Sandra Tjoa on Creative on Purpose Live!

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Yep.

Like that. We're here. Welcome to Creative on Purpose Live, a show about defining, developing, and delivering the difference only you can make in the second half of life so you can live your legacy. I'm your host, Scott Perry, author of The Art of Encore Living and Encore Coach. You can find more about me at creativeonpurpose.com. It's time to play your game. Visit creativeonpurpose.com to get started now. Let's meet today's guest. Sandra, tell our viewers who you are, what you're up to these days, and where can they go to learn more about you and the difference you're making.

Hi Scott, thanks for having me today. Uh, I'm Sandra and I help people tap into their own healing potentials so that they can make their way through challenges, manage stress, manage pain, and do it in a way that allows them to be their true selves. Who they're really meant to be. I've been doing this for almost 20 years through the essence and the principles of the ancient practices of qigong and tai chi, which are pillars of health in traditional Chinese medicine. Up until 2 years ago, I had only taught in-person students in the studio setting, did 2 years of online teaching, which was a very bizarre experience for me. And now we actually offer hybrid classes, so we have students online sprinkled around the world, and we have students live in the studio with me at the same time. So that's been pretty exciting, very surreal and exciting. Uh, we offer seasonal classes of regular weekly classes in both Tai Chi and Qi Gong. And I offer also some specialty training programs for people who want to take the work a little bit deeper, or they feel that they need some individual support or more support in a small group setting. So I can be found on— I have a website, chi-tai-chi.ca. I'm also on YouTube, Facebook, uh, Instagram, and so I can be found there at either chi-tai-chi.ca or just Chi Tai Chi.

Fantastic. So, um, Sandra and I are, are old friends in digital years. Uh, we've worked together in the past, and I love the work and the difference that you're making. I'm always, uh, I know a little bit of your backstory, but I'm always interested in sharing that with our viewers because, you know, most of us probably did not wake up at age 9 one day and say, you know what, I want to be whatever you're currently doing. My guess is that that might be the case, but maybe I'm wrong. Give us a little sense of how did Sandra become to be in this movement health space.

So I went to university, studied human biology, human kinetics, worked as a respiratory therapist in the hospital setting for a few years. And something inside me always did have a curiosity about, about wanting to learn Tai Chi. But when I was in university and had a little bit more of that oomph to want to look, search it out, there was only an Aikido club at the university that I went to. And so I did dabble in that, but it wasn't what I was looking for. And then my respiratory therapy work took me to Saudi Arabia where I met my husband, and his job took us to all different countries in Asia. And so we actually lived in China, which is like where you go for Tai Chi, but nothing was working out. I wanted to find someone who could, uh, who I could learn the essence and the foundation with, not just monkey see, monkey do in the park. And you see groups literally at 4 or 5 in the morning, like people talk about it or you see it, you know, on TV or in movies and they are, they're all out there at 5 in the morning. I wasn't brave enough to approach anyone to follow, see if I could follow along. And I also wanted to have someone who could really explain explain to me the essence and the art of the practice. And it wasn't until our kids were in kindergarten, and I was living in Singapore at the time, um, and my mornings were free, and boom, I happened to see a little ad in a magazine of a, of a master who was offering classes. And so I called him. Now, at the time when I called him, I was actually in extremely poor health. I had experienced a tragedy, was party to it, and it was a major event that I had blamed myself for. And so by the time I met this master, I had been going into my third year of depression, not eating, not sleeping. And you might not be able to see this on the screen, but I'm a very slight person and I was I was so down on weight, I was just skin and bone, which someone my size, it doesn't wear well at all. No energy. And so when I came across this master, he had trained in China, Malaysia, and Hong Kong with different masters, and he spoke English perfectly. He actually went to university that was like down the road from where my grandmother lived. So it was really a case of when the student is ready, the teacher comes, and that's how it started. Um, 2 or 3 weeks when I started in with him, I could feel a difference right away. Uh, but I practiced faithfully every night, everything that we did. Um, and in 2 or 3 weeks, my energy changed. Everyone noticed a difference in how I was carrying myself, my mood, my energy, the way I was moving through my day, and I stuck with it. Now, this Master asked me at some point if I would teach, and that was not on my radar at all. The training I was doing was purely for my own health. It was to get me back on track, to get me closer to being the person who I am and meant to be. And I was loving it. And he told me that if I didn't teach, that my personal practice would fade away. And because I had come into this whole brand new scope of health, that there was no way I was going to let that go. And so I started teaching.

