One day, Eugenio Giusti said to himself, “This is it. I don’t want to be serious anymore. Life needs to be fun.” And he started his journey, moving from a life based on control and fear to one based on flow and trust. My name is Torsten Lueddecke, and this is the Wisdom Qigong Podcast. Welcome to the show, Eugenio, I’m very happy to have you here. It took us a
little bit of time to get together, but I’m very happy because you are. Your name gives it away. You are Italian by origin, you live in New York, and you’re currently in Italy, back at your family house. And that already gives me a good starting point for the conversation because you said you’re going to talk about your life and how Zhineng Qigong, you know, kind of mirrors the
development of your life or your life’s journey. So let’s dive right into that. Eugenio, first of all, thank you for inviting me to share this experience of my life. So basically, the idea is that in my life, I was always trying to be, I was actually, how can I say, played by perfectionism. It was always an anxiety of always doing the best possible, and that eventually, in my
career as a college teacher, became really my pattern. And my pattern was always to be in the future mode. So I could do things, I could organize, I could, but nobody was really, anything that I would really do would always be really perfect. There was a time in my life where I realized that actually, being mostly excellent was perfect. Before, I would say, “Oh, well, I’m mostly not
excellent,” but now, “mostly excellent is just fine, perfect.” In that process, I also realized that I needed to live in my heart and not in my head. That was really my big shifting point, realizing that I was always in my head with my topics, my thoughts, and organizing things all the time. But I never lived in the present. I was always in kind of a future mode. So
I said to myself, well, you really need to get out of your head and be in your heart. Now, how this connects me with Zhineng Qigong, very recently, I know, as we say in Zhineng Qigong, the process of the Qi is an upward spiral. So it goes up and up and up. And that was also my experience. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t reach Zhineng Qigong right away,
but through the years, I ended up with the intention to really be more in the present and live with what I felt. I also came to the conclusion that I really needed to have fun. Life needs to be fun. And it’s interesting because when I was saying that to my colleagues at the college, they were like, what are you talking about? Fun? Fun is not serious, you know?
Exactly. I said, I don’t want to be serious. So, but your students, your students must have loved the idea, right? Right, my students. Well, actually, it’s interesting because my students, on one side, were trying to follow the pattern, you know, always being serious because it’s a very high-class kind of college, and I was trying to lead them into having fun. So I said, when you come here, you
have to say, you know, “Oh, how you doing?” Italian. This was an Italian class. They would say, “Oh, I’m okay, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” You know, all negative. I’m stressed. So I said, flip it over, say, “I’m stressed, but actually I’m okay. You know, all is good.” So that kind of shift was really fundamental for my life and probably for the people that I was teaching,
too. So as I go along, I then came to Zhineng Qigong through the experience of my teacher, Richard Clegg, that you probably know, and Debra. Debra and Richard Clegg. I studied Zhineng Qigong with them because they came to my college and were teaching there. At that time, I was doing yoga and other practices, so I moved into regular, you know, other types of Qigong. And then when Richard,
I came to Cocolulu and all that experience, I just followed them. But then I realized, in learning more about the theory of Zhineng Qigong, I really realized how serendipitous. So Richard introduced me to Zhineng Qigong and was really telling me what I wanted to hear, which is unity, right? It’s not the yin and yang necessarily, it’s before the separation. And I truly believe that unity is what really
connected my heart with my brain, you know, that my lower, my middle Dantian with my upper Dantian is really what makes me united as one. And so that was my point. Now, when I’m listening to you, it sounds a bit like this, as if you knew it all along, deep down, and Zhineng Qigong only just gave you an opportunity to uncover that. It didn’t seem to me like,
“Oh, this is completely new.” It seems like this was waiting, was sleeping inside you. Is that fair to say? Yeah, absolutely. Zhineng Qigong for me is the last step and the highest step in this journey. So when recently Master Jianshe was in New York, I had the gift that he came to give classes in my apartment in New York because we were supposed to be outdoors, and the
