Qigong and Qigong Coaching

I’ve been a student and practitioner of qigong, specifically Wisdom Healing Qigong and Zhineng Qigong, since 2011. I have studied with Mingtong Gu of The Chi Center, Ling Ming and Lu Zhendao of Dao Qi World, and Wei Qifeng of The World Consciousness Community. During my tenure at The Chi Center, I became a certified qigong teacher and the Director of Training and Education, helping to create and develop many online and in-person programs and retreats. Here is an article I wrote in 2021, published in Qi: The Journal of Traditional Eastern Health & Fitness, about qigong and the healing journey: “Becoming the Cause of Healing.” 

With my history as a coach, I also saw how coaching and qigong could dovetail nicely, and how coaching could further the aims that many people bring to qigong. These include healing and awakening and sometimes involve major lifestyle changes and shifts in worldview. It can be very valuable to have support and guidance through these opening and healing processes. I help individuals and groups deepen their qigong practices and their comprehension of qigong cosmology as well as integrate the teachings of qigong into their daily lives. I also help them transform the energetic blockages that may get in the way of their flourishing.

One of my strengths is to translate what sometimes seem like hard-to-grasp concepts into accessible, doable, embodied experience that builds confidence and trust in oneself and the unfolding process of life. We take the theory off the page and into our bodies and everyday reality. With compassion. And laughter.

Safety Leading to Profound Change

Susan’s coaching has been life-changing and life-affirming for me. Susan guides me to a feeling of total safety from which I have been able to unravel past trauma and grief in a way that I have never been able to do before this time. Her intuitive knowing has helped guide me to places I didn’t even know I was holding onto stories and emotions. Her guidance is leading me more and more into trusting myself and my own abilities for healing. I find clarity when held in her field of safety to recognize and understand my own patterns and how to work with them. I have profound gratitude for Susan.

Robin Boal, Marine Biologist and Plant Pathologist, Hiker, Paddler, Gardener
Washington, USA

Energy and Healing

I have been coaching with Susan for 3 years now.  She was the lead teacher and coach at the Chi Center in New Mexico at that time.

Her innate understanding of human nature, how our minds work, and how working with our energy systems creates healing has been vital in helping me move forward from a really difficult anxious state which was affecting my whole life.  She is always wise and quietly compassionate.  Holding a safe space for me to understand exactly what is going on within me!  A true gift.

Thank you, Susan, for all your care and for the work you put into our group coaching sessions to make sure that we all experience new understandings and can find humor too in the twists and turns of life!

Sheila Hood, Mother, Model
Cheshire, United Kingdom

Trauma Resolution

Thanks to my Wisdom Healing Qigong practice, a few months ago I found the courage to have a coaching session with Susan to finally deal with a traumatic experience I’d had many years ago and which had haunted me ever since. Even though I was very anxious at the beginning of the session and afraid of having to cope with feelings of panic that talking about the trauma might provoke, I soon began to relax because of Susan’s very gentle and insightful way of interacting, and I was amazed by how easily she seemed able to get to the core of my fear without my having to relive the details of the whole thing. The session ended with my profoundly beautiful and unexpected connection with “other” which I have never had before, and which left me with deep feelings of peace and gratitude. Since that session several months ago, the sense of peace and gratitude (to “other”, to Susan, and to the process) has stayed with me. The trauma has somehow transformed to being, now, just a sad experience in my past which no longer haunts me.

Rosanne G.,
Melbourne, Australia

Integrating Qigong with Daily Life

I began my Qigong journey three years ago and have progressed throughout this period with online teaching and practice sessions supplied by the Chi Center. This has given me a good foundation.

I have continued coaching with Susan both individually and in a group setting. These meetings have most certainly taken my and our practice to another level. The one-to-one sessions have been extremely supportive, giving me structure and immense reassurance. As day-to-day issues arise, it has been wonderful to have Susan’s wisdom and support to guide me through the challenges that life presents. She is a constant reminder to use the tools we have learned and to bring these into our daily lives. I cannot thank her enough.

Suki Lace, Managing Director of Care Home Group
Lancashire, England

Aligning With My Highest Self

I’ve worked with Susan for several years, both individually and in a group setting. At the same time, I’ve been in the midst of a significant healing journey, even needing several months of 24/7 care last year. I now live on my own with very little assistance, but look back at my most intense times of need with fascination. 

I realize my caregivers, the best of them, were striving to be extensions of me, from the particular way I wanted my face dried after a shower, to caring for the most basic and private physical needs.

I’ve come to see Susan’s coaching in a similar light. It feels like she serves as an extension of my soul, higher self, primal self, my true essence, often in ways that elude me or are partially hidden just waiting to be rediscovered. She is masterful at listening to the yearnings of my highest, best, most aligned self (and aspirations), and then deftly steering me in the right direction – often with a question – with lightness or humor, serious calm or tenderness – whatever the moment calls for.

At the close of our sessions together, I always feel renewed and more whole. More me. I am so very grateful.

Eva Cahill, Creative
Washington, USA

Humor and Insight

Susan brings presence, insight, humor and accountability to whatever arises in the self-discovery process. As a witness and guide, she offers a lovingly neutral yet curious and steadfast gaze, inviting me (as I’m able) to hold myself with the same unconditional regard. Throughout these often uncomfortable and humorous excavations, Susan reminds me that I am embodied and can stay connected and curious rather than unintentionally bypassing the powerful truths residing within. Our work has deepened my sense of rootedness, increased my capacity to manifest in the world and enhanced my ability to experience energy. I am deeply grateful to Susan for our time together.

Elizabeth Van Valkenburgh, Qigong Practitioner, Student of Life
Missouri, USA