A Holistic Path to Wellness with Bowen Therapy, Kinesiology, and Qigong – Ben Calder on the Healers Café

In this episode of The Healers Café, Manon Bolliger, FCAH, RBHT, speaks with Ben Calder about his transformative journey into integrative healing, exploring how personal challenges led him to embrace modalities like kinesiology, Bowen therapy, and Qigong to empower others in their health journeys.

Highlights from today’s episode include:

Ben Calder  They would have a logic, okay, if we’ve got a mind component, do we need to do anything with the mind? If we’ve got a body and behavior component, do we need to do something with that? And that might have included diet and nutrition.

 

Ben Calder  You know, I see quite a number of people in their 60s and 70s. And almost the number one thing that they will tell me is that the doctor has told them that they can expect it because of their age. And at that point, I want to slap that doctor and just say, No, that’s not true.

 

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Ben Calder  You know, give yourself a decade to master a level of Qigong, and it’s not a quick fix, and you may not even feel it in the first 2,3,4 sessions. You know, the Chinese would traditionally say 100 days of practice to start feeling your chi and then the rest of your life to master it.

ABOUT BEN CALDER:

I have for many years had an interest in how people tick & the ability of the body and mind to restore its self naturally to optimum health given the right motivation.
I specialise in assessing health and well-being and generating solutions to improve your vitality, functionality and capability so we can deliver 100% of the passion that drives us in a vehicle; your body/mind; fit for purpose.

I can provide both physical and mental health re-training to help you be an effective captain of your industry using a range of integral and holistic approaches in a bespoke program to suit your aims and needs.

I can offer classes and training in mindful movement, meditation, personal and relationship dynamics and communication to help make you and your team better at doing what they do best.

I run regular meditation and LifeForce Qigong classes. I facilitate Shadow Self workshops on the hidden aspects of communication dynamics, Integral Relationship groups and have also lead classes on personal development, self-help techniques and a men’s support group.

I have delivered keynote speeches to support groups, development circles, business networking groups, medical and health conferences. I can speak on a range of health-related topics to illuminate how a focus on personal health can liberate and elevate business and life.

Core purpose/passion: I’m really passionate about people taking responsibility for their health choices and how their behaviour has a direct impact on not only themselves, but on the world and life around them.

 Website | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Linktr.ee | Twitter | YouTube  

 

ABOUT MANON BOLLIGER, FCAH, RBHT

As a recently De-Registered board-certified naturopathic physician & in practice since 1992, I’ve seen an average of 150 patients per week and have helped people ranging from rural farmers in Nova Scotia to stressed out CEOs in Toronto to tri-athletes here in Vancouver.

My resolve to educate, empower and engage people to take charge of their own health is evident in my best-selling books:  ‘What Patients Don’t Say if Doctors Don’t Ask: The Mindful Patient-Doctor Relationship’ and ‘A Healer in Every Household: Simple Solutions for Stress’.  I also teach BowenFirst™ Therapy through Bowen College and hold transformational workshops to achieve these goals.

So, when I share with you that LISTENING to Your body is a game changer in the healing process, I am speaking from expertise and direct experience”.

Mission: A Healer in Every Household!

For more great information to go to her weekly blog:  http://bowencollege.com/blog

For tips on health & healing go to: https://www.drmanonbolliger.com/tips

 

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About The Healers Café:

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* De-Registered, revoked & retired naturopathic physician after 30 years of practice in healthcare. Now resourceful & resolved to share with you all the tools to take care of your health & vitality!

TRANSCRIPT

Introduction  00:00

Welcome to the Healers Café. The number one show for medical practitioners and holistic healers, to have heart to heart conversations about their day to day lives, while sharing their expertise for improving your health and wellness.