That's amazing. I want to stick a pin in a couple of things that you just were sharing, uh, but before we go any further into that, um, For viewers that are not familiar with Qigong or, or Tai Chi, give us just a little thumbnail sketch of, um, where, you know, a little, little backstory and a little, uh, what's the distinction between those two practices?

So Tai Chi and Qigong, as I mentioned, are a pillar of health in traditional Chinese medicine, which is a system that is based on chi, our life force energy. And in our bodies, we have energy channels referred to as meridians that are energy pathways that run all through our body. And traditional Chinese medicine, the approach there is to remove any energy blocks in the body so that we can open up to flow through those meridians and channels and establish balance and harmony in those inner energies in our bodies. Tai Chi and Qi Gong. Qi Gong is they can trace back to about 4,500, 5,000 years old. And it's like the umbrella of a lot of energy practices. And under those practices, there's 3,000, 4,000 different forms that come through. And so in, say, yoga or Pilates or, you know, Feldenkrais or all kinds of different energetic practices, you can see some threads of similarities because they all come from, you know, this big qigong umbrella. Qi refers— is— means our life force energy. Gong means skill or work. And so when we move through qigong, we are developing or obtaining the skills to move our energy through our body. In physical practice, qigong is more stationary We either stand in a narrow stance or a wider stance and will repeat a certain posture position and slow down the breath with that posture so that we eventually come to a place of flow, a moving meditation of sorts. Tai Chi, we can only trace back to about 750, maybe 800 years, and it is actually a form of qigong. And so what Tai Chi does is it takes Qigong principles and puts it more in a martial moving form, uh, considered— Tai Chi is often considered a martial art. Tai Chi translates to supreme, ultimate— excuse me— and so, uh, in that practice, through allowing grounding and sourcing energy and then aligning through the body so that we can use the power source, energy, and strength from the ground, then we actually— in resourcing all of that from the earth, we can actually translate that through the body. And so Tai Chi is very different than Qigong in that we move through a form, which is a sequence of movements. So we flow from one position into another, into another, rather than repeating like Qigong does. And we also face different orientations as we move through the form. So we address the different directions around the world and the four corners of the earth.

Really, really fascinating. We have— we're, we're very lucky here at my little town in rural southwestern Virginia to have a Chinese medicine clinic that also offers qigong classes. So I have some familiarity with it, but it's, it's really fascinating to hear a little bit about the distinction between those two. One of the things that you said really leapt out to me because it's something that I write about in my current book and work through with some of my clients, which is you came to what you're doing now through a moment of crisis. And, you know, very, very often when I'm working with people that are contemplating their second half of life journey, what they, what they want to do with the time that they have left, it is coming at a time of either epiphany Uh, like, what the hell have I been doing with my life up to this point? Or crisis. Uh, and the thing about crisis is that, uh, you know, it's, it's frequent, frequently a driver, but you know, you basically have two choices in a moment of crisis. You can, you're broken. Um, and the choice is do you remain broken or, or are you going to be broken open to a new way of being? And it sounds like, I'm just fascinated by your story and the fact that the teacher showed up at just the right time in your life when you were I guess open to, but that's, I guess that's my question really is having experienced something very similar, although the modality and teacher were very different from yours. What, as you look back on that experience, like, what do you think are the, what enabled you to leverage that moment as a moment to, um, step into possibility as opposed to remain stuck in, in your own way and, and continuing the down— downward cycle?

Hmm, I think, I think for anyone who experiences a prolonged period of time in a certain state that is heavy, that is draining. Um, and like you, Scott Perry, you come across people who are kind of at that time in life where that big question comes, like, you know, what have I done to this point? What is the value of that, um, that I've moved through to this point in my life? And what do I do with it now? Or what do I do now if they decide that they want to go into a different direction? But I think everyone goes through different experiences, and when we experience these different phases, because of those experiences, we come to a point where we've had enough, where we know it's time for change. And that's one of the things that I love about this work is because, you know, sometimes people feel that sort of quote-unquote stuck feeling Or sometimes they're just cruising in life. Everything's fine, but there's no joy, there's no excitement. They feel like, yeah, I'm content and I have a good life, but it's dull and it's flat. And, and I think we come to a point where we realize that's, that's not what we want anymore, you know, through inspiration or an aha or a wake up. When you meet someone, you just realize know, and there's something more to life. There's something more to me. There's something more that I have to offer. And I think that gets you going. You just decide there's something more.

