Welcome to the Zhineng Qigong Community Podcast. My name is Torsten Lueddecke and this is today’s story. For many young women, eating disorders are a sad reality and a daily struggle. Like any self-destructive behavior, the consequences on your health can be dramatic. How do you respond when you’re at a stage where your organs have been damaged and the doctors tell you, “Sorry, there’s nothing you can do,” but intuition
tells you, you can heal? My guest today, Taryn Schwarz, has chosen life over death and taken responsibility into her own hands. Let’s hear how she is reversing a path of self destruction. The upcoming content may be sensitive for some viewers and listeners. This episode contains topics of eating disorders and self-harm. If you feel uncomfortable, it’s perfectly okay to skip ahead. Welcome, Taryn. I’m glad to have you here.
How is the Cape Town this morning? Oh, it’s beautiful. Cape Town is always beautiful, warm, summery, lots of sunshine, beautiful, beautiful weather. Yeah, yeah. Very blessed to be living in this beautiful city. Okay, great. And you’re working as a counselor and hypnotherapist. Maybe you want to explore a little bit on that. What are you doing exactly? What’s your focus of the work? I’ve been doing counseling and Hypnotherapy
for about 15 years and I work with varied problems. So I work with adults, I work with teenagers. We work with things like depression, trauma, people trying to find themselves as well, people just on a search for purpose in their life. Hypnotherapy is really, really good to go inwards, to become aware of oneself, to reflect, and then also to construct a new image in your mind, a new
vision for your future and to really step into that reality, feeling it, seeing it, and making it real. So I work here as a counselor and a hypnotherapist and I use a lot of mindfulness in my work as well. Okay, I see. And how does all this tie into Zhineng Qigong, specifically in mindfulness? I mean, Zhineng Qigong is all about being centered. It’s all about being here in
the now. You know, when you practice your routines, you don’t want to be thinking about all sorts of other things and you don’t want to be in a state of stress. You want to be in the present moment. You want your mind in your body, all united. So mindfulness and Zhineng Qigong go hand in hand with each other. When did you discover Qigong? A friend of mine’s mum
introduced me many, many years ago, about 10 years ago or so, but it wasn’t really the right space for me at the time. Then she reintroduced me, it was about 2017, round about there. And yeah, that’s when it just caught in my mind. I started doing some of the practices. I went to a class with Britta and something about it just resonated. My friend’s mom, she also continued
to talk to me about how people had healed themselves completely from life-threatening diseases. And that was fascinating for me and I thought to myself, this is what I need. I need something holistic. I need something that is going to really work on me holistically and help get to the bottom of these problems. Now, at that point, you already had gone a long way, right? I mean, the story
didn’t start there. You’ve got a long story before that, tried very different methods, different things to yourself. Maybe you want to explore a little bit about your background, you know, what issues you’ve been dealing with and how this whole thing unfolded. When I was a teenager, I developed anorexia and bulimia, and I was incredibly abusive towards my own body. That is also because I suffered a lot of
other trauma, emotional trauma in my life. And often when young people experience a lot of emotional trauma, they can become quite physically abusive towards their own body. You know, a lot of girls start doing things like cutting, chatting. A lot of, a lot of girls and boys drink. But my drug was basically starving myself, Bulimia, and I started physically hurting myself in that way. So a few years
into it, that’s when my health started rapidly declining and I had to go into hospital. I had injured my intestines. The doctors weren’t very promising for me. They weren’t very positive. They said to me, “Oh well, you And it was very, it was very depressing for me. It’s very depressing to hear from an authority figure like a doctor that, you know, this is it now, you’ve missed your
body and I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to live with it for the rest of your life. And that is also, that is the opposite of what we are focusing on in Zhineng Qigong. As most of the listeners we know, we are always focusing on the healthy side, not on the problem. So always imagine us being healthy so that the unconscious mind can do the work as
well. And I think that is one of the major issues with Western medicine, that you get these sentences basically by the doctors that say, “You have this, you are that.” And then you automatically start to take it on and say, okay, now I am this person who has this or was ill, rather than focusing on the self-healing abilities of the body. So, but thank you. Just continue on
your story, please. Yes, absolutely. So as a teenage girl, you know, your mind is very open and very susceptible, especially to authority figures. So a part of my mind, I suppose, believed that. But there was another part of my mind that said to me, this can heal. I don’t know how, I don’t know how to heal it. But something inside of me, my intuition said, Taryn, you can
heal from this. And that is when I actually started my healing journey, looking for various treatments, therapies, and diets, and Torsten, that had been my life. All right, so from around the age of 20, I’m 44 now. So from around the age of 20, I have been searching for solutions. So I’ve done numerous diets, numerous herbs, numerous supplements. I’ve been to various practitioners and doctors. And although sometimes