weather wasn’t good. So he came, and then he started talking about the Bambini heart, you know, and talking about how we should let go and go into the heart. And experience like little children. And then I said, wow, this is exactly what I said to my students, you know, you just need to have fun. You can’t just waste your time thinking or fixing or wanting or doing all
of that. No, just be in the moment and be with it. And so Zhineng Qigong is really what brings me there and gives me both a theory and a practice to be in it, you know, now every day, because most of the time I have all the time I want. I spent an hour, an hour and a half in the morning doing the practice. And to me, it’s
the best time of the day. It’s like, wow, you know, I mean, I can’t do this. I don’t have to run away. And there is a lot of learning within it. I really, I’m really, really grateful. It’s really deep, how I realize, for example, how to relate to pain. For me, that’s one of the biggest discoveries, not only to have fun, of course, but also when I practice,
how do I relate to the different pains that my body may have? Should I try to fix them? Can I try to force them? Can I try to be afraid of them? No, I can stay with it. I can stay with it, keep the practice, and let my mind go, as you know, Joshua would say, song, song, relax, relax. And then, magically, things morph and disappear. And you
say, wow, what happened? This is like a fairy tale, you know, my fairy tale. And this is exactly what happened. So now, this is funny enough, a recurring theme in the last episodes I have been recording. So I’m interested to look a little bit into that, why you think that happens? So, you know, what you’re basically describing is you stay with the pain, you’re not resisting it, you’re
not trying to overrule it or fix it or anything. Just staying with it. And tell me more about, you know, how it’s transforming, right? Because, my amo would be, you know, react, be afraid, and try to fix it. You know, I have the energy, you know, make it disappear somehow. So, do the practice, do this, do that. This is my attitude in life in general. So, do things
to solve problems and go ahead and keep on going this way. I’m realizing that if I don’t have the fear, if I don’t, you know, kind of feed into my fear and I stay with it, I mean, it’s not, you know, an emergency, you know, I mean, so I can just stay there, look at my neck that is sore, feel it, move it. But I realize that the
more I think about it, even when I think I try to solve it, like they would say, you know, the Qi goes where the mind goes, the Qi flows. So if I don’t think too much and actually let my mind flow, play, or create imagery, then I go back to it and it’s not there anymore. I say, wow, what happened? You know, this is like magic. I don’t
know, but it’s good magic, you know, I mean, and the idea ultimately, at the base of all of it, is that you need to trust, is what I would call probably some sort of faith, that you let go and the universe will send you the right answer, whatever. So there is a process of acceptance there that is essential, you know, to what is. Now, that is an interesting
thing that I just would like to pick up when you say, yeah, we all know the saying, or most of us know the saying, where the mind goes, the Qi follows the flow. And this makes a lot of sense, in particular, if we think about intention. Now, you set an intention and then Qi flows. Now, at the same time, there is an inherent intelligence within Qi. So if
you, what if what you do is you activate the Qi through your exercise, the Qi naturally knows where it needs to go in order to, you know, give you progress and provide healing or deal with whatever you need to deal with. Now, sometimes in my experience, that might be very surprising because you might do Zhineng Qigong because you have a pain. You know, you gave the example of
the back. Now, even though you know, Zhineng Qigong, maybe that Qi is not operating upon the back because Qi knows there is another thing that might be more important at that point. And it operates, you know, in that range. I have an example at the moment, you know, of a woman that’s very close to my heart. You know, she was doing a lot of exercises with the purpose,
you know, to get her vision back, and nothing really, you know, moved. And now it was discovered that she actually had quite, you know, a serious heart issue. And the doctors looked into it and said, well, wow, we have no idea, you know, you’re in such a good state given the issue you have with the heart. We don’t know what you’ve done that you are so healthy still.