Manon Bolliger  00:20

Welcome to the Healers Cafe, and today I’m with Ben Calder. He’s from north Wales, and he’s an integral health practitioner with all kinds of modalities like kinesiology, epigenetics, Bowen technique, or Bowen therapy, MSTR, integral, transpersonal psychology, shadow work, integral relationship facilitator, and he teaches life force Qigong. I know there’s a lot more that I haven’t covered here, but I just wanted to welcome you and really just have an open discussion about the type of practices or the therapies that you offer, your life as a practitioner, what is it like? And yeah, anything you’d like to share. So welcome first of all.

 

Ben Calder  01:15

Thanks, Manon, it’s great to be here and really glad to be talking with you today.

 

Manon Bolliger  01:21

Well, actually, you know, my first question really is, how did you get into all of this, like, how did you know or self select, or did somebody throw you in this path? How did it all begin for you?

 

Ben Calder  01:36

If I, if I really look back at it, was down to a very disrupted childhood. You know, as as many of us do, I think, who come into doing health work, healing work of some kind, we’ve got a history of something we’re trying to fix in ourselves. And, you know, I can go all the way back to birth trauma. You know, my birthing process for a start off wasn’t easy, and then there were kind of adverse childhood experiences when I was quite young, and I think especially as a an adolescent, if I was around these days, I would just be classed as neuro diverse. I was a very restless, disrupted, jittery young man, and I was, I was really quite lucky that my mom could see there was something a little bit different about me, and didn’t make it anything negative. And in fact, we started, she started taking me to personal development, like psychic development, stuff when I was 15 years old. And through that, through the lady that ran those classes, we got involved in these big New Age exhibitions that were taking place in the early 90s, where we were growing up, and we were helping there, and I would be at the workshops and taking tickets on the doors, and I had a chance to either sit outside a door to stop people disturbing the experiences, or I could go inside and I could sit and listen. So as a 15 year old, I started listening to people talking about all sorts of practices, and actually, the one of the first things I ever learned I was listening to an introduction to shiatsu and the lady there taught us a technique for helping with insomnia, which was something I had just by massaging the kidney one point on the base of the foot. And that night, I started employing it, and within a couple of days, my insomnia went and I’ve never had a problem with it since, and even the following year, I can remember teaching it to my summer job, my boss’s mother would come and stay, and I remember showing it to her because she complained about not being able to …..

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to sleep, and it helped her. And the next year, she told me that she taught it to loads of people in the residential space where she lived, and it helped loads of them. So that was kind of part of the introduction. That was also where I first got introduced to Qigong as well. Again meeting, I think it’s a weird deja vu thing that will circle around at some point, I met 70 year old man called Ben who would teach Qigong, and he could see that I was quite a jittery young man, and he taught me jamjoong. He taught me standing practices. So from that point, I started incorporating Qigong into my life and learning to regulate my what I would now look at as a dysregulated nervous system, and starting to bring my parasympathetic tone up and look after myself, though I knew nothing about this at that point, and went to university as one does, and did all the things that we do at university. And afterwards, I realized I did. I trained to be a teacher, realized that there was no way I was going to do that after a four year honors degree, and didn’t know what to do for a little while. And then went to a lecture in 1999 that was on kinesiology, because I was curious about it. It was called hacking your body’s computer, and was so intrigued by it, I found practitioner and asked them if they could help with things that were going on with me at the time. I had really bad allergic rhinitis, I had really bad psoriasis, and I wanted to look for something that was a non medical intervention for that, because I’d been on steroid inhalers for over a decade at that point, and found out at that point as well that they can contribute towards male sterility, and I didn’t think that was a very good idea, so I decided to stop that and find other ways. And, you know, made amazing changes through kinesiology, but I found that I didn’t understand how those changes were taking place. And you know, as much as I respect the practitioner who worked with me, she was terrible at explaining it, so I put myself on a training course to try and understand it, and I had an aptitude for it, and then qualified in kinesiology in 2003 and I’ve been developing my practice ever since.

 

Manon Bolliger  06:01

Amazing. Yeah, so where did Bowen therapy fit in to all of this, like, I mean, and how, like with kinesiology, I mean, you have a treatment method, but also an assessment method to really know what’s going on in the body. And can you tell us a little bit more how that works together for you?