there may be a slight benefit for maybe a few months, what I found is that it just goes back again. The issue goes back to the way it was before. And that is incredibly frustrating. And I’m sure a lot of people out there listening can relate to that. When you go from doctor to doctor, practitioner to practitioner, diet to diet, and it’s not solving the problem. Now, I
totally get that. I want to go one step backwards though, because, you know, at one point you must have made a decision that the eating disorder is actually over now and you are moving on and saying that you’ve done this for more than 20 years now trying to find the solution. There’s a lot of commitment there, there’s a lot of dedication to your life and wanting to sort
this out. Now, how did you get to this point? Because a lot of people that might be listening today are not there yet. Now they’re still struggling with their eating disorder, rather than, you know, moving on and saying, “Okay, how can I best deal with the consequences now?” So how did you get to that point, please? There was a number of things. Firstly, I chose life. When I
ended up in hospital and the doctor said to me, “You’ve damaged your intestines,” and I was in that state, I thought to myself, oh my goodness, what have I been doing? I think sometimes people need a wake-up call. You need a wake-up call and realize that if you continue down that path of self-destruction, what is it you are choosing? You’re choosing self-destruction, you’re choosing death. I chose life
and I decided I’m not going to do this to myself. And so from that decision I made, I decided, no, from now on, I’m going to look after myself. I’m going to eat and I’m going to work on my mind. I’m going to work on healing my mind, and I’m going to work on what is it that got me to a point where I wanted to starve myself
in the first place? And that’s when I started doing my own self-therapy. I started going to self-help workshops. I worked with a counselor, and I started really working on my past stuff. But all the time, the force behind me was, I choose life. So basically, it’s two things that you did. You were dealing with your past, whatever caused the problem in the first place, and at the same
time, you were looking out, “Okay, how can I best repair all the damage that I’ve made?” And how can I go back on the path that, as you say, means life and means a future for me, and what can I do in that respect? So basically, there are two strategies there, right? Absolutely. You have to believe in yourself. You have to have self-worth. You have to go, I
am valuable. I’m of worth. And choose that every day. And at the same time, go, okay, what is it about me in my mind, in my past that has led to this problematic state in my life? I need to dig deep, I need to go inward and find out where the wounds are and look at that. And I started in a psychological way, you know, talk therapy workshops,
talking to people about my past and how I can unravel that. So that’s how my healing journey began. Okay, and when you said, you have to understand and you have to take on your “I’m worth it,” find your own self-worth. How did you do that? Is that also part of the therapies that you did, that you discovered this worth? And you’ve got a lot of people struggling with
that. That is the reason why they do all this damage to themselves in the first place, because they don’t understand their own value. Now, to find that is quite something in itself. So, was that the therapy, or was there something else that helped you discover that self-worth? Yes, therapy helped greatly. Psychology helped greatly. But I’ve also been a very, always a very spiritual human being. So I went
into different avenues of spirituality and I learned that I am part of the oneness of God. And when I learned that, I realized that I am worthy. I am worthy because I am part of the oneness of God. So, together with my psychology, therapy, and my spiritual work, I combined that and knew that I am worth it. And I am more than any story that I have lived
in my life. I am more than my experiences. And that is what I held onto, that I’m bigger than my problem. I’m bigger than the story I’ve been telling myself about myself. That’s a very powerful idea that you’ve got there. And I think that’s the driving force right behind trying one method after another, trying to see, “Okay, what can actually help me improve my situation?” So maybe you
want to explore a little bit. Now we go one step further on your healing journey. What have you done? How did it work? And how did you eventually find Qigong? And in what way does it differ from everything else that you’ve done before? So, wow, I’ve tried so many things. It’s so difficult to even think about all of them. So I started in my early 20s. I moved
to Cape Town. I’m from the Eastern Cape. So I started with herbs, taking various herbs. I started reading up on the Internet. I started talking to various practitioners. I started working with herbs, healing herbs, and homeopathic treatments. I was actually diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome as well by a doctor, and he put me on various herbs and homeopathics. I did this for a number of years, and there
were, you know, brief periods for a few months or so where my energy would peak, and I would think, oh, I’m healing, I’m healing. And I’d get so excited. And then everything would just go back down again, and I would be in the same position. I’m very tired, lots of digestive pain. My immune system was also overactive. So I don’t actually get colds and flu because my immune
system’s too high. So that’s a symptom of an overactive immune system. It largely stems from the gut and the spleen, and obviously, those were the organs that were really injured when I was bulimic. So then after that, I did a whole course of colon hydrotherapy, and I also went… I did this for four years. There were peaks of more energy, and then it would just go back again.