I really, I really appreciate you leaning into that question. I participate in a mentorship program where I recently got to watch an interview with Andre Norman. And for anyone that doesn't know his story, he is someone that comes from a background of, you know, being a drug addict, being a drug peddler, being incarcerated for having, I think, multiple life sentences bestowed upon him, and, and turned his life completely around, got out of prison, and now is just making a humongous difference in the world, um, helping people, um, avoid the kind of fate that, that he opened himself up to. One of the things that he said that's really fascinating to me is that we often look at these moments when we hit rock bottom And he, he says there is no bottom. Like you can always go further down. And I love what you said because what you said was you made a decision. And that's the, the, the exquisite opportunity to anybody that is in that feeling of stuckness or maybe in that, um, kind of downward spiral where, you know, it's like, oh, I'll just wait until I hit bottom and then, um, I, I'll be motivated to do something. It's actually the bottom is whenever you decide that's as far as I go. And that it's— I'm going to choose a different path. And so I just— and I also really love how you, you don't have to have a major crisis in your life. You can just recognize that your life doesn't really have a lot of joy, or you don't feel a great sense of fulfillment, or you're just looking ahead at the time you have left and wondering, like, what significance is my life going to have? What I loved about your backstory is that your teacher recognized that you needed to be a teacher, something that you did not see for yourself. And to me, what I see in that is that, you know, I think, I think we are, we are leaning into our gifts, practicing and honing them most when we are sharing them with others. And that's the thing that kind of strikes me about you know, just knowing what I know about you and your work is that you are a person that just appears to get really lit up and be like totally stepping into your presence and power when you are doing your work and sharing, sharing that with, with other people. So I'd love to just hear your reflections on, you know, having come to teaching, um, somewhat reluctantly, or maybe with having to get through a little bit of resistance. What was on the other side of that? For you when you really decided to own that role?

Uh, well, stepping into it was very gradual. Uh, we were living in Japan at the time, and it literally started in a little park in, in a neighborhood close to where children's school was. And I taught— started with two parents in this park who knew that I wanted to start teaching, and so they said they were willing to you know, do this. So we'd walk to the park after dropping off the kids and we'd move. Um, so that's how it started. Um, and I have to say, when, when you know that it's something that you want to do and it really clicks with you, um, like the work you're doing, Scott, or, you know, anything that anyone comes into and they think, wow, I really enjoy this. And that's what it is when I'm teaching. It's— you step into this zone. I don't even think about it. Oftentimes I can't even remember how we moved through the class because I'm in a different place, in a different space when I'm teaching. Um, and the other side of that, was there resistance? There's, there's resistance sometimes. Um, you're thinking you're thinking about being the best teacher that you can for your students, uh, and I'm always open, like you always mentioned, talking about keeping those open loops. I learn just as much from my students as I do, you know, from my teachers, and I, I probably learn more from my students than they feel like Well, I don't know about that, but I mean, they learn a lot from me, but it goes two ways. I learn so much from them, and maybe that's what I'm open to, is the learning that I get from them, um, because it, it helps me keep forward. It helps me be inspired to keep learning. It also keeps me in a place where I want to be able to provide them with what they need at that time. And maybe that's what's key when you come into a place where you do want to help people, you do want to make a difference. And, uh, you know, we all have a reason why we've come into this life. There's a, there's a purpose to us being here. And when you feel into that Knowing that, then you, you want to be the best that you can be for the people that, that you're meant to help.