 

Ben Calder  06:23

Yeah, sure. I mean, my introduction to Bowen were was a strange quirk of fate as well. It was on my very first module of Kinesiology training. And, you know, I had some lower back problems. I used to have really flat feet, and I was wearing these, these cheap inserts in my shoes to try and help my flat feet. But they weren’t really helping. And on that first kinesiology training, there was a Bowen practitioner, and you know, she could see me staggering around a little bit. She says, you’re all right. And I was like, No, my back’s not great. Says, I do this thing called Bowen technique. And I was like, well I don’t know what that is. And she said, Well, why don’t you hop on a couch at lunchtime and I’ll do some stuff. And she saw these orthotics in my shoes, and she said, get rid of that rubbish. They’re not helping. And did a Bowen treatment on me. And I stood up afterwards, and all my back pain had gone, and I was just like, Oh, dear. Have I started training in the wrong modality here? And I honestly had this moment of thinking, wow, whatever she did was just incredible. But that’s not what we’re here to learn. And and it actually took a number of years, but I was always very much in mind of the fact that, although kinesiology was a great assessment technique, and the style that I learned was was very much a bio energetic form. So we were looking at creating energetic shifts within the body, more than we were on the physical side. But I could always see there was this physical gap there, and although I learned some other little bits and bobs along the way that helped partially fill that gap, I always felt this drawback to Bowen. So in 2010 because of where I’d got to at that point in my practice, I felt that I was, you know, I’d I was teaching Kinesiology at that point. I became, I was the joint deputy head of UK training for health Kinesiology at that point. And I thought, right now, I feel like I want to fill this gap properly. So I went and did training over here in the UK and and they just dovetail beautifully, because I found the Kinesiology was so good at just being able to say, right now, just do this. And so I was, you know, straight away, pretty much breaking the rules that the school had tried to give, which is, do it like this, in this order, this way. Don’t do these things. Don’t do that on a first session, you know, all these little bits that with hindsight, you know, I can understand why they put the framework in there, but because of how I was and where I was in my own kind of professional development and how I knew kinesiology, I didn’t want to do that. And it was also around the time that I got introduced into integral theory, which is a philosophical background developed by Ken Wilber amongst other people. And it really implicitly looked at this interaction between not just body and mind, but between our culture, our relationships and our environment. And so I was much more interested in exploring, picking into these little areas and trying to create much more unique treatment processes for people that you know weren’t stuck in any one place. But it was like, Okay, now we’ve done that. Now put a Bowen and move here. Now focus on this thought. Now, you know, inhale this aromatic oil. Now use this remedy. Now put another Bowen move in here. So it became this very, very unique process that that I just loved working with. And, you know, again, I’ve continued to adapt it ever since then. And you know, there are times when I do a lot of Bowen with people. I go away and I do these events on a regular basis, and I might do 60 to 80 or more treatments in a weekend with people just on Bowen. Other times, I’m doing relationship work, other times I’m doing the Qigong, which is a again, for me, it’s like self treating with Bowen. It’s being able to listen to my own body and teach people to really pay attention to that enteric response, that internal felt sense and look after themselves. So I’ve become, I think, in a way, a bit of a mad professor who just has all these things that can kind of be drawn down to work depending on what we need.

 

Manon Bolliger  10:41

Yeah, well, I definitely want to go a little deeper in that, but before we go there, I just wanted to just point out, I, you know, a statement about Bowen and some of the schools have a lot of rules, you know, and then the the need for a framework to have a starting point. But, you know, it’s like the difference between when you want to, when you read up a recipe to be…to cook, and you become a chef, right? The chef doesn’t do that anymore. And I think you know, the more I mean, it was sort of my frustration as well, when I first learned about Bowen and it’s like so many rules, but not really a deep understanding of why they exist. And so the more knowledge you bring, the more you have to question everything you know, and the more also, like you know. I mean, we hear. I don’t think everyone heard. Anyone’s heard it directly amongst our age, but you know that he would Tom Bowen, would look at people and know what’s wrong. Now, I could understand that a person could have, and I’m not claiming to have those skills myself, but yes, the more knowledge you have, the more intuition you have, the more people you see, you know. I think it makes sense. So you would say, Well, no, the body doesn’t need this now. It needs this move, or it needs, you know, and that’s, I can see how kinesiology would be a fabulous extra skill to have to really play with that, you know, more maximally. Anyway, I just want to share that, but…

