dachungzi

Thanks for the advice, I'd been applying a lot of it to some benefit the past month or two. Recently found a tiny bit more benefit in simply dieting. Rereading Daoist texts and academic texts about Daoism a bit obsessively the past two weeks and the characterization of those that eat a lot of grains as being clever or cunning and how fasting can help bring a state of "stillness" struck me as a keen primordial understanding of carbohydrates' role in the brain, and I considered how limiting it and other calories while I've been so sedentary could maybe help quell the excessive internal chatter "monkey mind" I have going on, that is usually at least playful or too farfetched to take seriously, but lately likes to give me panic attacks with plausible and vividly imagined scenarios. It's not that I think qigong is namby pamby, though Wim Hof is certainly an interesting figure. I actually have some experience with qigong through TMA, but I had honestly personally interpreted it for a long time as a kinesthetic model of learning movements that generate power or effect through physics and/or subtle body control, nothing "magical" per se, though I would still often visualize things as they were explained and found it effective. But I can't say I still haven't had something like an enchanted experience with it and I have respect for it and am not entirely unwilling to accept a more spiritual work at play as well. Actually I'd had even more "enchanted" experiences unwittingly doing zuowang as a young child, but that's a longer and more uncomfortable story, though not as to the results of the meditation, but more what drove me to do it. I guess the stick in my craw that I'll admit is probably too firmly lodged is that so many English speaking Daoist institutions seem to me primarily concerned with blissful and health cultivating qi experiences and practices, don't seem super concerned with thought or goals, or even dao sometimes in that cultivation. I have goals and I feel like Daoism strongly suggests the purpose of cultivation is to do something meaningful with it. Namely, keeping yourself in the best condition to then uplift the people you can touch. And I guess further than that, I am more interested in cultivating and better controlling my mind, and I suppose perhaps my shen. I understand that involves my body too, I have a vague grasp of the jing -> qi -> shen transition in alchemical thought, I see even a pragmatic psychological/psychiatric wisdom in gaining keener emotional regulation, meaning lower stress, which means better health, better cognitive function, etc, through more subtle intuition of the body and its responses to internal and external stimuli. But the goal never seems to be this, it's blissful qi experiences, become an energy healer, etc. I simply want to be a better person than I am, that I know I can be, and talk therapy and such aren't cutting it. When I look at modern evidence based therapies it seems like a grab bag of different "Eastern" religious practices, and I'm wondering anymore if I wouldn't actually be more receptive going to the source.