And Torsten, all this time, I’m developing all sorts of other ailments in my body. I had lots of kidney pain. I was having liver ailments. My whole body was sore. I was developing thyroid conditions. And every day was just a struggle for me. Every day, one ailment would get a little bit better from the herbs or the treatments, and then another one would develop. So, yeah, it was
just an endless story. So what you’re basically saying is that all of these methods have their merit and had some effect here or there, but they didn’t really help you move to the next level. You never fully resolved the problem. Did you feel like it was taking you to where you wanted to get to? Is that correct? Absolutely correct. You know, all the treatments I’ve had, I’ve loved
them and I value them, and I value the practitioners I’ve worked with. And for many people, they stop there because maybe that herb or that treatment is all their body needs. But for many people, that’s not the core. That’s not the root of where the illness or the disorder or the contraction is sitting. And I feel I’m one of those people. The root is deeper than all of
that. 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 lives of the people around you. We do this work for you, so please use it. Hunyuan Ling Tong, how did Zhineng Qigong differ from these other methods? So
why are you saying, okay, well, this might be, you know, a better path for me, and, you know, what was your experience with that? So Zhineng Qigong puts you in the driving seat. Zhineng Qigong gives you the responsibility for your own healing. It is very different when you do a practice every day and you know that you are the master of your reality. You know that you are
the master of your body. Very different doing that in comparison to going to various doctors and practitioners and taking a pill and hoping that this other person outside of me is going to fix me. And Torsten, really, I was doing that for years. I was constantly giving my power to other people. This doctor, this is the one. No, this practitioner, this is the one. This herb I found
on the market. This is the herb that’s going to cure me today. And I constantly gave my power to someone outside of myself. If you look around you, most of society, most of us think in that way. We think we go to someone outside ourselves to fix us on the inside. Now, I mean, for me, this is one of the things that I love most about Zhineng Qigong—that
it’s not about something outside of us doing the work, it’s really about us. And I think it’s important to point it out, because even within the Zhineng Qigong community, a lot of people get that wrong now. They think it’s the master—now, with all respect for the masters and the wonderful work they do, all the respect for Dr. Pang, who developed the whole method, but at the end of
the day, it’s you as the student who does the work. It’s your work that will transform your body. And I totally get that. This is a very powerful way of living your life. And, yeah, if you do that, it transforms all areas of your life. It’s not just the health, it’s basically everything, because you start to take responsibility for it and you start to shape the life in
the way that you want it, without waiting for external circumstances or other people to do that for you. So I totally get that. And there’s obviously more to it, because, I mean, the reason why Zhineng Qigong is working so well is not just because it’s suddenly you doing it instead of someone else. There must be other things that you discovered along the journey, while you think, you know,
Zhineng Qigong has had an impact. Maybe you also want to share a little bit about, you know, in which way it had a different impact from all the other methods you tried before. Well, I think, you know, it sets up practice and discipline, and I think that’s very important to have practice and discipline every day in your life. And I know for many people that’s very difficult to
say, okay, every day I’m going to choose a set of practices from Zhineng Qigong and I’m going to do them. But I have found it very rewarding. It’s become a part of my ritual now to practice, even if it’s just a little bit every single day. Do you have a certain time when you do that or a certain routine that you follow, or how do you do it
exactly? I try to do it every morning, but obviously, you know, sometimes life gets in the way, and then I do it later on, maybe early evening or so. But I try to practice it every day if I can. When you practice, do you enjoy the practice? I love the practice. I would practice all day if I could. I keep telling other people that I don’t want a
job anymore, I just want to practice Zhineng Qigong until night. That’s all I want to do. I think that’s an important insight here. A lot of people I talk to say, “Oh, I still have to do my exercise today,” and so on and so on. It becomes a burden. But if you enjoy your practice, and obviously, it’s not a burden anymore—it’s something you look forward to. Nobody has