 

Ben Calder  12:30

I totally agree, and I don’t think it’s helped that I’ve spent quite a lot of my life as a rebel as well, that if somebody tells me there’s a rule for a thing, I want to really understand why the rules there, because one of the things that I don’t particularly like is dogma and what I’ve found along the way. And, you know, I’ve sat in and trained and experienced so many different modalities, and I find there’s a lot of story that doesn’t have a good basis. You know, it sounds nice, it’s good fluff, but when he cut down to it, does it make any difference whatsoever? And if it doesn’t, I want to know about it. So I like to test rules. I like to see if they really apply. And the stuff that does, great. Thank you. I’m glad for that. And the stuff that doesn’t out the window, we don’t need it.

 

Manon Bolliger  13:18

Exactly. I mean, I think I’m of the same, whatever that is the stock. I’m a rebel, too. So when I opened up Bowen College, I said the goal is to create intuitive healers, right? So with Bowen, of course. But it’s really up to us to learn as much as we can integrate and then really see what works for us and understand why it works. You know, it’s so I very much agree everything must be questioned and tested, but I’m there’s also a counter. I don’t know if you’ve come across this too, but I’ve trained a lot of naturopathic doctors, and they’re by nature, the mixers, you know, they will give you a so called classical homeopathic remedy, add a few herbs, do a little bit of acupuncture, and send you home with a tincture of Chinese medicine, and maybe they’ll throw in Bowen and then they’ll say, I’ll see you next week. Like that does not to me, does not work. That’s like throwing everything and you, you don’t know what really helped the person.

 

Ben Calder  14:35

Yeah.

 

Manon Bolliger  14:36

And one could say, Who cares if they’re helped? But I would care, because what do you follow up with? How do you and how do you even? I think one of the pleasures, and I don’t know if this is for you and your practice is, is educating the client or patient to get thrilled about their healing process. So if they say, Well, I got five things like, I can’t tell them which one worked. So I feel like, go, go one way, or have a logical understanding of, you know, the impact it could have. And then, of course, open possibilities. But let’s go in a more sort of systematic way of assessing, you know, internal assessing, and, you know, teaching skills that they may realize, Wow, this is definitely I’m on the mend here. Or, you know, this aggravation fits in this way, you know, or whatever the story might be. Yeah, we can, you sort of expand on that. But also with Qigong, I feel like there’s a whole part there that needs to be further shared.

 