So my interpretation here is that she knew, well, you know, don’t worry too much about getting better eyesight at this moment, there is something more serious going on. So it’s a little off topic from what you’ve just told, but it came up and I wanted to share it because I think it’s also important to understand that it’s not just about setting the intention. You know, sometimes it’s just
great to activate the Qi and let the Qi do the work. But exactly what you’re saying, I fully understand and share because I think the point is that when I set the intention, I have to let go. Because often we think of setting an intention and the intention I also do, okay, I have the intention to fix the problem in my neck. And I keep insisting that I
have the intention. It doesn’t work that way. You have to set the intention like a prayer, for example, and send it to the universe. And whatever the universe or the Qi in this case sends to you needs to be accepted. Because, one, the moment of acceptance is actually the most difficult one because, you know, you have to accept things that maybe your mind thinks are not correct or
are out of your intention. No, it will be revealed to me that that is actually the only possible truth and the best truth possible, you know, and that’s why I think that the process is really the awareness, the intention, and then the acceptance.. And the acceptance will bring the transformation, whatever that will be. As you say, you know, this woman, probably with the eyes, and then it goes
into the problem, which is actually somewhere else in her body. Exactly. But that’s a fantastic revelation because she wasn’t aware. And so the same thing happens to me. The beauty of not seeing that after practicing it, doing a 15-minute, 20-minute session, after that, you see, oh wow, it’s not there anymore, you know, so that says to me, not that I commit, I… I manipulate the situation. It was
actually the situation that manipulates me. You know, the universe manipulates me. Now I’m trying to fix the universe. So there is really, to me, as a person with a Catholic upbringing, a very strong element of faith that you have to have in the Qi, in the universe, whatever you want to call it, in the spirit, whatever works for you. For me, it works saying, you know, some sort
of faith, although I’m not, you know, particularly Catholic or practicing and so on and so forth. But that’s my tradition. My name is Leila Cupido, and I’m the project manager of the Students Hub. Our team is constantly adding events, teachers, videos, and other resources to take your practice to the next level, improving the quality of your life and the life of the people around you. We do this
work for you, so please use it. Now, let me go a little back to where we started, because it’s quite extraordinary to meet a man like you who says, well, the first thing that comes up when we talk about Zhineng Qigong is fun. Most of us would first think about healing. You know, that for obvious reasons, a lot of us serious people would also think about consciousness and
our personal development. But, you know, to come up with, yeah, it’s fun. That’s quite unusual. Although, you know, when you think about it, it’s absolutely not because you were talking about Jianshe, and I remember one of his favorite sayings, at least, you know, when I met him first, was he was always talking about a sunshine mind. He said, everything is beautiful when you have a sunshine mind. And
I… So that is, you know, having fun, enjoying yourself. That is great. And I think it resonated so much with you because you didn’t allow yourself to go through life that way. No. So tell us a little bit about this transformation and what it means to you and whether this was tough because, you know, there might be a lot of people sitting there saying, well, how can you
have fun? I’ve got this issue. I’ve got that problem, and this is not going well. Yeah, maybe this man is very lucky, but I can’t have fun because my life doesn’t just, you know, grant that right. I understand that, and I can say that maybe I don’t have major illnesses or problems, you know, so. But for example, when I was in Austria and I was there twice, you
know, in the program, I see that the vast majority of people would come into the program at the beginning with a kind of a sad face, and by the end of it, they all smile and they’re all having somewhat of a good time their own way, you know. And I remember the last time I was there for the certification, I… There was a moment when I really was
playing, pretending I was a plane, like if I were 5 years old, as I was trying to run to class on time because I was late, you know. And so that’s… I think this is really a healing process. You know, maybe some people can do it better than others, but if I can let go and I can go back to my child mind of being in the present
and play with what I have around me, you know, then I see that for me, it’s definitely transformative. But I have a dear friend of mine who came to Austria, you know, and she’s still with us, practicing all the time now. I remember when I suggested she come, she had a lot of physical issues, and her mind was always a little sad. Now, every time I see her,
because we have sessions all the time on Zoom, you know, she’s always smiling, you know what I mean? So that’s the transformation. It’s a fundamental transformation. Because even if she still has the pain, she smiles at it. Her pain is not the same, you know, she doesn’t press on it; she makes it lighter. So I’m not saying that, and in a way, I think I will allow the
