Move Heal Awaken Newsletter Gabriel Shaw “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”- Dr. Wayne Dyer Hello friends, Most caring achievers treat chronic pain like a mechanical failure. As a broken part that just needs to be fixed. But when mindset shifts and standard physical therapies hit a plateau, the root cause is rarely structural. It is an internal disconnect. Your body is generating pain to send a message that your mind is actively trying to ignore. Our...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Move Heal Awaken Newsletter Gabriel Shaw "The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order." — Whitehead Hello friends, I spent years practicing Tai Chi in traditional spaces where secrecy was a badge of honor. Master lineages guarded their methods cautiously, defending their positions from the outside world. It felt sacred, but it also felt isolated. Tai Chi has spent hundreds of years cultivating deep wisdom on nervous system regulation, somatic...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Healing Pages Newsletter Gabriel Shaw “Everything we let go of has claw marks in it.” - Anne Lamott I’ve spent years learning from Tai Chi master and lineage holder, Sifu Michael Paler. He used to always refer to Tai Chi as “the art of letting go”. This was such a major focus that I still have an old t-shirt from his school with that phrase emboldened on the back. Then just this week, a friend shared this video from another Tai Chi instructor about the importance of letting go. While this...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Move Heal Awaken Newsletter Gabriel Shaw “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” — Lao Tzu Hello friends, Almost everyone who comes to my Tai Chi classes has heard about the health benefits. But it’s rare for anyone, even the average instructor, to point to specifics. General claims of health end up sounding either “woo-woo”, unsubstantiated or attributable to any form of exercise. To the contrary, a growing body of clinic research on Tai Chi represents a unique convergence...
about 2 months ago • 6 min read
Move Heal Awaken Newsletter Gabriel Shaw “Use the mind to move the energy... Use the energy to move the body,” — Yang Chengfu Hello friends, We live in a world of dualities and separations. The disconnection between mind and body, self and other, ancient and modern, art and science, etc. seems less like a perspective, and more the way it is. This foundation is reaffirmed by the very institutions whose results also challenge it. Most meditators focus on the mind. Physiology and psychology are...
2 months ago • 5 min read
Move Heal Awaken Newsletter Gabriel Shaw “The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.” — Rumi Hello friends, While there is growing awareness of the effect of trauma on our health, I believe this explanation leaves out an equally important factor: our cultural stories. The “stories” I’m referring to here are the baggage that most of us grow up so entrenched in that we may hardly notice them anymore. These burdens often come from our parents, teachers and authority figures....
3 months ago • 3 min read
Move Heal Awaken Newsletter Gabriel Shaw "The Body Never Lies."- Martha Graham Hello Friends, What we consider “normal” is actually toxic. While our health system has made many important advancements, the statistical rise in metabolic, psychological and pain disorders indicates a systemic failure of our current medical model to promote genuine well-being. As of 2023, 76.4% of adults in the U.S. reported living with one or more chronic conditions. This number has risen steadily over the past...
3 months ago • 4 min read
Move Heal Awaken Newsletter Gabriel Shaw “The way you breathe is the way you live.” - Jeffrey Sorenson, BreathARMY Hello Friends, After completing a breathwork course in the fall, I challenged myself (and fellow participants) to practice some form of breathwork every day for 100 days straight. The rules were simple: miss a day, start over from zero. Even though I’ve practiced different types of breathing for decades in qigong, yoga, meditation, exercise therapy and somatic healing, this time...
4 months ago • 3 min read
Move Heal Awaken Newsletter Gabriel Shaw “Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace.” - Reinhold Niebuhr (From the Serenity Prayer) Hello Friends, There is no such thing as an easy life. Even if we have certain privileges, we all face challenges and struggles. Even if I could, I wouldn’t wish an easy life upon my worst enemy. Because I know in my heart that hardships are the pathway to peace. Accepting that fact creates the...
4 months ago • 2 min read