Ben Calder  15:55

Yeah. I mean, I’m very much in agreement with you in the fact that that to have a patient that’s coming along, and they want to make a commitment into their process. They want to understand what it is that’s going on with their bodies, with their situation. And for me, that begins with the case history form that I send out ahead of time. And you know, it’s got all sorts of questions in there about all sorts of things. And for so many years, clients have said to me, well, that really got me thinking about how I got to where I am. And for me, that’s a really key moment. I want people to have a sense that this hasn’t happened by accident. This isn’t a mistake. It’s not their body just doing a thing that they are the victim of. But actually we can watch a causal chain, and if we can understand that causal chain, then we can start to unravel it and work out, really what the priorities are. And you know, I perhaps made my approach sound a little bit chaotic earlier, because I was thinking as you were talking about that naturopathic mixing that, yeah, that sounds very similar to the Kinesiology process that I use in a way, but it’s not a piece of guesswork. It’s the body saying, This is what I need to create the shift. Now we’ve done that bit. This is the next layer. And, you know, it often wouldn’t be a million things in one session, you know, it might be two or three things that that are then looking for me. They would have a logic, okay, if we’ve got a mind component, do we need to do anything with the mind? If we’ve got a body and behavior component, do we need to do something with that? And that might have included diet and nutrition. You know, you can somebody telling you that they’re, you know, eating stuff that you know isn’t going to suit them, or they’re eating, you know, unhelpful times of the day, or the way that they you know that there’s always keys in those case histories that make me think, okay, we need to do these bits. But there’s also a pathway within that that is, for me, not about overwhelming the client either. That, like you say, if we just chuck everything in one go to see what sticks, we don’t really know what’s helping. And I find if you try and do too much in any one space, they don’t have time to process it. They don’t have time to really understand what’s taking place. They can’t see that. So, so these days, my work is is a lot gentler. It’s almost like I’m doing a lot less, but what we do is a lot deeper and a lot more profound. So they will have stuff to go away and commit to, because, you know, and I say to people at the very beginning and I joke with them, you know, like if, through kinesiology, we define that you need to do headstands in a bucket of manure for two weeks to solve the problem. That’s what you need to do, and I expect you to do it, and I don’t expect you to feel well until you’ve done it, but because your nervous system is going to govern and direct what we’re going to do, no one’s ever had to do that. But I need you to understand that what comes up is what we need to do. And you know, you taking part in that process is essential. And sometimes I’ll even check in, it’s kind of like, you know what? Once I’ve listened to it’s kind of like, Okay, so here are some of the issues that are going on for you. Are you willing to stop doing some of those things? Are you willing to make those changes.

 

Commercial Break  19:21

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Ben Calder  20:31

Because we can’t keep on doing the same stuff and expect change. So there’s got to be that buy in from the client right at the very beginning, so that they’re like, Yeah, I want to do this great now. Let’s educate you as to why some of these patterns occur and the things that you can take responsibility for, because you’re going to spend an hour with me, but then you’re going to go away for you know, sometimes I might not see clients for 2,3,4,5,6 weeks between sessions, depending on on what process we’re going with, and you need to take responsibility for what you’re doing. And you know, half of the next session is then review. How have you been doing? What did you manage to do? What did you get stuck with? You know, what happened when you encountered this? So that we can really start for them to see how they’re really steering the ship and if it’s going to run aground, you know, they’ve got to practice getting better at changing course.

 

Manon Bolliger  21:27

So can you do like a mini or one of your surprising you know, or a client that stands to mind, or in your mind, um, sort of, what would happen in the session, for example, you know what I’m saying? Like, just to give an idea, and you can tie into all of the things that you you would use. But what would, what would a person expect kind of?

 