body and the mind to heal instead of oppressing it, compressing it, and preventing it because I want, I must, I do, I have, and all of that, I need, and all of that, you know? That’s my point, you know, transformation and growth. Yes. And how does this show up in your life with your friends, you know, do people recognize that? Oh, by the way, when you did the
transformation, you were still working as a college teacher, right? No, I’ve been retired for three years now. Yes, when I, yeah, no, no, when I began, the very, the very beginning. Oh, yes. I was in the middle of the pressure of the college and the life of the administration, which is not, you know, that’s the bad side of being a professor. You know, the good side is you
deal with students and you have a good time with all these young minds. But the bad side, I thought, was the administration, the research, the publishing, and all that. So now, yeah, that’s when I, when I really, at this moment, I said I need to really live with my heart and not in my head. Yes, it was. And that happened before you met Zhineng Qigong, or was this
all there? It was actually years before. Then I started my practice that went into yoga because at that time I was really doing gym and bodybuilding, all these kinds of things. And then that was really confusing. No, no, no. I say I need to flow. The other point for me is flow in my life now. I just need to flow. And so the idea is that I started
coming from gym and bodybuilding into yoga, and then yoga was still not really letting me fully flow. And then I discovered Qigong, and then I discovered, you know, Qigong, which I think is the ultimate for me. It definitely is the best of it; it is my direction. I don’t have any other goal at this point in my life. I just go in that direction. And my intention every
day is to flow because my tendency is to, you know, not to, you know, so working on the possibilities of flowing. So let me ask you that question. Do you miss being miserable? Well, no, definitely, you know, I’m very grateful for what I did because I was there for 30 years, and it could have been a better place for me because my little department, my Italian department, had
colleagues, and we were nice with each other; we had a little community. And I have beautiful students, some of whom are still in touch now. But no, no, no, the academic environment, no, no, no, no, no, really no, because it’s all in the head. See, I’ll tell you a little story. There was a student of mine, whom I’m still in touch with. She was petite, you know, from
Kenya, with a big bow, a flower on her head, and a smile, you know, a 180-degree smile.. And she was adorable. She came to my class, and one day she was sad. I said, “Oh, what’s going on? Why are you sad?” She replied, “Oh, yeah, I know, because I go around campus and smile all the time, and people think, the students think I’m crazy.” And I said, “No,
no, you continue to smile. Don’t worry about that. You are the good one. They are the ones.” They have issues, and they do. My students used to come to me and say, “Okay, tell me what to do, I’ll do it well, and you give me a good grade.” I would say, “It doesn’t work that way. You come here, I give you something to work on, you work on
it, we do it together, we discuss it. Then, if the college wants a grade, we can even give you a good grade.” It doesn’t matter because education is my purpose, you know, bringing things out of you as a young mind and building your own self-awareness, self-determination. And that’s why I also made this switch a little bit to Zhineng Qigong. But I think what’s beautiful about Zhineng Qigong in
general is that I am my own healer. I don’t have to ask anybody else, you know, “Yes, doctor, are there these…” And fine, I can go and check, do tests and so on. But I am the one who makes the decision about my body. That’s fundamental to me. Now, in an interesting way, you have actually gained what you’ve been trying to gain all your life. I mean, you
have to correct me if I’m wrong here, but what I understood is that in the first decades of your life, you were all about control, in a way. Yeah, being successful, doing things right, being anxious about doing things right. This incredible pressure, this is a control thing. But you could, you could never control anything, really. And now, you know, by letting go and by discovering basically the power
you hold within you through Qigong, through Zhineng Qigong, you actually found that very control that you were always looking for, but not in a… but in a… As you said, you spoke about it in a trusting way. So it’s, it’s not you consciously taking control. It is you being in control because you know of the wisdom of your own body, you know of the wisdom of the Qi
field, you know that you can make sure you are healthy, you are happy, you are having a good day. So in an interesting way, the thing that you’ve always been seeking and could never find by trying to grasp control, you finally found. Right. Yeah. And the control has become flow. Right. That’s my big switch, is like, to try to control. Because control was based on fear. Yes. Now
flow is based on trust. Yes. Whatever that is. The acceptance of what is, is the flow, and that’s the only. And I can see the result of the flow. And of course, I still keep some fears for the future because I’m still human and I’m still here in this human dimension. But at the same time, I can work on the process of letting it go and just see
