Welcome to the Qigong Community Podcast. My name is Torsten Lueddecke and this is today’s story. When great grandmother Hilda Braun was told she should go into assisted living, she turned her life upside down and coincidentally ended up on Hawaii, living in a tiny shanty with three young girls. This is where she met Zhineng Qigong. Follow her on her journey towards a life of health, happiness, adventure, and friendship.
Meeting incredible people along the way and deciding to become a Hunyuan Qi therapist herself. Now this is her story. Hilda lives in Canada at the beautiful Lake Echo. Hilda came to Zhineng Qigong rather in a later stage of her life. She only discovered it seven years ago, but she took initiative. She decided to join the Hunyuan Qi therapy program. She traveled to Austria, to Cyprus to join the
on-site module. And she is really an inspiration for many, many people. So I thought, you know, let’s have a chat with Hilda and see how she discovered Zhineng Qigong, what it means for her and yeah, what is the secret to her everlasting youth. Hilda, welcome to the show. Thank you. Here I am. Seven years ago, my life went kind of sideways. In fact, it went completely upside down.
And it was one day when my husband said to me, I can’t do this anymore. And we had been working out at the gym, we wanted to stay healthy. I had always told him we were going to dance at 100 and he would laugh because he wasn’t even a dancer. And I would say to him, they won’t care how we, what we’re doing, they’ll just be happy we’re
up. Okay, walking. And so anyway, within three months he was diagnosed with aggressive cancer and it took him down in six weeks. o I lost my love, I lost my children, lost their father. We have four children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren now. So that gives you a bit about my age. So anyway, I decided after much upset with my own health because a year on the anniversary
of his death, I was given the call that I had breast cancer. Well, that was not what I wanted to hear because I was living my life in a lovely home, running an Airbnb, which was going to be my retirement. So suddenly my life went sideways and I went through a lot of diagnoses. I went through a complete bilateral mastectomy and then ended up with blood clots and
actually died. When my daughter walked in the door, I just collapsed and I had my head, my lungs, both had blood clots and I went down and within a minute I was at the hospital. I lived close to the hospital, which was a blessing. And she also, she’s a nurse. She knew she had to move me. Because I had collapsed into the couch, she knew she had to
throw me. And she rolled me down and later on told me, I didn’t know you could be so heavy. And that’s what you call dead weight. So needless to say, they couldn’t do anything normal with me because I was all wrapped up. I had like a bikini that was covering where the surgery had been and so they couldn’t put the heart monitors on. So I ended up with
like a big bomb on my chest, which they monitored me from. And I went down three more times. I got to the point where I wasn’t allowed to stand up because the clot would move and I’d be gone. So, to make a long story short, about the sixth day, they removed everything. And I said to the doctor, can I go home? And she said to me, why would
you want to go home? She said, your body shut down three times. I said, I can heal better at home than I can heal here. And off I went. So needless to say, with the lungs, and then I developed a condition called Cushing’s, which was due to steroids. And I was told I should be going into a senior’s residence in assisted living. Well, my back went up and
I was not heading into assisted living. And I decided I would fight it. And the doctor said to me, what are you going to do? I said, well, watch me. So I talked to a friend of mine, and she said, in Europe, when people develop these lung conditions, they take them to the sea and they go to a spa to breathe nice air. And so I went, I
looked up health spas. I went to a health spa, to the salt spa. I threw my drugs away because I figured they were causing the issue. I threw them away. I didn’t tell my doctor. I went through a crazy drug withdrawal with that, to the point I could hardly walk. Then about three months later, the doctor said, okay, we will follow you and we will see what you
are doing. And I said, I’m organic, I’m going organic and I’m exercising and I’m just going to breathe salt air. I even bought Himalayan salt lamps. Had them in my bedroom and in my living room and just made my place a spot. I had a deck where I put a water feature and I had lots of plants and I called it my healing garden. Okay. And it was