Ben Calder  21:59

Yeah, sure. So, so, as I say, case history form in advance, so that you get to have a period of time before you come and see me to think about what it is that you’re really trying to do and and the parts that have contributed into that. And you know, it was great. I had a new client in clinic today, and they, they, they reflected on how useful that had been because they hadn’t realized all the things that had added up to where they were, you know. So it’s kind of like, Great, okay, so and, and as I was speaking with them today, you know, they’d come very much for a physical issue, you know, pain in the hip, following full hip replacement and all sorts of compensation patterns that have been around that, because they told me that they’d actually put off having the surgery for four years because they didn’t want to go through it. So they’d been building all these compensation patterns in the body throughout all of that. And, and I could also see from from their body, the they had not been eating well and, and so we spoke a little bit about their diet and, and kind of talked about some of their patterns, which involves some comfort eating. And so then we started talking about, well, why do you comfort eat? What is it that’s missing for you? So, so we kind of, for me, I use those integral quadrants that mind, body, relationships, environment. I use that as a bit of a steering circle, and I’ll tap into those. And from that, you know, again, she’s there for the physical stuff. So in my mind, I’m like, Okay, let’s start by doing some some Bowen. Let’s do some assessment within Bowen. And I’m a big fan of Graham Pennington’s importance of symmetry and targeting parameters function work. So, so that gave me a lead in. We talked a little bit about that. I did some assessment with her. We talked about how this hip was clearly creating a problem within the spine, and how, you know, she said, Oh, yeah, I do. I get these problems in my neck as well, and it’s all on the same sign. It’s like, okay, so let’s work with some of that and see what happens. So we did some Bowen within that. And you know, she comes off the couch and she’s feeling looser, moving easier, feeling softer, right? Okay, so now what you want to do is you want to a watch your movement over the next couple of days. You know, notice what are your habits where you start using these compensation patterns, because she would lean into this bad hip, you know, and kind of put weight down into it. It’s like you’re going to watch out for those. And I want you to start watching your diet. So what are the things, you know? Because I have a very simple three word suggestion that I make to all clients about their diet, and that’s, eat real food. So, you know, because, again, we know that kind of ultra processed foods are really taking over with so many people and convenience. And so I was like, Okay, I just want you to watch what what you’re eating. Don’t be too serious about making any changes, just notice and where you can let’s eat more real food. We’ll do a review. I’m going to see her again in a couple of weeks, and we’ll see how you doing. So for me, there’s always a lot of reflection with the client about what do they understand about what’s going on, and can they understand how, if we changed in a particular direction, that that would be helpful, and so it’ll always tend to be. And again, this is, for me, a Kinesiology thing that we’re going to move through a series of ideas. You know, in kinesiology, for me, it’s a flow diagram. Do I want this? Yes or no, you know. And then we’re moving through this to a point of information or a point of action. So we’ve had points of information, we’ve had points of action. Now we’re going to let that process and see what happens, and then, like any good scientific theory, this is the idea we had. We’re now conducting the experiment. We’re going to review the results and see what we need to refine and tweak and alter to take it to the next level. So these days, I see it as a much, a much less interested in trying to just, you know, I like to get it right as quickly as possible. But at the same time, I know that we’re in a process. I’ve been in my own healing journey for over 20 years. I know that it’s not something we’re just going to hit a reset button. It’s all done, no problem. It’s a process. So so now I guess I’m trying to encourage people to think about it like they’re in a process, and that there’s going to be elements to it, and we’re going to go up and down and see where it gets to.

 

Manon Bolliger  26:44

Yeah, no, I relate to that very much. Yeah. I think, um, I think that the ability to allow for the dialog is so key to, you know that part of the relationship to the relationship one develops with oneself, if we’re not at all trained or have never even thought about it, you know, and our relationship to food or to whatever it is, it’s like we just don’t tend, as a culture, to take the time to to look at those things, you know, like, like, person mentioning the form, when that was insightful. Like, wow, you know, you think about it like, you know, there should always be some sort of exploration, yeah, in healing and, and it really isn’t commonplace. At least that’s what it seems like, you know, in most people’s practices, and I don’t mean just conventional, I mean in general, right?

 

Ben Calder  27:49

Yeah, I would agree. And you know, I studied NLP over well, it was nearly 25 years ago now that I first started looking at NLP and that importance of how we frame language and how that creates a response. And you know, in Qigong, one of the phrases that I use is that the body is going to wear the shape that the mind creates so and that we become the thing we practice the most. So if I want to be well aligned and healthy, I need to think about all the dimensions that that exists in, and think about how I’m constructing that reality. So you know, and I’m very careful with things like false positivism or denial of where problems are, but I do like to be constructive about things so that we can acknowledge there is a problem. So what are we going to do about it? What are the things we can change, and for that to again, be a grounded thing, you know, there’s a beautiful old saying that says there’s only two types of problems. There’s problems you can do something about, and there’s problems you can’t do anything about. So if it’s a problem you can do something about, don’t worry, because you can do something about it. And if it’s a problem you can’t do anything about, don’t worry because you can’t do anything about it. So just being able to kind of give people a sense that, yeah, there, they might be in a state, yes, they might be struggling, but that’s okay. There’s stuff that can be done, and all we’ve got to do is look at it pragmatically, and step by step, start to move in the direction, because all they are is a ship that’s off course. All we’ve got to do is start turning everything back in the direction that’s going to work.

