Emily’s Trauma and the Phoenix Qigong: Bottom-Up (from Physical to Cognitive) Regulation for the Autonomic Nervous System

The Potential Stigma of “Energy Healing”

When some people hear the word, “Qigong”, they consciously or unconsciously expect religious belief, spiritual performance, unfamiliar language, embarrassment, being prompted to relax or meditate “correctly”, a teacher who speaks in mystical abstractions, and an experience at which they will almost certainly “fail”.  For anxious or depressed nervous systems, these imaginary expectations are enough to shut the door, to say “no” before they even know why. This is especially true for people with trauma histories, high-functioning anxious and depressed individuals, and the chronically stressed.  Their nervous systems are already working very hard to manage life.  Anything that suggests further effort, a belief system, identity change, or vulnerability feels dangerous.  They protect themselves by saying

·     “It sounds beautiful, but it’s not really for me.”

·     “I’m not spiritual.”

·     “I don’t think I could do that.”

·     “I tried meditation, and it didn’t work.”

There is also language that can create barriers, unconscious resistance in a stressed nervous system:

“Energy Cultivation, Ancient Wisdom, Eastern Philosophy, Spiritual Practice, “Moving Qi”, Balancing Meridians, Awakening, and Transformation.

The body tightens before the mind can evaluate.

A Clinical Reframe

Qigong is a slow, structured, movement-based, nervous system regulation practice.  It works through “bottom-up” (from body to brain) autonomic nervous system retraining through rhythmic and predictable movement.  There is breath-movement coordination, unilateral or bilateral arm movement, low-demand sensory input, and increased interoceptive awareness ( the perception of your own body’s reactions).  Qigong works through the body to calm the brain rather than asking the mind to calm itself.  This is extremely important because anxious and depressed people are already trying to calm their minds – and failing – which makes them feel worse.

 Here are some “translations” to help people relax:                                         

Instead of Qi, think “physical vitality”.

Instead of Energy think “sensation, tone, feeling”.

Instead of Meridians, think “internal movements, sensory pathways”.

Instead of Dantian, think “center of gravity and breath coordination”.

Instead of Grounding, think “proprioception, balance, and vestibular (gaze) stabilization”.

Instead of Sinking Qi, think “shifting arousal from brain down into the body”.

 Instead of Flow, think  “efficient regulation without effort”.

Instead of Stagnation, think “reduced movement, sensation, and responsiveness.”

 The Phoenix Qigong

The verbal cues in this video of The Phoenix Qigong are focused on movement.  This reduces cognitive load, avoids belief-based resistance, engages mirror neurons to understand intuitively our physical actions, allows bottom-up processing, and feels observational instead of demanding.  No one is being told to relax.  No one is instructed.  No one is being evaluated.  This matters enormously for anxious, traumatized, or skeptical people.

The Phoenix Qigong

Teja Bell teaches The Phoenix Qigong.

The four different Phoenix Qigong exercises contain unspoken regulatory cues to the nervous system. Here is what can be accomplished when they are practiced as part of a healing regimen:

The Phoenix Stretches Its Wings invokes a slow lifting of the arms and opening of chest, coordinated with the breath (breathing in to raise the arms, breathing out to lower them.). It might counter protective chest slump/collapse, improve breathing efficiency, reduce chronic guarding, introduce expansion without threat.  It could be particularly helpful for depression and trauma-related bracing and muscle contraction.

The Phoenix Ascending shows broader bilateral arm movements with symmetry as the arms draw in and the hands push out again. into a lifted stretch.  This is to balance sensory input, support hemispheric integration, increase spatial awareness, and build tolerance for openness.  The nervous system can learn to experience expansion without overwhelm.

The Phoenix Waves Its Wings introduces wave-like, forward motion of the arms without sharp starts or stops.  Clinically, its rhythm can entrain the nervous system, reduce limbic reactivity, interrupt rumination, and signal safety through predictability.  This can be especially soothing for anxiety.

The Phoenix Presses Its Wings Forward

The gentle forward-reaching movement can reintroduce action without urgency, support orienting responses, rebuild a sense of agency, and help depressive withdrawal.  The forward motion occurs without pressure. There is a feeling of progress being made. All of the Phoenix Exercises involve, as they close, a gentle bowing of the spine as the hands press toware the earth, giving the student a feeling of pushing anxiety and sadness down into the ground as s(he) rises above them. This is bottom-up nervous system regulation.  It is (and has been for at least 400 years) effective because it is slow, repetitive, bilateral, rhythmic, non-performative, accessible, and non-athletic.  There is no “achievement” in the movement.  There is no goal other than participation.

The Phoenix Metaphor:  A Giant, Soaring, Golden-Red, Eternal Bird

Many people are aware of the Egyptian and Greco-Roman myths in which a magical bird soars through the skies, brilliant and powerful by day, only to crash and burn at day’s end. Then, reborn from its own ashes, the Phoenix rises and begins again its cyclical flight – stronger and more luminous than ever before.  The Phoenix is the Sun in its eternal cycle. It is everlasting (at least so far), beautiful, indomitable, and wedded to Sky and Earth.

The Phoenix metaphor can inspire those who know about its symbolism.  They can imagine themselves and their own cycles — days, weeks, months, years, periods, relationships, activities, states of mind— as being simply units of time and meaning in their own lives.  Today’s depression and anxiety, for example, can be felt as temporary stages that, after burning into ashes, can now give way to continuing development, greater understanding, and the power born of learning and experience. Indeed, this imagery can support continuity and greater ease, but the physiological effects of the Phoenix Qigong occur whether or not the metaphor is engaged.  The movements themselves are healing with or without the imagery of the magnificent Golden-Red Bird.