Christmas that year when I said to my… Just before I said to my doctor, I was in for a routine appointment. I said, you know what? They didn’t make another appointment for an MRI. He said, call them. So I called and the nurse said, who’s calling? I said, Hilda Braun. She said, your lungs are clean. I said, okay, thank you. That’s all I need to hear. She said,
you want to see the doctor? I said, no, no, it’s okay. I’m fine. Okay. I can breathe because I was having a hard time breathing. I had a real hard time. I said, I know I’m fine because my breathing is good. So then Google had become my buddy at night in my bed, researching. And then I decided in January, I need to go somewhere. I need to get
away. I have too many people telling me what to do. So my granddaughter was in England at the time, and I’m booking a flight to England. When the lady said, oh, you have enough points to go to Hawaii with Air Miles. I said, oh, okay. So I put it on the back burner because I thought I was heading to England. But then she came home and my trip
changed and off I went to Hawaii and that’s where I met Qigong. Because I was living on a seven-acre off-the-grid farm in a shanty with three other young girls. It was a life-changing experience. First of all, I learned I could live tiny. I could live small because I had a big house, a 3,000 square-foot house. I found I could live tiny and I was happy. And then Master
Liu at Kokolulu said to me, we’re giving you the retreat. All you have to do for payback is make bread and soup for us for the group. I said, no problem, I’ll cook. Because I loved it. I grew up cooking. So I started to cook their soup and I thought, well, I’m not really interested in this Qigong. I’m just going to go and, you know, sit there and
fake it. Well, you know what? It didn’t take long. That Qigong got ahold of me. My heart. The people were amazing. The team was amazing. Liu was there from China, Britain. It was amazing. And I started to. I learned, okay, you want to know about what Qigong is all about? It’s all about your intentions and learning to live a healthy life, a very healthy life, right? And I
learned, okay, I learned there that we learned about fermenting. All these things weren’t strange to me because my mother had done all those things. Our parents did those things, okay, they didn’t have the super storage that we have. So they… And we grew all our own. So now here I live in Nova Scotia. I grow all my own food. I am living healthy. Okay? And I pickle everything.
So basically, if I understand that correctly, you went to Hawaii and you participated in a retreat, in a healing retreat as a participant with Master Liu and with Britain and other Hunyuan Qi therapists. And then you discovered, wow, this is really great. This is working for me. There’s more in it. And then you decided to become a therapist yourself. My real reason for joining at first was that
it was a good group to travel with and to meet. So I decided because I’m now alone and I, Rudy and I had done quite a bit of traveling. We loved to, and we always traveled and hiked. We didn’t go to all-inclusives. We went to places where we’d rent a car or whatever, and we would adventure out into the mountains and get healthy. Okay? So no, I was
not going into Qigong for that reason at first. In fact, they knew it. Britta knew it. I was doing it for self-healing and I was safe with them. They were great people to meet. I knew if I traveled when I… My first trip was to Cyprus. And I knew that when I got there, even though I made this horrendous journey all by myself, okay, I knew when I
got there there would be all kinds of hugs for me and breathing, happy to see that I had arrived and I didn’t get the one that scared them all. The most, I think, was when I was on a train in Austria and everybody thought I was lost. They couldn’t find me, but I was on the right train going the right way. So, but what I found, because one
of the days they told us we were going to do Li for an hour. One of the guys told me, Lee told me, I said, you’ve got to be kidding. An hour sitting and doing La Qi. That’s pretty crazy. So I thought, okay, we’ll work on it. I did it. But as soon as we were done, I ended up with this horrible pain under my rib, under my
shoulder, in the back. And so I got up and I walked across the room, and Lee said, what’s wrong with you? I said, I got this crazy pain under my shoulder. He said, where? I said, back under my shoulder. I told you, on the left side. He touched it and the pain went away instantly. But see the energy that was flowing through us all and the belief that
it heals because a lot of it is mind. Yes. Open heart, open mind. And you obviously took on a lot of these learnings, you know, about the mindset, about the consciousness in your daily life because you’ve gone through a lot of, you know, physical illnesses and, yeah, you’re now here sitting happy, you’re traveling again and obviously enjoying life. So how have you taken all of these lessons into