 

Manon Bolliger  29:28

Yeah, I agree. I mean, there’s also lots of misconceptions that people come in with that they’ve been told that this can’t be changed, or this can’t be right. So there is that, I would say there’s a third dimension to that, which is quite a big one too, because it’s amazing what people actually have come to believe about, you know, our dear little bodies.

 

Ben Calder  29:58

Yeah, and physicians. Especially one of my, one of my, the things that I pick up on most with clients because, you know, again, a lot of my clientele are over 50 years old. You know, I see quite a number of people in their 60s and 70s. And almost the number one thing that they will tell me is that the doctor has told them that they can expect it because of their age. And at that point, I want to slap that doctor and just say, No, that’s not true. And an old colleague of mine who was an Alexander teacher, he gave me a beautiful phrase many years ago. He said, There are no real diseases of old age. There are only diseases of extended bad habit. So all we’ve got to do is correct the habit and that we’ll see a change in that. And I use that as a maxim with people now, so it lets them know actually it’s behavioral rather, you know, because, again, from the epigenetic point of view, we kind of talk about it like genetics might load the gun, but it’s your lifestyle and your behavior that pull the trigger. So if you, if you realize that, then that also means you can take your finger off the trigger and you can learn to do things different.

 

Manon Bolliger  31:11

So let’s talk a little bit more about Qigong and how you use it, because we have, we have a little bit more time, but not a lot, and I really want to, yeah, to have a deeper understanding of that.

 

Ben Calder  31:24

Sure, I think, you know, as I said, I started Qigong at quite an early age as a self regulatory system, not really realizing just how important and how core it would be to my life at that point. And I, you know, just for people to understand a little bit. You know, a lot of people have heard of things like Tai Chi. Tai Chi is a branch of Qigong, technically So, and there are over three and a half 1000 forms of Qigong around the planet. And if you really looked at them from an external point of view, they’re all about flapping your arms around and breathing. So it’s a mindful movement that’s done in coordination with your breath, and it’s done deliberately slowly, so that we can really pay attention to the relationship that we’re having with our body in there. So we’re really allowing ourselves to be present with what’s taking place, so we can become infinitely aware of where we’re holding tension, where we’re restricting movement, what response the body gives in there. And one of the things that I think I found challenging over the years is, you know, it’s not always easy to find a really good practitioner to work on me. I’ve found, you know, I’ve done a lot of training, I know a lot of things, and to find people that are really good is not always easy. And to compensate for that, I work on myself, and part of that is actually doing the Qigong, because I can use it to assess and correct. I can use my breath, I can use my awareness. I can help the Chi to open into places so it gives me a really deep insight into myself. And the more I practice it, the more at home I am, in my body, the more I feel comfortable with who I am, because there’s less parts of me that I’m dissociated from. So I’m able to use it as this developmental tool. And if you practice for long enough. I mean, I’ve been going for 34 years on it now, the spiritual dimension that can open up for you there in a very healthy sense of realizing that interconnectedness with the world around you and that you are literally an alchemist, simply by the act of breath you’re taking in alchemical substances that you’re going to transform into energy within yourself. And you know, it really gives me a deep wonder and joy about the world, and I never fail to feel better for having done a practice and just allowed any of the residual tensions that I might have picked up in the day, and we often don’t realize how seeing or hearing or engaging in any one activity might create a micro tension somewhere within the body. And if you know it’s like if you don’t empty the bins, they overflow and smell, you know. So for me, Qigong is this regulatory reset, realign, just helping my body to be in as best a physical state as I can create for it.

