The art of cultivating our bodies and minds
How to bring more peace, good health and happiness to our lives
This is the first of my new regular recommendations of lovely things that can help us to live more mindfully.
All of my posts are free but do represent a significant amount of work for me each week. I love writing them and if you find they resonate with you, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to commit to a more mindful writing practice, join my Slow Writing Movement, and support my writing . Thanks for reading.
Xiu Yang: Self-cultivation for a healthier, happier and balanced life
By Mimi Kuo-Deemer
Mimi Kuo-Deemer is an author and teacher of Buddhist meditation, qigong and internal martial arts.
I first came across Mimi several years ago when I started learning Qigong. She has many excellent free classes available on her YouTube channel and they were my first introduction to this powerful mind and body alchemy. I’ve since done several Zoom courses with her and, as well as being an excellent teacher, she seems to embody the teachings she shares in this beautiful book.
In the introduction, we learn that Xiu Yang (pronounced sheow yaang) is an ancient Chinese art of self cultivation that can help us nurture and grow our best characteristics, while weeding out those that bring negativity into our lives and into the universe. Integrating these teachings into my life has been one of the most important steps I’ve taken on my journey to a more mindful, more joyful, and more peaceful life.
Throughout the book, the practice of Xiu Yang is revealed to be a way of being that encompasses healthy eating, movement, mindfulness, spirituality, moderation, lightheartedness, compassion and forgiveness.
As Donna Farhi says in her foreword:
“Mimi Kuo-Deemer reminds the reader again and again to consider that self-cultivation is fundamentally different to self-care, which often translates as giving ourselves titbits of luxury such as a hot bath or a weekend getaway to remedy an otherwise self-abusing life. Self-cultivation on the other hand is a way of life.”
It’s a way of living that has proven to be transformative for me. My physical and mental health have never been better. For most of my adult life I didn’t think I was worth looking after, but once I’d realised I was, this book showed me how to do it in a way that feels intuitive, easy and fun.
For me, one of the messages that really stands out is that the purpose of Xiu Yang is not to point out our faults but to remind us that we have the innate potential to experience a true sense of balance and wellbeing. We were born to be happy.
As well as increasing my overall sense of happiness, changing my way of life to reflect the teachings in this book, which advocates routines and living aligned with our body clock and the seasons, among other things, has bought a feeling of steadiness that I now realise had been missing before. This steadiness and feeling of wellbeing has reflected in all areas of my life. I’m healthier, more creative, more relaxed, more resilient, kinder and more giving to myself and to others. I laugh a lot more and don’t take things so seriously!
Grief has been ever present in my life since 2016 with so many of my loved ones having passed since then, and having removed myself from my dysfunctional and violent family, but the things that this book, and others, have taught me have enabled me to thrive and be happy while living with that grief. This extract from Xiu Yang encompasses perfectly everything that this way of life has given me:
My heart can now remain open and I am able to navigate my way through the difficult, heart-crushing times with mindful awareness of how that grief affects my body, mind, heart and how I go about in the world. This is a huge change for me, as previously I ran away from confrontation of any kind, including confronting things about myself, and I ignored, suppressed, the signals my body and mind gave me that all was not well.
But you don’t need to be suffering from grief, or processing traumatic events, to implement the Xiu Yang way of living. You just need to want to live and love and create more mindfully and joyfully. Which to me sounds like the perfect way to bring more positivity to our lives, to our stories, and to the universe.
With love,
All of my posts are free but do represent a significant amount of work for me each week. I love writing them and if you find they resonate with you, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to commit to a more mindful writing practice, join my Slow Writing Movement, and support my writing. Thanks for reading.
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I love Mimi Kuo-Deemer - she introduced me to QiGong, which is a wonder.
Amanda, Thank you for the lead. I will look for the book. D