your daily life? How are you integrating that? Are you in touch with the people, with your Qigong friends? I was still in Ontario when I was living in the condo that I told you about, because I had to sell my house. I couldn’t keep it. I lost my husband, always said I lost my husband. I lost my girls, which are my breasts, and I lost… I had to
sell my house because I couldn’t maintain it, even think to keep it. Okay. And I couldn’t put that load on my children. Okay. So fortunately, the market was amazing and I got a good price, very good. In one day, I had five offers for my outfit. Okay, which is amazing. Okay. And especially in Ontario. So I was helping my son, who had the baby. Michaela was six months
old when Rudy died. And now, this is two and a half years later. I’m living in a condo. And once a day, I would have the two children for the day. And I said to them, let’s go do a picnic at the park. Because I love picnics. I’m an outdoors person. I love to live outside. So we went to the park and I packed hot dogs, of course,
that’s what we had. And marshmallows, the things they would like. And we started a fire for cooking our hot dogs. And we had sticks. And when one of the sticks came out, Keenan, who was five, grabbed the stick, but he grabbed it by the hot end. And I saw a disaster. And I was out in a park with all this stuff, the kids and I. A kid with
a hand… that’s going to be… he’s going to be… I grabbed his hand so fast and I shoved it into my mouth and I said, no, no, no. Go, go, go. He’ll heal. Heal. Normal, normal, normal. I went into the whole thing that I’d seen in Hawaii that they were doing, and he pulled his hand out and he looked at me, said, what happened, mommy? And it was
gone. There was nothing. There was not a mark. It was gone. Great. Talk about healing. He went home to tell his parents, you know. And James thought, what are you into? What is this? I said, it works. Okay. Energy and seeing it healed, okay. Knowing there was another incident that I can tell you about was I had a car accident just before I was supposed to move here.
And the guy stopped abruptly in front of me, I hit him. My airbag went off, hit my very fragile chest. And I remember saying to my kids, if the accident doesn’t kill you, the airbags will. Because I was sore. I was really, really, really sore from that. And I had to pack and so much to do that I couldn’t be sore. I had no time. I could hardly
lift my arms. And I went to the doctor, they checked. He said, nothing’s hurt. You’re just very bruised. The next morning, I got up and I thought, you know, they always talk about intention and being intentional, so I gotta heal my chest. So that day, my job was to heal my chest. And I got up that morning and I started to do Zhineng Qigong. First of all, I
never thought that our organs were all, like, connected. We thought the heart sits there and the lungs sit there, but they’re all in membranes and they’re all connected. It all moves in there. So I start to do Qigong, and I alternated between Chen Qi and La Qi and as much all day long in between a drink of water and something to eat, and then I would be back
at it. The next morning, I woke up, the swelling was gone, the pain was gone, and I could pack. 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. Great. I mean, it’s amazing how well you took on all these lessons then. I know you went there for the purpose of having a good time, meeting great people. But, yeah, you’ve still been very good students, obviously, that you taught, that you took on all these things and are using them for yourself and for your family and the people around you. So,
yes, that’s great. That’s my aim. And now my, I feel that I’ve been spared death four times in one week. Okay. Where I was brought back. Yes, that there is. First of all, that my daughter walked in just as I was taking. Going down is. She came to make me coffee. It was two days after the surgery, and she knew I’d be getting up. And with that, I
went down and she was there and knew what to do and called 911 and had it all in place. I’ve decided that there’s a purpose and I can’t waste it. Sitting around feeling sorry for me is not what I’m going to do. We moved out here and it’ll be five years in May that I moved out here to Nova Scotia. When my sister again told me, oh, Helena,
you really, you should think to go into a seniors’ residence where you’ll get help when you need it. I said, why? And she said, well, what if? And I said, I’ve never lived with what if, so I’m not going to start with what if now, okay? So I said, I’m moving to Nova Scotia. James wants me to come along. I know that’s where my husband wanted to go