 

Manon Bolliger  34:29

So what do you recommend to people like per day, like a morning routine or before bed routine? Do you have any…

 

Ben Calder  34:40

Yep, yep, yep, all of that. Well, I mean, put it this way, if I didn’t have to work, I would do a lot of Qigong. And you could do Qigong all day long and feel fabulous. So and again, I’m sure you experience it in clinic yourself. You get people that often feel that they don’t have time for exercise. So one of my questions back is, how long does it take to exercise? And I’ll, you know, and people often give you that, you know, half an hour an hour I need to go to the gym. Or any, you know, there’s all these kind of conditions. So, you know, let’s say somebody does a bit of yoga. For instance, I’ll say, right stand up and show me your favorite yoga posture. And I’ll say right now, take a take a breath. Take another breath, take a third breath. Great. You just did yoga for today, and that took less than a minute. So I talk, especially in the teaching of Qigong that I do, I talk a lot about kettle boiling activities, and these are the things that you can do while the kettle’s boiling. Because I can do two and a half minutes of a simple Qigong movement, and I might be able to do that 5,6,7 times a day, if I’ve got a busy day, you know, I can just pick little pieces. A morning practice is beautiful. An evening practice is beautiful. When you can do a practice, it’s beautiful. So, you know, and I try to be understanding that we live more challenging lives. We we’re not like the sages of old, where, you know, once we’ve made sure there’s enough food for the day, then the rest of the day is ours. You know, it just doesn’t seem to run that way anymore. So it’s kind of like you take your small sips when you can, and that builds up to a lot more than you realize, and it’s a slow burn. You know, give yourself a decade to master a level of Qigong, and it’s not a quick fix, and you may not even feel it in the first 2,3,4 sessions. You know, the Chinese would traditionally say 100 days of practice to start feeling your chi and then the rest of your life to master it. So you know, and I find that you know, 34 years and it’s still deepening for me.

 

Manon Bolliger  36:50

Well, I almost feel like this would be a perfect moment to stop, because I feel like that’s the lesson that as practitioners do, who often say we don’t have time because, to be true.

 

Ben Calder  37:04

Yeah, sure. But you have to make it. You have to look at what your time thieves are. Where are you? Where are you putting energy into a thing that isn’t actually enriching or supporting your life? And how can you just squeeze back a little bit? So even for myself, I’ll, like, you know, I’ll put the phone down, or I’ll do something. I go right now, I’m going to do a bit of Qigong and and I find that if you commit to doing a minute like everybody, can give themselves a minute a day. And I think you never do that small an amount. It’s always, you know, a minute’s Okay. After a minute, I can stop. That’s the rule. So then I always end up doing three to five minutes minimum, and that might be 15 or 20 minutes. And if it’s really flowing, I might stay there for an hour or two. You know, it’s fine.

 

Manon Bolliger  37:52

Well, I like the idea of the boiling kettle because, you know, or whatever habit also that you already have, you know that you could do something else while waiting for that, you know? So, yeah, I think I’m going to take you up on that. Excellent. I’ve been interested, but not enough to actually decide, okay, you know what? I’m going to start this breath work, though I have started now, so you know, I can see the how it all can work together anyway. So I wanted to thank you for joining me on this and and sharing your your wisdom, and where could people reach you. But I know in practice it, it’s one thing, but just to find out more about you.

 

Ben Calder  38:42

Yeah, sure. Thanks. Manon, so my website, which is Ben Calder, and that’s C, A, l, D, E, R, with Scottish in that background there bencalder.co.uk is where you find my website, and then I’m BenGCalder on Instagram, and Ben Calder Integral Health on LinkedIn and Facebook. And you know, we do live classes that are live streamed as well, so and we also have on our E Learning System on my website, we’ve got a whole online training course with Qigong as well called activate life force, and that’s taught by my teacher, who founded the system that I teach as well, which is Life Force Qigong.

 

Manon Bolliger  39:22

Okay. Thank you.

 

Ben Calder  39:23

Thank you so much. Manon, it was great speaking with you.

Ending

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  * De-Registered, revoked & retired naturopathic physician, after 30 years of practice in healthcare. Now resourceful & resolved to share with you all the tools to take care of your health & vitality!