Of the many benefits that Tai Chi Movements for Wellbeing (TMW) has to offer, I think this is the most profound: these movements offer a route back to closer connection with self. The person I am at the end of the sequence is not the same as the one who started. I am softer, more spacious and spontaneous, with increased aliveness and vitality; I’m more open-hearted and with a kinder, more accepting disposition towards myself and others; I have greater capacity to hold myself steady when life hits me with a challenge.
Some days I can really arrive at this place in myself and inhabit it for a while, and this is wonderful. There are, of course, the days when the journey is longer; the pathway is blocked, the ground is boggy, the hills feel steeper, the wind howls and the rain lashes. I don’t always make it all the way. Some days it’s a struggle to even take the first step. But there is always a movement; TMW always brings me closer to the one I want to be. And this is part of it, part of the gift of TMW is the acceptance that being human can be hard, that often we can’t be our best self; that some days the most we can hope for is to move slightly closer to this self and that this is enough.