softened or have simply left me.
It is interesting to note that, as I fervently studied and practiced Tai Chi Qigong Shibashi for hours, my Asperger tendencies for being obsessive, determined, and persistent, along with my inclination toward loving detail, all contributed toward my uncovering this place of healing – my fervor brought me to my calm.
There is an easy way to illustrate the treasure of the qigong state: Qi is our life force energy or vital energy, but there is also life force outside of us. When our inner life force deeply connects with this outer life force, then that is where we find the qigong state.
Taking it a step further, the qigong state involves a deepening awareness of a connection that is always there. Both our existence and our experience are flowing with Qi and they flow together.
I continue to access the qigong state daily through Tai Chi Qigong Shibashi, but to be filled with the capacity to remain in this healing state that is replete with tranquility is twofold.
One, it depends upon how deeply I tune-in to my Qi, while deepening my awareness for Universal Qi, during my Shibashi Qigong practice. But it also depends upon how well I stay tuned-in by the choices I make in my thoughts, words, and actions. It’s like "getting gentle" rather than "getting annoyed," for example. Qi is what teaches this. Qi will gently withdraw when one is not handling things in the best way.
Being gentle and kind, being relaxed and calm, and also steady and clear – in thought, word, and action – is just like the nature of our qigong and taiji movements being soft, slow, and smooth. If you haven’t seen taiji or Shibashi movements, they are noticeably soft, slow, and smooth – "soft" is reflected as being gentle and kind, "slow" as being relaxed and calm, and "smooth" as being steady and clear (being measured, restrained, calm, and clear), that is, when we speak or take action and in our thoughts. In simplicity though – thought is pivotal – because what and how we think is key to how we feel and how we speak and act. Thought is the governing power.
The simple beauty of performing movements at a slow and calm pace reflects qualities of being thoughtful, measured, mindful, and still. From qigong and taiji, we learn to be patient – with ourselves and with others and with life itself. We learn flexibility in our body and in our mind; we unfold to a holistic strength and balance.
Practicing each of these characteristics is a part of self-cultivation and will lead to positive, gentle thought. This will create serenity in yourself and in your daily life.
After many years of studying and practicing taiji and qigong, I was blessed with a healing that went deeper than I thought possible and which smoothed the often rough waters of my personal journey with Asperger's.
There are many stages of healing. When considering if it is worthwhile for you to take-up qigong or taiji, it is important to remember the well-known proverb, written by the Chinese Daoist philosopher, Laozi, in his 2500 year old text named the Dao De Jing – "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
—Published by Autism Asperger’s Sensory Digest as "Healing Asperger’s Through Qigong" in August, 2020
—Published in Qi Journal, Autumn 2024
Caroline is a Level III, from IV levels, certified and accredited taiji/qigong instructor. Qi Journal published Caroline’s article, "Grounding Schizophrenia through T’ai Chi" in June, 2022 and NAMI published it in January, 2021. Autism Asperger’s Sensory Digest published Caroline’s article, "Healing Asperger’s through Qigong" in August, 2020 and Master Wing Cheung, founder of the Tai Chi, Qigong & Feng Shui Institute, published it in his international newsletter in 2020. Caroline is the contributing/collaborating author of Secrets of Self-Esteem by Shirley J. Mangini, M.A., L.M.F.T., available on Amazon.