to force you, and you don’t have to force yourself to do the practice. It’s just something you want to do, and then it comes naturally. So I think that’s an important reason why Qigong works so well for you. But you haven’t really shared what’s changed since you started practicing Qigong. So, we know your story up until you discovered Qigong. But what happened then? In what ways has it
changed how you feel and your health situation? Please share a bit about that as well. So, this is the interesting part, and I think others will relate to it as well. When I started practicing Qigong, my focus was on physical healing. I was like, physical healing, all right. But what I started noticing first was actually more consciousness, changing consciousness, and emotional changes within me. I feel that since
I started, I am a happier human being. I feel that I have more joy in my life. I feel that I’m more optimistic. I feel that I have a greater sense of oneness with everything that’s all around me. I feel that I’m more connected to humanity. And also, I feel that my perception, my intuition has increased. And that is because of all of the emphasis on the Shenji
Palace when we practice Zhineng Qigong. So I’m way more intuitive than I used to be. And I’m just a happier person because I realize that I am not just a physical body. I realize that I am consciousness, that I am energy. And when you start your day with these practices and you get into that Qigong state of mind, where you are one with the universe, and the universe
is one with you, and you are greater than your story in life. You are greater than your ailments. It can bring so much inner peace and so much inner joy. It can be transformative in that way. And that’s that phrase in Zhineng Qigong, kunhwa, right? When we unite, when we merge with the universe, it transforms us. And I believe that before it transforms the physical, it needs to
first transform your consciousness. You first need to move into that state of oneness and release the old story from the past. I mean, the physical. That’s what Zhineng Qigong theory says. The physical will follow, will follow the conscious mind. And that’s why I think you’ve got a very valid point here, that it’s about getting into the state first, working on the consciousness, on the emotional level. And that
will automatically, you know, change the physical, the physical body. So, and I know you’ve been also doing a program. You told me that before with Teacher Wei on that. Maybe you want to share a little bit about that experience so people can also learn about what Teacher Wei is doing here. And maybe it’s something that other people would like to explore as well. Okay, wonderful. So, yeah, so
I started Teacher Wei’s program last year and I just felt really called to it. He speaks a lot about oneness. He speaks about the world consciousness community, how this community can really support its members. His training is about Mingjue, and Mingjue is basically mindfulness. It’s about coming into the present moment and being aware of yourself. So I was very drawn to that. I thought it could also help
me with my own clients. And I started the process and I’m completely hooked. I just love him and I love his sincerity and I love the practices. So we focus on the Zhineng qigong methods. But for Teacher Wei, the main thing is your state of consciousness. So before we start any method, we first go into a deep state of meditation and we tune our consciousness inwards. We connect
with our body, we then merge our consciousness with the universe. And then from that state, we do whatever methods, whether it’s Li or push, pull, or a whole range of other methods that we are learning. But the emphasis is, now observe yourself, and you are greater than any story, than any thought that you are carrying in your mind. That is a fundamental idea of Zhineng Qigong. And I’m
glad you found a teacher that resonates very well with you. And there are obviously many other great teachers out there. And we also find that, you know, everybody has their own little favorite who they want to work with and who just particularly touches them. And I can only invite people to visit the Students Hub and explore what other teachers are there and see who is best for them
if they do want to work more on Zhineng Qigong and use it as a tool for their daily lives now. But I’m also curious about, were there any physical changes in your body? Can you see any physical healing since you discovered Zhineng Qigong? Is that also part of your current path? So I think that this is a work in progress, Torsten. You know, I was, I was hoping
it was just going to be instant like that, but I’ve realized that yes, it is a path that I’m walking. So, but what I have been feeling is I get spurts of energy after, for example, doing Lift Qi Up. And you know what I find so magical is that it’s when I’m in a Group Qi Field, the energy is more so, whereas if I practice on my own,
I still have a spurt of energy, but it’s not as profound as when I practice in a group. I’ve had many classes with Britta, even though we’re doing it virtually. And after that, I’ve got so much energy I can write a book or, you know, tear down my old flat and redo it. So it brings in these spurts of energy, and specifically when I’m in the Group Qi