Yeah, I really love that. It reminds me of my time as a musician and owning a guitar studio. I was very fortunate that I, you know, made a living playing music, which I love doing, and I had the opportunity to meet almost all of my heroes and perform with many of them on stage. But I never had as much joy in my career as I did when I was with my students in my studio. And, and teaching to me was just something that was just, uh, I— and something I actually resisted. I did not— like, I, I first said I'm never going to be a guitar teacher, um, and then did it almost out of desperation, and then discovered like, oh, this is actually what I'm supposed to be doing. Um, and it's so— it's just— and part of your story, and I think it's also part of mine, is You know, what I heard you say is that it was a gradual thing, so you kind of micro-stepped your way in. So it was almost like making a series of small bets so that you weren't kind of risking everything on, you know, one, one outcome. It was, I'm gonna try this. Oh, that worked. I'm gonna try this. That worked. I'm gonna— and so I just, uh, just a real, uh, kind of, um, example for other people that, that are wanting to dial in the difference only they can make and step into possibility developing and delivering that. It's much better to go one small step at a time.

And I have a question for you, Scott Perry.

Oh, sure.

But didn't each of those micro steps feel huge? Like, I'm thinking through, like, moving from that little park to— someone told me about a tiny studio in another neighborhood, and that felt like such a huge step. But Yeah, as we're making these little micro steps, they kind of, they feel really big. Yeah.

Well, I think that's, I think that's very true. And I think it's also one of the things that I share with my clients when they express like this, you said this was a small step, but it feels like a huge thing is the fact that, that you feel that way is an indication of your care and consideration for what you do. Like, if it's not to make it so small that it doesn't feel like a step at all, it's just in some ways small steps provide more stakes. There's more at stake and there's more jeopardy, to use kind of a literary reference, than if you're swinging for the fences. Because if you swing for the fences and you go for the big, bold, audacious thing every time you're up at bat and you don't get it, you don't expect to get it. So it's really a seductive way of hiding, like, oh, I didn't make it. Well, of course I didn't make it. I was swinging for the fences. Nobody makes it when they swing for the fences. But when you put yourself on the hook to just take the next small step, you're on the hook. There is accountability. There is stakes and jeopardy. It might not work. But the thing about the small steps is that you haven't bet everything. You can't blow yourself up. You can, you can falter. You can make a mistake, make a misstep. You can fail, but it's not catastrophic. It's, oh, and then now it becomes just a learning opportunity. And I think that, you know, just to wrap up, you learn either way. If you, if you make a, a good decision and get a good outcome, then you, you're ready to make the next decision. If you make a good decision and have a bad outcome, you can take a look at, you know, how that went. If you made a bad decision, had a good outcome, maybe that's something to explore. And if you made a bad decision and had a bad outcome, that's the best lesson of all. So yeah, it's, it's a— and one of the things that you said is, you know, you talked about joy. And I mean, just seeing the way that you're lit up right now, like, I say this to my clients all the time when they're taking themselves in this thing, to this journey too seriously. It's like, yeah, I got to make a difference before I die. It's like, yeah, and it's supposed to be fun. Like, if it's not fun, then you have to check your zespirometer. Are you doing the wrong thing? Are you doing the thing wrong? So, um, you know, you, you've shared this. I think just two, two more questions before we need to wrap up. You talked about what your practice does, and it sounded— sounds like it helps you identify and, and work through blocks, energy blocks is kind of the way you put it. And I think that that is ultimately what any good teacher, coach, uh, healer does is they help you identify how you're getting in your own way and how to micro-step your way through. Um, cuz you can't step into possibility without stepping through a few challenges. So I don't know if you have any reflections on just that, how it applies to your journey or your work.