and retire someday. He wanted to move to the coast because we’re only 10 minutes from the Atlantic. I live on a lake, and I can be in 10 minutes at the Atlantic Ocean, and I can walk the beach. I can be out there breathing all this beautiful air and keeping my lungs clean. Okay, and I garden. I have a greenhouse. I have plants growing right now. I have
plants all over my house. I think I have 12 plants in this little space. So I feel, as one lady said to me when I was in Hawaii, she asked me, why are you here on a farm? She said, because at your age, most women, she used the word commit suicide. In other words, they quit. They quit doing, and they get old, and they go into the seniors’
homes and they get old and wait to die. Well, that wasn’t me. That was never my plan. And even when I was down at my lowest point, there was no way I wanted to be there. And so I said to my sister, I’m moving to Nova Scotia and I’m buying a kayak. And I did. I go out on the boat on my kayak, and I’m not the oldest
lady on the kayak out here. There is an old man out here. I shouldn’t call him that, a sweet old gentleman up the lake. He is 92. Every day when there’s no ice on the water, he paddles his boat all the way up the lake and back, and he feeds the ducks. And he’s 92 years old. So no excuse for you not to do it, right? No, I
see him. Okay, there’s my challenge, right there. Get out on the boat. Okay, now where do you go? So, you know, there’s so much we can do, even as seniors. I now volunteer. My children are both paddlers, my grandchildren are both paddlers, and my son is on the committee for the club. And so I’m in fundraising with them. I help raise money and make people happy. Great. And
rumor has it, Hilda, that you are invited to Italy to join a healing retreat. That’s a fact. In fact, in March, I’m heading to New York, and Lou is coming there, and then Richard is going to be hosting him. I’m joining in New York, and then I hope to—I’ve never done Central Park, so I hope to be with some of—because there’s a whole group of buddies there. And
so I’ve joined. They’re my Qigong family that I connect with every week. Yes, okay. Yes. Then you are traveling further to Italy, and that’s in March. And then, in Italy, I will be there. I’m hoping to go to Spain while I’m there, and hopefully, Abdia doesn’t know yet, but I hope to see her and her new baby. Okay, cool. So, all friends from the Hunyuan therapy program. Yeah,
I would go tomorrow to Lebanon to meet. Ask me if I could, you know, but it’s… That’s very scary out there. So, you know, my family, my grandchildren, they’ll see what I do, and I’ll talk about things with them. In fact, my New York gang, a bunch of them came here and spent a whole week with me at my place last summer. So, you know what? Getting old
is no joke, but it’s all what you make of it. Right? Right. And I’m curious to hear also about how the people see you today. They think it’s great what I’m doing, but they’re not really into it. I’ve tried to introduce it. I showed them some of the exercises because I come from a family of eight. Okay, I’m in the middle of that batch. And so we were
all in South Carolina on the beach there last year. And so they’re walking badly, having heart issues, and having, oh, a stroke, a couple of them. And I start to show them how to do exercises on the beach there and like that. But, you know, it’s got to be in your heart, too. You’ve got to want to do it. It’s got to grab you. It’s not something you
just do once every month. If your body wants to be healthy, you need to move it regularly and move it often. Okay? Because in the good old days, people lived on farms and did it every day without knowing it in their work. You know what I mean? They did the act. Okay. And they also used their brain. Now, people are from the couch to the car to the
restaurant, and it’s showing up on them. But no, they… They were all here. I had them all here for a week, and we celebrated my one brother’s 50th. We did a seafood Eastern dinner, which was lobster with all the trimmings. And they’ve all agreed that I couldn’t have made a better choice. Very nice. And I think we all have that experience in our life where there are people
we feel it would benefit greatly to do some exercises like Qigong, but it just doesn’t resonate with them. So I think all we can do is really send positive information, include them in our training, in our Qi Fields, and so on, and through that. Yeah, doing what we can. I tell them about YouTube channels they can go to see Lift Qi Up, Pour Qi Down to learn to
do that because there are great people on YouTube teaching it, and I’ve suggested that kind of thing. But you know what? When I come home from visiting the family back home, I come home tired and a little often upset because I don’t like what I’m seeing. Okay, right. But I can’t change that. But when I go, when I go with my Qigong family anywhere, I come home invigorated.