how flow, you know, it was an early meditation when I started meditation, and I was so always so agitated, and I said, oh, my God. They said, you can stay five minutes, you know, meditating. I said, are you crazy? Me? Five minutes still? I can’t, you know, I’m like, yeah, all the time. But then I did a walking meditation. I just happened to walk along a stream, and
there was all this bubbling, and I said, oh, that’s my flow. That’s what the people I come from are, the people that walk through the streams in the woods. And that’s how I flow, you know, and so I need to reconnect with, quote, unquote, my people, or the universe, whatever it is. So that’s my… And that’s exactly what is happening to do even. And when you talk, when
you mentioned earlier, the example of the student that comes to your office and says, “Tell me what I need to do so I can get a good grade.” And you said, “That’s not how it works.” You were basically explaining the same thing. Because what you are basically suggesting to the students is, “Students, let’s enjoy the beauty of the Italian language.” Let’s learn it together. Let’s have fun while
we’re doing it. And then, at the end, you know, there might be a grade or not a grade, but it’s not outcome-dependent. Let’s enjoy the actual learning of the language. Now, when you talk about the flow, you’re basically saying, let’s enjoy life, let’s enjoy the beauty of life, and let’s trust in the flow. But we are not depending on the outcome. So the outcome might be this, and
the outcome might be that. And now I’m back to Jianshe. Another thing that he always says is, now, whatever the result is, you will see him smile and say, “Oh, it’s also good,” although it might not be the thing that he wanted. If he misses a train, he won’t say, “Damn, I missed the train.” He would say, “Oh, that’s also good because then I can spend more time
in the station, or I can have a coffee, or something like that.” So the outcome doesn’t matter to him. He just, yeah, whatever life brings up, he’s perfectly happy with that, right? And in fact, I notice, is what I call plan B. Okay, plan what I make, you know, with my mind, the planning, the organizing, and plan B is what comes. So if I’m able to think about
a plan B and I’m okay with it, then there is no problem, you know, there is no agitation. There is just being with the flow. Whatever comes, you take it and think and appreciate it. And that’s probably the best thing that could ever happen to you. To me, it’s the best thing, you know. Even just waiting for a bus, for example, you know. I mean, to be late
and then there is bus D and bus A I have to take with you. And I say, okay, well, how long do I have? I have 15 minutes. Okay, let me stay here. What happens if I come home late? What’s the big deal? You know what I mean? I can do something else. I can stay here and look at the sky while I’m waiting for the bus, you
know? And then the bus pops up, you know. That’s a fantastic thing, that you let go, and then the bus comes, the one you need. And then you get home on time and everything is fine. You know, you need to be in that state of mind of letting it go and let, you know, the Qi or the universe work their magic, because that’s what we are. We’re just
a bunch of energy that floats with all the rest. You know what I mean? And so, you know, just be with it. You know, also, we are human. So, you know, there’s a way of acceptance that we are limited. We think with one brain. You know, we have a brain and a heart. So that’s also a process of acceptance. Because I could go in the direction, oh my
God, we are so human, we are so bad, blah, blah, blah. No, I’m human. I’m, you know, I come from a source. I’m in this dimension. I think I have some sort of service to do in this dimension. I will go, and after a while, I will go back to whatever dimension, and that will be great. You know, as long as I’m here, I’ll try to do my
best, you know. Yes, yes, with myself first and then with everybody else around me. That’s why also I’m doing this now. I’m certified. I’m also doing some sessions with friends and things, and, you know, I can see, you know, I bring these ideas to them and some of the practice, you know, how to relax, how to expand, how to flow, you know, and they seem to be quite
receptive, you know, today. And so when you said you’re certified, you’re talking about being a certified Hunyuan Qi therapist, right? Because all… We didn’t mention that earlier, but when you spoke about Austria and the time you spent there, that was all part of the therapy program, correct? At the beginning, I went to Austria. I was already a student. Richard Clegg. Yes. And then at the beginning, I went
to Austria to see in the healing group. Okay, look to be healed. So I could see if I liked it, if I wanted to continue. And that’s when I made my decision that I really wanted to continue. And fine, you know, if I, I don’t necessarily have the need for a certification because I’m not making it into a career, but at the same time, why not? So it
may be better to have it. So the year, the following year when I went to Cyprus in the spring, and then the following year I went to Austria last year in 2023, and that’s when I got certified. And I mean, you’ve got some great skills because you’ve been teaching all your life. So it’s, I think it’s great to combine that and to say, well, why not? I had
these insights in my life and I had these learnings in the Junior Hunyuan Qi Therapy program. You know, let me share that with whoever wants that. And it’s, that’s the way it is. We meet people in our lives, and some people are at a stage where they’re totally receptive to these ideas, and we can. We can tell they, you know, they want to move to the next level.