Yeah, well, all of us have experiences, um, and, uh, the latest program that I've been offering has to do with prolonged stress energy in the body from trauma. And if you know of Gabor Mate, who I absolutely adore, his tagline is that trauma is not what happens to you but what happens inside of you because of different things that happen. So we all have stuff, we all have you know, these stuck energy blocks from different experiences, different feelings, different emotions that weren't resolved at different times in our life. And this type of work, the great thing that I love about it is we don't have to bring in story because we're literally just working with the energy. You know, we don't have to know what the backstory is. If we know that you're feeling fear, we know that you're feeling anger, and you felt it at different times in your life, then that's the energy that we work with. And we bring in the, the qigong, the moves, the breaths that deal with that energy so that we can remove and lift those energy blocks. And then once those blocks clear, then we have nice open flow through those energy meridians in the body. And, you know, when people have issues or problems, whether they be physical or, you know, they have a lot of weight in mental and emotional stuff that's happened to them We'll go to, you know, a chiropractor, we'll go work out at the gym, we'll go to a doctor and get medication for the physical things that we're feeling, the aches, the pains. Or, you know, someone might decide to go to therapy or counseling or different modalities to heal the mental, the emotional bodies. But a lot of the time what doesn't come into consideration is the energy body. And we do all have an energy body, as well as a physical body, a mental-emotional body, and a spiritual body. And aside from the energy— the energy body, we also have an energetic aspect to the physical, we have an energetic aspect to the mental and the emotional and the spiritual. So paying attention to the energy body and the energy aspects of all the other bodies that we have can be a very significant piece for people to move on into that next step. And when you mention, you know, the thing about joy in life— joy is our birthright, you know. And, and a lot of people, we don't know that. Like, not even do you not realize it, some people don't even know. And it is— joy is your birthright. And so if you can't hum a tune while you're doing the dishes, or, you know, tap your feet or whichever when you're heading down to the laundry. Or, you know, if you can't find these little pockets of time in the day when you can bring in some joy and just bring a smile to your face, then yeah, you know, there's energy there that you can move and lift that up and tap into that joy that really is our birthright. It's why we're here.

Yeah, love that. With my clients We often, when we're looking for purpose and passion, and we're really at a stymied in terms of being able to find that thing that we're supposed to do next, my solution is always, if you bring purpose and passion to the things, to the work that is right in front of you, whether that be doing the dishes or doing the laundry or parenting or, you know, interacting with your spouse, more purpose and passion will reveal itself. And Um, I love— there's one thing I have to highlight because it was really brilliant. Uh, you said you talked about work— instead of working on the narrative, you're working on the energy. And, and for me, um, that reminds me of, you know, we are creatures that make sense of ourselves, each other, and our situation through narrative. But when we are working on the narrative, actually the narrative is working on us most of the time. And so by focusing on the energy, you, you're working on the problem instead of letting the problem work on you. Which I just think is a really fascinating aspect of what you do. We're at the end of our time together, but we always end with one final question, asking the guests, our guests to just share one, one, one maxim, quote, exercise, tip that they can take and apply to their lives right now to help them fly a little bit higher in the difference only they can make. So if there was just one final idea or exercise, principle or practice that you would share, with our, with our audience to help them engage with the difference only they can make and develop and deliver that? What would you tell them?

Wow, that's loaded. But I'm gonna go with— normally I do go with a breath and a little bit of grounding, but today, in light of celebrating these t-shirts that I've done for the first time, we've got a catchphrase on it, and it's something I bring into every single class and it's unlock your knees, unlock your knees. So physically in the body, if we unlock at the knees, we're opening up to, uh, strengthening and improving our grounding. It can also open you up at the hips, the lower back if you have problems in the lower back area, and in the neck and the shoulders where the head is resting. If we set up our foundation to help us carry the rest of our body by using less energy and using the ground more, then we have— we've opened a whole nother road to, to better health and not wasting energy unnecessarily. And that starts with unlocking the knees. When we translate that into our attitude in life, it opens up that flexibility, it opens up not being so rigid in how we think, how we move through our day, and on and on. I could keep going on and on. So unlock your knees. If you notice, whenever you're standing, ask yourself, am I a knee locker? And if you find that you're locking at the knees, see if you can take it one step further and actually unlock.

I love that. Unlock your knees. Well, thank you for that, uh, Sandra, and thank you all for tuning in. It's, uh, We appreciate you lending us some of your valuable time and attention. And I hope that our conversation today helps you take a bolder step into possibility. To keep go-go-going with defining, developing, and delivering the difference only you can make, visit creativeonpurpose.com. And if you're watching on social media or YouTube, please leave us a comment with your major lesson, aha, takeaway, or question from today's conversation. If you're listening on a podcast, please consider giving us a 5-star review. And it helps more of the right people connect with these conversations. Now, Sandra and I ask you to take the insight and inspiration from today's conversation and play your game all in and full out. Sandra, thank you so much for being with us today.

Thank you, Scot Perry.