I come home with energy and life. My neighbors will tell you that when I come home from like New York or wherever and have been with my Qigong family, people, they… I just come. You know, it just energizes me because we’re on the same… We’re on the same path. Right. Trying to encourage each other to stay healthy. Yes. To eat healthy, you know, you are what you eat
and you are what you think. Negative thoughts have to be turned into positive thoughts. Okay. I think that was wonderful to hear from you, Hilda, and to share your story and where you’re at. And I think it’s a great example. I know a lot of people would say, wow, she’s so amazing, etc. Etc. And you are so amazing on one level, but on another, you’re just very clever
because you do what does you good. You do what improves the quality of your life rather than taking away from it. So it’s a natural choice. I had a very good… put a little thing in here. I had a very good doctor when my children were little who said to me, when something goes sideways, it’s like they have a rash. He said, see what you’ve changed, either in
your diet or in the laundry soap. He said, and know your body. Know your body. When your doctor gives you a pill and it makes you suddenly go down instead of getting healthier, get rid of that pill. Don’t go tell them that pill isn’t working, because they will give you another pill to try to make that pill work better. So my thing is, I know we need doctors,
but we really… Before a doctor, we let them give us stuff. We should know what we’re eating and keep ourselves healthy with our exercise. When we have pain, we need to move because there’s a blockage. Right? So you move and open that blockage so that you don’t have to go. I mean, when my chest went—when that airbag hit, I had a lot of pain. Okay. And then, one
night, one day, it was gone. Okay. He wanted to give me painkillers, and I said, no, I don’t want painkillers. He said, what are you gonna do? I said, watch me. I’m going home. You know? So, yeah, I was. I mean, I came from a family. My earliest memory of my childhood is standing in the food line. So this will give my age away. Standing in the food
line, not a food line… Holding a bowl to get my grits at a refugee camp. Okay. When Hitler, when the Russians first invaded Ukraine, right, 80-plus years ago. Okay. That was. That’s my first recollection, the bowl of grits that I picked up. That was at a German… We had already left, and I was in a German refugee camp waiting. My father was applying for immigration to Canada, and
we were blessed to get the okay. Right. That was my earliest recollection of my childhood. Okay. So I saw parents that were strong and determined to make their life better. Right. I think that helps to form you, that formed me. Yes. I think that’s a good… That is a great way of explaining why some people at some point in their life learn that lesson about what commitment and
intention really means. And in this case, it was a commitment and the intention of your parents towards your life and their own life to make it work and to get into a much better situation. And you just take this on for the rest of your life. And now you’re here with an intention of creating the best for you and the people around you. And it’s very informative to
hear where that comes from. So if that is your first memory, it makes total sense that it made you the woman that you are. My childhood was not a plane with dolls. Never had one. My first doll I got was in Canada. And the other thing was my father, only he had lost his arm in a farming accident. My father played the piano with an artificial hand. He
could entertain the crowd. So, you know, we saw a man with a determination to make a life for himself and his family. So I think that has helped me a lot. Part of that has formed me into my way of thinking. But, you know, when you get old, like, you know, if you listen to everybody, you want to just. You could just quit. Okay? That would be the
easy road. But I was never one to choose the easy road. I think that is a beautiful, you know, finishing words of our conversation here, because there are many people at very different stages of their lives and different stages of where their mindset is and what their commitment is toward their own life. And hopefully this conversation has given some of them a new inspiration of, well, if Hilda
can do it, then maybe I can do it as well. If Hilda finds this passion, maybe I can find that as well. And I think that is the purpose of this, one of the purposes of this conversation, because we all learn from each other, and it’s always great to see someone making it work. And so I thank you for that, Hilda. And, you know, belonging to a group
is really important. Like, okay, my husband and I, when we worked out, we always did it together, because if one did without the other, it didn’t work. So when he went with my brother, I didn’t go along. It didn’t work. But when we decided to work together, we challenged each other. And when you work together in a group like Qigong, you challenge each other to be the best
you can be. Okay? And to love yourself and love people. Thank you very much, Hilda. Thank you very much for this conversation. I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule. Have you been on the lake today already, or is it still to come? No, we got a foot of snow yesterday. Okay. No way. It’s snowing right now, and right now the lake is not safe
because we had a warm spell, and we’re not going to take a chance because it’s very deep. Okay? So, no, I walk, but I live on a hill. And I live, like, in Austria. You know, when I came to Austria, that was just like, how I live on a hill. My little house is on a hill. Everywhere, every which way I go, I have to go downhill or
uphill or I never walk on the level. The only place I walk where it’s really level is at the beach. Thank you very much, Hilda. Have a fantastic day further. And thank you very much for the conversation. Thank you. And say hi to Britta from me. Okay. Give her a hug. 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 show notes below.
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