And then there are other people where, you know, the time is just not right, or they have other things that they prioritize, which is just as fine. Right? I have my journey to walk. If anybody wants to walk it with me, more than happy. I like people. I like to do things with people, you know, but if my walk is my walk, even with my partner, you know,
my walk is my walk, likely he’s also walking a similar path. So we can walk together, which is more fun than just always being alone. But if I have to be by myself, that’s what it is, you know. You know, it’s my thing, you know. And so, you know, if I can have fun with a group, what I found by myself is that they told me when I
was a baby, they put a blanket with some toys, and I was playing with them, you know, on the blanket, as a little kid. You know, if there is another friend that we can share, it’s even better. No, we can. It’s more fun to dance in a group than dance by yourself, as far as I’m concerned. So whenever I have, you know, whatever, I know a possibility, I
try to share with other people. Now, Eugenio, have we missed any of your, you know, any of the things you would like to share with us today? Is there any point that you feel, oh, this is something else I would like to mention? No, I think my, my points are kind of basic. I don’t have to, you know, I don’t have to. The only things I would say
I was mentioned. I just, you know, now that I’m doing some sessions with people, it’s really rewarding because they’re mostly friends, and there is no, you know, I just do it for fun again, you know, because I like. And I like to share with them, and it is friends, family, people I’ve found here, and my neighbors, you know, offer to them, you know, do you want to have
a session? Do you want to relax together? You know, and usually my sessions are like, you know, there is a conversation. So, you know, as Master Liu would say, you know, there’s a conversation. And then eventually there is the, the actual, you know, relaxing technique that I’ve learned through. And usually, they say they like it, at least they want. They come back. I guess that’s fine. I don’t
have any agenda beyond that exception. And you do them in English or also in Italian? I do. It depends on the person. If the person understands English, fine. Right now I’m in Italy, and most of the people that I do here, you know, the people that are connected, they don’t really speak English. So we can do perfectly, you know, and you know that we have a. Probably Richard
mentioned that at the end of this month, we have a retreat here in my village, so many, many of the people there will not understand English. So either I’d be the translator or the one that organizes a session devoted to each other, and some others will, you know, speak English. So that would be the other part. So it’s kind of fun. Very good, very good. Well, thank you
very much, Eugenio. That was lovely to hear from you. And I honestly, I think it’s very refreshing to start with the whole idea of you having fun in life. It is so fundamental to Zhineng Qigong, but we don’t often make it the main topic because there’s usually something else that is the focus of a conversation. Although, I must say, I mean, with most of the people we talk
to in the environment, we can see they’re having fun. Most of the practitioners go through life, you know, with a smile on their face, and you can tell that they. That they have been on that journey. It’s just that they don’t express it that way necessarily. So I think it’s great to bring this into our consciousness, that this is the essence of Zhineng Qigong, because a happy mind
is a relaxed mind, and the relaxed mind has a relaxed body. And if the body is relaxed, the Qi can flow and there are no blockages. So it’s actually quite simple. So anybody listening who wants to learn Qigong but doesn’t want to put any work into it, just be happy and smile all day and you can skip over courses and classes. Absolutely, absolutely. It was really… Yeah, exactly.
That’s all right. Fun together. Okay, well, thank you very much, Eugenio. I hope you have a fantastic time in Italy. Good luck with the workshop, the retreat. We will leave, of course, all your details in the show notes so people know how to get in touch with you if they would like to. And then, yeah, I’m looking forward to maybe meeting you again in one of the future
episodes and hearing more from you. Yes, thank you, thank you for everything. We trust you enjoyed this conversation and we invite you to subscribe to our podcast so we can stay in touch and notify you of future episodes. We will end today’s episode with the Eight Verses Meditation performed by Zhineng Qigong teacher Katrien Hendrickx. Enjoy. To get your free eBook on the Eight Verses Meditation, please check the