Field. But yeah, I think my long-term ailments, I think it’s still a work in progress, and I need to be more disciplined within myself and I need to persist with the practices. It doesn’t matter which master you talk to. They will all say that if you have a serious physical problem, it does need a lot of dedication in terms of training. You can’t just expect it to be
gone in 10 minutes or something like that. You have to be practicing continuously, and then you can see improvements on the path, you know. And also, because it comes to my mind while we’re talking about it, a lot of people, when they resolve the physical issue, stop practicing. And that is also a big risk because then, surprisingly, the things come back eventually. Now, this is continuous work that
we’re doing, and I don’t even like the word “work” because, as you said earlier, it’s a lot of fun to practice and enjoy it. And if you do that and make it just a part of your life, just as you enjoy maybe your dinner, your breakfast, or something like that, you’re not going to miss it because you just love your croissant, your coffee in the morning, or whatever
that might be. So if that becomes part of your daily routine, but in a joyful way, then I think you’re on a really good path. So, anything else that comes to mind, Taryn, where you think, okay, this is part of what I’d like to share with the community when it comes to my journey of Zhineng Qigong that could be of value? There is so much that we don’t
understand about our human energy body and its connection with the larger body of the universe. There is so much magic there. And in my practice, I’ve had these intuitions, these moments of awareness, of awakening that there is truly a technology within our body, a spiritual technology that humanity hasn’t even touched on yet. There is something so precious and so powerful about our energy body and its connection with
the universe. It requires more scientific research, it requires more experimentation. It requires more value to be put into that. And I feel very blessed to be part of this community that is researching this. We are truly magical beings. And so I want everyone who’s listening to know that, to know that the power is within you. While at the same time, when you were talking about how your energy
is connected to the overall energy, you take it one step further and say there is no difference between that. It’s not just a connection, it is the same thing. It’s just our personal point of tapping into this energy comes from within us, and then we are tapping into the whole thing. Because really, if you think about it, the whole idea of separation and you being a separate entity
from anything around you, it’s just a man-made idea. There is no such thing as real separation. It’s just our concept. I once read something beautiful, and it’s that something like “a thing is a unit of ought,” which basically means if we wouldn’t give it a name, then it wouldn’t be a specific thing. And I love this idea because it really tells us that the whole separation thing is
a made-up thing. It’s not a reality. This oneness thing is more than just a fancy spiritual idea. It is actually the reality. And any separation that we put upon it is man-made. That is the weird thing, not the idea of oneness. That’s all we had. That’s just the way it is. And I’m glad that this gives you a lot of inspiration and strength and supports you in your
daily life. And you spoke about joy and more happiness and going through life optimistically. And at the end of the day, I mean this is what counts. Doesn’t really matter what else is going on. If your day was happy, if you had joy during the day, then it was a day well spent, no matter the circumstances. And so I think you’re focusing on the right thing here. And
yeah, congratulations to that. Absolutely. And as you, as you said, transformation, even if it starts just with feeling more joy in your life in Zhineng Qigong, all transformation. So it starts with information in your consciousness, then it moves into energy, and then it moves into form. So I know I am in the process of healing. It may not have happened yet, but I am in process. So, yeah,
I hope that also gives hope to other people that as long as you are practicing, you are in the process of your healing. Wonderful. I think that is the perfect closing words from you, Taryn. Thank you very much for spending this morning with me here and sharing your personal story, and hopefully inspiring other people who can relate to whatever you go through. Yeah. And I wish you luck
with your journey. And on the personal side, I’m going to visit Cape Town soon, and then we’re going to see each other, and we’re going to have a coffee and catch up with everything. Right? Right. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you, Taryn. Thank you. Thank you to all the listeners. Thank you. 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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